How many sprinkler systems are actually nice to look at? Well, should the Aurora concept sprinkler system actually make it off the manufacturing line, it will definitely make the grade as an aesthetically pleasing safety device. It merges both LED lights as well as a sprinkler system, offering you adequate light during times of emergency. This leads me to question why current emergency systems don’t do that, offering separate components instead? Well, the Aurora harnesses kinetic energy of water that flows through the turbine, converting it into electricity to power the LED so that whichever room it is in will be illuminated and hence providing a higher chance for people to find the exit. Would be nice to see it include a hidden spycam for use during non-emergency moments.

Concept Page

In case you are wondering what the next step is for video game consoles, a British magazine known as T3 has some idea of where the future is headed. I believe that these visions are simply ideas, and nothing that is presently under development by the big video game developers.

The first concept is a different type of remote for the Nintendo Wii. This type of Wiimote is still a stick, but it only has one button. It is apparently hooked up to some sort of headset accessory that uses brainwaves to control, and has in-ear headphones. Brainwave technology has been under development for a while now, and if Nintendo gets the first mind interface, they could seriously corner the video game market.

The second concept is a version of the Xbox that is completely portable. Not only is it a game player with 64 GB of memory, but it has built-in Zune capability and can even act as a mobile phone.

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Much like Pi, the measurement of time stretches into the reaches of infinity. It’s actually pretty mind boggling if you think about it too long. Most clocks worry solely about the hours, minutes and seconds. If you’re lucky you have a stop-watch that reaches into the fractal confines of the second, maybe providing the tenth and hundredth of a second measurement.

The Digital Time concept by Freddie Yauner goes much, much further than that. Time changes so fast at the atomic level that many of us couldn’t even follow the changing of the numeral representation of time. The Digital Time measures the atomic time down to the millionth of a second!

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I think we all know that people just want their lives on the Internet, and they will gladly paste their photos and videos on their MySpace and FaceBook pages without any regards to the consequences.

This is why the Camoria has been developed. The Camoria is an over-the-ear digital camera that is designed to put your life in the form of pictures. Of course, there is no way that you can get your own face in the shots, unless you stand in front of mirror.

Right now, the Camoria is a concept device by German designer Akbiyik Vokan. Information that I got about the Camoria is very sketchy, so I don’t know how much memory it has, or how long the battery will last.

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Every once in a while, I discover a new mobile device charger that is really practical and energy-efficient, like the Solio Magnesium Solar Charger. Today I found two devices that charge using another renewable energy source: kinetic energy.

The first is the Orange Dance Charge. This is an armband that you can connect your mobile device to, and then shake it up (preferably while dancing) for a charge. It has the same kinetic energy charger that you see in those “never need winding” watches. So if your cellular phone needs a charge, just dance around like Martin Short back when he was playing Ed Grimley on Saturday Night Live.

The second is a charger that sounds like a cheap joke, but it is real proposal. Apparently, a woman named Adrienne So has proposed a way to harness the power of breasts. That’s right, with a little nanowire fabric in a bra, you can actually capture the energy produced by the up and down movement of the (insert any synonym for “breasts” here). I’m going to justly resist any comment that I could make after introducing a gadget like this.

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I just learned that the Napkin PC concept that we reported on six months ago has won a Next-Gen PC Design competition. On a related note, I found this Next-Gen PC concept, and I thought it was just as practical, especially for summer.

The Pool PC, aka PC of the Swim-Rings, is a waterproof computer that has a small place so you can attach a swim ring. Then all you need to do is lay back in the ring, let your body float, and you are free to check email, surf the web, or anything else you want to do on your computer.

It has many features including a GPRS receiver, Bluetooth wireless solutions, finger-touch input, a solar power driven processor, water-cooling system, as well as a magnetic charging interface. I believe that the swim ring holder can also house some speakers for non-amphibian work.

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We know Dick Tracy and his cell phone watch which has already been made into an actual product for quite some time already - now here’s yet another wacky idea taken off Maxwell Smart who hides a phone inside his shoe. I suppose those were the days where everywhere we went were pretty clean as folks had a higher degree of civic consciousness, putting chewing gum where it belongs instead of being a sidewalk hazard to strollers and joggers. ArchPort Shoes aims to literally take one step at a time by incorporating a cell phone into their shoes sometime down the road, but they are still a long way off from there at the moment. Wouldn’t want you to have chewing gum stuck to your hair now, do we?

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Does anyone remember that movie with Nicholas Cage and John Travolta where technology has advanced so much that people are capable of having an entire body transplant, including their face? Pretty sweet flick now that I think about it. And while we haven’t quite reached the point of totally accurate face transplants, there is some digital technology that might allow us to do something similar, just for fun, completely virtually.

It’s called “Trading Faces” and the project actually revolves around the use of digital mirrors to superimpose other peoples faces on your own. Except for the fact that users have someone elses facial features, they look totally normal. But the progress of this sort of technology could possibly lead to some pretty suspicious motives.

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