Pocket Technology

Technology seems to be getting smaller. Phones used to basically be bricks before the lithium-ion cell battery was created. Now we have drones, mini-cameras, I think I mentioned a portable washing machine a few weeks ago, etc.
Well going along with this theme Zuta Labs has just created the Pocket Sized Printer. I know what you're thinking, I thought it too when I first saw this, "How the heck does that work?"  Being about 4 inches wide and 3 inches high it seems impossible. Actually, it's quite simple. Modern Printers are basically operated by a small printer-head that slides back and forth along the paper to print the image. The Pocket Printer is one of the printer-heads on top of a set of wheels and the creators stated that "in principle it could print on any surface." It uses the same type of battery that modern cell-phones use and can constantly print paper for up to one hour before being charged. Available in early 2017. This is a super awesome development and could lead to some great technology in the future.

Then you have the Square. Invented by Jack Dorsey, the square is a small plug-in to your mobile device that reads credit cards/debit cards right off the spot, making electronic shopping incredibly easy.

If you want to get even smaller than try these microscopic chains that were developed at Drexel University. By manipulating magnetic fields engineers can link and unlink tiny chains of beads. Why is this cool? Because over time scientists could use these beads to create more complex shapes to do more things on a microscopic level. They could prove to be extremely useful later on.

Even smaller? How about the Superlens. No it's not pocket tech, since I doubt anyone who isn't a millionaire scientist is going to be walking around with one of these babies in their pocket. Researchers have developed a microscope that has broken the size limit on what we can look at. Made out of millions of beads of Titanium-Dioxide (look it up) this lens uses these beads and has them organized into a certain pattern that amplifies the microscopic view.

That's about as small as you get, new pocket tech. is just beginning to be developed. Who knows what it's going to be like in 20 years?

The Age of Innovation

Many would argue that the 20th Century was the world's greatest time period of advancements in technology and science. I went to this Historical Website to research how and why the world has changed so much in just a hundred years.
While there are many new products now days lets be honest, none of them are huge advancements when you compare it to the stuff below.

Improvements in Transportation

• Airlines: Airplanes are now available to public making transportation extremely fast and efficient.
• High Speed Trains: Trains are faster than ever allowing quick and easy transportation of goods and people within an area.
• Space Travel: Man walked on the moon, can't get much cooler than that.

Improvements in War

• New Guns: War was transformed forever with tanks and rapid fire guns, strategies had to be greatly changed. The destruction of WWI and WWII leave all other wars in the dust.
• Air Attacks: Bombs started being dropped from the sky, now people need to be protected from air raids not just attacks from the ground.
• Nuclear Weapons: One of the greatest threats ever created is the Atomic Bomb from WWII, changed the way war is fought forever.

Improvements in Entertainment

• Radio: People no longer need to rely on newspapers to get the news and entertainment, easily accessed.
• Television: Honestly, we don't think about it much but it's pretty amazing how we can watch something going on millions of miles away so easily.
• Computers: We don't need nerds now days to calculate everything, just plug it into the computer. (But we still have those nerds around....)
• Internet: Anybody anywhere can put anything on the internet for everybody to see. (Is that a good thing?)

Improvements in Society

• Medical Inventions: Cures for diseases, medication, etc. People live a lot better now.
• Civil Rights: Lets not forget that the 20th century was when America started to really recognize everyone as equal human beings.

While it is true that there a plenty inventions made before and after the 20th century, those time periods just don't compare in technological advancements. I don't know what happened there but for some reason people progressed a lot. Maybe it was in the water....

Crazy Ideas

Some ideas are so far fetched Silicon Valley refers to them as "Moon Shot Ideas." These are the products that if someone somehow figured out a way to create these, they would instantly take over the market. An example would be a hoverboard (one that actually floats). If it was possible and someone manufactured it everybody would go bananas to try and get one. Those crazy ambitious ideas are the ones that can produce the most success.
"The one's who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the one's who do."         -Steve Jobs
So the items that I am listing here from this website, are some of the crazy ideas that can be turned into reality and some of them have been.
Ideas such as Amazon.com's innovation to deliver their products through drones are in this category. While drones exist the possibility of them delivering things to your doorstep is basically impossible...and a little freaky. But their still working on it and trying to find a loophole or something that will allow them to do something similar.
Yves Rossy did more than think of a crazy idea, he did it. Being an inventor and former Swiss Air fighter Pilot this guy can literally fly with his new wingsuit. With four minature jet engines and a set of wings connected to his body Yves jumped out of a plan and flew 200 mph above the Swiss Alps. Now Rossy has got to be just a little bit crazy to do this but it could seriously change the world's transportation. He isn't quite ready to release his invention to the public but he says it will be available in a couple of years.
One more crazy but effective invention would be the honeycomb tires. Using Biomimicry (science that imitates nature to create new products) Resilient Technologies in Wisconsin has created a tire that will never go flat because they don't actually have air in them. These wheels are based off  a matrix found in nature: the honeycomb. The tires have six sided cells aligned in them that provide flexibility and hopefully improve transportation on vehicles as a whole.
One thing you may have heard of is the TV show Sharktank. When you think about it Sharktank is an invention about inventions. Produced by Mark Burnett this show is about a group of people who loan money to modern inventors after they have analyzed and approved that the product could make them profit. If the product doesn't satisfy the host's then no dice. If you have an invention that you want to introduce then try this TV show. (That is if you can deal with the drama)

Improvements

This next blog post is mainly about inventions whose purposes are to improve things that have already been created. Like a bike helmet that gives the user a better view of the road behind them. I revisited this website and found that almost all the innovations posted are just improvements of current products.

• Bendable Batteries: These could be used to make all sorts of interesting machines. Such as wearable devices or bendy smartphones. 
• Emotion Device: This new system ,that will probably be installed on a smartphone, can read human expressions with 87% accuracy by bouncing wireless signals off them. 
• Time Recorder; No it's not a time machine (but that would be wicked), It's a wearable camera that lets you record something after you've seen it happen so that those moments you don't want to miss won't be missed.
• Snow-Making Tech: You know those huge cylinders that spit out snow at ski resorts? Well some researchers are developing one that can apparently simulate January snow in July.
• Octobot: Though it may sound like Optimus Prime's long lost cousin, an octobot is actually a soft n' squishy robot that is run on liquid fuel. No batteries required.
• Interactive Video Games: Currently being developed, these new video games can allow you to interact with real objects. Allowing for a more realistic experience. If Pokemon Go is such a big deal now think of what this will do.