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Dyson tackles the humidifier, kills water-based bacteria with UV light
In a launch presentation in Tokyo, Japan (apparently the company's favorite place for new product launches), Dyson tackled the surprisingly sketchy hygiene issues that come with more typical humidifiers. To prove how gosh-darn better Dyson's Hygienic Mist humidifier is, the company's microbiology team (which of course it has) incubated water with bacteria to see how a typical humidifier transmits that to a room. A selection of agar jelly plates grossly demonstrated how that bacteria spreads around a room. However, in an early comparison, with the same concentration of bacteria in the water, Dyson's test humidifier, with UV light cleansing the water, knocked out 99.9 percent of the bacteria -- the current model manages this in three minutes. The device launches in Japan in early November, priced at 60,000 yen (roughly a hefty $560) and we've got the rest of the engineering details after the break.
Netatmo Urban Weather Station tells iOS users when it's safe to brave the great outdoors (video)
We haven't seen weather stations garner the same level of clever mobile integration as other pieces of household gear -- like, say, thermostats. Netatmo wants its newly available Urban Weather Station to inject a similar dose of life into a category that some of us still associate with the thermometer by the window. The aluminum tube design certainly gives a fresh look to the WiFi-linked indoor and outdoor sensors, but the real trick is the matching iOS (and eventually Android) app. It's for more than just gauging the wisdom of biking to work: the free app tracks historical trends and shares them with fellow users in a network that Netatmo hopes will provide a better understanding of wider-scale and longer-term trends. The sensors go beyond just obvious air quality, humidity, pressure and temperature conditions as well, flagging noise levels and warning if the CO2 levels are high enough to warrant airing out the house. The $179 price for the Urban Weather Station isn't trivial, but neither is knowing just how well you can cope with your environment.
Adafruit modder builds Captain Jack's Vortex Manipulator / Leela's wrist-lo-jacko-mator for real
This impressive wrist / forearm cuff is the brainchild of Adafruit forum member and modder Stephanie, who has built a sensor platform into the fashion accessory. The device can monitor the exposure value, track your movements over GPS, measure your galvanic skin response, tell you the temperature, humidity and even doubles as a watch and flash-light. It was built around Sparkfun's Pro Micro development board and a boatload of sensors purchased from Adafruit. We might just build one ourselves with a radiation detector, so that we can live out our Pip-Boy fantasies down at the mall. %Gallery-156412%
