Everything is already invented

El economista y escritor Robert Gordon acaba de publicar este libro titulado “The Rise and Fall of American Growth”, donde plantea que en cuestión de desarrollo económico -y sobre todo industrial-, todas las principales tecnologías de nuestra era ya han sido descubiertas o inventadas, y que la sociedad norteamericana está en una época de estancamiento tecnológico que ha durado prácticamente todo el siglo pasado, y lo que va de este.

El autor advierte que esto amenaza ser una condición de la que difícilmente podremos salir en las próximas décadas, a menos que asumamos un cambio de mentalidad bastante radical, negando por completo los estándares de vida heredados de las generaciones anteriores y -por decirlo de algún modo polite- saliendo de nuestra “zona de comfort social” en la que estamos tan agusto.

¿Esperamos hasta fin de siglo para ver si tenía razón?
Espero que no…

After the publication of the book “The Rise and Fall of American Growth” by economist Robert Gordon our technology-studded society was tread on its toes once more with his, historically repetitive, conviction that all major technologies have already been invented. In his book he quotes PayPal founder Peter Thiel on the disappointing innovations of today: “We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters”. Gordon rejoices the economic growth after the second industrial revolution and the prosperity it brought the average joe, but on the flip side argues that we have arrived at a period of technological stagnation…

http://bit.ly/1oisViO

Gravity Light

Este invento sí parece como traído del futuro: lámparas que generan luz eléctrica a través de la fuerza de gravedad.

Imaginen las posibilidades de aprovechar esta vieja y conocida ley física, que en nuestro planeta sobra (y tan antigua como él mismo), pero convertida en fuente de energía. Quiero ver más de esto…

It’s an innovative way of generating light and low levels of power from gravity. It takes only 3 seconds to lift the weight that powers GravityLight, creating 25 minutes of light on its descent.Benefits Can be used over and over again, anytime No need for sunshine or batteries No running costs Long lasting…

http://gravitylight.org/

Annular skates

A ver que les parece este invento, que está a medio camino entre ser una patineta sin tabla y unos patines sin zapato. 99 dolaritos en Hammacher Schlemmer…

When a product shows up on the pages of the Hammacher Schlemmer catalog, you know it’s bound to be entertaining. The Post Modern Skateboard certainly fits that description. You might notice the almost complete lack of resemblance to a skateboard as we know it. This product consists of two 10-inch round wheels with foot platforms inside.A better description would be “annular skates.” “Annular” just means ring-shaped. “Skates” is self-explanatory.

Forward movement is created by leaning side to side, a process that looks like it would take some practice. An extendable rod is included to connect the two skates together for easier learning…

http://cnet.co/18LxjiA

Air umbrella

No, no es una maquina de masaje. Ni tampoco un juguete sexual femenino de pilas (digo femenino por los detalles rositas). Solo un bonito paraguas que desvía la lluvia a base de aire (chequen el video en la liga)…

¿Algún día (lluvioso) todos caminaremos agarrando estos ridículos palitos? I don’t think so…

The umbrella market is ripe for innovation, and regular ones just don’t cut it anymore. So one Kickstarter project wants to bring you an umbrella powered by air.

The aptly-named Air Umbrella is a rod-shaped device with a motor, rechargeable lithium battery and fan blade. The device takes in air below the fan blade and forces it out in such a manner that falling rain gets redirected…

http://on.mash.to/1w7lnOu

3D pen

Ahora que están apareciendo por todos lados cada vez más -y mejores, y más pequeñas- plumas 3D (que pintan en el aire con una especie de pasta), como la Lix 3D, sería fácil pensar que pronto van a ser también más accesibles, que la industria del papel pronto estará preocupándose al respecto, y que los árboles están sonríendo. Fin del cuento…

Basically, Lix is a professional tool that enables you to sketch in the air without using paper.

Lix 3D pen is a dream coming true. With Lix 3D Pen you can create anything from small to big, from details to prototypes. It allows you to express your creativity on a whole new level. We are changing the world’s view on 2D as we are now giving the possibility to make your creations in 3D in an never-been-so-easy way…

http://kck.st/1kiK6rt

3D pen

The 1st. website

Les presento a la primer página de internet que exisitió:
http://bit.ly/1cUMeTE
¿Padre, no? Muy básica (qué esperaban si es la primera). Como sea me parece una buena curiosidad en todo este océano de datos.

Me la encontré por casualidad. Resulta que la WWW (World Wide Web o Red Informática Mundial) cumplió 25 años de existir. Para celebrar eso, el CERN (Consejo Europeo para la Investigación Nuclear), que por si ni lo saben son quienes la inventaron, ha propuesto una serie de iniciativas para conmemorar esta fecha, rescatando materiales y publicando documentos clave que rescatan y enaltecen el espíritu inicial de este gran invento: el ser un medio de intercambio de información disponible para todo el mundo.

Happy Birthday WWW…

(por cierto, tambien está  por ahí la que presume ser la peor página de internet del mundo: www.theworldsworstwebsiteever.com)

In March 1989 Tim Berners-Lee, a scientist working at CERN, submitted a proposal to develop a radical new way of linking and sharing information over the internet. The document was entitled Information Management: A Proposal. And so the web was born.

The first website at CERN – and in the world – was dedicated to the World Wide Web project itself. Last April CERN initiated a project to restore the first website, and to bring back the spirit of that time through its technical innovation and the founding principles of openness and freedom.

In 1993 CERN put the World Wide Web software in the public domain. CERN made the next release available with an open licence, as a more sure way to maximise its dissemination. Through these actions, making the software required to run a web server freely available, along with a basic browser and a library of code, the web was allowed to flourish. 

“Beyond CERN’s role in helping us understand the universe, it was a great place to work in 1989,” said Tim Berners-Lee. “CERN was an early adopter of Internet protocols, and their support for a Royalty-Free Web has been a key to its widespread adoption today.”

Now Tim Berners-Lee, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and the World Wide Web Foundation are launching aseries of initiatives to mark the 25th anniversary of the original proposal…

http://bit.ly/1nkASSK

The 1st. website

Pillcam

Una píldora con dos video-cámaras, suficientes para poder observar todo un entorno, y con la intención de hacer colonoscopías. Es decir que la comas y despúes puedas ver tu intestino por dentro (con fines médicos, presumiblemente).
Su uso ya fue aprobado por la FDA, lo que la vuelve otro de esos inventos que hace un par de décadas era ciencia ficción y hoy en día una realidad…

A bite-sized camera has been approved for use by the FDA as an alternative for patients who are unable to have a complete colonoscopy.

The pill-shaped capsule has a camera on both ends. It navigates through your intestines over an eight-hour period, taking high-speed images that are sent to a device worn by a patient that are later examined by a doctor.

PillCam is a product of Israeli company Given Imaging. In the United States, approximately 750,000 colonoscopies are incomplete every year, according to the company. “Incomplete” means that doctors weren’t able to see everything that they needed to for a number of reasons, including a history of abdominal surgery or advanced diverticular disease, which affects the colon, among others...

http://on.mash.to/1nsMFsS

Pillcam

Kill the Password

Los Passwords han existido demasiado tiempo. Son inseguros, complicados y olvidadizos. Y sin embargo se han seguido usando por no existir nada con que reemplazarlos.
Pero según esta nota de Gizmodo, Google ya está desarrollando varias nuevas opciones, para que en muy poco tiempo podamos dar santa sepultura a esta forma de seguridad tan fallida…

Passwords are long and complicated and hard to remember. And that’s only if they’re goodpasswords. No matter how you slice it, passwords are annoying and on top of that, they’re not even all that secure. Google knows that all too well, and it’s pushing for the next big thing. A ring maybe. Like for your finger.

Google’s been getting behind two-step verification for a while, and although that’s more secure than a standard password, it’s also more annoying. Hardly a perfect solution. In a paper to be published later this month in IEEE Security & Privacy Magazine, Google’s President of Security Eric Grosse and Engineer Mayank Upadhyay are pitching alternatives like cryptographic card for your USB, or some kind of (presumably NFC) ring.

Google’s got some software in the making that’d allow this kind of stuff to log you into a browser without involving any sort of software in the middle, just you and your browser. But even in the best possible future, it won’t kill passwords completely. So long as your little key can be separated from you, you’ll have to have a PIN or something, and the more conveniently short the PIN, the more important it is you don’t loose that key. Still, it beats straight passwords and two-step verification annoyances. And the sooner the password can finally be laid to rest, the better…

http://bit.ly/VyWAFp

Kill the Password

Top 10 British inventions

Me llamó la tención la manera de “presumir” esto: las aportaciones mas significativas de la cultura británica a la vida moderna. Aunque la verdad, no se si me dan ganas de felicitarlos, o de reclamarles varios de estos inventos…

Great Britain produced many of the most influential scientists, mathematicians and inventors in modern history. With influential people, come influential ideas, theories and inventions, some of which have the potential to change the world forever. This list will look at my pick for the top 10 British inventions which did just that. Note that although a couple of these inventions have been disputed, they are all legally recognized as British inventions…

10. United States of AmericaUnited States of America
9. Nearly Every Modern Sport
8. Newton’s Laws
7. Programmable Computer
6. World Wide Web
5. Television
4. Steam Locomotive
3. Theory of Evolution
2. Telephone
1. English Language

http://bit.ly/PIEVGH 

Top 10 British inventions

32 Innovations

No todos los grandes inventos son bien recibidos inmediatamente. Algunos tardan mucho en ser aceptados. Algunos compiten con otras tecnologías o contra la opinión de la misma gente. Algunos simplementemente nunca llegan a popularizarse, a pesar de ser totalmente innovadores.

En este artículo se mencionan algunas tecnologías que, además de ser inventos relativamente recientes, están siendo aceptados, aplicados y bien asimilados con rapidez, por lo podemos decir con bastente certeza que pronto formarán parte de nuestra vida diaria…

We tend to rewrite the histories of technological innovation, making myths about a guy who had a great idea that changed the world. In reality, though, innovation isn’t the goal; it’s everything that gets you there. It’s bad financial decisions and blueprints for machines that weren’t built until decades later. It’s the important leaps forward that synthesize lots of ideas, and it’s the belly-up failures that teach us what not to do.

When we ignore how innovation actually works, we make it hard to see what’s happening right in front of us today. If you don’t know that the incandescent light was a failure before it was a success, it’s easy to write off some modern energy innovations — like solar panels — because they haven’t hit the big time fast enough…

http://nyti.ms/K5ZYlx

32 Innovations