I'll bet that the last time you called a repairman to come fix something in your house, you were stuck with a bill in the ballpark of $250 and an annoying revelation: I could have done that. After all, the dude probably just pulled some tube from his truck and slotted in to your washing machine, taking all of five minutes to do so. (Note: This actually just happened to me.) The truth, of course, is that you probably could not have fixed the problem.
The U.S. government may not be able to push through a climate bill, but that hasn't stopped appliance makers from banding together and establishing efficiency standards of their own.
First came multi-colored mood lighting, then came LED wallpaper, and now designer Karim Rashid is bringing high-tech ambiance to the kitchen with his Touch of Light line, a series of appliances that come emblazoned with LED strips that adjust to every color in the rainbow.
Origami and sheet metal don't seem like a natural combination, but Industrial Origami brings the two together to make products out of sheet metal cheaply and efficiently. The company, which presented this week at the Always On Stanford Summit, cuts "smiles"--AKA tabs--into sheet metal that make it simple to build products.
You know instant messaging has reached a tipping point when appliances get it on the action. Smart grid software company EnerNOC is bringing instant messaging to air conditioners with PowerTalk, a system that uses the XMPP protocol commonly used for messaging services (including GChat), chat rooms, and voice calls.
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You know instant messaging has reached a tipping point when appliances get it on the action. Smart grid software company EnerNOC is bringing instant messaging to air conditioners with PowerTalk, a system that uses the XMPP protocol commonly used for messaging services (including GChat), chat rooms, and voice calls.