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Popular Mechanics Awards Technological Innovation

Posted by Zonk on Fri Oct 06, 2006 10:42 AM
from the doodads-and-whatnots dept.
Robotics Toys Science Technology
PreacherTom writes "Every year, Popular Mechanics attempts to find the most innovative tech products and hand out a little notoriety. This year's honorees range from everyday items like a $17 Crescent RapidSlide wrench, which puts a new, faster spin on an already well-designed tool, to a high-end Lexus that can virtually park itself. PM took an extra step by honoring innovators in science, having solicited nominations from a board of editorial advisers that includes Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin and Dr. Amy Smith, a professor at MIT. Winners include Burt Rutan (of SpaceShipTwo fame) and Angela Belcher (for her work with virus nanofabrication)."
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[+] Technology: MIT Helps Third World With Hands-On Approach 128 comments
Hugh Pickens writes "About 60 people from 20 nations will descend on the MIT campus July 14th for the second annual International Development Design Summit to begin an intensive month-long process of creating technological solutions for the needs of people in the world's developing nations. The goal of the program is to develop simple, inexpensive devices that in some cases can be produced locally and make a real difference for people and communities. The event is the brainchild of MIT Senior Lecturer Amy Smith, a returned Peace Corps volunteer and a past winner of the MacArthur 'genius' grant. Previous products of Smith's design class include a bike-powered corn sheller, a metal press that can make clean-burning fuel out of agricultural waste, and an electricity-free incubator. The workshop promotes a shift in focus among companies, universities, investors and scientists toward attacking problems that hamper development in the world's poorest places. 'Nearly 90 percent of research and development dollars are spent on creating technologies that serve the wealthiest 10 percent of the world's population,' Ms. Smith said. 'The point of the design revolution is to switch that.'"
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Popular Mechanics Awards Technological Innovation 25 Comments More /

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  • Submission standards slipping (Score:4, Insightful)

    by MECC (8478) * on Friday October 06 2006, @10:44AM (#16336359)
    How the hell does a /. submission get accepted about a popular mechanics article that has a link to businessweek.com instead of a link to the article [popularmechanics.com] at the popular mechanics website? There have got to be better submissions to choose from. /. seems to be going downhill like bad water these days.

    Forget the fact that businessweek.com is one of the most poorly designed and annoying web sites on the internet. To be avoided by anyone who might want to actually read something without grinding their teeth flat.

  • IRL (Score:4, Funny)

    by Yfrwlf (998822) on Friday October 06 2006, @10:48AM (#16336423)

    "...to a high-end Lexus that can virtually park itself."

    Wouldn't you prefer a car that would *actually* park itself, not just park itself in VR?

  • Yes, let's verb random nouns and utterance them.

  • Notoriety? (Score:5, Informative)

    by belrick (31159) on Friday October 06 2006, @11:06AM (#16336665)
    I don't think the submitter understands the negative connotations of the words "notoriety" and "notorious".

    • Reminds me of one of Lord Dunsany's shortest stories.

      A MISTAKEN IDENTITY

      Fame as she walked at evening in a city saw the painted face of Notoriety flaunting beneath a gas-lamp, and many kneeled unto her in the dirt of the road.

      "Who are you?" Fame said to her.

      "I am Fame," said Notoriety.

      Then Fame stole softly away so that no one knew she had gone.

      And Notoriety presently went forth and all her worshippers rose and followed after, and she led them, as was most meet, to her native Pit.

  • not innovation--try some real innovation (Score:3, Insightful)

    by m0llusk (789903) on Friday October 06 2006, @11:33AM (#16337023) Journal
    Briefly:
    1. Portably XM radio with record: Portable XM radio is common, recording is not a difficult extension and could be improvised, but might be better done with a desktop running timed recorder software. Eh.
    2. Low Sulfur diesel car incrementally improved over those that have been available for decades marketed to the $35k-$65k range which only has significant volume because of the global credit/assets bubble. Eh.
    3. Powerful pruners have a little chainsaw in them, but existing tools are better for doing pruning according to accepted standards. Specifically, when cutting branches large enough for this tool to be useful, they tend to break away and rip open the cut in an ugly way. The proper time proven method for avoiding this is to start with preparation cuts in specific places in order to control how the branch falls away once it begins to loose strength. This tool is poorly suited for making these kinds of controlled standard cuts. Eh.
    4. Car parks itself for $55k-$77k. Again, apart from the current credit/asset bubble most people will not be driving in these cars, and the technology is just an incremental improvement of what has been around for decades. Eh.
    5. Sliding crescent wrench may not be a superior tool to existing crescent wrenches or vice grips. Eh.
    6. WiFi Skype phones incrementally improve what used to require a mini-laptop. Eh.
    7. Furnace and generator combo is marginally more efficient for large outlay in up front costs and space for installation. Eh.
    8. Big TV with internet linkage. This is another linkage concept like TVs with VCRs in them or phones with answering machines. As long as the costs are minimal it does not really matter, so why tout it, and if the costs are significant then it is a bummer because it is harder to fix, upgrade, or swap out the different components which are now physically linked just because they are intended to be used together. Eh.
    9. Smart LEGO Robots are an incremental improvement over the last smart LEGO robots. Eh.
    10. Sawstop prevents some of the more horrific accidents possible with table saws by using straightforward technology that was demonstrated long ago but is only being released now because of the greedy machinations of the lawyer-inventor guy. Eh.

    All of this is just incremental stuff, hardly any real improvement, and much at price levels that ordinary people should be smart enough to realize they simply cannot afford. If you want some real innovation try making something trusted work as it is needed, or even better yet try to do without all the latest gizmos. This could be the most important innovation of all since Affluenza is an empty experience and Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, has assured us that the future strength of nations globally is strongly related to their saving habits. Real innovation and empowerment, or the curse of some junk that will weight down your budget without providing genuine utility. The choice is yours.

    • I think you miss the point. Most technological development is incremental. For every "breakthrough" (and wasn't it just recently that we were reading about how frequently things are mis-termed 'breakthroughs'?) there is far more effort put into, and effect taken from, small incremental improvements to existing technologies.

      You might not think much of low-sulfur diesel, but if it results in 10% of U.S. automobiles becoming diesel, it will probably have saved more gasoline than any alternative-energy scheme t
    • I worked one college summer doing landscaping. Proper technique for pruning a branch that is larger than shears can handle is under, over, collar. First cut a notch a few inches out from the trunk underneath the branch. Then cut down from the top to meet the notch. Then cut the stub off at the collar, not flush with the trunk. The collar is the circular ring around the base of the branch and it contains natural defenses against insects, disease, and fungus. So cut diagonally at the base, keeping the collar.

  • The RapidSlide is neither new or innovative. (Score:4, Informative)

    by Svartalf (2997) on Friday October 06 2006, @11:42AM (#16337141) Homepage
    My dad had SEVERAL of these things since I was a kid- of course, from a different
    vendor than Crescent. Bought them out at Canton from a tools vendor. The things
    have been around for decades now.

    New and innovative, my backside...

  • Self-Parking Lexus (Score:3, Funny)

    by vought (160908) on Friday October 06 2006, @11:57AM (#16337321)
    a high-end Lexus that can virtually park itself.

    Considering some of the Lexus drivers I've seen around Cupertino, what's really needed is a self-driving Lexus.

    If Toyota can pull that one off, the number of defensive driving maneuvers required within a block of Cupertino's major arterials can be considerably reduced.
  • If the old Omni magazine made your brow furl, if Discover makes you feel like a retard, if Scientific American is just plain incomprehensible to you, or if you are stuck in a WalMart waiting for your wife to buy make-up and there's nothing else to read, there's always Popular Mechanics. New articles about military hardware and cars in every edition! Why not buy some plans for a hovercraft from the back page? Plus: build things from wood! All in Popular Mechanics, the magazine for those too dumb for Discover.

  • As a New Mexico State employee, I just got free tickets to the next X-Prize Cup in Las Cruces. Barely Tested Rockets, the nerd's version of NASCAR!
    • Well the meter is on the side of your house in case you missed it. Walk out there, and record the numbers. Cheap, and easy.

      Oh and WTC 7 thats been explained. It was a fairly tall building compared to the rest and it was riddled with holes from debris (as was the rest) You figure it out.
    • When they can offer up a reason [f]or the collape of WTC 7...

      That didn't take long...

      Next article: George W. Bush's top iPod picks!

    • Oh, I should have pointed out before submitting that "this has not actually happened, but it could, because Li-Ions react poorly to high current loads, deep cycles, and short circuits."

      Just pointing this out so that folks don't take my post seriously and falsely believe that the above has occurred. My point is that it could and they should have chosen NiMH, secondary alkaline, or other technologies long before even considering Li-Ion.
      • it would ahve been nice if you posted it in the story, but thanks for the follow up post. I was getting ready to search for confirmation, and the lambast you if you were wrong. No, you had to be all nice and point out that it was meant to be fictional to make a point.
        Thanks for nothing! ;)
      • this has not actually happened, but it could

        All except the part about their stock tumbling 78%. First off, I doubt that news of a battery recall would sink a tool manufacturer. Secondly, there is no such thing as Milwaukee stock - they're a subsidiary of the Hong Kong corporation, Techtronic Industries, and make up about 10% of that company's revenue (their revenue was less than $700 million at the time of their acquisition in 2005, compared to Techtronic's 2.8 billion).

        -BbT
        • 700 million of 2.8 billion is a lot higher then 10%... about 15% higher.

          But he was just using them to illustrate a point.
    • Uh, that was NOT flamebait, it is an outline of a hypothetical situation; one that is not just possible, but also very likely.

      If you've ever done ANY reading on battery technologies, you would know that lithium ion is an extremely poor choice for power tools due to the above (fictional) scenario.
    • Lithium batteries, while volatile, deliver more power for less weight. You can get a "D" form factor Lithium battery with these specs:

      20 AH life, 2A pulse, 250mA continuous drain.

      Yes, they're explosive. Yes, they're restricted from travelling in aircraft. Yes, they can overheat and cause a chain reaction which can blow apart cinderblocks.

      Yes, those batteries come with fuses to prevent short-circuiting.

      The purpose of a battery is to store energy. If that energy is converted to heat at an unsafe rate, the bat

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