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Graphene has, despite the odds, lived up to its hype. The carbon compound has made everything from solar-powered artificial skin to safer condoms a reality. Now it has been tapped to reinvent the world of high-performance audio by Ora Sound, who have created the first ever graphene headphones, the Ora GQ. The Montreal-based company’s pitch has been a hit on Kickstarter, where they have raised $270,000 with contributions from over a thousand backers.     So the obvious question that comes to mind is, “Why graphene?” And the answer has everything to do with the material’s properties, which make it 200 hundred times sturdier than steel and lighter than paper by 1000 times. The latter makes it possible to create extremely thin graphene membranes, which Ora has patented under the name GrapheneQ. The GrapheneQ diaphragms that are used on the Ora GQ headphones lend it a high level of fidelity, resulting…

You would think that years of science fiction would have stopped this. Sure we’ve embraced Big Data in a big way and most IoT devices now have some kind of AI in them that’s constantly learning our habits and when we’re weak. But MIT took it to the next level by teaching robots how to teach other robots.     Yes. Gone are the heady days when one weary programmer could waste days programming a simple robotic arm not to crush an egg. Now we finally have a way for the machines to teach each other and not just themselves. Designed by MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory or CSAIL, the process is known as C-LEARN. Researchers Claudia Pérez-D’Arpino and Julie A. Shah created the idea when they decided to fuse the two current techniques for teaching robots skills. The first is learning by demonstration, where the robot watches…

Here at SnapMunk, we’ve covered plenty of innovative smart kitchen gadgets. However today we’re profiling something a little simpler – a cheesemaker for the average home cook. Despite being simple, Kefirko has raised over $157,000 which is over 1045% of their original crowdfunding goal. What made this product such a success? We took a look     The cheesemaker enables users to make their own Kefir which is a fermented beverage filled with probiotics and other healthy ingredients. It’s made by leaving reusable cultures known as kefir grains in a liquid such as milk or sweetened water for 24 hours. The grains are comprised of proteins, polysaccharides, and a mixture of several types of micro-organisms such as yeasts, aroma, and lactic-acid-forming bacteria. According to the maker’s Kickstarter, kefir boosts the consumer’s immune system, improves digestion, helps with cholesterol regulation, and has numerous other beneficial effects. There are just four steps users…

There’s nothing more sacred for anyone than a good night’s rest at the end of a long day. Unfortunately for many, it’s difficult to sleep due to their room not having just the right temperature. Aside from temperature being an annoyance, stuffy bed temperatures can create a perfect environment for germs and dust mites to thrive – the biggest contributor to this is the fact that humans can give off one liter of sweat each night. The makers of Smartduvet are hoping to make these issues a thing of the past with their smart duvet device which is designed to keep users comfortable at a perfect temperature regardless of the current climate. It also makes the users’ bed once they’re done sleeping.     The core of the device is a control box which stows under the bed. It uses silent air blowers to make the bed in the morning…

To most of us mortals, online dating can be a riddle wrapped in an enigma enveloped in something else confusing. Sometimes, the lack of success is the result of a bad start, as below. Needless to say, my Tinder match didn’t respond very well to that opener. In fact, she didn’t respond at all. Oh well, you live and you learn. The thing is, you don’t always have to learn by accidentally firing off a Beyonce gif and deciding to be unapologetic about it. You could learn from people who have experience messing things up themselves, which is what we call advice. And when sagely advice from clueless friends and anonymous strangers online fails, you could turn to the expert dating professionals on WittyThumbs. “Despite being such a critical part of the modern dating process, online conversations are still a mystery to most people,” says founder Liron Shapira. That’s what…

There’s probably a song or some film that would serve as a perfect analogy to Travis Kalanick and the unmistakably fast rise and incredibly controversial fall of his run as CEO of Uber. Since the inception of Uber in 2009, the company’s image has shifted on the whim of whatever YouTube video or article broke through social media that week. In turn, it’s been an ugly year for the brand. You know it, we’ve covered it, and we’d be remiss not to talk about how it all ended for dear little Travis. So here’s what we know, this week five of Uber’s major investors demanded that Travis Kalanick steps down from his position. Among these investors was the venture capital firm Benchmark who’s only really worth noting because one of its partners is actually on Uber’s board. Man if we lived in more whimsical times there’d be a play about this….

The world is quickly embracing STEM Learning for children’s toys and numerous startups are constantly appearing to fill that need. Tech Will Save Us is on a mission to spark creativity and imaginative play using technology. Dough Universe aims to help kids learn about the fundamentals of electricity through light, movement, and sound, with a Kickstarter campaign supporting three new make-it-yourself kits – creatures, instruments, and machines – that use conductive play dough and basic circuits.     Understanding Tech Through Play “My inspiration for creating Tech Will Save Us was two-fold,” Bethany Koby, CEO, and co-founder told SnapMunk. “The birth of my child and the realization that he’s part of a generation that doesn’t know what a pre-internet world looked like. Secondly, seeing a laptop dumped in a trash can. As weird as that might sound, it was a moment of disgust and inspiration. I asked, why is it that…

Cancel that appointment at the tanning salon. Forget about keeping your mouth shut in the spray tan booth. Thanks to science, we may soon have a much safer way to induce the perfect suntan. A study published recently in the Cell journal has shown that a chemical applied to the skin can result in darker pigmentation, without having to go out in the sun or artificial exposure to UV rays. You may be inclined to call that a fake tan, but at the epidermal level, it’s exactly the same as the real thing.   So here’s how it works. The treatment relies on the behavior of the MC1R gene, which is what determines how your body reacts to sun exposure. Whether your skin turns dark or lobster pink, it’s because of MC1R and its variants. As part of the study, a team from the Massachusetts General Hospital found that an SIK…

Oh Amazon, you won’t hit that one trillion dollar mark if you keep buying up all of these companies. Then again, maybe you will, you’re the enterprise putting the old big box retailers out of business so who are we to tell you to throttle it back when you’re having one of your most financially successful years ever? As some of you may know, last week was a big one for anyone who believed in Amazon or just anyone who didn’t work the packing floor of a warehouse, as the information went public that it wished to acquire Slack before outright buying Whole Foods. So we thought we’d take a look at these recent developments, take them apart and see the what and why of how this all shook down. Whole Foods If you think about this long enough, there isn’t much mystery to it. Sure it’s a major buy…

Building a better supercomputer is something many tech companies, research outfits, and government agencies have been trying to do over the decades. There’s one physical constraint they’ve been unable to avoid, though: conducting electricity for supercomputing is expensive. Not in an economic sense—although, yes, in an economic sense, too—but in terms of energy. The more electricity you conduct, the more resistance you create (electricians and physics majors, forgive me), which means more wasted energy in the form of heat and vibration. And you can’t let things get too hot, so you have to expend more energy to cool down your circuits. Any gamer or regular laptop user is familiar with overheating problems. Supercomputing deals with the same issues on an exponential scale, with energy use similarly enlarged and thus a significant cost concern (there’s the economic bit). That’s why consumer supercomputers that try to control these issues will run you…

It seems like Apple just couldn’t stay out of the news this week.  Last week was Apple’s 2017 Developers Conference, and they announced a ton of updates and products of varying interest. However, it seemed like this little tidbit got left out.  Apparently making a home system isn’t the only thing that Apple has jumped into late as the company’s newest focus is now on developing an autonomous system for cars.     Companies wanting to develop an AI for a car isn’t something new.  In fact two years ago Google announced their development for their autonomous car prototype.  Other companies such as Lyft are also on the rise for developing self-driving cars.  Even Elon Musk has a hand in developing autonomous vehicles, and he’s busy trying to get into mother flipping space!  However, Apple, while initially began seeking to build their car, have recently changed to prioritize the underlying technology…

When it comes to childhood education, technology has emerged as the modern equivalent of home economics. It’s a skill everyone should have, however for many parents it’s difficult to teach their children about the mechanics of electronics and engineering. To help simplify the education process, the makers of Circuit Scribe have created a conductive ink rollerball pen.     The pen features a non-toxic highly conductive silver and water based ink which enables users to draw their electric circuits by hand. The makers mention that the kit has been used for education, prototyping, and electronic art. Each Circuit Scribe kit comes with magnetic component modules that snap into the circuit, enabling users to create electronic paper crafts regardless of if the user’s familiarity with electronics. Rather than only offering massive kits with assorted components, the makers of Circuit Scribe also offer a line of specific purpose DIY kits. The drone…