Well, here’s your chance. Charity auction site Charitybuzz is currently hosting an auction to buy a coffee date with Apple CEO Tim Cook. It is an auction, so there’s no telling how high the price will go, but it is tagged with an estimated value of $50,000. And if you think that there’s no way that goal will be reached – think again. With 20 days left to bid, the bid currently stands at $36,999.

The coffee date will take place at Apple HQ in Cupertino, and the prize is valid for up to 2 people. The coffee date will last between 30 minute and an hour. Travel and accommodations are not included.

It’s all for a good cause, of course. Proceeds will benefit the RFK Center for Justice and Human Rights.

“We expect all winning bidders and their guests to conduct themselves appropriately when attending an experience won at Charitybuzz. Polite manners and respect for the generous donor and adherence to any rules or parameters are a must,” says Charitybuzz.

Well, there goes some possibilities. For $50,000, that coffee better be something.

[CharityBuzz via AppleInsider]

How often do you find yourself unable to properly text, Facebook, or play Temple Run because you’re forced to use one of your free hands holding a cup of coffee. If this scenario hits home, help may be on the way.

It’s called the UpperCup, and it’s the iPhone/cup holder that you never knew you wanted.

“No more one handed typing. No more spilling coffee. Have your hands free for your optimal texting, gaming and social networking pleasure,” says Dutch marketing agency Natwerk.

Awesome! You want one, right?

Well, you can’t have one – yet. Natwerk is currently crowdfunding the project on indiegogo. They’ve set a goal of $25,000 to get the UpperCup into production and say that if/when it hits the shelves, it will do so with a $35 price tag. As of now, the’ve only managed to collect a little under $800 with 36 days left in the campaign.

This is admittedly a little ridiculous. But I can totally see it selling.

UPDATE: It looks like I, like many others, have written up a publicity stunt.

[via BuzzFeed]

During the 2012 World Congress on Prevention of Diabetes and Its Complications (WCPD), researchers highlighted the evidence linking coffee to diabetes prevention. It was stated that research has shown three to four cups of coffee per day can cut the risk of developing type 2 diabetes by up to 25%. Another study has shown that each additional cup of coffee reduces the relative risk of type 2 diabetes by seven to eight percent.

Though the correlation between coffee and diabetes prevention has been demonstrated, the researchers were careful to point out that a causal relationship has not been established. It could be that coffee drinking is associated with other habits that prevent diabetes. However, it was also pointed out that the correlation between coffee and diabetes prevention can seem counterintuitive, since coffee drinking is often associated with unhealthy habits such as smoking or low levels of physical activity.

In light of this seemingly conflicting data, the researchers propose an “Energy Expenditure Hypothesis,” suggesting that caffeine stimulates metabolism and increases energy expenditure. Also, a “Carbohydrate metabolic Hypothesis” was put forward, suggesting that coffee components could influence the glucose balance in the body. Other hypotheses suggest that coffee components could improve insulin sensitivity through various mechanisms.

“A dose-dependent inverse association between coffee drinking and total mortality has been demonstrated in general population and it persists among diabetics,” said Dr. Pilar Riobó Serván, a speaker at the WCPD session and associate chief of Endocrinology and Nutrition at Jiménez Díaz-Capio Hospital in Madrid. “Although more research on the effect of coffee in health is yet needed, current information suggests that coffee is not as bad as previously considered!”

All kidding aside, a recent study has shown that caffeine may, in fact, reduce your risk of skin cancer. That’s right — all of those people who made fun of you for pounding cup after cup of cheap, off-brand black coffee are at a greater risk of developing basal cell carcinoma than you are right now. It’s not just coffee fanatics, either. Copious consumers of tea and cola are also lowering their risk of getting skin cancer. That guy over there gnawing on his third Snickers bar? He’s lowering his chances, as well.

Based on data from the study, women were 21 percent less likely to develop skin cancer if they knocked back three cups of coffee per day. Men, meanwhile, were only 10 percent less likely to get basal cell carcinoma. However, doctors warn that just because you’ve increased the amount of caffeine in your diet doesn’t mean you can increase the amount of time you spend basking in the glow of the sun. Nice try, though.

“I would hope that people would not decide to spend a lot more time in the sun because they are drinking coffee,” explained Lorelei Mucci,, associate professor of epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health. She added, “There is a lot more about the prevention of BCC that we need to understand.”

Before you stock up on an endless supply of coffee beans, lead author Jiali Han, an associate professor at Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, offered up a word of warning. “There are lots of compounds in the coffee, including antioxidants. The process of decaffeination can wash out other compounds in the coffee, so we cannot 100 percent tease out that caffeine is the only factor responsible for the effect.”

It’s also worth noting that the study is not conclusive, as only shows an association between caffeine and skin cancer.

The company partnered with Opportunity Finance Network to form Create Jobs for USA, which they plan to contribute to with each product they sell. For instance, if you spend roughly $15 to bring home a bag of Starbucks’ “Indivisible Blend” coffee, $5 will be officially kicked directly into the fund. Although some might argue that such a contribution is nothing more than a drop in the proverbial bucket, every little bit helps in the long run. This program might ultimately spur other corporations to do the same thing.

More importantly, Starbucks’ decision to sell American-made products has helped create new jobs, including a few at the American Mug & Stein factory in East Liverpool, Ohio, where the company’s ceramic mugs are manufactured. The tumblers, meanwhile, are crafted in Chicago. Domestic production currently employs around 12 million individuals, which, when compared to the 20 million the industry counted amongst its ranks in 1980, needs a little improvement.

Starbucks’ Chief Executive Howard Schultz hopes that the Create Jobs for USA inspires other companies to follow in their footsteps. Some might saythe irony of the situation is that Starbucks cut nearly 600 employees from its workforce during its restructuring a few years ago. It’s also worth noting that not all of the company’s products are made in the USA; only the aforementioned mug, tumbler, and coffee are manufactured in the States.

The breakthrough came from Dr. Hochberg and his team of 20 researchers at Brown Mass General and the Providence V. A. Cathy Hutchinson was the first woman to participate in the study. She suffered a debilitating stroke 15 years ago, that left her completely paralized. Now, after 15 years of not being able to do anything for herself, she drank from a thermos without any assistance.

Over five years, Hutchinson lived with a device attached to her brain. A tiny chip about the size of a aspirin recorded and analyzed brain waves.

Dr. Hochberg and team measured the signals that the brain produces when it wants to move one’s arm. After noticing patterns that often crop up when performing certain tasks, he designed a program to recognize those patterns and translate them into physical movement via a robotic arm.

The obvious implications of this are astounding. In the future, robotic limbs could be attached directly to a person, and electrical signals from the brain could give an amputee or a paralyzed person full use of their appendage.

“I felt a great accomplishment was made and I was thrilled to be a part of it,” Cathy Hutchinson said.

“It’s exciting for us. Seeing the smile on her face when she was able to bring that thermos of coffee up and to take that first sip – it’s something that all of us on the research team will never forget,” Dr. Leigh Hochberg said.

[source: 9news.com]

Shelling out lots of cash just to eat and drink everyday doesn’t seem like such a big deal, but when you add up the figures at the end of the month, you may be taking a huge chunk out of your household budget.

With the increasing cost of fuel, and only a small percentage of Americans driving truly fuel efficient vehicles, cutting back on frivolous daily spending may be an option.

Mindflash.Com has put together a handy infographic on what most of us are spending for coffee and lunch throughout our workdays.

For those of you that aren’t penny pinchers, the numbers might come as a surprise. Look closely at the numbers they came up with and consider what other items you could afford if coffee and lunch were done a different way.

Here’s what they found:

Dunkin’ Donuts certainly wants you to do that, and that’s why they’re promoting a new contest on Twitter that promises to shower coffee and sweet baked goods all over three lucky winners. Because nothing says “I love you” like a romantic trip to your local Dunkin’ Donuts, winners will receive $25 gift cards for themselves and their Valentine – that’s $50 in Dunkinbucks! – with which they can lovingly encourage their dates to supersize those crullers and custard-filleds. All anybody needs to do in order to enter is tweet @dunkindonuts about who they want to share a heart-shaped donut with and then use the hashtag #CupiDD.

Who knows, maybe this is an awesome date in the minds of some people. I love coffee and simplicity and lord knows I have an insatiable sweet tooth, so this would probably work for me. Then again, any contest that features a double-D cupid will probably have interesting results however you approach it (yes, Dunkin’ Donuts, I saw what you did there).

Yes. If grinding beans or measuring out coffee grounds or inserting a filter inside of your Mr. Coffee brewer has become far too arduous of a task within your morning routine, you can now invest your coffee enjoyment into a new machine called TopBrewer. Manufactured by Denmark-based company Scanomat, the suped-up coffee brewer can be easily controlled from your iPhone or iPad. All you have to do is put in your order using the app (yes, you must treat this coffee-making machine like it’s your personal barista and “put in an order”). The app gives you a pretty staggering array of control over what kind of drink you want, ranging from what temperature you want your drink to selecting which type of espresso drink you’d like to have.

For a full scope of what the TopBrewer can do, engorge your eyes in the espresso-porn video provided by Scanomat:

The app is alleged to be available already in Apple’s iTunes Store but I couldn’t find it. Luckily, an iOS device isn’t explicitly required since you can still control TopBrewer through the archaic method of pressing buttons on the actual device. Despite my previous ravings above about the TopBrewer, it is a very pretty piece of equipment and actually does you one better by cleaning itself (the world’s first house-broken coffee brewer!). Scanomatic also boasts that the TopBrewer contains “the smallest milk foamer in the world,” which they patented, and can be built to fit into any countertop.

In addition to the sleek, IKEA showroom-ready design and completely silent brewing process, it also claims to filter brew a cup of coffee in ridiculously fast 15 seconds. In a mere 25 seconds, you can have a cup of “perfectly brewed” espresso. I don’t even get out of bed that quickly in the morning, but at least the coffee would be ready for me by the time I peeled myself out of grogginess.

Scanomat’s website doesn’t even list a price for the TopBrewer, which only leads me to assume that the cost of this device would probably be enough to pay off my student loans (and my student loans are steep). Still. This is Future Coffee with brand new Future Taste; like something George Jetson would have designed except for the fact that TopBrewer actually functions correctly. So supposing that the money you’d put into this device wasn’t also enough to offset the national debt, would you ever consider getting one of these machines? Please comment below if you would (or why you wouldn’t). I’m really curious what people think about this.

McDonald’s, in case you haven’t heard, intends to match Starbucks by offering similarly complicated and expensive drinks.  But no one’s sure how many people will want to sit and drink them while a bunch of kids scream in a nearby ball pit.

Bill Tancer, the general manager of global research at Hitwise, writes, "The prediction, Starbucks won’t lose customers to McDonald’s, but McDonald’s will be able to upsell their existing customers on the McCafe concept."

Tancer came to this conclusion after seeing (and showing) that visitors to the McDonald’s site tend to be younger than those loyal to Starbucks.  Yet the Starbucks crowd tends to own thicker wallets.  And both of these traffic trends seem to align with real-world stats.

It should be interesting, then, to see if Tancer’s prediction holds up.  Your humble author, who doesn’t drink coffee, will report from the sidelines.