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Inventions of 2001
oo7tushar writes: "Time has a list of the Inventions of 2001. They've got a list of some very impressive inventions. They've got the inventions, a short description, prices/costs, and a link to the websites. On the list is the Abiocor Artificial Heart, Millennium Bridge, EZ-Rocket, a very sweet light weight fuel-cell bike with good mileage and a whole bunch of other very high tech toys, gadgets, vehicles, robots, and medical technology. A good read and very interesting."
You mean Ginger?
I remember the guy who invented it coming out and saying it wasn't as big a deal as people were making it out to be, and then various news sites got hold of patent applications for a small scooter with pictures of Brady Bunch-era teens riding it. It was all downhill after that.
I want my flying cars, jet packs, all those neat toys.
But I can do with the 1950s predictions of what year 2001 fashions would be like. and I certainly wouldn't want to do space navigation by slide rule and "dead reckoning"
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Right here.
I vote for "slugbot".
That's just what the world needs - meat-eating robots....
>
Don't these people watch Sci-Fi movies? What were they thinking?
I don't see why that should be so impressive. It's been around for a long time now in the form of the e-bike (www.ebike.com) The one in the article seems to have basically the same specs as the older model e-bike, which I happen to have regretfully bought. It's way too heavy for practical use and the battery and motor can't handle marginally steep inclines. The battery dies very quickly if you aren't simply on flat or downward sloping hills and given its weight, should you run out of power, pedalling is very very tiring.
Wow, it turns out you don't even have to have an actual invention to win "Invention of the Year". There are ZERO details about Ginger...just a name and a reputation, yet somehow this still qualifies. Next year I am entering "Doofus" into the mix. It is a revolutionary invention. Really. Trust me. Going to change the world forever.
You are SO wrong!
Had you bothered to read the bloody article, you would have seen that the Millennium Bridge they are talking about is the one in Gateshead over the Tyne.
The bridge you mentioned is the one over the Thames, which has been closed now for ages because on its opening day it started swaying from side to side as people walked over it. It's a pile of crap like most of Blair's other Millennium Projects (Don't get me started on the Dome!!!).
The Gateshead bridge mentioned in the Time article which you so obviously didn't bother to read is a marvellously designed piece of work.
You can read more about the Gateshead bridge here.
"Information wants to be paid"
I bet the artificial liver doesn't taste as nice with some fava beans and a nice chianti...
The current issue of Popular Science has a similar article. It's "the hundred best products and technologies" of the past year.
daed si luap
Frivilous and predatory patent filings for all of these inventions by J. Random Mega Corp in 2002. And probably for the crystal ball as well.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
It going to revolutionise the way we work, I know its true. Bill said so. I don't need a command line, I need a telly tubby skin. I must have a voice controlled jukebox. And I don't want to interoperate with anyone. Bill is my friend, Bill invents
XP is the greatest invention of this or any time.
Its true I tell you. The wheel is nothing in comparison with XP. Fire is just a footnote to the chapters historians will dedicate to the wonder that is XP and how it changed the face of digital communication.
Oh yes all the voices agree, XP is the best because Bill says so.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
Bezos? I thought it was Dean Kamen. With the economic downturn & our recent Jihad run-in, I think the VCs are gonna be skittish for a little while longer. Too bad, I'm really curious about this Ginger thing...
"What is the sound of one belly slapping?"
remote desktop: work remotely with graphical apps
multimedia: play dvd's, burn cdr's
nice GUI: lots of aqua-colored blue-ish gui stuff
and many many more innovative stuff which make you forget how computers worked... etc, etc, etc...
Wow, after the amazing biotech advances we have a motor-powered scooter, a motor-powered surfboard, a motor-powered IT. These are certainly insignificant.
A motor-powered scooter is called a scooter. A motor-powered surfboard is called a jet ski or a boat. These aren't new nor noteworthy. They are, in fact, furthering America's ambition to remove all exercise from their life and let the machine do the work (I am, BTW, an overweight, underexercised American, too).
I think they should have trimmed their list a bit.
where do you get more?
;-). And the day the world runs out of water, we're going to be worried about more than how to power your laptop...
Simple - water (what did you think H2O stood for?
Grab.
Yeah, it's listed on Time as well. Apparently the details that were leaked made a lot of people nervous and some major investors pulled out.
Another thing was the book deal that Dean Kamen made with Steve Kemper (Harvard Business School). Kemper leaked what could have been details; in the book proposal and that caused Dean to become very quiet about the whole matter.
In fact we still don't know what project Ginger could be. I could very well be something like Ginger from the Civilisation Earth series (by Harry Turtledove, a continuation of the World War series). to time
internet like monkeys'
The Dockers... what a plug! Putting an extra pocket on pants is nothing new, hidden or not hidden, zipper or no zipper. This is like calling Kangaroo shoes a great new technology, even though nobody wears them anymore...
~ now you know
Motorized Surfboard?
Hydrogen powered Scooter?
Flying Boat?
StreetCarver?
Since when does strapping an engine on something make it a great invention?
I attached a tokomak reactor to my mousepad, where can I pick up my trophy?
Saw this little gadget and instantly thought "Finally! I can get my caffeine with out all that bothersome coffee and Mountaing Dew making me pee all the time."
Or, may be not...
Soko
"Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
but where are all the less physical inventions? Surely someone invented a new type process that affects our day to day lives... this list of greatest inventions is neet, but its all eye-candy. There are very few listed there which really meet the parameter that Time describes as being important to their list: "how it changes our lives." There are a few there: the artificial heart, the cooling pot, etc. But the automatic mashed potato maker???! Give me a break. That is pure consumerism. What have we learned after 9/11? Nothing? Where are the inventions that help alleviate economic and environmental disasters? What about things that help education in poorer countries? What about tools that make new industries possible, therefore creating jobs?
Helping with organizational effectiveness is our job.
i hope that's tounge in cheek...
.... and reverse that for fuel cells.
2H20 + electricity -> 2H2 + 02
the only way to 'destroy' hydrogen is through fusion. remember that pesky rule of thumb about conservation of mass/energy?
try this link, it's more informative than my little summary.
http://www.howstuffworks.com/fuel-cell.htm
A: None. The Universe spins the bulb, and the Zen master merely stays out of the way.
It's clearly the "list" time of year: The bottom five of 2001.
Who the hell would want a Fuel Cell mountain bike?
I want a Fuel Cell Harley, but I think the 'Harley Rumble' might have to be an MP3.
"I can't give you a brain, so I'll give you a diploma" - The Great Oz (blatently stolen sig)
As pleased as I am to see some serious private rocket development, I am astounded to see that EZ-Rocket, in 2001, has yet to reach the same level of capability of rocket planes built during the late 1930's and early 1040s's.
Yes, you read that right. They are just now getting to the level of technology that the Germans (especially the Germans), the US, and the Russians had before and during WWII.
Why has private rocket development been held up for 60 years!
Stonewolf
Wrong bridge. The one that sways is in London, this is 200 miles away (its quite far in the little old UK) in Newcastle. I live near this bridge. And its very impressive. Best part of it (imho) is the fact its so well balanced it only costs GBP1.30 (approx $1.8) to raise and lower it, something it does about 2 or 3 times a day.
http://twitter.com/onion2k
It's truely sad that Ginger was listed as one of the inventions of the year when no one even knows for sure what It(TM) is, or if It(TM) even works. The blind leading the stupid.
Kind thoughts do not change the world
Actually, I wouldn't mind programmable jumpsuits with a wireless interface, so that they could be programmed to whatever color scheme and configuration that made sense to me. Of course, in my case, setting the damn thing to transparency mode would get me landed in jail for terrorizing the public.
The wireless interface offers other interesting hacking possibilities.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
But tucked inside its waist seams and hidden behind zippers on the legs are three extra mesh-lined pockets for stashing everything from your cell phone to your PDA.
Boggle. Boggle again. Barf.
Since when having extra pockets in pants counts as an invention, and more, worthy of mentioning as one of the inventions of 2001?
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
Patents are supposed to cover inventions, eh? Seems like this Time site is the best refutation yet of software and business method patents. Common sense says invetions are seomthing you can touch. Greed says an invention is whatever greed can get away with. Politicians of course agree with whatever pile of money is the biggest.
Infuriate left and right
how about that totally cool japanese nurse suit with motors to help them carry heavy people? I saw an article here; I can't find the URL, but I want one of those to fight crime (or destroy the world, haven't pick a side yet)
--
Stay tuned for some shock and awe coming right up after this messages!
The item I'm most likely to buy personally would be the Steri-pen, or maybe the mashed-potato machine. I already own a natural-spectrum lamp, have done so for well over a year, as have thousands of other people, so I'm not sure how innovative I'd call it.
The gyroplane looks really cool too. Why isn't the military all over this concept, instead of pouring money into the black hole that is the Osprey project?
But the winner, for me, is the food cooling system. It's ultra-low-tech, but it's likely to make the biggest difference in parts of the world where food storage is a very real problem with very real human and economic effects.
Slashdot - News for Herds. Stuff that Splatters.
...well, make that sufficient hindsight. Who knew what a big deal the stirrup and the interrupted-screw breech were going to be in military technology? More to the point, when Linus did his thing with a roll-yer-own Unix clone kernel ten years ago, how many people knew what a big deal it was going to be?
The great thing about the advent of the Web is it's going to more easily (I hope) let us track these kinds of lists for reference later, when the historians research the history of technology. But for now, it's hard to look at recent developments and say which ones are going to stick around, and which of those are going to be really influential, this close in time to their inception. Only sufficient passage of time will reveal which ones were (are) important.
"How many light bulbs does it take to change a person?" --BMcC-->
There's a driver at the controls. One of his/her controls is a brake. Problem solved. You are now free to freak out about something else.
(Could be I'm missing their point, but I don't understand why they need the bus to be self-steering if there's gonna be a driver anyway.)
BTW, I was in a hardware store the other day, and they were selling box-cutters! Box-cutters, right out there in the open where any terrorist could have bought as many as they wanted. No permit needed, no waiting-period, nobody checking anybody's papers, nothing. Are those people living in the '90's, or what?
The way the wireless battery packs work are actually pretty cool.
Firstly, the big problem with any implanted device is the power requirement, and that it's a major health risk to leave things poking through the skin.
So, to power implanted devices (there are a number of newer pacemakers that also work in this manner), there is a coil of wires implanted into the skin (it's actually wrapped in plastic, and place in the subcutaneus layer). Then this is wired up to a rechargeable battery implanted elsewhere (generally tucked between the base of the lung and the stomach). Over the skin where the wire is implanted, a complementary coil is placed, and the current is transferred by magnetic induction.
There is one major problem of this system, and that's the limit to current transfer that's possible. However, it turns out that the maximum current before unaccepable heating effects isn't that much greater.
So this external battery pack will be in something like a bum bag, and a patch over the coils (they stick by magenetism).
In reality, the issue of power, and heat dissipation is the major barrier to implanted components, along with lack of space.
This whole article is really just a fluffy, throwaway advertising supplement. Pants with *gasp* pockets?! A smoke detector with a remote control?! I agree, not significant. I like how they provided links to the manufacturers too. Just advertising, I suppose they threw the Millenium Bridge and the artificial heart in just to generate credibility.
O'Connor hopes that someday "mashed-potato machines will be for Americans what rice cookers are for Asians."
Heh. For a lot of geeks, I suspect rice cookers are already de rigeur for those times when ramen just won't cut it. I sure wouldn't replace mine with a mashed-potato maker!
Freedom: "I won't!"
More to the point, the prototype hasn't flown yet. When we see movie footage of the thing taking off, doing a quick once-around-the-block, and landing under its own steam, *then* get excited :)
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
The link to Agion in the article was wrong, so check up on it here. And here's the 'shoe''s'. I'd personally like to see some running shoes with this shit, but whatever.
[o]_O