Roi Cohen Radosh of Oxford has applied for a patent for his method of zapping (so to speak) the brain with electricity. “APPARATUS FOR IMPROVING AND/OR MAINTAINING NUMERICAL ABILITY” is the title of international patent #WO 2011/098789 Al, published on August 18, 2011. Here’s a detail from the document: The patent document itself demonstrates a comfort […]
Tag: invention
Exercise device w elongated flexible member
This week’s salacious patent description of the week is “Exercise device with elongated flexible member“, US patent #D507311, granted July 12, 2006 to Jaremy T. Butler and William T. Dalebout. The patent document features this drawing. Its shape may seem a bit counter-intuitive:
Inventors’ dustup, with teeth: Tat, Tit, Tat,…
Two eminent invention/design firms are quarreling very much in public about a dustpan. In form, this is a classic tit-for-tat battle: TAT: “Rise Up! Quirky Seeks Justice for Inventor Bill Ward“, which begins: As a haven for transparent online collaboration, Quirky must strive to protect the interests of its inventors and influencers. While this customarily […]
Invention: a desk for people who sit on a toilet
The toilet users rolling desk in an invention for persons who wish to work and drink coffee whilst sitting on the throne. The idea is on file with the US patent office: “Toilet users rollable desk,” US patent application #20120223627 A1, Brian Wylie and Cameron Wylie, filed March 4, 2011. Details: “A toilet users rollable […]
Another British tea innovation
Britain gave the world many things. Among those are deadpan delivery, Heath Robinson, and a fascination for detailed methods of brewing tea. Those three gifts are combined in the “revolutionary approach to the gentle art of making tea” announced recently by a firm called Cambridge Consultants. Behold their demonstrative video: (Thanks to investigator Robinj for […]
Egan’s indoor sundial, and its quasicompetitors
Tom Egan of Costa Mesa California invented an indoor sundial, which works by redirecting the sunlight. The photo, diagram, and result-trace below show how it works. Egan published a detailed description in The Compendium [the journal of the North American Sundial Society], vol. 19, no, 3, September 2012. The synopsis version of that says the […]
Herscher’s cobbled-together page-turning machine
A modern inventor’s complexly-modest work, documented here in a video. The accompanying caption says: “Joseph Herscher takes a sip of his coffee, pulling string thereby tipping paintings. Balls roll down paintings, lighting burner to boil water causing books to tip. Vase and computer get knocked off the table, releasing tape to open front page of […]
Nut Control Device
Society needs a nut control device. And thanks to Haruo Mochida and Tetsuo Kobayashi, society has one. Here’s the patent: “Nut Control Device,”Haruo Mochida and Tetsuo Kobayashi, US patent #4345863, issued August 24, 1982.
To fail by looking at all ‘failed’ technology as failure
Maggie Koerth-Baker writes in BoingBoing: “How the Refrigerator Got its Hum” is an article written by science historian Ruth Schwartz Cowan [pictured here]. It was published in 1985, in a book called The Social Shaping of Technology. The article traces the development of the refrigerator and the story of why we use electricity, rather than natural […]
Moodie’s Toilet-Paper Safe [patent]
Last week we looked at Ives’s modern paper safe. Today we present Moodie’s 19th-century toilet-paper safe: “Toilet-Paper Safe,” Elhanan L. Moodie, US patent number: 416340, Filing date: Aug 31, 1889. It begins: “Be it known that I, Elhanan L. Moodie, of the city and State of New York, have invented aii Improvement in Toilet-Paper Safes, […]