I New Idea Homepage

Inventions, patents, designs, creative ideas and products.

“Rex” Robotic Exoskeleton

20120131024

With a long 8 years’ development and improvement, the New Zealand-based Rex Company have finally come up with this robotic exoskeleton, which can help wheelchair users to stand and walk independently. The artificial exoskeleton is comprised of 29 on-board computer processors to control its movements and keep balance, thus to enable the Rex users to conveniently direct the device to sit, stand, walk and turn. Although the device is bit of heavier, measuring 38 Kg in total, it won’t become a burden to the users at all. Instead, the robotic exoskeleton may help to support up 60% of weight of its users, so that they could move with the Rex with minimum effort.

[Read the rest of this entry...]

Apple Secure Magnet Patent

20120130004

“Secure Magnet” is one of Apple’s new patent applications. It works in quite a similar way as the fingerprint-recognized devices: each cellphone or tablet will be built with a magnet that operates a switch, and it will only be activated when a “correlated” magnet inside a key-fob touches it. Once this patent application is applied in producing new Apple devices, the company is intended to protect your private information in a more efficient way. But now, we may still need to wait for years to use the “Secure Magnet”, since Apple offers no information on when this application will be used.

Micro-needle

20120131035

MITI System’s micro-needle is a medical instrument that can function in both beauty and medical fields. It is perfect to make beauty instruments that are widely used by skin-care specialists with the micro-needle, which will not only ensure a better absorption of cosmetics into skin, but solve skin problems like age spots, blemish and others. On the other hand, the micro-needle would benefit to the medical fields too, where it can be used as a delivery system of things such as vaccine, hormone, insulin, protein treatment products.

[Read the rest of this entry...]

North Face Avalanche Airbag Apparel

20120131039

Avalanche airbags backpacks? Not any more, as we now have these avalanche airbag clothing developed by The North Face. This innovative vest has integrated a nitrogen-based airbag system from German manufacturer ABS, and it is built with airbags in both the front and the back, to provide the wearer a full protection whenever it is activated to work. Furthermore, as soon as the airbags pump out, they will immediately increase the user’s surface area so that he will float on top of the moving snow rather than get trapped by it.

[Read the rest of this entry...]

Foldable Guitar

20120131042

Because it’s not the first foldable guitar we’ve ever seen or introduced here, this one from designers Shlomi Daniel and Uri Nir must have gotten its own unique features, e.g. its tension release mechanism that promises the guitar a perfect timbre even after it is repeatedly folded and unfolded. Still, like all other foldable guitars, the instrument could be easily and conveniently carried around for a outdoor use.

[Read the rest of this entry...]

Boat Candles

20120131018

“Moon river, wider than a mile”, and there’s a boat candle floating on the water… Designed by Slovak designer Roman Ficek, these candles are inspired by folded paper boat and each comes with a cute bright color. All handcrafted, the candle can burn up to approximately two hours.

[Read the rest of this entry...]

Scented Jeans

20120130002

Fashionable, durable, except for those existing ones, we now have another new reason to explain why we all love jeans: because they smell pretty good, good like raspberries! That’s rightly the unique feature of these Weird Guy Scratch n’ Sniff Raspberry Scented jeans from Naked & Famous. They’re made with denim that is coated with millions of tiny micro-scent capsules, thus whenever you on the surface of the jeans, you will smell yummy raspberry fragrance around. As an additional bonus, these jeans can still release fragrance even after four to five (or even more) times of washes. Isn’t that amazing?! I mean, when you though your jeans are bit of smelly, you can just scratch to make them smell good again.

[Read the rest of this entry...]

“Mobileye” Driver Safety Solution

20120130006

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), a driver’s inattention is one of the main factors that may lead to a car collision. So while you’re with your airbag to offer protection, you still need something more efficient, like the new Mobileye 5-Series. It comprises a camera and proprietary algorithms and microprocessor that will function in unison, intending to alert the drivers to regain full attention whenever there are unintended lane departures, imminent collisions or something else. The system is compatible with many kinds of cars, trucks, buses and RVs, and it will work perfectly in both days and the nights.

[Read the rest of this entry...]

Bass-powered Medical Implants

20120130001

Researchers from the Purdue University have created a Bass-powered medical implant that can utilize sound waves as an energy source. This new pressure sensitive microelectromechanical system has a vibrating cantilever that’s receptive to sound within the 200Hz to 500Hz frequency spectrum. By applying such smart technology into producing medical implants, you can then get some better appliances that can convert the low-frequency vibrations into energy, so as to power themselves automatically.

[Read the rest of this entry...]

Kuhn Rikon Ratchet Pepper Grinder

20120130007

“Give me a place to stand, and I will move the world”, even though Archimedes’ Lever Law indeed hasn’t been used to move the earth, it does have served us quite much in various ways in our daily life, and this Kuhn Rikon Ratchet Pepper Grinder is rightly a clever product made based on that. The item has a long arm that you can crank back and forth, making it easy for both kids and elderly people to operate. Moreover, it has a smart appearance too, so that you’ll be in a good mood when working with these little guys.

[Read the rest of this entry...]

Miniature Pothole Gardener

20120127039

Instead of rebuilding the roads damaged by the harsh winter in London, a guerrilla gardener Steve Wheen has planted some miniature flowers and trees to create sanctuaries of tranquility in broken urban places. These mini gardens, though not that attractive as normal gardens, has successfully brought the old city and old roads with new appearances, and add some new fun to the urban life as well.

[Read the rest of this entry...]

Retro-styled Wallpapers

20120127011

While more and more wallpaper designs are pursuing brilliant patterns and luxurious colors, Young & Battaglia’s wallpapers are striving to bring us back to a pure and simple world. These wallpapers, available in “stone angels”, “bookshelves” and other patterns, each features light color and simple designs, to make you feel that you’re rightly surrounded by Renaissance-style angels carved in stone or hundreds of books.

[Read the rest of this entry...]

Rozetkcus Wall Socket

20120127056

Based on clever design and accurate arrange, the Rozetkcus Wall Socket comes with 9 points to allow you to plug in various shapes of devices effectively. It not only solves that problem that we usually need to insert several different types of plugs in one socket, but also promises endless possibilities of how to configure your devices according to their plugs’ shapes. Except for the 9-point socket, the Rozetkcus is also available in a 16 points version.

[Read the rest of this entry...]

Material that Vanishes when Shot with Microwave Energy

20120127035

Traditional methods to make real-world objects invisible are usually based on materials that route incoming light around the hidden object, but researchers from the University of Texas at Austin have employed plasmonic materials that can affect the electric and magnetic fields the incoming light used to offer us a new way to make objects invisible. These new materials present a “photo negative” of the hidden object, which can cancel the disruption the object causes to the electric and magnetic fields.  That means, if you apply the material onto any object, the object would then become completely invisible from all angles- even the radars cannot detect it anymore.

[Read the rest of this entry...]

Argus One Airship Design

20120127059

Argus One, named after the Greek god Argus who was the all seeing god with one hundred eyes, is a new airship design that features automated control for individual body modules so as to improve its flight stability and aerodynamic control. Besides, the Argus One has come with other characteristics too, e.g. it can be easily assembled and tactically launched in hours from virtually anywhere; it has a several day endurance capability and it can keep working in rigid weather conditions too.

[Read the rest of this entry...]