MetaFilter posts tagged with invention

Steadicam Inventor Honored

switcheroo — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 07:28:44 -0800

American cinematographer Garrett Brown to be inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame for the invention of the Steadicam (previously).

BECAUSE HE GODDAMN WELL COULD, THAT'S WHY

zarq — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 15:45:47 -0800

'News of impending fatherhood affects men in different ways. Some guys pump their fists. Others light cigars. A few flee. When 33-year-old Colin Furze learned that his girlfriend was pregnant, he channeled his paternal excitement into building the world’s fastest baby stroller.' The twin-exhaust, 10-horsepower, gasoline-fueled pram has four gears. And cupholders. And it can accelerate to 50mph in less than 30 seconds. On October 14, 2012, he broke the Guinness World Record for fastest pram with a top speed of 53.46mph. Previous record holder was just under 30mph. There's also a "Behind the Scenes" video.

My First Prototype Post

Blazecock Pileon — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 15:03:50 -0800

Prototypes are usually the missing links in the evolution of human technology, the dead-ends of ideas that give way to the refinement of the final physical product. Prototypes aren't just for Darth Vader. While the legal back and forth between Apple and Samsung continues, a treasure trove of prototype designs for Apple devices has been released to the public, showing insights into various design approaches and feature enhancements, including larger form-factor iPads with and without kickstands and landscape ports and iPhones that parody the Sony logo, show a different layout for camera elements, and look remarkably like fourth-generation models, as far back as 2005. On the other hand, some have made prototypes into the end goal itself, such as the folks at Dangerous Prototypes, a site which features a new open-source electronic hardware project each month. Some are just gratuitous fun, while others are a bit more practical, such as one project that recycles old Nokia displays and another that provides access to infrared signal, useful for hacking together remote controls for all sorts of IR-based devices. Other prototypes of tomorrow's technology are less concerned with shrinking down the guts of the invention itself, to make it disappear, but rather on how we interact with and integrate physical representations of these ideas into our daily lives. Above all else, prototypes are always forward-looking and are therefore inherently optimistic expressions of human creativity: Even children are getting into imagining the world of tomorrow.

You make my heart go to 12,000 RPM

Brandon Blatcher — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 16:07:44 -0800

"Nature is not always the best designer, at least when it comes to things that humans must build and maintain. So the newest artificial heart doesn’t imitate the cardiac muscle at all. Instead, it whirs like a little propeller, pushing blood through the body at a steady rate. After 500 million years of evolution accustoming the human body to blood moving through us in spurts, a pulse may not be necessary. That, in any case, is the point of view of the 50-odd calves, and no fewer than three human beings, who have gotten along just fine with their blood coursing through them as evenly as Freon through an air conditioner."

This FPP © zarq. Do Not Bend, Fold, Spindle or Mutilate. Do Not Taunt Happy Fun Ball.

zarq — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 14:49:04 -0800

Kirby Ferguson's fourth and final installment of Everything is a Remix: System Failure has been released. (Also on YouTube.) It covers intellectual property rights, the derivative nature of creativity, patents and copyright. Transcript. Per his blog entry, his next project will be called "This is Not a Conspiracy Theory." Previously and Previously on MeFi. See the entire series on Vimeo: Parts One, Two, Three, Four. Official Site. Episode 1: YouTube Version / Transcript / Blog Entry Episode 2: YouTube Version / Transcript / Blog Entry Episode 3: YouTube Version / Transcript / Blog Entry

Angle poise

infini — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 08:17:05 -0800

The story of the modern desk lamp in four parts by hipstomp Part 1: Its Invention was Based on British Car Suspensions Part 2: Piggybacking Across the North Sea with Sewing Machines Part 3: The Anglepoise Grows (Literally) Part 4: Pixar and Luxo Jr

Disrupting The Period

Foci for Analysis — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 12:48:40 -0800

When Arunachalam Muruganantham hit a wall in his research on creating a sanitary napkin for poor women, he decided to do what most men typically wouldn’t dream of. He wore one himself--for a whole week. [...] It resulted in endless derision and almost destroyed his family. But no one is laughing at him anymore, as the sanitary napkin-making machine he went on to create is transforming the lives of rural women across India.

An Indian Inventor Disrupts The Period Industry. Arunachalam Muruganantham's company is Jayaashree Industries. Video featuring the sanitary napkin (warning: Kenny G music).

Revolights

zarq — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 14:53:55 -0800

How do you make a bicycle more visible to drivers at night? Create a new wheel-based lighting system: Vimeo / Youtube. Kickstarter campaign is finished and funded, (details of the design at that page) and the company is hoping to have them on sale by March 2012. Via. More. Demo videos. The design is reminiscent of UK-based Cyglo, which was the subject of a previous post.

Will it Bend?

exogenous — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 08:07:48 -0800

History and invention of the bendy straw

Making-Of sicherstes Fahrradschloss

hippybear — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 20:07:06 -0800

The way to make a very secure lock for your bike. Auf Deutsch, but the working of the device is clear. Webpage for the invention, Google Translated, apparently with a parts list.

The post stands on the shoulders of the two that came before it....

zarq — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 13:22:11 -0800

Part 3 of the Everything is a Remix video series has been released, by New York filmmaker Kirby Ferguson. Previously on MeFi. See the entire series on Vimeo: Parts One, Two and Three. (YouTube versions and transcripts inside.) Official Site. There will be a Part 4 released in the Fall, accompanied by a Kickstarter campaign. Episode 1: YouTube Version / Transcript / Blog Entry Episode 2: YouTube Version / Transcript / Blog Entry Episode 3: YouTube Version / Transcript / Blog Entry

Crime Fighting Armored Gloves

dirtylittlecity — Tue, 31 May 2011 15:18:54 -0800

A robber is cornered in a dead-end alley: He turns to face the police officer pursuing him, ready to fight. He pauses. The officer’s left forearm is encased in ballistic nylon, and half a million volts arc menacingly between electrodes on his wrist. A green laser target lands on the robber’s chest. He puts his hands up; it’s a fight he can’t win. It sounds like something from a cyberpunk novel, but thanks to inventor David Brown and pal Kevin Costner, the glove may soon be mass produced. Targeted at the Military, and Police and Corrections Officers. The first demo unit will be released to the Los Angeles sheriff’s department later this year. Brown says future incarnations could include chemical sensors, an electronic translator to help soldiers communicate overseas, or biometric readers for airport security guards.

Bourbon: Is there anything it can't do?

.kobayashi. — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 06:36:51 -0800

The Bourbon-Powered Car of the Future... TODAY!

ooooo shiny

divabat — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 02:00:15 -0800

Ever made an indie action film and needed something for that epic glass-break scene? How about the blackest black you can find? Want to adjust your boots so that they are mud repellant? Inventables has everything you need - for the budding inventor, busy set designer, or Q in training.

Feed me! Feeeeed Me.

The Whelk — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 10:46:25 -0800

What does the future of electricity hold? Microbial Fuel Cells? How about a carnivorous clock?

"If I can be the person that does that, I’ll die happy."

OverlappingElvis — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 10:00:58 -0800

Josh Springer thinks his invention can eliminate lines for beer at sporting events. The Bottoms Up beer pouring system claims to pour beer up to nine times faster than normal serving methods by using the power of magnets.

Advance Market Commitments

kliuless — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 08:42:20 -0800

Inducement Prizes -- Best known for the Ansari X Prize, the DARPA Grand Challenge and the Clay Mathematics Millennium Problems, inducement prizes have a long history, but their recent successes have led to increased government interest, viz. challenge.gov, and resulted in the development of vaccines, thanks in large part to the work of Michael Kremer.^* In 2001 Brad DeLong and Larry Summers wrote:

New institutions and new kinds of institutions -- perhaps even some that have been tried before, like the French government's purchase and placing in the public domain of the first photographic patents in the early nineteenth century (see Kremer (1998)) -- may well be necessary to achieve the fourfold objectives of (a) price equal to marginal cost, (b) entrepreneurial energy, (c) accelerating the cumulative process of research, and (d) providing appropriate financial incentives for research and development. The work of Harvard economist Michael Kremer (1998, 2000), both with respect to the possibility of public purchase of patents at auction and of shifting some public research and development funding from effort-oriented to result-oriented processes (that is, holding contests for private companies to develop vaccines instead of funding research directly), is especially intriguing in its attempts to develop institutions that have all the advantages of market competition, natural monopoly, and public provision.

cf. work being done by E. Glen Weyl (Hermann was his great uncle) --- ^*coincidentally there's a prize named after another Kremer

The Automata Blog

nickyskye — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 09:30:10 -0800

The Automata Blog is packed full of interesting images, videos and information about all kinds of amazing automata, cool machines, mechanical music, orchestrions and kinetic sculptures. This month's focus is the history of vintage Japanese tin toy robots and the toy robot paintings by Steven Skollar.

Wickie Pipe Lighter

carpenter — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 12:32:47 -0800

This could be the coolest marijuana invention ever. Linda agrees.

I. WAS. PROMISED. FLYING. CARS!

zarq — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 14:35:08 -0800

PopSci: Archive Gallery: From Chicago to Shanghai, 138 Visionary Years of World's Fairs Direct links to the articles: * Electricity Lights Up the World's Columbian Exposition: October 1893 * Rocket Cars at the Chicago World's Fair: September 1932 * PopSci's Mechanical Wonderland: August 1933 * Giant Volt Generator Electrifies Paris: November 1936 * New York Welcomes the World of Tomorrow: March 1938 * Flushing Meadows Enters the Future: March 1939 * General Motors Presents Futurama: July 1939 * A Permanent Fair in Florida?: April 1955 * Seattle Surveys the Year 2000: April 1962 * IBM's "Information Machine": July 1964 * The Geodesic Biosphere: March 1967 * Discovering Seville: May 1992

"...we had no idea…"

zarq — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 18:27:07 -0800

The contraption was "created from a mishmash of lenses and computer parts and an old Super 8 movie camera." It was the size of a toaster, ran off "sixteen nickel cadmium batteries, a highly temperamental new type of CCD imaging area array, an a/d converter implementation stolen from a digital voltmeter" and took 23 seconds to record an image to cassette tape. But when Steve Sasson and his team of Kodak technicians presented the world's first digital camera to the public in 1975, they were asked: 'Why would anyone ever want to view his or her pictures on a TV?' Steve Sasson (wikipedia)

Nobody Ever Pays Me In Gum

AzraelBrown — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 16:53:27 -0800

Today, Mexico announced new, tighter tariffs on American goods, including restrictions on U.S. chewing gum. Some say it's because of Teamsters, but the hatred of American chewing gum may harken back to a 19th century military coup. Exiled after numerous attempts to rule Mexico as a military dictator, General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna (yes, that General Santa Anna) spent part of his time in exile in -- of all places -- Staten Island. Santa Anna planned to fund his new army with a secret asset: he intended to sell chicle to the Americans. Although the General thought it had more uses, inventor Thomas Adams found the stuff fun to chew on. A few years later, Adams flavored his gum, inventing Black Jack Gum, the oldest continually-made chewing gum in the United States. Sadly, due to recent tariffs, General Santa Anna's army-building Black Jack chewing gum will now cost 20% more to export to Mexico.

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Fizz — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 06:49:48 -0800

The Menstruation Machine: an invention created by artist Hiromi Ozaki. "As a female designer I had one big problem I wanted to solve. "It’s 2010, so why are humans still menstruating?" "Fitted with a blood dispensing mechanism and lower-abdomen-stimulating electrodes, the Menstruation Machine is a device which simulates the pain and bleeding of an average 5 day menstruation process of a human (As a female designer I have done my best to simulate my own, at least)." Also: Menstruation Machine - Takashi's Take is a music video about a boy ‘Takashi’, who builds the menstruation machine in an attempt to dress up as a female, biologically as well as aesthetically, to fulfill his desire to understand what it might feel like to be a truely 'girly' girl. He determinedly wears the machine to hang out with his kawaii friend in Tokyo, but…"

sometimes humans are wonderful

flapjax at midnite — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 00:57:39 -0800

Imitating a xylophone.

The Thirty Dollar Centrifuge

jjray — Tue, 04 May 2010 11:03:42 -0800

How do you diagnose anemia in a third-world country without electricity? Use the salad-spinner-based thirty dollar centrifuge, developed by Rice undergraduate students Lila Kerr and Lauren Theis.