ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, January 20, 1996 TAG: 9601220029
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: CHICAGO
SOURCE: HERBERT G. McCANN ASSOCIATED PRESS
BE IT EVER SO HUMBLE, there's no place like home sweet home office. Gadget makers have ways to organize it.
Inventors whose brainstorms are aimed at efficient housekeeping have found a new frontier: the home office.
Folding desks and newfangled file folders found a place at this week's International Housewares Show alongside the usual lineup of gadgets designed to make cooking and cleaning easier.
People working at home could get some help from a new work station called ``Desk in a Box'' by Bestar, a maker of ready-to-assemble office furniture.
A box about 2 1/2 feet by 2 feet opens into a 5 1/2-foot-long desk that also contains a file cabinet, book shelves and a computer printer storage area.
Bestar Vice President Stephen Cratz said ``Desk in a Box,'' to be put on the market later this year, is the Chicago-based company's latest effort to meet the burgeoning demand for home office furniture.
Another effort is Rubbermaid Inc.'s ``Simplifile'' plastic hanging organizers, designed to take the place of paper folders in file cabinets.
The organizers come in three configurations, including one styled like a briefcase that closes to protect documents.
``One of the things we learned is that people expect us to do the organizing for them,'' said Monika McCurdy, business development manager for Rubbermaid, best known for its plastic food containers and other housewares.
Rubbermaid also is peddling a file storage unit made of material that resists scratches, chips, dents and rust. It comes with adjustable dividers for filing and can hold legal and letter-sized files and folders.
Also showcased were items for the home, including kitchen and household doodads, cookware and cleaning products.
Chef Wolfgang Puck, who established Spago restaurant on Los Angeles' Sunset Strip, has developed pots and pans that he said make life easier for the family cook. The cookware features an aluminum core sandwiched between two layers of stainless steel.
Puck, who established Spago restaurant on Los Angeles' Sunset Strip, said his pots and pans are lighter because of hollow stay-cool handles, which also make them easier to use.
And there was the pacifier thermometer, for the parent whose child balks at having his temperature taken. Designed to be indistinguishable from a regular pacifier, it takes a digital reading while the child sucks on the rubber nipple.
The developer, Tampa, Fla.-based Questech International, also has a safety feeding spoon, which changes color if the food is too hot - 105 degrees or higher.
Hoover Co. showcased what it said is a vacuum cleaner that communicates. The ``Dirt Finder'' uses a microphone to detect dirt entering the cleaner to tell which area of the carpet needs cleaning. When the system no longer detects dirt entering the cleaner, the red light that indicates a dirty carpet turns to green.
A similar vacuum cleaner has been introduced by Panasonic, but it uses a light sensor to detect dirt.
LENGTH: Medium: 70 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. 1. Sharon Ringo shows a thermometer built into aby CNBpacifier made by Questech at the International Housewares Show in
Chicago. Designed to be indistinguishable from a regular pacifier,
it takes a digital reading while the child sucks on the rubber
nipple. 2. Lorrie Paul of Rubbermaid demonstrates the company's new
product, Simplifile, at the International Housewares Show.