Invention Archive

  • Stupid invention: the self-playing harmonica

    Stupid invention: the self-playing harmonica

    Posted on August 19, 2009 | No Comments
    player harmonicaThe aptly named Stupid Inventions brings us a fun little diversion: the self-playing harmonica. Using nothing more than an inkjet printer, a vacvuum cleaner, and a harmonica, you can create a modern day Nickelodeon! Except, of course, it's a harmonica, and not a piano. But still! Click on through to watch a video of this musical marvel in action.

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  • HotCans: Self-heating canned food

    HotCans: Self-heating canned food

    Posted on August 8, 2009 | No Comments
    cansThe end is near, my friends. Please observe self-heating canned food. Ready to eat in about 12 minutes, you can choose between Beef Casserole, Vegetable Chili, and Sausages and Beans. Apparently via some sort of "safe exothermic reaction" these "HotCans" become self-aware somehow. Or heat themselves up. Same basic difference -- they might as well be self-aware.

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  • How does a 55-inch LED HDTV from Samsung sound to you?

    How does a 55-inch LED HDTV from Samsung sound to you?

    Posted on July 30, 2009 | No Comments
    As a reader of CrunchGear, I can only assume that you're familiar with a recent invention called “television.” It's truly a remarkable thing: it transports lights and sounds from the four corners of the planet, and brings them right to your living room. It's like you're actually at the big game! A recent upgrade, called high-definition television, improves the quality of the picture. Samsung, which is a company based in far-away South Korea, has a new line of high-definition televisions called the 8500 Series. It uses something called light-emitting diodes (“LEDs”) to light up the image—no more replacing tubes!

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  • The Song of the PowerSquid: The Inside Story of the Life of an Invention Part 6

    The Song of the PowerSquid: The Inside Story of the Life of an Invention Part 6

    Posted on July 28, 2009 | No Comments
    Hello, my name is Christopher Hawker. I am a professional inventor, specializing in innovative consumer products. My company is called Trident Design, LLC. I have developed many products in numerous industries and have over 20 products on the market. My most famous invention is the PowerSquid, a cephalopod-inspired power strip with outlets situated at the end of short cords, thereby eliminating the problem of losing outlets to bulky transformer plugs. John Biggs, editor-in-chief of this blog, has asked me to write the story of the birth of the PowerSquid and its development and journey to market. This is the Song of the PowerSquid. This is part 6 of a 6 part series. Read them all here. Part 6: Philips Enters the Picture In the summer of 2006, I got a call from the president of Power Sentry to tell me that they were being bought by Philips, the Netherlands-based consumer electronics giant. My initial instinct was that this would be a mixed bag. They were just too large. He reassured that it would be great for the PowerSquid, with the awesome brand and marketing power of this giant, worldwide corporation suddenly behind our product. What really ended up happening was that the huge corporation barley noticed that it sold PowerSquid, since it had thousands and thousands of other products. The lack of focus quickly became evident as the relationship began to unfold. Most notably in their responsiveness to our needs as Flexity, which usually amounted to, “bad news delivered late.” Nevertheless, we continued to push Flexity. Philips agreed to let us distribute their other power products to our customers, so we became a distributor of the original non-surge PowerSquid, as well as their lower-end (UL Listed) surge protectors. We successfully sold the Calamari into Dell’s and Apple’s online stores, which were two of our major targets all along. Unfortunately, they both sequestered them to the last page of their surge protector sections. We had no “pay-to-play” money to get higher placement. With no special attention drawn to them and backwoods positioning, neither venue proved as successful as our own site.

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  • Japanese company develops first original green laser diode

    Japanese company develops first original green laser diode

    Posted on July 27, 2009 | No Comments
    Japan-based Sumitomo Electric Industries has developed the world's first laser that's able to produce "pure" green light (press release in English), meaning its semiconductor laser doesn't need to convert light to green via another color. Until now, original semiconductor lasers were only available for the other primary colors of light, red and blue.

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  • Split-Ring Key Comes With Its Own Ring

    Split-Ring Key Comes With Its Own Ring

    Posted on July 9, 2009 | No Comments
    Scott Amron, friend of Gadget Lab and serial-innovator, has come up with yet another why-didn’t-I-think-of-that invention: The rather painful sounding Split-Ring Key-Blank. The key blank, which can be taken to your locksmith and cut to fit your locks, incorporates its own keyring: Instead of a tiny hole, you get a more-or-less standard split-ring, the kind found on [...]

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  • Thanko sells (almost) silent keyboard

    Thanko sells (almost) silent keyboard

    Posted on July 8, 2009 | No Comments
    Tokyo-based crap gadget maker and USB specialist Thanko has a weakness for PC mice. In the last weeks, they gave you the "mid-air" mouse, a mouse with insects in it, a heated and a cooling mouse. The last one, a "silent" mouse that makes almost no sound when using it, seems to be a perfect fit for Thanko's newest invention: a silent keyboard [JP].

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  • Video: Japan gets a ramen noodle robot

    Video: Japan gets a ramen noodle robot

    Posted on July 6, 2009 | No Comments
    Japan is known as the country of robots, and lately, robot engineers in this country seems to be obsessed with the idea of replacing human cooks and chefs. Following inventions like the sushi or pancake-making robot, it's now time to replace ramen cooks (ramen is a famous Japanese noodle dish). The coolest thing about the ramen robot that's currently working in a restaurant in Yamanashi prefecture (west of Tokyo) is that it's made by the owner of that place. Yoshihira Uchida (who studied electronics in university) says he invested five years and $200,000 in the robot.

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  • New pen scans invisible codes in texts and pics, then plays back related audio

    New pen scans invisible codes in texts and pics, then plays back related audio

    Posted on June 19, 2009 | No Comments
    A company called Apollo Japan has developed the so-called Speakun [JP], a pen-shaped device that's able to read invisible codes printed on paper and then plays back pre-recorded sounds. Users first have to scan special, dot-shaped codes (0.04mm in diameter) that are associated with pictures or texts on a piece of paper.

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  • The ‘anti-stab’ knife that works just fine in the kitchen but can’t kill a man

    The ‘anti-stab’ knife that works just fine in the kitchen but can’t kill a man

    Posted on June 15, 2009 | No Comments
    The average American probably doesn't know this, but there's a huge problem with knife-crime in the UK. (That's what happens when guns are so hard to get a hold of, knives everywhere.) Sports stars try to tell people to knocks it off; so does the prime minister but no one cares what he says anymore. Which brings us to today's news: the very first “anti-stab” knife. That is, a knife that'll do the job in the kitchen, but can't really be used to stab someone.

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  • Chinese Bike Mod Floats on Water

    Chinese Bike Mod Floats on Water

    Posted on June 12, 2009 | No Comments
    For bike enthusiasts, ain’t no mountain high enough and now ain’t no river wide enough. A Chinese man has created an amphibious bike that travels as well on land as it does on water. A few large empty water bottles and a touch of madness is all it takes to do this mod. The bike uses eight [...]

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  • German geeks build electric bike, now want to sell it internationally

    German geeks build electric bike, now want to sell it internationally

    Posted on June 3, 2009 | No Comments
    Two German engineers have managed to develop (without any external technological help or financial support) an electric bike that looks like a mix between a motorcycle and a mountain bike. The so-called Elmoto is powered by a 2KW engine and boasts a driving range of up to 65km with a single battery charge (which costs around $1).

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  • New kind of shape-memory plastic that’s moldable at room temperature

    New kind of shape-memory plastic that’s moldable at room temperature

    Posted on May 29, 2009 | No Comments
    NEC has developed a shape-memory plastic that can be formed at room temperature . The plastic can be heated and cooled, remaining pliant for for several minutes during which it can be processed. The usual problem with shape-memory plastics is differences in temperature. Shape-memory plastics that needs to be hardened at high temperatures may burn users, while those that need be kept at low temperatures lose their shape when exposed to heat.

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  • World’s first camera goes on public display in Macau

    World’s first camera goes on public display in Macau

    Posted on May 24, 2009 | No Comments

    If you thought the golden anniversary of Olympus' Pen camera was something, get a load of this. From now until August 23rd, an elaborate exhibition entitled 'The Invention of Photography and the Earliest Photographs' will showcase some of digital imaging's earliest tools, including the planet's oldest camera. The wooden sliding box shown above will undoubtedly be the centerpiece of the Macau-based expo, though it will be surrounded by 250 photography antiques and 180 old photos, which were collections lent by the Nicephore Niepce Museum and 12 other museums, cultural institutions and private collectors around the world. Anyone planning on making the trip over? Make sure you take a few snapshots with your 90s-era point-and-shoot, cool?

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    World's first camera goes on public display in Macau originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 24 May 2009 04:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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