Top 25 2015 best inventions of the year

The annual ranking of the best inventions from Time magazine includes novelties that make the world a better, smarter, and in some cases more fun.

Hoverboard

The name "hoverboard" comes from the English hover, which means "float." But in this case, this half-pig, half-board is in contact with the ground. Nevertheless, the device won a place in the ranking of the best inventions and, in addition, the love of celebrities like Justin Bieber and Jimmy Fallon.

The hoverboard uses electric gyros located under the driver's feet for automatic balancing. You can manage it by transferring body weight.

Underground park

Underground Green Center Lowline plan to build underground in the territory of an abandoned tram depot in New York. The center will use sunlight, a glass screen and a parabolic collector to illuminate the site and provide plants with energy.

Architects Dan Barash and James Ramsey created a prototype of their park to show the technology invented by them. To build a full-fledged Lowline, you still need to get a few permits and find $ 70 million. According to James Ramsey, Lowline is planning to open it to visitors in 2018-2019 year.

Sensor that detects the presence of gluten in food

The invention should help people who suffer from celiac disease or gluten intolerance - a protein that is found in wheat, rye and barley. Celiac disease is an intestinal disease, which is characterized by the inability to absorb nutrients from food. Sensor Nima, sales of which will begin next year, will be able to check any food and drinks in two minutes for traces of gluten. Depending on the result, the user will see a funny or sad smile.

The creators of Nima are planning with the help of the developed technology to learn to identify other allergens in food, such as peanuts or dairy products.

Hereplus Headphones

The peculiarity of this invention is that headphones can muffle a certain sound, while leaving the others at the same volume level. Conventional hearing aids can amplify or mute all sounds without exception.

System Here Active Listening developed the New York company Doppler Labs. The creators call their headphones augmented audio reality. The device works in tandem with a smartphone, where the user can influence the volume of various individual sounds in the application.

Eko Core Digital Stethoscope

After connecting a special adapter to a regular stethoscope, the sound of the heart rate falls into the cloud, from where it can be downloaded to a smartphone. There, the application will analyze the sound, compare it with earlier recordings and help to detect abnormalities in the patient's heart, including disorders that are not noticeable to human hearing.

Now at the University of California at San Francisco they are testing a device. Doctors report that Eko core increase the accuracy of the analysis and replace some expensive tests like echocardiography.

Microsoft HoloLens holographic glasses

Virtual reality glasses like Oculus Rift are transferred to another reality where you can swim with dolphins or take part in the battle of Waterloo. And the development of Microsoft only imposes holograms on the surrounding reality. Lenses in HoloLens transparent, and the device itself is actually a stand-alone computer.

Microsoft showed HoloLens during the October presentation. Employees of the company demonstrated a game with elements of augmented reality, during which virtual opponents appeared right in the player’s living room. But so far, HoloLens is in development. The developer version, which can be purchased for $ 3000, will appear early next year.

However, the device is already used in NASA laboratories to simulate the surface of Mars and medical students to analyze the virtual internal organs.

Chickpea Pasta

Macaroni Maker Banza Brian Rudolph is sure that when people think of ordinary pasta, they always remember how they ate and felt lousy. His banza pasta is made from chickpeas, not wheat. The recipe was born after 10 months of trial and error. One of the names of chickpeas - garbanzo, and the name appeared Rudolph pasta. Banza contains two times more protein and four times more fiber than regular pasta. At the same time, in Brian Rudolph's pasta is much less carbohydrates and gluten.

You may think that these pasta is tasteless, but their sales say the opposite. Last year, Banza was sold in only two stores in the United States; today they can be found in 1, 700 stores, including large supermarkets.

In the near future, Brian Rudolph and his brother Scott create their own recipe for pizza and porridge.

Desktop DNA Lab

Studying a DNA chain and comparing it with others can take a whole day. Juno's Desktop DNA Lab can shorten the process by up to three hours. Thanks to this device, scientists will be able to devote more time to other studies, for example, to find a cure for genetic diseases.

Microchip Fluidigm able to examine a sample that is 1000 times smaller than a drop of water. The device costs $ 120000 and is already used in research laboratories.

Housing for the homeless

For decades, housing for the homeless has too often meant temporary shelters or more or less well-equipped warehouse. The purpose of Star Apartments, located in Los Angeles, is to change this perception of housing for the homeless. Their building looks more like a mini-village. It houses 102 studio apartments, several terraces, a clinic, and a garden above it. Star Apartments also have a jogging track located outside, and space for classrooms.

The main task of the shelter is to treat people who have no more place to get treatment, and to help them and other homeless people to start life anew.

Transparent truck

Every year, thousands of people are injured and die in accidents that occurred when large trucks were overtaking on the roads. Due to its size, a big car does not allow to see the traffic situation completely.

Especially often the accident when overtaking occur in Argentina, where the roads are narrow and winding. It was in this country that Samsung tested its Safety truck technology. This is a system that broadcasts video from cameras in front of a truck on four screens at the rear, so that the driver traveling behind the truck can see the road completely.

At the moment, Samsung is finalizing the technology and is negotiating with the Argentine authorities about its widespread implementation.

Tracker for the smallest

Sproutling - This is a waterproof monitoring system for the smallest. The tracker consists of a bracelet that is attached to the foot of an infant, a stand and a special application on a mobile device. The bracelet is able to track 17 parameters, including the child's heartbeat and ambient temperature, and inform parents of deviations in performance.

Chris Bruce, CEO of Sproutling, is the father of two children himself and says that the tracker was created so that parents can monitor the health and behavior of their baby in more detail.

Airport for drones

The scope of use of drones is very wide: from the delivery of goods to companies like Amazon and Google and to emergency assistance in hard-to-reach regions. The place where they built the world's first airport for drones will be Rwanda. British architect Norman Foster chose this particular location because the country has a difficult landscape, which means that it is very interesting to use it as a testing ground for a pilot project.

Drones will be able to deliver food, medicine, electronics and other goods to the right places much faster than cars. The terminal will be able to serve two types of drones - Redline for delivering light loads, such as medical supplies or blood bags for transfusions, and Blueline - UAVs capable of lifting weight to 100 kg, which will be used to deliver electronics and agricultural tools. The project includes a landing zone, a drone repair and maintenance center, a post office and a shopping center.

Underwear for "women's" days

The twin sisters from Sri Lanka, Mika and Radha Agraval, decided to do business on panties and thongs, which are replaced by conventional pads. According to inventors, women will be more comfortable and cheaper to buy special underwearthan constantly buying tampons and pads.

Together with another co-founder Antonia Dunbar, the sisters opened the production of such panties. They are not disposable, so after use they can be washed. Only some women will be few and need additional protection.

The bed in the box

Buying a new mattress is a lot like choosing a used car: too many options and it’s hard to choose one. Philip Crim, CEO of one of many startups in the sleep industry called Casper, I decided to simplify the choice of buyers.

The mattress he sells is of just one style. It is comfortable, is sold online and therefore cheaper than many competitors. Philip offers the client, if he wishes, to return the mattress within 100 days after receipt, but the entrepreneur recognizes that the number of returns is small. This year sales of Casper mattresses will exceed $ 75 million.

Virtual brush and canvas

Approximately 450 years ago invented the pencil, which to date has become familiar. He can write at any angle, and shades differ depending on the force of depression. Repeating this functionality in digital format was a difficult task for engineers. That is why the Apple Pencil is different from other styluses.

The device helps to write and draw around the screen as if it were a piece of paper. And it works with iPad Pro, a tablet that is faster than 80% of laptops sold last year. “You can safely relax your hand and put it on the screen while working, because the tablet will ignore it, perceiving only the Apple Pencil,” says Don Schenk, Pixar art director. The appearance of the Apple Pencil will help to create paintings, animations and drawings in a new way.

Shoes with laces that can be tied with one hand

In 2012, Matthew Walser, a young man suffering from cerebral palsy, Nike wrote a letter. In it, he told about his dream of going to college, which he would choose, and not worry about having someone by his side helping him to tie shoe laces every day.

Nike immediately saw an opportunity to help people like Matthew, and at the same time please customers who would like to wear sneakers that are very easy to lace up. This year the company presented its solution - Flyease 8. Sneakers were developed together with basketball player James LeBron and can be laced with one hand, activating a special mechanism.

Sneakers still need a little refinement, because the mechanism sometimes does not count the strength of lacing, which can lead to breakage of the zipper on the fastener. But Matthew says that Flyease 8 helped him feel independent and independent.

A frying pan that teaches cooking

How hot should the pan be? Is it time to stop the dish? Or maybe it is already ready? It is these questions that people usually ask when they first cook an unfamiliar dish. But the pan Pantelligent can answer many similar questions.

To do this, select the desired recipe in the application on your smartphone. Pantelligent itself will tell, for example, when to turn the steak, sending notifications to the smartphone screen using Bluetooth.

Drinking book

Approximately 663 million people do not have access to clean water that can be drunk. This is partly because filtering is expensive, because it is a difficult process. But now the Drinkable Book can help him, the pages of which serve as water filters, delaying up to 99% of harmful bacteria. At the same time, the pages also contain instructions for using the Drinkable Book. Scientists have been working on the book for several years and have managed to test it today in Bangladesh, Ghana and South Africa.

However, the book’s ability to remove all contaminants still needs to be checked. The inventor of the Drinkable Book, Terry Dankovic, is optimistic and claims that he is already discussing large-scale production with potential partners.

Ocean Vacuum Cleaner

In the Pacific Ocean, so much plastic garbage floats on the surface that the area of ​​garbage spots is equal to the area of ​​the US state of Texas, and every day it becomes larger. The usual method of garbage collection with the help of nets is very expensive and takes a lot of time. Ocean Cleanup Project instead, it proposes to place in the water a floating obstacle with a length of 100 km and a cost of $ 15 million, in order to seize the debris floating downstream. Then the nature itself will help to filter garbage.

The network will go into the water to a depth of only three meters - this is done in order not to interfere with the fish swim. Now this idea is in the testing phase and if everything goes well, the full cleanup operation will begin in the 2020 year. According to a rough estimate, for the 10 years, the Ocean Cleanup Project will reduce the amount of garbage in the ocean by 42%.

Personal Pollution Detector

In order to avoid potentially harmful polluted air and allergens, there is now a special detector. Tzoa. He recognizes the composition of the air that the owner breathes. The device, developed by Kevin Garth, uses sensors to measure temperature, the amount of particulate matter (dust, pollen, mold, exhaust gases), the flux density of solar radiation in a specific area.

The device sends data to the cloud, where they are accessed by institutions performing air analysis.

Ball, teaching children code

At a time when the demand for programmers is growing rapidly, the New York consulting company Made by Many has found an interesting way to teach children how to code by developing a toy ball for this Hackaball. It synchronizes with the mobile application and allows users to program when and how the ball lights up. During one of the tests, the children programmed Hackaball so that the color of the ball changed at random intervals of time, and played hot potatoes.

According to William Owen, the strategic director of Made by Many, the peculiarity of their ball is that it shows the utility of programming in real life instead of simply learning the code in front of the screen. People liked the concept and collected on Kickstarter $ 240 000 from 2 800 users. Hackaball shipments will begin in January 2016.

Available virtual reality

In most cases, the rush around virtual reality is focused on premium devices like the Oculus Rift and the HTC Vive, which cost a few hundred dollars. But Google Cardboard is a revolutionary solution that is much cheaper.

Starting from 2014, everyone can make virtual reality glasses from cardboard. All you need is a smartphone and a Google Cardboard assembly instruction. There are applications that allow you, for example, to sit in the virtual cabin of the car at any place in the cabin, change the upholstery, turn on the radio and much more.

Universal musical instrument

Approximately 70% of adults would like to regularly play a musical instrument, but only 5% really do it. This is partly due to the fact that it is difficult for them to decide on what to play, because there are so many instruments and they all sound different.

Artiphon can fulfill the role of many instruments, even such as different as the guitar and the piano. The device this year has collected on Kickstarter $ 1,3 million.

Tesla Model X

The crossover, presented in September, is no longer just exotic, but quite suitable for everyday use of electric cars. It can travel 400 km without recharging while transporting up to seven passengers. For the convenience of passengers traveling behind, special doors were made with a complex opening trajectory that earned the nickname “falcon wings”.

Low center of gravity provides good handling, which is rare for an SUV. Tesla Model X also received a maximum of five stars in all categories of security.

Chatting toy

Instead of repeating certain phrases after the children, the toy dinosaur maker CogniToys communicates with children from five to nine years old. It was created using IBM Watson technology and can answer pre-set questions (for example, “What is the distance to the moon?”).

The Wi-Fi-enabled figurine can also ask children questions (“How many 2 + 2 will there be?” And “Can you count to 10?”).

Previously "Forum" писал 13 is about little-known Apple products that have not outlived their era and that now look like relics of the beginning of the computer era. Or look just funny.