Researchers in Japan and at Penn State have come up with a ceramic material that allows people to heat up their food twice as fast, allowing them to spend less time staring at the microwave and more time living their (read: our) rich, fulfilling lives. The new cookers are made up of 20% magnetite and 80% petalite, which unlike traditional bowls, heat up alongside the food so that the food isn’t passing off heat by warming up the bowl. As an added bonus, the container stays hot for 15 minutes, meaning you really need oven mitts to transport this thing, Jason Statham style. If you can’t wait for technology to catch up here, it’s already on sale in Japan. [Live Science]
If you can guess what this is at first glance then you’re a better man than I …
There’s clearly something going on with the Swiss and hot water: first “extreme jacuzzi-ing” on top of Mont Blanc, and now they’re going to use waste energy kicked out by servers to warm a swimming pool. It’s a simple concept: take the heat from the server room air-conditioners at a new data centre, and direct it through heat exchangers to the water in the town pool. The town, Uitikon, will get a hot pool and all they had to pay for was some of the connecting gear since the heat would otherwise have been vented. Cool! … or rather, hot! Darn eco-friendly too. [Sydney Morning Herald]
The Electroscape fireplace from Platonics has a remote-controlled LED lighting system built in. Ahh—nothing warms you up on a frosty 21st Century morn better than some funky LED lights that you can mix, from single colour to multicoloured, from the cozy comfort of your armchair. You can even specify what arty “fire” objects are displayed inside: driftwood, pebbles or gravel. The fireplace pumps out 2kW of heat from its element, though, rather strangely, Platonics says this is an optional add-on. Maybe those LEDs get really hot. Available now for around US$3100 in the UK. [Platonic fireplaces and Ubergizmo]
If your dog is crap at thermoregulation, you are going to need to give the little tyke a hand. The Cool&Hot comfort pad not only comes with a fantastic PR image, but it will also allow your pet to get all cuddled up and warm in the winter, or remain as cool as a corpse throughout the summer.
We’ve been lucky enough to live most of our lives in areas that have central heating, so we don’t quite have the experience of having an ugly radiator sitting in our rooms. For those of you who have, this harp radiator is just the thing to make your place that much more classy while at the same time providing a net zero musical gain over having a real radiator. Wait, we take that back—you can beat on this with a hammer and play it like some sort of upright xylophone. A xylophone that has a remote control and color-changing LED, that is. [Carisa via Trendir via dvice]
If you’re jittery about an electric blanket frying your brain, here’s the ChiliPad from T2 International to keep you warm all night long, using technology normally seen in cooling systems for overclocked PCs. Water flows through soft coils in this mattress pad, either heating your bed up to 105° in the winter or keeping you nice and chilled at 65° in the summer. If you’re a cool cat sleeping with a hotty, each you can control your own temperature via a remote control for each of its two zones. You’ll pay $US479-$999 depending on your mattress size. Hey, this could save some money on heating and air conditioning. [Chili Technology, via New Launches]
There are two things we really like about this Towel Rail TV. The first is, of course, the fact that it puts a television in your bathroom (newspapers and magazines are for chumps and literates). The second is the heated towel rack that’s attached to the TV. Why would you wipe yourself off with a cold towel? What are we, animals? Do we live in zoos? Does it say “Ape Habitat” our door? C’mon people, this is the 21st century. Bathroom tvs and heated towels are the least we can do to differentiate ourselves from our parents. [Aquavision via Uber Gizmo via DVice]
There was a chill in the air this morning, and it made us start thinking about heating up the place. But who wants one of those metal space heaters that can burn the house down if it tips over when there’s a designer space heater like this Plus Minus Zero model that’s on its way in December? The $120 object is designed by Naoto Fukuzawa, winner of some such award that says he has designer chops, and it’ll be available in these attractive colors. We’re warming up to this design so much that it might just be worth it to shiver until December. [Tokyomango]
It’s actually not quite as dirty as it sounds. Thermablades, developed by Tory Weber, are heated to five degrees Celsius, which cuts down friction between the skate and the ice by increasing the layer of water between the two. Result: Players go faster, easier. Right now, barely 10 players are set to don the fancy footwear next month, but the idea has enough traction (sorry) that Wayne Gretzky himself thinks they’re “going to revolutionize hockey.” I know nothing about hockey except what I learned from his N64 game and I suck at skating, so I’ll take his word for it. [Reuters]
