The Shredder Clock from WeTheUrban.com is an alarm clock concept that will shred your cash…or a thick slice of bacon – The ultimate in morning motivators, this clock features no snooze button. You can put whatever you want into the clock’s shredder, but of course the level of motivation it provides is directly tied to what you put in there.

Unfortunately there is a way around the clock mutilating your cash, just put your girlfriends cash in its place…makes for a great diner conversation piece.

[Cheers techeblog.com]

Using some innovative fuel cell technology to turn animals into energy,  carnivorous clocks and mouse-eating coffee tables may just be a staple in future households.

But what about Muffy the cat? Okay, don’t panic…let’s take a look at the coffee table first.

The Ominous coffee table is littered with cheese bits that attract mice that are ushered up a table leg,  when sensors detect that a mouse is standing on the trapdoor in the center, this door opens and the rodent is guillotined by rotating blade-looking hole on top. The unfortunate critter then falls into a microbial fuel cell housed underneath, where it gets digested and converted into energy to power the table’s electronic parts.

According to Auger and Loizeau; “There might be hundreds of rats hiding behind the walls, we really shouldn’t feel sorry for the rats decomposing in the table’s innards”.

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The prototype carnivorous clock is powered by insects captured on its flypaper roller and digested by its own microbial fuel cell. 8 dead flies makes it work for about 12 days,” says co-designer Professor Chris Melhuish, of Bristol Robotics.

I am privately wary of the idea that one day machines are going to develop primitive minds of their own, learn how to repair themselves, copy themselves and find their own energy sources. At which point, they will become our evolutionary successors and rapidly evolve into some sort of uber-beings.

Then finally there is this lamp design powered by incoming flies.

“A fly buzzing around the window” says Auger, “suddenly becomes an actor in a live game of life, as the viewer half wills it towards the robot and half hopes for it to escape.”

Would I want my living room turned into a death trap entertainment center? I want a self-cleaning carpet that eats dust and dog hair and transmits the excess energy to the house to offset electricity cost, as well as wall paint that is self-cleaning and bathroom tiles that consumes mold.

Who has enough mice to feed a table? Leave the mice for the cat. Dust is everywhere, that’s what these things should eat.

[Cheers news.com.au]

Looking like it took a page from Tron, the futuristic looking 3.0 Honeycomb Clock theme is now available at the Android market in a variety of flavours such as orange, green, purple, red, white, yellow and my favorite pink (?).

Unfortunately, all these wonderful colors come with a premium, a buck for the paid version, unless your satisfied with blue, which is free.

However, I am a fan of Carbon’s Domino Clock, three larger-than-life dominoes are equipped with articulating “dots” that flip back-and-forth between black and white to keep time.

The sculptured pieces would look good on any wall, even if they didn’t have the ability to tell time.

They hang on the wall or stand free, communicating wirelessly as they silently mark the passing hours and minutes.

While the aesthetic of the piece was defined in advance, the team solved a number of inticate engineering challenges, including developing a custom actuator to turn the dots from black to white in a pleasing, quiet fashion, while embedding low-cost wireless technology.