Inventors

Kickstarter, the popular crowd-funding site, has assembled a list of 2012's greatest hits which we've narrowed down to five of the more technology-related projects. Conspicuously absent from the company's official selection is the massively popular Form 1 3D printer by Formlabs, which features game-changing technology that quickly sparked a patent suit by 3D Systems.  Read More

For the past month, the judges have been casting a discerning eye over the 15 finalists of the 2012 James Dyson Award and they’ve now made what no doubt was a difficult decision. Taking out the major prize is Dan Watson, who will receive £10,000 (US$16,000) for his SafetyNet system that tackles the problem of overfishing by providing escape exits for juvenile and non-target fish caught up in commercial fishing nets.  Read More

This year’s James Dyson Award provided potential entrants with a pretty broad brief – develop a problem solving invention. The international jury has now whittled down the 501 entries received from university students hailing from 18 countries around the world to 15 finalists. We take a look at the projects still in the running to claim a slice of the £20,000+ (US$32,385+) prize pool up for grabs.  Read More

In the developed world, we forget that there was once a time when washday meant “day” rather than “toss it in the machine and come back in 20 minutes.” In many parts of the world without access to electricity and clean water, that time is still now. Design students Alex Cabunoc and Ji A You of the Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles visited the the slums of Cerro Verde, Peru. There they saw women spending days on end hauling water and washing clothes by hand and they came up with a solution. They created the GiraDora, a foot-pedal washing machine that’s inexpensive and portable.  Read More

We got to do some fun things at last month’s Go Further With Ford conference, such as test-driving the new Mustang and the purpose-built Police Interceptor. On the final night of the event, however, us conference-goers really got to enjoy ourselves – we got to make stuff, at the Detroit branch of TechShop. In business since 2006, the company now has five shops located across the U.S., all of which provide inventors and other people with access to advanced tools and know-how. We spoke to CEO Mark Hatch to learn more about what the group has to offer, and to whom.  Read More

Tech startup Neurovigil announced last April that Stephen Hawking was testing the potential of its iBrain device to allow the astrophysicist to communicate through brainwaves alone. Next week Professor Hawking and iBrain inventor, Dr Philip Low from Stanford University, present their findings at the Francis Crick Memorial Conference in Cambridge, England. In anticipation, Gizmag spoke to Dr Low about the potential applications of the iBrain.  Read More

Children in the First World have a lot of choice when it comes to scientific toys. In fact, there are whole stores devoted to selling things like robotics kits, ant farms, and simple microscopes. In the developing world, however, such fancy toys are relatively scarce. So, what's an adult to do if they want to get the local children interested in the sciences? Well, in the case of Arvind Gupta, they show the kids how to make scientific toys from trash.  Read More

The near concurrent rise of Kickstarter and semi-affordable 3D printing means we live in a time when it is easier than ever to be an inventor of physical things. Gizmag spoke at length to David Alden, whose spring-loaded Recoil Winder cable management device clearly struck a chord raising more than 14 times the original US$10,000 investment target. Both Kickstarter and 3D printing may have been essential to the development of the Recoil Winder, but Alden's story also demonstrates the need for good old-fashioned perseverance.  Read More

It's easy to look back at the history of exploration and aviation and feel like there's no mountains left to climb, that the age of the great pioneers is behind us and we're doomed to a future of LCD tanning and monitor hypnosis. But don't try telling that to Pascal Chretien. On August 12, this electrical/aerospace engineer and helicopter pilot took to the air in the world's first untethered, fully electric manned helicopter flight in a prototype machine that he designed and built almost entirely by himself within a 12 month development period. In his 2 minute, 10 second test flight, Chretien beat aviation giant Sikorsky into the record books - but it was not without significant risk. As the man himself puts it: "in case of crash I stand good chances to end up in kebab form."  Read More