The week’s top hardware news.

December 11th, 2015

Products

World’s Safest Drone

Still don’t know how to tackle drone safety? A Belgian startup just came up with the solution: make a drone like a giant flying marshmallow! Fleye can hover and fly about a room all on its own without injuring anyone while taking their photo. Doesn’t mind being pushed either.

+ fast, rolling and programmable robot, Codie

E-paper Shoes

These are quite possibly the coolest shoes ever. ShiftWare shoes are made of an HD color e-paper flexible display that’s also machine washable, and can be instantly customized and animated with a smartphone app. 

The Phantom Speaker

On December 8th, top Apple stores in the US began selling the latest 750 watt, 99 dB Phantom speaker by french company Devialet. After 10 years of development and a whopping $25 million in R&D, this thing has scored over 77 patents and 37 awards, so it must be good. 

Industry

#HackAHairDrier

The embarrassing hashtag of the week comes from IBM, who decided to attract women into tech by asking them to, well, #HackAHairDrier. The idea painfully backfired making IBM discontinue the campaign after they realized it wasn’t the 1950’s anymore.

+ #HackYourChristmasLights

+ #HackALightsaber

Tea Making Robot Gets $5.1M

Teforia, the startup that guarantees its smart machine can brew the right cup of tea each time, pulled in $5.1 million led by UpFront Ventures with participation from Lemnos Labs, PreAngel Wareness and InnoSpring. The company founder Allen Han helped design products such as the XBOX 360 and Kindle Fire before striking out on his own with this success.

3D Design App uMake Raises $5.2M

Great news for designers! uMake, creators of a 3D sketching tool that competes with AutoDesk, announced they’ve scored $5.2 million in series A funding to develop the first cloud-based 3D design app. Based in San Francisco and Israel, uMake was featured in Apple’s keynote when it debuted the Pencil and the iPad Pro.

+ speaking of cool designs, this book-camera is 100% analogue

Wiivv Gets $3.5M For 3D Printed Insoles

Canadian company Wiivv is one of the first to hit mass market with fully customizable 3D printed insoles after penciling in $3.5 million from seed investors, including the Canadian Government. Canada is so cool.