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Best invention of 2006?
January 25, 2007
In a post yesterday I cited Popular Mechanics’ top 50 inventions from 1955 to 2005. Are there any inventions from 2006 that should make a top 50 list?
Time seems to think YouTube is 2006’s greatest hit, but I don't really consider YouTube to be an invention.
My favorite
Time pick is the
SawStop Finger Saver table saw, which stops and retracts its blade within milliseconds of coming in contact with human flesh. I saw a nifty demonstration of this saw at
NIWeek 2005, where an NI CompactRIO system served as the prototype controller that applied a sine wave to the saw blade and monitored its amplitude, which would vary in response to the capacitive coupling engendered by the approach of human flesh (or, in the NIWeek demo, a hot dog). The demo also highlighted the capabilities available from PCI Express bandwidth, with a PCI Express frame grabber recording video of the saw’s safety response.
Other electronics-related items cited by
Time include a
fuel-cell powered toy car, an
electric auto that goes from 0 to 60 mph in 4 s and tops out at 130 mph, a
solar-powered boat, a
robotic bike (sorry,
Anthony Levandowski invented this a few years ago), an
RFID-based version of prayers to St. Anthony, a $10,000
windmill for home use, a
motorized inflatable pool lounger (give me a break!), an
electric chair for lobsters (yikes!), a
robotic sommelier, a robotic suit that assists stroke patients (from Panasonic), robotic
hospital attendants,
battlefield robots,
semiconductor on building-material solar panels, paper-thin
flexible light bulbs (I guess "bulb" is not the right word, here), and (I'm not kidding) the
ability to send remote hugs by cell phone.
Any other ideas? What from 2006 should be added to the
Popular Mechanics list? What should be dropped to make room? Did
Popular Mechanics miss something from 1955 to 2006 that should be on the list?
Post your
comments or send me an
e-mail.
Posted by Rick Nelson on January 25, 2007 | Comments (1)
