It only seems like yesterday when reported on the remote control umbrella that you could open and close via a flick of a switch. Well that remote controlled umbrella has been well and truly put in the shade by this one.

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White Box Robotics is gearing up for their first production run of
“personal computer robots.” They have neatly sidestepped the inevitable
question associated with home robots. No matter how cute the gyrations
or how engaging the “blips” and “bleeps” comes that dreaded pause, and
then:

“So, what does it do?”
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There’s nothing that new about solar powered lights in the garden but I thought these ones were different enough to be worth a mention, they look like good old fashioned candle lanterns and even have a realistic looking flicker.

As you’d expect the lights are powered by LEDs, a days worth of sunlight will power the light at night for up to 10 hours (all automatic of course). I reckon the flicker will give the lantern a cool look and have your neighbours wondering how you light them every night (okay that might work that one out after the first day).

Available for $29.99 each from Smart Home
.

My living room is full of electrical equipment, the mandatory wide-screen, DVD player, PS2, cable TV box, PC, etc. Many of essential devices are controlled via remote, which causes a bit of a problem when it’s behind a cabinet door.
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We’ve written about artistic urinals, football urinals and even a urinal containing an LCD to pee on. In our ongoing quest for the coolest urinal we’ve finally come across one that is ecologically friendly.

According to Mister Miser toilet flushing accounts for 40% of domestic water usage. In order to minimise this they’ve come up with a system that only requires 10 ounces of water per flush. I couldn’t find much information on how the technology actually achieves this but as I live in area with a hose pipe at the moment saving water is pretty high on the agenda.

You can get further info (not a lot) and buy online from Mister Miser.

If you find putting up your patio umbrella too much like hard work then you’ll want one of these remote controlled umbrellas. Goes up or down by the flick of a switch, crazy!

Available from Smart Home.

I’m getting quite into home automation at the moment. I’ve just got a Roomba vacuum (blew it up on the first day so more to follow on that one) but disappointedly it cannot open doors, this is where this remote controlled swinging door could come in handy.

You attach the swinging door opener to to the top of your door (and wall). You are then able to open the door via remote control. This could be useful for disabled dwellings or just plain OTT in most houses. Still looks like a cool gadget to me though .

Available from SmartHome but be warned it’s quite pricey. [Found via Gizmos for Geeks]

The only gadget like curtains I’ve seen before are those with little motors that open and close them with a flick of a switch. This may of been cool 10 years ago but now just seems dorky instead of geeky.

The new flexible electronic curtain from Japanese company MicroReactor System Co has got to be the coolest curtain I’ve ever seen (and if it could be combined with LED windows that would be awesome).

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