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Posts Tagged “

Invention

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pulp-bite

The New Yorker on Simultaneous Invention and the Intellectual Ventures Laboratories

Malcolm Gladwell (smart guy, puffy hair) has a feature in this week's
The New Yorker about the history of simultaneous invention, the best example being Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Gray both patenting the telephone on the same day. There are many other examples, leading to the conclusion that "scientific discoveries must, in some sense, be inevitable. They must be in the air, products of the intellectual climate of a specific time and place." The story is put into modern perspective by including scenes drawn from meetings of members of the company called Intellectual Ventures. The founding member, Nathan Myhrvold, also founded Microsoft's R&D labs. His idea for IV was to see if "the kind of insight that leads to invention could be engineered." The whole point being the creation of powerful ideas. Bill Gates, who works with them on H.I.V prevention, is quoted: More »

1:15 AM on Wed May 7 2008
By Brian Lam
5,548 views, 28 comments

Latest by zanella: I wish I had 80million dollars to patent my ideas, too. Helps to have BOTH great ideas and the huge pile of money needed to protect it. I'm confident that there are world-changing ideas that never become tangible products or services more »

cancer cure

Guy Invents Potential Cancer Cure With Radio Machine Built Out of Pie Pans... and Hot Dogs

You know, I really love it when (sorta) average guys out-innovate mega-corporate profit machines, like that homemade MRI machine. But this is more amazing: John Kanzius has no background in cancer research but might have invented a real cure. He was diagnosed with leukemia, and struck by the idea that radio waves could kill cancer cells. So he built a prototype machine using pie pans and conducted tests on hot dogs injected with copper sulfate—the radio waves only heat up metal spots, for tactical nuking without nasty side effects. It's now being tested at the University of Pittsburgh and M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, where the lead doc says that it "may allow us to treat just about any kind of cancer you can imagine." More »

12:30 PM on Tue Apr 15 2008
By matt buchanan
25,953 views, 85 comments

Latest by n/a: @rjpoag: I'm just not buying this whole conspiracy plot crap. The Rife theory may sound great and all, but that doesn't mean it actually works. In fact doing the google search turned up plenty of stuff saying that it doesn't more »

science

Sour Milk Detector Saves Your Olfactory Receptors

Boffins have developed a smart chip that indicates whether milk has turned sour at the checkout, saving you the potentially unpleasant task of deciphering the health of the white stuff when you get home. The device will be sensitive to the thickness of the container's contents, and when it passes by the cashier's scanner it will begin to vibrate. If the contents is too thick, the vibration will be slower than expected and visa versa. Any detection of irregular speed vibrations will lead to an alarm being set off at the checkout, saving you cash and hassle. More »

4:45 PM on Sun Mar 16 2008
By Haroon Malik
3,051 views, 23 comments

Latest by uberfu: so is it too hard to look at the expiration date on the package before you actually buy the milk? more »

practical invention

SmartSink Uses Height-Calculating Software to Save Your Back

MIT student Leonardo B has come up with an idea for a sink that positions itself depending on the height of the user and adjusts its temperature depending on what you are putting in it. (This is useful when you are nudging 6'0", while your husband struggles to hit the 3'6" mark*, even when he is wearing what he refers to as "gypsy shoes.") Video, plus explanation of how the sink works, below. More »

7:45 AM on Fri Dec 28 2007
By AddyDugdale
2,355 views, 10 comments

apple

iPhone Named Time's Invention of the Year

Why would Lev Grossman, one of the first four few reviewers of the iPhone, name Apple's gadget Time's Invention of the Year? Here are his five reasons: it's pretty, it's got a touchscreen, it'll make other phones better, it's a development platform (not just a phone), and it'll be upgraded for years to come. More »

12:00 PM on Thu Nov 1 2007
By Jason Chen
6,021 views, 63 comments

green invention

Max Water Cranks Moisture Out of the Air, Seems Miraculous

There's a lot of water floating around in the air everywhere, and inventor Max Whisson has figured out a way to extract it using Max Water, a wind-powered contraption he named after himself. Max Water uses the concept of condensation, where lower temperature allows less water to hang around in the air, and Whisson says that will amount to 10,000 liters per day dripping from this single rooftop device. Man, that's a lot of water. More »

5:30 PM on Wed Jul 11 2007
By Charlie White
9,174 views, 37 comments

from the ministry of silly shakes

Motion-sensitive Tablet PC To Help People With Disabilities

The make-your-device-a-Wiimote craze continues. Now is British Telecom researchers at Ipswich who, putting on their Mario hats and completely ignoring the fact that this technology already exists in other notebooks, have developed a Tablet PC with motion detectors to make it easier to use. More »

7:03 AM on Tue May 1 2007
By Addy Dugdale
883 views, 9 comments