NEWS : TECH (NFPC)

Party Horn Only Works If You're Drunk

Now that Christmas is in the rear-view mirror, you're speeding towards one last holiday destination: New Year's Eve, typically one of the most besotted nights on the calendar.

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Once you make that last exit towards Boozetown, here's a little party favor that'll remind you not to get behind the wheel after you've sung those last notes of "Auld Lang Syne."

Although the Buzzed Buzzer, created by Tyler DeAngelo and Sacha De'Angeli, sounds like any old party horn blown on New Year's Eve, it only makes a sound if you're drunk. Maybe not lamp-shade-on-the-head drunk, but alcohol must be present on the breath of the reveler who's blowing it.

Unfortunately, you have to buy the materials and put it together yourself. Think of it as your last craft project of 2012.

All you have to do is take a traditional party horn, add a micro-controller, an alcohol sensor, a resistor, a buzzer, a battery and a battery charger. Yeah, I know, it sounds a little more complicated than just Scotch-taping everything together. Fortunately, there are detailed instructions on how to make your own. Just a heads up, you're going to need your soldering iron, wire cutters, wire strippers, needle nosed pliers and a computer installed with Arduino IDE and Teensyduino. You might want to do this before you start in on the cocktails.

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Another word to the wise: Buzzed Buzzer is not a breathalyzer device, so don't think it's going to give you your blood alcohol level and let you know if you should drive or not. Better just to throw your keys in a bowl, uncork the champagne, get out the lamp shades and blow your horn.

Bottoms up.

via Gizmag

credit: Buzzed Buzzer

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Reusable Water System For Beverage Producers

This summer, parts of the Midwest and West are experiencing terrible drought, and worldwide fresh sources of water are declining. A new technology unveiled by GE could potentially saves millions of gallons of water a day that would otherwise go down the drain at beverage bottling companies. The technology is a water purifying program called AquaSel, and in initial tests at an Asian bottling plant, it reduced wasted water to less than 1 percent of the total amount brought in.

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To use local water for bottling beverages, companies typically purify it using a process called reverse osmosis, which forces water through a membrane to remove unwanted salts. Normally after using reverse osmosis, the company can use 80 percent of that water for beverage production. The remaining 20 percent contains salt concentrations and is called brine, which is dumped as waste.

GE’s system treats the waste water using a technology called a non-thermal brine concentrator (NTBC). It contains a component that removes salt from the brine and then uses a chemical and mechanical process on the remaining solution to precipitate salt crystals out of it.

The process has significantly reduced the amount of freshwater needed by 10 to 20 percent. That amount may seem small, but when it amounts to millions of gallons saved annually, it can make a huge difference in how water is used and conserved all over the world.

Credit: Charlie Nucci/Corbis

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Smart Vending Machine Lowers Prices on Hot Days

A Spanish marketing agency has started installing several smart vending machines around the country that lower the price on cold drinks when the temperature starts to rise. The hotter the temperature, the bigger the discount.

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Each machine displays both the temperature and the price, with three different price levels depending on just how hot it is. Up to 77 degress Fahrenheit and the price is 2 euros or about $2.45. From 78 degrees F to slightly above 84, the price lowers to about 1.4 euros or $1.70. Anything over 86 degrees F and the drinks are 1 euro or $1.22. Special software allows the machine to automatically adjust. Hat tip to Ubergizmo's Edwin Kee.

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This rollout is the brainchild of marketing agency Momentum for Minute Maid's Limon & Nada lemonade. (Minute Maid is owned by Coca-Cola.) So far, 18 smart vending machines have been installed around Spain, primarily in water parks and amusement parks, according to an article on MarketingNews.es. Temperature-dependent prices will be in effect from July through September, when the weather hopefully begins to cool down.

Fortunately the machines primarily sell lemonade and not soda, which can make dehydration worse. To be clear, I'm not promoting this lemonade brand by highlighting these machines -- I've never even tried it. My favorite lemonade is the kind made on the spot at street festivals from fresh lemons, sugar, water and ice.

Want Beer? Tackle This Vending Machine

With temperatures rising again after a rainy spell here in Colorado, I wish we had smart vending machines that could do the same thing, only with frozen treats. Drop in some coins and out comes an ice cream bar or a frozen fruit pop. Put one of those around the corner from me and that would spell some tasty trouble on a warm day.

Credit: MarketingNews.es

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News Headlines Printed on Coffee Cup Sleeves

Occasionally, when I go to my local Starbucks I still hope to see the “The Way I See It” quotes printed on the cup. It’s been a few years since controversy took them down. Tim Hortons coffee shops in Dubai are giving their customers something to read by teaming up with Gulf News, the UAE newspaper, and printing news headlines on their cup sleeves.

It’s a smart move by the publication. The few newspaper readers left out there (this writer included) usually check headlines while sipping their morning coffee. Printing the news on a place right in front of a sipper's nose could convert that person into a Gulf News reader.

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Gulf News hired the firm Y&R Dubai to increase traffic to the news media's website. The news headlines are printed on the sleeves with a corresponding short url and QR code that directs readers to the full story on the publication’s site. The headlines are updated every hour using a special in-store printer that pulls tweets from the website. The newspaper has gained about 3,000 new followers after two weeks of posting headlines.

They’ve also gained a 41 percent uptick in website views, and subscriptions have gone up 2.8 percent. It’s a small percentage, but in a time where even historic publications are shuttering their doors, every little bit helps.

via Springwise

Credit: Y&R Dubai 

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Want Beer? Tackle This Vending Machine

For a country who was founded by a bunch of beer-drinking revolutionaries, the United States is downright draconian when it comes down to the ways we're legally able to dispense our draught. I'm of course talking about beer vending machines, or the lack there of.

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While I would describe myself as a patriot, albeit of the more Whitman-esque variety, when it comes to this facet of American culture, my patriotism defects to those nations where suds and sodas can coexist in a land of ever-vending pleasure.

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Sometimes I get so riled up when plopping my quarters into the slot, I'll body check the soda machine or give it a forearm shiver as means of protesting my lack of lager options.

Turns out, there is a place for brutes like me. If I'm ever forced to flee my native land on this issue alone, I now know of a country that will offer me asylum. A land of milk, honey and vending machines full of beer: Argentina.

On top of that, my vending machine violence is not only accepted, it's rewarded. All I need to do is summon my inner rugby player.

That's because Argentinean beer company Cerveza Salta and creative agency Ogilvy have teamed up to create the "Rugbeer" vending machine. The machine has a built-in sensor that encourages, nay requires, thirsty thugs likes myself to tackle the machine in order to receive a beer.

Well, not tackling it entirely, but giving it a good enough jolt with the shoulder should do the trick. Just make sure to give it a good enough lick so that the sensors cause the strength meter to light up green.

While Argentina boasts having the most soccer fans in the world, in the northern Salta Province, rugby is what's on tap. In fact, as it toured the region, Rugbeer was so popular that it increased beer sales by 25 percent in the bars it visited.

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Not sure if you've got what it takes for Rugbeer to give up the goods? Well, if you're a beer-drinking rugby fan who's not afraid to slam dance with a vending machine, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that you'll have no problem crackin' open a cool one. 

via psfk

credit: Cerveza Salta

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Water Bottle Kills Bacteria With UV Light

CamelBak All Clear Microbiological UV Water Bottle: $99.00

Spring is on the horizon, and as people fall in love with nature all over again, more camping and hiking trips will be planned. All of those glittering streams in the forest may look tempting when you're thirsty, but most contain unsafe bacteria. Proper protection is needed. After an introduction in 2009 and a subsequent re-tweaking, a new (and cheaper) version of CamelBak’s All Clear Microbiological UV Water Bottle, or simply All Clear, will be released in March.

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The bottle has a purification system that uses ultraviolet light to kill bacteria and microorganisms that may live in streams or rivers. CamelBak claims that in just 60 seconds, the water bottle kills 99.9999 percent of bacteria, 99.99 percent of viruses and 99.9 percent of protozoa in 25 ounces of water.

Portable water purification isn’t a new idea, but the integration of UV light into the bottle’s cap is a new way to implement it. Once the bottle has been filled and the cap screwed on, the power button must be held for two-seconds. While the UV rays zap out impurities, the user is required to rotate the bottle. A screen on the cap counts down until the process is complete. The UV bulb will last up to 10,000 cycles, enough for 3 liters of water a day for seven years, and the bottle’s rechargeable battery can last about 80 cycles. 

Via: Gizmag

Credit: CamelBak

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Testing Whiskey With a Chip and a Laser

Identifying a good glass of whiskey requires attention to color, aroma and taste, and it takes some experience to learn. Spectroscopic tools can now automate this process, but most of them are complicated to use. Praveen Ashok of the University of St. Andrews in Scotland (where else?) and his colleagues have proposed a simple, portable device that tests whiskey (or any other beverage) without losing any to evaporation.

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The device is a microfluidic chip made of a type of clear plastic. Four channels are cut into the plastic. One is in the top for the whiskey to go in. This leads to an exit channel on one side which lets the user pull liquid through with a suction syringe. Two more channels are at right angles to the inlet. One allows for a fiber optic cable to carry a laser beam, while the other carries the signal to a spectrometer. The researchers say they're able to analyze the liquor in about a minute. (For whiskey to be considered whiskey it has to have at least 40 percent alcohol).

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More interesting was the fluorescent background produced when the laser light hit the whiskey -- it's very different for different types of the drink. The reason is that the organics -- called congeners -- in whiskeys differ according to the grains used to distill it, the kind of barrels it was aged in and even its age. This means that the device could test whiskeys for authenticity -- and tell if that shot is really Jack Daniels, 30-year Johnnie Walker, or colored moonshine from an counterfeiter's still.

Images: Keystone-France/Getty Images and the University of St. Andrews

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Drink Your Words (Shaken or Stirred)

People are often told they might have to eat their words. A Russian blogger who goes by the moniker Morskoiboy has decided to drink them.

He built a machine out of plastic panels, syringes and tubing that turns words into a cocktail. Pressing a button makes a letter -- made of colored liquid -- appear on the display, which then empties into a glass. The basis of the drink can be anything neutral-colored, like water, milk or (this is Russia after all) vodka. Getting the parts was relatively easy, he says, though he had to go to a drugstore for an IV regulator.

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The apparatus is a neat demonstration of fluidics -- a kind of digital technology driven by liquids. The letters are shown on a panel that bears a not-accidental resemblance to an LED display. Pressing a letter key activates a pattern in which each element of the display is in a binary-like "on" or "off" stage, just as it is in a computer or electronic clock. 

While he has no current plans to sell the machine, Morskoiby does have pictures on the site that show (sort of) how it was built. It certainly would be great at parties. The video shows the machine in action.

Image: Morskoiboy.com

Video: YouTube

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Breville Releases A Coffee Maker For All Sizes

 
Breville BDC600XL YouBrew:$249.99

There are about as many different kinds of coffee drinkers as there are coffee makers -- some are single-cup brewers, some have carafes, others don’t and some even have grinders built in. Breville decided to take all of the components that coffee drinkers like most and put them into one simple unit. Their BDC600XL YouBrew has programmable settings to fit any sized cup, from single mug to travel mug and even the trusty carafe.

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The brewer has an integrated burr grinder that holds coffee beans and only grinds the appropriate amount for the size of the cup and the flavor strength requested. It also has the feature most needed for those of us who wake up unable to understand the complexities of putting on socks, let alone set up the coffee maker, a programmable timer. The BDC600XL will be available in stores in November.

Credit: Breville

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Chill Drinks With A Bullet

AK47 Ice Cube Tray: $7.99

Novelty items make great gifts, especially if they boost up the recipient's man status. ThinkGeek’s AK-47 ice cube tray should do just that. The tray has two halves that look like the magazine of an AK-47 when filled and frozen. After a few hours in the freezer, 10 ice bullets are formed.

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Drop a few of these babies in cocktails at your next party and you’ve got the makings of a great conversation piece. Toss a few in your mom’s lemonade and see how long it takes her to notice that her fruity drink has gone rogue. Any way you decide to use these deadly ice slugs will be sure to get a reaction.

Credit: ThinkGeek

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