The Samsung Omnia smartphone uses a touch screen

The technology for touch screens comes in a variety of different forms. There is resistive, surface acoustic wave, capacitive which includes surface capacitance and projected capacitance touch (PCT), infrared, strain gauge, optical imaging, dispersive signal technology, and acoustic pulse recognition. PCT touchscreen technology is used in a wide range of applications including smart phones, kiosk, and point-of-sale systems.

Most touch screens are typically operated by using the finger to interact with the images on the screen. However in some situations touch screens can suffer from the problem of fingerprints on the display. Also the images all buttons that need to be selected on the touch screen can be very small, such as in smart phones, making it difficult to use the finger. In that situation a stylus is quite often use. Even the fingernail can be used as a stylus if it is long enough.

Touch screens combined with haptics provides the user feedback when certain keys are pressed on the screen. For example the Samsung Omnia smart phone can make a slight vibration and buzzing sound to let the user know that a key has been selected. Study shows that is this reduces input errors and increases input speed.

Some people do find touch screens a little bit difficult to use with their fingers where the display is small. However when ergonomically designed, touchscreens make it easier for the user to interact with the device or gadget while saving space which would otherwise be used with a keyboard or mouse. Touch screens are definitely here to stay.

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Toshiba 200GB Portable HDD

Toshiba is going to start selling portable hard drives in addition to laptops and DVD players. The USB 2.0 external hard disk will be available in capacities ranging from 100 GB to 200 GB – the largest capacity yet available in a portable, compact form factor.

The device itself is less than 2.5 cm thick and smaller than a 10×15cm photo. It is designed to be used as a back up for computer documents, photos, videos, and music files. With its size, it is also rugged enough to be able to carry on business or leisure trips.

The price is thought to be around $130 for the 100 GB up to $230 for the 200 GB model. The previous top capacity for a portable hard disk was 160 GB.

Toshiba is already the 5th leading manufacturer of hard drives, and while the 200 GB disk makes it have the largest portable, it certainly won’t be long before capacities reach and surpass it.

Portable hard disks are a growing specialized market niche – 3.8 million units were sold in 2006, with over 6 million predicted to be sold in 2009. Then so much more in 2010. Stay tuned for the latest portable hard drive figures as soon as we get them.

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Young inventor Thomas Edison lost in thought

Throughout history, people have made inventions that changed the world. Some got lucky and stumbled on something, some actually set out to make something, and still others improved upon existing technology to create something revolutionary. We’re going to show what we consider the top 6 world changing inventions, from how they were found, to how they ended up being used.

Penicillin

Penicillin was actually discovered a bit by accident. It is credited to scientist Alexander Fleming in 1928. He noticed that certain mold could kill bacteria, which proved that there was an antibacterial agent in the mold.

Fleming did not actually invent penicillin though – he merely made popular the knowledge that there was an anti-bacterial agent in the mold Penicillium notatum. It was originally noticed by French medical student Ernest Duchesne in 1896.

Sir Howard Florey as he appears on the Australian $50 note

Fleming, however, saw the potential importance of what he named penicillin. In a 1929 paper, he noted that the results he observed could have medical implications if the anti-bacterial agent could be isolated and produced in quantity.

Dr. Howard Florey and Andrey J. Moyer later perfected mass producing penicillin at around the time of World War II. Moyer obtained a patent for the process of it’s mass production.

As you can see, not all inventions are by design. Fleming merely noticed something that was interesting – he didn’t set out to find what many would consider a “miracle drug.” But once he made an observation, he made theorized what the implications of this discovery would be.

Further reading: Wikipedia

Electricity

While not a singular inventions like others, electricty is arguably the most important innovation ever. It was first noticed by ancient Greeks, who saw the static charge when you rubbed an object against fur. It was not used in the modern sense until quite a few year later, starting in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Benjamin Franklin the father of electricity

The list of scientists who did groundbreaking work with electricity reads like a who’s who list of famous inventors – Thomas Edison, Allessandro Volta (volt), Andre-Marie Ampere (amp), Georg Simon Ohm (ohms), Nikola Tesla, Samuel Morse, and Alexander Graham Bell, among others. Each of them contributed to our modern electrical technology.

The key each of them exhibits is they don’t try and do all the research themselves – they take an already existing and known principle and extend and apply those theories in new and revolutionary ways.

Further reading: Wikipedia

Light Bulb

Most people believe that the light bulb was invented by Thomas Edison. In fact, it was invented in 1809 by Humphry Davy, an English chemist. Unfortunately, it was not very useful, and wasn’t like our modern version of a light bulb.

What Edison did do was invent a carbon filiment that burned for up to 40 hours – a good bit longer than the one invented a year earlier that burned for around 13.5 (and the one before that was even less!). It is said that Edison tried and failed over 2000 times before finally perfecting the filiment.

Edison shows two things in his carbon filiment invention: first, he improved on an existing technology that had the potential to change the world, but lacked a certain aspect. The idea of an electric light was there – the practicality was not. He also showed what seperates your amateur inventer/scientist from your world class one – persistance. He didn’s succeed on his first, second, third, or 1999th try. But when he did, look at what happened.

Cotton Gin

The cotton gin (short for engine) was invented in 1792 by Eli Whitney. It is actually a rather simple device – it pulls the seeds out of the cotton fibers quickly and easily, and when it was introduced to the southern cotton farms, it increased the amount of cotton production 50 times. While Whitney filed the patent and hence has the credit, there is evidence that a cotton gin may have been built by a man named Noah Homes two years prior.

It was said that Whitney saw a cat clawing at a chicken through a coop and coming away with a paw of feathers, which then led to his idea. Few inventions have been so seemingly simple, and yet have had such economical and even social impacts for years after. The invention of this propelled southern cotton farms to the top of the American economy at the time, and made cotton a major cash crop.

It also can be argued that the invention led indirectly to the Civil War. Because of the increased production of cotton, slave labor was an increasingly valuable commodity. As more and more slaves were brought into the south, tension mounted, eventually resulting in the war. While it is very probably that a Civil War would have happened eventually, it is entirely possible that it would have taken years longer, during which more powerful weapons would have developed, and could have set the entire Nation back years.

The Telephone

Where would we be without the telephone. While the credit for the invention can be disputed, Alexander Graham Bell is generally given credit for it. Oddly, the device that allows us to communicate with anyone in the world met with some resistance from major corporations, who still preferred press releases.

While Bell may not have been the first to invent it, he was one of the men responsible for thrusting it into the public eye. Unlike many other inventions, he had to fight tooth and nail to get credit for it’s use. The moral of this is to never give up when you believe in your invention – even if it is a difficult road, it’s worth it in the end.


Printing press

In the 1440s, Johann Gutenberg came out with an invention called the printing press. Previously, books were copied down mainly by monks in monastaries, which made them quite rare. Gutenberg’s invention in effect brought the written word to the masses.

In many ways, this brought on a complete revolution. A lasting effect was on the scientific community. Suddenly, scientists working in different locations could popularize their findings with their peers, opening the doors to the scientific revolution. No longer would each scientist have to reinvent the wheel, but instead could build on the research of his peers and predecessors.

It also gave a greater degree of accountability to authors. Since previously each individual page was copied by hand, a text written by one author could vary from book to book. You could never be sure that you were reading the same version as someone else. It also led to greater education for the masses, since now books were more widely available.

Gutenberg may not have set out to revolutionize the way that language was used, but ended up doing just that.

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Google Phone

In what is sure to affect their stock ratings, Google has admitted to having a “phone project” in the works. Now, in typical google fashion, they are rather tight lipped about the details, and speculation has people guessing that they’re introducing their own phone to compete with Apple’s upcoming iPhone. However, there is a pretty good chance that the phone project has nothing to do with hardware, and will instead focus on what has already made Google billions – advertising.

Google already has a number of applications that take advantage of mobile browsing. And with exponentially more people using cell phones than the internet, it’s only a matter of time before more people starting browsing the web from their cell phones.

Other sources, however, have claimed that it will be an actual phone – and not like the iPhone, Apples ultra expensive, ultra trendy upcoming device. Instead, it will be a mass market phone aimed at bringing the search engine to users who don’t necassarily have a PC. It is thought that if Google chooses this approach, it will be partnering with an existing handset maker and not doing all the development on its own.

If Google does develop its own phone, it has the potential to make it even more money. With the mobile internet market still relatively undeveloped, if Google gets a foothold in the door early on, it will be exceedingly difficult to get it out, much like Microsoft is with its operating system.

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Along with the ancient Mayans, the ancient Indians are thought to be one of the earliest civilizations that thought in terms of billions of years. While most ancient civilizations had thought thousands of years into the future, the Hindus have scriptures dealing with events spanning billions of years.

Relating to this is a Hindu concept of the creation of the world. A 9th century Hindu scripture, The Mahapurana by Jinasena claims that the world is uncreated, as time itself is, without beginning and end. And it is based on principles.


Amazingly, they even had theories regarding the sun and Earth. Aryabhata, it so happens, was apparently quite sceptical of the widely held doctrines about eclipses and also about the belief that the Sun goes round the Earth. As early as the sixth century, he talked of the diurnal motion of the earth and the appearance of the Sun going round it.

A Mathematician named Pingala also developed a numbering system similar to what we refer to as the binary system. They were also the first to use 0 as a placeholder in numbers such as 809 and 89. While the Babylonians had a concept that was similar to zero, it was merely used as a placeholder and was often just a blank space.

While the Indians had many more innovations than the ones above, these were a few that are notable.

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British inventor William Sturgeon was the inventor of a device that would be the foundation for later electronic communications. This invention was called the electromagnet. The power of this was demonstrated when he used a seven once piece of iron with wires wrapped around it to lift nine pounds – the electric current was generated by a single cell battery.
Then, in 1830, Joseph Henry, an American, sent an electronic current over one mile of wire to which caused a bell to ring. This can be thought of as the moment that the telegraph was born. Next up was Samuel Morse.

In 1835, while he was a professor at New York University, Morse proved that signals could be transmitted via wire. By using pulses of currents to deflect an electromagnet, he was able to move a marker and produce written code on a piece of paper – commonly known as Morse Code. The following year, the device was modified to include dots and dashes. In 1838 he gave a public demonstration, but it was not until 1843, five years later, that he received $30,000 to construct an experimental telegraph line from Washington D.C. to Baltimore, a distance of 40 miles.

The first public message sent was on May 1, 1944, when Henry Clay was nominated at the Whig party national convention. Morse’s partner, Alfred Vail, wired this news to the capital, thus making it the first ever news dispatched via electronic telegraph.

The message sent, “What hath God Wrought?” was sent from the old Supreme Court Chamber to Baltimore opened the line telegraph line on May 24, 1844. Annie Ellsworth, the daughter of one of Morse’s friends, chose the message from Numbers XXIII, 23. The early Morse telegraph produced a paper printout of dashes and dots, which were then translated by an operator.

By this time Morse and his partners began to receive private funding to extend the line to Philadelphia and New York. Smaller telegraph companies also began to spring up throughout the US. In 1851, another landmark accomplish occurred – trains were dispatched using the telegraph. Western Union also began business in this year, and in 1861 completed the first transcontinental telegraph line.

Originally, Morse code was printed on paper. Eventually this advanced to trained operators who could receive transmission by ear, and tape was discarded in favor of human operators, who could transmit up to 50 words per minute.

Advancements continued with the Telegraph, but it all started with a British inventor.  Samuel Morse applied what was already known in a different, and ultimately brilliant fashion.

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During the Zhou reign, Chinese territory nearly doubled, in large part due to the introduction of iron weapons to the Chinese military. They were also the first to use horsemen and chariots for war – as such, warfare progressed from a more respectful upper class fight to brutal foot soldier war.  They also started building clay walls around their cities to protect from barbarian invasions.



Perhaps the biggest advancements came in the realm of philosophy and culture.  The Zhou dynasty is home to the Confucianism, Taoism, and Legalism schools of thought.  Poetry an dprose were created, and iron was also introduced to agriculture, allowing for increased productivity.

The Zhou dynasty also introduced the concept of irrigation, copper coins, chop sticks, and developed a more robust trading system.

Zhou Dynasty Innovations & Advancements

Artisanry:
- perfection of bronze casting, development of lost wax technology
- gold and silver inlays in metal and wooden/lacquered objects
- begin of iron casting technology and widespread use of iron tools during Warring States Period
- development of warfare technology like iron weapons, armament, chariots and fortifications
- engineering technology for irrigation, drainage, waterways, canals, dikes, dams
- development of music temperation by pipes and bells
- dyeing of yarns and woven materials like silk and linen
- glass production
- multi-color lacquering of wooden or bamboo objects
Astronomy, Astrology, Geography, Physics:
- perfection of the calendar
- regular observation of the starry sky and recording of irregular astronomical events
- maps of the starry sky; first geographical maps
- division of China into the Nine Provinces
- discovering of magnetism
Mathematics:
- description of basic arithmetics and fractions
- calculating with chips or tallies
- geometry and trigonometry
Agriculture:
- amelioration of ploughing methods
- use of fertilizers and pesticides
Medicine:
- descriptions of healing methods like acupuncture and moxibustion

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1. Mayan Inventions

Amazing architecture of a Mayan Temple

Mayan inventions include a calander and a complex heiroglyphics system. While it cannot be said that they were the sole inventors of such advancements, they did invent them independently in the Western Hemisphere, and their calendar and wrintings differed from that of the Egyptions and Chinese.

While not strictly an invention per se, Mayan art is widely considered to be some of the most beautiful created in the ancient world. The jade pictured can be seen to be inscribed with very specific details.

Also interesting is that the Mayans independently developed a concept of zero in their numbering system. While not generally considered a civilization known for their mathematics, they did nonetheless have an advanced grasp of it. Many of their dates and measurements are surprisingly specific.

Astronomy is another field that the Mayans. Again, the Mayans are not as well known as other ancient civilizations for their astronomy, but data suggests they were surprisingly advanced in their findings. They are thought to be the only pre-telescopic society that realized the Orion Nebula is fuzzy. While this is not known for certain, the information comes from a folk tale that references the Orion constellations part of the sky.

The Mayan’s were a surprisingly advanced race, and usually are not mentioned with the likes of the Chinese and Ancient Greeks for inventiveness. But they actually had much in common with their European and Chinese counterparts.

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Bifocal Lens

As most people know, Benjamin Franklin had numerous inventions that ranged from small convienences to incredible things that changed how people lived. The bifocals didn’t necassarily change how people lived, but they were more than a small improvement for anyone who had multiple sets of glasses to wear.

He is credited with the invention somewhere in the 1960’s, with the first evidence of them coming in a 1964 political cartoon. His first reference to his double spectacles came in a letter in 1984, quite a few years after the original invention.

His original design had the more convex lens placed on the bottom of the glasses (close viewing), while the lesser convex lens was placed on the upper half. Originally the lens’s were actually 2 seperate ones put into the same frame – it wasn’t until the 20th century that lenses were fused together to create bifocals.


While the bifocals are a great convienence for many, they are known to cause dizziness and headaches because of the differing perspectives. This is similar to how you may feel after wearing glasses that aren’t your prescription for an extended period of time.

By their very nature, bifocals offer a limited field of vision for the differeing distances. This can cause wearers to move reading material instead of their heads when reading, to make sure that what they are reading stays in the correct perspective.

This is just one of the examples of how Ben Franklin took a problem that people had, and found a solution.

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