Tech Wise

A Toast-Dropping Toaster!!!

It so turns out that there's actually a real toast-dropping versus toast-popping machine. The Trapdoor Toaster does exactly what it sounds like it does. It's a 1400W device, with auto-adjusting guide racks so it can do toast, bagels or pop-tart-style food. You simply slide in your food, and when it's done it slips out the bottom, and elegantly onto your plate. Out in US markets now for $79.95 (approx. 5,600 BDT).

Purdue University Breakthrough Could Lead to Low-Cost, Mass-Produced LEDs

The researchers at Purdue University are just full of bright ideas these days, and this time, it was no exception. Thanks to a major breakthrough, they may have overcome a major obstacle for "solid state lighting," which laymen like to call LED (light emitting diode). That obstacle? Cost. LEDs are expensive, mostly because their innards are created on a substrate of sapphire. That means only a few gadgets and luxury cars headlights have benefited from the tech so far. Purdue researchers solved the conundrum with a technique that creates the LEDs on low-cost, metal-coated silicon wafers. This is great news for energy conservation, because while LEDs are much more efficient than their incandescent brethren, they are also 20 times more expensive to produce.

Hi-Tech Shoes For Ladies Have Heel Height Extenders

Thankfully just a concept for now, the Goodie 2 Shoe is an idea in function, and definitely not in form. They're ugly, sure, but they have a neat trick: the heel is adjustable with magnets and hidden hinges, so a 1.5-inch heel suitable for work gets extended to a come-hither 3.5-inch for going out. Other parts can be customized too. This is truly designed for the tech savvy women of today!

Osram Push White LEDS to World-Record Brightness, Super Efficiency

It's an interesting week in the world of LEDs; you read about the ultra-cheap ones, and now Osram have news that they've pushed white LEDs to world-record brightness. By optimising the diode, light converter and the package, their lab test squeezed 500 lumens out of a single LED at 1.4A. That's bright enough for projector tech, and certainly makes the single unit good for car lighting and even interior lights. At a lower, more optimal, current the 1mm-square white LED had an efficiency of 136 lumens/W that makes it about twice as efficient as standard fluorescent lamps and 10 times a normal bulb.

Compiled by Mahdin Mahboob