cocktails

Bartendro robot mixologist crafts cocktails with Raspberry Pi

Some tasks are better left up to computers, like playing "Jeopardy," calculating pi, and mixing cocktails. Wait ... mixing cocktails? If you don't think a computer can whip up a compelling cocktail, then you haven't met Bartendro.

A creation of the awesomely named company Party Robotics, Bartendro is a robot mixologist crafted from peristaltic pumps, Raspberry Pi, custom electronic dispenser boards, and food-grade tubing. It may simultaneously be the least-necessary and most-desirable robot in the world.

QWERTY keyboard pumps out hydraulic cocktails

If you've ever wondered what words taste like, you're now in luck. Russian artist Morskoiboy has created a contraption that mixes cocktails based on letters.

Behold, the Typewriter Cocktail Machine. It's the illegitimate child of a Remington crossed with a bottle of Smirnoff. It features more tubes than the DareDroid 2.0 cocktail-making dress and has a rainbow of flavored syrups at its disposal.

It's hard to describe exactly how this contraption works, but I'm going to try. Each key on the keyboard is a syringe pump. Push it down and it sucks syrup from a corresponding bottle, mixing it with the top-mounted alcoholic beverage of your choice.

The resulting combination of liquids lights up an LCD-style display that shows the letter you just pushed. It all gets mixed together in a glass off to the side. The video below should answer your questions.… Read more

DareDroid 2.0 dress dispenses fashion, cocktails

If filmmaker David Cronenberg designed a dress, it would look like the DareDroid 2.0. This cocktail-making frock looks like the union of a Madonna outfit and a cyborg jellyfish injected with the DNA of a bartender.

The DareDroid didn't come from Chanel or Versace. It sprung from the minds of a design team called the Modern Nomads, a trio that consists of Marius Kintel, Anouk Wipprecht, and Jane Tingley--a hacker, fashion designer, and sculptor, respectively. Now it all starts to make sense.

The dress isn't all tubes and white fabric. There's a lot of tech tucked in. Medical tubing and bottles hold the liquid. Custom hardware makes the dispenser function.

Built-in sensors are triggered by proximity. Remain at a respectful distance and the dress will dispense a non-alcoholic beverage. Get too close and it will shut off. LEDs alert you to just how close you are.… Read more

Martha Stewart bar app invites you up for drinks

Sometimes I play the game where you think of which famous celebrity you'd like to have a drink with. Bob Dylan would be awesome. Bill Gates probably makes a mean sloe gin fizz. For those of you who have Martha Stewart in mind, you can get one step closer to dream fulfillment with the Martha Stewart Cocktails app for the iPad.

The 99-cent app requires clicking through the age-restricted material warning when installing it. You just have to agree that you are over 17 to browse 20 recipes ranging from an Herbal Lillet Cooler to a Caiprinha, the Brazilian libation made with sugarcane liquor. In a nice pop culture collision, the White Russian recipe includes a shout out to the Dude from "The Big Lebowski."… Read more

Mixology: The science of cocktails (photos)

At a fund-raiser for The Exploratorium, San Francisco's storied hands-on science museum, lucky guests learn about the chemistry in their cosmos, while consuming one or two.

Drinking with droids at BarBot 2010

Appreciate androids with a taste for technology tipples? BarBot 2010 may be just the event for you.

A dozen drink-making droids served up their mixology skills this week, pouring cocktails for booze-hungry hackers at the DNA Lounge in San Francisco. BarBot 2010, the third event of its kind to celebrate robots and cocktail culture, is the place to get perfectly mixed drinks from well-oiled machines. Watch as these robots use automated algorithms to serve up White Russians, cosmopolitans, and shots of whiskey with a bit of futuristic flare.

The event was put on by the same folks behind the RoboGames, … Read more

Exploratorium serves up the science of cocktails (audio slideshow)

The Exploratorium, a hands-on science museum in San Francisco, opened its doors after-hours on Wednesday to give people the chance to learn a little more about the beverages they throw back during a night on the town.

The Science of Cocktails event featured bartenders from several drinking establishments in the city by the bay. Attendees were treated to experimental cocktails that take advantage of the chemical and physical characteristics of their ingredients, demonstrations of the physics that make bar tricks work, the debunking of myths about absinthe, and scientific explanations for the dreaded hangover.

Watch this audio slideshow to hear … Read more

The 404 421: Where Palm sprinkles Pixi dust on the new Apple iPods

If you thought the Palm Pre had a lame name, then consider their newest fumble: the Palm Pixi. Can you imagine walking into the nearest Sprint store and asking for the latest smartphone to hit the market, only to have the clerk bring out the Pixi? Well, names aside, the phone looks pretty cool. It's basically a stripped-down, simpler version of the Pre. It replaces the sliding keyboard with a fixed QWERTY keypad. The screen is a bit smaller, but still retains the 8GB of memory and GPS.

In other Palm news, the company has dropped the price of the Pre to a very affordable $150 and someone leaked an early copy the webOS version 1.2. The latest update which fixes small problems like the Select All option in the edit menu of the browser and makes some changes to the GPS.

Of course, we would be remiss if we didn't mention the forthcoming iPod price cuts and the new iPod leaks. CNET News is bringing you full coverage of the event on our live blog, and apparently TechCrunch has already reported that the 32GB iPod Touch has dropped from $399 to $279. Check out the photos and tune in tomorrow to see if our Technodamus predictions actually came true.

EPISODE 421 Subscribe in iTunes audio | Suscribe to iTunes (video) | Subscribe in RSS Audio | Subscribe in RSS Video… Read more

Join us for Apple's 09/09/09 event

After a long summer of swirling rumors, Apple's now-annual September music event is finally just around the corner.

It's happening Wednesday at 10 a.m. here in San Francisco, and CNET will have full, live-blogging coverage for you. I will be joined by CNET Reviews' Donald Bell, who will be offering his own commentary on all the music-related product announcements. What exactly that will be isn't a complete mystery, but Apple could have a few interesting surprises for us.

It looks like we won't be seeing a touch-screen tablet at this event, but there's plenty … Read more

Report: Apple music event September 9

It looks like the annual Apple music event will be held on September 9 this year, according to AllThingsD.

Though it had been reported earlier that the event would take place sometime that week, a source now tells AllThingsD that the exact date will be September 9, and that it will focus on music, meaning no tablet announcement.

If the date is correct, holding an event on a Wednesday would be a departure from Apple's habit of holding these types of events on Tuesdays. The date also gives more credence to the rumor that it might be the day … Read more