Brilliant Weekend Edition!

Liquid-cooled smartphones, super modular backpacks, smartphone robots, AI beer tasting and more!

Mike’s List of Brilliantly Bad Ideas

1. This accessory is a liquid cooler for your phone

The RedMagic VC Cooler 5 Pro is a liquid cooler for your smartphone. It attaches to any phone using magnets or clips and cools it down with a 7-blade fan and a vapor chamber liquid cooling plate. How cool is that?

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2. This backpack isn’t really a backpack

The Lancer 300 from a startup called Coalax is a radical concept in backpack design. Many of the items a vlogger, drone pilot or camper might put inside a backpack are actually part of the backpack itself. The “backpack” is essentially a wearable frame to which you can attach optional accessories, including a variety of storage containers, a 300W power station, tripods, gimbals and selfie-sticks or individual cases for cameras and drones. On each side, there’s a mount for a gimbal or selfie stick, which can go straight up to serve as a light or straight out to shoot video back at the wearer.

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3. Finally: a robot body for your phone

The LOOI is a robot body for your phone. By installing the LOOI app and attaching your phone to its magnetic charger, the robot comes to life with cartoonish eyes, which blink and express fake emotions. The robot responds to commands (via ChatGPT), as well as touch and hand gestures. It can take pictures with your phone, and recognize both people and objects. Wheels and sensors enable the robot to roll around on your desk without going off the edge. It even acts like a cat, and pushes things off like a sociopath.

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4. AI tastes beer (so you don’t have to)

Belgian scientists created AI that can predict the taste of beer, and even advise beer makers on how to improve the flavor. Because human tasting is subjective, the Belgian beer brainiacs spent five years chemically analyzing 250 different beers and measuring the quantities of hundreds of aroma compounds in each. Then they used human beer experts to judge the beers’ quality. Using AI to correlate amounts and combinations of compounds with judged quality, they effectively enable the AI to “taste” beer by analyzing its chemical data and decide if it’s good or not. the AI can also give advice on how to improve the flavor by adding or removing compounds. Researchers say the concept could be used for any food or drink.

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5. Oh, God, they’re selling a life-size M3GAN doll!

A company called NECA, which is a leading manufacturer of licensed action figures, replicas and toys for collectors, is making a life-size M3GAN doll. The doll looks just like the AI robot doll in the movie (which is a GREAT movie, by the way). Best of all, the doll version won’t gain sentience and murder everyone. It’s fully posable, though, and has articulated inner-armature, movable eyes, synthetic hair and the exact same clothes as in the movie. It’s the perfect background for any Zoom meeting.

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Mike’s List of Shameless Self-Promotions

1. Kill meetings (before meetings kill your company)

2. How will the Merck settlement affect the insurance industry?

3. The future of work looks like sci-fi

4. Read ELGAN.COM for more!

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Mike’s Location: Oaxaca, Mexico

(Why Mike is always traveling.)