Tomorrow Daily 041: Chairless chairs, artificial skin that changes color, and a Lego building

There's an exoskeleton that creates a chair for you no matter where you are. So, it's a chair-less chair for you to wear. You can sit anywhere, like over there. New artificial skin changes its color to match its surroundings. Now, there's actual science to being a wallflower. And ground has been broken in Denmark for Lego's experience center, the building inspired by Lego blocks. Now, even giants will understand what it's like to step on those damn things in the middle of the night. Ouch. Yeah, they hurt. Tomorrow daily. [MUSIC] Greetings citizens of the Internet. Welcome to Tomorrow Daily, the best tech talk show in the known universe. I'm your host, Ashley Esqueda. Joining me once again, Rich DeMuro. How's it going? What's up? Good weekend? Oh my gosh, so packed. So Pat. We can talk fast. You are so busy. Should be three days in a weekend. I would like that. We should move to a four day. We'll. Actually technically we do get three days cause we're on Friday. I was gonna say I guess technically we do but no it, it was fun. Good times were had, good times were had. But Were good times had by all though? Probably not all. Not all. But some. > So why did everyone say that? I don't know, I don't know. But you know there are some good times that are happening in the headlines so let's check it out. [MUSIC] Have you ever been on public transportation and been like I wish I could sit down? All the time. Do you take public transportation? Yeah. So this chairless chair is now going to let you do that, and it's kind of amazing. I gotta see this. The chairless chair. The chairless chair is made by Noonee. And the CEO of the company whose name is Keith Gunura, he said it was inspired by his years working in a UK packaging factory. Okay. So he would stand for hours working on things as you see right here without any chair to sit on. And he said, you know, everybody in this factory's very overworked. They didn't take a lot of breaks. And then when they did there wasn't really anywhere to sit. What were they making? iPhones? [LAUGH] no, no. They don't get any breaks there. [LAUGH] But this, chairless chair is, two kilograms so it's very lightweight. And it's made of aluminum and carbon fiber. Diverse. So, it's, it's pretty easy to, pretty easy to use. And, the cool thing about this is when you wear it, you can actually walk and run like you normally would. So, it's not like a huge exoskeleton kind of thing. That we've been seeing, yeah. And, so it allows you to just lean back and sit. Yeah so you, you basically activate this and it locks into place and you can kinda lean back into it like a chair. I mean it looks really simple. Yes, very simple. It looks like it's just got two of those things that aer on your, Hydraulics? Yeah. Hydraulic kinda things that just like lock up I guess. Really neat. Really cool. How many places, I think we should start a list of different places where this would be useful. Disneyland. Any time you're waiting in a line. [LAUGH] Yes, any time you're queue, in a queue this is like the thing to have. Oh my gosh it would be so handy. And I always think about this, whenever I'm in a line I'm always like I've got to bring one of those, have you ever seen those chairs that have like one leg? Almost. Yeah the, the. Like a sporting [INAUDIBLE] or something? I think he was saying that, like, this was sort of inspired by. Yes. Those monopods that, people would use to milk cows, like, hundreds of years ago. Yes. So I got. I wrote down the names cuz I thought it was really interesting. Yeah. What is it called? Let's see. Well unfortunately. Here it is. Yeah, like, I don't. The Swiss milking stool. [LAUGH] Yeah the Swiss milk is okay. [LAUGH] What a name for a thing. It was basically, like, a stool with one leg in the middle. Which is kind of like this is a new age version of that. Right so this is a really great thing for two reasons, one as you saw in the video it will decrease fatigue as you're standing. For people who stand a lot at their job or maybe do things where they're squatting or crouched this is a really great thing and then the other part of that is. Even if you're, you know they say if you're standing at a desk it's healthier for you, and sitting all day is bad for you. But, you can do a lot of damage to your system by sitting or standing for really extended periods of time, so this is supposed to be really good for posture. Sorry I'm losing it here, I'm thinking of something I shouldn't say. The quit smoking stool? [LAUGH] The worst, the worst. Did they say a price on this thing? Not yet, not that I saw. The device, actually, does not touch the ground? That was another thing that I really thought was interesting? It doesn't seem like it would be that expensive, based on, like, what I'm seeing. Like, it looks like a pretty sim- Right, what it's made of. It's almost, like, more like a simple machine. Like it's, like someone came up with an idea that's really smart, more than, like, here's a very complicated- Super high-tech, yeah. Exactly. Like, here's a, here's an exoskeleton, like you said, that's gonna help you build a ship. Yeah. [LAUGH] Exactly. So, yeah. Now this is very, very. Interesting to me. And they're hoping that it will help people in those positions vary sitting and standing throughout the day, without having it impact a, their, you know, their work. Right. And then b, also not impacting their health. So it's, it's really neat and really just kind of ingenious, really nice. Smart, yeah, very smart. You know alsos else is smart? What? This new artificial skin developed by people at the University of Houston. Okay? I saw this video, it's creepy. It changes color based on its surroundings and it was inspired by sea creatures. I, I can't tell. Squid [INAUDIBLE]. It was either squid or octopus. [INAUDIBLE] Like they had like different things on there. But anyway, maybe a squid is an octopus. Fair enough. Woah, that's just, look at it change. So there it is. They're little 16 by 16 pixels that have some sort of thing that realizes what the color is around it. It's light based right? Yeah, and then it. It senses the light changing and then it changes color. Now right now this is just black or white. Okay [CROSSTALK] So it's not color like the full spectrum but they say there's no reason why this couldn't do that. And here is the interesting thing. You might just say well okay well big deal there's a million things that can do this. Here's the cool thing. There's no input whatsoever. So there's no, like, brain or, like, control that's like- So this is an, entirely autonomous? It's doing it by itself. That's awesome. So it's realizing. And the little, like, pixels kind of realize, like the color next to them. I mean, it's really kind of ingenious that they figured this out. So it's a 16 by 16 pixel grid. This is weird. People are gonna be dressed up, like, in really. Realistic Mystique costume. Right. From X-Men soon. Yes, and it just. Yeah, and everywhere you just change. Very cool. I could dress up as you for the show, perfect. No, it, you'd have to probably, you'd have to evolve this technology just a teeny bit before that could happen. I'm sorry. Quite a bit, yeah. And then I'll dress up as you, we'll do a cross show. Yeah, we'll do a show where I dress up as Rich,. And he dresses up as me. That, wouldn't be weird. That would be super-awkward. That would be the creepiest show. As if the intro isn't creepy enough- That's true. Those really close, With those extreme close-ups and those corny jokes. Yeah, No, I agree, I agree. Man. The last thing that we have to talk about is, and first of all, I need to book a ticket to Denmark immediately when this opens. Lego officially started construction on, what they're calling, the Lego. Experience center in Billings, Denmark and I thought this was very interesting because; A. this building looks awesome. But the other part of it is, is the founder of the Danish firm who is building this. Building. [LAUGH] This guy's name is Bjarke Ingels. The builder? Bjarke, Bjarke. He used the basic 2 by 4 Lego brick as the starting point for the design of his Lego house, which is gonna be a visitor attraction. And the reason they chose Billund, if you didn't know, is because this is where Lego was invented, back in 1932. So this is um,you know, kind of the, and, and they're saying, so you can see, like, the design of it. The very top of that where you see that it looks like an upside down Lego, that is a large gallery with skylights and angled the same as that from google earth will look a Lego brick. Now this isn't made of actual Legos they're saying it was inspired by Legos. Right it could not be made of actual Legos because of hazards like fire. They had to make it safe, but it was. It's certainly inspired by Legos, and the other part of it is the proportion of Lego is there. The Lego brick proportion. Yeah, the sort of two by, he says this, I love this quote. Lego proportions are really the golden ratio of architecture, he said. Well, I mean if you look at a cinderblock. Yeah, it's true. Isn't it like the same proportion? Of course. So I thought this was pretty interesting, this mathematician, this mathematician, that with six two by four Legos, the standard Lego brick. Okay. You can combine them over six billion ways. Yeah, yeah. No wonder kids are so creative with this. So have been, ever been to Legoland? I have never been to Legoland. Okay, so I've been twice in the last year because I have a three year old. I was gonna say, that a very popular destination with the children. And I was so impressed because they make these huge creations there that are all made out of legos. You know, like are they real, did you really put those together? And here's the secret sauce to like any of this stuff with the legos. They actually have like computer programs that build them in virtual worlds. So they can say, this is possible. And then it like literally maps out, like here make like six in a row here, 17 black ones in a row here, 18 you know yellow ones in a row here, you know what I mean, yeah it helps them create it. I didn't know that, I didn't know there was a computer, I thought somebody just thought it up like you know, I'm gonna see if I can build a pirate ship. No, they do have people that are smart that make, that know- That make- There way around like look, there's a couple people that know their way around a Lego. But, the computers do help them along, and then they somehow glue them together. Yeah of course. That is really cool. Oh okay, like a sealant or something? Yeah, it's very well held together. They won't exactly tell you how- Well yeah, you wouldn't want them falling apart and landing on your two year old, or pulling an arm off a giant Lego man. You wouldn't want your kid, a giant Lego arm that fall. Yikes. I'm sure that's happened. That would be terrible. But anyway, if you're, if you really are into this, you should check out the park cuz they have some great, like- It is really neat. the LEGO world where they have, like, all the different cities built with Legos. Oh. It's pretty fascinating. I mean, I was never really- I mean, I've just seen the LEGO store at Disney, Downtown DIsney. And that's pretty cool. [LAUGH] Like, it's just a, basically, like a store. Yeah, it's like a poor man's version of going to LEGO Land. The data is [CROSSTALK] That's fine though. Go to the Lego store. Start with the Lego store, then go to the park, then go to the Lego World [CROSSTALK] Gotcha, fair enough. Rich is gonna keep laughing at me for the next 30 seconds because I've never been to Lego World. But we will be right back with a backer hack it that has to do with gardening, but in a really cool high-tech way. And also phone calls of the day and your user feedback. So, don't go away. Tomorrow Daily. [MUSIC] All right we are back and we are ready to jump in to the next segment which is back it or hack it. We got some hatchets. Is that new? While you were gone. I was gonna say, I don't remember that one, that's cool, alright. [CROSSTALK] This is, I'm really interested in your opinion on this because some people are really into gardening, and farming their own food and different things like this. This is called Eve and Adam and it's a smart gardening system. And, how this works is there is a box called [UNKNOWN] and that is your, your irrigation, it overrides your irrigation system. Okay. And then you have these little sensors called atom. So yeah, here's what you would have originally. This is the new stuff. So you'd put atom down in the ground and it would, it monitors your specific. Soil so that's sort of the point of it, you don't have to look at like a Farmer's Almanac or you can't really go by the general conditions are because everybody's grass and soil is different. So you would put these in the ground and it would check out its surroundings. You would tell it what kind of, if you're growing grass or maybe different plants, different flowers, things like that. And it would then send a signal to Eve, which would then adjust based on what the soil needed. So you're not overwatering, you're not underwatering, it's always a perfect water. Right no matter what. And the cool thing about this is it connects to smart things, which just got bought by Samsung. And it will check the forecast. So if it's gonna rain, Eve will say, oh we'll maybe not water today cuz I can see that the sensors are saying there's water. Right. Or so it's kinda like [UNKNOWN] but for your sprinklers. Yeah, yeah.>> So I think this is brilliant. It, it's brilliant in two forms because first off, the guy didn't reinvent the sprinkler system. Everyone who has a house. [CROSSTALK] That has a sprinkler. Well if you have a sprinkler system, you don't want to replace that whole sprinkler system. No, that's so expensive. Nor would you want to do a lot of it. So, the fact that she didn't say, oh at first I thought it was like all new sprinkler heads, so I was like no way, not doing this. But the fact that it's like all little water sensors that talk to a brain. That say hey, if there's no water, water. If there's too much water, don't water. Right. Have you ever seen a sprinkler that's on during the rain. Such a nightmare. I mean, clearly if you live in Los Angeles you haven't seen rain in like seven years. Yeah, I know, like eight months. But, in other normal cities where rain happens. It, you don't remember to like shut it off, or if you go to work in the morning and maybe, maybe your sprinklers like ours run at 2 o'clock in the morning. So we run ours in the middle of the night. Sure. Cuz we wanna [INAUDIBLE]. Conservative about our water usage and things like that and we want to get as much as we can out of our water. But yeah like if you're, if you forget, if you have your sprinklers go off like a couple of hours before you get up to go to work. I mean, yeah, it could be raining in the middle of the night and you'd just be wasting water. Right. And I like the fact that those little sensors, if you saw, they kinda have like splits in the middle. They're saying that they measure both the ground, like the deeper kinda ground water stored there, And then up above. And the above. Oh. So. Interesting. There might be water you can't see. And it knows that if there's enough moisture lower that you only need to do a light watering. Exactly. Oh. I think this is totally brilliant. It's a great way of. Like it seems like it's a very easy way of building into your system that you already have. Yeah, yeah like that. Cause a lot of people when they see new systems are like I don't want to replace like the motherboard of my system like it's. But it is like you said like Nest where you just replace the, the quote unquote thermostat part. Right. And then it just handles all of your already existing installation. Through that sort of brain like How much? OK. So keeping in mind. Break it to me easy. Keeping in mind that Nest costs 249. Yep. OK. I thought Nest was like 199 now. Maybe it is. Oh no that was the, the smoke detector. Not that was, yeah the smoke detector. Its 1 39. Okay. okay, so this starts at $160 for Eve and one Adam sensor. But you have to have the Smart Things hub. Oh. So that costs extra. Oh. It's additional. Now. Oh, it's another part. Well that's the hub. Three pieces? That's the hub that you need to control it from your smartphone. Ooh. So here's, here's what it is for an Eve with the Smart Things hub and two Adam sensors, is 345 bucks. Which isn't bad. I think I would have to do a cost analysis, like to see how much water, 'cause, you know, once you have, like sprinklers running, they do cost money. Yeah, they do. Like, it's not cheap. Water is expensive. And like, my yard is all dead right now. I mean everything is sort of dead here in LA. But like if I, if it knew, like if I knew, like okay, if I can water for this much and like, actually get something out of it. Right now I just feel like I'm just watering, I have no idea what I'm doing. So if this can- Yeah, you can tell Eve. Say, okay, so here in LA for the drought, we have restrictions on when we can water, so I'm, my house is only allowed to water on Sundays and Thursdays. Hm. And, and we can water as long as we want, but you can only water those two days a week. And so what we do is we give the lawn a really good soak those two days, like per zone, which we have like nine zones. It's like 20, I think we do like 35 minutes a zone. So, it takes a long time to get through all those ten zones. Wow, that's a, that's, that's some intense, you might wanna have someone look into that. [LAUGH] [LAUGH] I know, it's very serious. Who, I set mine for eight minutes. Like, that, That's why everything's dead in your yard. Well, no, but that's what I, I went onto the website, to, like, look, and see what they, and they said, No more than 8 minutes a zone. That's way too little. You're dr- You're doing 35 minutes a zone. You're using, no wonder we have a drought in California. No, but it's only two days a week. You are causing it. [CROSSTALK] Other people will. Listen you. Other people will water their lawns for like hours and will have run off and stuff. That's why this is a really great product. And i think for $345, think about it this this way, if you have a nest it generally pays for itself. If you use a lot of energy, if you have central AC and you live in a hot area or heat and you live in a cold area, it pays for itself over time. It definitely does. I mean, I would assume it does. I can't tell with [CROSSTALK]. Over time. It feels like this would pay for itself, yeah. It's expensive, the price will clearly come down. I don't like it. It seems a little complicated, you have 3 steps to it. Like I would like if the hub like just connected to wifi. Well, it's an app. That's what it is. It's an app and you just go, you can look at all your water usage and like all that stuff and what needs to be watered and then you can actually. Manually turn on sprinklers if you want. But can you have fun with your kids and like while they're on the lawn or your wife like taking groceries inside you turn on the sprinklers from your phone. Yes, you turn your sprinklers on. Yeah you can. That makes it worth it. That should be a separate button on the app. Just like scare family, yeah, just a big red button. Just like mess with people button. But yeah, that's what it is and I just thought it was really interesting and I actually... The other day this farmbot initiative which is like a 3D, it's like a big, giant thing. I sort of 3-d printed it. It will plant your seeds for you and like exact, exactly where you need to and it will keep tabs on everything. It's really interesting, it's, it's if you guys are interested in such things, like planting your own, Food at home. Sowing your own seed. Sowing your own seed. Feel free to, to check that out. But it's it's very interesting. They're looking at, right now, they're on Kickstarter to do this database of how to grow things. And so it's, it's really, it's, I found it very fascinating. And I'm always interesting in that, but I'm so bad at it. So I'm hoping that things like this will actually help me grow things in my home without killing them. No, I, I totally, totally think so. I think in the future, people are gonna say, like,. You know, you overwatered your lawn, or you under. Like all that stuff Yeah. In the future's gonna be, like, a thing of the past. It'll just be taken care of. And here's how it trickles down too. Not to use the, no pun intended. Trickles down. But think about it. Like, let's say, all of your grass, like in my case, is gonna eventually die. Not have to hire someone to, like, replant the whole place. Yeah, pay for all that new sod. Cuz you know I'm not doing it, so. And then you have to over-water that to keep. And then you have- See, that's a big mess. It's a whole big cycle, where it's like this actually saves you money, because you're doing it right the first time. Right. It, it's really eco-friendly. So I'm definitely gonna back this one. I think it's brilliant. I say back it. And I think it's just a. Something we're gonna see in the future. Like it's just gonna be commonplace. Yeah. Like you're never gonna I think so. You've never gonna see a sprinkler in the future going off in the rain. I think you migth even see companies bundling it in with landscaping services like we'll just install you sprinkler system and you'll also get this sprinkler system. I got your even Adam right here. Even Adam. Yep. So that is it for back it or hack it which means now it's time to get into your user feedback except wait a second [NOISE] I am an idiot and forgot to give you a hash tag of the day. Oh. On Thursday. So we can't. But your hash tag of the day today, for tomorrow. There's not today or tomorrow. Is hash tag TDCAMOSKIN. And I want you guys to tell us what you'd wanna look like if you could make your skin look like anything. Okay. What would you look like? I'd give myself, I wanna be metal. Made of metal. Oh okay yeah. Yeah, some sort of kind metallic. Liquid metal. Yeah, that's just copying you. Would you do rose gold? Like the [UNKNOWN], give yourself a rose gold finish. Do they even say that anymore? Rose gold? That's what I call it. I thought it was just the gold iPhone. Well there's gold in it but I'm talking about rose gold. Anyway. Called. Tell us what you, what you would look like. Cuz I, I. I wouldn't be that. I'm curious. You wouldn't be that, okay. And now. I'd be gr, space grey. No, I'm just kidding. Space grey, okay. Now it's time for our phonetographers look of the day. So because I forgot our hashtag of the day last thursday. I figured we would make it up to you guys by picking two Phonetographers of the day today, like we had on Thursday. Maybe that's why you forgot. Probably. So our first phonetographer is Arel E. Arel. Arel. He says hi. I'm Arel Ebana from Philippines and I shot this photo last summer, and I used my iPad mini. It's a nice picture for iPad mini. This paradise is called, Nagsasa Cove, and it's gorgeous and a very relaxing place. I love your show. Keep it up. What I like about our viewership is apparently everyone that watches this show lives within, like,. Five feet of- Paradise? [LAUGH] Of paradise. What is up, what are we doing wrong? Or everyone gets to go on vacation except I feel like I never go on vacation now, because everybody's pictures I'm like I have so many places- Yeah, I'm like I have not visited a lot of these places. I feel like my life has been maybe wasted up until this point. I still feel like maybe I should be traveling more. I feel like you're, we get to live vicariously through these home photographers. I definitely live vicariously through the, I, I will open it on my laptop. And turn the brightness all the way up and then just bask in the glow and then look out as if it was a window. And your camo skin changes to black so like shield all the light. yeah like shield all the light out. You got to. So I thought that was a very nice picture. And then we also have Masayuki who writes to us. And this picture is so cool. Okay so look at it for a second and see what you're looking at 17 people. So many people. Walking on water. He says- Jesus. I'm a 14-year-old Japanese boy who lives in Chile. The picture is taken in Yuyuni Lake, in Bolivia, when my family and I went on a trip there. The lake is filled with salt, so that, when there's a thin layer of water on top of it, it mirrors everything in the sky. The mirror goes on for 360 degrees, so this, so this picture doesn't show much. So he was also standing on top of water in this picture. I used my iPhone 5 to take this photo and I didn't use filters or Photoshop. Mm. I have watched all of your shows and it's extremely entertaining. Have a great summer. It's all right. It's all right. I give it an 11 out of 10. Oh, you should have used the panoramic function. An awesome picture. It would have been better panoramic. I think it's a great picture. Masa. It's, if it was wide-screened. Listen Masa. It filled the whole screen. Right now it just looks like. Crushed it, crushed it. That's a great, great pic. Well. How often do you get to take a picture like that. I don't, I'm still confused as to what's going in. So this is what. Like the lake was salt so you get to stand on it? Salt, well when, so when there's water, when it rains. It has a very thin layer of water, so it looks like you're standing on a mirror. Ok, very cool. Amazing. Really good. I was just kidding about the... No, he's serious. He's a mean curmudgeon. No I'm not. Although I do wish the iPhone had 16x9. He's a curmudgeon. When I put my pictures on my bid screen they don't fill it. I'm not gonna crop every picture I put on there. Why not? Batch crop. Batch crop them. We're good. Learn. You don't batch crop every picture that you take. Learn action. Learn actions in Photoshop Rich, that's all I'm saying. I'm gonna batch crop 10,000 pictures? I'm gonna batch crop your face after this show is over. I'm gonna batch crop you. All right. If you want to send in your phonetography you can email tomorrow@cnet.com. You can also send it to your hash tag of the day if you're not into Twitter which some of you are not. And that's totally fine by us. And you can also find us on social media. We are Tomorrow Daily and all the social medii except for Google Plus where we are soc-, Cuz the Tomorrow Daily TV. Yes, very easy. Very simple. And then if you wanna bother us on social media, we're very sociable. We really love to talk to you guys. Feel free to hit me up on Twitter, Facebook all over the internet @ashleyesqueda. I'm way more sociable there than in real life, you know that. he is. Rich on tech Facebook, and RichDeMuro Twitter. And that's That's me That's pretty much it for the show. Be good humans and we will be back tomorrow. Bye. [MUSIC]