MotorcycleAfter engineering a buggy that runs on four wheels it didn’t take long to realize a motorized bicycle would work well. Motorcycles are more efficient than cars: they use less fuel and take less space. However, they’re more dangerous than cars, offering far less protection in the event of a crash. They’re also fun. In … Continue reading "Motorcycle"
Hot Air BalloonThanks to a stunt by the Montgolfier brothers, people finally flew. Well, actually a few animals left the ground but people weren’t far behind. The balloon wasn’t especially practical, since it couldn’t be guided, but led the way for future innovations plus allowed a new perspective on the world. Despite that it was more of … Continue reading "Hot Air Balloon"
Inkjet PrinterInkjet printing produces affordable, high-quality printouts using low-cost personal desktop printers. Background Ichiro Endo, of Canon, was the first to realize the idea that ink could be heated to form a small bubble, then deposited on a page to form a pixel, inkjet printing. John Vaught, a college dropout working at Hewlett-Packard, was working on … Continue reading "Inkjet Printer"
24-Hour NewsBroadcast news was a staid affair, a half-hour visual summary showing events of the day. American networks NBC, ABC, and CBS each had a newscast and each aired at the same time. Ted Turner inherited an outdoor advertising company. To build more advertising outlets he purchased a third-rate television station running old TV series and … Continue reading "24-Hour News"
eLearning / Computer Based Training, PLATOIn 1960, Prof. Donald Bitzer introduced an educational computer system, the Programmed Logic for Automatic Teaching Operations, PLATO. In hindsight, PLATO is arguably one of the least known but most important technological advances ever. Countless elements of the world wide web were first introduced via PLATO. Background Bitzer was a professor of electrical engineering at … Continue reading "eLearning / Computer Based Training, PLATO"
FiberglassFiberglass has multiple uses. It acts as an insulator, building material, and even boat hulls. First, in 1870, John Player developed a process to mass-produce glass strands with seam jets used for insulation. By and large, this is arguably the first fiberglass. Eventually, in 1880, Herman Hammesfahr patented weaving glass fibers to silk, making it … Continue reading "Fiberglass"
Personal Portable Music PlayerBattery operated portable personal music players are fun, enabling users to build a cocoon of their own music. Portable radios and stereos date back to the invention of the transistor. Over time, these grew in size and power. Enormous stereos run from batteries, “boom boxes,” were commonplace. However, boom boxes played music from speakers and … Continue reading "Personal Portable Music Player"
Screw PropellerScrew Propellers vastly reduced the amount of power needed to move ships. The propellers look like fans and work on similar principles except they displace water instead of air. Countless people, from James Watt onward, claim to have invented the screw propeller. Early experiments, in the late 1700s and early 1800s, functioned but propelled ships … Continue reading "Screw Propeller"
Broadcast NewsThe Scripps newspaper family-owned, among other newspapers, The Detroit News. They noticed when the Titanic sunk, in 1912, that radio sent the news far faster than telegraphs or telephones. An Experiment In 1920 radio was for what today we’d call early adopters. There were few broadcasts and most of those were sporadic broadcasting of recorded … Continue reading "Broadcast News"
Public-Key Cryptography (Public key encryption)Public Key Cryptography (PKC) dramatically lowers the risk of information intercept and also lowers the risk of impersonation. PKC vastly increases security. For example, Google allows people to send queries to them encrypted. But they cannot decrypt the queries sent by others with what they give you, only Google can. Besides encrypting and decrypting, public … Continue reading "Public-Key Cryptography (Public key encryption)"
Autonomous Vehicles (Self-Driving Cars)DARPA, the US government agency that invented the internet (among other things) created a contest to build a self-driving car. The first DARPA Grand Challenge, in 2004, was a 150 mile (240 km. route). The robot-car that drove the furthest before breaking down, built by Carnegie-Mellon University (CMU), lasted 11.78km. Undeterred, DARPA tried again. Subsequently, … Continue reading "Autonomous Vehicles (Self-Driving Cars)"
Interchangeable Standardized Parts: the “American Manufacturing Method”Standardized parts allow parts of a machine to be swapped out, enabling factories to manufacture parts without worrying about the larger machine. Interchangeable parts vastly lowered manufacturing costs. Check out the video we created about interchangeable standardized parts: Today, everything from cars to computers, software and even food, is interchangeable. We’re annoyed that a USB … Continue reading "Interchangeable Standardized Parts: the “American Manufacturing Method”"
Stocking Frame (Mechanical Knitter)The first automated knitting machine; one of the key pieces of equipment that kicked off the Industrial Revolution. The Stocking Frame copies the hand movements of a tradesperson, knitting far faster than a person could. The machine worked with both wool, which tended to produce coarse but inexpensive fabric, and also silk. When cotton became … Continue reading "Stocking Frame (Mechanical Knitter)"
Blockchain Explained? Hype or Hope?Blockchain is like the gluten diet a few years back; everybody’s into it but nobody’s quite sure why and few people really need it though to those who do it’s important. I’ll analyze it through the only metric that really matters, value. But before doing that, we need to understand what the it actually is. … Continue reading "Blockchain Explained? Hype or Hope?"
Cable TelevisionCable television brings television channels to customers without antennas. Later versions bring more channels than analog antennas provided. Walson owned a small company, Service Electric, located in a mountainous region in Pennsylvania. Frustrated that buyers of his televisions could not receive a signal he climbed a mountain and installed an antenna at the top. Eventually, … Continue reading "Cable Television"
