Inventions

This is how many days I have left.

Can This App Predict Your Death?

When are you going to die? You probably don't know the answer to that question - but if you download this app you could find out. Sort of

What's the Air Force's Secretive Space Drone Been Doing in Orbit for the Past Year?

The Air Force's experimental space drone has been in orbit for a year, and no one really knows why

Fingerbreaking

Breakdance Competitions Are Adding Fingerbreaking to Their Lineup

This is not a bad-cop interrogation method, but rather a newly recognized form of dance

(A to L) 3D estimates of front views and lateral views rendered as point clouds overlaid with reflectivity data.

This Camera Capture Images in the Dark, Using Just a Few Particles of Light

The most obvious application for this camera is for spying and surveillance, but it may also be used for remote sensing or to study microscopic structures

Smaller Hands Need Smarter Designs for Smart Phones

No more thumb cramps or having to use your other fingers to press buttons!

Image: William Zeitler

Benjamin Franklin Invented a Glass Harp

Here you can hear a man play the Dance of the Sugarplum Fairies on the armonica - which looks a lot like a man massaging a stack of plastic cups

Would you murder this robot?

Should Robots Have Rights?

Would you murder a robot? If you did, should you be charged for it?

This Spray-On Fabric Is a Wardrobe In a Can

Inspired by silly string, British designer Manel Torres' spray-on clothing is re-wearable and recyclable

This Controversial Invention Promises to Banish All Web Ads

Devices like AdTrap takes users back to simpler times, but they also threaten the way much of the internet does business

A plan of the Ictineo, the world's first engine-powered submarine.

The Writer Who Built the World’s First Engine-Powered Submarine

Narcis Monturiol loved the ocean’s corals so much, that he built a machine so he could better enjoy them

U.S. Patent No. 207,559. The first appearance of the QWERTY keyboard.

Fact of Fiction? The Legend of the QWERTY Keyboard

What came first: the typist or the keyboard? The answer may surprise you

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Editor’s Pick: The Beauty of Letterpress

Filmmaker Danny Cooke captures a day in the life of Paul Collier as he goes through the elaborate steps to create typographic works of art

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What's the Most Important Invention?

Invented in the late 19th century as a means to contain cattle in the American West, barbed wire soon found military applications.

Ten Inventions That Inadvertently Transformed Warfare

Some of the most pivotal battlefield innovations throughout history began as peacetime inventions

From the runway, to the office, and now stored away in women’s dresser draws, pantyhose have gone through several life cycles.

50 Years of Pantyhose

Love them or hate them, the once-ubiquitous women’s accessory was a revolutionary invention that helped transform women’s fashion

Evidence indicates the wheel was created to serve as potter's wheels around 3500 B.C. in Mesopotamia—300 years before they were used for chariots.

A Salute to the Wheel

Always cited as the hallmark of man’s innovation, here is the real story behind the wheel – from its origins to its reinvention

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New Podcast Honors Inventor Art Fry, Creator of the Post-it Note

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Flights of Fancy

Leslie Payne's flying machines soared, if only in his imagination

Second Time Around

Invented by Ben Franklin but lost to history, the glass harmonica has been resurrected by modern musicians

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Wise Guys

From absorbing shocks to shock absorbers

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