Time Magazine just did their annual Amazing Inventions issue for 2005. They awarded "invention of the year" to Snuppy, the Afghan puppy cloned an ear cell from another Afghan. He is very cute and very healthy.
Some of my favorites from the article:
Topsy-Turvy Planter: This upside-down planter allows you to grow tomatoes on a balcony or deck. You fill the bag with potting soil, add a vine growing fruit or vegetable (watermelon, anyone?) Mount the hook and add water and fertilizer. As someone who tries almost every year to grow tomatoes, only to lose them to caterpillar or rot, this sounds great. And it is available. For more information, check here.
LifeStraw: "The LifeStraw, a beefed-up drinking straw designed by the Swiss-based company Vestergaard Frandsen, uses seven types of filters, including mesh, active carbon and iodine, to make 185 galons of water clean enough to dring. It can prevent waterborne illnesses such as typhoid and diarrhea, that kill at least 2 million people every year in the developing world." Should be a household item in many countries of the world.
Perfect for world travelers, backwoods hikers, and disaster victims.
This is one great idea.
HAL (Hybrid Assistive Limb): A robotic exoskeleton to help the elderly and diabled walk and lift heavy objects. A computer housed in a backpack learns the wearer's gait and posture. Bioelectric sensors pick up signals from thebrain to the muscles. Amazingly, a commercial version is in the works, to sell for $14,000 to 19,000. This invention, if it works, will help people stay safe and independent. Wonderful. My question is: Who helps you get into it? HAL is here.
The future is now.
Nemo Equipment's Hypno tent: If you are a camper, listen up. This tent has inflatable support arches that are inflated by a foot pump to give a rigid frame. The company says the tent can be erected in less that a minute. Time's test took 48 seconds!
Sleeptracker : I love this one. The Sleeptracker watch is an alarm clock that has built-in motion detector and can tell whether you are in a deep or light part of your sleep cycle. You program a 20 minute or so window of when you would like to get up, and the Sleeptracker's alarm will awaken you when you are in the lightest phase. No more being pulled out of a great REM dream to face work. $149.
Hand Roll Piano: Silicone-rubber keyboard spreads to about 3 feet in length, has keys an eighth of an inch thick and weighs 2-lbs. It's computer technology allows you to play the keyboard for up to 15 hours on two AA batteries. It plugs into a computer and has a built-in speaker. Perfect for that person in your life who thinks they can get by without practicing the piano just because there isn't a piano around. Here's the website.
Click on the site in the first paragraph to read more about these inventions, and all the others that didn't make my cut.
I'm sorry, but that tomato planter looks like a bird feeder gone horribly, horribly wrong. Would you really eat anything that grew from that thing?
Posted by: ewww | November 30, 2005 at 06:52 AM