10 top inventions for 2011

Popular Science picks out this year's best innovations...

In the five years that Popular Science has run the Invention Awards, we’ve seen a lot of remarkable things come out of people’s garages. Some are designed to treat the sick or save the planet. Others are simply fun to play with. But no matter what the purpose, the brilliance of the inventions and the dedication of the individuals behind them are always inspiring.

This year’s 10 honorees carry on the tradition: a pen that can screen for prenatal diseases for less than a penny, a machine that uses a boat’s exhaust to treat onboard waste, and even a jet-propelled body board light enough to carry from your car to the water. Each of this year’s inventions takes on a different challenge—and solves it in its own ingenious way.

                                                                                                                                                         

The Stark Hand

Created by Mark Stark, The Stark Hand prototype provides an ingenious, comfortable, and very inexpensive alternative to the hook his friend Dave Vogt had worn all his life. With the new hand, Dave can now catch balls and grip wine glasses.


                                                                                                                                                         

The Body Guard

David Brown designed The BodyGuard, a crime-fighting armored glove, as built-in self protection. The demo model has a camera, a wrist mounted stunner and lots of room for future improvements. The idea came to David while talking to his friend, Kevin Costner.





                                                                                                                                                        

The Print Brush

Weighing in at less than a pound, Alex Breton's PrintBrush easily fits in a laptop bag and prints on any flat surface, from wood to fabric to plastic. Alex worked on the project for 11 years, but a version with a bonus built-in camera comes out early next year.

                                                                                                                                                     

The Katal Landing Pad

Aaron Coret and his friend Stephen Slen came up with the Katal Landing Pad after Aaron had a nasty snowboarding accident. The board, which was used during the 2010 Winter Olympics, provides a giant cushioned landing for snowboarders and helps make the sport safer.


                                                                                                                                                     

Dynamic Eye Sunglasses

Unlike regular sunglasses, Chris Mullin's glasses block glare instantly with liquid crystal lenses that darken the most where the sun's light is the brightest. A particularly sunny commute inspired Mullin's invention.



                                                                                                                                                  

The Bed Bug Detective

Built to imitate a dog's nose, the Bed Bug Detective sniffs out bedbugs quickly. Chris Goggin plans to create a model that can detect other pests, too, including mice and cockroaches.



                                                                                                                                                     

A Prenatal Marker to Screen for Pregnancy Complications

Designed by a college student and his classmates, the Prenatal Screening Kit, or safety pen, helps detect complications in pregnancies at an early stage. The pen will be quite cheap, costing only a third of a cent per use, making it a perfect tool for hospitals in developing nations.

                                                                                                                                                    
The Zero Liquid Discharge

With a pleasant name for a gross procedure, the Zero Liquid Discharge, or ZLD, completely oxidizes and evaporates sewage from boats, airplanes and RVs. After flash evaporation, the waste leaves as a harmless, odorless aerosol.

                                                                                                                                                 
Kymera Motorized Body Board

The lightweight Kymera Body Board is Jason Woods's solution for a timeless problem (for lucky people): how to have fun at the lake without the hassle of lugging a boat around. The latest version of his motorized body board hits speeds of 25 mph.

                                                                                                                                                     

The Medical Mirror

While it can't tell you if you're the fairest of them all, the Medical Mirror can tell you your heart rate, which is probably more valuable in the long run anyway. A webcam behind the mirror captures variations in reflected light on your face, and an algorithm translates that into heartbeats.

                                                                                                                                                   

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Sony's bio battery turns waste paper into electricity

Sony has unveiled a paper-powered battery prototype in Japan.

The technology generates electricity by turning shredded paper into sugar which in turn is used as fuel.


If brought to market, the innovation could allow the public to top up the power of their mobile devices using waste material.


The team behind the project said such bio-batteries are environmentally friendly as they did not use harmful chemicals or metals.


The Japanese electronics giant showed off its invention at the Eco-Products exhibition in Tokyo last week.


Employees invited children to drop piece of paper and cardboard into a liquid made up of water and enzymes, and then to shake it. The equipment was connected to a small fan which began spinning a few minutes later.


Learning from nature


The process works by using the enzyme cellulase to decompose the materials into glucose sugar. These were then combined with oxygen and further enzymes which turned the material into electrons and hydrogen ions.


The electrons were used by the battery to generate electricity. Water and the acid gluconolactone, which is commonly used in cosmetics, were created as by-products.


Researchers involved in the project liken the mechanism to the one used by white ants and termites to digest wood and turn it into energy.


“In the future using this technology, we will be able to generate electricity using glucose derived from unused wood, cardboard and old papers,” a presentation given by the team said.

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Self-cleaning cotton nanoparticle coating invented

Efforts to create self-cleaning cotton fabrics are bearing fruit in China.

Engineers have created a chemical coating that causes cotton materials to clean themselves of stains and remove odours when exposed to sunlight.

The researchers say the treatment is cheap, non-toxic and ecologically friendly.

Retail experts say the innovation could prove a hit with retailers thanks to a growing demand for "functional clothing".

The research was carried out by engineers at Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Hubei University for Nationalities, and is published in the latest issue of the Applied Materials and Interfaces journal.

The study focuses on titanium dioxide - a chemical known to be an "excellent catalyst in the degradation of organic pollutants".

The substance is already used in self-cleaning windows, odour-free socks and stay-clean kitchen and bathroom tiles.

Initial efforts to extend its use to cotton fabrics proved limiting because the substance's self-cleaning properties could only be "excited" under ultraviolet lights, making it impractical for everyday use.

Creating the coating

The team's breakthrough was to create a nanoparticle alcohol-based compound made up of titanium dioxide and nitrogen.

The mixture was added to triethylamine, an acid neutraliser commonly used in dyes. After being stirred for a 12 hours at room temperature, the liquid was heated at 100C (212F) for a further six hours.

The cotton fabrics were then immersed in the mixture before being squeezed dry, heated and immersed in hot clean water.

Finally the coated materials were treated with silver iodide particles, which aid light-based reactions.

To test the effectiveness of their invention, the engineers marked the fabrics with an orange dye stain and exposed them to the sun. After two hours in the light, the team said 71% of the stain had been removed - a "dramatic" improvement over previously trialled techniques.

Long-lasting

The experiment was repeated on the same cloth five times with no loss of activity - suggesting that the enhancement was stable. Washing and drying the material did not reduce its effectiveness.

Clothes industry experts said there should be huge interest in the process if it could be rolled-out on an industrial scale.

"This kind of functional clothing has already proved very popular, especially in Japan where the authorities ordered a crackdown on air conditioning use after March's earthquake caused power shortages," said Isabelle Cavill, a clothing analyst at Planet Retail.

"It is also likely to prove popular in other parts of Asia where the heat causes sweat problems."

Ms Cavill noted that the Japanese retailer Uniqlo has started promoting a "Silky Dry" range of clothing that promises to keep skin dry and odour-free thanks to special "high-tech processing neutralisers".

The firm also markets a "Heattech" line which "creates heat" to keep users warm.

Meanwhile, scientists at the University of Sheffield have been researching a fabric conditioner that helps purify the air around people wearing treated clothes.

"The main retailers to pick up on this latest innovation are likely to be those selling basicware," said Ms Cavill.

"In the West that could mean Wal-Mart or Marks and Spencer would want to invest in the Chinese technology to take advantage of functional clothing becoming more popular with shoppers."

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IITians create device to prevent derailments

The new device is aimed at replacing a bulky, box-like contraption that is currently used by Indian Railways.

"Our device is a supplementary system for monitoring track health, making it simpler to integrate with the existing railway infrastructure," said Kshitij Deo, M.Tech in mechanical engineering, who developed the device with three others from the vibration and dynamics lab of the IIT.

For Railways, safety is important as thousands of trains use around 114,500 km tracks of its network - the world's fourth largest. With regular use, the tracks develop cracks and fissures, including problems linked to loose nuts and bolts at the joints. If the tracks are less firmly anchored on the soil, it could lead to derailment.

All these faults can now be detected in real time and recorded automatically to prevent derailment thanks to the oscillation monitoring system, a cutting-edge device weighing just 100 grams.

The device has been designed and developed by a team of IIT-Kanpur's mechanical engineering graduates, under the guidance of N.S. Vyas, professor and head, mechanical engineering, and the Railways' Research Design and Standards Organisation (RDSO), Lucknow.

The device, based on micro-electro mechanical system, can monitor track health more comprehensively and enable efficient track maintenance.

"The extremely handy package locates and logs track faults accurately with the help of the GPS (global positioning system), eliminating human errors and making train journeys safer. It has a battery life of 10 hours and can be recharged by USB port on computers," said Deo who developed the device with three others from the vibration and dynamics lab under Vyas.

On the other hand, the existing railway monitoring equipment is bulky and operated manually, with two people being required to feed the location into the bulky device.

It is mounted on a special coach, the oscillation monitoring unit. Since it forms part of a small train, the exercise cannot be undertaken frequently. Track clearances have to be sought and the routes planned and finalised in advance, said Deo.

"The biggest challenge lay in engineering a device that could pinpoint faults with a high degree of precision while simplifying use with a drastically reduced size. We did manage to reduce the number of buttons to one as against 50 required on the keypad of the railway equipment," said Deo.

The device once placed on the floor of a running train's coach measures and records vibrations. Any fault or irregularity on the tracks changes the pattern of vibrations. The device feeds all such data and locational faults into a fingernail-sized data storage card with the help of a GPS receiver.

If the vibrations cross a certain threshold, especially in case of a critical fault, the device alerts engineers with audio-visual signals (beeps and flashing LEDs). Post- journey, the storage card is retrieved from the device and plugged into the computer for reading the track's actual condition and analysis by the railways.

The plan is to install at least three-four such devices on trains running on each route to monitor each track on a regular basis.

The project grew out of a visit by the director of the RDSO to IIT-Kanpur. "We were demonstrating a similar vibration measurement instrument developed by us. In subsequent meetings, the project was finalised and we designed the device in close coordination with RDSO officials," said Deo.

"The project took a year to fructify, involving some 25 field trials on trains, including Shatabdi and Rajdhani Expresses. The RDSO has been optimistic about the project. Many times we actually walked on the track to verify faults as predicted by the device," recalled Deo.

After the successful completion of the first phase, the RDSO is keen on going ahead with the second phase and testing the device on trains in all the railway zones. If its performance is found satisfactory, it would be approved by the Railways.

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Indian-American develops next-generation computer chip

     Indian-American Raj Dutt, an IIT-Kharagpur alumnus, has developed a next-generation energy-efficient computer chip that has caught the attention of the Pentagon, which is testing its application in the ambitious F-35 Joint Strike Fighters.

The breakthrough technology by Dutt, Chairman and CEO of privately-held APIC Corp and Photonic Corp, helps computer processors consume up to 90 per cent less energy and run up to 60 per cent faster.

     "The significance of the technology is that information transfer on the semiconductor chip as well as between components, will now be done using light - photons - instead of just electrons (electronics)," California-based Dutt told PTI.

There are many advantages in size, weight and especially power consumed, he explained during his recent trip to Washington, where he met Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee.

Photons do not generate heat, thus thy do not need to be cooled. For electronics, cooling is one of the largest cost components.

"Photonic interconnects do not generate heat and use less size than electronic copper interconnects, so more transistors can be put onto a chip. Most significantly, we have figured out how to do this using the same economical process used in manufacturing semiconductor chips today, enabling them to be stamped out by the millions," Dutt said.

Well aware with the potential of the computer chip, the US Department of Defence is fully supporting Dutt and his company. The Pentagon is testing the chip's application in the ambitious F-35 Joint Strike Fighters.

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