SA's 2016 Gadget Guide: 10 Technologies Solid on Science

Some hints on keeping holiday gifts real in a “post-truth” world

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<i>SA</i>'s 2016 Gadget Guide: 10 Technologies Solid on Science — *Credits: Kuvée*

SUSTAINABILITY: SOLAR POWERED GRILL The scramble to improve solar technology has made solar-powered stoves cheaper as well as more portable and versatile in recent years. Case in point: the GoSun Stove Sport grill, which relies on the sun’s energy to bake, boil, fry or steam food using parabolic thermal solar panels and a double-cylinder made of silica and boron trioxide (borosilicate) glass... GoSun
PHYSICS: POCKET-SIZE THERMAL VISION MONOCULAR Night owls without the benefit of an owl’s night vision can rely on infrared scopes and goggles, which display images in a darkened field of view by mapping subtle temperature differences between objects... FLIR Systems, Inc.
BIOLOGY: INDOOR GARDEN Urbanites are at a decided disadvantage to those living outside city limits when it comes to growing their own fruits, vegetables, flowers and herbs. Click & Grow aims to level the playing field a bit with self-contained indoor gardens that provide plants with the LED light, water and nutrients needed to grow in even the darkest hipster walk-up... Click & Grow
CHEMISTRY: SMART WINE BOTTLE Even a well-kept, high-quality vintage will lose its luster after less than a week, thanks to oxygen’s tendency to change wine into vinegar. Boston-based start-up Kuvée aims to solve this problem by selling bottle-shaped wine cartridges that slide into a wi-fi–enabled dispenser... Kuvée
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ENGINEERING: MECHANICAL WOODEN CLOCK KIT Pendulum clocks date back hundreds of years. Dutch scientist Christiaan Huygens built the first one in 1656, inspired by a device that Galileo Galilei had designed nearly two decades earlier—but never actually built... Abong, Inc.
CHEMISTRY: ELECTRO PLAY–DOH By the age of four most children have mastered the art of Play-Doh. The Electro Dough Kit from a company called Technology Will Save Us promises to take the time-honored mixture of flour, water, salt, boric acid and mineral oil to the next level...
ELECTRONICS: SMART HOME KIT Demystify the Internet of Things by equipping curious teens with the wireless sensors, transmitters and other electronics needed to integrate their parents’ household appliances with a smartphone or tablet... littleBits Electronics, Inc.
SPACE: INTERNET-CONNECTED TELESCOPE Binge-watch the cosmos from your living room with a plug-in wi-fi module that lets you connect select Celestron telescopes to a smartphone or tablet. Once connected, Celestron’s SkyPortal mobile app can run on either of those devices to identify stars, planets, NASA spacecraft and other objects the telescope views in the night sky... Celestron, LLC
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COMPUTING: VOICE-ACTIVATED COMPUTER MOUSE This reimagined mouse avoids the office endangered species list. In addition to controlling a conventional computer desktop, the Bluetooth-connected Gyration Air Mouse Voice from SMK-Link Electronics features voice-recognition capabilities that enable the mouse to function as a Siri-like intelligent assistant that can access a Web browser in response to spoken queries... SMK–Link Electronics, a division of SMK Electronics U.S.A., and owner of Gyration
ELECTRONICS: BLUETOOTH TRACKING CHIP The proliferation of mobile gadgets adds a new dimension to the already challenging task of keeping track of life’s essentials: keys, eyeglasses and wallets. Chipolo’s coin-size Bluetooth disks can be attached to or inserted into these items to track them via smartphone or tablet from up to 60 meters away... Chipolo

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