Japanese convenience store chain Lawson recently launched a rather intriguing new product – flavorless candy that apparently tastes like emptiness.

Whether it be sweet, sour, salty or even spicy, candy has always been associated with a type of flavor. Well, at least until now, because flavorless candy is a thing these days. Lawson, one of Japan’s largest convenience store chains is currently testing a number of products, including the aptly-named Aji no Shinai? Ame (Tasteless? Candy), which apparently tastes like nothing. As you can imagine, the marketed lack of flavor has been raising eyebrows in Japan, and for good reason, after all, can you even imagine sucking on a candy that doesn’t have any taste?

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Japanese clothing and housewares company Nissen recently launched its most intriguing product yet – a line of bed linens and blankets that try to mimic cat fur.

Studies have shown that petting a cat for just 10 minutes reduces the levels of stress hormones, and any cat lover will tell you just how relaxing the experience can be. But what about people who would love to have a pet cat, but are living in rented apartments that don’t allow pets? Or how about people who are allergic to cats, what are they supposed to do to relax? Well, that’s where the new Neko Feel (“Cat Feel”) material developed by Nissen comes into play. The Japanese company just launched a line of bed Neko Feel linens that it claims mimics the feel of cat fur.

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A Pittsburgh-based robotics and engineering startup recently unveiled Moonwalkers, a pair of battery-powered shoes that it claims can boost walk speeds by up to 250%.

At first glance, Moonwalkers look like a pair of futuristic rollerskates, but there is actually a lot more to them than that. You’re actually meant to walk with them the way you would regular shoes or sneakers, letting the motorized wheels put a spring in your step. Powered by a state-of-the-art brushless DC motor, this ingenious contraption is actually a platform that can be attached to a wide variety of footwear to significantly increase your walking speed up to a reported 7mph/11kph. For comparison, humans’ average walking speed ranges from 2.5 to 4 mph. The sensation of walking with the world’s fastest shoes has been compared to that of walking on a ‘moving walkway’ in an airport.

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French champagne brand G.H. Mumm has poured a lot of time and resources into developing a futuristic champagne bottle that can be used in space.

The Mumm Cordon Rouge Stellar is the first champagne designed specifically for space travel. It comes in a half-glass bottle and features a specially-designed stainless steel opening-closing device that curves over the classic cork. The unique bottle apparently features a finger-controlled valve which, when engaged, releases a globule of champagne spheres. Astronauts or space tourists can then scoop the drink out of the air using special glasses that resemble tiny egg cups.

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Science, a Japanese technology company specializing in bathroom and kitchen innovation, recently unveiled plans to produce a washing machine for humans.

Believe it or not, the concept of a human washing machine isn’t new. At the 1970 Osaka Expo, Japanese electronics giant Sanyo Electric showcased its ‘Ultrasonic Bath’, a human washing machine that cleaned, massaged, and dried the occupant in a fully-automated 15-minute cycle”. The concept never really took off as a commercial product, but now another Japanese technology company wants to take a shot at it, promising to deliver a modern take on the human washing machine by 2025.

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Norwegian startup Desert Control claims that it can fight desertification efficiently by spraying sand with Liquid NanoClay (LNC) and turning it into soil in a matter of hours.

In the past, we’ve featured many ‘green heroes‘ who have been fighting desertification for decades, using all sorts of techniques, from draught-resistant shrubbery to tree barriers, but now a startup claims to obtain much better results in the same harsh conditions in just seven hours. Invented in the early 2000s by Norwegian scientist Kristian Olesen, Liquid NanoClay is the secret behind Desert Control’s amazing achievements. When sprayed onto sand, this amazing invention trickles down and percolates the sand, turning it into water-retaining soil where plants can germinate and thrive.

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Horse Kicks are just what they sound like – sneakers for horses. Created from popular human models like Air Jordan or Yeezy Boost, each pair sells for at least $1,200.

With some very few notable exceptions, horseshoes have remained virtually unchanged for hundreds of years, but that is about to change thanks to sneaker customizing expert and The Shoe Surgeon SRGN Academy alumni, Marcus Floyd. Using deconstruction and reconstruction, Floyd has created several pairs of equine sneakers that retain the elements that usually make brands like Air Jordan, Yeezy, or NewBalance650 stand out. At the same time, these are essentially horseshoes, so they also meet the unique ergonomics of horse hooves.

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An arts venue in Glasgow, Scotland features an innovative dance floor that creates renewable energy from the body heat of dancers.

SWG3 hosts some of Glasgow’s largest dance parties, with thousands of people getting together to dance the night away throughout the year. Starting this month, the dancers won’t just be burning energy by busting out moves but also help keep it warm or cool, depending on the season. That’s thanks to “Bodyheat” an aptly-named dance floor that harnesses the body heat of dancers and converts it into energy. The innovative system has been three years in the making and is a joint project of SWG3 and geothermal energy startup TownRock Energy.

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Australian company Tarmac Linemarking is trying out a new glow-in-the-dark type of road line that makes every road appear straight out of the classic sci-fi movie TRON.

Tarmac Linemarking recently made news headlines in its home country, with multiple high-profile media outlets covering its latest trial run of photoluminescent line markings on a one-kilometer-long stretch of road in rural Australia. Created in collaboration with two other companies – OmniGrip and Vic Roads – this ingenious product uses the natural science of photoluminescence to absorb light during the day and emit it in low-light conditions, making the road markings very visible.

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Japanese researchers have created smart kitchenware that relies on electricity to make food saltier and tastier without adding any extra salt.

Salt makes food taste so much better, but it’s also a very dangerous ingredient that, consumed in excess, can cause serious health problems like high blood pressure, heart disease and stroke. But what if we could make food taste salty without using any salt? That’s what scientists at Meiji University and developers Kirin Holdings have been working on for several years now. Back in April, we featured their first breakthrough creation – a pair of smart chopsticks – but now they have a couple of commercial products ready to hit the shelves.

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METEOR BLASTER is a mobile space shooting video game designed to gauge users’ field of vision and help detect glaucoma, a serious condition that can lead to blindness.

Scientists at Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine teamed up with Japanese television company Sendai Broadcasting Co., Ltd. to create a special video game that they say can help improve users’ vision. METEOR BLASTER doesn’t have some miraculous effect on their eyesight like these special myopia-curing eyeglasses, but it can detect early symptoms of glaucoma and thus help prevent potential blindness. And all you need to do is play it for at least five minutes.

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If you’re looking for the simplest way to do your laundry on the go, this plastic zipper bag might be the answer to your problems.

Created by Japanese company Kao, the Attack Zero laundry bag is a 5-liter zipper bag designed to help users do the laundry pretty much anytime, anywhere. All you have to do is open the zipper lock put your dirty laundry inside along with some detergent – it comes included with the bag – and fill it up with water. Then close the zipper, shake the Attack Zero bag to make sure the laundry is nice and soaked, and then gently rub the bag as you would if you were washing the laundry by hand. Finally, unscrew the small valve on the side of the bag and spill the dirty mixture out. Then add fresh water to rinse the laundry and repeat the process as many times as necessary.

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The avocado is one of the most energy and resource-intensive plants cultivated around the world, but apparently, you can opt for a more environmentally-friendly alternative called ‘ecovado’.

The popularity of avocados has skyrocketed over the last couple of decades, with the World Economic Forum estimating that about 5 billion kilograms of avocados are consumed annually around the world. However, this significant increase in demand has come at a huge cost for the environment. Forests have been cut down to make room for avocado plantations, and water sources have been sucked dry by what is widely considered one of the most unsustainable crops. It was this worrying development that inspired the creation of the ‘evocado’, a more sustainable avocado alternative.

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Lays, the world’s bestselling potato chip brand, recently launched a limited edition miniature washing machine for oily fingertips.

Let’s face it, there are few things in the world more addictive than potato chips, but if there’s one thing everyone hates about them – apart from getting us fat – it’s the grease they leave on our fingertips. You need to have napkins on hand, lick your fingertips (yuck!), or get up from that comfortable sofa and wash up when you’re done stuffing your face. Well, thanks to a rather ingenious marketing campaign, potato chip enthusiasts now have another option – a miniature washing machine designed specifically to clean oily fingertips.

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Kubota Glass, an allegedly revolutionary pair of glasses capable of curing people of myopia, aka nearsightedness, has recently gone on sale in Japan for a whopping $5,700.

We originally wrote about Kubota Glass in January of 2021, when Kubota Pharmaceutical first announced that it had come up with a non-invasive way of reversing the effects of an ophthalmological condition expected to affect half of the world’s population by 2050. Myopia, or nearsightedness, is an eye disorder where light focuses in front of, instead of on, the retina, making objects in the distance appear blurry, while close ones appear normal. Apart from genetic factors, myopia has been associated with environmental causes, such as the lack of exposure to normal visual stimuli normally found outdoors, in daylight conditions. With so many of us spending more and more time indoors in front of our TVs, monitors and computer screens, it’s no wonder that myopia cases are increasing at an alarming rate.

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