Irregular Mr Potato Head fights food waste

Fruits and vegetables often sell based on aesthetic appearance, leaving strange-looking but otherwise fine produce to go unsold. This is a part of the food waste problem, my favorite explanation of which (as usual) comes from John Oliver on Last Week Tonight. Unlikely hero Hasbro has stepped in with an asymmetric version of the classic Mr Potato Head, in a bid to win hearts and minds toward produce with a little wabi-sabi. I'm all for it, and believe that it's possible to appreciate aesthetic beauty where it's appropriate, but be wise enough to set it aside when it's not.
[via Gizmodo]

Lego Slippers eliminate the only bad thing about Legos

Legos rank right up there with the greatest products of all time. But when you - I mean, "your kid" - is in the middle of an epic room-size build, they become a minefield of potential foot pain. So, advertising agency Brand Station created what are unfortunately a limited run of Lego-proof slippers: just as blocky as Legos themselves, but a savior to parents' feet everywhere!
[via Gizmodo]

The Shoe That Grows

Keeping children in shoes is especially important in developing nations, but the cost of keeping up with kids' growing feet makes it a challenge for many families. The Shoe That Grows is designed to address that, by adjusting its size along with a child's feet from age 1 to 5. It's durable (lasting 5 years) and low-cost (reportedly down to $10 per pair) - and the design of how it adjusts to foot size is downright brilliant. Here's hoping this design can follow through with the impact it seems capable of!
[via Core77]

Wireless sensing for better baby monitors?

As a new parent (I hear veteran parents are less paranoid), I'm constantly checking the baby monitor when my daughter's asleep. And while a video monitor is a wonderful thing, it can't tell me that she's breathing well - so I find myself sneaking in on ninja-quiet feet to check. That's why I'd love a product with MIT's latest wireless detection tech, which can sense motion with enough detail to discern breathing and heartrates through walls. A little over-the-top? Sure - but hey, that's parenting.
[via Engadget]

HeadFoams: Personal audio, Nerf-style...

Parents are always looking for products that are both (1) indestructible and (2) unable to cause injury when flung at high speed - and "monobody foam" is a manufacturing method / marketing term that can provide both. That's why HeadFoams, "the world's first monobody foam headphones," sound like winners to me. It's especially clever to show an image of kids seemingly trying to break these things, and failing. Keep your Beats - my kid will be rocking out Nerf-style!
[via Gizmodo]

SaddleBaby: Your beast of burden...

My daughter is just about to hit the age where she'll be able to ride on Dada's shoulders, so this caught my eye: the SaddleBaby claims to make shoulder-riding "a safe & fun way to bond with your child!"  And you know, I'm sure it's a smooth ride. But if I have to schlep one more thing to strap to myself, adjust, clip in, tighten, insert tab A into slot B, ad nauseam, I'm gonna lose it. (Not that you weren't lifesavers at times, Bjorn and Ergo!) But this is one parenting activity that I'll be doing the old-fashioned way - if nothing else, the look on that guy's face in the photo has convinced me to steer clear!
[via Gizmodo]

In-Flight Interface: "Are we there yet?"

Fresh off of holiday flights with my 18-month-old daughter in tow, I'm especially appreciative of anything that made the experience better. So my thanks goes out to Delta for a superb in-flight entertainment system: not just the selection (Hannah enjoyed Ratatouille as seen above, among others), but the interface was helpful - even clever. Circled above is the critical info I kept wanting to know - the time to arrival - which popped up without having to stop the movie. We even noticed that when watching movies from the general selection, that red button is labeled "Flight Info" - but when watching kids' movies, it's "Are we there yet?" It was a little extra nugget of delight in a long flight that needed it!

Parental Product Design #1: Diaper Genie

It's been a while since the last new post here on Unpressable Buttons, but there's a good reason: I'm a new father! That also means a lot more coverage of parenting products, so let's start with a doozie: the Diaper Genie. This strikes me as a design that's fairly mature, seeming to have been refined over many iterations in a few short years. It's ended up packing some impressive features (and from the drawing above, heavily-patented features) into a pretty low-cost product: the continuous "tube" of bagging to simplify liner-changing; the well-located and obviously-childproof cutter to shear the bagging when removing a load; the two-stage sealing doors that work like an air lock to keep poopy smells in; and of course, the foot pedal, because you don't have any extra hands when changing a diaper. It's satisfyingly efficient, functional, no-nonsense - and unlike many baby products, non-cutesy. That's fine, though - the baby herself is plenty cute for me!