There’s something special about driving to work in the morning and sipping on your cup of joe while knowing that the vehicle you’re riding in is getting it’s energy from that same magical ground up bean. Okay I’ll probably never own a coffee car but there is a real one in England that will be driven 210 miles between Manchester and London powered only by roasted coffee granules. In total, the trip will use the equivalent of 11,760 espressos, and the team will have to take ‘coffee breaks’ roughly every 30 to 45 miles to pour in more granules. Don’t get too excited though. Running a car on coffee costs between 25 and 50 times the cost of running a car on regular gasoline.

More @ Daily Mail.

This iron is special because it won’t lay flat on the table due to the weight of the handle which forces it to stay upright. This makes this one of the safest irons I’ve ever seen. In addition to not starting house fires it also helps you prevent leaving an iron on clothes for too long and singing them.

More @ Yanko Designs.

I know that it can be difficult to find an outlet when you’re at an airport or bus station and desperately need to charge your cell phone or laptop. This concept is a chair that the user sits in a and rocks back and forth with their power plugged in to the built in power chord in the chair. Instead of taking electricity from the building, that chair actually transfers the energy you’re creating by rocking into the gadget you’re charging. Hey rocking is fun anyway so why not kill two birds with one stone.

More @ Inhabitat.

The above image is an 1,800 year old Roman gadget with 6 different purposes. It is made of silver with an iron blade and includes a spoon, fork, spike, spatula, toothpick, and of course, blade. The item was probably made between AD 200 and AD 300, when the Roman empire was a great imperial power. The item was found more than 20 years ago and was obtained by the Fitzwilliam Museum, in Cambridge England in 1991.

More @ Daily Mail.

No one enjoys going around their home and setting all the clocks twice a year but we must do it to keep our schedules. A new clock designed by NAVA makes setting daylight savings time a lot easier by simply tipping the clock to set it exactly one hour forward or on hour back back. I’m sure a hanging version of the clock is in the works.

More @ Yanko Designs.

The spork was an awesome invention because it combines two utensils, saving countless amounts of dollars for cafeteria buyers everywhere who can save by not overbuying on spoons or forks. This utensil invention serves a different purpose but is just as clever. The calamete (ka-la-may-tay) makes spaghetti eating faster because it’s designed to easily twirl and scoop spaghetti before you lift it to your mouth. And even though it looks a little like a dental tool (rusted this thing would be outright scary looking), I’d buy some just to satisfy my pasta needs that much faster while using the calamete.

I’m not really sure how the blocks even turn since they’re different sizes but it hurts my brain too much to think about it. I’ll let Mr. Rubik figure out the arthritic while I stare in awe at this awesome video:

We all love the motion sensored faucets that are getting installed in more and more in public bathrooms these days. The one thing they can’t really do is let you control the temperature of the water. The hidden Tap Faucet is different in that the water temperature is controlled by where your hands are in relation to the slot. Just like a regular faucet we have the hot on the left and the cold on the right. For more information on this cool invention, check out Engadget.

Technically, this one is more of an innovation than an invention but it’s definetly worth checking out. The concept of the Lexon Around Clock is pretty simple. The clock rotates twelve hours a day and the red wire sits stationary and tells you the current time. See when this photo was taken it was 10:45ish. They come in your choice of white or black colors and you can buy them here.

Nothing worse then plugging a power cord into a strip only to get a glimpse of how your wire management is not working out. Being too lazy to fix it you just plug away adding to the tangled mess. Just me? Well this power strip design is set up so that each individual power outlet rotates 360 degrees, untangling any wire that tries to get tangled. When can we see this in stores? Bravo!

Check out Yanko Design for more.

This is one of those I should have thought of that! inventions. Using all the resources available when a person has a flat tire, the exhaust air jack uses exhaust coming from the tailpipe of your car to blow up a balloon that will lift the car from the side. I would feel safer changing a tire with something like this over a standard jack because I’d be more comfortable with the larger radius holding up the car in hopes it would be less likely to fall on me. Nice job! Where can we buy one? Here.