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If you know anything about coffee, and coffee snobs, youll know theyre always going on about where their beans are sourced from. The preference for single origin beans is better for traceability, transparency, and when you discover a variety you adore, you can keep going back. Japanese company Mihatama, however, turned up to CES 2025 in Las Vegas with Flavor Craft AI, an app-controlled system to meter out beans to suit your specific taste. You can just imagine the coffee snobs clutching their heads at the thought of blending beans in such a fashion. Essentially, you fire up the app and select preferences based on your preferred flavor, selecting for strength, acidity, bitterness, astringency and richness. Once youve done so, the AI will direct the machine to churn out a blend of different beans sufficient quantities to match the flavor youve requested. Said beans will be collected in the bottom tray, where you can then dump them into your grinder of choice and brew up your drink. The company has set up a pre-launch page on Indiegogo which will open to pre-sales at some point in the near future. Its representatives have said that itll cost around $400 when it goes on sale, plus or minus the cost of never being able to invite your coffee snob friends over to your house ever again.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/home/kitchen-tech/this-mean-bean-machine-is-bound-to-upset-coffee-fans-183045969.html?src=rss
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DotLumen founder Cornel Amariei describes his product as a self driving system to enable blind and low-vision people a way to get around. Its essentially the electronic equivalent to a guide dog, helping users avoid obstacles when walking around. The Romanian company turned up to CES 2025 in Las Vegas armed with prototypes of its headset that it hopes will make blind peoples lives a lot easier. The headset looks like a chunky piece of VR gear, with a front unit sitting on your forehead just above your eyes. Theres a chunky power and processing pack on the rear that keeps the bulky device's weight balanced while walking around. In the front, there are six computer vision cameras three near field and three pointed further away which Amariei says was inspired by Teslas setup. Collision avoidance is the main priority here, preventing you from bumping into other pedestrians or street obstacles. In front of the headset are a series of little arms that make contact with your forehead, each one tied to a vibrating motor. When the vibrations are in the center of your forehead, its safe for you to move forward, but when the vibrations move either side, you should turn to refocus. There is also a voice guide, and this will chime in to let you know when the view in front of you is getting crowded. Amariei told me that the headset has a battery life of around 2.5 hours, which is more than enough for an average walk. But that if you do need some extra juice, you can hook up a USB-C battery pack and carry that around with you as well. Daniel Cooper for Engadget Testing the headset in the less-than-ideal environment of CES was a great way way to see how serious the company is. After all, the ceilings are low, the walkways narrow and there are always hundreds of people who just walk at you, expecting you to throw yourself out of their way. Which is why I wore a blindfold and strapped the prototype to my head in order to roam the floor at Eureka Park. Its obviously quite hard to describe the sensation navigating a space using only gentle taps on your forehead. I certainly was quite hesitant, taking small steps and slowly moving forward, letting the headset guide me on my journey through. When crowds thronged past me in tight formation, the hardwares audio guide said narrow, telling me the space around me was in short supply. What impressed me is that I was able to navigate the scrum without bumping into anyone, and managed to get a fair way through the hall. Naturally, I cant speak to the headsets long-term effectiveness, especially as someone who can see, but the technology certainly feels like it could be very useful. Amariei said DotLumen will begin selling its headset in Europe in the near future, with the price expected to come in under 10,000. As steep as that sounds, he added the price to train a guide dog is significantly higher. In the US, the Guide Dog foundation says it costs $50,000 to breed, raise, train and place an assistance dog.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/wearables/dotlumens-haptic-headset-could-help-blind-people-navigate-181532099.html?src=rss
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For the third year running, Xbox is kicking off its annual slate of games showcases with a Developer Direct. The latest edition will take place on January 23 at 1PM ET. As always, the Developer Direct will take a deep dive into several upcoming Xbox games. The developers of South of Midnight, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and Doom: The Dark Ages will reveal more details about those projects. Perhaps we'll even get a release date or two. On top of that, Xbox is promising a visit to another mystery studio that will show off a brand-new game. The first Developer Direct included the reveal and news of the immediate release of the wonderful Hi-Fi Rush. So here's hoping for a surprise that's just as delectable. Even so, South of Midnight and Doom: The Dark Ages are among the games I'm most looking forward to this year, so I'm happy to get another look at those. Let's just keep our fingers crossed that the Developer Direct won't include any word about delays.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/xbox/the-next-xbox-developer-direct-showcase-is-set-for-january-23-150528471.html?src=rss
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