Great New Product – Page 70

Breakthrough Thinking, Great New Product, Historical Perspectives, Latest News, New Viewpoints

Examining The Method Of Wiring Chips With Nerve Cells

March 24, 2011

Visions of a hybrid computer chip.

Research from the University of Wisconsin–Madison points to progress in creating hybrid computer chips combining silicon and neurons. Biomedical engineers demonstrated a novel technique for weaving the tendrils of mouse nerve cells into a network of semiconductor tubes. Yeah, that’s just an illustration above. But eventually, a neural-electronic device such as this could be used to study diseases of the nervous system, test drug efficacy, or potentially lead to new brain-machine interfaces…

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Breakthrough Thinking, Business, Great New Product, Historical Perspectives, Human Behavior, Latest News, Latest Trend, New Discoveries, New Inventions

GiftRocket Makes a Gift Card Accepted Anywhere

March 23, 2011

A new spin on the popular gift card.

Is the gift card, a surprisingly desirable commodity for gift recipients, in need of a version 2.0? The decades old plastic present, predated by its paper cousin the gift certificate, may be in for a young and hip transformation at the hands of new startup GiftRocket.

GiftRocket’s version of the gift card is place-specific, but not in the traditional sense. The format is designed to open up the $100 billion-per-year gift card industry and allow gift givers to send gift cards to anyone via email for any thing — such as drinks, skydiving or a spa day — at any venue, regardless of whether the retailer sells its own gift cards…

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Fashion, Great New Product, Great Videos, Health & Fitness, Science & Technology News

Heart Rate Monitor Integrated Into Under Armour Sport Shirt

March 20, 2011

Under Armour

Heart rate and sports monitors appear just about everywhere–in standalone devices, in watches, in bras, in shoes, in GPS devices–so why not just build them right into shirts. Many heart rate monitors need to be strapped to the chest anyway, so a heart-rate shirt seems like a logical conclusion. (video)

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Breakthrough Thinking, Great New Product, New Discoveries, New Inventions, New Viewpoints, Video Games

Red Bull Augmented Racing Game Lets You Build Tracks With Red Bull Cans

March 20, 2011

Red Bull Can Racing

Sure, it may all just be an elaborate scheme to get you to buy more Red Bull, but it is a fairly ingenious scheme. In addition to a plethora of in-game advertising, the new Red Bull racing game for iOS devices also has an augmented reality component that lets you build tracks simply by lining up actual cans of Red Bull on the floor — at least twelve of them for a complete track, and only Red Bull will do, apparently…

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Art, Breakthrough Thinking, Entertainment, Great New Product, Green Friendly, People Making a Difference, Recycling

Hardwood Floors & Basketball Courts Recycled into Skateboards

March 20, 2011

Glide on your new ride.

Watching basketball, do you ever wonder what happens to the wood flooring when the court has to be replaced? Well, in the case of the court at Virginia State University, the maple planks once played on by the Trojans were recycled, and in an unusual way: they’ve been remade into skateboards…

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Breakthrough Thinking, Great New Product, Health & Fitness, Human Behavior, New Inventions

The Sock Helper

March 20, 2011

Pull that sock up without getting close to your feet.

People have some strange phobias so I could see this strange aperture to be helpful who are afraid of their own feet.

Easy pull on sock aid supports compression hosier, medical stockings, socks and panty hose so it’s easy to slide your foot in and pull on with handles without having to bend down or struggle…

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Breakthrough Thinking, Business, Great New Product, Historical Perspectives, Internet, New Viewpoints

Make Any Content on the Web Embeddable With Embedly

March 19, 2011

Embedly screen shot.

When traversing the web, most site visitors will stay on a page 250% longer when there’s embedded media, Sean Creeley tells me. This stat is based on findings from a Google AdWords test he ran last year.

Creeley is the founder of Y Combinator startup Embedly; Embedly’s mission is to make it painstakingly easy for publishers and application developers to add that embedded media and better engage their web users.

“The idea is to engage the user where they are,” says Creeley. “We really want to get the user where they live, instead of making them try to jump through hoops to view multimedia content.”

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Great New Product, Great Videos, Science & Technology News

Shock Wave Engine Could Make Hybrid Cars More Fuel Efficient

March 18, 2011

Wave rotor motor

Piston engines are big, heavy, dirty, complicated, and expensive pieces of machinery that have been around for a century. It’s about time for something better, and one option could be wave disk engines, which are small, light, clean, simple, and cheap pieces of machinery that aren’t around yet. But they’re close.

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Analysis, Breakthrough Thinking, Business, Crazy Stuff, Current Events, Entertainment, Great New Product, Internet, Latest News, Latest Trend, People Making a Difference

Youngest Y Combinator Founders Launch MinoMonsters, The Pokemon Of Social Games

March 18, 2011

At age 15, most normal people are going to high school, learning to drive, not listening to their parents, and doing things that they’ll later tell their kids not to do. Josh Buckley is not a normal teenager. At 15, he was selling his first company for just over six figures.

Today, the 18-year-old entrepreneur and angel investor has partnered with 17-year-old engineer Tyler Diaz to co-found MinoMonsters, a social game in which players collect and battle pet monsters.

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Great New Product, Green Friendly, Plant Life, Science & Technology News

PepsiCo Unveils World’s First Plastic Bottle Made Entirely From Plant-based Materials

March 17, 2011

PepsiCo’s 100% plant-based bottle.

Remember the Cola Wars? Get ready for the Bottle Wars. PepsiCo Inc. on Tuesday unveiled a bottle made entirely of plant material, which it says bests the technology of competitor Coca-Cola and reduces its potential carbon footprint.

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Alternative Transportation, Breakthrough Thinking, Ecological Products, Great New Product, Green Friendly, Historical Perspectives, New Viewpoints

Pedal Power Meets Photovoltaics via Solarbike

March 15, 2011

Solarbike aims at having electric bikes powered by the sun.

Solarbike specialises in electric conversion kits for bicycles. But the business’s founders, both research scientists at the University of Western Australia, have been working on a way to easily have electric bikes powered by the sun. After some trial and error, which they transparently document, they’ve arrived at reasonably affordable photovoltaic systems that allow electric bike owners to ride like a solar wind…

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Architecture, Art, Breakthrough Thinking, Great New Product, Historical Perspectives

Translucent Concrete

March 14, 2011

Concrete with a special twist.

This special concrete tile allows light to pass through. The tile contains optical fibers that make up about 5% of its surface area. The fibers are distributed uniformly throughout the surface to allow an outline to be clearly visible on the other side. The tiles have the unique combination of being nearly unbreakable and translucent.

The material is made with a combination of optical fibers and fine concrete…

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