Welcome to the future
It's not quite "The Jetsons," but high-tech gizmos and even simple innovations (like the edible wraps on our cover) are set to add more convenience to your life. Here are some of this year's notable new products.
By Reed Karaim
We live in an age of constant innovation. Every day, it seems, someone comes up with a way to do something better than before, or at least differently. Celebrating that spirit, our annual look at some of the new consumer products likely to catch your eye this year focuses on items that make the old new again.
Like watching a movie -- on a screen half the size of your fingernail. That's the size of the screen on the Eyetop, a revolutionary viewing system from a French company, Ingineo. The Eyetop looks like a pair of sunglasses with a protuberance on one side. But put them on and you find a small video screen floating in the right-hand side of your vision.
Eyetop: $349
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It's fairly easy to ignore if you wish, allowing you to keep track of the world around you. Focus on it and you're watching an image that corresponds to a 9-inch television seen from 3 feet away. The Lilliputian screen is magnified and brought into your line of sight by a set of mirrors and optical lenses, says Laurent Hercz, Ingineo's business development manager, who showed me the Eyetop.
The $349 device provides a chance to enjoy downloaded video in "subways, airplanes, anyplace you want to watch something in privacy but need to be able to see what's going on around you," Hercz says. Down the road, Ingineo even imagines the Eyetop working as a small computer monitor. The image isn't sharp enough yet to read a page of text. However, it proved clear enough to enjoy a James Bond movie during my test.
The early model I tried out requires keeping your eyes to the right to watch the screen, which can be tiring. But Ingineo has moved the screen to the bottom, a more natural place to look, for the model it introduced last month.
AcoustiClear: $195
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If listening to tunes is more your thing, you might enjoy AcoustiClear, the new flat-panel stereo from Brookstone. Music speakers have been getting skinnier and smaller for some time now, but Brookstone takes things an extra step with speakers that are transparent acrylic. Mount them on a wall and they almost disappear.
The AcoustiClear, available in a $195 desktop model and later this month in a $475 larger system with a 40-watt subwoofer, is playing Dave Brubeck's Jazz: Red Hot and Cool in the background as I write this, and the piano notes are as clear as the speakers producing them.
Nokia 6820: $200 to $300
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Cellphones have become mobile communications centers in the past year, able to handle everything from photos to e-mail. But typing on a phone pad still can be a painfully slow experience. Other phones have expanded keyboards, but no one has managed the challenge of fitting one on a cellphone as nicely as Nokia, which has a new model debuting in the first half of 2004.
The Nokia 6820 mobile phone looks like a regular high-end cellphone, but lift up the dialing pad and another keyboard is revealed. The two sides together give you a small keyboard configured in the traditional "Qwerty" typewriter style for hammering out those messages. The phone, which uses the newest technology to connect at higher speeds, has a built-in camera and the ability to do instant messaging, send and receive sound and video files, and play games. Price: not yet determined, but projected to be $200 to $300.
SolarRoll 14: $399
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Should you find yourself out in the wilderness with that fancy phone running low on power, you might try the Solarroll 14 from Brunton, a Wyoming company that makes interesting camping accessories. The SolarRoll ($399) is just what it sounds like, a solar cell that rolls up into a 3-inch-wide cylinder. It weighs just over a pound but provides 14 watts of power when unrolled and in the sun. It comes with an adapter for various devices. I successfully charged my laptop in my back yard.
High tech is fun, but some of the new products hitting stores in 2004 have more traditional roots. Americans have a long history of cooking a turkey when friends and family gather. In recent years, many of those turkeys have been fried in oil. But gas-fired turkey fryers can be difficult to control and sometimes dangerous, causing fires every holiday season.
Turk 'N' Surf: $85-$149
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Along comes the Masterbuilt Turn N' Surf, an electric turkey fryer that meets the safety standard set for electric fryers by Underwriters Laboratories. The Turk 'N' Surf, which has no open flame, has an adjustable thermostat with an automatic temperature shut-off and an outer shell for added safety. It even can be used indoors on your counter.
I was nervous about this test. I have trouble boiling pasta, and as a child I once burned down an outdoor shower. Yet I managed a golden-brown, definitely delicious turkey in the Turk 'N' Surf this past Thanksgiving, all without endangering loved ones. You also can use the fryer, which comes with a cookbook, to boil seafood. Retail price: $85 to $149.
Chillow: $29.99
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Ever flipped your pillow around on a hot night trying to find the cool side? Maverick Marketing Ventures has come to your rescue with the Chillow, a thin insert you slip inside (or place outside) your pillowcase. The Chillow uses a foamlike material that, once filled with half a gallon of water, serves as a "heat sink," absorbing your body heat. You probably have little use for this innovation in the dead of winter, but come summer it would indeed give you one cool pillow. Price: $29.99.
Edible wraps: For kids ... priceless
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There's nothing more American than fast food. But think how much faster food would be if you didn't even have to unwrap it! You could just chew and swallow it, wrapping and all. That seems to be the idea behind edible wrap, developed by U.S. Department of Agriculture researchers. Several companies are said to be readying products to hit supermarket shelves later this year. "They're 100% fruit or vegetable material," says Tara McHugh, the lead researcher on the project. "But a food company can add minerals, vitamins, whatever you want. They could add different flavors." The edible "films," as McHugh calls them, aren't really as unlikely a product as it first may seem. They could save landfills from inorganic plastic, and they could provide extra nutrients and flavors to food. An edible tomato wrap, for example, could melt right onto pasta while cooking.
One targeted group of consumers is expected to be children, who should enjoy being able to down their lunch, wrapper and all. (An edible straw is in the works.) With that audience in mind, my wife and I sat down with our 4-year-old daughter to taste-test edible wrap made from tomatoes, mangoes, carrots, peaches and broccoli. Broccoli came first. The texture seemed more akin to a sturdy paper than to plastic, and the taste of the vegetable came through clearly. The verdict: No food product should be broccoli-flavored, except actual broccoli, and even that is open to debate.
My wife and I had somewhat the same reaction to carrot wrap, but our daughter said "Yum." She kept on yumming right through tomato, peach and mango. I can already imagine edible wraps in our kitchen cabinet, right next to the peanut butter. Price: Who cares? Your kids will want it, regardless.
Welcome to 2004.
Reed Karaim, a freelancer based in Tucson, Ariz., last wrote for USA WEEKEND about the demise of the Concorde.
Like the products featured in our story, innovations can range from the truly visionary to simply smarter ways of doing everyday tasks. "The speed of innovation is increasing exponentially in almost all areas of business and recreation," says Norbert Gaus, president and CEO of Princeton, N.J.-based Siemens Corporate Research, a division of the global electronics and engineering company Siemens USA. He notes that the innovation cycle on cellphones alone is now five to six months. In the fields of homeland security and health care in particular, he says, we are benefiting from a boom in innovation and reaping the rewards of years of research and development, especially in video and imaging, and software.
