You know about the Echo and the Google Home, but do you know about the Butler In A Box? It was a voice-controlled smart home device in the 1980s, and could do many of the same things our smart speakers do today.
I certainly did not expect 2021 to be what it is, but what did people back in the day predict our world would be like now? Entrepreneur Magazine looked back at predictions from a hundred years ago, and some of them were surprisingly close to the mark.
If one of your new year’s resolutions is to see if you can cut down on your energy use, this might be a way to do it: a tabletop laundry dryer that can finish a cycle in just 15 minutes.
Hyundai is now working to develop what it calls "ultimate mobility vehicles." When they encounter rough terrain the wheels can't pass through, these cars will be able to stand up on robotic legs and walk through.
We use hundreds of billions of latex gloves a year, for a lot of important reasons. Scientists at Cranfield University in the UK are developing an eco-friendly latex glove that uses less energy to produce and will biodegrade in weeks rather than centuries.
Robot roadside assistance? Toyota has applied for a patent for a system where self-driving drones could pull up to vehicles and give them some gas - or, if it runs on electricity, give it a charge.
An inventor in Florida has invented a robot that can put contact lenses in human eyes safety and effectively. This could be a big help to people with neurological disorders or tremors who might not otherwise be able to put those lenses in themselves.
Composting can turn some of our food waste back into useful stuff, but it can take a while. A new device out of Germany aims to cut the time it takes to go from food waste to compost to just 48 hours.
UCLA scientists have made little thermoelectric coolers that are only 100 nanometers wide, so small the eye can't see them on its own. They're not quite refrigerators yet, but if you have little sodas or bags of grapes, maybe reach out anyway.
On this day in 1947, a team working on a computer at Harvard University discovered the first computer bug: a moth that had gotten trapped in the electronics.
