In an attempt to battle “noodle harassment”, a Japanese company created a smart fork that can cancel out a user’s noodle-slurping noises.

Any ramen connoisseur will tell you that proper Japanese ramen etiquette entails slurping your noodles while you eat them, as doing so allows for aeration and full flavor development. This practice, however, can be
disturbing for Westerners and is officially referred to as “noodle harassment”, or “noo-hara” in Japan. The Japanese, however, have no intention of giving up this much loved cultural practice, and so an impasse has been reached. Enter Nissin, the 69-year-old Japanese company that invented instant noodles, and their revolutionary, albeit cumbersome, slurp canceling gadget the Otohiko fork.

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The Pause Pod has been mocked on social media as a really expensive children’s tent for adults, but its inventors claim it is actually a portable “private pop-up space free from stressful moments”.

Inspired by the blanket forts that most of us made as children, the Pause Pod is designed to offer user an escape from the pressure of modern life, anytime, anywhere. Whether you’re looking to take a quick nap, read a chapter of your favorite book, watch the latest episode of Game of Thrones or just meditate, at the office, at home or even on the street, all you have to do is take out your portable Pause Pod, step inside and take a break from the outside world.

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Alarmed by how many cigarette butts littered the parks of Amsterdam, two Dutch designers came up with an unusual plan to train crows to pick up the butts and trade them for tasty rewards.

Industrial designers Ruben van der Vleuten and Bob Spikman originally considered using robots to clean the streets of cigarette butts, but they presented a series of difficulties, particularly the complicated programming required to have them vacuuming the buts out of every nook and cranny while trying to avoid bicycles and passers-by. So they turned their attention to one of the most abundant resources of urban areas – birds. Pigeons were the first ones they considered, because they can be found in virtually every city in the world, but a quick search revealed that they aren’t really known for their intelligence, so training them would have been very hard. But the two designers soon found a bird that was both very common around human settlements and much, much smarter – the crow.

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If you sometimes feel the need to stroke a pet, but don’t actually want the responsibilities that come with owning a pet, this tail-wagging robot pillow is probably just what you’ve been waiting for.

Developed by Japanese company Yukai Engineering Co, Qoobo is a two-pound robotic pillow that sits on your lap and wags its fluffy tail when you pet it. That’s all it does, but then again, that’s all the interaction some people want. Whether they are allergic to cats and dogs, live in an apartment that doesn’t allow real pets, or just hate things like meowing, barking and having their furniture scratched, some people just want to stroke their pet and see them wagging their tail. And that’s where Qoobo comes in.

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Fall is here and so is the crisp sweater weather. This year, however, tree leaves won’t be the only thing changing color as it gets colder, thanks to this line of innovative thermo-sensitive sweaters from Stone Island.   Stone Island’s “Ice Knit” sweater made out of color changing yarn.

Italian high-end men’s clothing brand Stone Island is known for experimenting with unconventional fabric treatments and coming up with all kinds of impressive innovations. For their Spring 2017 collection, they introduced something called “hand corrosion technique” that allowed garments to be faded by hand, using a special corrosion paste, and for autumn, they recently unveiled a line of thermo-sensitive sweaters that change color depending on the air temperature.

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The new Apple Watch may have better fitness tracking technology and spunkier bands, but can it regulate your body temperature? I don’t think so, but the new Aircon Watch  – the world’s first personal A/C watch – claims it can.

Using “ClimaCon” technology, the Aircon Watch gives off an influx of hot or cold directly into the wearer’s wrist, which will then cause the whole body to regulate its temperature, delivering a cool or warm sensation regardless of the climate they are in at the time. Its inventors claim that humans can “change the signal that our nervous system sends to the brain by using the Aircon Watch to generate pulses of heat or cold. By this method we can trick our brain into thinking that we are cooler or warmer than we really are.”

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Sexual assault against women is a really big problem in India, as hardly a day goes by without a case being reported in the media. Until authorities decide to take it seriously and adopt a proactive approach, a 18-year-old teenage boy is trying to help women fight back against aggressors by literally giving them the shock of their life.  

After witnessing multiple instances of disturbing and life-changing acts of violence against women, as well as attending many protests with his mother demanding change, Siddharth Mandala, a student from Telengana, India decided he needed to do something himself. He spent years working on the “ElectroShoe”, a unique type of anti-sexual assault footwear that electrocutes attackers by inflicting 0.1 Ampere of electricity while also alerting police and family members that the wearer is in danger. All the wearer has to do is kick the perpetrator.

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When hiking in North Carolina, everyone knows that you must ward yourself against the mosquitos and other southern bugs that plague the area, but it turns out that your bug repellent might actually be attracting a much larger critter? At least if you’re using the “Bigfoot Juice” created by North Carolina mom Allie Megan Webb, who claims it can attract the elusive Bigfoot while also keeping bugs at bay.

While experimenting with scents for her homemade bug-repellent, Webb discovered that there was a direct correlation between the use of her bug spray and Bigfoot sightings reported by the research group Bigfoot 911. This prompted her to make the conclusion that she had, in fact, cultivated the perfect scent to attract the elusive, some may claim mythical, creature commonly known as Bigfoot.

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New York-based startup Entrupy has invented a small, portable scanner that rich people can use to check the authenticity of designer bags in mere seconds.

According to data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the global counterfeit industry is worth around 460 billion dollars, a big chunk of which involves counterfeit luxury goods from brands like Louis Vuitton or Channel. The thing about such fakes is that they are often so well-made that the human eye simply cannot tell them apart from originals. That’s where technology come in. Using a high-quality scanner and deep-learning technology, the brilliant minds behind Entrupy, have come up with a device that allows anyone to check the authenticity of luxury products, anytime, anywhere.

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A Japanese company has created an adorable robot dog that can tell you how bad your feet smell, by using a powerful sensor embedded in its nose. If your feet don’t have bad odor, “Hana-chan” will happily wag its tale, if it detects moderately smelly feet, it will start to bark, and if they really stink, it will just fall over like the smell caused it to faint.

Foot odor is a big deal in Japan, where it is customary for people to take off their shoes whenever they enter someone’s home. In fact, subjecting others to foul bodily odors can even be considered harassment in Japan, so it’s no wonder that some of the most brilliant minds in the country’s tech industry have been dedicating their talent to tackling this issue. Panasonic recently unveiled a high-tech deodorizing coat hanger, Konika Minolta developed a pocket-size device that monitors body odors and alerts the user when they start to smell, and, last year, gadget maker Thanko started selling clip-on armpit fans designed to keep people’s armpits nice and dry. Now, we have Hana-chan, a robot dog capable of telling people if their feet stink.

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Ever since Nestlé introduced white chocolate, 80 years ago, chocolate has been available in only three main varieties – dark, milk and white. Well, it’s apparently time to add a fourth type to the list – Ruby pink chocolate.

Zurich-based Barry Callebaut, the world’s largest based cocoa processor, has apparently spent the last 13 years trying to produce naturally pink chocolate out of ruby cocoa beans. This cocoa variety grows in different parts of the world, including Ecuador, Brazil, and the Ivory Coast, but the Swiss company is the first to actually convert it into pink chocolate, through a sophisticated process.

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Sisun Lee used to work as an engineer at Elon Musk’s Tesla Motors. Many would call that a dream job, and he loved it, but he decided to walk away so he could focus on a higher goal – giving the world a hangover cure that works.

Lee, who previously worked as a product manager for Uber and Facebook, says he got the idea for “Morning Recovery”, his science-based hangover cure, about a year ago, after a vacation in his native South Korea. He and his friends spent most of their time partying and getting drunk, but thanks to the traditional anti-hangover drinks his buddies gave him after a wild night on the town, he always woke up feeling great. He was fascinated by their effect, and started looking for similar products as soon as he got back to the United States.

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Japan’s fascination with robotics and all things high-tech is legendary, but did you know thy make robot scarecrows now? Well, Super Robot Wolf is meant to scare a lot more than crows, but still, Japan may be taking their love for technology a bit too far.

When I was growing up, farmers kept birds and other wild animals away from their crops with old fashioned scarecrows. You know, some rags hanging on a cross structure made of sticks with some chimes or small bells for added effect, and that worked ok. But those things couldn’t hold a candle to this Japanese robot scarecrow with the coolest, most over-the-top name imaginable – Super Robot Wolf. They say ii can scare away any wild animal, from deer to bears, and it definitely looks terrifying enough to do it.

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Fidget spinners are everywhere these days, but if you’re looking for ultimate performance, there is nothing like the Saturn Spinner, a marvel of engineering that can spin continuously longer than any other fidget spinner on the market – over 12 minutes.

Dubbed the “Rolls Royce of fidget spinners”, the Saturn Spinner was developed by a subsidiary of NSK, a Japanese precision machining company that specializes in ball bearings for satellites and computer drives. It is designed to resemble a ship’s wheel, with added weights on the outer ring and a light aluminium ball bearing in the center, to increase centrifugal force. It was designed to spin continuously for at least 12 minutes, so each manufactured toy is tested for performance, with those that fail to pass the 12-minute threshold being dismantled, cleaned, reassembled and retested until they can be certified as “compliant”.

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Armenian-based startup Volterman has recently unveiled a smart wallet that takes security to the extreme. It comes with a built-in alarm system, a global GPS tracker, and even a front facing cameras that takes photos of whoever tries to open it, and sends them to the owner.

Wallets almost seem obsolete in this digital age, but the Volterman Smart Wallet is not your average wallet. Apart from the screen, it packs about as much technology as your smartphone, including 512MB of RAM, a built-in camera, power bank, GPS tracker, alarm system, RFID protection and even Wi-FI hotspot capabilities. It may look like a simple leather wallet on the outside, but it’s a whole different beast on the inside.

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