Sommaire pour Issue 4 de Gadget

Air mouse The MIRROReins isn’t touchscreen enabled, otherwise your dripping palms might smear the screen. Instead, a proprietary Air Mouse is used to control the device and your apps Android on board MIRROReins runs Android, so it can do just about anything a smartphone or a tablet can do. In the future, apps could be developed specifically for the digital mirror Display size Measuring 21 inches from corner to corner, the MIRROReins display is big enough to show some early morning television without dominating your bathroom or blocking your beautiful reflection Motion sensor The screen includes a handy motion sensor so it’s not always churning out updates from Twitter while there’s nobody looking at it – the mirror can detect your presence and react accordingly Integrated stereo speakers Streaming your…

ETA Nov ’16 | Country of origin Luxembourg | Funding achieved €1,618,869 • bit.ly/kickasskickstarters8 Puppy dog eyes Ulo’s big-beaming eyes are two 1.22-inch LCD screens, fashioned on some of the leading smartwatches on the market. They can track anything and everything in their peripheral vision Say cheese The front of Ulo is a two-way mirror, which houses the primary camera used for recording. Make sure it’s placed in the direction you want to record Don’t worry, this really is the cutest robot ever, but looks can be deceiving. Looking past Ulo’s sweet smile there lies a built-in surveillance system that can watch, record and share footage from wherever you place him. It uses eye expressions to contact you with each eye gesture meaning something different, which is an effective way…

ETA Out now! | Country of origin USA | Funding achieved $257,275 • bit.ly/kickasskickstarter16 Ground sensors On the bottom of the Hoverboard is a ground-contacting sensor, which proactively reacts to bumps or changes on a slope for a much more stable ride Go the distance The components of this Hoverboard have been made to deliver the most power of any comparable personal electric vehicle, enabling it to travel 12 miles before needing a charge While we’re all still waiting for the world’s first real hoverboard – damn you Back to the Future for tempting us – the Hoverboard is the closest thing to get you hovering in the air for some time to come. Sure it doesn’t look like the most stable of products, but the single wheel uses a…

ETA May ’16 | Country of origin Spain | Funding achieved €348,018 • bit.ly/kickasskickstarter23 Share with others Anything created with Oval can be sent to either your smartphone or an editing program for further work or to be shared Experiment with layers Play around with layered sounds to add depth to any tracks you create Add your sound Customisable sensors enable the Oval to be completely revamped every day, week, month or year What if you could play the traditionally acoustic-sounding handpan as an electrical instrument? Well, now it’s possible, thanks to the Oval. Designed to take any handpan novice and turn them into a master musician, the Oval has been lined with different sensors that respond to the user’s touch when hit. As notes are played, it’s possible to…

ETA May ’16 | Country of origin UK | Funding achieved £22,100 • bit.ly/kickasskickstarter32 Low latency The VRGO provides a low latency connection to any PC or console, meaning your actions on the chair will be reciprocated at the exact same time on your display What better way to improve your VR experience than by getting your bum in on the action? The VRGO is a 360-degree directional chair that enables you to tilt and spin, with your actions appearing within the game you’re playing. It partners with most VR headsets and its central button is a one-stop shop for connecting to your PC or games console. For those worrying about constantly falling out as you turn, put those fears to one side as the VRGO has a weighted self-righting…

ETA Feb ’16 | Country of origin USA | Funding achieved $112,946 • bit.ly/kickasskickstarter47 Are you the kind of person that struggles cooking beans on toast? Well, you need to snap up a SmartHub right away. It’s a single square-foot unit that encompasses an entire kitchen worktop into its small metallic frame. Using programmable options, users can cook meat to their desired taste, while it’s also simple to boil water or other ingredients to an exact temperature. It’s also remarkably fast at performing these tasks, primarily due to the induction burning it uses to get your ingredients up to speed in a matter of seconds rather than minutes.…

ETA May ’16 | Country of origin UK | Funding achieved £48,560 • bit.ly/kickasskickstarter6 Learn, create and develop Thanks to the great simplicity of Raspberry Pi, Tingbot offers an easy way to get started with using code and developing apps. Can you come up with the next big breakaway app? The Raspberry Pi has been one of the biggest advancements in computing so far this century and while it’s fantastic on its own, Tingbot has taken it to the next level. The tiny device is perfect for anyone who wants to get truly creative with the Raspberry Pi, enabling users to draw, design graphics, make apps and program robots. The choice of things you can do with Tingbot are so vast that we couldn’t possibly list them all here, but…

Tweet about it! The tweeter speaker that sits between the mid-range speakers is there to make sure you hear the treble (or higher pitched) sounds from all of your collective media The best of both worlds These two mid-range drivers are powered by digital amplifiers with Hi-Fi analogue crossover – meaning you get the benefits of both analogue and digital sound In touch with modernity The bar is operated with a backlit touch-control panel. It dims itself automatically so it doesn’t distract you when your living room is in cinema mode Sound clouds This wool is referred to as acoustic wadding and it reduces air movement in the speaker and stops vibrations between panels, consequently producing higher quality sound and reducing cross-speak Streamlined pairing of sound You don’t want to…

£50 | $76 lakeland.co.uk My Kitchen Food Dehydrator Dehydrate your own healthy fruit and vegetable snacks with gentle, evenly drawn heat that doesn’t cook as it extracts. Great for preparing easily stored snacks. Almost 50 per cent of the seven million tonnes of food the UK throws away every year comes from our homes – not restaurants or public institutions. A lot of the gadgets we have featured over these pages are fancy, sure, and they let you experiment with lots of mad-scientist methods of food preparation, but when it comes to practicality, food preservation gadgets are unbeatable. Food dehydration is the process of drying food out and inhibiting the growth of bacteria, yeast and mould by removing water. Humans have been dehydrating food since 12,000BC – usually via evaporation…

£70 | $100 polyscienceculinary.com PolyScience Smoking Gun Cool looking and easy to use, the Smoking Gun is a great shortcut for foodies that love the taste of smoked food, but hate the hassle of having to use outdoor smokers. The smoking barrel You can either use the standard snub-nosed barrel provided or you can opt for the hose – we found the latter easier for delivering much more precise blasts of smoke to sealed containers Chamber of secret spices This chamber can be filled with a couple of pinches of whatever you desire – woodchips are better for taste, but herbs work brilliantly for aroma! The result Hitting your food with the gun elicits a unique kind of joy – you’re basically shooting flavour at a dish you have made.…

Okay, so this doesn’t actually levitate, but it could do a pretty good job of convincing you that it does, as its advanced sensors let you control its height with just a wave of the hand. Hold your hand above the sensor at your desired table height and it will rise up (of its own accord – no lifting required) just that far. Telescopic legs with motors move the surface up and the table gives a jazzy LED light show while it’s at it. It also comes equipped with two USB charging points and two AC power points. It truly is the ultimate working desk. £1,650 | $2,480 tableair.com TableAir…

It’s generally agreed that games are best played on headsets, rather than on speaker setups. Why? Because there’s a lot of detail in the audio design of games that gets lost when the sound is being pumped out of five different speakers scattered all over the room. For a long time, cans were the ear-warmers of choice for gamers, but recently, there’s been a new contender to this sonic throne. SURROUND-SOUND GAMING Traditional surround-sound setups are obsolete. With the rise of sound bars and the sharp decrease in price (and rise in quality) of headsets, there’s really little need to clutter your living room floor with wires and complicated setups anymore. Looking for an easy solution to get fantastic audio? Then give one of these a try. TRITTON Katana HD…

Tracking speed Thanks to the Pixart PMW3310 sensor inside, this mouse will be able to track movement up to 3.3m/sec On-board storage Each of those sensors will also have memory for up to nine different profiles, letting you save your custom key binds Versatile design Most mice break easily, but not this one, as both left and right buttons will see you through 20 million clicks, each! Change wheels On top of the analogue strafe support, you’ll also be able to switch in between three different size, metal and rubber wheels, for comfort Unbeatable precision As the scroll wheel mechanism is in sync from the optical encoder, it can emulate an analogue stick, instead of clicking in Highly customisable Not only can you interchange the scroll wheel, but you’ll also…

A virtual reality headset that caters for those with glasses Get a crisper picture Try adjusting the wheel on the top of the headset. This will move the lenses further away from each other and help you to get a crisper picture Block out ambient light Adjust your phone so that the screen blocks out all other light when you are wearing the headset. Pads on the back of the clip protect your phone from damage Short cone The rubber cones come in different sizes for different eye requirements. If you are short sighted, you should be using the shortest cones to hold the lenses in place Change the eye-lens distance If you’re having trouble seeing your phone’s screen clearly, try moving the lenses further away from your eyes by…

Take pictures with the PiCamera The PiCamera is the official camera board for your Raspberry Pi. This project shows you how to get set up with the camera and take pictures. Further tutorials cover slow-motion video capture and stop animation. Pi Camera | bit.ly/1keHTEr A social media glove The Pi-Glove is the project name to make a wearable social-media glove. You can take a picture, tweet it and then listen to your favourite music, all from a touch of a button that is literally at your fingertips. The Pi Glove | bit.ly/1Ol8Kg2 Build and host your own Radio A simple, but effective hack from Make. This hack explains how you can easily turn your Raspberry Pi into a mobile FM transmitter in order to share all your favourite tunes with…

Strap it on your ankle or your wrist The silicone strap will stretch to fit your ankle as well as your wrist, just don’t over stretch it – but you might want to put a sock on if it’s on your leg PUSH-BUTTON TRAINING AND SIMPLE SYNCING Light on your feet It is basically like wearing a plaster on your wrist – it’s just that light! The size, shape and strap make it a barely noticeable addition to your getup Push to operate The Moov Now will track your movements in the background, but for specific activities you will need to select a particular function in the app and push the device to activate it Red means go The Moov Now doesn’t offer any time keeping or alarms, but it…

“As well as backing up files, its also a great way of transferring photos from your camera” With ever-improving cameras, bigger screens to watch videos, and better speakers for listening to music, we’re storing more on our phones than ever before. However, it seems phone manufacturers can’t (or won’t) keep up with the demand for physical memory, instead politely pushing us towards their cloud storage accounts while muttering about subscription fees under their breath. Apple deserves to be singled out for this. After being criticized for years for only offering limited physical storage, they launched a 128GB version of the iPhone 6 – only to axe this option a year later when they announced the iPhone 6S. But there is an alternative to paying monthly for iCloud, which Android users…

The Moon is an object with which we are all familiar; however, there are particular ways to observe it that will make your time spent looking at it more worthwhile. Everyone has noticed the phases that the Moon passes through – from the thinnest sliver to a bright full Moon. The starting point for the cycle of the Moon’s phases is when it’s new, that is to say when we can’t see it as it’s between us and the Sun. As it moves along its orbit around the Earth the phase increases as the sunlight illuminates more and more of the disc and it can be seen later in the evening. Once the Moon is one day old it is easier to see and over the next few evenings you’ll…

BEAT THE CLOUDS Astronomers have a mortal enemy that comes from above to devour the stars: the clouds. To beat this enemy, the canny stargazer must employ meteorological knowledge on par with Michael Fish to gain the upper hand. To that end, telescope giants Celestron have produced this weather station to alert astronomers as to when rain, wind, ice or cloud are going to threaten their observations. Condensation Even under a clear night sky, your telescope can still become fogged up thanks to clingy drops of dew that stick to telescope mirrors and lenses alike. The Celestron station measures the saturation in the air to provide early warning of whether you’ll need to break out your scope’s dew heater Avoid the clouds Stepping outside to survey the conditions, you see…

“What’s so different about the NutriBullet anyway?” £75 | $70 buynutribullet.co.uk NutriBullet Stylish and powerful, the NutriBullet is the perfect kitchen item for all smoothie lovers out there. It completely breaks down ingredients to make a pulp-free and very healthy drink. Two types of blades The NutriBullet pack comes with two varied blade attachments: the Extractor blade and the Milling blade The cup of life You fill up this cup with whatever it is you want to blend – this could be fruit, nuts or you can use the NutriBullet to crush ice too One blender, two cups You also get two small cups with your pack to empty your smoothie into, both hold up to 380ml of drink Here’s where the magic happens Inside the base of the juicer,…

TIME FOR THE SCIENCE BIT So how does it really work? Are you actually looking at a hologram? Well, not quite. The angle of the clear plastic provides just enough reflection to bounce the light from the image displayed on the phone’s screen back onto the plastic and because the plastic is clear, it gives the illusion that the image is floating in midair. As you have created something with four sides, the image can be viewed from practically any angle, which helps to increase the realism of the illusion. A quick fix We used tape to stick the sides together, but clear tape would obviously look better – or, if you have a steady hand, you could try gluing the sides Switch off the lights Although we have a…

Portable printer They laptop even had a built-in dot-matrix printer for on-the-go printing on reciept-sized reels of paper Simple display The LCD screen displayed just four lines of 20 characters, but could still be used for word processing Tape deck This early laptop had a built-in microcassette drive, though you could also attach an external floppy drive Recharging woes One of the problems faced by early adopters of the HX-20 is a malfunctioning battery pack that refused to charge properly Modular design An expansion port on the right-hand side of the device allowed users to physically add more ROM and RAM The Epson HX-20 began a new trend of powerful, A4-sized personal computers and is widely regarded as the world’s first laptop. It certainly wasn’t a looker, but still revolutionary…

ETA Feb ’16 | Country of origin Malaysia | Funding achieved $15,918 bit.ly/kickasskickstarter9 While creating a robot is one thing, being able to customise its look is another. The Rero is by and large your own portable Transformer that can be tinkered with depending on the style of robot you want. For this to work, Rero is made out of sliding blocks that can be disassembled and rebuilt to interconnect into any robot shape you deem necessary. Got a wacky imagination? Then the Rero will almost definitely be for you.…

ETA Apr ’16 | Country of origin Canada | Funding achieved $1,518,156 • bit.ly/kickasskickstarter24 Stay in sync A built-in ARM processing core keeps the entire system working in perfect harmony, producing a completely seamless audio experience Multiroom sound Having the power of two Hi-Fi speakers in one package is great, but best of all, the small stature of The Core means it’s highly portable The quest for the perfect speaker is arduous and long, but maybe, just maybe, we have the solution you need. Don’t be put off by the portable size of The Core, as what’s hidden within has managed to add the power of two full-sized speakers into one little product, with particular attention being held to how it deals with bass and treble levels in all songs.…

ETA Mar ’16 | Country of origin Japan | Funding achieved $74,952 • bit.ly/kickasskickstarter33 Synchronise your hand There’s little to no latency between the movement with your hands and how they appear in game. It means you’ll be guaranteed a superb gaming experience Next level VR Motion sensors line the whole of the padded wristband to offer a very detailed tracking system. It’s powerful enough to track even the slightest of motions UnlimitedHand brings the concept of virtual reality and applies it to your hands and wrists – as strange as that sounds. The pad used to power the device is placed over your wrist and includes a motion tracker that helps reciprocate your movements into a game, while muscle sensors are able to display how powerful your movements are.…

ETA May ’16 | Country of origin UK | Funding achieved $1,613,874 • bit.ly/kickasskickstarter41 Link with Apple Pay One of the key modules included with Blocks acts as an NFC reader, enabling you to use it as a payment source. All you need to do is link it with Apple Pay or Android Pay Connect and go The various modules of Blocks connect by simply pushing them together. It enables seamless swapping and reconnecting when you need it Smartwatches are arguably the biggest advancement in mobile tech for a number of years – and rightly so, they’re awesome! But until now, we’ve been fairly constrained to the options out there and some are just way too expensive for what they are. However, what if we told you that you could…

ETA Feb ’16 | Country of origin USA | Funding achieved $1,110,820 • bit.ly/kickasskickstarter1 Connect and go The easiest way to connect the Pulse to your DSLR is via USB. It offers the quickest set-up process to tether it to your smartphone There’s not a whole lost of difference between our smartphone cameras and many high-end DSLRs on the market – the technology is just that good these days. However, the Pulse is an amazing new device that looks to bridge the two together. Essentially, it’s an extra attachment that plugs directly into your DSLR, with full wireless tethering available to your smartphone. Users are able to view whatever is in frame of the DSLR on their smartphone and take a snap or two. No wires, no complicated set-up process…

£44 | $65 ifixit.com iFixit Pro Tech Toolkit To take apart this speaker we used the iFixit Pro Tech Toolkit, which contains everything need for poking, prodding, lifting and unscrewing. Use it to remove and replace parts or simply examine your beloved gadgets. Tools of the breakdown Included: 1 64-bit driver kit 2 Anti-static wrist strap 3 Small suction cup 4 Three opening tools 5 Six opening picks 6 Reverse tweezers 7 Angled tweezers 8 Blunt tweezers 9 Two spudgers 10 Metal spudgers 11 Jimmy 12 Magnetic pad 13 Tool roll…

Drop the spheres You will want to be gentle with the spheres – they need to rest in the bath for three minutes once dropped in, as this gives them chance to form a membrane. Wash them in cold water afterwards How to make an alginate solution Mix your sodium alginate solution with water – make sure that you are using 0.5g of sodium for every 100g of water. This will then hold the pearls in place in the bath Make your ingredients The thicker the liquid, the better, usually. Thinner liquids can still be made into little spheres, but you will need to add Xanthan Gum in order to thicken the mixture Get your calcium right Depending on the pH of the ingredients you’re using, you need to add…

£499 | $950 grantsousvide.com Grant Sous Vide A device designed to cook food better than ever before, the sous vide produces an even, thorough finish equivalent to what you’d expect to find in a gourmet restaurant. Season and seal You don’t need to season your dish too heavily since the meat cooks in its own juices, but you do need to make sure your meat is perfectly vacuum sealed. Airtight! Leave it be We cooked beef ribs with the Grant Sous Vide and left them in the water in the stainless-steel insulated tank for an incredible 72 hours! This isn’t a quick method of cooking and this can be a plus or minus, but it has a countdown timer and an alarm to remind you when it’s done See the…

If you want to preserve food for a long time and don’t want to damage the nutritional value of the vitamins and minerals of the ingredients, you will want to freeze-dry them: this method of food preservation can give practically anything a shelf-life of 25 years! Fresh or cooked food is placed in a freeze dryer Water can be added to the dried product, restoring the food to its original condition The food is frozen to between -30 and -50 degrees Fahrenheit, freezing moisture in the food Once frozen, the dryer then creates a vacuum within the chamber The chamber warms and the frozen water evaporates out of the food as ice because of the low atmospheric pressure…

If you prefer to smoke your meat the old-fashioned way, of course there’s an indoor alternative to that too. The Tower Digital Pressure Cooker and Smoker benefits from multifunctionality, but is also a great device if you want to broaden your smoking remit. For example, you can smoke soups with the cooker and despite its size (it rocks an impressive six litre capacity!) you don’t have to fill it up: it’s just as adept at smoking a single fish fillet as it is at smoking a whole side of beef. Better yet, it has the function to keep food warm for 24 hours after smoking! Ideal for preparing big BBQ nights – even in winter. £143 | $119 towerhousewares.co.uk Tower 6L Digital Smoker Pressure Cooker…

Increase space, not your headache It doesn’t matter whether you have an Xbox One or a PS4, hard-drive space is going to be a concern. That’s why you should consider this 1TB external hard drive, to let you expand the storage capacity of your console, without worrying about having to delete games. WD 1TB Portable USB External Hard Drive £57 | $100 | seagate.com Control the console with your voice The PlayStation Eye (pictured) or the Xbox Kinect records you and your movements – ideal for live streaming play sessions. What’s better, is that you control your console with your voice: booting games, streaming services or music just by telling it to. PlayStation 4 Camera / Xbox Kinect £44 | $49 | sony.com £105 | $124 | microsoft.com A TV…

Choose your key switches Corsair lets you (essentially) decide how clicky you want your keys to be. The Cherry MX Reds are really smooth, the MX Blues are clacky and the MX Brown occupy a middle ground that we highly recommend Ergonomical Corsair includes a replaceable wrist rest and two feet stands near the front – in addition to the back two – for extra comfort Coloured keys Nothing is more awesome than a glowing keyboard, right? The K70 has three brightness levels to suit personal preference Programmable keys The K70’s on-board memory remembers what you program without having to mess around with external software, perfect for key-bind heavy gaming When it comes to PC gaming, it doesn’t matter how big your graphics card is or how dope your casing…

Sound meter You’ll probably already be aware if your house is noisy, but the weather station gives you an exact decibel count Temperature and humidity The weather station can give live updates on the temperature and humidity levels in your home, accurate to within 0.3 degrees Celsius (0.54 degrees Fahrenheit) Barometer The outdoor module includes a barometer and uses it to make accurate weather predictions based on changes in the surrounding air pressure CO2 sensor The weather station’s carbon dioxide sensor gives you an instant status report on your indoor pollution levels. Just press the top £139 | $149 netatmo.com Netatmo Weather Station You probably check the weather forecast every day to see what sort of meteorological maelstrom you’re likely to encounter should you venture out into the open, but…

“Suits almost everyone owing to the changeable lens cones” HOMIDO VIRTUAL REALITY HEADSET Homido’s virtual reality is simple and easy to use. It suits almost everyone owing to the changeable lens cones and the ability to work with almost any smartphone. However, compared to pricier VR headsets, the quality isn’t great. Double vision is a regular occurrence with the straightforward lenses, which does you no favours when trying to watch 3D or 360-degree video. But for the money, it’s not too shabby at all. GOOGLE CARDBOARD A low-cost, acessable entry point into VR for just about everyone, Google Cardboard is a casing that’ll house your phone and work with pretty much any model of mobile. The shell itself costs next to nothing – in fact, Google has been giving hundreds…

£500 | $754 pioneer.com Pioneer XDP-100R The Pioneer XDP-100R is the first high-resolution music player from Pioneer that has been built specifically to deliver higher quality sound than its smartphone competitors. Complete control over volume An analogue sound dial lets you directly command the volume of your music with a 161-step wheel. After all, what’s the point of great music if it can only be played at five stages of loud or quiet Android inside Though its not a smartphone, the XPD-100R does run the Android operating system. This means it has access to the Play Store and all the apps you like, from freebies like SoundCloud and YouTube, to paid services like Spotify and Tidal Protect your inputs A machine is only as good as its weakest part, right?…

“Potentially revolutionises business forever” £24 | $30 (20 cards) moo.com Moo Business Cards+ An 8 x 5cm business card that can redirect a phone to any website address you choose, the Moo Business Card+ is the ultimate tool to share all your professional contact details. The chances are that if you’ve ever recieved a business card, you will probably lose it before you have had chance to save the all-important contact details that are on it to your phone. Worse still, you know that even if you’ve spent a fortune on eye-catching cards and spent ages glad-handing clients, they’ve probably lost your card just as quickly. Enter the Moo Business Cards+. A mouthful to say, but instantly useful, these high-tech cards contain an NFC chip that is able to send…

£100 | $115 shop.goifetch.com iFetch A mains and battery-operated ball-throwing device for small to medium-sized dogs. With variable distance settings, it’s ideal for dogs of all ages though it may take awhile for your dog to like it. Durable design The iFetch is made of a durable plastic, so it should be able to withstand a mild chewing. It’s cutesy and also non-threatening, though its mechanical whirrings scared our canine reviewer Play for hours At home you can plug the iFetch into the mains for endless fun, but if you haven’t got the room indoors you can also power it using six C-cell batteries and use it in the garden. On a fully charged set of batteries, the iFetch can fire continiously for 30 hours! Set the distance The iFetch…

Getting your first telescope is a bit like buying your first car – all of a sudden it gives you freedom to roam, explore and see new sights. Just like the engine is the crucial part of the car, your telescope’s aperture will decide how far you travel into the universe. The bigger the aperture, the more light your telescope can gather and the fainter the object you can see. At a minimum you’re going to want a four-inch/100mm aperture telescope. Don’t worry too much about the magnification – it’s like the spoiler on your car, it helps you go faster, but you can only go as fast as the engine will let you and it’s the same with telescopes. Read on to discover the best telescope for you and…

Decorating a room is easy, right? Well yes, admittedly it’s not rocket science, but there’s definitely a right way and a wrong way to do it. The last thing you want after spending weeks – or maybe months – pouring over those glossy home-decoration magazines for inspiration, tentatively dabbing tester pots on the wall and arguing over colours until you finally get your own way is to make a silly mistake. For instance, this writer once dripped scarlet red paint on the freshly laid cream carpet they foolishly had installed first. To help you avoid a similar decorating disaster, here are five simple techniques to get you started, as well as pro tips for choosing the right brush for the job. Sounds too much like hard work? Check out our…

One of the standout features with Windows 10 was the new Phone Companion app, which basically makes the job of syncing your phone to your PC a breeze – regardless of the device you own. Once you have signed in with a Microsoft account then you can easily link your phone’s apps and contents with your PC, using OneDrive as a cloud-storage system to transfer files from your computer to your phone and, obviously, vice versa. There are obviously pros and cons to the new system, but Microsoft are making a big deal of the fact that Windows 10 has created a user-friendly way to connect your phone to your computer with the minimum amount of fuss. And, in credit to them, that’s pretty much what they’ve done, but how…

Single-shielded propeller The propeller is shielded by a grid to protect users and passers-by. Stability is improved by four control vanes found inside the ‘duct-fan’ casing On me head The whole thing weighs just 450g and is 23cm diameter, which is the same size and weight as a football Dual-core computer Fleye’s brain sits on top of the drone in a case that doesn’t have any sharp edges. It houses a dual-core ARM A9, 512MB computer running Linux, as well as a 5MP 1080p HD camera and Wi-Fi Sensitive sensors The bottom part of the drone has a sonar and bottom camera. There is also a three-axis accelerometer, magnetometer, gyro, altimeter, optical flow and GPS Flying at high speeds and at low heights, covered in spinning blades and often piloted…

ETA Jul ’16 | Country of origin USA | Funding achieved $616,432 • bit.ly/kickasskickstarter7 If you’re an avid fan of the Terminator series or any number of associated sci-fi flicks, then the chances are that you may have a fairly set opinion that any humanoid resembling droids are slightly terrifying. While Buddy does sport that robotic E.T look, spending just a few minutes with this robot will soon make you realise it is actually the ultimate family robot. For adults, Buddy can be your own personal assistant, giving you reminders of upcoming tasks, using its programmable memory to offer recipes and even use its built-in camera to offer night-time surveillance of your home. It also acts as a virtual nanny for your children; with things like playing games, telling stories…

ETA Sep ’16 | Country of origin Croatia | Funding achieved $33,539 bit.ly/kickasskickstarter10 Competing in Robot Wars will always be a farfetched dream, but STEMI gives you the entry point you need to create your own robot from scratch. Sure, it won’t match some of the crazy robots coming from Japan, but creating this hexapod is no easy feat – luckily there are instructions on hand to help you out. However, it doesn’t stop there, first you’ll need to program your own robot: make it walk, emit sounds and even give it emotions!…

ETA Sep ‘16 | Country of origin USA | Funding achieved $325,952 • bit.ly/kickasskickstarter19 Safety first The PhoneDrone casing has extra protection to help keep your smartphone cushioned while in the air and keep vibrations caused by the motor feedback to the absolute minimum Drones are pretty cool, but do you know what’s even better? Turning your smartphone into a drone. PhoneDrone does exactly that, turning any iPhone or Android phone into a fully autonomous aerial camera. The technology behind it has taken advantage of the built-in sensors, processors and wireless capability of any smartphone, then reconfigured them to make it possible to fly and control your smartphone in the air. It’s much cheaper than buying an out of the box drone and let’s face it, watching your smartphone take…

ETA Apr ’16 | Country of origin UK | Funding achieved £116,930 • bit.ly/kickasskickstarter31 4K support Want to watch the latest films in the best quality out there? AuraVisor supports full 4K video at 60fps and can even upscale 2D films into 3D Built-in battery Within the top of the AuraVisor is a built-in Lithium Ion battery that can power your AuraVisor for around five hours before needing a charge All in one There are no wires or cables needed to power the AuraVisor, as it offers a completely wireless experience. You also don’t need to tether it to a computer or smartphone Thanks to the prominence of Oculus Rift, the desire for VR headsets has never been greater – enter the AuraVisor. However, instead of just immersing yourself in…

ETA May ’16 | Country of origin USA | Funding achieved $23,026 • bit.ly/kickasskickstarter39 Breathability The back of the shirt is coated in a vented mesh that enables your skin to breathe and prevent any moisture from building up Fitness gadgets are plentiful, but the same can’t really be said about the clothes you wear. If you want to achieve your fitness goals, wearing any old shirt won’t do the job, instead you’ll want to check out the Hydration Shirt. The shirt targets the areas of your body where blood flows close to your skin and uses cooling inserts that can absorb the heat from your body and keep it nice and cool. The benefits of this in the long run are that it’ll help prevent injuries and keep you…

ETA April ’16 | Country of origin USA | Funding achieved $1,403,359 • bit.ly/kickasskickstarter46 01 Add your ingredients Insert your pack of ingredients into the centre of the Pico unit, before topping it up with the required amount of water. 02 Personalise it Use the onboard LCD screen to customise the taste and style of your beer. At this point you’ll also want to confirm the brewing temperature. 03 Let it brew Brewing takes time, so you’ll need to be patient. Occupy yourself for a couple of hours before coming back to the smell of a crisp lager. 04 Ferment it Don’t worry, you’re so close to tasting your creation. Fasten up the keg and let the beer ferment overnight. The next day you can enjoy a tipple or two.…

£500 | $760 orbitsound.com Orbitsound A70 airSoundbar Compact, powerful and impressively connectable, the A70 airSoundbar is a great all-round soundbar, but perhaps shouldn’t be used for playing music. Modern televisions look great, don’t they? That ultra-thin aesthetic that’s become so popular means they take up practically no room and that sharp OLED/plasma image makes chilling and watching Netflix or your favourite Blu-Ray a treat. Unfortunately, all that work that’s gone into making TVs so thin means they shed some pretty vital parts, including decent speakers. Connecting to a sound system of some kind these days is the norm, but – to make things complicated – different houses or flats are going to want different setups. There are three main divisions: soundbars, surround-sound systems and home-cinema systems. So what’s the difference?…

£30 | $50 moleculargastronomy.com Cuisine R-Evolution A kit containing a mix of chemicals and clever apparatus that lets you really play with your food and discover inventive ways of presenting your dishes. The pipettes Used to dispense droplets in chemical baths and deliver sodium alginate solution steadily and evenly, pipettes make sure each sphere retains its integrity The silicon mould The mould mat is designed to make it easy to pull off the reverse-frozen spherification process – something that’s a lot more difficult to do without the dedicated kit The measuring spoon Small scale and perfect for getting those precise measurements just right, this spoon might seem simple, but don’t take it for granted The syringe You can use this syringe to inject marinades into meats before roasting or deep…

ACIDIC 3 energy drinks, soda 4 pork, pasta, cheese, beer, wine, chocolate, vinegar 5 purified water, coffee, beef, wheat, nuts NEUTRAL 6 fruit juices, eggs, fish, tea, spinach, coconut, oats tap water, sea water ALKALINE 8 apples, tomatoes, corn, mushrooms, pineapple, cherry, banana, apricot 9 avocado, sweet potato, pear, grapes, melon, mango, beetroot 10 broccoli, carrot, asparagus, kale, onion, lemon, lime…

FoodSaver FFS002 You’ll need a product similar to this in order to seal your food in polyethylene before it can be submerged – vacuum sealing is essential for the food to be effectively cooked. £75 | $113 | foodsaver.co.uk Burton Sous Vide Water Bath Starter Kit A starter kit that introduces you to everything you need to know, this machine enables you to cook multiple dishes at once – ideal for personal and commercial use alike. £349 | $526 | burtonsousvide.co.uk Sansaire Sous Vide You can always go with the skinnier, smaller and portable sous vide by Sansaire (this is the machine that prepared all the pictures in the Perfect steak boxout). You can fit it in any deep dish you want and turn even a crock pot into a…

01 Watch your toast as it cooks The word’s first transparent toaster, the Magimix Vision lets you monitor your toast while it cooks, enabling you to make sure that you never over or under cook your bread again. It has extra-wide slots too, which makes it perfect for all manner of sourdoughs, buns or pastries for every morning dish. Magimix Vision Toaster £145 | $300 magimix.uk Coffee just got better A reimagining of the traditional coffee brewer, the Next Syphon has had its upper chamber redesigned to channel extracted coffee more evenly, whilst the lower chamber’s design has been reviewed for quicker heating. The brewer matures coffee tastes really well (if you don’t mind open flames). Hario Next Syphon 5 Cup Coffee Brewer £120 | $139 hario.co.uk 03 Never over…

Stick it to anything With a powerful magnet and a rechargable battery, this speaker is highly portable and you can attach it to pretty much anything metal Loud speaker This Bluetooth speaker also has a built-in mic, so you can pair it with your phone for hands-free calls We have floating light, so of course the next logical step is levitating sound. Floating speakers are not particularly new, with others like the OM/ONE gracing the market with varying degrees of success, but the Helium Levitate is one of the most affordable options. It uses magnetic levitation technology just like the Flyte, but with different effects. The base is a wireless charging point and the magnets in the three-watt Bluetooth speaker make sure it floats. However, one of the best things…

Back in the day, you could just set up a CRT monitor with your Master System or your Nintendo 64 and be done with it – nowadays, it’s all a bit more complex. Do you go for a projector that’ll let you play on huge surface areas or do you opt for an LED for that deep, satisfying colour? Do you invest in a multipurpose monitor or splash out on an OLED curved screen that really sucks you into the gaming world? OLEDS THE ULTIMATE WAY TO GAME If you can afford it, OLED is absolutely the way you want to be playing your games. Thanks to its self-illuminating pixels – as opposed to using a backlight like in an LED TV – the OLED set will deliver the deepest…

Rapid refresh This is ready for anything with a 144Hz refresh rate and super fast 4ms response time; there’s no motion blur to be found Nvidia G-SYNC Do you own an Nvidia graphics card? Good news, this monitor supports G-Sync, which synchronises the monitor’s refresh rate to the GPU render rate providing the smoothest and fastest gaming experience imaginable Get connected This monitor is equipped with five super-fast USB 3.0 ports, providing enough room to connect all of your devices Beautiful screen This 27-inch (2560 by 1440) Quad HD screen will deliver stunning, high-quality images, all in widescreen too Buying a monitor can be tricky business. While you would usually have to make a decision between an excellent refresh rate or picture quality, this is no longer a concern thanks…

£29 | $34 flic.io Flic: The Wireless Smart Button The Flic is a tiny wireless button that you can program to automate an almost endless list of everyday tasks in your home when paired with your smartphone. Automation is going to be huge news in 2016. It has already become part of your home, whether that be a Nest thermostat, a WeMo plug socket or a Philips Hue light bulb and Apple’s HomeKit feature will take this technology to the masses. One of our favourite automation services is IFTTT, an app that lets you build recipes to automate tasks and the Flic: The Wireless Smart Button is essentially its hardware version. The tiny magnetic button can be programmed to control various functions when paired with either your iPhone or Android…

Mini HDMI port The board boasts a mini HDMI port to connect your existing TV or monitor as a display, providing digital sound and 1080p video playback Micro USB A single micro USB port enables you to connect a keyboard to the Pi or a USB hub to power, say, a mouse and a keyboard. Or add a Wi-Fi dongle and connect to your Pi directly from your laptop (this does require an additional USB to micro USB cable) Single-core processor The single-core processor running at 700MHz (1GHz overclocked) and 512MB RAM combination is fast enough to run a range of open-source software including Open Office (a package similar to MS Office), Minecraft, Python, Sonic Pi, a web browser, email client and much more Pocket change price It would not…

£80| $88 gporetro.com GPO Attaché A semi-portable record player that can be carried around like a suitcase with built-in hardware that can let you transfer all of your great vinyls to digital MP3 files via a USB stick. PRESSING THE COMPETITION You might think it odd that we’re writing about vinyl in a magazine dedicated to hot new tech, but the format is big business – the sales of vinyl records were more lucrative for record labels in the first half of 2015 than streaming revenue from YouTube, Vevo, SoundCloud and the ad-supported version of Spotify. Not so portable? Despite its transportable presentation, the turntable can only be powered by a mains connection – it’s quite an oversight that you can’t use batteries Turn it up to 11! The built-in…

Deep sky objects The large light-collecting area of the Dobsonian is best for observing deep-sky objects, but it has no computerised components so you won’t be able to take images Astrophotography This gorgeous glass telescope is best used to see small, faint objects outside the Solar System that other telescopes simply won’t be able to see Planetary photography For images of planets in the Solar System and other objects like the Moon this is a good telescope to use, especially as focusing is a breeze with the dual-speed focuser Versatility While there’s a bit of a steep learning curve getting this one up to speed, once you get it going you‘ll be viewing stars and planets with ease Entry Level If you’re looking for an entry-level telescope that’ll provide you…

01 Align your finderscope Make sure the finderscope on your telescope is aligned with the main scope. This will help you to find the Moon more easily in the eyepiece and also zero in on all the interesting parts of the surface. 02 Improve your disc viewing Use a low-power eyepiece to start with for your observations. This will help you see the whole disc and orientate yourself with the view. You can increase the magnification later. 03 Reduce glare A Moon filter is really helpful to dim down the brightness of the Moon, especially when it is nearly full. This is a grey (neutral density) filter that will screw snugly into your telescope’s small eyepiece. 04 Use your motor drive If your telescope has a motor drive, make sure…