Look, we know the appeal of the occasional Franzia stand or one-armed Rossi pull, but at some point you've got to put the 20/20 down and stop drinking like a hobo -- and it sounds like a new device being developed in Spain might help you learn to appreciate some classy wine for once. The "electronic tongue," as it's called, features six sensors that can measure factors like acidity, sugar, and alcohol levels, and use them to determine the age and variety of the wine, just like NEC's adorable little drink-bot. The tongue is supposed to be used to help wine industry officials assess wine quality in the field and detect frauds, but we've got a feeling it's going to be a hit around snooty wine bars worldwide.

[Thanks, Yossi]

Chalk another one up for Sharp. The company has landed yet another partner willing to utilize its solar panels in order to make news, wow onlookers and give Mother Earth a modicum of a break. Napa Valley winery Far Niente has flipped on its self-coined Floatovoltaic installation, which was developed by Thompson Technology Industries and installed by SPG Solar. Nearly 2,300 Sharp solar panels were secured for the job, and we're told that the array generates 400 kWs at peak output, which "significantly offsets the winery's annual power usage and provides a net-zero energy bill." Don't expect that coveted bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon to be any cheaper as a result, though.

[Via CNET]

Typically, you'd think a pricey bottle of Veuve Clicquot champagne would be the star attraction on a night out, but we'd have to suggest otherwise if said container is being toted around in this thing. The Karim Rashid-designed apparatus, which is limited to just 500 pieces worldwide, is said to be a "modern reinterpretation of the traditional French chandelier." As for utility, it promises to keep your alcohol chilled for four solid hours, and considering the built-in LEDs will also flicker out after the same amount of time, we suppose that's a good indicator of when it's time to toss 'er back and get going. Here in the US, a handful of the Globalight's will be available exclusively at select W Hotels, but you're not unboxing one without laying down $4,500 first.

[Via Luxurylaunches, thanks Yoge]

At this point, it's hard to envision an object that hasn't been miniaturized for the purpose of creating yet another novel flash drive, so you won't color us wowed with BeWine Connected's latest. This wine bottle USB drive packs Open Cellar wine cellar management software, a screensaver / wallpaper and wine-influenced ringtones (saywha?) onto 1GB of internal storage, but we'd be tempted to promptly format the thing upon arrival. Nevertheless, those interested in expanding their weird-but-still-useful collection of thumb drives can hand over €35 ($50) and claim one more solid addition.

[Via Gizmag]

There's no shortage of gadgetry designed to keep your wine legit and chilled, but the Nuvo Vino infrared thermometer is hitting the market to ensure that your pre-drink rambling doesn't lead to you drinking an overly warm glass. The simplistic device sports a retractable sensor that purportedly measures the exact temperature of the wine itself, and there's plenty of accompanying documentation to inform you of what perfect degree you should look for before indulging. As expected, it also features a fairly attractive motif in order to catch the eye of the affluent, but until they add built-in aural cues that blurt out whether or not your beverage is ideal, we'll hold onto our $49.95.

Losing a laptop to a spilt glass of wine can be a very frustrating experience, particularly when said wine is of the cheap Rosé variant, as was the embarrasing case with this writer's late laptop. Well, one group of kindly DIY technology authors have assigned their noggins to the problem, and have created a post with an accompanying video which shows exactly what to do if you accidentally spill some red on your keyboard. Apparently, the best policy is to act fast -- just like the pretty, pretty, pretty good salt and club soda solution for carpet and upholstery spills -- by pouring off the excess liquid onto a towel, opening up the laptop, washing it under tap water, rinsing it under distilled water, and then leaving it out to dry. A quick reassemble later and the laptop should be back in working condition: but for how long? Also, if you do watch the video after the break, bear in mind that the music track is a loud variant of "Kung Fu Fighting," which seems to have been chosen purely for the line "and they did it with expert timing." Sigh.

If you've ever wondered what happens when you run an entire nation into the ground, bar almost every type of contact with the outside world, launch nuclear bomb tests against the orders of outsiders, and still try to order an iPod, well, now you know. North Korea's highly dodgy Kim Jong-Il will reportedly be "doing without luxuries" such as iPods, jet skis (saywha?), jewelery, designer clothes, and fine wines as the US implements an all-out ban against selling these goods to the power-trippin' leader. The nation's elite often enjoy lavish luxuries of first-world countries while the vast majority of its people are left without bare necessities, and apparently, new sanctions are trying to put an end to it. While this case has certainly been made before, individual countries were previously allowed to "make their own decisions," however the United States has now taken a stand by barring all luxury sales to Mr. Kim and his constituents -- which will probably do nothing outside of producing a sudden swell in iPod knockoff orders to the DPRK, unfortunately.

[Thanks, SRW985]

Someday we'll look back at decisions like this and understand why The Robots have risen against us. It turns out that NEC's wine tasting robot is just their little food taster all growed-up and hooked on the vices of drink and cigarettes just like little German girls. Poor little guy, if we see you staggering the halls of CES in a wife-beater smelling of sewage then we'll know it's the booze talkin', not our sweet, sweet PaPeRo.

[Thanks, Daniel]

It's sorta unclear to us exactly how this new flavor of RFID tags is going to prevent wine fraud, but nonetheless, Sontec, a Korean RFID manufacturer is claiming as much. As we noted only a few weeks ago, wine fraud is big business, and every wine and winery from Chateauneuf-du-Pape to Penfolds surely would want a way to prevent their label's image from being tarnished. Sontec's new RFID, which operates at 900MHz, apparently has a range of up to three meters and will include the origin, date of production and distribution channel of the wine. Presumably if a wine (or other spirits) was diluted and still had this tag on it, no one would be the wiser, but given how secure RFID is, it's not like nefarious faux-wine peddlers would even really have to stoop to those means.

Apparently wine fraud is big business, with certain less-than-reputable vineyards watering down their Cabernet with a little Merlot, for instance, or even filling their supposedly boutique bottles with some off-the-shelf Manischewitz. Well the engineers / wine connoisseurs over at NEC have had enough, so they've invented a wine-tasting "robot" that can distinguish between 30 distinct varieties using only a five-milliliter sample. We've already seen NEC use infrared light in a food-tasting bot, and now they've taken a similar approach with this new device -- about twice the size of a three-liter wine box (mmm...box o' wine) -- which uses LEDs to fire infrared light at a sample and an array of photodiodes to interpret the resulting reflection. Until they can boost its recognition abilities to include many more varieties of wine (about 1,000, in fact), though, this project is little more than an academic exercise -- meaning you'll still need to bring your corkscrew to the liquor store if you want to ensure that you're getting a quality product.