Time’s Best Inventions 2006 has some neat stuff:
Janjaap Ruijssenaars air mattress uses a matching set of repelling magnets, built into the bed and the floor below, to support ~2,000 lbs.
The Wovel snow shovel on a wheel clears snow with a fraction of the effort and is safer on your back too. People in snowy climes will, um, wove it.
Attach radio-frequency-emitting tags to your keys or other easily lost possessions and use Loc8tor to point you in the right direction (within an inch of your item) while the tag itself beeps.
CeeLite’s paper-thin, flexible lightbulb “sheets” are funky. See a video clip of Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers drum kit hooked up with CeeLite panels.
It’s not on Time’s list but here’s another smart gadget idea: Twist & Spout fits virtually any soda or water bottle with a screw-on cap. Use the Garden style to create an instant watering can.
One more: Ecopod is a home recycling center with compaction and collection.
Josh
on 08 Dec 06USBCell batteries are one of the coolest things I’ve seen this year. In a sea of useless USB gadgets, this one actually makes sense.
That air mattress is pretty slick… though a bit pricey when a conventional mattress will do.
JF
on 08 Dec 06Wow, Josh, that is clever. Thanks for sharing.
Dan Boland
on 08 Dec 06Is it me, or am I the only one who doesn’t see how the Wovel will make shoveling easier? Don’t you need a lot of force to shovel an icy sidewalk? (Like the hundreds all over Chicago.)
Nathan
on 08 Dec 06I think it makes it easier to lift snow up, because pushing down on that handle is probably much easier than pulling a shovel up.
For actually scraping ice, i would imagine this isn’t ideal.
Frank 'viperteq' Young
on 08 Dec 06Hey guys, what happens when you lose the locater that’s used to locate your keys?
Scott
on 08 Dec 06Nathan, For Chicago the Wovel has a Fwame Thworer. Attachment
Gary
on 08 Dec 06I agree. Anyone who thinks that Wovel will make clearing a sidewalk easier has never had to shovel much snow. So what if you can catapult the snow straight up. You need to lift it and throw it off the driveway. Having a big wheel on my shovel will hurt my back if I want to throw the snow off to the side.
If you sun-belters still don’t follow, realize that in the northeast, snow remains on the side of your dirveway for months and the pile keeps getting higher until the thaw.
Eddie
on 08 Dec 06Gary-
I think the 10 million pictures and demos on the site address your concerns pretty well. You don’t need to lift up the wheel… and you don’t throw the snow “straight up” in the air… you can tilt it and throw it, you can push-throw it… heck, if you had the time you could probably even “wheelbarrel” it over the snow bank. That would probably take a year to clear a sidewalk, but still.
Ben Atkin
on 08 Dec 06Frank,
You don’t keep your keys and the locator in the same place. That way you won’t lose both at the same time.
If you lose your keys, you use the locator. If you lose the locator, you buy a new one. You can’t just buy new keys, unless you have duplicates of all of them.
Dan Boland
on 08 Dec 06Eddie: Not to bust your balls, but it’s wheelbarrow, not “wheelbarrel.”
Bob King Neverland
on 08 Dec 06Does anyone have a video of that snowbarrow thing? Are you just supposed to chunk it like the doofus in the pic?
Denis Kolesnichenko
on 08 Dec 06Isn’t it bad for health to sleep on big magnet? (okay, it’s flying – big deal :]). Problems may arise with having children and stuff…
Michael Chui
on 09 Dec 06I take it it’s not a good idea to lie on the air mattress with a laptop?
Jesus Fernandez
on 09 Dec 06I’d be more worried about sleeping on a surface that very much wants to move with great force if not for the tether wires coming out of the corners.
warren
on 09 Dec 06that apartment with that bed seems like the ultimate in Jobsian stark minimalist/Zen living.
Eamon
on 09 Dec 06Yeah, the tethers totally ruin the floating bed for me.
Ned
on 09 Dec 06Last winter I made a huge snow shovel about of two-by-fours because I did not have one. It was more of a snow bull dozer to move the snow off my parking lot. All my family and friends were impressed. I like the snow wheel idea, I may adapt…
Ebola
on 09 Dec 06I want one of those light sheets. Wonder if I can find one on the cheap somewhere…
subcorpus
on 09 Dec 06i couldd use a loc8tor … but i wanna see it incorporated into my cell phone … cant carry another gadget … pockets are full these days …
shinderpal jand
on 09 Dec 06Cool . Vodoo science.
John Mcgee
on 09 Dec 06There is a GREAT animation on the wovel website of how it should be used.
rimco
on 09 Dec 06I want the guy under the light sheet ;)
Grant Mc
on 09 Dec 06That bed looks supper cool, i must get me one of them.
Jorge
on 09 Dec 06Awesome! i think i would buy the bed if i had the money to purchase it lol A floating bed…how cool is that?
Aiden C
on 10 Dec 06I couldn’t help but think though, with 2000 lbs of magnetic force… what if the bed flipped over somehow and the magnets were suddenly attracted towards eachother, with you in between…. Seems kind of dangerous, being in between a few 2000 lbs magnets, hehe.
Hank
on 10 Dec 06If that light-bulb could give me abs like the bloke in the photo, I’d drop money for that pound for sure.
Comox
on 10 Dec 06Why isn’t the mattress thrown to one side or the other and therefore knocked off the magnetic area of influence. The magnetic energy from the magnets would all very somewhat making it impossible to balance the mattress in the middle.
Bill P
on 10 Dec 06JF – Thanks for watching my back (literally)!
I live in Minnesota & the wovel should be just perfect. I have thrown out my back shoveling snow, but the idea of getting a snowblower has always bothered me.
$120 is peanuts compared to a TORO + maintenance + storage space + 10 years worth of gas.
Digital Fine Art Guy
on 11 Dec 06Re: Magnetic bed
Sure, it’s cool, but why have such totally useless things on a best inventions list?
Function, people. Function.
Nahrishkeit
on 11 Dec 06I think that Louise and Mike Cole are arshlochs.
Ramalamadingdong
on 11 Dec 06My dentist has tattooed legs in Ft. Collins CO and no one gives him a medal for his furniture?
David Seruyange
on 11 Dec 06Living in South Dakota, the Wovel is a curiosity. Could it work here? I’d love to have something like that over the snowblower.
dmanley
on 11 Dec 06Aiden…if the bed is able to withstand 2000 lbs, I doubt even the most vigorous sex would be able to nudge it, let alone flip it completely over. Unless your sex involves industrial earth-moving equipment, which it might. I don’t know you that well.
Blake P.
on 11 Dec 06Do you really need sex to sell light sheets? I would think maybe showing a legit function of their use would be better. Then again, maybe they really do make good blankets/capes.
Sunbathing Mamas
on 11 Dec 06Love this site. The Air Mattress is the most innovative concept I’ve seen this year. Changing the sheets would be a snap.
Ismael
on 11 Dec 06Really really nice, simple and most of all honoring your design philosophy. I do miss a favicon, though.
simon
on 11 Dec 06Thanks Josh, USBCELL AA rechargeable batteries were launched just over 10 weeks ago (so guessed we missed Time), but it’s in Popular Mechanics, Engadget top Gifts and The Onion Christmas Gifts this week.
They are available in the USA and EU – http://www.usbcell.com/pr/8 as a better greener battery technology – we’re also running a special Christmas gift box of 10 packs to give out at Presents so you never need to wory about ‘Batteries not included’ at Christmas.
Jon H
on 11 Dec 06Re: the wovel, the way you throw to the side is to load the shovel, back up a little, push the wheel toward where you want the snow to go, then throw. Then back up again, straighten out, and go forward again.
My main concern was with the life of the scoop, but at their website they have a $50 accessory kit that includes a wear strip for the edge of the scoop. The kit also includes an ice-chipping blade, for those concerned about that. I’d think the wovel would be pretty good at that – if it’s good at lifting the snow easily, then it should be just as good at whomping downward onto the ice to break it.
Jon H
on 11 Dec 06BTW, at ceelite’s website you can order an experimenter’s kit, with a small 8×11 sheet of the flexible lighting material and a transformer. I think the kit cost about $30.
Tiffy
on 12 Dec 06Wow, that USB cell is awesome. It sure would save me tons of money on batteries. (:
kate
on 12 Dec 06awsome magnet bed… Imagine sleeping on that! I’d imagine it’d be a bit tippy though
Doodle Dan
on 13 Dec 06Check out that levitating mattress for sale @ http://tinyurl.com/yj79pr. Only $1,500,000!
This discussion is closed.