FOR INVENTORS

Switzerland slid past the U.S. to first place in the 2009 - 2010 Global Competitiveness Report, a biannual report published by the World Economic Forum.  There are many elements that contribute to a country's competitiveness, but the Forum puts a lot of emphasis, as it should, on innovation capacity.  If innovation capacity were the only factor, the U.S. probably would not make it to the top 20.

Before I knew that you weren't supposed to sleep in your contact lenses, I did.  And boy, did it feel fantastic to open my moist eyes in the morning and see clearly without having to search for my specs. Now, a Spanish optometrist has patented a contact lense that can correct your vision problems. And he wants you to wear his lenses overnight!

This past weekend at the new Newseum in Washington, DC, Microsoft sponsored the finals of its eighth U.S. Imagine Cup, one of the nation's toughest student software competitions.  After three days of demonstrating their new technologies, a few dozen team finalists were pared down to one grand prize winner....

Inventors Digest has partnered with the National Collegiate Inventors & Innovators Alliance (NCIIA) to host the the 2010 Collegiate Alt-Energy Challenge: Help Save The World One Kilowatt at a Time.  The challenge is seeking ideas for innovative low-cost, alternative energy technologies, products, solutions, and services that will help assuage the cycle of poverty, malnutrition, disease and death among peoples of the world that live without electricity.

What's the main royal pain in your morning and evening bathroom regimens?  Never mind, I'll answer that for you.  It's the gunking up of toothpaste on top of the toothpaste tube so you can't squeeze any more of the stuff out until you cut off the top of the tube!   Here we are in the 21st century performing all kinds of technical wizardry and we still can't get the darn toothpaste out of the tube!

Really.  This contest is literally for garage inventors. This August, Whiting, Indiana will host the first annual alternative-powered five-mile car race through the town.  The contest is called the Alternate Power Initiative, and its sponsors, the city of Whiting and British Petroleum (BP) Whiting Business Unit want independent American inventors to design the vehicles.

The Earth Awards 2010 is searching for sustainable innovations that will change the way we live in the 21st century.  It is a global competition with internationally renowned judges from architectural, design, environmental, fashion, and philanthropic communities. It's looking for invention, innovation, entrepreneurial, but above all, transformational, ideas that meet six criteria...

These ad specs have nothing to do with the size of an ad you are placing with Google.  These Adspecs are self-adjusting lenses that an Oxford University physics professor, Josh Silver, invented to bring sight to millions of people in the third world, where there are few eye care professionals to meet the needs of those with refractive vision problems.

It's the 40th anniversary of Earth Day and to celebrate PBS's Emmy® and Peabody Award-winning TV series, Design Squad is launching a nationwide 2010 Trash to Treasure competition for kids 5 to 19.  The launch will begin on April 5, 2010.  2009 was the first year that Design Squad held this competition.

The Japanese say they invented it, but maybe they were just the first to name it.  The name, Chindogu, is becoming universally known and used to describe inventions that are useless.  Well, I don't know about Ben Franklin or Thomas Jefferson or the prolific inventor Leonardo da Vinci, but haven't most inventors created some useless stuff?  In fact, mostly useless stuff?