Open Source Textiles

San Franciscobased Soft Cities employs open-source software to access a global collection of maps, which is then used to create custom blankets and napkins. Buyers can order custom textiles printed with a street map of any neighborhood, from a hometown to a favorite vacation spot.

Smart Fridge

Need an idea for dinner, ask the fridge. A new smart fridge lets you look up favorite recipes from the wireless panel on the door. The fridge, debuted by Samsung also has built in speakers so owners can stream music while cooking. The smart screen also allows users to write note, such as shopping list, directly on the unit, no magnets needed.

Futuristic Camera

The Lytro light field camera allows pictures to be refocused after they have been taken. The camera captures complete light field data, color, intensity and vector direction of every light ray in a scene, in one click. This means that a user can focus and refocus a single image at various points, creating multiple variations of the same scene.

Smarter Shirts

This year Under Armour debuted a shirt that could completely change sports training practices. The UA E39 is made out of the same compression material as the rest of the company’s clothing line but contains sensors that measure everything from the heart rate to the g force of acceleration of the person wearing it. Data from the sensors is transmitted by Bluetooth to a smart phone or any other device that can receive it.

The author invites companies to submit their own best idea for consideration for the list. Leave an idea in the comments section or send an e-mail to dthompson@theatlantic.com.

Smart glass in translucent state

GE Sponsored txchnologist.com has recently spotlighted some interesting advancements energy-saving technologies.

Electric Windows

While the technology has been available for a couple of decades, a new commitment to high-volume manufacturing will soon make accessible the color-changing glass used to produce smart windows. Smart windows let in the sun to help heat rooms when it’s cold outside and also block the visible and near-infrared light that can overheat houses in the summer. They can also reduce the need for electric lighting during daytime and partially eliminate the need for shades and blinds.

The technology (currently used to make glare free mirrors in some high end vehicles) turns glass from transparent to translucent and back again when it is briefly exposed to low voltage that is fed to it via a simple circuit to the building current, thus controlling the transmission of visible and near-infrared light. Research shows that replacing all conventional windows in theU.S.with smart windows could result in a savings of 5 percent of the nation’s entire energy budget.

Nuclear Powered Cars

With electric cars thoroughly embraced by the world, electric airplanes on the horizon, what could possibly the next transformational vehicle technology? At least one inventor says it could be nuclear power. The technology in development is a turbine/electric generator system powered by an accelerator-driven thorium-based laser.

Such a system is said to be capable of, in effect, powering a car forever, being totally emissions-free with no need for recharging. With technological hurdles remaining, no prototype has been developed. However, Cadillac has displayed a concept car which could potentially house such a system. And the big question remains, even if the technology is refined, whether governments will even allow nuclear-powered cars on the roads.

A recent edition of Forbes Magazine (U.S.) has a feature article dedicated to the future of robots. From help around the house help,

Ryan Calo, director of the American Bar Association Committee on Robotics and Artificial Intelligence estimates that by 2015, robotics will be a 6 billion dollar industry. He believes that rapid growth of the industry will be incentivized by open robotics and has published a white paper explaining why. A look back at the PC industry provides motivation. When the first microcomputer was introduced in 1975, it had no clear purpose. However, thousands of electronics enthusiasts ordered the computer kit, simply to tinker and figure out what they could do with it. 

This distributed innovation model not only generates extra creativity but disperses the risk for manufacturers. An open platform also involves 3rd party software developers, a benefit which has been seen in the popularity of mobile phone applications. Finally, open robotics will benefits from hardware modularity, built in a way that allows users to swap out parts.

Of course, this system is not without challenges and Calo also addresses the legal issues of open robotics. His key recommendation is narrow immunity. This means a policy that immunizes manufacturers of open robots for what users do with robots, so that they don’t have a disincentive against keeping them open. It does not allow protection for developing an inherently dangerous robot. He also points out the role that fear of robots may impact the speed of development. For example, even though thousands of hours of autonomous car driving could indicate this technology will reduce the number of fatalities, it could easily take only one robot car fatality to create major-setback inducing robot fear.

What do you think, what are your thoughts on the future of robotics?

The Glaxo Smith Kline Consumer Products Division has recently launched an online

To spread awareness, GSK is using sites like www.urweb.tv, a rich media site devoted to accelerating commercialization, to reach hard-to-find inventors, entrepreneurs and garage geniuses.

The site was created by MMC Productions as a rich media marketing vehicle used by Universities, Federal Labs, and Emerging Companies to accelerate the commercialization of promising technologies. Over time, the site has gained a visitor profile of economic development agencies, multi nationals, small businesses, as well as scientists, inventors, entrepreneurs and investors. Now businesses like GSK are exploring ways to use it to leverage this hard to reach audience to fill their innovations needs.

One key to the site’s success is the “Cyberpitch”, a high quality embedded video, text, images, links to papers and contact information. All a client has to do is send a link to a prospect and with the click of the mouse they could watch a video and find all sorts of useful information about the technology. “The idea behind the Cyberpitch was to develop a piece of media for busy executives, that answered in five minutes or less the question “What have you got and why should I be interested,” says MMC’s President Peter Doyle.

A recent post highlighted a project to refine the capabilities of Mechanical Turk for use in software applications. While MIT researchers work on that project, University of Rochester scientists have taken a similar concept and created a way to aid the blind.

VizWiz is an iPhone app that works in conjunction with a Turkit application, allowing a blind user to snap a photo of something, record a question about something shown in the photograph, and then receive an answer back within seconds. Designing a computer program that can reliably recognize text and distinguish objects in the real world has proven to be a massive challenge for artificial intelligence researchers.

 To ensure users get answers as quickly as possible, researchers designed an intelligent queuing system known as Quik Turkit to speed things up. Quik Turkit recruits Mechanical Turk workers even as a VizWiz user is taking a picture, so someone is always ready to answer an incoming query.

According to an article in New Scientist, eleven blind iPhone users tested out VizWiz, asking questions like: “What denomination is this bill?”, “Do you see picnic tables across the parking lot?”, and “What temperature is my oven set to?”
They initially received an average of three responses per query and waited an average of 133.3 seconds for the first answer. The first answer received was accurate or helpful in 71 of 82 cases. By the third answer, all questions were correctly answered.
In a second test, the volunteers got to use VizWiz 2.0, which includes improved image processing techniques. Their response time was cut to an average of 27 seconds.

VizWiz is still under development and not yet available for general use.

According to research from financial services provided American Express, U.S. historical data show that only a small fraction of commercially viable IP is being monetized. In response to this pessimistic finding, they have created an Intellectual Property Zone (IP Zone) designed to promote the advancement of the intellectual property (IP) marketplace, including patents, trademarks, software and other IP products.

Currently launching in beta, IP Zone will work with a closed group of buyers and partners to manage deal opportunities and conduct live deals. The full launch of the IP Zone is planned for later this year, when the platform will open to a broader number of businesses. Businesses will pay a membership fee to participate in the IP Zone, which also includes access to IP transaction courses, IP certifications and IP job training.

The IP Zone has been several years in development, with initial reports revealing a physical hub to be located in the Harlem area of New York City. The idea of creating a new platform for IP transactions came when American Express effectively “hit a wall” in executing on its strategy to create a revenue stream from its patent portfolio. 

The IP Zone is partnering with technology incubator TechNexus, to offer the platform to its affiliates. Fluid Innovation, a leading Intellectual Property licensing and technology firm, has served as a strategic consultant and technology platform Developer. Columbia University and The Intellectual Property and Knowledge Management Taskforce, an IP-focused research group, are co-producing industry education courses about commercializing intellectual property for the Zone.

Additional information about the IP Zone offices and programs will be available later this year. For assistance preparing your patent for sale, contact Idea Connection about reduction to practice, proof of concept and prototyping services.

The TED 2011 conference was held last month in Long Beach, California and a selection of featured talks has recently been posted on-line. As usual, the presentations do not disappoint, with plenty of inspiration to invent and connect. Here are a couple of highlights.

Eric Whitacre: A virtual choir 2,000 voices strong

Two years ago, composer Eric Whitacre was inspired by a fan to lead a virtual choir of singers from around the world, using the power of YouTube. His goal for the first choir was to bring together 50 people, for the 2nd, 900, which ultimately became 2,052.

His story will be appreciated not only by artists and inventors but anyone who has worked on a virtual team. Whitacre poetically describes his virtual choir as “individual souls on desert islands, sending messages in bottle out to each other.” His presentation share moving quotes from participants of all ages and from around the globe and stories about how the satisfying it was to connect with people and participate in an undertaking of such scope. It was like a virtual Esprit de Corps, in Whitacre’s words.

Mick Ebeling: The invention that unlocked a locked-in artist

When Mark Ebeling, founder of international production company The Ebeling Group, was connected with an artist paralyzed head to toe by ALS, he was moved to help. The artist, known as TEMPT, was left with only use of his eyes and without the insurance coverage that could provide the advanced technology needed to communicate. It had been seven years since he had last been able to draw.

Through a process of connecting and researching available tools, Ebeling determined that a solution was possible. He enlisted a team of programmers to solve the problem and ultimately created the “eyewriter”, utilizing components including cheap sunglasses, camera parts and LED lights. Although the current design is, in Ebeling’s words, the artistic equivalent of an etch-a-sketch, it allows any paralyzed person to draw or communicate. Despite the fact that the team has made the design available for free, they are already working to make it stronger and faster. While the eyewriter has received significant media attention, and was honored as one of top 50 inventions of 2010, this presentation tells the story powerfully, concluding with Ebeling’s mandate, “If you see something that’s not possible, make it possible.”

Registration is open for TEDGlobal 2011,”The Stuff Of Life”, to be held July 11-15, in Edinburgh, Scotland

A previous post discussed the process individual patent owners could take when looking to sell or license their patents. Legal issues are also a big concern for companies endeavoring for increased openness.  Here are some words of wisdom from the experts.  

Don’t Ignore Licensing

Patent lawyer Patrick Anderson writes that in order to embrace open innovation, businesses need to “embrace technology licensing as a legitimate business in and of itself, and dropping the ridiculous notion that owners of IP shouldn’t receive credit for innovations they don’t personally commercialize.” Particularly for small businesses, licensing has the advantage of requiring less up front cash and putting some of the risk on the patent owner.

Be Open to Creative Searches

IP Strategist Jackie Hutter writes about the advantages of pursuing other company’s cast-off products or technology. They are not necessarily “junk,” rather, patented products or technology could have been discarded for a number of reasons like the patentee’s strategy changed. If a patentee developed a product or technology and later decided not to introduce it into the market, then that subject matter could be essentially market ready (or nearly market ready) for a significantly less cost than to develop a similar technology from scratch within one’s own organization.

Use Lawyers Wisely

Hutter also cautions companies from putting up complicated restrictions about the use and ownership of IP even before knowing a deal is likely to happen, which is the natural inclination of most IP attorneys. This can often end up in the other party walking away before a deal is even underway. Rather, Hutter has found the best lawyers to negotiate deals in the Open Innovation context are business-focused attorneys, who tend to be people who have served a stint in the corporate world and who might even have little experience with high-end IP issues.

The

The crowdsourced initiative will have volunteers looking for patterns in the fuzzy noise from radio signals picked up by the Allen Telescope Array in Northern California. The telescopes are trained on stars beyond the Solar System that are though to possibly be able to sustain life.

According to a CNET article, the idea began two years ago, when SETI director Jill Tartar lamented that when it came to poring over satellite data, “all of the concerted SETI efforts over the last 40 some years are equivalent to scooping a single glass of water from the oceans”. An attendee at the presentation during which she made that statement was compelled to help and went into action, eventually creating the current app, aided by funding from Adobe.

Registered users of SetiQuest Explorer will receive an assignment, the star for which they are responsible, which will be displayed for them in Google Sky. A tiny slice of the universe is displayed in Google Sky with a target in view. Users receive information about the target, such as the name of the star, its distance from Earth, its coordinates, and how many planets it has.
While this app is designed to pick up messages sent by aliens, a future project may allow the world to test messages being sent to aliens from earth. Another SETI team is working to design a standard protocol for writing intelligible letters to extraterrestrials, and hoping to enlist help in testing messages to ensure they make sense. “We want to make sure we’re not being too anthropocentric, making sure the answer can be accessible to the lowest common denominator,” said astrobiologist Jacob Haqq-Misra in an interview with Wired. “Until we meet one, we won’t know” how to talk to them. The team hopes to have a website up by the summer where users can submit messages that fit the protocol, and try to crack each others’ codes.