Nathan Myhrvold's Modernist Cuisine keeps getting more accessible to home chefs. First it was a six-volume, 50-pound, $500 culinary encyclopedia. Then came the two-volume, $115 Modernist Cuisine at Home. Now it's an app—a gorgeously designed and far more practical way to learn molecular gastronomy techniques.
When the six volume, 50-pound Modernist Cuisine collection came out last year, it was a beautiful and, in the eyes of some, seminal volume dedicated to the future of cooking. But it wasn't really functional for the home chef. In October, Nathan Myhrvold and his merry band of foodies will release Modernist Cuisine at…
In a two-part interview about the massive coffee section in the even massiver 2400-page tome Modernist Cuisine by Nathan Myhrvold, one of the co-authors, Chris Young, reveals why salt takes the bitterness out of coffee better than sugar and insane, high-end espresso machines are worth it. [Eater, Eater]
Even slowed down to 6,200 frames per second, popcorn popping happens so fast, if you blink at a moderate speed, you'll miss it.
Patents! They're a big deal. Nathan Myhrvold's Intellectual Ventures depends on patents to make money, and they file a lot of 'em. So I asked him how he'd change the patent system.
Nathan Myhrvold explains why failure is an option at Intellectual Ventures—and it has to be for any inventor, really. [Eureka on Gizmodo]
It's pretty simple, says Intellectual Ventures' Nathan Myhrvold—lots more things being invented means lots more inventions that succeed.
Intellectual Ventures founder and modern day Merlin Nathan Myhrvold explains why it costs a lot of damn money to create new ideas. Hint: Think Hollywood. [Eureka on Gizmodo]
"Did airplanes come from the R&D department of a train company or a steamship company?" Nathan Myhrvold asks, rhetorically, his voice cracking. He's explaining how his company, Intellectual Ventures, is going to reinvent the way things are invented.
Remember that amazing mosquito-zapping laser we saw a while back? Here is a better look at it and other tech which will hopefully kill malaria and those annoying buzzing beasts which spread it.
You're looking at a mosquito who got taken down mid-flight by a "Death Star" laser gun designed by Nathan Myhrvold. The malaria-carrying pest never saw it coming, but you can watch everything happen over and over again in this video.
The Expendables Trailer Looks Incredibly Silly, Explosion-y...Microsoft's Nathan Myhrvold Wants to Dim the Sun With Sulfur Dioxide...Plants Know and Work With Relatives, Unlike Some People...Luxury Wine Vending Machine for Less-Wealthy Oenophiles...
In fact, the idea is intended to save the planet from the scourge of global warming. The "Stratoshield", as he calls it, would spray what some would consider an environmentally acceptable amount of liquid sulfur into the air through a 15 mile long hose attached to a helium-filled balloon. Apparently, the sulfur would…
Not content with being the world's richest man, Bill Gates is planning on extending his power to control the weather. More specifically, he has filed a patent for a system that he hopes will prevent the next Katrina.
Bill Gates may love his Ford Focus, but he's got plans to improve on age-old combustion, applying—along with Nathan Myhrvold and others from the Intellectual Ventures gang—to patent a smart engine with electromagnetic pistons.
Creating an organization bent on world domination takes more than just a maniacal leader with a high, cackling voice. It takes underlings. Henchmen, if you will. But these are no Bond villains. Bill Gates rewarded his geniuses with stock, just as they rewarded him with their hard work and ingenuity—and they wound up…
This may not be a typical gadget post, but here's an idea that fascinates me. Nathan Myhrvold, former CTO of Microsoft, left to found a company called Intellectual Ventures. They invest in invention, not companies. He's been the subject of a New Yorker article on the abundance of big ideas by Malcolm Gladwell, which…
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…
