mug

I've always heard that smell plays an important role in how food tastes. I didn't expect that color could also sway the taste buds. A study published in the Journal of Sensory Studies found that the color of a cup can influence the way people taste hot chocolate.

Betina Piqueras-Fiszman, a researcher at the Polytechnic University of Valencia in Spain, and Charles Spence, a professor at the University of Oxford in England, subjected 57 participants to what may be one the tastiest science experiments ever.

The participants tasted samples of hot chocolate served in four different colors of plastic cups: white, cream, red, and orange. The sippers preferred the flavor of the beverage in orange or cream-colored cups. … Read more

The head of foam on a beer is important. Too much, and you're stuck with a mouth full of fluff. Too little, and you're wondering if the carbonation is correct. Buy a Professional Beer Foam Making Mug from Brando, and you may take control of your beer head destiny.

Press down on a little lever, and watch the beer go whoosh and foam up at the top. Brando refers to it as "joys for all people." The under-21 crowd could always use it to add some head to root beer, I suppose.… Read more

When you've been the victim of a mugging--or merely a witness to one--one instinct might be to warn others.

But how can you do that? It's not as if a Facebook posting saying: "Hey, I've been mugged on Main Street" will necessarily help.

So a nonprofit organization in the U.K. has created a site that brings all mugging information to one place: StreetViolence.org.

Launched yesterday, the site attempts to collate all mugging information into one single Google map (the site is initially London-only), so that those with any interest can warn others, report … Read more

Yahoo has changed its Flickr Pro premium service into a subscription plan, a modest but reasonable change that I hope presages bigger adjustments to compete better against new photo-sharing rivals.

Flickr, a fixture in online photography, has lost luster as alternatives such as Facebook, Google+, Instagram, and 500px have advanced the state of the art and attracted millions of users. Flickr is shucking old baggage as part of a promise of new vitality in 2012, though. And although the new Flickr Pro pricing scheme is hardly a dramatic new course, at least it shows somebody's at the tiller.

With … Read more

You know they do things differently in Arizona.

They like to be forward-thinking, proactive, and pure in their motivations.

So who could not be impressed with Sheriff Joe Arpaio who has decided to add a new, public-spirited, and entertaining element to Maricopa County Sheriff's Office Web site?

Arpaio, whose county covers Phoenix and a number of suburbs, decided it would be amusing to have anyone who visits the site and eyeballs the gallery of mug shots to choose a "Mug Shot of the Day."

In a nation in which "Dancing with the Stars" and "… Read more

Mornings can be treacherous things to navigate, and most of us have developed some kind of ritual to help us get through those choppy waters. Coffee and tea have always been popular day-starters, and how we get it varies as much as how we like to enjoy it. Some of us rush about, grabbing our beverage of choice so quickly that the sloshing in the cup threatens to spill onto the floor. And others like to sit back, relax, and let the early morning stares take over. For those who belong to the latter group, here's something you might … Read more

Photography geeks know that all lenses--fisheye, wide-angle, zoom--serve a unique purpose. But they can be expensive, so here's one that won't break the bank: the camera lens mug being sold by Photojojo.

For $24, you can hold your morning pick-me-up in what appears to be a 24-105mm Canon lens. The stainless steel lining will keep your beverage hot, and a lens cap cover will save you from any spillage.

We wish the lens cap was a sip top, but the makers of the camera lens coffee mug wanted to preserve its authenticity--it looks just like the real thing. … Read more

After years and years of failed coffee mugs, we decide to air out the dirt on the ones that suck... and possibly even cover a few things that could be considered "technology" too.

All The Mugs We Have Tried OXO “liquiseal” coffee mugs

Planetary Design Tumber Mug

Contigo AutoSeal http://bit.ly/cgDqaS

Thermos Sipp

This one looks good: Bodum Anywhere Travel Mug… Read more