Food Without The Fuss

photo-main (1)Our kitchen has drastically changed over the last 30 years to make our lives easier when preparing meals. Now, there could be a new addition to our existing high tech equipment: a smart microwave/oven that can learn your habits and help you stay fit. It’s called the MAID oven (that stands for Make All Incredible Dishes), and it learns your tastes and habits.

MAID Oven is a Kickstarter project that met its $50,000 goal in just five days. The advanced oven has a list of recipes, and users can upload their own into the database. Once you’re ready to bake, the oven has settings to automatically set the temperature and cooking time for whatever dish you might be whipping up. The coolest feature the device offers is that MAID Oven can act as a pseudo health-conscious dietitian. Depending on your eating and fitness habits (it can sync with your smartphone or smart watch), the oven will make suggestions for meals that factor in your calorie intake and taste preferences. It has access to an unlimited number of recipes from the web so you don’t have to worry.

Another feature of the sophisticated oven is you can control it with your voice. You can actually tell the oven what’s for dinner — it’s got built-in voice recognition. It doesn’t end here. MAID Oven also comes with an accompanying smartphone app. This means you can get push alerts when your food is done cooking, adjust cook time and temperature settings from afar, or remotely activate/deactivate the oven while you’re away from home. Isn’t it magical? Feel free to check out MAID Oven baking pizza, pasta, and even cake in the Kickstarter’s demo video below.

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MAID should be ready to go to market by Thanksgiving 2015. Hopefully you can deactivate the dietary suggestions for the holidays!

What Sparks Our Fire: A useful device with smart features and functionality that could truly make cooking easier, healthier, and more fun.

Will you be making some space in your kitchen for the MAID Oven?

Take a ‘Petfie’

petmatch-app-screensPetMatch is a revolutionary new app that uses Superfish’s patented image recognition technology to help you find adoptable dogs and cats in your area. Simply take a picture of a pet you like, upload it to the app, or use a picture from the PetMatch sample gallery to get started. For instance, if you walk through the park and see an adorable dog that is just the type you always wanted? Take a ‘petfie’.

PetMatch will find you look-a-like pets in your area up for adoption at that exact moment. It can be as accurate as registering details like the shape of an animal’s mouth, the distance between its eyes, coloring and general size and shape. Though, there’s more to the relationship between humans and pets than physical appearance. The app can also help place pets based on personality, character traits and habits.

Superfish is also behind ShopScout, an app that uses the same image recognition algorithm and lets you take pictures of products and find similar ones for sale online (Something worth checking out).

What Sparks Our Fire: An app that takes image recognition a step further.

What is your view on the PetMatch app? Have any of you tried it? Let us know what you think!

The Invisible Umbrella

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If you dream of a world where people use air-powered umbrellas to fight the rain, you can wake up. The future is now. To be honest, the umbrella is one of those gadgets that hasn’t really been updated much in the last 200 years. Sure, technological advancements have allowed them to become easier to handle and more durable, but overall, it’s pretty much the same deal. But a new Kickstarter campaign has launched an idea that changes the umbrella game completely. It is called the Air Umbrella and it makes use of the airflow to form an umbrella without a visible cover.

Put simply, the gadget releases air that pushes the rain away. Currently, there are three sizes of the Air Umbrella available: small, medium and large. You can also fit two people under the Air Umbrella. The air umbrella will be ready to launch by December 2015. Head over to the Air Umbrella Kickstarter page to find out more.

What Sparks Our Fire: Engineers that strive to bring innovation to the most basic objects.

Would you consider investing in an invisible umbrella once it becomes available?

Get On Cloud 9

Screen Shot 2014-11-19 at 4.47.10 PMDo you sometimes wish you could fly? Well, Hong Kong-based designers David Koo and Zheng Yawei developed something close to sitting on cloud 9 with this astonishing concept design. Yes, a couch that floats in the air. The levitating couch uses a magnetic force from the bottom base to stay afloat. And is designed like a cloud for ultra comfort and relaxation. Sadly, this Cloud sofa remains a concept for now, but it looks like something anyone would try out for sure. And if this isn’t magical, we don’t know what is.

What Sparks Our Fire: Though only a concept, the Cloud may be the coolest idea and most aesthetically pleasing couch, ever.

What do you think of Cloud? Would you be willing to relax up in the air like the Mario Bros?

Say Thanks With Facebook

8b1de2b5-343b-4734-b3a0-66048db520a0-bestSizeAvailableWhat is the most important part of your Facebook experience? Your friends, of course. For that matter, Facebook has launched a new ‘Say Thanks’ feature to express your gratitude to friends, family, co-workers and loved ones. Say gracias by creating and sharing an animated slideshow of your shared Facebook history set to the tune of inspirational music. The slideshow gives you the chance to relive past moments with the person you select. You can edit photos and posts those that best represent your friendship. There’s no limit to how many personalized videos you can create and share. So, get moving, it might take you a while to thank all 1000+ of friends. And please don’t forget those bothersome ones who keep inviting you to play FarmVille. The new feature is similar to the year-in review videos Facebook offered at the end of 2013 that we all loved. How apropros, ‘Say Thanks’ came just in time for the Thanksgiving season.

What Sparks Our Fire:  The perfect Facebook feature to celebrate friendships on social media.

Will you be using Say Thanks? Create your personalized video card here.