Popular Mechanics Awards Technological Innovation

PreacherTom writes "Every year, Popular Mechanics attempts to find the most innovative tech products and hand out a little notoriety. This year's honorees range from everyday items like a $17 Crescent RapidSlide wrench, which puts a new, faster spin on an already well-designed tool, to a high-end Lexus that can virtually park itself. PM took an extra step by honoring innovators in science, having solicited nominations from a board of editorial advisers that includes Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin and Dr. Amy Smith, a professor at MIT. Winners include Burt Rutan (of SpaceShipTwo fame) and Angela Belcher (for her work with virus nanofabrication)."

Comments

Submission standards slipping

[MECC]

How the hell does a /. submission get accepted about a popular mechanics article that has a link to businessweek.com instead of a link to the article at the popular mechanics website? There have got to be better submissions to choose from. /. seems to be going downhill like bad water these days.

Forget the fact that businessweek.com is one of the most poorly designed and annoying web sites on the internet. To be avoided by anyone who might want to actually read something without grinding their teeth flat.

not innovation--try some real innovation

[m0llusk]

Briefly:

1. Portably XM radio with record: Portable XM radio is common, recording is not a difficult extension and could be improvised, but might be better done with a desktop running timed recorder software. Eh.
2. Low Sulfur diesel car incrementally improved over those that have been available for decades marketed to the $35k-$65k range which only has significant volume because of the global credit/assets bubble. Eh.
3. Powerful pruners have a little chainsaw in them, but existing tools are better for doing pruning according to accepted standards. Specifically, when cutting branches large enough for this tool to be useful, they tend to break away and rip open the cut in an ugly way. The proper time proven method for avoiding this is to start with preparation cuts in specific places in order to control how the branch falls away once it begins to loose strength. This tool is poorly suited for making these kinds of controlled standard cuts. Eh.
4. Car parks itself for $55k-$77k. Again, apart from the current credit/asset bubble most people will not be driving in these cars, and the technology is just an incremental improvement of what has been around for decades. Eh.
5. Sliding crescent wrench may not be a superior tool to existing crescent wrenches or vice grips. Eh.
6. WiFi Skype phones incrementally improve what used to require a mini-laptop. Eh.
7. Furnace and generator combo is marginally more efficient for large outlay in up front costs and space for installation. Eh.
8. Big TV with internet linkage. This is another linkage concept like TVs with VCRs in them or phones with answering machines. As long as the costs are minimal it does not really matter, so why tout it, and if the costs are significant then it is a bummer because it is harder to fix, upgrade, or swap out the different components which are now physically linked just because they are intended to be used together. Eh.
9. Smart LEGO Robots are an incremental improvement over the last smart LEGO robots. Eh.
10. Sawstop prevents some of the more horrific accidents possible with table saws by using straightforward technology that was demonstrated long ago but is only being released now because of the greedy machinations of the lawyer-inventor guy. Eh.

All of this is just incremental stuff, hardly any real improvement, and much at price levels that ordinary people should be smart enough to realize they simply cannot afford. If you want some real innovation try making something trusted work as it is needed, or even better yet try to do without all the latest gizmos. This could be the most important innovation of all since Affluenza is an empty experience and Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, has assured us that the future strength of nations globally is strongly related to their saving habits. Real innovation and empowerment, or the curse of some junk that will weight down your budget without providing genuine utility. The choice is yours.