Archive for the 'Inventions' Category
Walter Hunt was trying to find a way to repay a debt. While nervously wrapping a wire around his finger, the idea suddenly hit. It soon became the dress pin, later known as the safety pin. It was one of many Hunt inventions, including the sewing machine, knife sharpener, a streetcar alarm bell and a [...]
Heart Catheter Decreases Health Costs, Save Lives
Chicago Tribune: Reavill won a prestigious contest in London late last year called the OmniCompete Health Pitch Battlefield, whose independent judges said his invention is a simple way to catheterize the heart. It reduces risks to an “absolute minimum” by moving the catheter insertion to the arm, the judges said, replacing a complex wire-guided procedure [...]
Apple, Inventor Face Off Over driPhone
Apparently one “I” can make a big difference if you choose to name a product with the word phone in it. At least, that is what driPhone recently discovered. Apple, through a Wellington-based patent firm, told Hayden Crowther it was opposing his application to trademark the driPhone name in New Zealand because it is too [...]
StepNpull: Open Doors Hands Free
Our next interview in the Get on the Shelf series features Mike Sewell and his product, the StepNpull. What product did you submit to Wal-Mart’s Get on the Shelf contest? We submitted StepNpull which is a hands free door opener designed for commercial latch less doors. It gives the user the option of pulling the [...]
Scratch and Sniff Jeans from Canada
CNBC: Why smell like denim when you can smell like raspberries? If the idea intrigues you, why not try on a pair of Scratch-n-Sniff Raspberry Scented jeans, which were released worldwide by Montreal-based Naked & Famous Denim on Tuesday. “These jeans actually smell like raspberry candy when scratched,” the company claims on its site. The [...]
82% of Americans say that they never leave home without their cellphones. 42% say that can’t live without them. According to the Science Museum in London, that may seem true but it’s not. The cellphone hasn’t changed your life nearly as much as many mundane items you don’t even think about. The ingenuity of a [...]
The Wifi Enabled, LCD Garbage Can
Does your garbage can tell you the weather, or whether the stock market is up or down? Mine doesn’t, but for the 2012 London Olympics, the city’s financial center is getting at least 200 Renew trash receptacles that will. Each can is also bombproof and offers wifi connectivity. Oh, and they go for $1,800 each. [...]
Watch Out Dentists: The Plasma Toothbrush is Coming
At the University of Missouri scientists are trying to do away with painful visits to the dentist. They’ve developed a plasma brush, that would allow dentists to do away with the drill and prepare cavity-damaged teeth for fillings. Instead of grinding away damaged parts of the teeth, the plasma brush modifies the tooth surface to [...]
According to Mashable, there might be an Apple-branded treadmill in the works. At least that’s the thrust of a patent the company applied for, which involves a “sports equipment apparatus” with smart components to let it interface with an iPod or iPhone. The patent application, made public yesterday by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office [...]
Spin Mail: The Mailbox That Pivots
Ever wonder about your safety while stepping out on the side of a busy road to remove your mail from the mailbox? Spin Mail has created a simple solution by making it easy for you to turn your mailbox around to face you, without you having to step out near traffic. Reed Holmes of Chester, [...]
Boy Scouts of America and Edison Nation’s Innovation Challenge
The Boy Scouts of America and Edison Nation have come together to challenge kids between the ages of 7 to 21 years old to participate in the Boy Scouts of America Innovation Challenge. The Innovation Challenge is looking to today’s kids to develop tomorrow’s products. Whether the invention solves a problem around the house, the [...]
Health Drinks Have Gone To The Dogs
According to WalesOnline.co.uk, Brian Conlon didn’t intend to create a health drink for dogs. He happened upon the idea by accident, and Woofit was born. We had built a new shed onto the old one in the garden, but there was a crack in the perspex roof so when it rained little drops of water [...]
GoPillow: The Baby Pillow That Travels
Next in our series of interviews with the contestants in Walmart’s Get on the Shelf contest we have Tangela Walker-Craft, the inventor of the GoPillow. What product did you submit to Walmart’s Get on the Shelf contest? The GoPillow!- Uses include, but are not limited to: Breast feeding pillow with built-in privacy cover-up Pillow and [...]
Does your spouse love to watch 3D movies at the movie theater? Do they give you a headache? Hank Green loves 3D movies. Unfortunately, his wife does not. In fact, she’d get a headache each time they went. He didn’t want his wife to be in pain, but he also didn’t want to give up [...]
Flaming Floater: Grilling on the Water
If you’re the kind of person who gets in lake on the first day of summer, and doesn’t get back out until Labor Day, you’re in the target market for a new product out of Minnesota called the Flaming Floater. The Flaming Floater is, as you might have guessed from the name, a floating BBQ [...]
Potato Farmer/Inventor Makes Sorters Affordable
The Packer: Jones said he was motivated to create the E-Sorter because he wanted to give growers a better option at a better price. He said there are a of lot high-tech sorting/grading machines with expensive computerized scanners and cameras that were designed with the process in mind, but not the grower. “I started working [...]
Musical Tool Land Inventor In The Shark Tank
Dothan Eagle: Thirty years ago, Travis Perry watched as guitar students of all ages became frustrated during lessons. Many would give up within 60 days – a time Perry calls the “two-month hump.” Perry eventually stopped teaching guitar and went to college. He played with the band Silverado, lived in Nashville for a while, owned [...]
Magnetic Soap: For Oil Spills First, Then You!
The world’s first magnetic soap has been created by scientists at the University of Bristol in the UK and it could revolutionize the way pollution is cleaned up. It was made by dissolving iron in chlorine and bromine-rich liquid soap, similar to mouthwash or fabric conditioner. Magnetic soap could be used to create cleaning products [...]
Inventors Celebrating Thomas Edison’s Birthday At Free Invention Expo
MarketWatch: Sarah Miller Caldicott, the legendary inventor’s grand niece and author of “Innovate like Edison” is among an illustrious roster of speakers from 10 AM to 6 PM. Attendees will be treated to a phantasmagoric display of remarkable inventions stretching across a wide spectrum of creativity. Attendees also have a chance of winning a valuable [...]
The Last Lid: Kevlar Garbage Can Cover
LoHud.com: The problem: You put out your garbage cans, the wind knocks them over, the lid pops off and everything that was once inside is now blowing down the street. “Physics makes the lid fall off,” he said. “Not me.” Then someone drives over the lid and now — because you can’t buy lids separately [...]
Walmart’s Get on the Shelf Contestant Update: Lots of Videos!
Walmart’s Get on The Shelf contest is in full swing. The contest, if you don’t remember is a competition that anyone can enter for the chance to get their product sold on Walmart.com and Walmart stores. Any product in any category currently covered by Walmart is eligible ranging from housewares and electronics to toys and [...]
Yesterday I mentioned that the Pirate Bay is now offering physical items for download. The digital files can be loaded into 3D printers and fabricated plastic. Now, a professor from the University of Southern California wants to do for houses what the Pirate Bay is doing for smaller physical items. He wants to print houses [...]
Creating Electricity With Bicycle Power
Bicycles has been used to wash laundry, power the TV, and as an alternative form of transportation. A man in Seoul has now made it his main source of electricity, but creating a bicycle generator for his own home. [Interview : Moon Jang-man, Inventor ] “The generator is attached to the bicycle so that electricity [...]
You Can Download Real Physical Objects
The Pirate Bay has launched a new category called Physibles. They explain: Data objects that are able (and feasible) to become physical. We believe that things like three dimensional printers, scanners and such are just the first step. We believe that in the nearby future you will print your spare sparts for your vehicles. You [...]
Smart Contact Lenses Coming Soon
CBS Pittsburgh: In the not so distant future, contacts may do a lot more than just help you see. What if the lenses could look inside of you to diagnose, monitor and even treat disease? Sound far-fetched? Well, it may not be too far away. The new generation of contact lenses is being called “smart [...]
Thomas Edison was a busy guy. As the fourth most prolific inventor in history, he created more than one thousands inventions for which he received a patent, and many more than went unpatented. Some of his most well know, and world changing, inventions include the phonograph, the lightbulb, the motion picture camera and the stock [...]
TerrePURE from Terrasentia is an innovative, yet completely natural, process that is AN application of technology to improving the taste of distilled spirits. Unlike simple filtration, re-distillation, or barrel aging, *(the traditional methods of improving taste) their process removes a greater amount of harsh tasting minor alcohols and free radicals and provides additional taste enhancements [...]
Small Invention Soothes Big Jaw Pain
rrstar.com: Clayton received his second patent in 2011 for the Temporomandibular Disorder “Ear System” — TMDes. It is a custom-fitted prosthesis placed in a patient’s ear canal to relieve the pain from temporomandibular joint disorder pain, better known as TMJD. The temporomandibular joint is the hinge linking your jaw to your skull and is responsible [...]
Inventor Creates No-Frills Water Heating System
BBQ: In pursuit of such goals, Capetonian Roger Matthews, a master plumber, retreated to his study for two years to devise a system that could help the poor, travellers or even the elite. He has recently invented a gas heating system that generates unlimited hot water – requiring neither municipal pressure nor energy in the [...]
Inventor Creates User Friendly Weightstack Machine
As an avid gym enthusiast, it didn’t take long for Scott to notice that weightstack machines, some of the more popular exercise devices used, did not make it easy for people who wanted to change the weight during their exercise. He saw an opportunity, and he decided to fill it by creating a machine of [...]
Inventions That Changed The Way We Live
Ever wonder what the world have been like if we never had electricity, modern medicine, or the computer? Here are some inventions that helped make our world the way it is today, as shared by SFGate. Antibiotics Alexander Fleming discovered the active substance that he termed “penicillin” while working on the influenza virus. Fleming made [...]
Board Games That Combine Real and Virtual
The ePawn Arena is a 26 inch flat screen that interfaces with smartphones, tablets and PCs to allow gamers to use real world game pieces with their online and mobile games. The ePawn Arena includes patented real-time object-tracking technology that allows you play actual physical board games while at the same time interacting with a [...]
New Spin On Aging Art: Ink Dial
Decantur Daily: The Ink Dial addresses what Chouinard said is a common frustration in printing. Jars of colored ink can be expensive, averaging around $75, he said, and owning all the available colors can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Instead, most printers mix colors according to a sort of universal “recipe book.” The Ink [...]
How The Light Bulb Put Fort Myers On The Map
Toronto Sun: Fort Myers was just a seaside village of 350 souls when Edison arrived in 1886. He thought the strands of a special species of bamboo growing here might be useful in his bulbs. Nothing came of that, but his visit marked the beginning of his love affair with Fort Myers and when he, [...]
Inventor’s Greatest Creation: The Flak Jacket
Byron Donzis recently passed away at the age of 79, but he will always be remembered for that important piece of equipment that all football players wear: the flak jacket. In 1978, Byron Donzis walked into a Houston hospital looking for Dan Pastorini, the Houston Oilers’ prized quarterback who was laid up with three broken [...]
Device ‘Lends A Hand’ To People In Need
Known as “the hand that makes a difference,” EvenPar Enterprises is a company that was launched by Michael Duncan to help people with a variety of disabilities do some of the things they couldn’t do before. Whether they need to hold a rake, wash a car, or play golf, the Lend-A-Hand can help them do [...]
Smart TVs To Use Voice Command
SFGate: At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas opening today, LG and Lenovo will show TVs that allow users to search for shows and Web applications with natural-sounding voice commands. Samsung introduced three high-end models with so- called Smart Interaction technology, which builds in motion- sensing and voice-command software similar to Microsoft Corp.’s Kinect [...]
The CarCapsule is a vinyl bubble that seals your vehicle completely away from dust, dirt, condensation, and other elements. A continuous ventilation system removes odors, eliminates condensation, reduces heat build up. Prices range from $269 for a motorcycle to $449 for a large truck.
Waterproof Your Cell Phone, No Case Required
Ever spilled your coffee or, heaven-forbid, dropped your cellphone into the toilet? Popular Science has up a profile of a product demoed this week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas that will protect your phone from such mishaps. Liquipel covers devices inside and out with a transparent coating thinner than a human hair [...]
No More Germs: A Self Sanitizing Keyboard
Did you know that computer keyboards are dirtier than your toilet? A consumer advocacy group commissioned the tests in which British microbiologist James Francis took a swab to 33 keyboards, a toilet seat and a toilet door handle at the publication’s London office in January. Francis then tested the swabs to see what nasty germs [...]
Will Someone Please Invent a Hoverboard?
Do you remember the movie Back to the Future 2? In the film, Marty McFly and Doc Brown travel to year 2015, where they encounter all manner of futuristic devices, including flying cars, self adjusting sneakers and hoverboards. There are still three years left before we catch up with the “future”, and unlike self adjusting [...]
Scotch On the Rocks, For 100 Years
Popular Science: In 1907, Ernest Shackleton and crew set out on the ship Nimrod to visit Antarctica and, they hoped, the South Pole. The good news was, the entire party survived the trip, thanks in part to the Rare Old Highland Whisky they brought to the frozen continent. But the expedition was forced to evacuate [...]
Car Seat Identifies Drivers By Their Bums
According to Japanese researchers at the Advanced Institute of Industrial Technology in Tokyo, it is possible to identify drivers by the way their weight is distributed on the car seat. The team has developed a car seat that can identify drivers when they sit down. It seems that everyone’s bum is as unique as a [...]
Science Daily: Imagine if the next coat of paint you put on the outside of your home generates electricity from light — electricity that can be used to power the appliances and equipment on the inside. A team of researchers at the University of Notre Dame has made a major advance toward this vision by [...]
Another Kickstarter Success: Elevation Dock
OregonLive.com: Casey Hopkins didn’t have the cash to launch his sleek aluminum iPhone dock, but his friend had a nice camera. They made a video, then uploaded it to Kickstarter.com. A month later, he’s raised more than $537,000 through the crowd funding site, and his project is gaining thousands of dollars a day. “I wasn’t [...]
Inventor Tackles Shell Separating
Recycling goes well past plastic bottles and newspaper. Empty casing that litter the ground at a shooting range have the potential to be reused because they often keep their shape after being shot. However, sorting through all of the shells can be tedious. That lead one inventor to find a way to make the process [...]
Niche Biz: Energized Sunflower Seeds
Once considered a simple snack, an inventor has decided to take sunflower seeds to a whole new level by making them a source of energy. The inventor is Jason Morris, who says the snack is superior to energy drinks because his invention doesn’t produce a sugar high and subsequent crash. About three years ago, Morris [...]
Inventor Hopes To End World Hunger
Kent Business: Bushell’s Solar Grow 1 (SG1) is set to transform food production and was recently named “British and World Invention of the Year.” Once on site, SG1 analyses soil and water resources and immediately begins crop growth. It fits a shipping container and is fully habitable with toilet, shower and detachable tent. It comes [...]
In the future, you won’t see full size vehicles driving the streets of NYC or San Francisco. You just might see William Lark Jr.’s CityCar instead, reports NewsOne. The cars, which are smaller than Smart Cars, are battery-electric, so they don’t cause tailpipe emissions. They also weigh less than a 1,000 pounds and are intended [...]
The Daily Gleaner: “The idea is that people don’t want to have their dip touching their other stuff or running all over their plate,” said the Fredericton businessman who came up with the concept for one of Progressive International’s latest kitchen gadgets. “So I came up with these little rigs that hook to the side [...]
