water

Go to the fridge for hot tea and more

A refrigerator pretty much has one job. Well, make that two: to keep food cold and colder. Even with the oncoming eventuality of smart appliances dominating the kitchen, the basic task of the fridge is in regard to food storage. Somewhere along the way, a logical extension of the refrigerator's responsibilities resulted in the creation of water and ice dispensers; a welcome addition, as a nice, cool drink of water is impossible to beat. Unless maybe you wanted hot water.

The GE Cafe Series CFE29TSDSS French Door Refrigerator with Hot Water ($3,099) incorporates a water dispenser that delivers … Read more

Catch a wave with Kymera electric body board

If paddling out to that wave is getting a little too tiring, this electric body board puts you right in the water while pulling you along effortlessly.

Kymera is a lightweight, motorized jet board that can send you crashing through waves to help a struggling swimmer. Mainly intended for lifeguards and search and rescue teams, it's designed to be placed in the water more quickly and easily than personal watercraft.

The focus of a $250,000 Kickstarter campaign, Kymera weighs 48 pounds with the rechargeable lithium polymer battery pack, and 29 pounds without it. … Read more

Amazing illusion: Watch water flow like never before

Water can be a solid, liquid, or gas -- and one heck of a dazzling science experiment when you pump up the volume.

A mind-bending video by YouTube user Brusspup shows how falling water can take on a zigzag pattern after two influencing factors: a nearby device emitting a 24Hz sine wave noise and a camera recording at 24 frames per second.… Read more

The 404 1,222: Where we bust myths and eardrums (podcast)

Leaked from today's 404 episode:

- Makerbong? 3D printing is getting stoned.

- Bloomberg's next ban may be loud headphones.

- A petition to change the national anthem to R. Kelly's 2003 hit "Ignition (Remix)."

- 404 Archive News: 404 Redditor fanbanlo posted a link to download 1,217 archived episodes of the show. Canoy took care of a search for all 404 episodes on CNET.… Read more

Four-door Samsung fridge adds SodaStream

The refrigerator door has long been a source for inspiration. On the inside, condiments line up and stand guard over the contents on the shelves. Pressed into action, they are ready at a moment's notice to be squeezed, squirted, and spread all over any meal any time of the day. But it is more than Sriracha and mayo that the fridge door has to offer. On the outside, there's a whole other world to explore. Now, with carbonated water.

The Samsung RF31FMESBSR 36" Four-Door Refrigerator with SodaStream dispenser takes tricked-out refrigerators to a bubbly, new level. Hiding … Read more

Poland Spring blows Rubio #watergate moment, fails Twitter 101

President Obama's State of the Union speech didn't generate any memes, but Florida Sen. Marco Rubio gave the Twitterverse something to shout about: his awkward reach for a tiny bottle of Poland Spring water during his official Republican rebuttal address. Almost instantly, the moment was a trending topic.

Unfortunately for Poland Spring, its social media people -- if it even has any -- dropped the ball. What appear to be its official Twitter accounts, @PolandSpringWtr, and @PolandSpringInc, were both dormant after Rubio's instantly panned water break. In fact, the most recent tweet from either account came in … Read more

Use your cell phone to detect mercury levels in water

It may not make your list of must-have camping gear, but a new sheet that detects mercury levels in water may prove useful to those who live or work downstream from industrial and mining sites (such as gold mines and coal-fired powered plants) and want to drink the local water.

When dipped in water for five minutes, the sheet, manufactured by chemists at the University of Burgos in Spain, signals the presence of mercury by turning red -- a process that can be seen with the naked eye.

Take a picture of that sheet with a digital camera, and you can learn the specific concentration of the mercury, a metal that is liquid at room temperature and has been found to cause long-term neurological issues after accumulating in the brain.… Read more

Stay connected with your Zuvo Stratus kitchen faucet

Water is easy to take for granted. It comes out of the faucet, we collect it in a glass, and drink it to quench our thirst. But there is more to it than that, of course. Bottled water, filter pitchers, and other countertop systems have proliferated over recent years, all in an effort to make water taste and smell better to us, not to mention making it safer to drink. Now, it can communicate with us -- well, almost.

There is a lot of information hidden in the everyday stream of water that pours out of our kitchen faucets. The … Read more

Simple puzzler gets challenging quickly as gameboards get bigger

Flow Free: Bridges is an easy-to-learn puzzler with satisfying touch-screen controls, but be ready for a challenge once you hit later levels.

Many people will remember Web-based pipe games where you connect pipes to complete a circuit so water can flow from a starting point to a goal. Flow Free: Bridges is a similar concept, but instead you're trying to connect multiple color-coded start and end points together without crossing the lines. Fortunately, there is an exception to the rule about crossing the lines, with bridge tiles you can make one pipe pass over another to get to the … Read more