HP’s Product(s) of the Week - PC Enhancements
Look Chessiegirl! I remembered!
When I saw these I was breathless with admiration. What comforts a USB coffee warmer and built in cigarette lighter could bring!
The coffee warmer plugs into a USB port and sits on your desk, warming your coffee, tea or hot chocolate to an even 40 degrees C. This is kinda “warmish” in my opinion but considering how often I’ve taken a mouthful of coffee and found it to be stone cold this would be better than nothing. According to the site, you can just leave your drink sat there with no time limit but three weeks is probably pushing it from a health and safety point of view.
As Chessie knows, I am forever losing my lighter (yes, yes, I am planning to quit smoking. Rack off), but with a built in lighter in my spare CD bay I would never have this problem again. Actually, as fun as this idea is, I’m not sure I want one extra hot thing lurking in my case, but anyway. Judging also by the general unreliablity of car cigarette lighters, I’m wondering if this could be one more case of PC rage, when the lighter bit fails to pop out after 15 minutes.
Personally, I think this trend could be taken a lot further. Just for my own comfort a USB toaster would be handy, perhaps with a plug and play fridge to keep the butter cold. The toaster could be set to eject the toast when a Yahoo contact comes online, and if I could get a coffee machine hooked up somehow that could be set to make coffee whenever I tune in to Urge radio after 10pm. Of course, I’d need a dishwasher for the cups.
These are not technically useless products, but they are technically pointless. If people can keep their coffee warm and a lighter to hand at all times we are seriously going to lose the use of our legs (although it might make it a damn sight harder for my mother to pocket my lighter).
On a slightly related note, the power has gone out twice during this entry and I am still here. I love my UPS.
July 5th, 2004 at 1:19 pm
I would rather see a USB attachment that gave you a nice deterring shock whenever you lit up a cigarette but I have to say that as a medical professional. I’m duty bound, lol.
The coffee warmer is quite intriguing. I wonder how much of a drain it puts on your computer? My luck, I would try to play TSO and be lagging everywhere I went. "No worries, mate, I’m just drinking my coffee. I’ll speed up in just a minute."
Now, what about a treadmill that attaches to a USB port? There’s an idea. Shall we patent it?
July 5th, 2004 at 3:28 pm
Hehe, I may need that electric shock soon when I finally give up the fags (note the SOON).
Perhaps a better idea would be a treadmill power supply, so that you have to walk in order to use the PC at all… hmm…
July 5th, 2004 at 6:12 pm
You need to put http://www.gizmodo.net/ in your bookmarks / favourites folder. They sometimes put up reviews of useful USB stuff (including, if my memory serves me right, a coffee-warmer).
Back to sleep now…