Six New Inventions to Make Your Life Easier
These six new inventions — including a temperature-controlled coffee mug and the first social robot for the home — have the ability to make everyday life a little more efficient and fun.
As expected, the internet is flooded with “best of” lists this month. From apps and restaurants to podcasts and books, it’s time to recap the latest and greatest of the year. One especially eye-catching list was Time’s 25 Best Inventions of 2017. While every entry is incredible — the ability to probe beyond the surface of Mars, for example — six products stood out to us as useful for making life a little more efficient and fun.
Smart assistants, like Alexa and Google Home, have become commonplace in homes and can be used to control lighting, play music and recite innumerable facts. But there’s a new bot on the block — Jibo. The latest in artificial intelligence for the home, Jibo is powered by face and voice recognition software, meaning the bot remembers people, learns habits and builds relationships. As Jibo becomes more accustomed to a home, it will also recognize friends, take photos (it has a built-in camera) and share information relative to its users. For added flair, Jibo swivels and swerves while speaking, sometimes even throwing in a spin for really excitable responses.
According to the EPA, indoor air is up to five times more polluted than outdoor air because pollutants concentrate and multiply when trapped indoors. Imagine the pollutant levels lurking within your veterinary practice. Molekule, which is portable and quiet, does more than trap pollutants. It completely eliminates allergens, mold, bacteria and viruses from the air. According to product specifications, Molekule is able to replace the air every hour in rooms up to 600 square feet, which could be ideal for practice waiting rooms. And its 360-degree capabilities enable the purifier to project clean air evenly across the entire room.
Click here to learn more about the health benefits of air purifiers, plus tips for selecting the right product.
The scenario is all too common: You make a cup of coffee because you think you have a few minutes of downtime, but then the phone rings, a veterinary technician starts calling your name or an emergency case walks in (or all three!). By the time you reconnect with your java it has become cold and unappetizing. But times are changing! The Ember mug has the acclaim of being named the first temperature-controlled mug. Yes, that means the perfect sip of coffee every time. Available as a ceramic mug or travel mug, Ember allows users to customize temperature control between 120 and 145 degrees Fahrenheit based on personal preferences. When fully charged, the mug maintains its contents to the exact degree for up to two hours.
Veterinarians promote the importance of wellness visits for their patients, but do they always practice what they preach? Forward is a wellness clinic that offers patients unlimited access to genetic screenings, blood testing, weight-loss planning and routine doctors’ visits for $149 a month. Each new client receives an hour-long baseline visit to create a personalized plan, and data from that appointment and every future visit is stored on the company’s app where patients can view test results, connect with on-call physicians and receive information on next steps. Perhaps best of all, the company promises wait times of two minutes or less. The centers are currently only available in Los Angeles and San Francisco.
If you’ve mastered the art of veterinary medicine but not the art of cooking, One Top might become your favorite invention on this list. The induction cooktop (a compatible cookware set is also available) takes the guesswork out of cooking by syncing with more than 1,700 recipes from its related app. Once a recipe is selected, the One Top automatically adjusts temperature and power settings to match the instructions. The first shipments of the product are being delivered this month.
Norton, a company well known for its virus protection software, has created a wireless router that safeguards your home or small business’ Wi-Fi network. This is of particular importance to anyone using internet-connected devices, such as coffee makers, baby monitors, lighting kits and security systems. Norton Core detects abnormalities and is able to isolate any device that is showing symptoms of a virus, cutting it if off from the rest of the network. The added safety features promise not to compromise the Wi-Fi speeds to which people have become accustomed.
