Time’s 50 Best Inventions of 2009.

Annually, TIME picks the best new gadgets and breakthrough ideas of the year.  This year’s list was recently published here.  According to TIME, the top 5 inventions in 2009  include: 1) The NASA’s Ares Rockets; 2)  The Tank-Bred Tuna; 3) The $10 Million Lightbulb; 4) The Smart Thermostat; and 5) Controller-Free Gaming.

The full top-50 list, plus the 5 worst inventions of 2009, may be viewed here.

Edge of Discovery.

CNN operates an interesting website titled “Edge of Discovery“.  The website has the following tagline:

Around the globe — and throughout the universe — innovations are not only creating breakthroughs in technology but changing the way we live our daily lives. Discoveries are expanding how we explore science, technology, medicine and space.

The website has a number of interesting articles, including video articles,  about inventions and other innovations.  Check it out!

Futurist and Author Arthur C. Clarke Dead at 90.

Arthur C. Clarke, celebrated science fiction writer with more than 100 books on space, science and the future, died this past week at the age of 90. Clarke had been a spot-on visionary on a number of technologies, including the principles of satellite communication with satellites in geostationary orbits and the development of a “global library” (sound familiar, anyone?). On the entertainment front, Clarke is probably best known for writing the short story later developed into the Stanley Kubrick-directed 2001: A Space Odyssey.

On a personal note, I hold a special place for Arthur C. Clarke as one of the sci-fi authors instrumental in seeding my interest in science and technology . . . arguably leading directly to my present career as a patent attorney. I know a number of scientists and engineers who were similarly drawn to the sciences at an early age by reading works of science fiction by acclaimed authors Clarke, Asimov, Heinlein, and the like. 

If you are interested in any of Clarke’s fictional works, the following are highly recommended:

• 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
• Rendezvous with Rama (1972)
• The Fountains of Paradise (1979)
• 2010: Odyssey Two (1982)
• 2061: Odyssey Three (1988)
• Rama II (1989) (with Gentry Lee)
• Beyond the Fall of Night (1990) (with Gregory Benford)
• The Garden of Rama (1991) (with Gentry Lee)
• Rama Revealed (1993) (with Gentry Lee)
• The Hammer of God (1993)
• 3001: The Final Odyssey (1997)

The Invention of the Peacemaker.

  

On this day in history in 1836, the American inventor and industrialist Samuel Colt received a patent for a “revolving gun”, of which a popular later version was nicknamed the “Peacemaker.” 

Mr. Colt had exhibited an early aptitude for mechanical innovation, and first applied for a patent on his revolver at the age of 18.  He obtained his first patent in England, and his first U.S. patent issued in 1836 as patent number 6909 (later renumbered as X9430; one of the so-called X-patents).  The X9430 patent and U.S. Pat. No. 1304 protected the basic principles of Colt’s revolving-breech loading, folding trigger firearm design.

Interestingly, Colt had once sought private legislative relief in requesting an extension on his patent because he had not profited sufficiently during the period provided by the original patent.  Colt successfully obtained a seven-year “extension” on his 1836 patent by receiving a reissue in 1848, but was unsuccessful in his legislative attempt in 1854 to further extend the life of the reissue.  Colt successfully enforced his patents in litigation, notably causing certain competitors to discontinue production. 

His revolving-breech pistol at one time became so popular that the word “Colt” was sometimes used as a generic term for the revolver.   When Samuel Colt died in 1862, his estate was estimated to be valued at around $15,000,000. 

2008 Inductees to National Inventors Hall of Fame.

The National Inventors Hall of Fame (NIHF) announced this past week the 2008 class of inductees.  Founded in 1973 by the USPTO and the National Council of Intellectual Property Law Associations, the Hall of Fame presently administers such national programs as the Camp Invention® and Club Invention® programs, the Invent Now® initiative, and the Collegiate Inventors Competition®.

To qualify for the Hall of Fame, an inventor must hold a U.S. patent, and the invention “must have contributed to the welfare of mankind and have promoted the progress of science and the useful arts.” 

The formal inductions into the Hall of Fame will occur on May 2-3 in Akron, Ohio.

Time’s Best Inventions of 2007.

 

Time Magazine, in partnership with CNN, released today a list of the The Best Inventions of the Year (2007).  Invention of the year:  The iPhone.  Worth a quick read if you have a few minutes to spare.

2007 Ig Nobel Prize Winners.

The 2007 Ig Nobel Prize winners were announced yesterday at Harvard’s Sanders Theatre.  Per this Wikipedia entry, the Ig Nobel Prizes are a parody of the Nobel Prizes and are given each year for ten achievements that “first make people laugh, and then make them think.” The prize is organized by the science humor magazine Annals of Improbable Research (AIR).

The 2007 winners include:

 • Chemistry: Mayu Yamamoto of the International Medical Center of Japan, for developing a way to extract vanillin, or vanilla fragrance and flavoring, from cow dung.

• Linguistics: A University of Barcelona team for a study showing rats sometimes fail to distinguish between a person speaking Japanese backward and a person speaking Dutch backward.

• Peace Prize: The Air Force Wright Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio, for instigating research and development of a chemical weapon, the “gay bomb,” that “will make enemy soldiers become sexually irresistible to each other.”

• Economics: Kuo Cheng Hsieh, of Taichung, Taiwan, for patenting a device in 2001 that catches bank robbers by dropping a net over them.

• Medicine: Brain Witcombe, of Gloucestershire Royal NHS Foundation Trust, and sword swallower Dan Meyer, of Antioch, Tenn., for their insightful work on the health consequences of swallowing a sword.

• Physics: A U.S.-Chilean team that ironed out the problem of how sheets become wrinkled.

• Biology: Johanna van Bronswijk of the Netherlands for carrying out a creepy-crawly census of all of the mites, insects, spiders, ferns and fungi that share our beds.

• Literature: Glenda Browne of Blue Mountains, Australia, for her study of “the,” and how it can flummox those trying to put things into alphabetical order.

• Nutrition: Brian Wansink of Cornell University for investigating the limits of human appetite by feeding volunteers a self-refilling, “bottomless” bowl of soup.

• Aviation: A National University of Quilmes, Argentina, team for discovering that impotency drugs can help hamsters recover from jet lag.

Death Knell for the Internal Combustion Engine?

 

This article at CNN pointed out a recently issued patent, U.S. Pat. No. 7,033,406, in which the article opined “energy insiders spotted six words . . . that sounded like a death knell for the internal combustion engine.” 

The ‘406 patent is titled: Electrical-energy-storage unit (EESU) utilizing ceramic and integrated-circuit technologies for replacement of electrochemical batteries.  The invention relates to so-called “ultracapacitors”  – battery-like devices that store and releases energy quickly.  The assignee of the patent, EEStor, and its licensee ZENN Motor Co., believes the technology may revolutionalize the electric car industry.  An interesting read, if you have a few minutes to spare.