Latest Inventions

posted by admin on Aug 16

Hello Again - and what a great time to be at the fore-front of the latest inventions and technology!

Almost every day, there is an announcement about something great to advance our thinking or challenge our current ways of thinking - the future looks so different - if only we would make the change!

Looking back over time Adam Park takes us through his top 10 Tech Milestones That Changed The World for a glance at the past - and hopefully they can take us places in the future!

Add to this some of the following technological information here from Susan, as she details her best 25 Startups Revolutionizing Biotechnology. Even small things can make a huge difference!

Staying with the prefix ‘bio’ - take a look at the amazing advances and technology involved with Mike’s great article on: Massive Future MRI Machine Promises to Unravel the Secrets of Human Biochemistry! Great stuff!

Moving on to inventions today - read on if you want to know about something new: Coming Soon to a Classroom Near You: 10 Things To Know About Robot Teachersby the converted Erin Lenderts! Now I’m not sure if these will ever really take over in mainstream schools - but the idea for smaller groups or adult learners could really be a good thing!

And, if you ignore all the adverts at the top - scroll down to a very thorough article by Rick Cole as he reviews the difference between to very similar in-car technologies: Garmin vs TomTom. Worth a peak if you are considering a sat nav in the future.

And finally - How to use Twitter in a way I hadn’t really thought off: Sharons719 offers us 50 “Healthy” Ways to Use Twitter. Very interesting!

And on that note - get back outside and enjoy the nice weather before winter sets in!

posted by admin on Jun 21

Dyson are at it again with something totally new to the world - and something stylish too!

Not only have they come up with the bag-less vacuum - and the vacuum that goes around corners; they are now breaking out from the floor and up onto our desks and tables!

Well, why only blow wind about inside a cute little vacuum cleaner when you could be cooling off busy office workers instead?  So, they gave it a go!

The result is the very stylish looking desk fan that blows cool air around - but without the blades.  It is basically a fancy looking basketball hoop on it’s end!

The Bladeless Wonder!
The theory of these new fans is the fact that they don’t have blades spinning around at top speed all the time - making rather a loud annoying noise.  And the blades are usually covered in dust and stuck in an equally dusty ‘cage’ around them making them virtually impossible to clean - however they are made safer by this.

What Dyson want to do is get rid of the dirty noisy fan blades and make the physics of air do all the moving you need!

Just as moving water sucks more water towards it - so does air - and this is one of the factors which makes the fan work - and also gives it it’s complete name: the Air Multiplier. 

Basically, a small motor in the base sucks in air from the surrounding space and then shoots it out of a thin slither at the rear of the ‘fan’ and shoots it over the curved surface (just like on a planes wing).  This action of faster moving air drags in more air behind it to replace that which has been blown over it in the first place!

Still with me?  Good.  Now we have already got the air from the fan itself shooting out towards you as well as the sucked in air around the edges - but there is more multiplying to come!  The rim of the fan gets wider, so therefore spreads out the air - and you guessed it: that sucks in more air through the centre of the hoop!

And yet more - as the air all rushes through it also draws in air from outside of the fan hoop and shoots it out towards you as well - basically multiplying up all the original little bit of air loads of times!

Your basic Air Multiplier!

Other Benefits?
Well apart from the cleaning part and the unbroken stream of air (that hasn’t been chopped up by the fans) - they also claim it is more environmentally friendly than air conditioning.

Although this isn’t a direct comparison, they aren’t lying as the amount of wattage to run these fans is so much less than a whole air conditioning system.

However, you would need an awful lot more of them to keep the whole office cool - and I’m not sure if the production, transport and production energy costs have been taken into account here.  I would imagine that you would need a fan for almost every desk, so about 200 for a large office - now imagine how much less energy would be used for a comprehensive air con system instead of 200 single electrical fans on site!

However - they do look pretty cool and come in all shapes and sizes too (at around £199 though!).

posted by admin on May 27

Every Olympic Games host seems to think it’s a great idea to have one - so why not the UK?

Infact - they haven’t stopped at just the one - they have created a pair of the little things: Wenlock and Mandeville! 

The story goes (and yes, they have a story) that they were drops of molten metal that fell during a welding activity of one of the stadiums, were welded into ‘toys’ for an appropriately happy family - and then ran off on rainbows to cheer up the whole world!

Apparently, the whole event can’t be televised and promoted by just using the Olympic Games logo or wording - we need these very shiny cycloptic aliens with taxicab lights on their heads to do it instead!

So after nearly 2 years of artistic collaboration and (apparently) 40 focus groups worth of discussion - all in top secret - they were revealed to the nation on a rather slapdash early evening chat show!

As always, the celebrity who has been put in charge of promoting them has plenty to say about the meaning behind this tiny part of one mascot and that tiny part of the other - but to everyone else - they are just 2 cartoon characters!  Whether the bracelets mean so-and-so on the left wrist (heaven forbid they were on the right wrist), or the shape of their feet represent something-or-other, the public probably don’t really mind.

All they care about is the money spent on such a trivial thing when the country is in financial strife as it is.  And they are still reeling after the disastrous and unwelcome original 2012 logo was unveiled - and estimated to have cost around £400,000!

So, the Mascots: Are they fun?  Are they worth the money?  Will they make more people visit the UK and it’s events?

Apparently their main aim is at children - to help the younger generations to relate better to the Games, rather than it being viewed as a more ‘adult’ event - and seeing as millions of kids in the UK will be affected by the Games, the events and the influx of thousands upon thousands of tourists into their towns - I suppose we have got to soften the blow a little bit!

And I suppose as there are 2 of them - you can have a ‘favourite’ one, or just make your parents buy 2 toys instead of just the one!  Great for a pair of novelty slippers!

Well, we need to make some money to pay for the Games, so this wasn’t a bad marketing ploy!

posted by admin on May 21

There are always situations where time rules your life - so here are 5 ways to keep on top of it!

Whether it’s self control when working from home, getting your kids in order or to stop your busy schedule affecting others - these are the gadgets for you!

Lets start with time in the morning and work through your day with you…..

1) Alarm Call For Just You:
Why wake up the entire house when you need to get an early start for that all important meeting?  Whether it’s an annoying bleeping, or soft music - your partner or young baby do not need to hear your alarm at 05.30am.  So keep it to yourself!

That’s where the Shake-N-Wake would be perfect!  It does exactly what it sounds like - it’s a vibrating alarm that makes no sound at all - it just shakes about a bit until it wakes you up and you turn it off like a normal alarm.

You can either strap it to your wrist for maximum effect, or set it under your pillow (as long as you don’t usually rollover onto the other side during the night!

2) Clocking In First Thing:
Whether you get paid by the hour, or whether you are a boss running a tight ship - you need a clocking in system that works.  But the old ‘punch cards’ style can be tricked by friends using each others cards through the day to make it look like they were ‘on time’ or didn’t leave early all the time.

Well, the Ethernet Time Clock is almost 100% fail-proof.  It uses biometrics to check individual finger prints for the time stamp - eliminating wasted money and time in the workplace.

3) Wasting Time In Meetings:
Now you can prove to your boss that their weekly meetings really are costing them too much money by using a new gadget called TIM.  Basically - with a bit of programming - can work out how much your time is worth - and then he will clock up how much money you waste in generic meetings week after week.

Time is money these days, so this can also be used to calculate how much time/money you are worth when you are surfing the net for business research, or when running your own business - you can find out how much it actually costs you in time to drive to meetings or clients houses!

4) Better Planning Can Save Time:
We all know that sitting in traffic is a waste of your time and therefore your money - so why not plan ahead to avoid busy routes, avoid roadworks and everything else in life that wastes your time.

Plan better with a (not in existence at the moment) Apple iWatch!  There have been a few articles recently on the internet that refer to an idea of having a fantastic typically ‘Apple-looking’ giant wrist watch!  Obviously it would like up wireless to all your other gadgets - and you could even talk into it like a spy!

Some of the articles say that there might even be the chance that it can play movies - just like IN the movies!  Cool!!!!

5) And Even For The Kids:
Don’t save all the great gadgets for yourself!  Get you kids in the mood for some time-scheduling too.

Whether it’s learning an new language, music lessons or playing on the computer or games station - get the kids to control their own time from an early age.  By setting the timer on the Time Tracker, you can get repeated alarms, nice melodies or you can even put it on a pause.

No more ‘…. just another 10 minutes, Dad!’ You can set this in stone now - set their own clock to prove it!

Now, Come along - spit spot!

posted by admin on Apr 20

Your Basketball or Football can now be made with eco friendly materials at no extra cost to you!

It does seem that some advances in manufacturing could have taken place years ago, but it was all down to laziness that things stayed the same.

What I’m talking about is a sport equipment supplier that are now making all their sports balls (and more) out of ethically sourced materials.  This hasn’t really been done before as people we always happy (or at least not bothered) to change from the cheap and sometimes environmentally damaging alternatives.

All through history, people have found the easiest way to make something, and no-one ever complained.  If someone did offer up an alternative it may well have been a bit more expensive or a bit difficult to get hold of and as no-one really saw the point of changing - everything remained the same.

However now, things ARE changing.  People have found that previous products were damaging the very planet we live on, and even though the manufacturers were making a huge profit - we; the consumers, were only getting their products a little bit cheaper than the more ethical alternatives.  And so we brought the alternative.

The Brand of Ethletic are one such manufacturer, and have found that they can make sports products from sustainable and eco friendly materials, and sell them for virtually the same cost as ‘normal’ sports products.

So that is what they have done.

Their Products:
Ranging from basketballs, footballs, childrens sneakers, sporting accessories, brightly-colored baseball boots and even personalised balloons - all their products have an ethical claim and certification.

Whether it is FSC certified forestry for their 100% compostable latex, Fair Trade certification for their rubber and cotton networks, recyclable or biodegradable packaging or their use of only organic cotton - their products are certainly in a niche of their own.

And you can bulk buy products for your school, college or sports group so you get a fair deal too!  And you can choose the color, logo and other wording on them too!

Now there is no need to NOT buy the Fair Trade version of anything really, as these products are becoming more and more available thanks to new manufacturing and retail developments.