General Electric Co. is looking for buyers for its 101-year old appliances division. Perhaps best known for its refrigerators and washers/dryers, GE’s move is widely heralded as analysts believe the low-margin and low-growth market has too much foreign competition.
Analysts expect the appliances division to be worth close to $6.5 billion.
I welcome all robots that will simplify life’s mundane tasks such as building cars, construction, farming and commuting. But until robots gain a level of intelligence that could wipe out the human race, I will settle for a robotic vacuum… Samsung is no stranger to robot vacuum manufacturing and the latest model Hauzen VC-RE70V is very attractive and pretty intelligent to boot, one-upping the closest competitor Roomba.
Unlike the Roomba which relies on hitting things to figure out where it is going, Hauzen has a built-in camera. It will take pictures to build a map of your place and see where it is going. No longer will a robotic vacuum rely on bumping into things as its main navigational feature. In addition, this can go back to the recharging cradle when it runs low on juice. And there’s also a remote control if you want to direct where your vacuum should go… No price announcement yet, but it should be available in Korea later this month.
Well it looks like I made the right choice when I decided to buy Tassimo over other single-serving coffee machine… Starbucks announced that it will bring its 4 popular blends to the Tassimo machine starting December this year. Starbucks coffee to be featured are: House blend, Breakfast blend, Caffe Verona and Africa Kimatu. First 3 are actually my favorite blends at Starbucks definitely guaranteeing I’ll be purchasing those…
Another news is Bosch is now the new maker for Tassimo machines, and the new version should be out in July 2008.
Mini-kegs are great for home use but all that pumping prevents you from enjoying your beer… and they aren’t exactly refrigerator friendly. Hammacher Schlemmer, the purveyor of many somewhat useless gadgets, released the aptly named The Countertop Beer Cooler and Tap. It can not only serve your beer but chill it as well with adjustable temperature control. AC and DC adapters allow you to use the machine at home or on the go in your car and boats. With optional CO2 cylinders, you can even tamper with the flavour of the tap and finally make Heineken more fizzy.
Priced at $299, it isn’t for the budget-conscious purchasers but just think about how much money you’ll save by not going to the bar for beer!
Every party, the host or hostess usually mans the duty of dispensing alcohol: it is valuable time that should be spent socializing with guests. With Virtual Bartender from Digital Beverages, you can be freed from mixing and dispensing drinks to your guests.
The system is simple enough: alcohol and beverages are connected to the control unit, and guests (or yourself) can use the touchscreen to order their favorite drinks. The system can even order supplies when they run out as the central office monitors the operation via telephone line.
Look for this user-friendly system at user-unfriendly price of $2,500 next year.
Now that we had the Atmosphere air purifier for 2 weeks, I can definitely notice an improvement in the air quality. Like almost every home, this place does have centralized filter system but it has limits on what it can do. Especially concerning allergens and odor… Atmosphere is a perfect companion to a centralized system since it gives you additional protection.
I can definitely feel that the dust level is down and the machine is able to filter out almost all kinds of smell (especially useful during cooking) thanks to the charcoal filter - not that dissimilar from water-purifier.
What we do is we leave the machine on at all times at the lowest setting. This way, it can run silently without interfering anything else and improve the quality of air. So far I haven’t used the turbo option (which is supposed to be the highest setting available on this machine) but I figure that’s only for emergencies like burnt food, cigarettes, smoke chamber (in this demo video, you can also see the 3 filters inside the system, comparison with Ionic Breeze in clearing a smoke chamber).
We finally went ahead and ordered the Atmosphere air purifier (thanks to 6 months no-interest financing!). Originally I’ve been a huge fan of the Sharper Image Ionic Breeze machines but after doing a little bit of comparison, I’ve decided against it. Mainly, Ionic Breeze doesn’t clean air properly as it reduces up to 43% of airborne particles where as Atmosphere can up to 99.99% of airborne particles. When we’re talking about air purifier, the ability to, well, clean air is very important.
Another factor that attracted me towrads the Ionic Breeze was the fact that you don’t need to replace filters. Whereas this may make economical sense, I’m not too fond of cleaning the machine every 2 weeks. Finally the fact that Atmosphere claims to eliminate odor made the purchase decision fairly easy.
The machine came pre-installed and all I had to do was to unwrap the filters - carbon filter for odor, and HEPA filter for allegens and such. It was a simple procedure and the machine was up and running in no time. Right now it’s set in “auto” mode, running at speed 3 (out of 5). It does make some noise but running it at 1 made it incredibly quiet (a lot quieter than Xbox 360 running at full speed).
It’s getting increasingly harder and harder to avoid bottled water with extras in it (such as flavors, vitamins, minerals, ions…) and now your purified tap water is about to get the same treatment - no pun intended. PUR is introducing its line of PUR Flavor Options for both tap mounted system and pitchers allowing you to add desired amount of fruit flavoring to your water… It looks like Proctor & Gamble - maker of PUR -Â is trying really hard to bring an edge to the purified water game. Me? I just rely on eSpring system that reduces “contaminents” and destroys “micro-organisms”… God knows I hate those micro-organisms in my water!
Next step:Â just add a carbonation element and turn tap water into soda!
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