Inventor

Clothing That Lights Up When You Do

You may wonder where Philips Electronics, the company that makes reliable TV's, close shaving razors, and innovative light bulbs, is going these days, now that it's been recognized as a fashion innovator by Time Magazine. Experimenting with futuristic concepts, Philips is enlisting the public's involvement, an innovative strategy designed to beat the invention failure rate.

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This year's emotional icon to remember is Phillips' Bubelle, the emotional sensing prototype dress. Bubelle has landed on Time's Best Inventions Of The Year list. The color changing dress is one of two Philips' SKIN Probes developed as part of the SKIN research project lead by Lucy McRae. read more »

They may be American, but inventors Jeff Stuebing and Eric Miramon know that all good ideas enjoy a warm reception in Asia. read more »

Don’t know Korean? Well you better learn if you hope to talk shop with inventors. read more »

 

Can bikers help solve our energy problems? They are being challenged to do so by the Innovate Or Die invention contest, sponsored by Specialized Bicycles and Google Inc. Innovate or Die is the first-ever invention contest for the most ingenious bike that uses human pedalling to power something besides the bike itself.

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Elizabeth Valeri, our guest blogger, is a resident of Colorado with an interest in the material abundance of everyday life. That is, she is amused by the ways we “over-invent” our lives in a fleeting attempt at controlling them. She wanted to share some of her wacky patent finds with the readers of InventorSpot.com.

Here's her article:

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Halloween lovers my third, and last, spooky patent pick of the year has got it all: dead people, mummies and burning flesh!

 

 

 

Earlier this month, in honor of former president of India, A.P. J. Abdul Kalam’s 76th birthday, the NIF launched a children’s corner on its website devoted completely to the creativity and innovation of young minds. read more »

Elizabeth Valeri, our guest blogger, is a resident of Colorado with an interest in the material abundance of everyday life. That is, she is amused by the ways we “over-invent” our lives in a fleeting attempt at controlling them. She wanted to share some of her wacky patent finds with the readers of InventorSpot.com.

Here's her article:

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My ruminations about getting older, when I first learned I needed reading glasses, were quickly dispelled when I placed an order for some designer frames and the optician handed me a bill for several hundred dollars.

Fart Collector

Elizabeth Valeri, our guest blogger, is a resident of Colorado with an interest in the material abundance of everyday life. That is, she is amused by the ways we “over-invent” our lives in a fleeting attempt at controlling them. She wanted to share some of her wacky patent finds with the readers of InventorSpot.com.

Here's her article:

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With Halloween fast approaching, I decided to scout the annals of the patent offices for inventions intended for the deepest, darkest, scariest recesses of mankind.

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Better hurry to get your invention ideas to Electrolux, because the deadline is November 1, and the contest was just announced on October 18, 2007! Your challenge is to create useful devices that solve specific challenges in Second Life: what's at stake is up to 100,000 Linden Dollars (L$s)!

 

The very popular Popular Science Magazine is calling for submissions for the next world changing invention... not an invention, as they call it, "born in the R& D labs of universities and corporations," but ones just like most of ours, born while taking a shower or shopping at your local hardware store.

Ten inventions will be awarded prizes in a variety of categories, plus there will be a Student Award Category this year, the second year of the PopSci Invention Awards.

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T-Cell Attacking Flu Cell

It's been more than 50 years since Jonas Salk created the first polio vaccine; thanks to his discovery, and Albert Sabin's a few years later, just a handful of polio cases are reported each year. But fifty years is a long time to wait for another watershed vaccine, so I checked my crystal ball to see what inventions were in progress in the biomedical field.

And what I saw was the eradication of... No, this can't be... Eradication of the flu! Not only the flu, but all strains of flu... and colds! And the vaccine is not too far off. read more »

What is environmentally friendly, cuts your grass, tones your legs and is fun to ride all at the same time? A bicycle lawnmower of course. read more »

Buttocks Spreader

Elizabeth Valeri, our guest blogger, is a resident of Colorado with an interest in the material abundance of everyday life. That is, she is amused by the ways we “over-invent” our lives in a fleeting attempt at controlling them. She wanted to share some of her wacky patent finds with the readers of InventorSpot.com.

Here's her article:

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I remember, several years ago, when I first encountered the hands-free faucet. read more »

Elizabeth Valeri, our guest blogger, is a resident of Colorado with an interest in the material abundance of everyday life. That is, she is amused by the ways we “over-invent” our lives in a fleeting attempt at controlling them. She wanted to share some of her wacky patent finds with the readers of InventorSpot.com.

Here's her article:

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The Apparatus for Facilitating the Birth of a Child by Centrifugal Force, may not end the age-old debate of whether or not centrifugal force actually exists, but it sure will take a pregnant woman’s mind off the business at hand during childbirth! read more »

I'm not a big fan of video games and on-line games. I think they are partially to blame for the obesity dilemma we have in the world, but I will admit I once was a Mario Brother addict. Yes I know I've dated myself admitting this, but my point is I understand how addicting games can be. So if you must play games at least play them while working out aboard the Ergo Bike Premium 8i. read more »

Surface Reactions Impact Many Industries

So far this week, the 2007 Nobel Prizes have been awarded to the "fathers" of certain modern technologies, specifically the recipients of the Nobel Prize for Medicine and the Nobel Prize for Physics. Today's announcement of the 2007 Nobel Prize for Chemistry winner is no exception: Gerhard Ertl, of the Fritz-Haber-Institut der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, Berlin, Germany, is a father of the science of surface chemistry. Let's see what developments his seminal work has led to....

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Giant Magnetoresistance

The two winners of the 2007 Nobel Prize in Physics -- Albert Fert, of the Université Paris-Sud in Orsay, France, and Peter Grünberg, of the Institute of Solid State Research at the Jülich Research Center in Germany - made their contributions to the computer age as far back as 1988. Now that the smallest commercially available hard drive is an IPod, the inventors that led to its development, and many yet to come, have received the grand prix of awards. read more »

© The Nobel Committee for Physiology Illustration: Annika Röhl

The 2007 Nobel Prize winners in medicine -- Mario R. Capecchi, 70, of the University of Utah; Oliver Smithies, 82, of the University of North Carolina; and Sir Martin J. Evans, 66, of Cardiff University in Wales - worked independently, but their genetics research overlapped greatly. Many other geneticists contributed to the state of the art, but the discoveries of Capecchi, Smithies, and Evans are considered watershed.

In layman's terms, what exactly did these Nobel Prize winners do? read more »

Functionalized Nanoporous Thin Film

R&D Magazine has sponsored the "Oscars of Inventions" for 45 years. These research and design awards are coveted by government as well as private industry inventors. The 100 winners selected by R&D Magazine for 2007 are stunning innovations - resourceful, effective, inspiring. A significant portion of the 2007 awards are homeland security/military innovations; others are environmental, health, and there's even innovations for kids, like a must-have-Holiday-toy robot! Here are my picks for the top 10 inventions from R & D Magazine's list of the best of 2007: read more »