September, 2008

I’m afraid there isn’t much information about this man powered Ferris Wheel somewhere in Southern India. Search after search the only information I found about this green innovation is this video. Still I’ve chosen to share this innovation with you because I find it dangerously fascinating and evident that contrary to popular belief the eco-conscious do like to have fun.

A skeleton umbrella, designed by Shiu Yuk Yuen, it is a ‘green' design, created to help protect the environment.

Miniskirts are fun, but functional? Not a word I would normally associate with them. But these miniskirts definitely deserve the ‘fun and functional' tag.

Could microSD cards - tiny devices the size of a fingernail - replace bulky CDs and intangible downloads for next-generation music lovers? Selling albums in microSD format is the latest concept from SanDisk, the California-based manufacturer of flash memory cards and developer of SD cards, which are now widely licensed.

Chocoholics, we've been told for the last three years how our drug of choice is so beneficial to our health. "Oh, chocolate is a wonderful anti-oxidant! Eat it! It will keep you healthy," they said.

Not so fast....

A new trend in this industry is the use of ultrasonic ‘sewing' machines which make it possible to stitch a garment together without a trace of needles or thread.

Bullet resistant bras are ready for delivery to about 3,000 German police women who are in frontline duty. It's about time too.

The idea of a space elevator made of ultra-strong carbon nanotubes has been talked about a lot over the past several years, but recently some research groups have begun to investigate the idea as a real possibility. Most recently, scientists from Japan have started an organization called the Japan Space Elevator Association, and they plan to host an international conference in November to draw up a timetable for the machine.

MIT researchers are designing a system that uses electricity from trees to recharge batteries and generate power in remote locations. The small amounts of tree-generated electricity could be used to track forest fires and possibly "patrol" borders for smuggled radioactive materials.

As delicious as fried food tastes, most people realize that french fries and potato chips are not the healthiest things to eat. Now, food scientists have invented an oven that produces food that looks and tastes fried, but doesn't use the fattening oil that typically gives fried food its taste.

You knew that New York City had the finest water in the world, right? You heard that from a New Yorker. Well, a new company called TAP’D NY™ has recently been formed to exploit that fact and bring that tap water to you… in a bottle. This company has been making a big splash lately, particularly in the press…..

Researchers have created a synthetic "tree" - a centimeter-sized hydrogel with nanopores that can pull water just like real trees pull moisture up their tall trunks.

Though only two years old, Creosa was chosen by 100% Design to participate in its 100% Futures show, representing the best of what's to come. Creosa has created some very playful, downright fun, storage designs you've got to see!

In response to the growing concern of light pollution in urban areas, researchers have developed a system that automatically measures light pollution and optimizes lighting design. This quantitative data is the first published information that the researchers know of showing how much light escapes from outdoor lighting installations.

Thanks to the NoseBudd, developed by a man who was born with severe hemophilia, nosebleed attacks are stopped cold.

Though I know that I require USB cables to do almost anything from charging my mobiles, iPod, to transferring pictures from my camera to the laptop, I wish there was an innovative way to use and carry these cables.

In a standard camera lens, light is focused onto a single point in order to magnify a scene. In telescopes, on the other hand, lenses work differently, by reflecting light back and forth to achieve greater magnification. This idea can also be thought of as "folding" light.

A really innovative feature of Ross's work is that his project shows a variety of alternative uses for cow bones rather than sending them to the dump.

Lovely, as the sounds were that came from pushing buttons and hearing the stop bell ring on an old typewriter, there is no denying that when computers came along typewriters just couldn't compare to computers. Since there was no more need for them typewriters were simply discarded. Fortunately Jeremy Mayer came a long and created a way to rescue some of them from the landfill.

Russia was certainly the first in space during the Cold War years, but it would seem a rather dubious honor to lead the world in the generation of malicious software. In any case, read all about Russia’s rise as a global software leader.