The Bloomframe Disappearing Balcony is a technically remarkable window that effortlessly transforms into a full balcony.

PSFK caught up with gdgt founder Peter Rojas recently, and he discussed what his new gadget site is all about, and what inspired its unique structure.

Bedol has created a tiny, inexpensive ($16 USD) time piece that runs entirely on water- no cords, batteries, or winding necessary.
How does it work? According to ThinkGeek:

“The internal converter simply extracts electrons from water (or other liquid) molecules and provides a steady stream of electrical current acting as a fuel cell to generate power to the clock.”

Despite it’s size and lack of additional features, perhaps this is the first small step towards seeing our household gadgets powered by alternate sources of energy.
You can buy one here.
[via Gizmag/ThinkGeek]

MIT researchers have engineered a massively-improved broadband radio chip that’s faster than any of its predecessors, while consuming 100 times less energy—drawing on inspiration from the structure of the human ear. The ‘RF Cochlea’ is built to mimic much of the functionality of the human cochlea—a spiral-shaped cavity deep inside the inner ear—and the MIT team hope it will prove powerful and flexible enough to replace the chips inside common radio wave-using devices such as cellphones and wireless routers. Rather than trying to trump the incredibly functionality of the human body, associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science Rahul [...]

As part of a Sony initiative, Chinese industrial design students have created a series of innovative products that incorporate an eco-friendly angle.
Sony Sound of Water: Bathman Shower Music Player

This showerhead from Peng Shi-Nan Dong Hwa University captures hydro energy from the flow of water to power the Bathman music player. The style of music is determined by the force of the flow, so a gentle shower gives you softer music, while a strong flow may result in some intense rock music.
Sony Conductor TV Remote

From Donghua University comes the Conductor TV Remote, which is powered by kinetic energy produced when waved [...]

It’s hard to get kids to see the joy in cooking when they could just drive through McDonald’s and get a happy meal with a toy for no effort whatsoever. In Japan, there are whole lines of entertaining cooking tools that are great for even big people taking on the skillet. CScout Japan profiles several of them, including a sushi roller, a mini sandwich maker, and one fun contraption that looks like a game of Mouse Trap:
Somen (thin noodles eaten chilled during the summer months), when served nagashi-style, are sent down a bamboo chute. During the course of the journey [...]

Are your Google Alerts a little too subtle? Is Tweet Deck and your RSS feed not keeping you in the loop in a timely fashion? Then you may want to upgrade to a news alert system you’re not going to miss, like an 85 dB smoke alarm.
Jer Thorp has hacked together a smoke alarm hooked up to the news feed from the New York Times NewsWire API. If a pre-determined word or phrase comes through the service, the alarm will let out a screaming alarm, letting you know hot information is coming down the line. The “NewsAlarm” is also thankfully [...]

Gadget designers rarely get to think outside the box. Sure, they may get to give things rounded edges or the like, just to spice things up. But it’s the square that fundamentally shapes our technology–from TVs to Kindles.
That is all about to change. In the near future, technology will take on the same twists and curves as our own bodies. Fast Company saw several products from CES as harbingers of the trend, including:

Samsung’s flexible screen/display points the way towards scroll-shaped cellphones–just unroll the screen.
Apple’s new 17-inch MacBook Pro has a lithium battery specially shaped to fit the machine’s innards,  significantly [...]

Elizabeth Goldring of MIT is working on a device that may help certain legally blind people see. In some cases of blindness, a functional retina is hidden behind cloudy lenses which block any kind of clear vision. Doctors currently use a large, and very expensive device called a scanning laser opthalmoscope, which can temporarily focus an image on these hidden lenses, allowing people to temporarily see. Goldring’s device replicates this process on a much smaller scale, using a hacked together combination of a digital camera and a color LED back-lit LCD screen. She’s been working on this portable SLO for [...]

After last year’s remarkably successful Greener Gadgets Design Competition, Core77 has announced that they will be hosting the competition again this year during the Greener Gadgets Conference, slated for February 27th in New York City.
Challenging established design firms, emerging designers, and design students to come up with new and innovative solutions to address the issues of energy, carbon footprint, health and toxicity, new materials, product lifecycle, and social development, finalist will be judged live and $3000 will be awarded to the top ranking design.
Entries will be accepted until January 15.  For details on the competition, go here.

In 2009 and beyond, many of us are hoping for greener gadgets that add a “con” to their science. As one of the most pervasive modern technologies, mobile phones are a great place to start. How can they be—and help us be—more eco-friendly? Treehugger recently posted a sustainability wish list, which is more attainable than you might have thought.
Powered Efficiently and Entirely by Renewable Energy
Be it solar, talking, bouncing or anything else, we wish our smart phones could collect the energy needed to run them by utilizing the energy resources around them. While we can somewhat accomplish this, such as [...]