Whiten the corners
ORAL-B IO
What’s the smartest thing you’ve ever put in your mouth? Will Self’s
little finger? An avocado in a cravat? Brush your teeth with one of
Oral-B’s new iO electric brushes and that might just take the title.
With a smart pressure sensor that tells you whether you’re pressing
too hard or not hard enough, a visual timer that counts up to the
dentist-approved two minutes, and AI brushing recognition to make
sure you cover every single mouth cranny, it’s probably smarter than
the average toddler – and much easier to fit in your gob. And to think
it used to be enough to make sure you brushed twice a day.
£tbc / io.oralb.co.ukLike streamers do
LOGITECH STREAMCAM
Back in our day, if you wanted to make some money as a youngster you
could go either down the mines or up chimneys. These days it seems
you just need to go on YouTube and before you know it you’re a
millionaire with your own signature line of vape liquids. But where do
you start? Logitech’s new StreamCam isn’t a bad place. Plug it in via
USB-C, perch it on top of your screen and it’ll capture 1080p footage at
60fps, with auto-exposure and face-based autofocus to make sure
your army of fans can always see you in sharp relief. Fame and fortune
surely await... or bemusement at why your ‘ASMR for guinea pigs’
channel hasn’t hit the big time.
£139 / logitech.com
That is some high-end Mad Max cosplay.
Isn’t it just? It’s not hard to imagine yourself
saddling up some sort of gas-guzzling
Frankenstein of a motor, donning a pair of
these and taking off across the Australian
outback. In actual fact, they might help you
to experience exactly that, because they’re
far from just a useless movie prop. These
are, according to Panasonic, the world’s first
HDR-capable virtual reality goggles.I thought we’d given up on VR?
Get with it, Gramps. We won’t pretend
there aren’t various issues stopping VR
from going truly mainstream, but one of
the main ones is just how unwieldy the
headsets can be – most of them still
involve strapping something the size
of a box of goose eggs to your face. These
still aren’t exactly what you’d call subtle,
but they’re definitely more ‘glasses’ than
‘headset’. They’ve even managed to include
a pair of built-in Technics earbuds.Surely the performance must suffer?
Quite the opposite, if the specs are to be
believed. The Oculus Rift S uses a single
Quad HD LCD panel, whereas these are
capable of displaying 4K video (like the
Rift S, they have to be plugged into a
PC to supply the visuals). Each of the
circular eyepieces has its own micro OLED
panel inside and Panasonic has used
picture-processing smarts from its TVs
and Blu-ray players, plus optical tech
from its Lumix cameras, to make sure
the virtual world looks as close to the
real one as possible. You can even fit them
with prescription lenses.Right, what are they called and when can
I buy some?
That’s the catch. These are a prototype, so
it’s unlikely you’ll ever be able to buy them
in their current form – but it goes to show
you can make a pair of VR goggles that
don’t make you feel like you’re auditioning
to be the new member of Daft Punk.WTF ARE
PANASONIC’S
STEAMPUNK
GLASSES?