The Technology Thread

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Meld Does Automatic Temperature Control For All Your Cooking

Hearing someone explaining the benefits of sous-vide is really just hearing about the benefits of accurate temperature control. And that’s great — if you only cook things in Ziploc bags.

Meld is a Kickstarter project that wants to temperature-control anything that goes on a stovetop — soup, deep-fat fryers, or even beer. It has two bits of hardware: a Bluetooth-enabled knob that you retrofit to your stove, which gives the system physical control over your stovetop; and a temperature probe, which sits inside the dish and reports back to the knob. Of course, there’s also an app to run the show.

The smartphone app works with natural language — so where a recipe calls for ‘medium-high’ heat for two hours, you plug that into the app, and let it be while you go drink a beer. Given that I destroyed a kitchen counter and a pot by letting something ‘simmer’ for three hours last week, I am obviously a big fan of that capability. You can also set your pot to a precise temperature, which should open the door to some amateur sous-vide work.

The most interesting thing about Meld is possibly the price: $129 for Kickstarter backers, going up to $149 after the crowdfunding campaign ends. Given that a standalone sous-vide device runs $180, that seems pretty damn cheap. Of course, a standalone sous-vide will probably have the edge for sous-vide-ing, but I think Meld will still have an edge, given the flexibility it brings.

Of course, Meld is still a Kickstarter project, and, as such, comes with the usual crowdfunding buyer-beware caveat. But, with a bunch of slick-looking prototypes already up and running (and $63,000 in the bank), it’s probably a fairly safe investment.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/meld/meld-a-perfect-meal-every-time

Pretty innovative

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

This Kit Lets You Build A Functioning Laptop Out Of A Raspberry Pi

The list of cool stuff you can do with a Raspberry Pi is pretty much endless (no seriously — Wi-Fi controlled pottery kiln!), but most of the existing designs for portable Pi-ing require a little electronics know-how (and a dash of soldering).

The pi-top is an all-in-one kit designed to let you build a laptop out of a Raspberry Pi at home. At $300 (including a Pi 2), it’s actually around the same price as a cheapo Windows or Chrome machine — but unlike those, the idea of pi-top is to be a playground for wannabe computer engineers and designers. The idea started on Indiegogo, and following a successful campaign, the product is up for pre-order, and should be ready to ship in June.

All the components needed ship unassembled, so the first learning step is assembling the chassis, micro-computer, screen and power supply to create a functioning computer. Then, you’ve got to learn how to make the most out of the limited resources on the Raspberry Pi itself. The hope is that, with easy access to the electronics inside the pi-top, people will be encouraged to mod and improve on the original design.

Given that the founding philosophy behind the Raspberry Pi was to make a tiny, affordable computer to teach kids, I think the pi-top sticks impressively close to the creators’ ideals. Teaching yourself about programming on the internet has never been easier — sites like CodeAcademy spoonfeed manageable lessons to you for free — but there’s nothing quite so simple for hardware modders. Hopefully, pi-top can do something about that.

http://www.pi-top.com/

Now that is really awesome, I would love to get this for my daughter

 

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