Imagine never having to worry whether you seasoned your food. Imagine having a cooking surface that conveniently did that for you, and in doing so, also imparted a unique flavor to your food. That’s AEG’s Himalayan Salt Block for you. A chiseled out slab of pure Himalayan rock salt, AEG’s Salt Block can be used directly over a grill/flame or even with AEG’s SensePro induction cooker (using a metal plate). The heat traverses through the block, cooking the food kept on top of it, giving it a smoky flavor and an enhanced taste. You can cook anything from meats to eggs to even grill vegetables on the block and it automatically seasons your food while cooking it at the same time. The Himalayan salt has health benefits too, enriching your food with nutrients and minerals necessary for the body.
The crystalline structure of the salt allows it to withstand hot and cold temperatures and when placed on direct heat, and the block evenly distributes heat across its rectangular surface, making it perfect to place in the oven, on a cooktop or even a grill. The block also doubles up as a tray/plate to present your food too (perfect for salads or even cheeses), and can be cleaned with a simple wipe of a wet cloth! Someone show this to Saltbae!
I honestly don’t remember the first time I set eyes on AEG’s MultiSpace fridge. Like most refrigerators, when closed, you wouldn’t really give it a second glance. I remember looking past it to check out the free smoothie counter, and it wasn’t until perhaps the fourth or fifth glance that I remember seeing AEG’s MultiSpace Fridge. The fridge, this time, was wide open, and to the designer in me, it showcased sheer innovation that set it miles apart from the refrigerators I’d seen in middle-class homes all my life.
The first thing you notice when you open the refrigerator is its door. Unlike most refrigerator doors that feature dedicated, standardized spots for bottles, jars, eggs, etc., but not the MultiSpace. The door of the MultiSpace features an endlessly customizable grid of modular containers that you could use to categorize your foodstuff, either by cuisine/recipe, or by freshness/date-of-purchase, or by arranging it to indicate who it belongs to. The modular containers come in various shapes and sizes (even with their own lids), and fit onto the door, sliding side to side, and with the ability to be placed on the top or bottom, to cater to your needs. Each individual container is detachable too, and can be easily carried to your prep-area for mise en place, if you will. Want to take an entire set of stuff to your kitchen table? Shift your eyes from the door and you’ll notice the fridge has its own detachable tray that you can easily lift off, and carry around with you.
However, right above the detachable tray lay the MultiSpace’s piece de resistance. The 360° Swivel Tray. Grabbing eyes and hands alike, the tray could, in a rectangular space, turn a full 360 degrees to reveal items kept at the back. The idea was to make sure you never forget about stuff at the back of your refrigerator. The swiveling tray would give you access to anything kept on it, just by rotating a full 360… and while that idea is an admirable one, its execution is far more worthy of appreciation, because it’s a glorious marriage of design and engineering.
The Swivel Tray, a rectangle with two curved edges, uses a beautifully complex rotating mechanism that allows it to rotate in a fixed rectangular space. The tray doesn’t rotate on a single point, but rather moves forward while rotating, making sure none of the tray’s edges touch or collide with the walls of the refrigerator. Observing the rotating action from the top is a serious pleasure, as the tray does a very calculated swirl, pirouetting forward to avoid making contact with the back wall of the fridge. The Swivel Tray is optionally available with the AEG MultiSpace Fridge, and while having it in your refrigerator is definitely a USP, the tray is awesome enough to stand completely on its own!
The YD Design Storm takes a look at products, services, and spaces that are storming the internet. The idea? To turn internet-storming material into brainstorming material! Scroll down for our collection of handpicked works from design websites, portfolios, and social media. Get inspired, save projects, pin images, or share links with fellow design enthusiasts!
Today’s YD Storm comes from the IFA consumer electronics fair in Berlin. With more than 2000 exhibitors, and companies flocking from all over the world to showcase the newest products and lineups, the IFA is a melting pot of great technology and great design, so what better place to find stuff that’s storming the internet and our minds??
Watch this space for your digest of design brain-fodder… and an ever-evolving map of design trends!
If there were a category for the greatest vacuum in the world, I’m assuming it would have a few hallmarks to say the least. The vacuum must be powerful, no doubt… but it must also be lightweight, easy to use, even easier to maneuver, adjustable for various scenarios and heights, come with the ability to be used in various scenarios, and obviously… be cordless.
The FX9, debuted at AEG’s showcase at IFA Berlin 2018 isn’t just functional. It’s functionally superior. Designed to be cordless, the vacuum comes with enough battery power to clean your entire home on a single charge. Its lightweight design allows it to be easily maneuvered around the house, and the adjustable handle allows just about everyone to use it. Aside from the height-adjusting handle, the FX9 even lets you height-adjust its main motor. Doing this allows you to shift the center of gravity of the appliance as a whole, letting you maneuver the vacuum cleaner without straining your wrist, and even hold it up vertically to clean ceilings with relative ease.
The FX9 comes with a self-standing design that can stay vertically upright on its own (perfect for when you want to leave your vacuum cleaner for attending to a short task). When powered on, the FX9 lights up at its base, letting you vacuum clean even in low-light conditions, and its flexible base easily maneuvers across floors, under furniture, and on carpets. An extendable arm lets you pull the vacuum-head out and use it on places like book-shelves too, while its own set of attachments lets you clean anything from ceilings to behind the fridge (it comes with a 3-in-1 attachment that I was absolutely ‘floored’ by). A docking station allows the FX9 to charge while not in use.
The FX9 quite literally solves every problem in its brief (and without creating new ones). Designed to be more powerful and versatile than other cordless vacuums in its category, the FX9 was made for not just all homes, but for all people too. Its height-adjusting design, and CG-shifting mechanism is the result of sincere problem-solving merged with perfectionist German engineering!
The AEG Ultrasonic Stain Removal Pen isn’t so much a pen as it is an eraser. Designed to remove accidental stains by the very thing it’s named after, the Stain Removal Pen works well on clothes with pen-stains, mud/grass-stains, accidental food spills (even things as tough as coffee/wine-stains), and maybe-not-so-accidental lipstick marks!
The hand-held device delivers ultrasonic vibrations via its tip to whatever it touches. Designed to be used against tough stains, the Stain Removal Pen sends incredibly high-frequency vibrations to the fabric, loosening out the pigment molecules that bind to the fibers. The process involves pouring small portions of detergent water onto the stain, before running the pen across it. The detergent creates a lather that further helps in the stain-removal, while the water absorbs the pigment molecules from the cloth fibers. Repeating the process anywhere from 2-5 times can either completely remove, or highly reduce the presence of the stain on clothes. Using the Ultrasonic Stain Removal Pen as a pre-wash ritual ensures that the pen can break down (and even remove) the stain to a level where the washing machine eliminates it completely. Cheers to the pen that makes our lives painless and stainless!
The thought may seem inconsequential at the very beginning, but talking to your kitchen appliances can help take a lot of the stress out of cooking… and Electrolux and Google are partnering together to let you do just that. The collaboration between the two companies, and the debut of Electrolux’s Combi-Steam ProSmart Oven lets you literally control the oven via voice. Relying on Google’s Home smart speaker and the ‘OK Google’ command, users can tell the oven to switch on or off, select programs, set timers, and even alter temperatures.
Talking to your oven isn’t just a benefit when you’ve got messy hands, or you’re occupied with other cooking, it helps take the guesswork out of the baking process. Simply telling your oven (via the Google Home) that you’d like to prepare pizza, or probably grill vegetables, or bake some bread allows the oven to automatically know which temperature to operate at, as well as what to put on the timer. You can even add or subtract a few degrees, or add or shave off a minute or two from the timer by simply telling the oven to do so… and when your food’s ready but the family isn’t, tell the oven to keep the dish warm, and it automatically sets the temperature to 80°C, keeping your food piping hot, without cooking it further.
Electrolux and Google are even enabling IFTTT integration to allow other devices to connect to the Google Home, letting you shoot text messages out to family members when dinner’s prepared, or blinking the lights in the living room when the pizza’s ready to pull out of the oven… and then as everybody gathers at the table to dig into a perfectly cooked meal, just tell Google to shut the oven down, and that’s one less thing you’ll have to worry about!
Europe's premier consumer electronics trade show has further cemented its status on the industry's radar, thanks in no small part to Samsung, Sony and a shocking number of 84-inch 4K TVs. Since Wednesday, we've welcomed a brand new Galaxy Note, a healthy heaping of smaller mobile phones, a few cameras (including that Android stunner) and enough laptops and tablets to keep us computing well into the fall. From your perspective, the show ran silky smooth, though Berlin's mobile data plague continued to take its toll on our productivity, while the Messe's absolutely insane sprawl left us with a few well-worn shoes. As always, we still had a blast bringing you all the latest gear as it hit the floor, and German hospitality (and beer) made the setbacks a bit more bearable. Since there's oh so much to get through, we're sorting out our grouping of news and hands-ons from major manufacturers, followed by some smaller device makers and a few one-hit wonders -- all tidied up just past the break.
Couldn't make it out to Berlin for Samsung's Unpacked event? No worries -- Sammy has re-packed its deluge of tablets, phones and Android-powered cameras for your viewing pleasure. Go ahead and relive Sammy's self-proclaimed magic at the outfit's Facebook page or with the embedded video after the break.
Have you ever visited a state fair in the US? Picture the fairgrounds -- perhaps enlarged several fold -- filled to the brim with ultra-slim televisions, giant smartphones, tablets, laptops and enough washers and dryers to keep the entire population of Germany's wardrobe squeaky clean. That's IFA. There may not be any deep-fried Oreos at this Messe (though you will find plenty of Brezels and Bier), but there's more than enough to keep us entertained for a full week, and then some. The fun kicks off tomorrow afternoon with Sony's annual press conference, followed by Samsung Unpacked where we expect to see a Galaxy S III-like successor to last year's blockbuster Note. Then chaos ensues, when the two dozen exhibition halls open to the public, and tens of thousands of curious consumers mix with industry reps and journalists, pushing and shoving their way to the hottest gadgets from every category, be it high-end home theater or personal grooming (read: electric toothbrush/water flosser duos). Rest assured that we'll focus our efforts on the former, and you can stay on top of all the news as it happens using our "ifa2012" tag.
