Maybe what it needs to shake up its image is a bit of sci fi fun, and these Evian Star Wars Bottles could be just the job to get it done. It is still at the concept stage right now but the design looks brilliant and could be a hit in the next year or so.

They have been put together Mandy Brencys and feature some of the top characters from the classic film, as well as having a kind of light sabre type shape to them. They will certainly put a bit of fun into water drinking if they ever make it onto the Evian production line.

Water, from a Galaxy far far away…

The idea is original and it just seems like a winner. There are so many Star Wars fans around who would presumably be quite willing to pay a tad more for their water if it came in a fancy Darth Vader bottle that it could just work.

These Evian Star Wars Bottles look so amazing that the market probably wouldn’t be restricted solely to health conscious geeks with lots of money either. Maybe they’ll even become collector’s items in years to come and your grandchildren will complain that yours would have been worth a lot more if you hadn’t gone and drunk all of the water .

Edit:

We’ve had word from the PR team at Evian who say ”Although we are happy to see that evian was an inspiration for Amanda
Brencys Carbonato’s Star Wars-themed designs, we would like to note that
this was not an official collaboration authorized by evian or in any
capacity affiliated with the brand.”

Evian Star Wars Bottles Concept – Water from another Galaxy is a post from: Gadgets and gizmos

Dr. Roger Eglin, of the University of Portsmouth’s Department of Creative Technologies, hopes to develop smartphone apps that allow people with Parkinson’s improve their speech, enabling them to be better understood by friends, family and healthcare workers. He was awarded a £35,000 innovation grant from the Parkinson’s UK, a leading research charity on Parkinson’s, to develop the apps.

According to research, speech problems affect 3/4 of the 120,000 people with Parkinson’s in the country, and problems communicating with others have a great effect on their quality of life.

“Many people with Parkinson’s already have and use mobile phones, making them a low-cost, simple and effective way for helping people improve their own speech,” said Dr. Eglin. “We’ve already developed a basic mobile phone application to improve speech, but it needs to be further improved and tailored specifically for people with Parkinson’s. We will be testing our application with people with Parkinson’s at every stage of development to make sure it is effective and easy to use.”

The researchers are aiming to develop two key functions for the app: A feedback meter that will help them see how loud their speech is and indicate what they could do to be heard properly; and a training function to help them speak more loudly, making them easier to understand.

The app can also be used by healthcare professionals to remotely monitor their progress, making speech therapy more accessible and cheaper.

Mobile phone apps can help people with Parkinson’s is a post from: Gadgets and gizmos

The survey tells how the smartphone-use explosion may have contributed to this problem, with 44 percent of the country who use smartphones a day, spending between 30 to 12 minutes for non-call related tasks, such as surfing the web, using apps, social networking and texting.

Another factor that is linked to smartphone use is the increased use of micro-blogging websites such as Twitter. Over the past year, the service has seen a massive 182 percent increase in mobile users, with the average tweets sent per day coming in at 140 million.

The use of laptops was also revealed to be a major culprit, with 58 percent of consumers in the country use laptops daily, and 27 percent of those say that they suffer from neck and back pain due to laptop use for more than two hours. The adoption of tablet PCs also appears to be another reason, with 18 percent of tablet users use it for more than 2 hours a day.

“There is no doubt that technology plays a significant role in our daily lives, however the knock on effect is that we now carry more gadgets around with us and spend more of our time peering into small screens,” said Tim Hutchful of the British Chiropractic Association. “It is important that we recognize the potential impact on our bodies and learn to lessen the impact on pressure points with some simple steps. It is particularly important now more than ever with 36% of the nation currently suffering from back or neck pain, up from 32 percent in 2010.”

The British Chiropractic Association devised some tips so you can still use your gadgets without hurting your bodies. These are:

• When sitting in front of your PC or laptop, sit in chairs that provide full support for your spine and make sure your shoulders, hips and knees face the same direction.
• Your seat should be adjusted so that your feet are flat on the ground, and knees bent, but with a slope from your hips to your knees. You should end up with your hips higher than your knees and your eyes level with the top of the computer screen. You may need to put the screen on a stand, book or ream of paper to bring it to the right height.
• The head is a heavy weight and sitting with it forward of your body puts unnecessary strain on your neck and back so always sit with your head directly over your body.
• Avoid sitting in the same position for more than 40 minutes, less if possible. When you do take a break, walk around and stretch a little.
• If you carry a laptop use a rucksack design laptop case, carry it on both shoulders and adjust the straps so that the bag is held close to your back.
• Try out new gadgets before you buy them to make sure they’re comfortable to use, and spend time setting them up in a way that works well for you.
• Don’t carry so many items in your bag all the time, only pack what you need each day and avoid ‘doubling up’ on your tech i.e. camera and smartphone if at all possible.
• If using your mobile, smartphone, laptop or tablet whilst sitting down, including on your commute, take the time to break position on a regular basis and stretch your arms, shrug your shoulders and move your fingers around as this helps to keep the muscles more relaxed.
• Avoid surfing and texting whilst walking as your lack of concentration is likely to cause some kind of problem!

The BCA has also devised the Straighten Up UK, a three-minute exercise routine that can be done to improve posture and straighten the spine. For more information, you can visit the British Chiropractic Association website at www.chiropractic-uk.co.uk.

New study shows how incorrect use of gadgets affects us is a post from: Gadgets and gizmos

The solution that they helped answer represent a very significant step forward in the quest to cure AIDS. AIDS, or Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, compromises an infected person’s cellular immunity, making him/her less resistant to infection. Is has been considered a worldwide epidemic, infecting more than 33 million people in the world.

Using a game called Foldit, the players were able to predict the structure of retroviral protease, which is a key component in determining how the virus spreads. Unlocking the protein’s build could theoretically help scientists develop drugs that would stop the spread of protease.

“Following the failure of a wide range of attempts to solve the crystal structure of M-PMV retroviral protease by molecular replacement, we challenged players of the protein folding game Foldit to produce accurate models of the protein,” reads the study. “Remarkably, Foldit players were able to generate models of sufficient quality for successful molecular replacement and subsequent structure determination. The refined structure provides new insights for the design of antiretroviral drugs.”

Foldit is an online game developed by researchers at the University of Washington that turns scientific problems to games. Players are tasked to use critical thinking skills to build 3D models of protease and only a handful of these players have any background in biochemistry.

Foldit has also aided in Alzheimer’s and Cancer research.

via: Telegraph

Gamers solve AIDS enzyme puzzle is a post from: Gadgets and gizmos

The mirror works by using Microsoft’s Kinect and a Mirror TV that is reported to be developed by Philips. The TV functions as a mirror and a display. According to tech website Digital Trends, the TV is linked to a microphone and a Kinect sensor, which allows the device to use voice recognition and motion sensing. Additional interaction is provided via objects (prescriptions, skin care products) that have RFID tags recognized by the system.

The RFID tags is used to bring up necessary information about the product. For example, if you are not sure about the proper dosage of your medication, the mirror would tell you how much you need. Users can also use the mirror to reorder the medications if it was bought through a prescription.

The mirror can also be used for shopping clothes online. The Kinect camera scans an image of the user’s body type and enables them to overlay clothing on the body’s image before purchasing them.

This mirror developed by teh research and development labs at New York Times is still a prototype, so there is still more room for additional features and improvements. The mirror should not be limited to be used in bathrooms, it could also work well in any public places, including subways, buses and streets.

No specific dates have been given for the device’s debut, it would be cool to have a device like this soon.

via: Dvice

New York Times’ mirror uses voice recognition and Kinect is a post from: Gadgets and gizmos

L’Oreal’s The Expert campaign is designed to create a personality for its Men Expert line of products, which encourages men to reconsider grooming. The campaign is headed by the Expert, an expert at being a man, giving advice to men everywhere, teaches men the necessary skills to become more like him, and answers whatever questions asked by men.

The Expert is very much like the Old Spice Guy, but instead of being cool and carefree, the Expert is a much more sophisticated, James Bond-like guy.

This is a step in L’Oreal’s first fully-integrated social media strategy, inviting the men of today to include grooming and incorporate grooming products in their daily routine.

The company has released four humorous, witty videos that star The Expert himself. The first video shows men how to create the perfect profile picture for their Facebook page. The second video shows us how to choose the perfect smartphone app, where the Expert uses a variety of grooming apps using his mobile phone. There is a free iPhone app you can download from the iTunes store. The third video shows viewers how to pick a lock. And the last video teaches us how to tie the perfect tie, we’ve pasted this below.

For more information about L’Oreal’s The Expert campaign, you can check out its Facebook page.

L’Oreal launches new campaign to bring back male grooming is a post from: Gadgets and gizmos

Computer Engineering professor Adam Hoover and Psychology professor Eric Muth created the Bite Counter to help people track how much they eat.

“At the societal level, current weight-loss and maintenance programs are failing to make a significant impact. Studies have shown that people tend to underestimate what they eat by large margins, mostly because traditional methods rely upon self-observation and reporting,” said Muth. “Our preliminary data suggest that bite count can be used as a proxy for caloric count.”

The device requires the user to press a button to turn it on and off before and after a meal. In between, the Bite Counter counts how many bites have been taken.

The device has shown to be more than 90 percent accurate in counting bites, as seen on its testing results. But just like normal pedometers, the Bite Counter’s counts are not perfect. Motions such as drinking, using a napkin or adjusting glasses while eating might confuse the product. Its creators explained that people normally tend to do the same types of motions meal to meal, so the false counts on long-term tracking is minimal.

The device is available for a whopping £490 ($799) at the product’s official website. When you think about it, shouldn’t people be encouraged to take more bites and chew their food more? It’s a well known fact that eating slower and chewing food more reduces appetite, sounds like a crazy idea to us but science isn’t our strongest point.

What do you think of the bite counter?

via: News-medical.net

Bite Counter monitors every bite you take is a post from: Gadgets and gizmos

You can effortlessly smooth and bring brilliant shine to your hair with the device’s Ceramic Floating and Beveled Plates that produce negative ions and infrared heat, which seals moisture and repels humidity to get a frizz and static free hairstyle. The Onyx Ceramic Digital Hairstyling Iron can reach up to 420 degrees due to the MCH heating system that provides instant heat that will straighten your hair.

The device has 2 GB of memory and has a USB cable to make file transfer simple. The ONYX hairstyling iron has a suggested retail price of £100.

The following is the Onyx Ceramic Digital Hairstyling Iron’s product specs:

• Built in High Quality MP3 Player plays with or without plug
• 2 GB of memory that can carry up to 500 songs
• ONYX Ceramic plates
• Onyx Ceramic Heat that eliminates static and reduce frizz
• MCH Heating elements that provide instant heat up to 420 degrees
• Squeeze Sensitive Floating Plates grips hair for even control
• Anti Slip Grip and Beveled plates
• 9ft Professional Swivel Cord and hang-up hook
• 1 Year warranty

Is this a good idea or a little bit mental? At least you will remember to turn them off.

via: Designbuzz

ONYX MP3 Hairstyling Iron Plays Music you while fixing your hair is a post from: Gadgets and gizmos

With the continued advancement of technology, children today have lost the ability to go outside and play, which resulted to more children having emotional and physical health problems.

Inspired by these studies, designer Martin Spurway of the UK designed Moosh Watch, a watch that fuses children’s tech-infused lifestyle with outdoor activities. Moosh Watches aim to extinguish the line between the child’s online and real-world self. Moosh Watches can connect to each other through Bluetooth, enabling children to play together and collect badges that can be found online.

There are currently 64 color combinations that children can collect. They can buy or customize their own color combinations, and trade them with other friends.

These watches also have a mini-USB out that is used for charging and connecting the device to a social networking site. Also, since more children have an iPod, Moosh Watches also has its own iPod app that makes it more interactive by checking the badges that can be earned.

Is this a useful device for children to use?

Moosh Watches encourage kids to play with online friends is a post from: Gadgets and gizmos

The Hydration Pen is a concept from designer Kristian Williams, that measures the body’s fat content, calculate hydration levels and indicate if its time for you to drink something. Sadly, we should not mistake it for a pen that dispenses water to drink, though I think it’ll be a cool feature.

It is a pretty cool concept and is useful if you’re the type to wait for your body to send a message to your brain that says “yeah, you’re thirsty, dude,” which often comes late. The pen gets information from the person’s body and communicates as it needs, so people with the said problem can make use of this device to get informed right away.

Studies have showed that when children become aware of their thirst, 10 percent of their concentration have been lost. And since concentration is needed to learn, being hydrated is very important. Further studies show that teens aged 15 to 18 years do not understand the importance of staying hydrated.

The pen features an injection molded center, which contains a circuit board that measures the user’s BMI. By grasping both ends of the pen, electrical pulses travel and as the body dehydrates, its fat content lowers and the monitor measures that. The pen is powered by AAA-sized batteries to show the results by flashing red (dehydrated) or green (hydrated) lights.

Do people need a device like this or should they just trust their own bodies?

The Hydration Pen shows if you are dehydrated is a post from: Gadgets and gizmos