Inventors and Remarkable People

Bonhams set to auction remarkable collection of technology antiques

By Mike Hanlon

07:31 September 28, 2009 PDT

The freight train progress of technology during the last century has masked the true value of landmark specimens of mankind’s technological triumphs. First-of-a-kind devices were quickly superseded and hence soon regarded as useless in comparison to newer, better equipment. Accordingly, we believe an auction to be held in London this week represents some of the finest medium-term investments we have ever seen, with a likelihood of their value increasing dramatically once historical perspective is restored. The auction includes 758 examples of almost all forms of early technology including many firsts – and the largest privately held collection of early televisions in the world. Read More

Guitar pioneer Les Paul - 1915-2009

By Paul Ridden

21:40 August 17, 2009 PDT

Genuis. Pioneer. Innovator. Words that don't even come close to describing the revolutionary thinking of one Lester William Polsfus. Better known as Les Paul, he had such a huge influence on the world of modern music that it's difficult to sum up his achievements in such a short piece. I use the past tense because sadly the Wizard of Waukesha died in a New York Hospital on August 13th. Read More

Logbook from the famous 1872-1876 journey of HMS Challenger goes to auction

By Gizmag Team

22:21 July 13, 2009 PDT

A logbook from the famous 1872-1876 journey of HMS Challenger, described at the time as "the greatest advance in the knowledge of our planet since the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries" will go under the hammer in a September auction of exploration, travel and topographical items. Conducted just 13 years after Darwin’s Origin of the Species, Challenger was tasked with constructing a fossil record that would test the new theory of evolution and became inextricably intertwined within the God vs. Science debate. Read More

The Quike: have four wheels, ready to pedal … and pedal

By Jude Garvey

01:33 April 15, 2009 PDT

An Australian pair plan to travel more than 7,450 miles in 12 months, through extreme weather conditions and terrains on a four-wheeled recumbent bicycle called a "quike" (on account of the four wheels). They plan to leave later this month on what promises to be an incredible journey, starting from Astana, Kazakhstan. All medical supplies, food and camping equipment will be carried on the back of the quike which could weigh as much as 960 pounds. Read More

Filmmaker takes a new look at the world through Eyeborg project

By Paul Best

15:37 April 9, 2009 PDT

After years of wearing a patch to hide his disfigured right eye, damaged as a child in a shooting accident, Canadian filmmaker Rob Spence was forced eventually to replace the eye with a prosthetic one. The camera on Spence’s cell phone, though, gave him a rather novel idea. What if he could build a miniature, wireless video camera into his prosthetic eye?

What followed has become the Eyeborg Project, the progress of which can be now followed online. Read More

The next small thing in public transport: Fold-up electric scooters

By David Greig

01:56 March 17, 2009 PDT

With an ever increasing load on the public transport system we need to look for smarter and more environmentally friendly ways of getting from A to B in built up areas. The public bike systems that have been successful in several European cities (Paris, Barcelona, Stockholm and soon London) are one way of achieving this, but the Link scooter system, designed by Anton Grimes of University of New South Wales in Australia, may provide an alternative to bikes that is a little easier for the less energetic. The Link is basically a modular transport solution concept, which allows users to hire an electric lightweight scooter from a hub. When the user has reached their destination, they simply return the scooter to another hub for recharging. Read More

Nano-antennas used to fight cancer

By Stephen Saunders

21:05 March 12, 2009 PDT

A PhD candidate from the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology (HST) has pioneered some innovative new treatments in the emerging field of nanomedicine that could aid in the fight against cancer. Geoffrey von Maltzahn's polymer-coated gold ‘nano-antennas’ are designed to be injected into the bloodstream to target and destroy cancerous tumors. Read More

Young inventor's solar-powered fridge changes lives in Africa

By Karen Sprey

17:31 February 16, 2009 PST

Solar powered devices aren’t new, but English student Emily Cummins has developed a way of using the sun’s power to help impoverished communities in Africa. Her eco-friendly, sustainable fridge is based on a simple principle: it uses the sun’s rays to evaporate water, which in turn keeps the contents cool. Read More

How Sony's R&D budget subsidized the Xbox 360 processor for Microsoft

By Tim Hanlon

23:58 January 1, 2009 PST

When Sony entered into a partnership with Toshiba and IBM to design the Cell processor for their PlayStation 3, they agreed that IBM would eventually sell the Cell to other companies. What they didn't know was that parts of the Cell would be sold to their major competitor Microsoft for use in the Xbox 360 processor - before the Cell was completed. Read More

Art meets science: Origami takes a great leap forward through old-school mathematics

By Loz Blain

22:02 December 4, 2008 PST

Robert Lang laughs in the face of your paper crane. This former NASA engineer and Ph.D in Physics has spent the last seven years as a professional Origami expert after using computer algorithms and ridiculous folding skills to come up with some of the most mind-bending paper art we've ever seen. One sheet of uncut paper in Lang's hands can become a beetle, a dinosaur, an elk or an organist sitting at a keyboard. Using his freeware computer software, he can show you how to make just about anything you like. And through his theories on the mathematics of folding, he has come to find himself consulting on a range of fascinating projects that extend the art into practical and industrial uses - his advanced techniques have been used to pack automobile airbags and even fold up the lens of a space telescope for transport and deployment. Amazing stuff. Read More

Good Vibrations: the musical and military instruments of Leon Theremin

By Kyle Sherer

21:17 November 30, 2008 PST

After the close of WWII, Russian schoolchildren presented the U.S. ambassador with a “gesture of friendship” in the form of a two-foot wooden replica of the Seal of the United States. Behind the beak of the eagle was a miniscule listening device so ingeniously designed that it took eight years before a routine check unearthed it. The era of electronic bugs had begun, and it was largely thanks to the brilliant mind of Leon Theremin: musician, inventor, and prisoner in Stalin’s gulag. Read More

The space-age Aerohotel concept

By Noel McKeegan

02:47 November 26, 2008 PST

We've seen some incredible examples of terraforming in recent years - most notably "The World" in Dubai - and if the fact that the government of the low-lying Maldives is looking to buy land elsewhere to escape global warming is any indication, the practice of resurrecting land from the waters may be about to become a whole lot more commonplace. But why shift all that dirt around if you can just use stilts? Alexander Asadov's futuristic Aerohotel concept is an alternative to man-made islands that would provide a 650 foot wide circular playground perched over 200 feet above the waterline using only three supports designed to cause minimum disturbance to the ocean floor. Read More

iPhone Firmware 2.2 Jailbroken, PwnageTool and QuickPwn 2.2 now available

By Tim Hanlon

18:39 November 23, 2008 PST

It will never cease to amaze us how quickly the iPhone Dev Team can bust open a new version of the iPhone Firmware. This time, around 48 hours after iPhone Firmware 2.2 hit, we already have a new version of QuickPwn and PwnageTool. Before you go ahead and jailbreak your iPhone 3G, please make sure you fully understand the following caveat: If you use QuickPwn instead of PwnageTool, you may not be able to unlock your iPhone 3G once an unlocking tool is made available. Read More

The checkered history of automation

By Kyle Sherer

14:39 November 9, 2008 PST

"If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker” – attributed to Albert Einstein after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. One law of science that has forever remained unchanged is the law of unintended consequences. When an idea is born its full range of repercussions is completely unpredictable, and the history of technology is a littered with fascinating examples of how one breakthrough can spawn something totally unexpected. In the hands of others, some do lead to tragedy, but more often than not we profit from technology's unexpected boons. Gizmag's Kyle Sherer follows some of these strange tangents to discover how an 18th century chess playing machine, French duck faeces, and a 60s movie called “Sex Kittens Go to College” are linked to the development of the computer, automobile, telephone and even space exploration. Read More

iPhone 3G baseband hacked, one step closer to an unlock

By Tim Hanlon

00:34 October 27, 2008 PDT

The iPhone Dev Team has posted a video showing their recent progress with the iPhone 3G. They have hacked their way in to the PMB8878 baseband processor, which gives them unrestricted access to the iPhone 3G hardware - and, you guessed it, the means to unlock the phone for use on any carrier. Read More

Happy Birthday! NASA celebrates 50 years

By Kyle Sherer

18:42 September 30, 2008 PDT

October 1, 2008 Cochlear implants, ultrasonically welded swimsuits, DustBusters, and freeze-dried food. You owe more to NASA than you think. Fifty years ago today, NASA’s employees turned up for their first day at work. One-hundred and fifty manned missions, $810.459 billion present-day dollars, and 382 kilograms of moon rocks later, the ripples from the creation of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration have influenced society and the development of technology in ways we rarely detect. Kyle Sherer takes a closer look at the history and major achievements of the last half-century. Read More

HE DID IT!! Fusionman completes successful English Channel Crossing

By Noel McKeegan

19:06 September 26, 2008 PDT

He made it! Earlier this week we reported on the incredible challenge undertaken by Fusionman Yves Rossy in attempting to fly solo across the English Channel using his home-made jet-powered wing, a feat he successfully completed on Thursday at 1:19 BST when he parachuted into Dover less than 15 minutes after leaving the skies above France. Great picture gallery of the event.

Read More

Stephen Hawking to send DNA into space

By Emily Clark

18:20 September 24, 2008 PDT

Along with daughter Lucy, renowned physicist Stephen Hawking is planning to send his digitized DNA into space as part of NCsoft’s Operation Immortality. The pair hopes the exercise will help publicize the Archon X PRIZE for Genomics; a competition that will award $10 million to the first person or team that can sequence 100 human genomes within 10 days or less. Read More

'The Yorkshire Aestel' – one of the original knowledge Gizmos to go under the hammer

By Jack Martin

07:50 September 18, 2008 PDT

September 18, 2008 'The Yorkshire Aestel' belongs to a small group of only seven known aestels; the most celebrated of which is the Alfred Jewel. An aestel is a pointer designed for the reading of manuscripts and most were commissioned by Alfred the Great, famous warrior king of England and one of history’s great champions of learning, justice and civilisation. King Alfred commissioned and sent aestels to all the bishops of his kingdom to accompany a copy of a translation of Pope Gregory I's Regula Pastoralis. Curiously, despite being one of the first man-made objects specifically designed to assist with furthering knowledge, this rare object is only expected to fetch between UKP10,000-15,000 when it goes to auction – perhaps this is a reflection on our modern values, perhaps the opportunity for a treasured possession of true meaning. A gold pointer steeped in history and the very roots of hand-written monastic scholarly endeavour , and dating from the late 9th Century is surely worth much more. Read More

Berners-Lee announces World Wide Web Foundation

By Noel McKeegan

23:57 September 15, 2008 PDT

Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web and from the beginning a strong advocate for keeping it free and open to everyone, has officially unveiled an organization designed to do just that. The World Wide Web Foundation states its goal as seeking "to advance One Web that is free and open, to expand the Web's capability and robustness, and to extend the Web's benefits to all people on the planet." Read More

Fishing for profits on world caviar market

By Mike Hanlon

08:09 August 28, 2008 PDT

August 28, 2008 Until recently, the Caspian Sea has been the world's main source of the sturgeon that produces the black fish roe delicacy we know and covet as caviar. Sadly, over-fishing and pollution have led to dwindling fishing yields in the region. Now scientists at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have begun farming sturgeon with a view to supplying the growing caviar market. Given they now have 40,000 sturgeon in outdoor pools, and the average female sturgeon can produce US$3,000 worth of caviar, it looks like becoming big business. Read More

Wrist-worn GPS navigation 1920s style

By Kyle Sherer

04:14 August 22, 2008 PDT

A 1920s-era wrist-mounted display that allowed the sophisticated gentleman to peruse his planned route; a 1930s “electro massager” rewarded the user with a “zappy ending” in the form of electrical shocks; and a pair of glasses equipped with two battery-powered lights alternately provided its wearer with illumination and set their head on fire. Outlandish contraption expert Maurice Collins is exhibiting these, and 50 similar items, at the British Library Business and Intellectual Property Centre. Read More

Student develops low-cost wind turbine for the developing world

By Emily Clark

04:08 August 21, 2008 PDT

A student from the University of Portsmouth in the UK has created a wind turbine made totally from recycled matter. Aimed at servicing the renewable energy needs of some of the word’s poorest countries, the low cost wind turbine is designed to be built by unskilled workers in less than a day using locally sourced scrap materials. Read More

Historic recordings by inventor of stereo sound re-engineered

By Darren Quick

03:34 August 5, 2008 PDT

Historic recordings by the inventor of stereo, Alan Blumlein, have been digitally re-engineered to remove the crackles and hiss from the original 78 pressings so they can now be heard as they were meant to sound. The recordings, which include Sir Thomas Beecham conducting the London Philharmonic Orchestra at Abbey Road Studios in 1934, were made by Alan Blumlein, an EMI research engineer, who lodged the patent for “binaural” sound in 1931 and have now been digitally re-engineered by sound engineer Roger Beardsley. Read More

Famous hacker Kevin Mitnick to pen autobiography

By Tim Hanlon

02:49 July 21, 2008 PDT

July 21, 2008 Kevin Mitnick, the infamous computer hacker who was sentenced to solitary confinement in 1999 after prosecutors spun stories of his ability to "start a nuclear war by whistling into a telephone," has signed a deal with Little, Brown and Company to publish his autobiography. Read More