The YD Mother’s Day Gift Guide 2022

Shopping for Mother’s Day isn’t hard if you figure out a few things early. Namely, making breakfast one day in the year, or giving your mum a coupon for a free household chore isn’t really a gift! Personally, helping out with day-to-day stuff is just a mark of common etiquette, and as far as gifts are concerned, being thoughtful scores major points! To that very end, we decided to put on our thinking caps and create a unique list of mother’s day gifts that are genuinely thoughtful and helpful. From undying beautiful bouquets to an actual hand-massager, this list is chock-full of creative Mother’s Day Gift ideas!


‘Chipolo Card’ Tracking Device

“Perfect for helping mom find her keys, purse, or wallet”

The Chipolo Card is a ridiculously slim tracker that can slip right into your wallet, and works in tandem with Apple’s Find My network to let you track your belongings on your Apple devices. Measuring a staggering 2mm in thickness (0.08 inches for the metric naysayers), the tracker comes with a 1-year battery, IPx5 water resistance, and a loud 91dB alarm that’s enough to alert you of its presence or scare a potential pickpocket away.

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LEGO Botanical Collection Flower Bouquet

“An undying bouquet for your undying love”

LEGO’s Botanical Collection marks the toy company’s latest effort in merging the joyful pastime of building blocks with the meditative work of gardening. Designed to introduce LEGO builders to the age-old craft of ikebana or Japanese flower arrangement, the LEGO Botanical Collection allows you to build rather beautifully intricate flowers out of LEGO bricks. The incredibly detailed builds come with as many as 1000 bricks per collection, with everything from petals and sepals down to even LEGO butterflies that can perch on your artificial bouquet. Great for gifting mom, even better for building together with her!

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‘Vino’ Corkscrew + Bottle Opener

“A fun little bottle opener for when mom’s had a long day”

Meet Vino, an adorable bat-shaped bottle opener that adds a perfect little touch of whimsy just as you’re about to break open a bottle of wine after a really exhausting day. Its playful design comes with a head that twists to lock the corkscrew into a bottle, and wings on each side that you need to press down on to pop the bottle open. Quite like Alessi’s iconic Anna bottle opener, Vino has a fun charm to it, and will most likely only make your day better!

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Embr Wave 2 Wearable Temperature Regulator

“A temperature-regulating bracelet to help deal with hot flashes and cold sweats”

Unlike most wearables that track your health and fitness, the Embr Wave 2 has a different design brief. Created to help women deal with the symptoms of menopause (mainly hot flashes), the Embr Wave 2 is a wearable temperature regulating device that helps menopausal women deal with fluctuating body temperatures. When you suddenly get a hot flash, a simple tap on your Embr device allows it to send waves of cool down your wrist, letting you feel much more comfortable and relaxed. When there’s a nip in the air or when you’re feeling chilly, the Wave 2 can become warm, instantly comforting you, so internal/external temperature fluctuations don’t ever bring you down.

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Nightwatch Apple Watch Magnifying Dock

“Turn the Apple Watch into a proper, high-visibility bedside alarm clock”

The NightWatch is basically an Apple Watch charging dock with a massive dome-shaped magnifying glass element on the front that enlarges its screen. Dock your watch behind the massive lens and it makes your watch screen larger, enhancing its visibility manifold while charging it overnight. Designed to turn your smartwatch into a much more efficient bedside clock, the NightWatch does more than just increase visibility… it also enhances your watch’s audio too, amplifying it to make your alarm much more audible! A perfect addition to any bedside table!

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Breo iPalm520e Electric Hand Massager

“Massages your hands and improves blood flow after an exhausting day”

Designed to be small enough to sit on a table or even on your lap, the Breo iPalm520e massages your hands for you, with 3 levels of pressure that imitate reflexology-like kneading. Using air pressure and a dot-textured inner surface, the iPalm520e helps efficiently massage your entire hands, from your palms to your fingers, and even comes with a variable heat setting to mimic the effects of a hot massage, while promoting greater blood circulation in your hands to reduce soreness and numbness.

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‘Kitchen Cube’ All-in-One Measuring Cup

“A perfectly handy all-in-one kitchen measuring tool”

Designed to be your go-to for any cooking measurements, the Kitchen Cube integrates all measuring vessels into its singular, cube-shaped body. With 19+ measuring units incorporated into its 6-sided shape, the Kitchen Cube can be used to measure anything from teaspoons and tablespoons to even cups, working with both wet and dry ingredients alike. The cube comes with both metric and US measuring units molded into its unique design, allowing you to even measure out your ingredients in milliliters if the recipe calls for it!

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Petlibro Granary Automatic Pet Feeder

“Because pet mamas are mamas too!”

Although it’s named the Granary, this automatic pet feeder from Petlibro stores everything except grains! Designed to hold and dispense dry food for either cats or dogs, the Petlibro Granary comes in 2 volumes – a 3-liter and a 5-liter version, and can store up to 50 portions of dry food in its upper container. You can then schedule and set feeding times, so the Granary automatically dispenses the food into your pet’s feeding tray, irrespective of whether you’re home or not. Moreover, the Granary even allows you to record 10-second audio clips for your furry friend, giving them comfort while you’re not around!

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Dell XPS 13 Plus tries to evolve the laptop with questionable features

Laptops have become the go-to computing solutions of people, be it for personal use or for work. They have reached a point where they can match desktop computers in all but the most specialized cases, though the ability to expand their power through things like external graphics docks evens out the score as well. Laptop design, in general, has remained the same in the past few decades, at least as far as the placement of components goes. Some have, of course, become thinner and lighter have almost all but banished bezels, but the placement of screens, keys, and trackpads are more or less standard by now (even if keyboard layouts aren’t). Dell, however, is trying to mix things up a bit to make the laptop look more futuristic and less busy, but it raises some important questions about the usability and ergonomics of such a new design.

Designer: Dell

Laptop Ergonomics

One can argue that laptops have never been the most ergonomic computing devices in the first place. Their overall design was meant to make a computer more portable, going as far as being able to use it on your lap. The strain it puts on your legs and neck, and the angle of your arms and wrist have made laptops have made the earliest laptops the anti-thesis of ergonomics.

Things have improved over the decades, but more thanks to accessories and peripherals rather than the actual design of laptops themselves. The position and angle of the screen, keys, and touchpad still don’t lend themselves well to good posture, and manufacturers haven’t exactly been too keen on changing a working formula. Instead, the likes of Dell, ASUS, and Lenovo have tried to reinvent the laptop with features that drastically change how you use it.

ASUS, for example, has been putting a second screen right above the keyboard, which ends up pushing the keyboard further down. This means that the traditional trackpad is given the boot, though technically, it has been relocated to the right side as a configurable second screen. Lenovo takes that to the extreme by actually putting a tablet-sized display to the right of the keyboard, though the trackpad is still there, now off to the left instead of dead center.

Dell XPS 13 Plus

Compared to those two, Dell’s big changes to the laptop design almost look modest, though they carry their own head-scratching moments. In a nutshell, the new Dell XPS 13 Plus embraces minimalism to its fullest, giving the area opposite the display a completely flat look. That means no bumps and almost no gaps save for what’s necessary for the keycaps. Even then, the gaps are minimal, thanks to what Dell calls a “zero-lattice” keyboard.

There’s also a touch-sensitive area above the keyboard that serves as the function keys. We’ve seen a similar technology with the MacBook Pro’s Touch Bar, which was equally controversial. The difference is that Dell’s version is clearly minimalist and blends cleanly into the background, without any visual separation between that area and the rest of the laptop.

The biggest change, however, is the invisible trackpad. It’s still there and occupies the same area as a regular trackpad, perhaps even bigger, but there’s no clear way for you to actually see where it is. You’re given haptic feedback, so you’re not completely clueless, but it remains to be seen (or felt) how effective that will be in practice.

Eye Candy, Touch-Deprived

Dell definitely accomplished what it set out to do with the Dell XPS 13 Plus. The laptop is truly beautiful and clean; a minimalist dream’s come true. As an added bonus, the PC maker took steps to reduce the carbon footprint of the laptop, both during its production as well as its packaging. It definitely checks most of the boxes of product design and sustainability. It does, however, leave some questions hanging when it comes to other aspects that would affect how people use the product.

The MacBook Pro Touch Bar wasn’t exactly that popular, and the XPS 13 Plus’ version actually misses out on some of the flexibility and benefits of a screen-based solution in favor of a minimalist design. The lack of physical keys could make it harder to hit them by muscle memory, so you’ll always end up looking down. The same could almost be said of the zero-lattice keys, whose larger sizes could be negated by the very same thing that makes them special. Our fingers almost instinctively know the keys to hit, partly because of how they feel with those bumps and gaps in between keys.

The biggest question mark, however, is the invisible trackpad. It might take a lot of trial and error for people to get used to where the active area is or how far it extends. There is no argument that it definitely looks elegant in its cleanliness, and we give Dell the benefit of the doubt that it did due diligence in R&D, but we’ll have to wait and see for real-world feedback on whether this beautiful but unusual $1,299 laptop is worth those changes.

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Netflix cancels ‘Space Force’ after two seasons

Netflix has canceled Space Force, according to Deadline. The comedy series from Parks and Recreation co-creator Greg Daniels won’t get a third season. The cancelation comes only weeks after season two of Space Force premiered on February 18th. Very much inspired by the Trump administration’s decision to create a space force, the series starred Steve Carell as a four-star general. And despite surrounding Carell with a star-studded cast that included the likes of John Malkovich and Ben Schwartz, the show never lived up to its premise.

Deadline reports Netflix caned Space Force for its usual reasons. The series failed to attract enough of an audience to justify its production budget. The cancelation comes mere days after Netflix laid off a significant number of the writers and editors it had hired to run its Tudum fan site website. On April 19th, the company revealed it lost about 200,000 subscribers in the first quarter of 2022, its first such loss in a decade.

Lyft and Uber will cover legal fees of drivers sued under Oklahoma abortion law

Much like they did in Texas, Lyft and Uber have pledged to cover drivers sued under Oklahoma’s forthcoming SB1503 law. The so-called Heartbeat Act prohibits most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy – a timeframe before many women know they’re pregnant.

And like its Texas counterpart, SB8, the legislation allows private individuals to sue anyone who assists a woman attempting to skirt the ban, including rideshare drivers who face fines of up to $10,000. The Oklahoma House passed SB1503 on Thursday, and Governor Kevin Stitt is expected to sign the bill sometime within the next few days.

On Friday, Lyft CEO Logan Green said the company would extend its commitment, first announced in September, to cover 100 percent of legal fees for drivers sued under SB8 to include those impacted by SB1503. Additionally, Green said Lyft was working with healthcare providers to create a program to cover the cost of rides for out-of-state abortion care. The company also plans to cover travel costs for insured employees, if those laws force them to travel more than 100 miles to find care.

“Women’s access to health care is under attack again, this time in Oklahoma,” Green said on Twitter. “We believe transportation shouldn’t be a barrier to accessing healthcare and it’s our duty to support both our rider and driver communities.” Women’s health activists

After Green’s tweet, Uber said it would offer similar protections for drivers. “Like in TX, we intend to cover all legal fees for any driver sued under this law while they’re driving,” a spokesperson for the company told CNBC.

This aerodynamically tuned drone is for covert missions in urban warzones

When we think of a drone, the first picture that comes to mind is that of a quadcopter flying in the skies. This stealth drone is somewhat different thought with its helicopter-like aesthetics and swiftness.

Snap (Formerly Snapchat) has just announced its second tangible product after the release of the swanky spectacles. This time around it’s a compact palm-sized drone for shooting videos and directly sending them to Snapchat. However, we’re going to shift our focus to another drone that is much bigger and could go head-on in the market dominated by DJI Mavic 3, Ryze Tello, or Parrot Anafi FPV.

Designer: Vladislav Kulikov

The intended purpose of this conceptual design is to have a reliable unmanned medium-sized drone fly swiftly in cities, delivering important small cargo in the concrete jungle with efficiency. It makes sense in the current turbulent times in the world plagued by uncertain wars and pandemics. Unlike the customary quadcopter form of most of the drones out there, this one has the semblance of an RC helicopter. That’s why the name of this flying machine is VR Drone Helicopter.

Vladislav Kulikov portrays this sleek machine as one inspired by the body of the birds. The seemingly floating cabin in the frame reinforces that fact. Those hindlegs and the forward-leaning position lend a bird-like character to the whole design. The five rotors on top spin to provide the lift and the tail rotor actuates the directional movement. The virtual Reality bit of the drone comes from the VR headset-controlled function, wherein a remotely located human can fly this machine into the sensitive or dangerous zones with complete awareness of the surroundings.

Aerodynamics are at play here so the aerodynamics tuning of the body is in complete play. The top view and side angle render show the amount of detail being put into shaving off the unnecessary weight for maximum lift and maneuverability.

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Decibels Hearing Enhancers will let you hear every detail

People hard of hearing need all the help they can to be able to live a convenient life. Accessing information is a need, but let’s admit it is still a challenge to find the best hearing-enhancing wearables.

A team of designers was able to develop Decibels as a special set of wearables for those who do not want to wear hearing aids. Wearing one or a pair on your ears isn’t exactly comfortable, so there is a demand for a better solution. There are millions of people that need to wear hearing aids to communicate, but the fact is, not everyone has access to the right equipment.

Designers: Nick Morgan-Jones and Gray Dawdy

Decibels

Decibels Hearing Enhancers Hearing Aid Images

Connecting with people can be easier with the Decibels Hearing Enhancers. The small device features designer hearing technology in a form that you will not be ashamed to wear. It’s not just an ordinary hearing aid or a medical device. People may even mistake this for an earbud.

Conventional hearing aids are usually hidden or associated with disabilities or getting old. With Decibels, such social stigma can be removed. But even if you have a problem with hearing, you don’t have to be ashamed, especially since the Decibels Hearing Enhancers are designed with a more modern and stylish look.

Decibels Hearing Enhancers Hearing Aid Images

One of the designers, Nick Morgan-Jones, has hearing loss, so he knows the exact need to wear something more confidently. Hearing technology is more than just providing excellent audio. It should allow more people to be confident in how they look despite their physical limitations.

Decibels connect via Bluetooth and allow anyone to stream audio and hear the word. The hearing technology used is medical-grade, but the form isn’t something you will be ashamed to wear. The product comes with a compatible app that lets users measure their hearing profile. The app helps program the hearing device for personal hearing and audio needs.

Decibels Bluetooth

Decibels Hearing Enhancers Hearing Aid

Decibels will let you hear the world in full color. To achieve this, real-world sounds are enhanced. The device also offers clarity to speech to enjoy conversations like never before. The Decibels team calls these hearing enhancers and not hearing aids, but the technology is medical grade. It is designed to be seen and make ears open.

Price of the Decibels is $799, but you can reserve now and enjoy a 30% discount at $560. You can place your order for only $79. Learn more on Decibels.co and sign-up to know when the product will be out on the market.

Decibels Hearing Enhancers Hearing Aid Design

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Microsoft Edge will soon include a free built-in VPN

Microsoft has consistently tried to get more people to use Edge. Some of the ways it has pursued that goal have been less well-received than others, but its latest effort to do so could make for a useful addition to the software. In a support page spotted by The Verge, the company revealed it’s adding a free built-in VPN service dubbed Edge Secure Network to its web browser. 

The company says the tool will encrypt your internet connection. You can use that functionality to protect your data from your internet service provider. As with most VPNs, you can also use Edge Secure Network to mask your location, making it possible to access services that might otherwise be blocked in the country where you live or are visiting.

If you find yourself frequently traveling, chances are Edge Secure Network won’t replace a paid VPN. The feature limits you to 1GB of data usage per month. It’s also worth noting you’ll need a Microsoft account to use the service. Microsoft has yet to begin testing the VPN. But once the feature is available, you’ll be able to enable it through Edge's three-dots icon. A new option titled “Secure Network” will turn the VPN on. Once you're done browsing, it will automatically turn off again. 

India seizes $725 million from Xiaomi

India has seized assets worth approximately $725 million from Xiaomi India after the country’s anti-money laundering agency found the subsidiary had broken local foreign exchange laws. According to Reuters, India’s Enforcement Directorate announced Saturday it recently determined Xiaomi had made illegal remittances when it attempted to pass off some transfers as royalty payments.

That money went to three foreign companies, including one under the wider Xiaomi banner. The Enforcement Directorate found Xiaomi designed the payments to benefit itself. "Such huge amounts in the name of royalties were remitted on the instructions of their Chinese parent group entities," the agency said. The Indian Enforcement Directorate began investigating the subsidiary, among a handful of other local Chinese firms, last December. It accused Xiaomi of providing “misleading information to the banks while remitting the money abroad.”

On Twitter, Xiaomi said it believes its payments were legitimate. "These royalty payments that Xiaomi India made were for the in-licensed technologies and IPs used in our Indian version products,” the company stated. “We are committed to working closely with government authorities to clarify any misunderstandings." We’ve reached out to the company for additional information and comment.

As of last year, Xiaomi was India’s leading smartphone manufacturer, with a dominant 24 percent share of the market. But like many Chinese firms in India, it has recently been forced to navigate a regulatory regime that has become less welcoming of Chinese business interests. In 2021, India temporarily banned TikTok following the country’s border dispute with China and later reportedly withheld WiFi device approvals to encourage domestic production.

Behold the electric Mustang that Ford should have built

When Ford debuted the Mustang Mach-E, I couldn’t help but wonder why they steered away into a radically new design aesthetic. The original gasoline-guzzling Mustang was an icon in itself, and Ford’s choice to steer away from that very iconic aesthetic seemed odd at first, but the company justified its choice by rightfully pointing out that the Mach-E wasn’t the same as the original muscle car. It was entirely different on the inside, hence the difference on the outside. The justification made sense, but it didn’t provide any closure. However, this electric Mustang by Charge Cars is rather wonderfully filling that void. Debuted at the beginning of 2022 but only unveiled officially to the public at this year’s Salon Privé Concours, the Charge Mustang is everything you want an electric Mustang to be. It retains the original car’s raw, muscular persona, albeit with a ‘new drivetrain who dis’ appeal.

Designer: Charge Cars

Easily one of the most visually impressive electric cars that money can buy, the Charge Mustang bases its design off the iconic 1967 Fastback. If its body looks almost too similar to Ford’s own ’67 Mustang, it’s because Charge Cars uses a bodyshell that’s officially licensed by Ford. Underneath this shell, however, sits Charge’s electric platform, with floor-mounted batteries that make the Mustang an electric little pony.

The electric platform that the Mustang sits on is the result of a strategic partnership with Arrival, the UK-based automotive startup that’s working with Uber to create their bespoke electric taxi-cabs. The one sitting under the Charge Mustang has permanent magnet e-motors on all four wheels, and a 63 kWh battery between them under the rider, giving the car a range of 200 miles on a full charge. This revised electric Mustang has a few other impressive specs, like the ability to go from 0-60mph in 3.9 seconds, and a motor torque of 1520Nm.

The Charge Mustang’s design, however, remains its most beloved feature. With an aesthetic that has major The Batman energy (after all the Batmobile used in the 2022 film is a muscle car too), the Charge Mustang comes in a black exterior, with carbon fiber paneling and a radiator grille on the front, even though the car has an electric powertrain on the inside. Notably, the Mustang’s iconic horse symbol on the radiator gets replaced with Charge’s logo, a strange minimalist crucifix. The headlights and taillights have an unmistakable beauty to them too, opting for a lighter, more minimal outline design rather than solid lights.

The electric Mustang also has a few other tricks up its sleeve, in the form of Traffic Sign Detection and an Automatic Emergency Brake. It also has Level 1 autonomy in the form of Cruise Control and Lane Departure Warning (we’re still ways off from an autonomous Mustang).

The electric platform under the Charge Mustang was thanks to a hardware and software partnership with Arrival. The car’s dashboard and interiors get an overhaul too, with a more modern design and the presence of dynamic screens behind the steering wheel as well as the center of the car’s dashboard.

A UK-based startup, Charge only plans to make 499 units of this electric Mustang. Clearly designed as a premium limited-edition vehicle, the Charge Mustang starts at £350,000, with extra modifications to the car’s performance or its interiors adding to its overall cost. While it obviously means a majority of us will never really get to own this beauty, I guess there’s vicarious pleasure to be had in seeing someone actually revive the classic muscular car as an electric beast!

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New York lawmakers want to limit warehouse productivity quotas

New York State Senator Jessica Ramos and Assembly Member Latoya Joyner have introduced a new bill meant to limit production quotas for warehouse workers. The bill, called the Warehouse Worker Protection Act, takes aim at Amazon's labor practices. It expands upon and strengthens the language of a similar bill in California that was signed into law back in 2021, making the state the first in the US to have legislation that regulates warehouse quotas.

Productivity quotas prevent workers from complying with safety standards and contribute to rising injury rates in warehouse, Ramos notes in a statement. She explains that if the bill passes, it can "ease the bargaining process" for workers seeking to make demands for health purposes in their workplace. Warehouses will have to go through an ergonomic assessment of all tasks if the bill becomes a law, and companies could face penalties if they're found to be lacking. The New York State Department of Labor will enforce rules established under the bill. 

As Motherboard reports, the Warehouse Worker Protection Act will require employers with at least 50 employees in a single warehouse or 500 workers statewide to describe their productivity quotas in a written description. They also have to explain how their quotas are developed and how they can be used for disciplinary purposes. If the bill passes, it can make sure employees are giving their workers bathroom breaks and rest periods, as well.

Amazon made it to the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health's most dangerous workplaces in the US for the third time this year. The advocacy group included Amazon for having an injury rate more than double the industry average and highlighted the deaths that took place in its facility in Bessemer, Alabama. Workers' rights advocates also recently accused the e-commerce giant of using its charity work placement scheme to conceal true injury rates in its warehouses.