American entrepreneurial spirit is only exceeded...
...by the greed of Chinese IP pirates
I fully expect the Popinator to be produced in Shenzen with no royalties paid to the naive originators of the idea.
Arrrr!
Snack-slinging robot restores faith in Yankee ingenuity
The Consumer Electronics Association is concerned about America's future. "The culture of entrepreneurship and relentless innovation has made America home to the greatest advances in technology," they argue. "But today, that culture is under threat." The CEA's leadership has not, it appears, had the good fortune of visiting …
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Monday 1st October 2012 08:07 GMT Sir Runcible Spoon
Re: A quick search
"Shows they failed to patent this."
I think that's because it isn't their idea.
There was a Uk show (gadget geeks?) that designed and built a prototype hot-dog launcher at a speedway circuit or something. You basically texted it your seat number and it shot it at you from about 100 yards away.
Limited success :) but the idea was there.
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Saturday 29th September 2012 06:50 GMT Tom 7
Made a non voice controlled one many years ago
you cant be accurate with popcorn over any reasonable distances - and this thing is within arm reach and you could have got a good fistfull and be back reclining faster than this delivered.
I am however selling a voice controlled disruptor air jet for anyone in an office who has a colleague who purchases one....
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Saturday 29th September 2012 07:21 GMT Anonymous Coward
Insert paintballs and change the voice trigger..
.. and you have the best home defence system a geek can buy. Or change the trigger to "f*ck" and encourage your kids to expand their vocabulary instead (that's the theory, in reality, hey will stand behind you and then swear :) ).
And, of course, you'll do this in a place that needs redecorating anyway.
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Sunday 30th September 2012 10:38 GMT Anonymous Coward
No...it may well not be
You can see the feed tube near the bottom of the box in the photo. I once saw a system to deliver tablets to a testing machine that used compressed air, and I'm guessing this is how it works; suction draws popcorn into the tube (perhaps with a little vibration to reduce blockages) and when an optical sensor detects popcorn at the base of the feed unit, it is blown up.
The acoustic sensing is perfectly feasible. An ARM processor is easily able to deal with the processing required.
My guess is that it isn't real only because the air tank and compressor are quite large and external to the unit.
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Sunday 30th September 2012 16:24 GMT Ralph B
DARPA Interested?
No need to weaponize it - popcorn is already a deadly product of the American "food" industry.
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Monday 1st October 2012 01:41 GMT jake
Evolution in action. (was: Re: DARPA Interested?)
What kind of mouth-breather buys this shit, anyway?[1] I mean, seriously, store-bought pre-popped popcorn and store-bought microwaveable popcorn? WHY? It's not exactly rocket-science to pop it on your own stove-top, and flavo(u)r it to your own taste ... or, if away from your kitchen, in the nearest microwave with homemade pre-flavo(u)red microwavable pouches. It's a hell of a lot cheaper, too ... especially if you purchase the kernels from bulk bins. Don't know how? Try searching TehIntraWebTubes[tm]; I'm sure somebody has a page or two on the subject.
[1] Probably the same idiots who buy figs at markets at this time of year (a little later, persimmons & quince) in the SF Bay Area ... or the complete morons who actually pay for bay/laural/myrtal leaves.
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Biting the hand that feeds IT
