Techalyzer

Japan is the home of many interesting and unique gadgets. Here is a look at some of the more interesting offerings from this country lately.

Have you ever dreamed of having a view of the ocean while you bathe? If so then you can get a device called My Ocean. This is a compatct egg shaped device that activates a slowly whirling slew of projected green and blue lights. You can also just put it right in your bathtub where it will reflect the ripples of the water from the water in your bathtub.

A great use for My Ocean is to convince reluctant kids to get into the tub. It is made out of plastic and GPS is heat resistant and runs on alkaline batteries.

Have you ever heard of an electric hand warmer? The Envelop Kairoo is a slick little black unit about the size of a cell phone. It only takes two AA batteries and it can be turned on to warm your hands for approximately four hours. The idea is you hold it in your palms to keep yourself warm. It includes a special case and sells for about sixty dollars U.S..

Want to stop snoring? A Japanese interior design company makes a pillow called France Bed. This allows you to tackle snoring head with the goal of cutting down or eliminating snoring problems altogether.

This is a memory foam pillow that is designed for maximum comfort. It uses an audio sensor to detect when you are e snoring and then responds with a light vibration that has been proven effective in Japan. There is also an external audio jack that is part of the pillow that allows you to monitor your own snoring and also at the same time monitor whether or not the pillow is actually effective for you.

It takes four AA batteries and it automatically shuts off after eight hours. You have to supply your own audio recorder if you want to record your own snoring. This type of high tech pillow is not cheap. It costs over $400.

Do you love unique ice cube melds. In Japan you can get the most incredible molds for your drinks. The Taisin company makes an ice ball mold which makes a perfectly round sphere of ice. Spheres of ice are preferred because they melt slower than square cubes. One sphere is all you need for one glass and you can make a whopping thirty icefalls in one hour.

Furthermore you can get ice cube melds from Raisin that is in Soccer, Baseball and also beautiful diamond shapes.

If you think you have had too much to drink or that you have breath you can also get the Etiquette Checker for bad breath. I t has several modes including a Breath Mode which checks your breath on a scale of 1 to six and alcohol mode which also lets you know whether you are too drunk to drive. This unit retails for $53.00.

Want to make the experience of bathing more pleasurable? There are all kinds of new gadgets on the market to help you make bath time a more fun time.

Consider the Floating Mood Light. This is a little round plastic ball that you can throw into the bathtub that are less than three inches in diameter. They give your bathtub, Jacuzzi or pool a mystique thanks to the low lit round balls bobbing about in the water. For ten bucks they are pretty spiffy. You can set them to be one color, like pink or green or you can set them so that they alternate colors as they float.

Do you like to listen to music while you shower? Then you might enjoy the iDuck Wireless Speaker. Basically this is a wireless egg that you plug into your iPod. You then take a duck with you into the shower and the music is wirelessly transmitted to the duck from the egg. The drawback of this nifty bit of technology is that it does require quite a few batteries to operate properly. They cost about forty dollars and are a charming addition to the bath or shower.

Imagine opening your medicine cabinet only to hear your Calvin Klein cologne bottle playing music. Calvin Klein is typically not a name associated with gadgets, however the designer has made a speaker bottle as part of the package when you buy the company’s unisex fragrance called One. The size of the speaker makes it great for sitting on your dresser or in the bathroom to play your favourite music while you’re shower. It also does not hurt that the perfume smells pretty good. They sell this for about fifty bucks at places like Sephora.

Warm towels are considered a luxury in most homes but now you can get something called a Towel spa. This towel warmer does not have to be installed in any way. It is just a free standing unit that sits on the floor. It only takes the unit about five minutes to give you a perfectly toasty warm towel. You can also warm up a blanket or bathrobe in the unit as well. It costs about eighty bucks online which is not bad for so much luxury!

Does your bathwater get too dirty. Then you might want to try out this Japanese bath water cleaner gadget called the Bath Ball. This works great for people who get really dirty and like to soak in the tub. It is basically a reusable polypropylene ball that looks like a little green bird and it is filled with charcoal. Charcoal absorbs odors, soap and dirt so that your bathwater feels a little fresher as you sit in it. It is not cheap though. This interesting bathroom item retails for aobut forty five bucks online.

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Wine tasting has become such a popular past time that this month I had to devote two blogs to the subject.

One of the handier wine gadgets is the Preservor Wine Preserver. This takes care of that age old problem of having left over wine. People simply do not finish a bottle of wine every time they open it. The Perservor Wine Preserve you is a canister that looks like a Thermous and it helps preserve the wine as closely as possible to resemble the state it was before it opened. Basically this air tight unit prevents oxidation which occurs every single time you cork a bottle or use a pump style of preserver. The anti-oxidization power occurs as the result of argon cartridges hat blanket the wine with an inert gas which in turn helps create a true vacuum in the bottle.

Speaking of argon gas there is also a fridge that employs the stuff to keep your wines in optimum shape. It is called the Vino Vault and it allows you to store fifteen unopened bottles of wine along with fifteen opened ones.

The Cooper Coller Rapid Beverage Chiller is another innovation which is looks a bit like a toaster. There is a hole in the side and you stick the bottle inside. No more lukewarm wine because the Cooper Cooler Rapid Beverage Chiller has an extreme cooler function that can chill a bottle of wine in three and a half minutes.

By now you have probably heard of home wine Serving Systems. These are units that allow you to store several bottles of wine in a temperature controlled environment that preserves and protects the wine when you are not pouring. It is like a robotic wine dispenser that suits the palates of people who want to indulge in hoe wine tasting.

A good home wine serving system is the Enomatic Wine Serving System which allows you to taste sixteen bottles of wine at once and keeps the wine at a temperature that protects and preserves the wine whiel you are not pouring.

The ultimate in decadence is teh Angelshare Single Bottle Cellar. If you are into wine gadgets this is the height of luxury. The divice is a see through utbe that llows you to store one bottle of wine at a time and uses ultraviolet light blocking and a shaded window to preserve the wine bottle contents.

Battery operated corkscrews are also all the rage. You simply fit the wine opener over a bottle, press down and it automatically uncorks the wine for you. You can get good ones online like the one made by Napa Essentials which also has an ergonomic design and integrated foil cutter for those bottles that are tightly wrapped. They cost about twenty five bucks and make a nice gift for a real wine lover.