Strange Inventions
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Strange Inventions: An Extra Eye for When You’re Reading Your Smartphone
Some inventions make lives better. Others provide solutions to problems that can also be solved by looking up. Here we…
Microsoft Patent Suggests Simulating the Dead With AI Chatbots
One of the more unusual eventualities of artificial intelligence is that it may one day be used to resurrect the…
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Strange Patents: Sony’s Fluffy Gamer Pal Robot
Now’s the time when a lot of people are stuck at home. They’re bored. They’re out of their wits. They’re…
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Strange Inventions: The Isolator (1925)
What’s that? You tried out NaNoWriMo last month but just couldn’t find the opportunity to sit down and concentrate? Happens to the…
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The Ghostly Voice of Joseph Faber’s Euphonia
Behold, Joseph Faber’s Euphonia. This curious amalgamation of various mechanical parts was exhibited in December 1845 at the Music Fund…
Strange Patents: The High Five Machine
If there’s one mystery of the universe I’ve never fully understood, it’s what to do when I feel like giving…
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Sony’s “Brain Stimulation” Technology
Imagine if we could throw away the controllers of old and instead plug ourselves into a video game console. We’d…
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Strange Patents: A Tubular Interstellar Space Craft
Here we have a patent application (US8109471B2) for a “tubular shaped interstellar space craft,” filed on November 14, 2008. It’s…
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Strange Patents: Full Body Teleportation
What’s this? It’s an image from an actual patent for “full body teleportation.” Filed on September 29, 2004, the patent…