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10 Genius Inventions We're Still Waiting For

PM's resident roboticist imagines new tech that will transform our lives. Now all we need is someone to invent it.
Published in the May 2008 issue.

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KEYWORDS

Sonic Showers

sonic showers

Though much has changed since humankind fled the wilderness for civilized comforts, one thing hasn’t: We still clean ourselves with water. Yet traditional showers take time, waste resources and don’t necessarily get the job done. Instead, we should take a lesson from doctors who sterilize surgical instruments through techniques such as high-pressure, high-temperature autoclaves, ethylene oxide gas and ultrasonic vibrations. While these methods aren’t exactly “people-friendly,” a little research may enable modern humans to step out from under the indoor waterfall and give up the last of our caveman-like ways.

Augmented Reality

Kids’ knees and noggins can be protected with padding and helmets—but how do we safeguard their delicate minds? The answer may lie with Augmented Reality (AR), a technology that combines sights and sounds of the real world with virtual information. AR eyeglasses could detect inappropriate sights and remove them from view, while AR-enabled earbuds would delete ambient cursing. Meanwhile, adults might wear glasses that substitute blessed blank space for roadside billboards, television commercials and the annoying corporate names on most stadiums. Professor Jie Yang of the interACT research center at Carnegie Mellon University recently laid the groundwork for this technology. His prototype digital camera picks out street signs and billboards from a scene and translates their text to another language. Next on his to-do list, we hope: figuring out a way to translate obnoxious on-hold music into songs we actually like.





CLICK FOR MORE: 10 Inventions We're Still Waiting For

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Chicago
Sonic Showers & Augmented Reality
New York
Life Simulator & Acoustic Cloaking Shell
New Orleans
Legged-Robot Everything & Nontangling Cable
Atlanta
Insect Force Field & Megatracking System
Ports
Kid OnStar & Auto Memory


Reader Comments
23. RE: 10 Genius Inventions We're Still Waiting For
A Sterling Engine with at least 80 percent efficiency? POOF! Energy crisis solved!

22. RE: 10 Genius Inventions We're Still Waiting For
a healthy fast food drive thru restaurant.

21. RE: 10 Genius Inventions We're Still Waiting For
There is a based on Gyroscopic effects Free (reaction less) Torque Generator. The invention breaks down the limitation of the generated precession torque making it unidirectional, continuous and uninterruptible, establishing a new mechanical principle. In fact the demonstration models produces three permanent acting unidirectional torques about the principle axis. The invention addresses all conventional objections and the demonstration models are passed pendulum test according the requirements of the NASA TM-2006-214390 document, applied about rotation. The pendulum tests were already demonstrated in IENA 2007 Innovation Exhibition in Nuremberg, Germany (see catalog number 96) and won Special Prize (Ehren-Urkunde in German), in GAMM 2008 79th Annual Meeting of International Association of Applied Mathematics and Mechanics in University of Bremen, Germany and others. Mechanical engineer

20. RE: 10 Genius Inventions We're Still Waiting For
I,AM A INVENTOR THAT HAD DREW A VEHICLE THAT HAS BEEN ON TV AND IN THE MOIVES THE VEHICLE IS IN A CLASS OF ITS OWEN THIS CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT HAS FEATURES THAT ARE NEW TO THE STATE OF THE ARTS OF CONTROL, THIS DISTINCTIVE CONCEPT VEHICLE IS STYLING, FROM TOP TO BOTTOM, IT HAS THE HIGHEST PERFOROMANCE CHARACTERISTICS, AROUND WITH PRESENT TECHNOLOGY.

19. RE: 10 Genius Inventions We're Still Waiting For
blocking out all noise when walking across a busy street seems dangerous, and could cause more problems than it solves. Sometimes in life theirs discomforts that we just have to get over and not let bother us, technology will never make life perfect!

18. RE: 10 Genius Inventions We're Still Waiting For
Website: www.saferfood.co.nz
Re: Insect force field. I postulate emanations from our eyeballs ("eye-rays")that induce insects to commit suicide exactly on the area of car windscreens needed for safe driving. My annual 1 April grant applications are, unfortunately, always turned down.

17. RE: 10 Genius Inventions We're Still Waiting For
Website: https://www.mayajogi.blogspot.com/
2)Surface of our world is more watery, Our oceans are getting polluted too, as we damage their ecological balance, AGRO-based, sea-faring, float-scangevers could be developed and deployed where needed, regulated through space probes,to regulate global warming too.

16. RE: 10 Genius Inventions We're Still Waiting For
Website: https://www.mayajogi.blogspot.com/
1) Health of the people is going to be prime concern, a wearable personalised body-suit, should be a priority for recording & treatment delivery for most, needing critical care, 2)there is so much noise & heat on the city roads, could concentrate on devices that regulate when required, 3)toxic alerters should become affordable, 4)soothing mood fabrics for hyper-tensive that gradualy change color as they sence, 5)passive tactic alerters. These five are needed earlier then hifie developments.

15. RE: 10 Genius Inventions We're Still Waiting For
your info on augmented reality is 100% wrong Jie Yang should be sued and ashamed of himself. The early creator of ar built just that a decade ago. There are MANY projects that have been shown at conferences at worldwide that are more advanced. It is also not a new field. I have been in it actively for several years. Do more research next time and beware of the false claims of band wagon types.

14. RE: 10 Genius Inventions We're Still Waiting For
I with the other here that there are a lot more inventions that are more worthy. The inventions here are in the 'wacky' arena and probably won't come about due to the Law of Diminishing Returns. Whist others have already suggested these, mine are: 1. Fancy robots that do all the work so we can be ultra-lazy. 2. Intra-stellar travel that allows direct travel between planets and asteroids. 3. Warp Engine for interstellar travel, if not intergalactic travel. >:) 4. Nuclear Fusion for clean safe cheap abundant energy. 5. Artificial limbs and organs that can be mass produced so it's easily affordable and available. Either that or the ability to regenerate organ and limbs from even a few cells.

13. RE: 10 Genius Inventions We're Still Waiting For
What about: 1) antigravity to move things effortlessly, 2) wireless power to get finally rid of cables and batteries, 3) skin airconditioning, 5mm of controlled temperature all over the body 4) microclimbing robots to clean buildings and big structures 24h/day

12. RE: 10 Genius Inventions We're Still Waiting For
Complete (awesome & hilarious, but still feasible) list: 1. Sonic showers (high-pressure full clean) 2. Augmented reality (eyeglasses for blank space to ads, phones for hold music to good songs, cameras for Japanese to English) 3. Life simulator (predicting outcomes for big life decisions, war in Iraq) 4. Acoustic cloaking shell (noise-cancelling headphones... for an entire town) 5. Legged-robot everything (the beer-tossing fridge... on steroids) 6. Non-tangling cables 7. Insect force field (so much for West Nile virus) 8. Megatracking system (RFID for all household objects) 9. Kid OnStar ("could be packaged into a bracelet or necklace crammed with sensors that monitor location, physiological status and voice stress levels"--SCARY!) 10. Auto memory (real photographric memories, with an in-brain recorder)

11. RE: 10 Genius Inventions We're Still Waiting For
Augmented reality? Now our kids will rise without being able to fully comprehend the awfully complex thing that's life and the surrounding environment because overprotective parents prevented them from experiencing "ugly" things? Man, that's scary! Life simulator? Come on! Have guts and face decisions! Second Life is just a game! Legged refrigerator? Human beings are getting progressively more lazy, that's for sure! Auto Memory? Now things got serious... did anyone watched 'The Final Cut'?

10. RE: 10 Genius Inventions We're Still Waiting For
Website: http://www.delaytactics.com
Ok, apart from the mosquito thing and the auto memory, I find most of those either unnecessary or even disturbing. I want to retain some of my humanity, thank you very much. We're almost too far along as it is now. I don't want something tracking my kid wherever he goes - he has his own life, and if he gets hurt, that's part of childhood. I don't want a life simulator. I want to make my own choices, based on my and my friends' opinions. I don't want a tracking system on everything - much too expensive and what's the point? They'll find ways to bypass that if your iPod is stolen... Again, two of these would be awesome (I have a particularly bad memory), but the rest would be taking away from what makes me human.

9. List for the new millenium
List for the new millenium: 1. 3d printers - the end of stupid patents and the first Jetson house-keeping robots all spawn from this. We have self-replicating printers at just a couple thousand dollars, but right now a lot of polish needs to go into the pattern-sharing and pattern libraries, particularly in circuit design ... and we need cheap chips and more feasible circuit printing, oh and the actual legal challenges with patents, for this to really take off. 2. massively scaled water irrigation, water control - a green northern africa could dramatically change the green house problems. And as populations climb, mastery of irregation on the continent level is going to be a requirement for non-violent progress. This is something that the ancient egyptians could do almost more easily than we can: the technology involved in this can be done with work animals, but the muscle, coordination, will power... and most importantly in today's world the cost makes this look terribly difficult. 3. massively scaled water purification - just like you need to grow more vegetables, you need more drinking water. The ocean looks like a nice reserve for drinking water, except the salts will kill you. We have been siting on the technology to do this forever... this is already ready to go. Now. Like in the 70s. 4. microwave energy transmission - solar farming in space would be a great way to fuel home power consumption. This is very long term, because you need square kilometers of solar panels and absolute fail-safe measures on transmission. Right now research is being done on how to automate the construction of solar panels in space. 5. verticalization - with upwards of 90% of populations living in cities, even in such large scales as continents (europe, south america), it is increasingly important to develop scalable food sources. There is a project I think of as the 'hanging gardens of New York" that would build 20 very modest skyscrapers that are giant gardens. They run completely green, have a net output of energy and water, and could feed the whole of New York City, no small feat. 6. the internet - one day people will be able to communicate across vast distances, not only sharing voice and fax data, but sharing spam and viruses as well! all of this will be possible through a series of tubes. (Yeah ok so its done and now we just need to let it do its thing, but it is still one of the inventions of the 21st century.) 7. rapid neuron path formation - the 20-minute tapes to learn things in the matrix might seem impossible, but it is mostly just a desire to protect people from snake oil claims that puts a negative image on this sort of idea. We already know that the brain changes associations (neural connections) as it learns: that is, not only is memory tied to these networks, but thinking itself is. We know how to measure and localize the types of connections involved in those thoughts, we can even predict decisions in people before they decide. And we know how to trigger connections in neurons. What we can't do is *remotely* trigger neuronal connections, and we can't predict the mental and personality changes involved in these processes. 8. designer children - genetic engineering is here to stay, and while the concern from early on has been strongly entrenched in the morality of it: the reality of the field of medicine is "first we do it, then we jail people for it." 9. a cure to aging - this is down the far end of the rabbit hole but eventually we will be able to let the rich live for a long, long time, if not forever. I'm not knowledgeable about this but I thought I'd have to add it. 10. that 2% diet control - dieticians say that the reason they think it isn't possible to provide a general prescriptive fix for maintaining ideal weight is that mostly weight is very stable over long periods, and we just pack on a few pounds year to year. Controlling a very small long-term fluctuation when the short-term fluctuation is much higher seems impossible. But we know how to lower metabolism, and there are certain to be ways to increase and fine tune our control of metabolism.

8. RE: 10 Genius Inventions We're Still Waiting For
Hello? Can I get a Replicator? Talk about the one invention that would change our entire lifestyle (and economic system).

7. RE: 10 Genius Inventions We're Still Waiting For
Regarding "Kid Onstar"... I just strap one of those pet-collar GPS things to my kid's neck. It does the job. (Be sure to disable the anti-barking shock if yours has it)

6. RE: 10 Genius Inventions We're Still Waiting For
> With a megatracking system in place, people will think twice before walking off with your umbrella, and airlines will always know exactly where your luggage has landed. Oh no. I just know I'd misplace my megatracker!

5. RE: 10 Genius Inventions We're Still Waiting For
"Yet traditional showers take time, waste resources . . " Love the eco-wankerism being displayed here. The only reason there's a water "shortage" is that the Sierra Club doesn't want any more reserviors built. It just ruins the landscape and hiking trails.

4. RE: 10 Genius Inventions We're Still Waiting For
Walking chairs and fridges are great for handicapped people, but with today's current percentage of obesity people who can walk shouldn't buy this. There seems to be an issue with becoming lazier than before

3. RE: 10 Genius Inventions We're Still Waiting For
Testing on people with disorders has shown that memories are not "lost forever". If the correct area of the brain is stimulated, memories - including sounds, smells, and emotions, can be completely recovered. Even from decades previous. The mind stores everything - it's just that we don't recall it all.

2. RE: 10 Genius Inventions We're Still Waiting For
Website: http://geekwitha45.blogspot.com
Censoring reality for children? Are y'all out of your minds? Why would you want to raise such weak minded children that mere exposure to bad ideas is enough to ruin them for life? How exactly to you prepare your kids for what happens when they pick the lock that keeps the reality censoring helmet strapped to their heads and they get a whiff of the real world?

1. RE: 10 Genius Inventions We're Still Waiting For
Um, Flying Car? Mr. Fusion? Holographic TVs? E-paper? E-Wallpaper? E-clothing? Hoverboards? AI assistants/slaves? Dream monitors? Education brain-rewriting/downloading systems? Macross-style Veritech fighters? Gundam-type Mecha? Warp Drive? Space Elevators? All those inventions you ticked off, only Big Brother and smelly people are waiting for. You missed gold.

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