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Yes, Steve Ballmer actually said 'toilets, toilets, toilets'
Former Microsoft chief Steve Ballmer is obsessed with toilets in the Clippers' new stadium — he's almost as excited about them as he was for developers.
Kohler's smart home upgrades include a mood-setting bath
Kohler has grown its smart home line to include a mood-setting bath, a lower-cost smart toilet and a hands-free faucet.
NASA wants your help designing future moon toilets
NASA needs help designing the next astronaut toilet.
ISS toilet leak dumps two gallons of 'water' on crew
If you think a burst toilet is bad news on Earth, spare a thought for the astronauts who have to deal with it in zero gravity. That's what the poor American souls on the ISS were left grappling with last week when their $19 million commode leaked, according to a NASA status report. Around 9.5 litres of water spilled out as a result of the, um, accident. The crew had to clean it up using towels while working to fix the leak, claimed the space agency.
Bathrooms are getting smarter, for better or worse
Getting up from the toilet after a satisfying bowel movement, you walk right over to the sink and start washing your hands. "Alexa, flush my toilet," you say while reaching for your toothbrush. Your mirror starts displaying your schedule for the day, the weather update and the latest news. Suddenly there's a ping -- your toilet has detected an anomaly in your stool and recommends you increase your fiber intake. A dispenser built into your medicine cabinet whirs to life and spits out a fiber supplement.
IllumiBowl's latest toilet light also kills germs
IllumiBowl's motion-activated, multi-color toilet night light may have seemed like a silly idea when it first launched, but don't laugh -- it's a practical solution if you'd rather not flick on the regular bathroom light (and momentarily blind yourself) just to do your business. And it appears that enough people bought into the concept to warrant a sequel. The company is crowdfunding a second-generation IllumiBowl light that adds anti-germ cleaning to the mix. The new gadget includes a diode whose "highly focused" non-ultraviolet light kills bacteria without hurting humans. This doesn't mean that your toilet will suddenly be sterile, but it may set your mind at ease in between bowl scrubbing sessions.
Toto hopes to woo you with its high-tech toilet showroom
Japanese toilets have long been a mainstay in Asian households, but the concept is still something of a curiosity in much of the Western world. Toto, Japan's biggest toilet maker, has attempted to market its high-tech commodes to American audiences for decades with little success. The company is trying to change all this with a brand new "experiential" showroom that launched this week in San Francisco. It's called Concept 190, and it's equipped with four sensor-laden bathrooms where visitors are invited to pee, poo and have a toilet experience unlike anything they've had before.
ICYMI: Toilet tech, sight-giving headset & lab-grown veins
#fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-185676{display:none;} .cke_show_borders #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-185676, #postcontentcontainer #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-185676{width:570px;display:block;} try{document.getElementById("fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-185676").style.display="none";}catch(e){}Today on In Case You Missed It: Biosynthetic veins and arteries have been created by researchers in London that are able to imitate traits of human tissues, including the ability to self-heal. A headset designed for people with serious vision problems costs a hefty $15,000 but is able to modify sight for users by sending a tweaked for color and focus livestream of reality back to the display. And a Kickstarter gadget aims to tech out your toilet to actually smell okay rather than like... well you know.
'Loogun' uses a water jet to make toilet cleaning less crappy (updated)
Not all of us can afford $6,000 for a self-cleaning toilet, so scrubbing one usually revolves around a yucky toilet brush. However, a product coming to Kickstarter may make the chore marginally more pleasant. Called Loogun, it's like a big dental WaterPik for your toilet that cleans with a narrow stream of water. The cordless, handheld device has a reservoir you fill with fresh water from time to time, and runs on four AA batteries that last nine months. With a powerful stream, it can blast detritus from your bowl, even below water level, according to the team behind it. It's also child-safe, since it won't spray when it's pointed up (and prevents toddlers from trying to snack on a regular toilet brush, of course).
Drop it like it's hot with Illumibowl's disco toilet light
Does your lack of cat-like night vision mean you make a mess when hitting the bathroom at 2 a.m.? Thanks to Kickstarter, that could become a thing of the past. The Illumibowl is an LED light that sticks onto the outside of your toilet and casts a beam of colored light into the commode. No, not a yellow one. The gizmo's motion sensor activates the light when you walk into your powder room and turns off after about a minute of inactivity. Why would you even need one of these? Because temporary blindness to empty your bladder isn't ideal.
Landmark adds toilets, opens itself for potty jokes
We'll just come right out and say it: You can now create and install toilets in Landmark. This is a boon for both the incontinent and the internet comedian, although we suppose that it will be well-received by home builders who want to complete their bathroom set. The patch supposedly fixes individual claim permissions, optimizes the gallery, and improves the bundling interface for the marketplace. Also in the game with today's patch are chains, bathtubs, sinks, and a new "modular" tree.
Public restrooms reduce waits by learning from parking garages
What's the worst part of attending a sporting event or concert in person? It's definitely the lines, right? There's the line to get in, another to nab snacks and a beer, then yet another to use the loo. Well, restroom wait times are getting drastically reduced at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles thanks to a new stall indicator system from Tooshlights (yes, that's really the name). Inspired by the city's parking space lights in its garages, the company is applying the same logic to public restrooms at arenas and music venues -- with the aforementioned amphitheater being the first installation. For places like the Bowl with long rows of stalls in its bathrooms, the tech ensures attendees don't overlook open stalls, contributing to missed action outside. In addition to the red and green lighting scheme, Tooshlights is also working on a software component that can be piped into a venue's app, showing where the shortest lines are around the facility. As you might expect, it also monitors use, alerting staff that a toilet being avoided at halftime may be in need of attention.
Engadget Daily: Chromebooks go mainstream, CleverPet trains dogs to solve puzzles, and more!
You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
Don't touch this toilet
If there's one thing we can all universally agree on, it's that toilets can get pretty gross. Sometimes to a point you don't want to even get near them to flush. Kohler feels your pain, and has created a solution with its new electromagnetically-activated touchless toilet. The next generation of your home's most-used chair, it allows you to hold your hand above the commode to achieve the perfect flush without you ever having to make contact with the porcelain. The sensor will come built into several of the company's new thrones, and will also be available as a $99 standalone kit you can retrofit to your current bowl. It's a cool trick that has a lot of technology behind it.
Kohler's $6,000 Numi Comfort Height toilet gets added connectivity, loftier bowl
We know what you're thinking: The only thing missing from my ridiculously expensive, excessively tricked-out toilet is a USB port. Well it's time you welcomed your posh posterior to the 21st century, because Kohler's just released the second edition of its now $6,000 throne: the aptly named Numi Comfort Height. In addition to the aforementioned port, which will enable quicker software updates, the outfit has enhanced the commode with a Bluetooth receiver for streaming tunes to your tush; SD card reader for importing playlists and personalized welcome greetings; an accessible battery pack for flushing in the dark; and ambient lighting so you can keep the party going when it's time to take care of business. If that wasn't enough to elevate your toilet time, Kohler's lifted the seat to a more comfortable 18 inches, which it says "makes sitting down and standing up easier for most adults." So it still doesn't come in gold and you can't pay for it in Bitcoins, but those precious currencies have hit the skids anyway, right?
Smartphone-friendly Satis toilets eradicate waste, provide a soundtrack for your business
Every so often we come across a product that transcends the boundaries of the term "crapgadget," something these new toilets from Lixil manage pretty handily. The company's got a trio of new loos designed to make doing one's business a downright pleasure. The high-end Satis G promises to utterly disembowel nasty material, with help from Plasmacluster Ion technology and a power drive cleaner. More interesting still is the throne's smartphone compatibility, communicating with the company's My Satis app over Bluetooth to offer up personal settings, usage and associated water and electric bill impact. You can also use the app for the requisite music playback, because no one wants to go in silence.
Inhabitat's Week in Green: go-kart made of Lego bricks, TOTO toilet bike and the launch of 'Willow Glass'
Each week our friends at Inhabitat recap the week's most interesting green developments and clean tech news for us -- it's the Week in Green. As we head towards the home stretch of the 2012 presidential campaign, we're closely watching both candidates to see what they're doing for the environment. The Obama administration scored a major win for fuel-efficient cars this week by finalizing new standards that will increase the fuel economy of cars to the equivalent of 54.5 mpg by 2025. But what about the cars that are currently on the road? This week we test drove a 2013 Ford Focus Electric through the streets of San Francisco (we admit, we did get a bit of range anxiety). And in one of the most interesting automotive stories from the past week, the world's first 3D-printed car -- the Areion EV-- reached a top speed of 141 kph.
Sony patents vein reading system for accessible computers, toilets
In a sign of just how backed up our patent system is, Sony was finally awarded a series of claims for a vein-reading mouse it filed back in January of 2009. The idea is to use an image of the blood vessels in your index finger as an authentication system. But, instead of unlocking a PC, the identity would be associated with a set of preferences -- automatically boosting contrast and text size on a screen for the elderly. While the patented claims apply exclusively to computer mice, Sony envisions vein readers everywhere, personalizing and simplifying life for the aging... even in the bathroom. Another embodiment of the system involves scanning a persons finger as they turn the doorknob to the lavatory. Once authenticated, data is sent to the toilet which automatically lifts the seat, then adjusts the force and angle of the bidet based on your preferences. Once again, Japan proves why it's winning the race in toilet technology.
Scientists develop flush-efficient toilet system that can turn waste into energy, sort before it recycles
Scientists from Singapore's Nanyang Technological University aren't keen on being wasteful -- that's why they've developed a toilet that uses 90% less water than other commodes and is capable of generating energy. Aptly named the No-Mix Vacuum Toilet, the porcelain pedestal's pot divides waste between two partitions -- one side for liquids, the other for solids -- and uses vacuum tech reminiscent of airline lavatories. Flushing solid and fluid wastes with 1 and 0.2 liters of H2O, respectively, the can will be able to route refuse to external processing facilities. Fertilizer ingredients such as nitrogen, potassium and phosphorous would then be harvested from liquids. Similarly, methane can be coaxed from solids for conversion to electricity or as a replacement for other natural gasses. Two of the university's restrooms are slated to have the toilets installed in the near future, and the team expects the thrones to roll out worldwide within three years. [Thanks, Yuka]
Ben Heck gives dads the light-up toilet they deserve
Happy belated Father's Day, internet -- now please enjoy some video of Ben Heck modding a toilet. The tinkerer-turned-host offered up one of his more unsanitary projects over the weekend, involving a bathmat, a Glade Plug-in, a porcelain throne and a Tron-esque lighting scheme. Step on the weight-sensing mat and the conductive ink will go to work, lighting up side illuminating fiber optics on the toilet, should the photocell determine it dark enough. All of this means not having to turn on the bathroom lights once that nightcap is ready to make the next step in its magical journey. And best of all, the lighting scheme is visible underneath the lid, so you can put the seat down, like the civilized individual you are. Video after the break.
