Archive for the 'Inventions' Category
Leaf Guard Keeps Garages Clean
Every fall, when the leaves fall to the ground, there is a risk of leaves piling in your garage whenever the door is opened. So, Elvin Hayes decided to create his own Debris and Leaf Guard. “A driveway is no more than a shuffleboard for leaves and debris and so I was working on this [...]
Word For Word The New Scrabble?
This is Gloucestershire: The game, called Word for Word, challenges people to form words out of 99 wooden tiles in a race against the clock. It was first snapped up by Gibsons Games, the UK’s oldest independent games company, and was shown for the first time at the London Toy Fair last month. Managing director [...]
Beardo: The Silly Hat Beard That Found Success
The Beacon Herald: Born out of necessity on a cold Whistler mountaintop in 2006, the Beardo has grown into something of a phenomenon, with international attention and sales growing steadily since its launch just a few years ago. Besides the patented bearded toque — essentially a knitted cap with a detachable face cover — Beardo [...]
Battling Earthquakes With Trash
KSDK.com: Harvey Lacey says turning polluting materials such as plastic bags and Styrofoam into building blocks is a sustainable option. The UBUNTU-BLOX machine forms and wires the blocks with human help. “These blocks will last 500 years,” he says. According to Sam Bloch, executive director of nonprofit Haiti Communitere, trash is one of the most [...]
The Inventions Of Leonardo da Vinci
The Moscow News: Leonardo da Vinci’s 500-year-old inventions come to life in a new exhibition at the Experimentanium, which is showcasing models built according to plans by the Renaissance master. Like everything at the museum, visitors can touch the displays with their hands, provi ding a kid-friendly entree into basic mechanics. Though the fanciful inventions [...]
Popular Science: Have you ever been tempted to order steak tartare but decided against it for fear of getting sick? This little cell phone scanner can take a look at it for you and let you know if it does in fact harbor any E. coli bacteria. It attaches to a typical cell phone camera [...]
Cool Material: The Scoville scale is what determines the spiciness of a pepper. For reference, a jalapeño starts at 3,500 Scovilles and a habanero starts at 100,000 Scovilles. We consider ourselves fans of spicy food, but even a habanero (there are about five or so that can be hotter) thrown into a queso dip can [...]
New Fishing Video Game With Force Feedback
DigInfo: Fishing Spirits, by Namco Bandai Games, is an arcade fishing medal game for eight players and features force feedback controllers. It will be in game arcades in Japan from July 2012. “This is a medal game that up to eight people can play at once. It’s totally different from previous medal games. This is [...]
Steve Kordek, Double Flipper Inventor, Dies At 100
The man behind the double flipper on pinball machines, Steve Kordek, has recently passed on at the ripe age of 100. In 1947, two designers at the D. Gottlieb & Company pinball factory in Chicago, Harry Mabs and Wayne Neyens, transformed that rudimentary game into one called Humpty Dumpty, adding six electromechanical flippers, three on [...]
Inventor “Hooks” Idea With Foldaway Anchor
Fraser Coast Chronicle: It was no doubt after a day’s struggle on the open water, after hauling in and maybe even tripping over a cumbersome anchor, that this little fish jumped right into Franco’s head, the idea for an anchor that was easy to store, compact and hassle-free. The Rockhampton man has designed the foldaway [...]
If we can generate energy from wind turbines on the ground, imagine what we could generate with a flying turbine in the sky. Shepard describes the invention as half-windmill and half-kite. He credits his late father, David, for its creation. “Just five miles above us there is energy far more than we need to power [...]
Niche Inventions: Floating Solar Panels
Solar Novus: Floating solar panels soaking up the sun on Italy’s Lake Colignola will provide a cost-effective, more visually attractive way to harness the sun’s power, says its inventor, Marco Rosa-Clot. Rosa-Clot says while PV panels on buildings or fields use valuable farmland, lose energy through overheating and look ugly, his flower-petal-shaped panels come without [...]
Personal Robots for the Handicapped and Elderly
Economic Times: For over 10 years, an itch on his nose had been annoying Henry Evans. Many take such basic functions for granted, but not Evans. When he was 40, a stroke left him paralysed and mute. He can only move his head and partially move one finger. Evans could finally scratch that itch last [...]
The Invention of the Highlighter
NY Times.com: Once, when readers wanted to remember something, they had to mark important passages with thin, wobbly lines in drab, hard-to-relocate colors. Before the rise of the highlighter, says Dennis Baron, a University of Illinois professor and the author of “A Better Pencil,” attentive readers relied on “a combination of underlining and marginal notes.” [...]
Google Heads-Up Display Glasses in 2012
I’ve been waiting for something like this my entire life. According to the NY Times, Google plans to introduce heads-up display glasses by the end of the year. The glasses are expected to be based on the Android platform, and will also have a 3G data connection and GPS. People who constantly reach into a [...]
Accessories For iPad Users With Disabilities
Making life easier for people in need is always good business, as one entrepreneur has discovered. The assistive devices started really by accident. My first handmade product was an iPad stylus made from a highly conductive fabric sock (knitted by my wife!) that can be wrapped around any pen holder (the Stylus Socks). They worked [...]
Braille Meets Touchscreen With Free App
The increasing popularity of touchscreen phones has caused some problems for the visually impaired. However, the new BrailleTouch app hopes to fix that. In an app coming to the market relatively soon for both iPhone and Android, Georgia Tech researchers have reduced the price of realistically typing Braille on a smartphone from $1700 plus the [...]
OurWindsor.ca: Get ready to pitch your idea to the producers of Dragons’ Den when they visit the Windsor-Essex Regional Chamber of Commerce (2575 Ouellette Place) on Saturday, March 24 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Pre-registration is strongly recommended and you do need to be prepared: Act like this is the real thing. Present how [...]
ASA After Roastcosy For Claims
The Daily Record: Helen Waterston has been told by advertising watchdogs the ASA to change the wording on her website for the Roastcosy. But yesterday, she slammed the order following a single complaint which, she says, may have come from a competitor. Mum-of-one Helen, 46, added: “It’s ludicrous. I just don’t understand how just one [...]
Recoil Winders: A Kickstarter Success Story
David Alden is a Kickstarter success. He used to the website Kickstarter to fund his business and to take it from just an idea to tens of thousands of unit sales. Recoil, a plastic device similar to a fishing reel for wires, provides an easy solution to tidy up offices, entertainment centers or the ear [...]
Inventors Thinking Outside The “Qube”
GB Tribune: Their Qube Shaker, an innovative percussion shaker, has been marketed successfully by Latin Percussion, the world leader in production and marketing of percussion instruments. LP has taken the technology used in its wildly successful and award-winning Qube Shaker and created a jingle version that sounds like nothing else you’ve ever played. Inside the [...]
Inventor Converts Air Into Fresh Water
KSAT.com: The heart of his invention is Sears Kenmore 70-pint dehumidifier. Condensed water is further purified and sterilized with filters and ultraviolet light. It takes about three days to make 40 gallons of ultra-pure water that are stored in a food-grade plastic barrel. The parts to the machine cost around $700 but he can sell [...]
Inventor On The Fast Track With HeatTrak
Hillel Glazer used to shovel snow for money when he was a teen. At 33 years old, he has decided it was time for the walkways to clear themselves. So, he created a snow melting mat. “I thought, there’s got to be a better way,” said Glazer, now 33, who owns HeatTrak, a Paterson-based company [...]
Inventors: No Formal Education Necessary
Some of the best inventions came from the minds of men and women who never finished school, including the microwave. Percy L. Spencer never graduated from high school, but in 1945 he invented the microwave oven. The heating efficiency of a microwave oven is due to the fact that water strongly absorbs microwaves. That’s why [...]
Robot: Best Toy In The Universe?
What does it take to create the best toy robot in the universe? Jaimie Mantzel thinks he has created the answer with his currently unnamed robot, reports Gizmag. Mantzel’s little robot walks on six legs and is guided by a remote control, but what makes it stand out are the different attachments that can be [...]
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 [...]
