Microwaves don't sell well in France. Forget their convenience value; to the refined Gallic eye, your generic rectangular nuke box is too darn ugly for the kitchen. Frazer Designers agree, which explains their new take on the microwave: The Cylinder. This curvaceous kitchen-top wonder has a nifty cylindrical sliding door, and tiny dimensions too. It all makes perfect sense to us - since when were plates square?The Cylinder Concept Microwave prototype: price not yet available. Frazer Designers: (0171) 624 6011.
Stop that hairy stuff growing in your electric kettle and keep your bodily mineral content down to trace levels with this elegantly perforated steel water filter. Brita says that its cartridges, each of which filter up to 150 litres of water, give a 75% reduction in the temporary hardness that causes scale, not to mention reductions of 85% for chlorine, 90% for lead, 95% for copper, 67% for aluminium and 70% for pesticides. The Edition 5 even has a satisfyingly black, masculine yet sensitive handle.Brita Edition 5 Water Filter: £69. Available from most kitchen and department stores. Brita Water Filter Systems Ltd: (01932) 770599, fax (01932) 770594.
If you thought all food processors were enormous beasts that took up most of your worktop, think again. The Multiquick from German kitchen technology meisters Braun chops, whisks and blends while taking up but a fraction of your food-prep space. It even has a handy bracket that stores it on the wall. And as well as saving space, it saves you time too.Braun Multiquick MR550CA Hand Blender: £39.99. Braun: (01932) 785611.
Whether you like your rice brown with Birkenstocks or sticky and black with mango, you shouldn't be without one of these babies. The world's most sophisticated rice cooker - that's what Panasonic says, anyway - uses fuzzy logic to adjust itself to various water conditions and produce perfect rice every time, up to 23 hours before you actually need it.National Panasonic SR-IHZC18N Induction Heating Fuzzy Logic Multiple Menu Electronic Rice Cooker: US$400. Panasonic West: +1 (714) 373 5575, fax +1 (714) 373 7790, available on the Web from Appliances On Line at www.appliances.com.
Seabirds such as the albatross can fly vast distances thanks to the "ground effect", a phenomenon which increases lift and drag when flying close to sea level. The Sea Wing uses the saame technique to scoot along just above the waves at speeds of up to 160 knots. More efficient than planes, helicopters, hydrofoils or hovercraft, they're dead cool to boot. Australia's government is looking at the craft as a means to patrol its coastline, the longest of any nation in the world, and if it's good enough for Aussies, it's good enough for us.Sea Wing: AU$450,000 to AU$2 million. Sea Wing International: email seawing@ozemail.com.au.
So it's not new, it's not flash, it's not even particularly masturbatory. But the Text Express pager from Mercury Minicall is a great deal price-wise. It chimes, it vibrates, it accepts 21-character messages and it comes in a range of smokily traanslucent colours. It costs a hundred quid and not a penny more, ever; the perfect present for your comms-obsessed friends and relations.Text Express: £99.99. Mercury Paging: (0500) 505505.
With the rise in popularity of telecommuting, keeping control of your workspace has become a real headache - nobody wants to share a desk, even if they're not at work most of the time. Haworth's Correspondent solves the problem neatly. An office-in-a-box, the cherry-veneered Correspondent provides plenty of desk space, tack and marker boards - everything your old desk offered. But when the day's over, this workspace folds down into a handy box. You could even put it in the boot of your car - now that's what we call taking your work home withy you.The Correspondent: base unit £2,211, with screen and pedestal around £3,000. Interior Elements Limited: (0181) 569 7559, on the Web at www.haworth.furn.com.
Little by little the videophone creeps towards consumerdom. The Xyclops 200 from Motion Media is still out of the reach of most pockets, but at least it's the kind of thing that you can imagine sitting on your desktop. It's compatible with all major ISDN variants and can be connected up to a PC for digital faxing and conferencing.Xyclops 200: about £1,000. Motion Media: (01454) 313444.