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When Life Gives You Lemons, Make A Nicely Designed Digital Clock
Posted by John Mahoney at 12:10 AM on December 2, 2008
You probably remember the ol' lemon/copper battery via electrolysis experiment from when Mr. Wizard blew your mind with it in 1958. But this "Citrus Clock" by French design troupe Anna Gram updates the concept with a touch of Ikea sensibilities, to the point where we might be cool with this sitting on the kitchen counter (quick access for lemon tea). But the UV bug light we'd have to install next to it to catch the fruit flies might cancel out the sleekness. [Anna Gram via Design Boom]
Risking a spacetime paradox that could destroy the entire Universe, a Japanese guy has devised a way to naturally grow Fuji apples with the Apple logo on them. His technique is very simple: Apply an Apple sticker (or iPod or Appleish Heart) a month before harvesting.
I happen to love the automated check out lines at the supermarket, but I hate the five or six seconds of my day that are wasted there when I have to manually input the name of the produce I'm weighing on the scale. Lucky for me, and for other lazy people who absolutely have to have those five seconds back, there's a new development in automated check out scales that could revolutionise the supermarket industry. Here's a hint: It's like facial recognition, but for fruit!
This design concept from Ahmet Bektes, Koray Gelmez & Eda Kose uses "Action Fresh Blue" technology—apparently used in "many new refrigerators"— to keep your fruit fresh. It seems that this tech is essentially a blue light, which shines down from the bowl's handle, killing bacteria. Hmmm: I'm sceptical. But at least it's rechargeable, and has a nifty blue halo all around when it's in action so your kitchen looks all 21st Century. If it really works, it might be useful if you're like me: buying a lot a fruit when on a health-kick, and then just leaving it in the bowl to go mouldy. [
Whole bananas just look after themselves in your fruit bowl until they go all brown and spotty. But if your recipe calls for half a banana, then you know the spare hemibanana is going to go all gooshy really fast and you'll end up binning it. That's where NANA Saver comes in, with its pincer-like action grabbing onto the end of your bisected fruit and protecting it with a little sealing plate, keeping it fresh from the air. Simple, and only US$2.98. Or you just could eat the other half. I'm just saying. [
In the future, no natural food will taste as you remember it now. Because face it: fruits and vegetables are great. But if turnips tasted like Doritos, America wouldn't be so fat that our continent occasionally dips into the ocean, like arm floaties on a grown man. Tokyo company FCOM is learning how change food as we know it. Instead of using genetic modification, they're utilizing techniques from other industrial processes. Through freeze-drying fruit, FCOM is then able to replace with water with flavor (or in the case of strawberries, water with white chocolate). But no, they haven't made cocao butter-based white chocolate into a health food. 
