Imagined by the Quirky hive mind, the toasting slots on the Crisp toaster can be folded into its body when not in use, reclaiming valuable inches of space. It also has a removable tray at the bottom that collects crumbs.

Since the Crisp is still a concept, you can weigh in on its development at Quirky. While you’re there, tell them that the toaster would make much more sense if it could run on batteries, that way you can take it outdoors or when you travel. I think its gimmick would make much more sense if it was portable. Of course, you’d need some serious batteries to generate enough heat to toast bread – maybe they could go with the same ones used in the new iPad.

If they want to start from scratch, they should make an accordion toaster that is compact when collapsed, but unfolds into a formidable appliance that can toast two loaves worth of bread at once, releasing the toast in the air in a fountain of brilliantly burnt bread. Or or or a toaster that has a slot in the middle for sandwich spread so you have the option to collapse the toaster to combine the two pieces of toasted bread on either slot and boom: sandwich. I know, I shouldn’t be giving these away for free, but I can’t help myself. Please, stop applauding.

[via The Green Head]

This little dude was created by Instructables tech editor Randy Sarafan, and has the best legs ever for a simple robot – each one made from a kitchen spatula, and held together with zip-ties. These give it solid footing and balance. The robot was built using a handful of household parts and electronics you can mostly find at Radio Shack. It’s brains are Arduino based, so it can be programmed to do different moves than the wobbly walk shown in the video here:

Perhaps the best thing about the spatula ‘bot is that Randy has posted detailed build instructions over on Instructables, so you can make your own kitchen-dwelling robot if you have just a little bit of the DIY chromosome in your gene pool. Me, I think I’m building one to make me whipped cream on command.

Perhaps building on the trend of combining basic utensils into one is the Knork. If you haven’t guessed already, it’s a knife and a fork combined into one.

These Knorks basically look like forks with a beveled edge on one side, which functions as the knife. They come in both disposable and stainless steel versions to suit your every meal that requires a knife and a fork.

To be honest, I thought Knorks were a joke at first, because wouldn’t the insides of people’s mouths get cut because of the sharp knife edge? (Gory mental image, I know.)

I don’t know how they did it but they sure put a lot of thought into the design so that the edges don’t cut you when you’re forking food into your mouth. These Knorks are available in packs of four from Amazon for $22.99(USD) and in various other sets from the official Knork store. I will now stop saying Knork.

[via Coolest Gadgets]

This is a very old, but very clever casemod where the modder turned his microwave into a computer. The LCD screen is of course built into the window and it looks great with that screensaver that shows a plate of food going round and round.

Personally I wouldn’t want to do my video gaming or work in front of a microwave. It would just make me hungry all of the time. Plus, it just seems unnatural. To each his own, I guess. Now if it functioned as a computer and a microwave, then we we’d be talking about something special. Gamers would definitely find that handy.

[via Kotaku]

Artist Marcia Stuermer and the guys at Fossil Faux Studios make these transluscent hot pink resin trivets which are very reminiscent of the heat coming off an electric cook top. Each one measures about 8.25″ in diameter and 3/4″ thick, and is ready to handle the heat of any pot or pan you throw on top of it.

The only odd thing about these is that I think the cooking element part should be the glowing red/pink bit, and the other areas should be black. But somehow the illusion is still quite effective as-is. At $50 (USD) each, they’re not exactly the world’s cheapest trivets, but they are quite possibly the coolest. You can grab a Red Hot trivet over on Etsy now.

I think it would be fun to put four of these out on the dinner table before guests arrive and mess with their heads when you place the pots on top of them.

Eeven with all the other kitchen timers I have, I still forget to set them when I leave the room. Hence, a lot of burnt and wasted food, and a whole lot of Chinese takeout. So I definitely see the need for the Time Me, which is simply a pot lid with a timer built in.

I mean, I think a lot of forgetful people in the kitchen would be bound to remember to set it, now that it’s literally right under their noses (and on top of the pot!) Plus, the design is simple enough that it could be sold as a replacement knob for the top of your already existing pots. About the only challenge with this thing is how it could be built to be dishwasher safe, since you shouldn’t have to remove it every time you wash your pots.

The Time Me is a design by Wu Yi-chen , Wan Ru-yi, Liu Xiaoming, Xie Yan-cong and Zhou Zhou.

[via Yanko Design]

And the slimmest toaster of the world (at least for now, and in concept) is the Slim Toaster. Designed by Muzaffer KOÇER & Ayca Guven, the Slim Toaster is meant to be mounted on your wall, so you can use the space that your toaster previously occupied for something that doesn’t have a wall-mountable counterpart as of yet.

The cool thing about the Slim Toaster is that it already comes with a holder that you can just slide off from the unit to pick up the toasted bread from the slide-out slot below to transfer it to your plate. It’s compact, attractively designed, and comes with all the necessary accessories. Other than being able to toast more slices simultaneously, what more can you ask for from a toaster?

[via Yanko Design]

This means a lot of wasted food, a lot of frustration, and many more minutes where me (and my family) go hungry while I fix up some instant noodles or call for delivery.

If sometimes, you get a little bit absent minded in the kitchen like me, then you’ll definitely find the Scale Gas Range concept useful. It’s also a lifesaver, both figuratively and literally.

The Scale Gas Range is a cooking range with an integrated weighing scale, designed by Naeun Kang of SADI. The concept works on the assumption that as food is cooked, water is gradually evaporated. When the weight of whatever it is you’re cooking decreased by 30%, the gas valve is shut off automatically.

Of course, not all food would cook properly on the basis of this assumption, but it should at least prevent you from overcooking.

[via Yanko Design]

As a result, residential units are also getting smaller and smaller. I think that’s one of the things designers Adriano Conti, Corrado Galzio and Alex Innamorati considered when they designed the Minikitchen, which is roughly the size of a washing machine.

The Minikitchen concept has everything that you’d need to cook, prepare, and store your food. Specifically, it has a vegetable washer, dishwasher, refrigerator, prep surface, small pantry, oven, and two other cooking systems so you can cook up most of your food without taking a lot of space at all. It’s perfect for a bachelor pad and would fit into tiny apartments with ease so you could have more space for all of your other stuff.

It’s a very neat idea, although I think the hard part lies in implementation, of course. It’s hard to imagine how the plumbing, refrigeration, food storage and heating systems could possibly fit into such a small container.

[via Yanko Design]

Designers Hwang Jungjoon and Lee Jaeryong created the Proinjector, a combination microwave oven/projector which lets you see what’s going on inside your microwave from across the room.

They claim the design is specifically to reduce the exposure risks to microwave radiation for the elderly, pregnant women and young children, but I could see it being handy if you’re just too lazy to get up from the couch and check that your baked potato hasn’t exploded yet. That said, I think I’d rather just have a tiny wireless camera inside the microwave (or my regular oven for that matter), which just lets me check on things from my smartphone. I’m sure somebody out there is already working on that. If not, I claim that patent in the name of Technabob!

If nothing else, I like the cylindrical design of the Proinjector, which is definitely unique amongst microwave ovens, if not the most practical in terms of conserving counter space.

The Quick Chef Music has a USB port so users can easily swap the music. I don’t have the exact details about this function though, such as the length of the playback or volume control. Below is a commercial for the BGH Quick Chef Music:

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

If you found that last bit funny, there are a couple more here. I think BGH should add an alarm clock feature to the microwave oven as well, so you can wake up to both good music and good food. While they’re at it, adding a coffee pot and a mini-fridge would be a good idea. And a toaster. And the kitchen sink. Innovation is easy.

[via Breno Costa's Vimeo channel via Notcot]

Designer Fabien Nauroy came up with the Play, and it comes in a nifty little package shaped like a speech bubble. The compact device has a front-facing video camera and microphone for recording, and a small 2.4″ color LCD screen and speaker for playback. Once you leave a message, it has a bright LED indicator so you know that someone has recorded a clip.

It’s also got a built-in magnetic back so you can just stick it to most refrigerators. Plus, if you have a fridge that won’t hold magnets, you can just hang it over the handles with the convenient carrying strap. That also makes it easy to hang on a doorknob too. They also include a magnetic sheet with a sticky-tape back that you can hang up anywhere.

Specs are nothing to write home about with just 320×240 resolution, but it’s a fridge magnet so what do you want?

The Play is available for pre-order now over at Native Union for $59.99 (USD), and is scheduled to start shipping on October 20th. But good luck ordering it the U.S. Unfortunately, the drop-down menu to choose the color is borked in the U.S. version of their website. You’ll have much better luck if you live just about anywhere else though. Hopefully, Native Union will fix the problem soon for those of you who want to order one. Just don’t try their even more perplexing customer service page.

[via Fancy]

Belkin has a new iPad 2 stand that is specifically made for the kitchen. The case has a shiny hand washable surface and is kitchen safe. The stand is called the Chef Stand + Stylus, and it sells for $39.99 (USD). The cute little stylus looks like some sort of kitchen utensil minus the utensil part and it has a magnetic tip.

The magnet in the tip is the key to using the stylus and allows the navigation of the tablet with dirty hands. The stand also  has a non-slip base to help keep your tablet from sliding around. The stand will work with a case on your iPad 2 and it should also work with most other tablets.

Along with the Chef Stand, Belkin also announced two other special kitchen accessories, including an under-cabinet mount as well as a refrigerator mount for the iPad.

Okay, so you can’t exactly bake a cake or roast a chicken with designer Dragan Trenchevski’s Electrolux Mobile Kitchen, but you can cook up a storm, chop your ingredients on the side, and grate stuff while you’re at it. Oh, and you can also use the touchscreen to flip the virtual pages of your cookbook to check if you’re doing everything right if you’re still trying out a new dish.

The whole mobile kitchen notebook is still a concept for now, although I wish they can work out the kinks (oil spattering on the screen, for one) on this one to actually turn it into a reality, because I know a lot of people (myself included) who’d kill to have one of these.

[via Yanko Design]

I knew that the MacBook Air’s edge was sharp, but sharp enough to peel carrots? Apparently it is. That’s not all. You can use it to slice mushrooms, bacon, and more. The danger of getting your MacBook Air wet or damaged is somewhat minimal, but it’s not something I would personally try.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

You can check out what other stuff that zany Japanese guy Mochrom is up to with his MacBook Air in the kitchen over at his blog. It’s in Japanese, but a quick translation is readily available through Google Translate.

[via Gadgetbox via Ubergizmo]

If you miss the good old days when you still had to sharpen up stuff, then look no further than the Parmesan Pencils. Aside from letting you sharpen to your heart’s content, you can also serve it up and top the shavings on your food to complete your dishes.

The brainchild of these cheesy pencils was Germany-based ad agency Kolle Rebbe, who took on the project for a cooperative called The Deli Garage.

The Parmesan Pencils came in three flavors: truffle, pesto, and chili. The shavings make for a different way of topping your food off with cheese and gives you more choices and leeway to come up with cool presentations of your food.

The bad news is that the pencils were made in a limited run of 500 and sold out in just two weeks. But maybe Kolle Rebbe will reconsider and start churning out these Parmesan Pencils for good, because I’d sure love to have me some sharpenable cheese.

[via Tessie and Motley Food via Oh Gizmo!]

As you can see Hadar’s concept involves a single slot toaster that can be combined with its own kind, forming one ultra mega hyper mecha toaster train. Each unit works on its own, so you can take one or more units off the mother toaster ship if you don’t need to toast a lot of bread or if you want to take a toaster with you.

I just see one problem with Hadar’s concept. How are they powered? Does each toaster have its own cord and plug, or will you only need to connect one toaster to a socket even though there are multiple units connected? And what’s the toaster’s finishing move? Why are the individual units not color coded? How will we recognize the team leader without his red outfit?

[via Cargo Collective via thinng]

The team introduces silver or copper into the steel surface using Active Screen Plasma or ASP to create a hybrid metal. The process also introduces nitrogen and carbon to the stainless steel. The silver is a bacterial killing agent and the nitrogen and carbon harden the steel making it more resistant to cleaning and use.

The net result is that germs are less likely to affect you in the kitchen and make you sick and the harder steel makes the material last longer between cleanings. The team tested the material in medical instruments and found that after 120 cleanings, the antibacterial properties were still there and the metal was still resistant to wear.

[via PhysOrg]

The shakers are made of glazed ceramic. The Enterprise measures about 2″, while the shuttle is 1 3/8″.

The starship and the shuttle also have magnet inserts, so you can dock them together when they’re not in use. Although if you have Trekkies or kids in your house I doubt that they’ll ever be unused.

Prepare $13 (USD) and warp to ThinkGeek to order the Star Trek Enterprise and Shuttle salt and pepper shakers. Tiny crew not included.

Just load the BAKON clock the night before with a few strips of frozen bacon, set the alarm to 15 minutes before you want to get out of bed, and when its time to wake up the next morning, the specially-modified toaster oven cooks you a batch of the tasty stuff, filling your pad with the heavenly bacon scent, readying it for you to eat just in time. And if that’s not enough to wake you, the BAKON oven also oinks like a pig at alarm time.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

You can’t buy the BAKON clock in a store, but you can follow nelson8815′s build guide over on Instructables if you want to try and make one for yourself.