Cool inventions
These 10 supersmart gadgets, robots, and vehicles could change your life!
Robot Kitty
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Photograph by Elephant Robotics
If you’re allergic to cats but still think they’re adorable, you might want to “adopt” MarsCat, a bionic animal companion. Just like a real cat, MarsCat reacts to your touch and voice, wiggling when you pet it and even meowing back if you talk to it. Each MarsCat has a unique body shape and personality, and it will respond differently depending on how you play with it. The bot will also obey commands—sometimes. (Just like most real cats!) The best part? No stinky litter boxes to clean.
Ice-cream machine
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Photograph by ColdSnap, Corp.
Turn your kitchen into an ice-cream parlor with ColdSnap, a device that takes room-temperature cans of ice-cream mix and turns them into frozen treats in just over a minute. Choose an aluminum pod with your favorite flavor, pop it into the machine, then recycle the can. Regular grocery store ice cream requires energy to keep it cold while it’s transported to the stores and sits in freezers. So ColdSnap estimates they can reduce the carbon dioxide emissions of each pint of ice cream between 25 and 50 percent by leaving the big freeze up to you. Now that’s cool.
Seated scooter
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Photograph by Segway
You’ll be riding around town like a space-age Roman emperor
in this invention. The S-Pod is an egg-shaped transport
device that balances on two wheels while you sit in the
open capsule. Inspired by the sphere-shaped vehicles in
Jurassic World, the S-Pod moves up to 24 miles an hour.
Inventors hope the device will help people take short trips
without a car, sort of like a luxury scooter. Sounds egg-cellent.
in this invention. The S-Pod is an egg-shaped transport
device that balances on two wheels while you sit in the
open capsule. Inspired by the sphere-shaped vehicles in
Jurassic World, the S-Pod moves up to 24 miles an hour.
Inventors hope the device will help people take short trips
without a car, sort of like a luxury scooter. Sounds egg-cellent.
Digital games
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Photograph by Arcade1Up
Family game night sounds fun … until you discover that you’re missing game tokens or directions. Never again with the Infinity Game Table, a touch-screen table surface. Just turn on the device and choose from 32 board games, like Monopoly and Connect 4. Up to six people can play at the same time. Game on!
Movie Glasses
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Photograph by TCL
Sure, you might look like you’re just wearing cool shades—but behind those frames you’re actually watching a blockbuster movie on two tiny screens! When you put on the TCL Wearable Display and connect it to your smartphone or tablet, it’ll feel like you’re looking at an almost 12-foot screen from about 13 feet away. It’s like a private screening room, right in front of your face.
Flying waterbus
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Photograph by Regent
Tired of the school bus? Swap streets for waves in the Regent Seaglider, a boat-plane combo that skims the water and then flies right above the surface. The eight-propeller electric vehicle will serve small communities that dot the shoreline, shuttling people down rivers, across bays, and along beaches. Carrying 12 passengers, the Seaglider can cruise above the surface up to 180 miles an hour—over twice as fast as cars on the highway—before settling back into the waves to let riders step off. Just don’t forget to thank the bus driver . . . er, captain.
High-Tech dog door
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Photograph by The Chamberlain Group
When your pup’s gotta go, it’s gotta go. But what if you’re not around? The myQ Pet Portal is a mini door that connects to a sensor on your pet’s collar. You can either set the elevator-door-like portal to automatically slide open whenever your pet gets near, or you can choose to get a notification when your pet approaches and open the door yourself. The door closes when the animal is safely through the opening, and it works both ways—so Fido can always get back inside. It’s a good door for a good dog.
Foam party
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Photograph by Little Tikes
Love bubble baths? Bring that foamy feeling outside by turning your backyard into a knee-deep bubble party with FOAMO Foam Machine. This projector-like device sprays tiny bubbles onto the ground, creating mountains of foam. Just mix the soapy solution with water, pour it into the machine, then mold all the resulting bubbles into fluffy castles or sudsy hats. When you’re done, wash away the foam with water. Now that’s good, clean fun.
Clean composter
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Photograph by Pela
Feed your garden with stale pizza crusts and banana peels when you use Lomi, an at-home compost machine. The device dehydrates, heats, and grinds the scraps, sort of like the way that earthworms help decompose matter when they eat it. You’re left with dry, odorless dirt that you can return to your garden. (Note the utensils, bags, and phone case in this picture are made of compostable materials, but things you use may not be. Never try to compost anything made of plastic!) Cool for you, and even better for the planet: According to the Environmental Protection Agency, food waste is the household trash that most often ends up in landfills and incinerators, both of which release greenhouse gases.
Musical clothing
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Photograph by Cutecircuit
With SoundShirt, you can literally feel the music. Made of stretchy fabric with tiny components that move, this shirt can either capture sound waves from the air or connect to a phone app. Then it translates the music into pulses and vibrations that the wearer can feel: You might sense the strumming of a violin on your arms while the drumbeat rolls across your shoulders. The inventors hope the device will be especially useful for people who are hard of hearing or deaf. That rocks!