Winter tech 2014

Laser-powered windscreen scraper

Early-morning elbow grease is alright for ice road truckers, but when the urban gadgeteer needs to swipe the frost off his windscreen, only a laser will do. Because lasers, that’s why.

All-weather tyres

If you live in Scandanavia, you probably take great pride in showing visitors from warmer climes your tungsten-studded winter tyres. Yet keep strangely silent on the amount of swearing you do twice a year when you have to change them. When we’ve got a set of auto-adjusting all-weather tyres we might come and visit you again. Less tyre chat next time, please.

Heated headphones

There’s clothing that adheres too closely to form (that’s you, Lycra shorts) and there’s clothing that adheres too closely to function, like earmuffs. For a perfect balance between the two give us a pair of lobe-warming overear heated headphones any day.

Self-furling scarf

Proof that the simplest garment can also be the most versatile, scarves can be worn in any number of styles and, indeed, on any number of body parts (don’t overthink that). But we’d risk overcomplication for the sheer pleasure of having a scarf that furled itself.

Robot clones

Despite the near certainty they’ll eventually enslave us, the robot clone still seems like a good idea. Especially on those wintry mornings when getting out of bed would be far easier if you were lifted, cleaned, dressed, fed and shoved out the door without opening your eyes.

You may also like
Best Android apps this week
The best Christmas jumpers on all the internet
Best iOS apps this week