garden
Vehicles
Husqvarna Panthera Leo Mower Is Electric-Powered, LCD-Equipped
4:30PM Adrian Covert | Growing up, I hated mowing the lawn. My backyard was huge, my allergies were bad and I was stuck with a temperamental push mower. If I had this battery-powered Husqvarna mower, however, I would have begged to do yard work. More »
Design
JVC’s Sound Garden Concept Is Modular, Bonsai’d-Up Concealed Speaker System
7:35PM Kit Eaton | Check out JVC’s Sound Garden concept: it’s come leaping forth like a delighted lamb from the creative spring that is Tokyo’s Design Week, and just like a newborn lamb finding its legs, it sure looks funny. An attempt at blending eco-friendliness with interesting design, it’s a full hi-fi speaker system with bass-reflex ports and the whole deal, alongside little pot-like areas to insert plants. And it’s all made of “eco-plastic,” designed so you can connect together several of the elements to make a whole hive-like sculpture of audio and greenery. Did I point out it’s weirdness? Oh I did. Thank goodness it’s just a concept. [AVWatch] More »
Home
RainwaterHOG Looks Great While Collecting Mother Nature’s Liquid Givings
7:30AM John Mahoney | The RainwaterHOG is a design-y rainwater tank (yes, there is such a thing) that collects rain to re-use in the garden, give to your dog or fill up your Super Soaker without draining the mains. Most people don’t save rainwater because they don’t want a giant open bucket/mosquito-larvae farm on their porch. But now, you can store it away in a nice recyclable virgin polyethylene tank. Each HOG holds 178 litres, and they can be linked up like Lego. AU: Obviously the US hasn’t had to suffer through water restrictions like we have in Australia. Looks pretty good, although doubt we’ll see it in Oz… [RainwaterHOG via PopTech] More »
Random Stuff
Zombie Garden Sculpture Keeps Those Damn Kids Off Your Lawn, Might Eat Their Brains
8:00AM Jack Loftus | Design Toscano wants you to “expect the extraordinary from your home and garden,” and that includes the walking dead. Take this 5.9kg resin undead garden zombie, for example. Designed by British artist Alan Dickinson, it’s a life-sized resin sculpture that would be a terrifying addition to any lawn, garden or personal graveyard. More »
Home
Cordless Propane Mosquito Trap Gives You Al Fresco Bug Jerky
8:30PM Gizmodo US Edition | Effective over up to an acre of land, this battery-powered garden gadget allows you to commit mass mosquito-cide using a tank of propane. Silent and odourless, the trap emits octenol (something that mozzies find sexy, aspazzarently) to lure the beasties close to the machine. Once there, a vacuum gathers them into the “removable catch basin”, or death pan, as I like to call it, where they are dehydrated, giving you the potential to serve mosquito, midge, black-fly and sand-fly biltong at your barbecues. Cost is US$500, and the mosquito trap will run for up to three weeks on a 9kg propane tank. [Hammacher Schlemmer] More »
Robots
Bipedal Lawn Mowing Robot Shows Tech Not Quite Mature Yet
9:50PM Gizmodo US Edition | One Mega-Dynamizer robot, one lawnmower, one lawn. Result: “nice try: bring on Version 2.0″ The video is from Sugiura-san, creator of the Mega Dynamizer and ROBO-ONE champion roboticist. And while the robot doesn’t whizz about confidently like a Roomba for grass, probably doing a pretty patchy mow and taking that unfortunate tumble, it’s pretty impressive for a first attempt. I can see the potential: I hate mowing the lawn, and any robotic assistance would be welcome. As long as it can also do some weeding, perhaps some leaf-raking, and that dangerous trailing cable goes in future versions. Notice the dog being calm?… probably the robot’s slow progress makes it less exciting than Mario. [Robots Dreams via Bot Junkie] More »
Home
Add Some Laughs To Your Lawn With Little Green Men
9:52PM Gizmodo US Edition | Much as I think all lawn ornaments should be heaped into a pile and blown to kingdom come, I think I could spare a corner of my garden for these tiny chaps and their crashed spaceship. Disappointingly not made from exotic metals recovered from the Roswell crash site, they are instead made of weatherproof resin. The 9-inch space ship and two 7-inch aliens are available for US$49.95, or 3000 Flanian Pobble beads. [What on Earth via Nerd Approved] More »
Gadgets
S(tool) Turns Garden Fork into Garden Chair
9:10AM Benny Goldman | It’s been a long summer day tending the garden and you need to sit down, but there is no chair in sight. If only you were using the S(tool), then you wouldn’t have to worry about finding one. Designed by Langton Stead, the S(tool) is a bent wood handle with two garden forks on either side. All you have to do is shove them into your lawn, and BAM!, instant chair. The perfect gift for the laziest green thumb you know, it’s available directly from the designer, though no word on price. [Langton Stead via productdose] More »
Gadgets
Solar-Powered Fairy Lights Make Your Christmas Cheap and Green
11:34PM Addy Dugdale | We’ve seen solar-powered LED ski suits and interactive solar-powered roof tiles and now you can add that Christmassy touch to your garden with these solar-powered fairy lights.They feature 50 bright white LEDs, and charge automatically during the day to give you around 9 hours of light at night. They will set you back $US29.95, which is a little steep, but the bulbs will last 10,000 hours which is enough for several years’ fairy-lit evenings. Praying for sun around Christmastime will have never felt so normal. – Kit Eaton [Hammacher Schlemmer via Oh Gizmo] More »
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