INVENTIONS

Tonight on American Experience: Edison

Tonight, a PBS documentary explaining much more than Edison's lightbulb.

Why Are Electrical Plugs Different in Europe?

Not all plugs are created equal. Plugs and sockers differ from region to region, sometimes even from country to country.

All the Best Escalator Videos

When you get to ride an escalator, treasure the moment. Then put it on YouTube.

11 of America's Most Inspiring Cup Holder Patents

6 Products That Were Ahead of Their Time

Not even early adopters were ready for the initial versions of these products.

No Shots! No Shots! How to Get a Shot Without a Needle

10 "How It's Made" Videos

The Last Towns to Get Dial Telephones

167 Theremin Players Perform Beethoven

Human-Powered Helicopter Wins Sikorsky Prize

Make Your Own "Useless Machine"

8 Inventions That Never Needed Updating

Constant improvement is what we do. So how amazing is it that there exist a handful of objects that, though 100 years old or more, are still perfect?

The Video Toaster 4000

The Russians Didn't Just Use Pencils in Space

A longstanding urban legend goes like this: During the space race of the 1960s, NASA spent millions developing a fancy "space pen" that could be used in zero gravity ... but the Soviets just used a pencil. This story resonates with us because NASA did act

How Did the Game Genie Work?

The Game Genie was the technological holy grail of my Nintendo-playing childhood. Here was a device that would let me play Super Mario Bros. with infinite lives, or get infinite rockets in Metroid. Here's exactly how it worked, and how people are still us

The Autofrisk: All the Groping Action, Just 40 Pence

Cheeky engineer Tim Hunkin (of Secret Life of Machines fame) invented the Autofrisk, a device that gently gropes the user in exchange for a few coins. (In the U.K. apparently one cannot get this experience for free at local airports.) The Autofrisk is o

Time is Money

(This post was originally published on September 20th, 2011. I had no idea what kind of response I'd get from the _floss community since it was sort of off-brand, but this comment from loripop not only made my 2011, it made my entire 6-year, 2000+ posts f

Who Was Murphy and Why Is There a Bed Named After Him?

The Murphy Bed, also known as a wall bed, fold down bed or pull down bed, is a bed that’s hinged at one end so it can be folded up and stored vertically against a wall or in a closet.

Why Are the Letters in ABC Order?

The alphabet, as best as historians can tell, got its start in ancient Egypt sometime in the Middle Bronze Age, but not with the Egyptians. They were, at the time, writing with a set of hieroglyphs that were used both as representations of the consonants

8 Amazing Automatons & the Minds Behind Them

Since the Greeks first told the myth of Pygmalion, who wished the statue he loved would come to life, it seems man has been trying to build a perfect replica of himself. Some would say we're getting closer to that possibility as computer technologies evol

How Does an Etch A Sketch Work?

In 1955, a French electrician named André Cassagnes got an idea for a new toy after seeing how an electrostatic charge could hold aluminum powder to glass.

What's the Deal With the Black Box?

I have spent my life on Mars, in a cave, with my fingers in my ears. What, pray tell, is a flight

Scrabble Word Records

Here at the _floss, we love Scrabble and have written about it often. Among others, there's Stacy's post on Scrabble words that will help you win, my post on how Alfred Mosher Butts, inventor of Scrabble, couldn't spell very well, and even a quiz by Jason

Airing Tomorrow on PBS: OBJECTIFIED, a Documentary About Things

Objectified airs on PBS stations in the US on Tuesday, November 24, as part of the Independent Lens series. I highly recommend that you set your DVR to record this film, if you're interested in: documentaries, computers, how things are made, how things

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