GOODS & SERVICES: New Ideas, Jun. 22, 1959

GOODS & SERVICES

Fast Franks. A cigar-box-shaped appliance that cooks six frankfurters in 90 seconds is being sold by Westinghouse. The first home appliance designed just for the hot dog, the plastic “Dog-O-Matic” has two rows of pronglike electrodes between which the hot dogs are impaled, cooked as electricity shoots through them. Price: $9.95.

Sit-Up Alarm. A bed that wakes the sleeper in the morning by raising him to a sitting position was announced by the Simmons Co. Plugged into a clock radio, the motorized bed rises slowly when the timer turns on the radio, TV, coffee percolator and phonograph, can also be raised for nighttime TV watching or meals in bed. Price: $299.50.

Frozen Box. A one-piece package for frozen foods has been developed by Weyerhaeuser Timber Co. Replacing the cumbersome double package (wax covering over cardboard) now used to avoid odor mixture and freezer burn, the new package does both jobs with a single wax cardboard, which can be sealed with a cold adhesive.

No-Spill Baby Spoon. A “spillproof” baby training spoon, with a swivel-action grip that keeps the spoon level no matter how the baby grips it, was put on the market by the Rhonda B. Corp. of Detroit. Price: $1.25.

Self-Cleaning Lamp. General Electric introduced a tiny, tubular quartz lamp billed as “one of the most important basic improvements in incandescent lamps since Thomas Edison.” The pencil-shaped tube lasts twice as long and is one two-hundredth the size of a standard industrial lighting lamp, does not grow dim throughout its life. Iodine vapor in the bulb prevents the formation of blackening carbon on the inside; the lamp’s high operating temperature incinerates dirt that touches the outside. Because of their small size, the new lamps can be used to throw exact lighting patterns for show windows, building facades, sports fields, airports. They will permit development of smaller, more effective lighting fixtures, are cheaper to operate.