toothpaste posts on CNET

Crave 33: Robot babies drive us up the wall (podcast)

On this week's Crave, a slew of robots--especially two undeniably creepy baby models--have Jasmine so worked up she's lost her voice. Luckily, we manage to move on from the creepy to the craveable with a new Hot Wheels track setup that mounts on the wall, a Darth Vader CD player that's more about form than function, and an LED-bedazzled surfboard that leads to some scary-but-cool nighttime wave-riding. Also, the military gets its hands on a sweet high-tech gun and Japan cranks out a DIY gummi sushi kit. And what's making us fat this week? Not pickle-flavored toothpaste, that's for sure...

Subscribe in iTunes SD Video | Subscribe in RSS SD Video… Read more

Is it raining out? Ask your toothpaste

What if your toothpaste could tell you whether you needed to leave the house carrying an umbrella? Or how hot the day was going to be?

Odd as it may sound, David Carr of MIT's Media Lab is working on just such a prototype product, "Tastes Like Rain."

Carr and his colleagues are focused on super-mechanicals, or the idea of taking a basic object and giving it dynamic properties (consider, for example, the Proverbial Wallets, also out of MIT's Media Lab, that know your financial state).

In this case, toothpaste is modified to dispense one of three flavors depending on the weather. If it's mint, you know it's colder out than yesterday. Cinnamon means it's hotter. Blue stripes indicate tartar precipitation.

The prototype is currently hooked up to a small Linux computer that pulls forecasts, using custom software to compare previous and current temperatures and divvy up the flavors.

Then, linear actuators squeeze out the proper variety of toothpaste through a heavily modded Mentadent dispenser. … Read more