Scott Augustine, a doctor and inventor, has decided that he wants hospitals to stop using a device he created during certain operations, claiming that it may increase the risk to the patients. His creation is the Bair Hugger, which keeps patients warm during surgery and creates less bleeding and faster recovery. The unit uses forced air that runs through hoses into a cover over the patient. Now Dr. Augustine claims that the invention is a danger in certain cases where patients are receiving implants, because the warm air can spread bacteria faster. He also says he has created a new similar device that more resembles an electric blanket without using any forced air. Coincidentally (or maybe not) the Dr. is no longer an investor in the Bair Hugger, and he is solely focused on his new project, called the HotDog.
A new trend called augmented reality (AR) has allowed technology-inspired artists to hide or delete company logos from your view as you walk the malls, or stroll down the sidewalk. You can simply pick up a set of smart glasses, or peer through a smartphone camera, and choose to have advertising and logos replaced with photos, artwork, or just erased completely and have the background filled back in. There are 4 leading personnel who are pushing this field.
- Jeff Crouse is a New York artist who has designed the program Unlogo. It can detect corporate logos and replace them with photos, in a video stream using a computer-vision system. His project is still in development, but his ultimate goal is to have a video camera filter that can clean up the look of your home movies.
- Julian Oliver is an artist from Berlin, and he has created Artvertiser, which uses a set of binoculars with a camera in them, and it will replace billboards with famous artwork.
- Mark Skwarek is a New York artist who made a smartphone app called The Leak In Your Home Town. Anytime you view a BP logo, it will replace it with an animation of a leaking oil pipe. He self describes it as legal and non-destructive graffiti.
- Jan Herling is from the University of Technology in Ilmanau, Germany. He is working on software that will delete objects and back fill the area with the natural background. This can be used for deleting a logo out of a family photo, a electrical outlet from a wall, or a telephone pole from a landscape. He calls this “diminished reality.”
40 years ago this month, Bernard D. Sadow came up with the brilliant idea of putting small wheels on heavy bags, and pulling them around instead of carrying them. The idea struck him in 1970 while he was carrying two heavy suitcases through a terminal on a family vacation. He saw an airline worker go by rolling a heavy machine on a wheeled skid, and the light-bulb went on. When he went back to work at his company (which happened to make luggage), he took casters off his wardrobe trunk, put them on a big suitcase, and put a strap on the top. He received his patent under “rolling luggage” in 1972.
The insane part is that it was not an instant success. He went on many sales calls, bringing his rolling prototype to department stores all over the US. Many people felt it was a man’s job to carry the heavy luggage, it was a macho thing. But finally Macy’s ordered some, and once they advertised them, the market grew quickly. Mr. Sadow’s idea was further refined by pilot Robert Plath in 1987, who modified the 4 rolling wheel design to the now standard 2 wheels and long collapse-able handle, termed a Rollaboard. Initially these were only sold to flight crew personnel, but once passengers got a glimpse, the market grew yet again. Now we are all waiting to see what the next big breakthrough will be, hopefully teleporters.
Fraser Stoddart of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois has lead a team in the discovery of a crystalline material that can store hydrogen in fuel-cell cars. The recipe is safe, even edible, using sugar, alcohol, salt, and water. This simple formula produces molecular cages that are linked from chains of carbon, oxygen and hydrogen atoms, along with metal ions. These metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) bond weakly with the hydrogen atoms, therefore they can be easily recovered by heating the material slightly.
Normal tanks are impractical for holding hydrogen in quantities needed to give fuel-cell cars a long enough range for daily driving. Specialty tanks would need to be chilled to -250°C to hold liquid hydrogen, or would need to be more than tripled in size to hold compressed hydrogen gas. Most MOFs in the past have been produced from organic molecules from oil, which can be toxic and hard to make. This new breakthrough allows MOFs to be made from simple and easily acquired materials. The molecular cages form cubes, with each side made of a ring of glucose molecules. The process allows the molecules to aggregate into cubes that are held together by metallic ions, such as potassium. Then, when the alcohol and water is removed, the left over material is stable, and very spacious. In fact, 1 gram has enough surface area to cover more than 6 tennis courts. This is just another large step towards producing a viable alternative to combustion engines for public transportation.
Here are 3 featured items from many new creations, displayed at the recent SIGGRAPH Computer Graphics and Animation Conference, in Los Angeles in July.
1. Simulated Taste. Not long from now, you may be able to take a cookie, and choose the flavor before you take the first bite. There is not a lot being developed to make computers simulate human taste, and a big reason is that taste is created from many factors working together, including vision, smell, and memories. Tajuki Narumi is the head of a team from Univ of Tokyo in Japan, and they created a device worn on the head that transform a plain cookie into seven different flavors, using augmented reality and smells from an air pump to trick the senses.
2. Interactive Tabletop. A lamp that can turn your desk surface into an interactive map. Li-Wei Chan from the National Taiwan University in Taipei created the device that will allow several people to look at the same image, and get further information about the areas that each is interested in. Viewers can zoom in to specific areas by positioning the lamp device over them. It combines an infrared projector and a standard color projector to simultaneously project both visible content and invisible markers onto a table surface. The lamp has infrared cameras and uses hidden markers to locate its position in three dimensions, then uses this information to control the projection of high-res images onto the correct place.
3. Furry Computer. Yuichi Itoh of Osaka University in Japan has made a device using optical fibers to create a surface that feels furry. Itoh is project manager of Fusa2, a display with it’s surface covered in optical fibers. Humans naturally want to stroke furry objects, so when you stroke the Fusa2 display, it changes colors, creating “stroke marks.” The fiber optics have many infrared LEDs, and underneath the display, half the fiber are connected to a camera, while the other half are connected to a projector. When you stroke the fibers, the infrared radiation is reflected, and then travels down the fibers to the camera, which is then sent to a computer, which then tells the projector to shine colored light up through the other fibers to create colored stroke marks. Itoh hopes to use his device for everything from digital signage, to soccer stadium turfs. The possibilities are endless.
Invented by Walter D., an Invention Resource International client, The Decorative Helmet Finial For A Newel is a decorative, crafted helmet made to emphasize the apex of a newel post, handrail, gate entrance, mailbox or other entryway posts on a business or home.
As an additional consideration, the product could feature a hole in the top of the helmet to house a citronella candle, or a hinged or removable top to open for use as an outdoor ashtray. Another consideration is for use as a paperweight or the bottom could be magnetized so that it could be displayed on a vehicle at a tailgate party.
For A Newel is a decorative, crafted helmet made to emphasize
the apex of a newel post, handrail, gate entrance, mailbox or other
entryway posts on a business or home.
Invented by Connie B., an Invention Resource International client, The Conia Curling Iron Safety Case is a specially treated heat resistant plastic case that permits the immediate storage of a user’s hot curling iron after use. The design intent is to allow the user to effectively store a potentially dangerous curling iron in a safe case to prevent injury.
Invented by Peter G., an Invention Resource International client, the Crecent Putter is a specially designed golf putter made to increase any player’s efficiency. A convex shaped putting surface reduces the amount of surface area that contacts the ball, thus reducing the amount of user error effecting the ball direction.
Regardless of their skill level, player’s equipped with the Crescent Putter will consistently see better results in their short game. Best of all, the putter’s design does conform to USGA rules!