Bizarre Tech: Toto Wellness Toilet, AI perfume and rapid ice cream maker

Toto Wellness Toilet

Dump your data.

Let’s face it, poop and pee can say a lot about your health – that’s why doctors often ask for samples when we feel there’s something amiss.

A new concept product from Toto, dubbed the Wellness Toilet, could be available to purchase in the next few years. The company alleges that the product scans your body and key outputs (your products), providing wellness recommendations as a result of simply popping your bottom on the Toto toilet.

This would save a lot of bother for when one must use a mini shovel to put poop in a container for labs to analyse. Not. Pleasant.

It does have its good points for sure, especially if you’re a person that doesn’t like the doctors, or if you have a martyr complex and don’t want to bother the health services because you’re sure it’s not that big a deal and you can tell when your body is in trouble, because you have X-ray vision and know these things. Obviously.

This is also good for the hypochondriac (like me) who thinks a new ache is something sinister, so you hit up the internet, list all your symptoms to Dr Google and BOOM you’re dying. But you’re not.

The toilet tracks your health by being in direct contact with your skin when you sit on it and analysing the waste you plop in – the company says a wealth of wellness data can be collected from faecal matter.

At CES, Toto didn’t specify the sort of tech it would be using for the toilet (probably sensors of some kind), but the company said data gathered from your poop will be sent to Toto’s data centres for analysis. Then it will supply health recommendations to you via an app including recommended diet changes.

Ninu perfume

Personalise your stink. Wahey.

This has been dubbed by the creator as the first smart perfume in the world (patent pending) with an AI-powered app.

The Ninu is “personalised perfume fusion with only a few clicks,” with the highest quality eau de parfum, and it’s Earth-friendly, as it helps reduce the 12 billion tonnes of plastic waste produced by the beauty industry.

The company’s mission is to give vibrance and new dimensions to your every day, as the way you feel has a profound impact on your wellbeing and attitude. To be fair, in these times, I think we all need a little positive mental attitude, am I right? Spray away!

The product combines three high-quality fragrances in one “high-tech” design, allowing you to “find your scent and play with it”. Strange wording. It enables you “to tailor your perfume to match every mood and occasion”.

There are over a million different smells to choose from and, apparently, your AI perfume master Pierre takes care of your stank with just a few taps on your phone. I imagine him being French, with a twizzly moustache and a stinking attitude. He says he wants to help, but his eyes say that you are a peasant and you will never be good enough for his services.

Anyway, you can add and take away bits and pieces of smell, like if you’re “excited” (their word) you can add an exotic note, or make it less strong. When Ninu starts running out, you are notified to restock.

The fragrances are 100 per cent vegan, sustainably sourced and contain a high percentage of perfume oils. “They are formulated to seamlessly fuse and enhance each other to make you feel fresh and sexy all day long.” But what if one isn’t in the mood to feel sexy, eh?

The product itself looks a bit like a disguised pepper sprayer, often seen in the US, where your lipstick is actually Mace.

You could probably spray the Ninu in someone’s face, but I’m not sure if it’ll be as effective. At least your assailant will smell pretty good.

ColdSnap

OH SNAP!

Do you reckon it makes the annoying-as-heck sounds of an ice cream maker? You know, the one you have at home that you’ve only turned on a couple of times because it’s so darn inconvenient to use?

ColdSnap is a rapid-freezing appliance that produces single servings of frozen confections and beverages in less than two minutes. If you want three scoops, you’re just going to have to wait.

The company says the ColdSnap machine accepts shelf-stable, ambient temperature pods – and then freezes and dispenses the contents of those pods in less than 120 seconds. (That’s two minutes, I don’t know why they put 120 seconds. Probably to make it sound faster. Like when the supermarket says “Only £1.99” and you’re thinking what a bargain that is, but it’s all a mind game because it’s pretty much two quid. Anyway.) No preparation of ColdSnap pods is required and you don’t even need to clean up the machine afterwards.

The ColdSnap can make single servings of ice cream, frozen yogurt, frozen coffees, frozen smoothies, frozen healthy shakes, frozen cocktails (wahey), and slushies. Who’d have thought the product with cold in its name would only make cold stuff? Weird.

The company says that it’s only offering ice cream in various flavours and the food and bevvie categories will be introduced over time. LAME. Way to get my hopes up for strawberry frozen daiquiris. Sheesh!

Pods can be shipped at ambient temperature, which saves on the cold chain for factory-frozen ice cream and other cold products, which is expensive and environmentally bad. Very fair point.

The ColdSnap machine uses a “proprietary, high-powered, refrigeration system to rapidly freeze and dispense” pod contents.

When you insert a pod (which is made of infinitely recyclable aluminium), the machine reads the QR code and optimises the freezing parameters depending on what you’ve stuck in there.

You then follow the LED display and press a couple of things and whizzbang it’s done. The machine weighs less than 50lb (about 23kg).

You can’t buy the pods yet (LAME!) but they will be available through the website.