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Time: The Best Inventions Of The Year

This year, Time Magazine's Invention of the Year title goes to the iPhone, as:

best invetions buyers guide 2007 cool iphone mp3

1. The iPhone is pretty
2. It's touchy-feely
3. It will make other phones better
4. It's not a phone, it's a platform
5. It is but the ghost of iPhones yet to come

Below are others selected on the list:

 Autonomous Automobile
Venturi Electric Inventors Inventions Best of the Rest 2007
 The trouble with most green-concept cars is that they require regular "refueling" with hard-to-get hydrogen or ethanol. The Venturi Eclectic runs solely on wind and solar power. Solar cells blanket the rooftop, and a wind turbine provides extra juice. When that's not enough, a backup electric outlet can recharge the three-seat Eclectic in five hours.
Available: 2008
http://www.venturi.fr/
 

Car, Compacted

Citi Car Inventors Inventions Best of the Rest 2007
Franco Vairani / MIT
 
 Aiming for the sweet spot between the comfort of a private vehicle and the efficiency of public transportation, the City Car from MIT's Media Lab is a stackable electric car that can be checked out like a luggage cart at the airport, then returned to any station around the city. Electric motors in each wheel eliminate the need for a mechanical drivetrain, and these 5-ft.-long (1.5 m) two-seaters zip along at 55 m.p.h. (about 90 km/h).
Available: 2011
cities.media.mit.edu
 

Reading Glasses

Subtitle Glasses Inventors Inventions Best of the Rest 2007
 

Researchers at Madrid's Carlos III University have devised a way for the hearing-impaired to stay with the program: Subtitle Glasses. The mini-display that hangs over the right lens picks up text that's transmitted to it wirelessly, timed to follow along with the movie.
Available: Prototype
cesya.es/en

Sound Tracker

Portable People Meter Inventors Inventions Best of the Rest 2007
 

Forget consumer diaries. Arbitron is shaking up the ratings industry with its Portable People Meter, a wearable gizmo that picks up identification codes embedded in the audio portion of a broadcast and automatically records what radio- or TV-station consumers are really flipping to.
Available: Now
arbitron.com

An ATM for Books

Espresso Book Machine Inventors Inventions Best of the Rest 2007
 The Espresso Book Machine—meaning "fast," not coffee—can churn out a 300-page paperback on demand, complete with color cover, in just 3 min. The $50,000 machine could transform libraries into minibookstores, making hard-to-find titles as accessible as cappuccinos. At $3 a book they might be cheaper too.
Available Now
ondemandbooks.com
 

Without a Trace

Xerox Disappearing Ink Inventions Best of the Rest 2007
 

Did you hear the joke about the paperless office? Now that we've laid that myth to rest, scientist Paul Smith at Xerox Research Centre of Canada has made a real breakthrough with Erasable Paper. The paper is embedded with a material that changes color when exposed to light and is projected onto it by an inkless printer. The text disappears in 24 hours, so you can reuse the sheet.
Available Prototype
xerox.com/innovation/exp_paper.shtml

Pretty Sweet

Sugar Battery Inventors Inventions Best of the Rest 2007
Copyright Sony Corporation
 How's this for eco-friendly: a battery that runs on sugar. Sony's bio cell, unveiled in mid-2008, uses glucose-digesting enzymes to extract electrons from any sugary solution (as with other batteries, the electrons flow around the circuit to generate electricity). Connect four of the 50-milliwatt cells, and you've got enough juice to keep your MP3 player humming.
Available Prototype
sony.net
 

Good Morning, Sunshine

Glow Pillow Inventors Inventions Best of the Rest 2007
 

Most people hate their alarm clock. That's why Eoin McNally and Ian Walton created the glo Pillow. Embedded with a grid of LEDs, it uses nothing but light to wake you up. About 40 min. before reveille, the programmable foam pillow starts glowing, gradually becoming brighter, to simulate a natural sunrise. This helps set your circadian rhythm and ease you into the day.
Available Prototype
embryo.ie/glo/index.html

Hot or Not?

Interactive Mirror Inventors Inventions Best of the Rest 2007
 

You know the feeling. You try on a shirt at the store and think you look pretty fly, but you need a second opinion. With Social Retailing, developed by IconNicholson and shown at Bloomingdale's in March, you can send a video to your friends' cell phones and instantly get their vote. You can also try on outfits virtually using a mirror that shows how fab they might look—or not.
Available 2008
iconnicholson.com

Bending Reality

OLED Screen Inventors Inventions Best of the Rest 2007
Copyright Sony Corporation
 

Imagine a cell phone you could roll up like a sheet of paper, or a computer screen flexible enough to wrap around a pillar. This spring LG.Philips and Sony demonstrated flexible displays that can do just that. Both ultra-thin screens use organic leds that display 16.7 million colors. Flexible screens have been shown before, but these mark a step up in durability and quality, and bring us closer to a future when the unyieldingly rigid gadgets we now covet will be obsolete.
Available Prototypes
lgphilips-lcd.com

for completed story, please go to Times http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/completelist/0,,1677329,00.html

Posted: Saturday, November 03, 2007 9:51 AM by YEN CHING-CHIUAN
Filed under: ,

Comments

Wenzhi's Wonderful World said:

TIME 雜誌發布了今年的 Invention of the Year，iphone入選為 The Best Inventions Of The Year. ...

# November 6, 2007 11:34 PM
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