Gizmodo: fruit

Fresh Fruity Floating Bath Favors

Jason Chen — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 18:00:00 EDT

Do these floating bath fruits actually do anything? Other than draining three AAA batteries and lighting up your water in a rainbow of colors, no. [Himeyashop via Technabob via Boing Boing Gadgets]

Japanese Find Out How to Make Heart-Shaped Watermelons

Jason Chen — Mon, 11 May 2009 16:40:00 EDT

Having mastered the art of making square watermelons and even pyramid watermelons, Japanese farmers turned to making heart-shaped watermelons.

These 15,750 yen ($160) watermelons were grown by a couple and took three years to perfect down to the point where they were good enough to convince people to pay $160 for them. There's only 20 melons in this batch, but we're sure Mr. and Mrs. Hiroichi Kimura will grow more next season. [Asahi via Japan Probe via Inventor Spot via Boing Boing]

ShotCarver Transforms Fruit Into Evil Booze Holder

Mark Wilson — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 18:40:00 EDT

Fruit need not be healthy. The $12 Shotcarver will core almost any produce under the sun. The resulting hole is intended for hard liquor, which is intended to kill you. [CoolStuffExpress via NerdApproved]

How You Like Them Apples, Apple?

Mark Wilson — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 13:00:00 EDT

Who woulda thunk that an apple company might actually use an apple in their logo...especially one that's about a bite away from trademark infringement? [Flickr via TUAW]

When Life Gives You Lemons, Make A Nicely Designed Digital Clock

John Mahoney — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 09:10:00 EST

You probably remember the ol' lemon/copper battery via electrolysis experiment from when Mr. Wizard blew your mind with it in 1958. But this "Citrus Clock" by French design troupe Anna Gram updates the concept with a touch of Ikea sensibilities, to the point where we might be cool with this sitting on the kitchen counter (quick access for lemon tea). But the UV bug light we'd have to install next to it to catch the fruit flies might cancel out the sleekness. [Anna Gram via Design Boom]

Russian Mod Makes iPhone's Rear-Side Apple Logo Glow

Kit Eaton — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 04:50:00 EDT

Saddened by the fact that the Apple logo on the rear-shell of the iPhone is just a dead, un-illuminated entity, a bunch of Russian modders have taken a dremel and soldering iron to one—or is it a replacement back shell? Either way, they brought the sexy (glow) back. Apparently "the battery doesn’t suffer a lot, you can adjust the glow level in Settings menu." Hmmm. Are they hacking into the screen back-lighting circuit? If you're not convinced by the photo: check out the video, it looks pretty real. Updated: A reader has sent us some shots of the mod really in action.

Now you should be convinced: if this mod isn't real, that video is a very well-done fake. There's no info on how it's been done, so it's up to you to work out how to follow in their footsteps if you too want a glowing fruit. [iNews76 via Yanko Design]
Update: A reader, and editor of iphones.ru has sent us these photos of the glowing mod in action, in lighted and unlit situations. There's this Giz story showing behind it in the pics... it's real, folks! The mod cost about $300 to do.
Thanks, Arthur!

BLUE Bowl Shines Light on Your Fruit to Stop the Rot

Kit Eaton — Thu, 15 May 2008 09:36:00 EDT

This design concept from Ahmet Bektes, Koray Gelmez & Eda Kose uses "Action Fresh Blue" technology—apparently used in "many new refrigerators"— to keep your fruit fresh. It seems that this tech is essentially a blue light, which shines down from the bowl's handle, killing bacteria. Hmmm: I'm skeptical. But at least it's rechargeable, and has a nifty blue halo all around when it's in action so your kitchen looks all 21st Century. If it really works, it might be useful if you're like me: buying a lot a fruit when on a health-kick, and then just leaving it in the bowl to go moldy. [Yanko Design]

Yes, We Have Some Bananas, 'Cause We Saved Them With NANA Saver

Kit Eaton — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 08:15:09 EDT

Whole bananas just look after themselves in your fruit bowl until they go all brown and spotty. But if your recipe calls for half a banana, then you know the spare hemibanana is going to go all gooshy really fast and you'll end up binning it. That's where NANA Saver comes in, with its pincer-like action grabbing onto the end of your bisected fruit and protecting it with a little sealing plate, keeping it fresh from the air. Simple, and only $2.98. Or you just could eat the other half. I'm just saying. [Product via Nerd Approved]

Strawberries That Taste Like Chocolate

Mark Wilson — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 08:51:44 EST

In the future, no natural food will taste as you remember it now. Because face it: fruits and vegetables are great. But if turnips tasted like Doritos, America wouldn't be so fat that our continent occasionally dips into the ocean, like arm floaties on a grown man. Tokyo company FCOM is learning how to change food as we know it. Instead of using genetic modification, they're utilizing techniques from other industrial processes. Through freeze-drying fruit, FCOM is then able to replace with water with flavor (or in the case of strawberries, water with white chocolate). But no, they haven't made cocao butter-based white chocolate into a health food.

Their next project is (after putting us all on the brink of death with delicious-sounding super strawberries) to use this same freeze-drying process to inject foods with higher vitamin/mineral content. Given that many people are adverse to getting their FDA-approved nutritional quota through pills and that many nutrients absorb better into the body with food, it sounds like a pretty good idea.

But can you imagine? A chocolate infused strawberry with a dose of Viagra would cause wider-spread panic than roofies. [japantimes via tokyomango]

Pur Water Purifying Fruit Flavor Cartridges Are Both Fantastic and Horrible

Jason Chen — Tue, 15 May 2007 22:15:08 EDT

As if drinking regular water isn't enough for kids these days, Pur is introducing Pur Flavor Options, which is a fruit cartridge you can stick into their Pur water filter systems. The upshot? Now you can flip a switch and get filtered fruit-flavored water from your tap, which has the taste of water you used to rinse actual fruit in but none of the health benefits of water. Yum! – Jason Chen

Product Page [Pur via Strange New Products via Sci Fi Tech]

The Ring With More Fruit and Less Scary Japanese Lady

Jason Chen — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 11:30:20 EDT

We're not sure what kind of person (or family) needs to keep a stock of 20 apples, oranges, and what could be limes in their home, but this Ring design seems to satisfy your crazy craving for produce. Fresh fruit goes in at the top, and less fresh fruit comes out the bottom. A cool design, but unless you plan on becoming a full-fledged fruitarian like Steve Jobs was, you probably want to stick with the less demanding fruit holders. – Jason Chen

design page [Design Boom via Random Good Stuff]

Fruity Watches Provide Your Recommended Daily Allowance of Awesome

Jason Chen — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 21:30:43 EDT

Although these fruity watches from Seiko aren't gadgety in the sense that they allow you to communicate with a talking car, they are pretty neat. Designed like 10 different fruits—kiwis, oranges, grapefruits, coconuts, lemons, limes (that's all the fruit we know)—these watches use the seeds to mark 5 minute increments on their sliced-open faces.

Best of all, they're not all that expensive. At $54 for the standard version and $63 for the one that has a calendar, we're free to pick up a bunch to accessorize with. What can we say, we're Technosexuals. – Jason Chen

Fruity watches by Seiko [PlasticBamboo]

Apple Develops Hello Kitty Television

Travis Hudson — Tue, 05 Sep 2006 10:17:38 EDT

Oho, I got you good! Apple has nothing to do with this disgusting television. It just looks like an actual apple and comes plastered with cutesy Hello Kitty images. This TV is manufactured by Sanrio and obviously isn't pink enough to be a real Hello Kitty product. – Travis Hudson

Hello Kitty, the apple TV. [Akihabara]

Still Life Wall Mounted Fruit Holder

Jason Chen — Fri, 28 Jul 2006 17:30:37 EDT

This thing is mildly old—it's circa UMAMY Design Groups' 2003 Collection—but it's useful for us now so we thought readers would enjoy it. Whenever we buy fruit from the supermarket, it always sits slowly rotting in the bottom of the fridge, waiting for the eating that never comes. By being mounted on the wall, this thing nags you, like your mother, to eat the fruit before it goes bad. Useful and healthy. – Jason Chen

Umamy Design [Umamy via Neatorama via Shiny Shiny]

Professor Invents Fruit Ripeness Sticker

Jason Chen — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 21:15:48 EDT

As a guy who can't hear the difference between knocking on a ripe melon, knocking on an under-ripe melon and knocking on my own ass, a "ripeness" indicator sticker on fruit would be awesome. This sticker, invented by a University of Arizona professor, can display to shoppers whether a fruit or vegetable is ripe, under-ripe or over-ripe.

The RediRipe stickers change from white to blue as the fruit ripens by detecting ethelyne gas emitted during the ripening process. The color change is on a 24-48 hour delay, depending on how fast the fruit ripens and excretes the gas.

Not all fruits make enough gas, and there's still a lot of research to be done, but soon we'll all be reading stickers instead of knocking on melons. – Jason Chen

Professor invents 'ripeness' sticker [Yahoo News]

Fruity Smelling iCool MP3 Players

tgrumet — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 12:15:15 EST

Wanting desperately to stimulate 2 senses instead of just one, Solid Alliance has announced its fruit fragrance iCool MP3 players in Japan. The players come in 6 flavors (and include chocolate- and rose-smelling products, as well as fruity scents) and come with 256MB of internal memory and an SD slot, with USB 2.0 connections and MP3/WMA playback, FM-Tuner, and voice recorder.

You might be surprised to hear that this is not the first smell-enhanced MP3 player on the market. Audiotronic has a line of smelly players out as well, including a marijuana-scented model.

iCool MP3... come and smell my MP3 player [Akihabara News]

Fruit-filled Walls

gizguest — Thu, 21 Jul 2005 09:45:45 EDT

We might get the gadgets one year after the US here in Europe, but we have designers so cool that it makes living in tech Middle Ages slightly more bearable. Take Oyon for example. Oyon is a mural fruit holder that uses walls as screens and gives fruit and vegetable the role of pixels.-RD

Michael Bihain [Michael Bihain]