Nearly everyone has at least a dozen earth-shattering inventions up their sleeve.  At least that's what they believe. But most who want to run with their ideas and make them profitable end up wasting a lot of time, especially as novices, on ideas that are already on the market or that few others want.  It's important to work smart and fast as product developers so your focus is on the new, the needed, and the profitable.  Here are five New Year's Resolutions that will boost your efforts and your results.

Many international universities are fostering students' natural curiosity and ingenuity to create new products to help their fellow citizens. Such is the case at HCM City University of Transport where, as the name implies, Vietnamese students focus on developing new, efficient forms of transportation. Recently, they revealed prototypes of the students' solar-run scooter and a new battery-operated wheelchair that can be produced at a much lower cost that those produced in western countries.

You gotta love the Russian company SKN for converting old Russian ammunitions into diamonds, and didn't you always want to know how many steps you'd have to take to create the inevitable splash of coffee on your carpet?  But the SpeechJammer in 2012?  A machine that delays speech and makes one stutter is decades old, and it actually has the practical application of helping stutterers speak without stuttering.

If I were to tell you that you can get a complete, worldwide patent search conducted on your invention idea for $9.99, you would think I just swallowed a whole lot of advertising bull.  I thought it was too good to be true too, so I went to the source, the company that owns and offers the ideaAPP for Apple and PC products, and asked the founder an irritating amount of questions.  He answered.

A 19-year old electrical engineering student at the University of Queensland in Australia has created a levitating light bulb that is not an optical illusion.  While it may not look too sexy in this photo, just wait until you see these LevLights floating around your ceiling in designer glass shades.

Discovery Expedition isn't looking for a new kind of hiking boot - unless it's electronic.  But it is looking for new ways to enhance hiking, sky-diving, camping, mining, surfing... whatever, your outdoor lifestyle needs to take it to the next level to improve your outdoor experience.

I'm going to try to write this with a straight face.... The FridaBaby company, which I have just learned of, markets some very inventive and 'curious' products for babies so far. One is called the Snotsucker, which employs a mom (or dad)  to suck the snot out of their baby's nose....