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Steve Wozniak Honors Innovative Inventors
DigitalDame2 writes "Steve Wozniak, co-inventor of the Apple personal computer (along with Steve Jobs), hosted the first annual Modern Marvels Invent Now Challenge. Wozniak's favorite invention is one that shows where to clip your dog's claws without injuring the dog. The Strawjet, a creation that weaves straw left over from a harvest into building materials, won the grand prize."
I'm down with the dog clipping invention. Man, has anyone hit the dogs skin under the nail? That thing bleeds FOREVER.
[%] Cingular Ringtones
Wozniak should honor Bill Gates. He invented Windows!
Liberals call everyone Nazis yet they are the closest thing to it.
>The Strawjet, a creation that weaves straw left over from a harvest into building materials, won the grand prize."
The firm of Rumpelstiltskin & Co. has filed a lawsuit against David R. Ward, claiming patent infringement and misappropriation of trade secrets.
Steve Wozniak, co-inventor of the Apple personal computer (along with Steve Jobs)
Err, as far as I know Woz made the computer, and Jobs decided he would market it. I'm having a very hard time imagining Jobs getting down and dirty with a soldering iron, since he's more of a talker and Woz is the guy who invented a computer just for the hell of it.
Co-founder of Apple Computer Inc. would've been more like it.
I enjoy large posteriors and I cannot prevaricate.
here is the real link without any of the middlemen leeching pageviews off a 100 word summary and 100 adverts per page (and they wonder why people block adverts)
http://www.historychannel.com/invent/?page=winner
Here is the webstie for the strawjet invention actually one the contest. http://www.greeninventor.org/index.shtml I have to say this is one ingenious idea for third world countries to make cheap housing. You grow your food and whatever waste you produce is used to produce houses.
Ooo man the floppy drive is broken. No wait. The computer is just upside down.
Yeah, that local anaesthesia sure helps prevent involuntary amputation.
Won't Apple get mad?
Listen p*ssy. I'm sure your the same homo that posted earlier about alf's boner and you just want to remain anonymous fo
Windows is OK, but the real hero is Al Gore for inventing the internet. How else would we get free music?
Thanks Al!
I'll probably be modded down for this...
yes, but this guy did it with science!!
Innovative Inventors? That's repetitively redundant.
These inventions pale in comparison to the likes of a bicycle with a seat on the handlebars and extra pedals, and a wig which wicks perspiration, as seen on American Inventor. Pretty much anyone could create a dog nail clipper, but it takes true genius to develop a toilet lid with a filter which prevents contaminates from getting sprayed all over the rest of the toilet using good old fashioned magic.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
I guess you never bothered to read any of Steve Wozniak's books, and would prefer to invent history.
Woz makes it clear in his writings that Woz was THE engineer behind the Apple I and II. Woz also made it clear that Jobs loved technology, could get down and dirty with a soldering iron, and had the ability to bring a successful product together.
Woz was in his mid twenties at the time, and Jobs was in his late teens.
To call Jobs a tag-a-long is not only demeaning; it is untrue according to the key people who were there. To label Jobs a mere marketeer or a salesman is a fantasy of those who are jealous of his capability and success.
You tell 'em, Steve.
And that would be the Apple II computer.
Woz, in fact, invented it while he was working at HP. He went to HP to see if they wanted to market the new invention, and they said no. But they had the good grace of letting Woz to do it on his own if he wanted. So he quitted his job and teamed up with Jobs to found Apple Computer
Whatever happened with Woz's GPS startup? Did it ever go anywhere?
--
make install -not war
I heard Microsoft bought out Strawjet - which must be true I guess since the Rumpelstiltskin model you mentioned turned out gold. Microsoft worked its usual magic and now we have a product that turns straw into, well, more straw. But well arranged straw.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
glad to see CEOs are rockstars again.
Actually, I expressed the idea that it was my personal favorite because I am a great dog lover (contribute lots to rescue and care for pets) and an easy to use invention like this means a lot if it saves the dogs pain. it's a very simple idea using paper hat changes color with temperature.
I spent a full 3 hours talking with all 25 semifinalists in depth. It meant a lot to them. There were some very good inventions there and some that may revolutionize industries. A robot that builds a house in a day may offer homebuilding at 1/5 the cost, for example. Only about 2 of the devices really used electronics. Most of the inductees in the Invertors Hall of Fame have invented things outside of what we computer types consider. Still, the members of this Hall and the inventors of this contest share a similar personality and similar stories. It was one of the best times of my life to talk to such inventors before they have money or greed, and to hear their stories.
One finalist was a simple laser and light addition to a nutdriver. The inventor came up with a desire to achieve this solution when she was 9 years old and her father needed for her to hold a flashlight. One man invented a remote control on the reins of a horse to steer and stop it remotely. He's a real strong cowboy type, fun to talk to. He may not be a technical genious, but like many of us worked hard to achieve a device that was his passion to create. I spoke with the neice of the winning inventor and she told how for 9 years, back to when she was 14 years old, he talked about wanting to develop this building material made of wasted straw.
As a judge I had read descriptions of the various inventions. I had also seen the 25 semifinalist exhibits on display in Los Angelas, the first city a tour of those exhibits hit. But you get a more complete picture of an invention being a combination of a device and a person. This is true of such inventions that come out of want and passion and lack of money, instead of out of well funded company projects.
These are not the sort of people to criticize or challenge. They were all so incredibly wonderful. Did anyone at all who is contributing to this Slashdot item even attend the day-long exhibition or awards ceremony in Grand Central Station on Tuesday? The winners werr culled from 3400 invertion submissions. Even the ones that got passed over may have been greater ones. Any of them could have been given the grand award. We will see many of these devices in our own lives.
When this project started I had 2 choices. I could take a [presumably] high paid job to judge on American Inventor, or whatever that reality TV show was named. The producers said I'd have to be like a Simon Cowell type and criticize the inventors. Or I could do this voluntary judging for the National Inventors Hall of Fame (non-profit) and the History Channel. I took the high integrity one.
Also, when it comes to the start of Apple, I did not just get dirty with a soldering iron. I conceived and created every bit of the hardware and software of the early Apple products. I wasn't asked to go into the lab and design it. The design came first and the company was an afterthought and not something that I even pursued myself.
OK a new size TV
A bit more information about the dogs-claw-cutter-helper-thing is available at http://www.uoguelph.ca/atguelph/06-04-19/features. shtml.
I loved the Inventors Hall of Fame (History Channel?) exhibit at the Museum of Science in Boston. Do you think that Quad Zipper will be a hit? Jacket = Parachute 4 Sky Dive.
As crazy as American Inventor made inventive people look, it also showed the classic examples of the traps inventors can fall into, and that an idea takes good execution to become a reality. Doug Hall did that in sometimes startling (some might say rude) fashion, but I think showed the harsh business side of how critical one must be to avoid the pitfalls of merely falling in love with an idea -to the detriment of developing their invention more successfully- and failing that, move on. You'll have more ideas, and some will hit, some won't. Some will be before their time, and others might be copied. You know that better than most people in this community.
I think many of us have a tendency to want our inventions to adapt themselves to our initial vision and be accepted by all, but the reality is that the finished product might be quite different from what we started out with. I just had to grimace when I heard stories of people spending huge sums of cash (one finalist spent $80K on a game proto) and other costly missteps (time, money, mental anguish) and misconceptions that first-time inventors have without an experienced support system, like an inventors organization, to learn from. http://www.inventne.org/
Some inventors lost sight of the fact that the search was for a great American Inventor, but also (and especially) an invention that has Mass Market appeal to sell to "everyone in America." Well, at least a very large diverse group of people. Many of the semi-finalists were very determined to not change their designs, which they had worked on so hard and for many years, eschewing the advice of the design teams who were charged with helping them improve their inventions. But some were open to suggestions, and showed a true inventive/entrepreneurial spirit. And they had great stories of where they came from and what they wanted to do, not just for themselves, but to affect others in a positive way. It's a shame the show started out so American Freak-ish, and turned off a lot of potential serious viewers just so they could get a laugh at the inventors' expense. And some were *really* laughable. The finalists, however, showed the tenacity, ingenuity, adaptability and heart necessary to be a great American Inventor, and that to me was worth seeing.
<
<shamelessAdoration> And lest I forget, thanks for all the great work you do for education and FIRST. Maybe one day you'll be judging *my* (future) NonProfit's contests.
Now where's that MacBook Mini?
Peace. Thanks for playing,
Peter
Everyone knows building straw houses is a bad idea, 'cause of the big bad wolf and all...
Visit http://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/growingbettersoftware to download your free copy of the book
Oh, wait...
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
I'm familiar with Photoshop, but what does this mean?
Nice, but isn't it like, very flammable?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Woz, your handiwork led me to become the geek I am today.
Thank you for the Apple II. I'll never forget those wonky graphics modes, created that way just to save a few chips. Or the sound of that beep. Or writing 6502 in the mini-assembler because I couldn't afford commercial assemblers. Or writing silly games in INTBASIC.
You're my hero, and I don't have many of those. Thank you.
-Z
I can't help but wonder if there would be efective air exchange in buildings made of Strawjet pannels. From the FAQ:
"Yes straw burns, but StrawCore panels do not. There two reasons why they will not burn;
* The plasters that are used throughout the panels have a high mineral content which render them nonflammable.
* Unlike conventional construction there are no wall cavities, which would otherwise facilitate combustion inside the wall."
This panels seem to be pretty airtight, but effective air exchange supports the safety, comfort, and well-being of building occupants.
Hi Steve,
:)
:)
I am glad to see you still read slashdot and feel honoured that I get the chance to write something that you might actually read.
I am wondering what your viewpoint is on the subject of nonapple computers running osx86.
I don't know if you have seen it running on non Apple hardware but given the right hardware it works very well indeed.
I'd really like to buy OSX86 and run it legally on non-Apple hardware and I think there is quite a large number of people doing so already. One specialist site has around 24,000 members already all trying to achieve this and I think a large proportion of them would be quite happy to pay for the OS if Apple were prepared to sell it to them.
There is a huge base of people working to get OSX86 running on a wide range of hardware. Theres 2 ways of looking at them really pirates or evangelists currently I think Apple see's them as pirates, however they are actually a group of people who will in fact grow Apples market share.
In the windows world there are a large number of users who understand very little and a smaller group of people who get called upon to sort out the others problems. probably most slashdot members are called upon to sort out friends and relatives and co workers PC's on a fairly regular basis. To be honest it sucks up a lot of our free time.
Now for the general windows users, technical minded people who can sort out windows problems are essential, we save thier data kill thier viri, clean the malware and provide the unofficial support network that these people need.
Without the support a lot of them would drown in issues regarding windows, the revolutionary thing about osx86 is now the same people who have been supporting windows (for far too long) can now gain experience of OSX and will soon be providing help for Apple users when they need some help.
It's a revolution 2006 is the start of something new, windows is not the only game in town anymore I think there can be a huge jump in marketshare for apple if apple will let us hardcore computer geeks get familiar with OSX and plug it at every opportunity. Each PC Clone is different, OSX86 runs with varying success on nonApple hardware. For the run of the mill computer user, running OSX will mean running it on Apple branded hardware.
non-apple hardware is for the geek in someones life
So already there is an army of geeks getting into OSX for the first time in thier lives and wanting to be able to be legitimate.
I'd love to hear your opinion on this. It's a great time to be into computers Mr Gates and Mr Balmer have had control of the desktop computer market for far too long linux and OSX have been minor irritations just big enough to say no we don't have a monopoly on the desktop. Linux has always been too hard for the average user, Apple hardware too expensive. Now something new is happening in the space of an hour or two a Windows PC Clone can become a MAC Clone running OSX. Users can switch and still keep XP to fall back on. Seriously right now Apple can make a few million just by allowing liciences to be issued for osx on non apple hardware just from people running it now.
lets be honest here doesnt it give you a buzz just to think of several million PC's running Windows XP switching over to OSX. suddenly the bottom falls out of Microsofts user base. Vista becomes a white Elephant 5 years development and no one wants it. OSX market share goes through the roof. Hardware manufacturers clamour to be able to make drivers so thier hardware is OSX compatible. Don't you just want to see the value of microsoft plummit
and apple soar - It can happen.
Maybe this is Apples Game plan already, whats happening now is seeds are being sown for the revolution. Perhaps you know already and to say anything now would spoil the surprise.
Anyway thankyou for reading this and I hope you find we do indeed live in interesting times
Blarney Quality Restaurant, Plants
Shameless post just to say I posted on a Woz thread...
You don't seem like the Simon Cowell type, nor do most people I know for that matter though. And the History Channel is about all I watch, so I look forward to seeing this.
Thanks for everything, I wouldn't be where I'm at today without you.
~S
*sigh* Where to begin?
First, TFA does contain an inaccuracy: Steve Jobs did NOT co-invent the Apple; he only cofounded Apple Computer. He does deserve credit as being a driving force behind Apple's business plans and strategies.
However, the true inventor of the Apple was Wozniak, aka "The Woz," without whom Apple would never exist. We're talking about a guy who as a kid grew up *dreaming* about designs for computers, the sort of youngster who probably would've gotten into amateur radio in an earlier age. He literally built the first Apple from the ground up -- underlying logic, physical layout, firmware programming, everything.
I strongly recommend that you check out the book "Hackers" by Steven Levy, which chronicles (among many other things) the exploits of Wozniak during the heyday of the home computer revolution. The stories of his practical jokes alone are priceless!
"All hands, BRACE FOR IMPACT!"
Here in Europe we use these curious artificial stones. Baked rocks. Usually shortened to "bricks".
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."