inventions

Sharing feelings by feet

In the digital age we can send texts and pics to anyone, anywhere, instantly. But how might we share feelings? Through our feet, obviously. For GOOD Magazine's Inventions video series, frog's VP of Creative Robert Fabricant, imagines a new kind of shoe that can take you anywhere.

An LED breakthrough in Korea?

Researchers from Korea claim to have produced the world's first purely white LED (light-emitting diode).

Soo-Young Park, a professor of organic materials for photonics at the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Seoul National University in Korea, led the group, which includes researchers from the University of Valencia in Spain.

LEDs are much more energy-efficient than incandescent or compact fluorescent lightng (CFL), but the quality of light they can give a room is up for debate.

Because LEDs do not naturally produce white light, getting them to look like they do adds to their production cost, making them … Read more

Inventive online resources for inventors

Last week, I received an e-mail asking if I had ever taken a look at sites and services for inventors. I hadn't. And judging by the size of those sites' communities, I'm guessing that most other folks haven't, either. Below are some of the neatest resources, both on the Web and on your iPhone, designed specifically for inventors.

Web sites

Incuby Incuby is an online community designed for inventors who want to get the word out about their inventions. Once you sign up, the site asks you to input information about yourself. After that, it asks for pertinent information about your invention. You can give it a title, describe it, choose a category, and let the community know if your invention is patented yet.

You can then start searching for other inventions. The site's listings include some good information on the creations, including product photos, videos, and prices. Soon, Incuby will enable users to buy those products on the site. Incuby is designed well, and its community, while small, is quite active. It's worth joining.

InventBay InventBay enables inventors to list their products to target investors who might want to bring those products to store shelves. InventBay itself even does some investing.

When you sign up for InventBay and list your product, the company requires a seven-day period to review your invention before it's placed on the site. In that time, InventBay decides if it wants to invest in your creation. If it does, you'll receive notice and work out an investment plan with the company. If not, it's listed on the site for other investors to check out. It's a neat idea. And since it's free to list a product, it's worth trying out.… Read more

'Linux Defenders' aim at Microsoft patents

A Linux advocacy group on Tuesday said it is publicly seeking invention data that could help overturn three Microsoft patents that the software maker has charged are infringed by some implementations of the Linux kernel.

The Open Invention Network said it is looking for examples of so-called prior art that could help invalidate three file management patents that Microsoft used in its suit against GPS maker TomTom. Although TomTom and Microsoft settled, the suit raised the specter that Microsoft might pursue other Linux-related companies.

OIN encouraged those with examples of earlier work in the areas covered by Microsoft's patents … Read more

TomTom joins open-source patent collective

TomTom, the GPS maker being sued by Microsoft, has joined a collective of companies that have pooled their patents in an effort to help defend open-source software against legal threats.

In a press release on Monday, the Open Invention Network said that TomTom had joined its ranks. The collective aims to create a "supportive and shielded ecosystem to ensure the growth and adoption of Linux" and has amassed a pool of 275 pending and issued patents.

"Linux plays an important role at TomTom as the core of all our portable navigation devices," Peter Spours, director of … Read more

The shoe that thinks it's a 'Get Smart' phone

The brains at Flinders University in Australia should know that Paul Gardner-Stephen, one of their systems administrators, has too much time on his hands. And his feet.

Asked to help a theater production of "Get Smart," a TV show that last became a movie starring Steve Carell, Mr. Gardner-Stephen created a shoe that is also a cell phone.

Here's the thing: it actually works. And now he's thinking of selling it online. The shoephone has a cell phone handset in one heel and a Bluetooth headset in the other.

Mr. Gardner-Stephen told the Telegraph: "The … Read more

Shoe phone talks the talk, walks the walk

Ever since secret agent Maxwell Smart rang up the chief on that infamous shoe phone, geeks have mentally scoured the gadget aisles for footwear that could look dashing while doubling as a telecommunications device.

Here at Crave, we've written about wired shoe-shaped phones before, but Paul Gardner-Stephen has pretty much left those in the dust with his wearable shoe phone that can place and receive calls wirelessly.

A post-doctoral fellow in bioinformatics at Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia, Gardner-Stephen developed the device by hollowing out the heels on a pair of men's dress shoes with a chisel and screwdriver and placing a phone in one cavity and a Bluetooth headset in the other.

He then reassembled the heels, punching holes in the rubber soles for the phone's answer/hangup and speaker buttons and the blue LED on the headset. He added a little plastic between the heel and sole for water-resistance, charged his shoe, and started dialing up his friends (via voice).

He first developed his device as a theater prop for a local church camp, but later envisioned applying it to remote patient management--tasks like managing pulse, blood pressure, and blood oxygenation. … Read more

Ladies, meet the Bra Dryer

I have friends who are girls. As girls, they tend to have boobs. And because of this they wear bras. Having dated girls (I know!), I've observed how frequently girls sometimes have to buy new bras, theirs getting bent out of shape, and the silk getting creased. It's not just about looks; the distorted bras can be downright uncomfortable (from what I hear).

Here comes the science. InventorSpot tells us a woman named Katy has invented this patent-pending device called the Bra Dryer which, get this, dries bras in a more constructive fashion. By allowing this machine to … Read more

Has everything audio that can be invented been invented?

"Everything that can be invented has been invented." --Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. patent office, 1899.

This infamous quote has been bandied about forever, but let's try to apply it to our times. Sure, the old commissioner was off by a bunch of decades, but what's left to be invented in audio and video now?

Yes, there will be higher than high-definition video, HDMI 1.4, and speakers that sound like real life, but those are refinements of already existing technologies.

Perhaps we've hit an impasse and we're not going to see any really new products for a few decades. What will a 2012 Blu-ray player do that a 2008 player cannot? Oh right, there may not be any Blu-ray players by 2012, there may a new format by then. But what will it do that a 2008 Blu-ray player cannot?

How about an iPod small enough to be injected into your bloodstream? You would just think about a song or movie, and it would play back in your head.

Who knows, maybe by 2012 there will be wireless speakers that don't have any wires. But it might take until 2022 before someone figures out how to make totally wireless speakers that actually sound good. … Read more