Good Thinking
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Tower Hill wins London Award for Building in an Historic Context
September 21, 2005 The 2005 Award for Building in an Historic Context, awarded by RIBA London and English Heritage has gone to the Tower Hill Environs Scheme. The Stanton Williams project was considered an outstanding contender by the jury. The jury citation for Tower Hill Environs read: "The quality of the hard landscaping of this scheme is amazing, and balances well against the historic edifice of the Tower. The change in the approach to the Tower is remarkable, befitting its status as a World Heritage Site and Royal Palace. This project demonstrates a strong contribution from all parties: the architect, Tower Hamlets planning department, English Heritage and Historic Royal Palaces. Tower Hill Environs is an important new public square on the river for London". (read more...)
Robot lifeguard wins 15th International BraunPrize - full details of finalists
September 19, 2005 The BraunPrize for 2005 has been awarded to Jens Andersson from Sweden for his design “Rescue Buoy” - a swimming robot in the form of a lifebuoy. The other four International BraunPrize finalists were Australian Greg Scott’s ingenious Yolk headgear for skiers and snowboarders, Canadian Lynn Borneman Animal Factor which monitors the health of a horse during strenuous activity, Chinese Wa Yao’s Mesh Editor, a mobile space-planning tool to facilitate the rapid creation of light and safe large-span structures and Brazilian Adriano Galvao’s Easy-XM which simplifies and reduces the amount of time required to take blood from patients. (read more...)
Hot Property: The Stealing of Ideas in an Age of Globalization
September 12, 2005 The Professional Inventors Alliance USA has awarded the "American Innovation & Invention Book of the Year" for 2005 to "Hot Property: The Stealing of Ideas in an Age of Globalization" by author Pat Choate. A strong advocate of tight intellectual-property protections, Choate, an economist and Ross Perot's 1996 vice presidential running mate, says that international forums and domestic laws are already in place to stop intellectual property crimes. However, American policymakers are lacking the willpower to stem an impending economic, scientific, and technological decline. September 12, 2005 The Professional Inventors Alliance USA has awarded the "American Innovation & Invention Book of the Year" for 2005 to "Hot Property: The Stealing of... (read more...)
Computer program learns language rules and composes sentences, all without outside help
September 2, 2005 Cornell University and Tel Aviv University researchers have developed a method for enabling a computer program to scan text in any of a number of languages, including English and Chinese, and autonomously and without previous information infer the underlying rules of grammar. The rules can then be used to generate new and meaningful sentences. The method also works for such data as sheet music or protein sequences. The development -- which has a patent pending -- has implications for speech recognition and for other applications in natural language engineering, as well as for genomics and proteomics. It also offers new insights into language acquisition and psycholinguistics. (read more...)
False Alarm Theory: How Humorous Ads Work
August 28, 2005 Some ads tickle us and make us laugh. Research shows these ads grab attention, and IF they are well executed, then the liking for the ad washes over onto the advertised brand. Despite E.B. White’s famous wry prediction ("humor can be dissected, as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process”), humor in advertising has survived extensive dissection, exposing insights into its anatomy, function and origins. Yet it is true that the creation of humorous ads remains a creative process that owes more to intuition than to science. Dr Max Sutherland examines the use of humour in advertising. (read more...)
The Dynamo wind-up torch and radio
August 24, 2005 Wind-up energy has always made sense – it just took most of us an extra 50 years to realise it. Not everyone can pop down to the store and buy another set of batteries for the torch or radio so having a wind-up device that does both makes infinite sense, particularly if you’re planning on covering all the bases for a power grid failure or some other disaster/emergency situation relating to the entire community. The Dynamo offers emergency lighting and an emergency radio receiver at US$26 (AUD$34.95) which makes it almost a no-brainer – having no running costs is even better. The idea is that you wind it for 90 seconds and it works for 20 minutes. For the lazybones among us, you can also plug it into the mains power or use three AAA batteries. oh, and it’s splash proof and hence ideal for the great outdoors. (read more...)
The Jimi - a wallet for minimalists
August 23, 2005 A boy’s first wallet is a true Alladin’s cave – one of the true landmarks on the way to manhood, it is crammed full of many more “handy” things than it’s actually practical to carry. Adulthood wallets are even worse, being crammed with every version of credit, loyalty, membership, library, health insurance and now even building access cards plus topped up daily with receipts from every time you use one of those cards. There are times though when you don’t wish to carry a “hamburger with the lot” – when you want to feel svelte and free and minimalist. For such times, there’s the Jimi – Japanese for “simple” and in this case, a simple wallet. It’s cute, unbreakable and carries a few credit cards and some notes and it’ll disappear into a shirt or hip pocket without disrupting any lines. Sometimes referred to as the anti-wallet it fits into the same category as the Tsaya phone holster for gals in being one of very few objects that can be described as sexy, fun AND practical. (read more...)
Nissan Wins Best in Design at Extreme Gravity Racer Series
August 20, 2005--Nissan Design America (NDA), known for designing cutting-edge vehicles, has used its automotive design expertise to win the Best in Design Category at the 5th Annual 2005 Extreme Gravity Racing Series held yesterday atop Jack's Peak Drive. Dubbed the Nissan Flying Torpedo, this sleek race machine competed with ten other automotive manufacturers for charity. (read more...)
Academic Paper Says Edible Meat Can be Grown in a Lab on Industrial Scale
August 16, 2005 Experiments for NASA space missions have shown that small amounts of edible meat can be created in a lab. But the technology that could grow chicken nuggets without the chicken, on a large scale, may not be just a science fiction fantasy. In a recent paper in the Tissue Engineering journal, a team of scientists has proposed two new techniques of tissue engineering that may one day lead to affordable production of in vitro - lab grown - meat for human consumption. It is the first peer-reviewed discussion of the prospects for industrial production of cultured meat. "There would be a lot of benefits from cultured meat," says University of Maryland doctoral student Jason Matheny, who studies agricultural economics and public health. "For one thing, you could control the nutrients. For example, most meats are high in the fatty acid Omega 6, which can cause high cholesterol and other health problems. With in vitro meat, you could replace that with Omega 3, which is a healthy fat. (read more...)
New agency to sell scoop photos for amateurs
August 16, 2005 A decade ago, during an evening of substance abuse, several people who subsequently became some of the principals of this fine journal came up with an idea. Extrapolating upon the growing penetration of digital cameras and the internet, we were into a second bottle of Jack Daniels by the time we’d hatched the idea for a global network we christened “bozos with cameras.” The idea was that as digital cameras became ubiquitous almost every newsworthy event would be captured by an amateur photographer and hence there was an opening for a global syndication agency to represent the non-professional with a scoop – the man in the street who happened to be in the right place at the right time with their camera (they didn’t have camera phones back then but it is the camera phone that has created the ubiquity) to catch a newsworthy event. Virtually everybody now has a mobile phone, and virtually every mobile phone now comes with a camera. This means that somebody, somewhere is in a position to photograph just about anything that happens on the planet. Well, the third bottle of JD ensured we didn’t do anything the next day and the rest is (a lack of) history. Now, such an agency has been created - a photographic agency that represents people who have still or moving images of newsworthy events, making sure the right newspapers/TV networks see their photo and ensuring that they get a good deal. Bloody good idea, heh what! (read more...)
Another V8 BBQ, 9mm semi-automatic-styled remote control and boombox sneakers
August 16, 2005 Our Hemi-engined gadget article got a lot of response, including a company that really does make V8 snowblowers and this remarkable contraption – the “Frontgating Griller.” This amazing lean, mean, no-stick grilling machine will feed a family of 40 heated by your truck's own engine block. Specially designed grooves channel brat juices and burger grease into the bumper trough for easy cleanup or you can convert your engine to biodiesel and reuse all that succulent fat to fuel your reformed eco-unfriendly gas-guzzler. BTW – the gun at right is a 9mm semi-automatic-styled universal remote control and sneakers are boombox sneakers. Read all about them here. (read more...)
The LifeStraw makes dirty water clean
More than one billion people – one sixth of the world’s population - are without access to safe water supply. At any given moment, about half of the world's poor are suffering from waterborne diseases, of which over 6,000 – mainly children – die each day as a direct result of consuming unsafe drinking water. The world’s most prolific killer is diarrhoeal disease from bacteria like typhoid, cholera, e. coli, salmonella and many others. Safe water interventions have vast potential to transform the lives of millions, especially in areas such as poverty eradication, environmental upgradation, quality of life, child development and gender equality. LifeStraw was developed as a practical response to the billions of people who are still without access to these basic human rights and we believe it is an invention that could become one of the greatest life-savers in history. It is a 25 cm long, 29 mm diameter, plastic pipe filter and purchased singly, costs around US2.00. Until now, there was not much we could do about water born disease because systems to clean water are costly and require electricity and spare parts and … the LifeStraw now offers a viable means of saving tens of millions of lives every year. LifeStraw is a personal, low-cost water purification tool with a life time of 700 litres – approximately one year of water consumption for one person, two years for a child. Positive test results have been achieved on tap, turbid and saline water against common waterborne bacteria such as Salmonella, Shigella, Enterococcus and Staphylococcu. If we (as in the big WE) can find a way of funding and distributing one of these to each human at risk, every year, we could eradicate countless deaths. Each LifeStraw lasts for one person’s annual needs of clean water – a simple straw costing a few dollars will ensure that one at-risk person will not die for a year - now that's a donation we can all make with a serious kicker! Please tell as many people as you can about this. (read more...)
345 horsepower, 5.7-liter HEMI V-8 engine powered Barbeque
August 9, 2005 Yes folks, this is a man’s barbeque. That’s Tim Kowalec firing up Chrysler Group's one-of-a-kind HEMI-powered grill at an event to announce the top five finalists in the company’s "What Can You HEMI?" contest. Until the event, the HEMI engine was only found in Chrysler, Jeep or Dodge vehicles. With the power and torque of the 5.7-liter V-8 HEMI engine, the grill can cook 240 HEMI dogs in three minutes and is covered by more than 330 square feet of steel. The contest involved people sending in concepts for machines that could be powered by a 5.7-liter HEMI V-8 engine. Five of the best ideas became semi-finalists and Chrysler engineers then built working models of the concept machines. The event was won by a Hemi-powered trike with a custom 4-foot wheel (bottom left image) but some serious machinery filled the placings – such as the Hemi Snowblower (centre) and Hemi paper shredder. Check out the images of all the finalists inside. (read more...)
After you read this, you will know less ...
August 9, 2005 Even the most ignorant cannot know less than nothing. After all, negative knowledge makes no sense. But, although this may be true in the everyday world we are accustomed to, it has been discovered that negative knowledge does exist in the quantum world. Small objects such as atoms, molecules and electrons behave radically different than larger objects -- they obey the laws of quantum mechanics. What could negative knowledge possibly mean? In short, after I tell you negative information, you will know less. Such strange situations can occur because what it means to know something is very different in the quantum world. In the quantum world, we can know too much, and it is in these situations where one finds negative knowledge. Negative knowledge (or more precisely negative information) turns out to be precisely the right amount to cancel the fact that we know too much. While all this might appear to be very mysterious, negative information can be put on a rigorous footing as can be found by visiting the homepage of quantum physicist, Jonathan Oppenheim at Cambridge University. (read more...)
Preserving the value of a good reputation online
August 7, 2005 One of the aspects missing between the global village and the local one is reputation. Sharks will always prey on the weak and unsuspecting and a close-knit community helps to spot and warn off sharks. In the decade since the internet took off, there have been many efforts to synthesise on-line reputations, with the most successful being feedback systems inside online services such as eBay and Amazon that record feedback on prior buying experiences with each seller. Trust is a key element in commerce and without it, ec-mmerce will struggle. So it’s logical that new systems such as iKarma.com will evolve. IKarma claims to bring to businesses, professionals and individuals a powerful and cost-effective means of preserving and demonstrating their business and personal reputations online. By acting as a trusted third party recorder of customer feedback for all kinds of services, www.iKarma.com hopes to provide a go-to resource for online consumers before they make a purchase. For businesses, it might prove to be an effective means of leveraging their customer goodwill and establishing an easily accessible online reputation record. (read more...)
CraftRobo Desktop Cutter enables four colour origami and complex stickers
August 4, 2005 We are VERY excited about this machine and the prospects for what the future holds in the general area of desktop production. The CraftRobo is a desktop cutting machine which when used in conjunction with your desktop printer can produce remarkable colourful three dimensional objects or complex stickers. The CraftRobo also has a kiss-cut (half-cut) function so you can cut around stickers and decals on vinyl while leaving them attached to the carrier sheet, or cut fully through paper or card to produce cut-out designs, or produce fold marks. There’s ROBO Master (windows) software and a Cutting Master ROBO Adobe Illustrator plug-in so you can make up your very own designs or you can download from an extensive library of designs and make your own four-colour origami. Maximum cutting size of the media is 200 mm x 1000 mm (7.9 inch x 39.4 inch). When Saul Griffith, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology doctoral candidate, won the Lemelson-MIT Student Prize for inventing a desktop machine which “printed” low-cost eyeglass lenses, Gizmag’s story noted that his interest in rapid prototyping and personal fabrication could someday lead to what he terms, “low cost digitally enabled machine tools that allow more people to build their own stuff.” Of course if you can't be bothered with the origami thing, and you think pop-up Christmas cards are old hat, you could go straight to 3D printing. If it's good enough for F1-champion-in-waiting Renault, it's probably good enough for anyone. (read more...)
Nokia’s ingenious marketing campaign
August 3, 2005 It’s not often that you see a scheme where everybody wins but Sydney-based mobile communication company KahDo has come up with a unique medium that brings advertisers and consumers together in a scheme that does just that. More than just outdoor advertising, KahDo’s fleet of 100 branded Smart Cars are driven by real consumers, and aims to achieve advertising effectiveness through unexpectedness. The drivers are hand picked for their socially active, urban lifestyle. Kahdo recruits a select community of opinion leaders by offering them a fully maintained Smart car for a subsidised cost of AUD$35 (US$26) per week. In return for the subsidised car, exclusive product usage, free samples and invitations to special events, these influential 18 to 34 year old urban consumers agree to ambassador status and minimum usage levels of the cars that are wrapped in advertising. Telecommunications giant Nokia was the first to take to the streets of Australia’s two largest cities (Sydney and Melbourne) this week using the innovative, new marketing concept to reach young, urban consumers with unique messages about the brand. (read more...)
TripStop
August 3, 2005 Gizmag came across this invention a few months ago when we were part of a judging panel for an invention award. Funnily enough, it didn't jump out at us the first time we saw it, but as the judging wore on, and the finalists were chosen, and it got down to picking the final three most significant inventions, it kept hanging around and in the end, it won the contest on the basis that it has almost universal application. Concrete footpaths and trees just don’t mix, because as the tree roots grow, they push upwards causing the footpath to deform, crack and misalign. Globally, it’s a massive problem and one with increasing public liability concerns for local government authorities. The TripStop system is a high-tech solution to concrete pavement displacement problems and helps to reduce random cracking and trip hazards by allowing concrete to articulate . The ingenious plastic join enables significant soil movement and tree root invasion without causing the footpath to crack or cause a raised lip in the surface which might trip unsuspecting pedestrians. The system has been university tested and has been proven to deliver substantial cost, environmental and safety benefits. Some inventions aren't exciting until you realise how much benefit they offer the community. This is a prime example. (read more...)
Fujitsu U-Scan Shopper Trolley designed to eliminate checkout queues
July 30, 2005 Consumers can say goodbye to long checkout lines and hello to the new face of retail customer service: the U-Scan Shopper. Developed by Fujitsu, the U-Scan Shopper features a wireless, trolley-mounted computer that gives shoppers information and scan-as-you-shop convenience as they move through a store. “The U-Scan Shopper is the ultimate customer touch point,” says Vernon Slack, director of the U-Scan Shopper solution, Fujitsu Ltd. “It will significantly change the future of the retail front-end. The U-Scan Shopper puts service and checkout in the consumer’s hands, reducing reliance on the point-of-sale for customer service and freeing store personnel to provide customer service in the aisles.” (read more...)
Canon introduces Web Access software for multifunction devices
July 24, 2005 Canon already the major player in the networked imaging solutions arena, but the latest move by the company is still an interesting one. The Canon Web Access Software Kit is the first ever Web browser to be designed to run on multifunction devices. Unique to Canon, the software allows the use of Canon multifunction devices (MFDs) as"information kiosks" that access and print information directly from an intranet or the Internet. This makes it ideal for organisations that have a significant number of staff who do not have access to PCs but who need to access forms, documents or information on the company intranet, such as in retail, logistics or manufacturing industries. (read more...)
Wireless monitoring of your laundry
July 24, 2005 Mac-Gray is America’s largest provider of laundry facilities management services to college and university residence halls, which makes the company’s latest announcement significant. The company is adding wireless capabilities for its LaundryView monitoring system so it can now connect to a school's network using either its wired or wireless network infrastructure. The LaundryView eMonitoring System, part of Mac-Gray's Intelligent Laundry Systems, enables students to have real-time information about the status of the washers and dryers in their campus laundry rooms from any device that has a web browser.It’s a small step but a significant one as it is the first of many that students will encounter in monitoring the many things that are important to them. This is the second Mac-Gray product we’ve featured in recent times, so we guess that makes the company on the extreme side of innovative. We’ve previously featured the company’s craftworks fridge (which looks like a tool chest) but it also makes energy-efficient MicroFridge appliances. (read more...)
Motorsport without the motor
July 22, 2005 Fancy your very own Bentley or Pininfarina limited-edition, extreme gravity race car and a spot on the grid of what we believe will become a very prestigious race series? The cost is US$30,000 but it’s one of those rare opportunities to get in on the ground floor of something that could be big, and we think that Extreme Gravity Racing will be big! Really big!! Last year the series began to take the shape of the vision of its founder Don MacAllister with automotive manufacturers building cars for the event - Porsche, Volvo, Mazda, Bentley, Nissan and General Motors. This year they will be joined by Audi, Oakley, Pininfarina, Volkswagen, Lamborghini and Chrysler plus corporations wishing to participate can simply roll up on the day to find their limited edition high-tech Bentley or Pininfarina Gravity Racer painted in company colours. There’s also a pit row tent for clients, employees, friends and family and a dinner and luxury accommodation package for three nearby. If you’d like to run a pre-event day choosing your driver from employees or clients, Extreme Gravity can provide 16 identical cars and stage that too. At the end of the weekend, you get to keep the car produced by a world famous auto design studio. (read more...)
Anniversary of Vannavar Bush's famous essay describing the MEMEX machine
July 21, 2005 One of the most important works in scientific history was published in July 60 years ago – an article in The Atlantic Monthly entitled “AS WE MAY THINK”. Written by Vannevar Bush, the article describes the “memex” – a theoretical analog computer designed from the cutting edge technologies of the day to enable access to large amounts of information. The machine and linking systems Bush describe are remarkably similar to today’s hypertext and Ted Nelson who coined the term, hypertext" in the 1960's, acknowledges his debt to Bush. Bush was a visionary and his work in creating the environment which nurtured the development of what became the internet is well documented in several excellent articles in Wired magazine and ibiblio. "Consider a future device for individual use, which is a sort of mechanized private file and library. It needs a name, and to coin one at random, ``memex'' will do. A memex is a device in which an individual stores all his books, records, and communications, and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility. It is an enlarged intimate supplement to his memory." - Vannevar Bush The original article can be read for free on-line at the Atlantic Monthly which is still published. VIA SLASHDOT (read more...)
Ingenious Bag Handle
July 19, 2005 Proof that an ingenious new invention doesn’t require Bluetooth, a 5-GHz processor and a room full of MIT graduates. As anyone who has ever struggled to carry a half dozen plastic grocery bags will tell you, there has to be a better way t han having those plastic bags cut into your fingers and cut off the circulation. Designed to carry 50 lbs. of stuffed grocery bags, the EZcarry soft-grip handle is a comfortable soft-grip handle that makes carrying grocery bags, department store bags, dry cleaning hangers, and more, much easier. It works by evenly distributing the pressure of shopping bags across the hand so the weight no longer cuts into a person's hand, palm, or fingers. Shoppers just hold onto a cushy purple and blue handle. (read more...)
Reusable fold-up drink tray
July 19, 2005 This simple invention looks set to destroy one of the traditional global rites of passage – learning to carry four or more alcoholic beverages at the same time as learning about the effects of drinking alcohol. This ingenious device is the brainchild of Sydnesider John Braams, who was tired of carrying drinks back to his mates in flimsy cardboard trays. Says John, “the cardboard trays we all know and hate are poorly designed – they are unstable because the centre of gravity is above the carrier. Also, when wet, which often happens when you’re using them to carry beverages, they quickly deteriorate and can fall apart.” The Skoona Moova is a simple plastic flat fold-away tray that has been designed to make carrying four large glasses easy. Surprisingly, because the tray allows the weight to be balanced evenly, moving heavy drinks is effortless, and there is less spillage as the device is sturdy and won’t collapse. With two Skoona Moovas, you can carry eight drinks, and it’s re-usable, so when you’re finished, you fold it and store it in a pocket or handbag, office drawer or glove box until it’s next needed. (read more...)
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