In case my passionate summary wasn’t enough, this info-clip will demonstrate how Dyson’s Air Multiplier moves air without blades—except that it fails to mention that there are still blades inside the machine (that factoid kills the magic). [boingboing]

I’ve also got the Dyson Air Multiplier here, and it’s a super sexy toy, although the novelty wears off after a few minutes. It is just a fan, after all. A very stylish fan, but a fan.

Finally, I’ve got a Flip Mino HD to play around with. I’m sure I’ll be taking lots of videos of my dog and baby, which I’ll refrain from posting here on Giz. Don’t want you guys thinking I’m a wus or anything…

What gadgets are you playing with this weekend?

I mean yeah, the prices are a joke, but how many of you would actually consider spending $US400 on a spoon that eliminated one step in the eating process while simultaneously increasing the volume of food you can consume at one time? Be honest. [Flickr via Core77 via PopSci]

In all seriousness, Dyson’s legacy is about more than a few home appliances — though they’re no doubt impressive. He’s a brilliant designer and inventor in an industry starved for brilliant designers and inventors; he’s got a clear enthusiasm for what he does, and he’s become a sort of evangelist for engineering and inventing; also he’s a nerd. I had, like, three minutes with the man, but managed to blurt out a couple of questions.

We started on tech:

Giz: PC or Mac?

Sir James: (Emphatically) Mac! Since 1984. I bought the first Macintosh.

Giz: What kind of phone do you carry?

Sir James: Well, I have a BlackBerry and an iPhone.

Giz: Are there any unlikely companies or designers that you see doing really interesting stuff right now?

Sir James: There’s my son, who does lights where he varies the angle of the light in quite an interesting manner.

Giz: So they’re not lasers?

Sir James: No, they’re regular lights. They’re floor lights where the shade goes up and down to create a wide or narrow beam. There are wall and ceiling lights which have barn doors as a shade; you get an amazing effect on the wall. I don’t know if nepotism is allowed on Gizmodo. [Ed. note: It is! So here's how they work:]
We also run a student competition around the world, and there are some really interesting ideas that come out of that.

Giz: You’re fond of removing requisite parts from things—bags from vacuums, blades from fans—is there any particular part in another device that you just want to get rid of?

Sir James: Well, I’m sure there will be, but I don’t think we should talk about it now. But yes, it is quite a nice approach to minimalism, removing things — well, removing things that cause problems; that’s the point.

Giz: Have you thought about directing your talents away from domestic inventions, and toward something more altruistic? Do you have any projects or dreams outside the world of Dyson?

Sir James: (Laughs) I’d like to do a better vacuum cleaner, but there’s all sorts of things I want to do. We’re very interested in encouraging people to get into design. In the West, we’re training far too few engineers and scientists. Schoolchildren love science and love technology, but somehow their parents, teachers and society tells them that other things are going to be far more interesting, so I’m on a bit of a mission to try and change that.

And as quickly as he stepped into my mic range, he stepped back out. Later, James!

You can read Mark’s review on Dyson’s $US300 bladeless Air Multiplier fan here, as well as the rest of our Dyson coverage.

The bladeless fan will be landing on October 21 in two different versions: 25cm for $379, or a 30cm version for $399. Sure, that’s pricey for a fan – but look at it! Look at it and then tell me you don’t want one.

[Dyson Air Multiplier Review on Giz]

The Price

The Air Multiplier runs $US299 for the 10-inch version and $US329 for the 12-inch version. I tested the 10.

The Experience

I’ll admit it, after hearing that Dyson was making a fan, I never imagined what greeted me upon opening the otherwise inconspicuous brown box. It looked like a giant magnifying glass.

I tentatively plugged the all-plastic device in, unsure of the science behind the magic, but not really caring for the moment. I hit a button I could only assume was for power, and the device roared to life like a very wussy hairdryer. My face was greeted with the same quality of air: a relentless, even stream that felt a tad more industrial than residential.

The focused breeze was surprising but not quite hurricane-worthy. (Later I found the air output to measure 450 litres per second. That output is about on par with at least one 10-inch commercial-grade fan shy of the $US200 mark, and a $US30, 8-inch duct fan produced about half that. Most consumer-grade fans don’t disclose air power.)

And, exploring the device more, I realised that while it didn’t look like any fan I’d used before, it worked almost exactly like every fan I’d used before.

For instance, one button toggled oscillation. Another twisted to rev the air speed (a smoother gradient of the traditional low, medium and high controls). And the base could be pushed forward or back, tilting the entire device in a manner more elegant but not entirely different from my $US10 job in the next room.

Indeed, the Air Multiplier was the most beautiful fan I’d ever used, but it was still, at its plebeian heart, a window fan.

How It Works

The bottom grills? Those are for the air intake, powered by what I’m assuming is an internal fan. (Oh, this fan has a fan, you just don’t see it.)

Still, you just barely feel the Multiplier breathing in. As this air is transported up through the device, it makes its way through the “loop amplifier” (that big loopy part), accelerating the air 15-fold as it’s squeezed through a 1.3mm aperture around the ring. Sticking your hand through the loop, you’ll feel air only in front of the ring because that’s where you’ll find the aperture. It’s a mind-bending sensation to say the least.

The Shame

Truthfully, I’m almost embarrassed for liking the Air Multiplier. There’s no doubt that any Dyson vacuum demands a price premium for its fashion-forward design. But ultimately, this premium is relatively small. All good vacuums cost a few hundred bucks, so the Dyson upsell is somewhat reasonable &mdash ;tempting even.

$300 for a fan is far, far from an upsell when I can get 95% of the experience for $US10 at Walmart. Even as a good fan…even as a beautiful fan…even as a clever fan that blocks less window light…even as a safe fan that your toddler or pet can examine without injury…I’m downright humiliated for liking it, especially in this economy.

But like it, I do.

Completely unique design

Safe (no external moving parts)

No doubt, it’s great at fanning

Probably easier to knock-off than a vacuum

Not loud, but far from silent

Costs about a bajillion times more than any fan I’ve ever bought

The Price

D31 (orange): $US220
D31 Animal (purple): $US270

The Difference

The stock D31 and the D31 Animal are essentially the same vacuum. They contain the same motor, the same battery capacity and the same accessories…save for one. The Animal has a motorised hair-scraping attachment (familiar to many Dyson users) that requires a power line be run to the nozzle. Otherwise, they’re pretty much identical.

The Results: After about three days of my cat’s lounging, our couch tops get wretched. Our general solution is to take a vacuum hose, then do a cleanup with one of those sticky pet hair brushes. It’s labour intensive, and I’d be lying if I said we were willing to go through the process more than once a week. So I tried the D31 Animal. Pulling the trigger, it whirs to 0-100 instantly, like a power drill, while a hairdryer-worthy gust of air fires from the back.

Couch before Animal attack.

Couch after Animal attack.

Here’s our couch before and after about five minutes of vacuuming with the Animal. Eighty per cent of the hair came up after two quick passes—really impressive stuff. But that last 20 per cent stuck around for a while. And even after several minutes, and even hitting the boost power button, the results weren’t perfect (you can see a few stubborn stray hairs). But they were adequate—and maybe even more importantly—as successful as my full-sized standup Animal vacuum (which has worked better than other nice vacuums I’ve tried). That’s pretty impressive since we’re talking about a 1kg handheld vac.

Other vacuuming jobs are less exciting, but completely effective. Using the brush and corner attachment, any little particle you can imagine disappears into the machine. I can’t imagine a small job it couldn’t handle other than carpets. If you want to spot clean your rug, the base D31 doesn’t really have an attachment for that (the Animal brush sorta works with a price premium). But dust, loose dirty, little pieces of unidentified food—no problem. And all the junk empties out of the one-button release hatch at the bottom of the collection tank…save for fur, which will make you dig a bit.

The Nitpicking

I’d like one feature added to the D31/Animal: cruise control. As pitiful as this sounds, it gets tiring holding down the button. I know. Mock me. But while the vacuum is light as can be to your arm, your hand still gets exhausted squeezing the trigger.

You’ll also only get 10 minutes of run time (or 6 in high power mode) for 3.5 hours of charging. That’s actually more than enough time to complete most work (you don’t really go nonstop with anything but pet hair), but when you run out of juice (the device goes from 100% per centto none without warning) you can’t just continue vacuuming with a power cord. You’ll need to recharge and wait.

The Practicality

Ignoring the price for a moment, I wonder who would actually need this much power in a handvac—other than for the obvious—pet owners. Because the D31 can’t (and isn’t trying to) replace a full-sized vacuum, meaning it’s only going to serve as backup. But then again, if you have the extra cash to pick up one of your own, maybe your chief concern isn’t one of pure practicality. And I can’t completely fault you for that. [Dyson]

Light and manageable design

Lots and lots of power

The Animal attachment cuts through hair well

Run time is adequate but not very long

Trigger can be tiring to hold

No carpet attachment for spot cleaning

I mean, obviously, we’re talking about $US220+ dust busters here

“Normal milk jugs trap air inside them, which causes the milk to spoil rapidly,” but with its innovative spring frame design, Fresh will eliminate those air pockets and leave you more time to enjoy that tasty white stuff. Fresh is easy to use as it stays on the table and you pour simply by pressing down on the container. (So, no more milk-drenched pants either!) Oh, and it’s reusable, too. [Fresh via treehugger]

To put that into perspective, the Dyson motor is “ten times as fast as a commercial aircraft, five times as fast as a Formula 1 engine and more than twice as fast as the most powerful industrial milling machines.”

Yeah, careful—you could probably suck the family dog into this thing from across the room. Because this technology is scalable, it’s looking more and more likely that Dyson could build that super electric engine he has been talking about lately. The DC31 will retail in two versions, the standard DC31 and the DC31 “Animal” for around $US220 and $US270 respectively starting next month in the UK. [Dyson and Telegraph via CrunchGear]

There aren’t any official pics yet – the pic above is by Filip Osowski and was designed as part of a competition for “rejected transformers”. But the move makes sense – no other vacuum cleaner is quite as striking as Dyson’s range, and if you could imagine any vacuum transforming into a man-killing robot, the DC25 would be it…