Interesting Innovations

by Michele Cheplic | More from this Blogger

10 Nov 2006 12:58 AM

There's the anti-spill water bowl for dogs that is designed for traveling, the e-Lation electric bike conversion kit, which turns a standard bicycle into an electric one while maintaining all the bike's gears, and the Universal Tile Ventilator, a new type of roof tile that allows ventilation and heat to exit the roof space when there is no breeze through natural convection flow... interesting innovations are born everyday, but only a very small fraction of the creative (and sometimes crazy) creations go on to become household names. YouTube, the video-sharing website, happens to be one of them.

Believe it or not, the website recently acquired by Google Inc. for a record $1.65 billion, actually beat out a vaccine that prevents a cancer-causing sexually transmitted disease and a shirt that simulates a hug to grab top honors as Time magazine's "Invention of the Year for 2006."

Time magazine, says YouTube grabbed the honor because its "scale and sudden popularity have changed the rules about how information -- along with fame and embarrassment -- gets distributed over the Web."

According to Nielsen NetRatings, YouTube had 27.6 million visitors in September. Time magazine attributes the numbers to the fact that YouTube came along at just the right time, when "social-networking Web sites were hot, camcorders were cheap and do-it-yourself media was expanding beyond text-based blogs."

A product that may be in the running to earn the magazine's "Invention of the Year 2008" award could be a product called HyperSonic Sound (HSS). The company that designed it says HSS does for sound what the laser did for light - "intensely focuses and channels it so it can travel great distances without dispersing."

In a recent demonstration done for the media, a technician pointed a speaker the size of a cereal box at someone standing 100 yards away. Amid the buzz of a nearby freeway, reporters could hear ice cubes clinking into a glass. Those present say "the sound comes across as if it were through headphones, totally unlike a sound blaring from a distant speaker over oppressive car noise." When the technician took two steps to the side, out of the sound beam, reporters heard nothing at all.

The designer says though the technology is still years from becoming mainstream, HSS could be used to make laptop speakers that blare music to the person in front of the screen, while no one else could hear it. In addition, an HSS-equipped car could play one CD for the parents up front and another for kids in the back and either would hear even a whisper of the others' music.

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Learn more about Michele Cheplic

Michele Cheplic was born and raised in Hilo, Hawaii, but now lives in Wisconsin. Michele graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a degree in Journalism.

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