The best inventions of 2007

Time magazine (USA) has just released the list of 2007's best inventions. It is not surprising that the music player - iPhone integrated mobile phone is the champion. However, in Time's list there are also many inventions that are surprising to the uses that have never been heard of.

Steam engine combined with gasoline

The future of automotive technology may be in the past: steam engines. Mr. Bruce Crower, 77, a race car designer in San Diego (USA), has invented a type of steam engine combined with a gasoline engine.

In this type of engine, water is sprayed into gasoline cylinders, thereby turning the heat vapor released into renewable energy. This energy allows a car to use the Crower engine to run an additional 40% of the distance compared to the normal fuel consumption. Currently, Crower engine is still being researched and tested so it has not been applied in practice and not available in the market.

Hybrid Crower engine (Photo: TTO)

Car run by air

Forget the electric car because it belongs to the past. Recently, French research and development firm MDI has just signed a contract with India's largest carmaker Tata Motors to produce cars using compressed air.

This ultra-clean vehicle runs entirely on air, and the only thing they release from the exhaust is cold air and even cleaner than air. Another excellent application is a car with an internal compressor that allows air intake and refueling of the fuel tank in minutes. In early 2008, Tata Motors will launch compressed air products to the market for about 4,400 USD.

Pneumatic vehicles (Photo: TTO)

All are blood type O

Blood type O is the most valuable product of all blood banks in the world because it can be transmitted to any blood type. Danish researchers have invented a method to transfer other blood groups to O blood with the help of several types of bacteria.

Scientists separate two bacterial enzymes that are able to "eat" sugar molecules to distinguish blood groups A, B, and AB, thereby converting them into O. Blood groups, scientists are currently experiments on patients. If successful, this blood transfusion could help create a stable supply of blood for hospitals around the world, thereby eliminating the current acute emergency anemia.

ATMs selling books

Expresso Book Machine (EBM) is a super-fast book printer: prints a 300-page book, a color cover in just three minutes and operates like a vending machine.

EBM is small enough to put in a library or bookstore, allowing readers to choose any type of book, including books that are no longer on the market. EBM's software will transfer the book's requested data to the machine, and the machine will print and bound the book to the buyer at a very cheap price: only 3 USD / book.

The first EBM worth US $ 50,000 was placed at the New York Public Library (USA in July 2007. Readers were entitled to print for free the classic literary works of Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, William Blake. .

Expresso book printer (Photo: TTO)

Turn sand into stone

Bacillus pasteurii is one of the most useful bacteria that humans have ever known. Scientists have found a way to use this type of bacterium to turn the easy-to-sink sandy ground into a solid.

Researchers mixed urea, soil and calcium together, then inoculated Bacillus pasteurii into the mixture. The bacteria will gradually eat up urea and deposit calcite minerals, making the soil tightly bound together like rocks. This technology can quickly be used to build houses in weak areas, easy to sink.

iPhone: Still number 1

iPhone is too big, too slow, too expensive, there is no good email support tool for users.However, for Time , iPhone is still the number one invention of the year by the following five reasons.

First, the iPhone has a very nice design.According to Time, one of the basic ideas of Steve Jobs (Apple Group boss) about technology is a good design as important as good technology.Second, the iPhone has a high quality touch screen.Apple did not invent a touch screen, but its engineers used a touch screen to create a completely new interface, giving users the feeling that they actually used their fingers to translate. transfer data in the machine.

Third, the iPhone will make other types of phones better.Steve Jobs successfully negotiated with AT&T Mobile Service to the point that AT&T gave Apple unprecedented freedom to design the iPhone completely according to Apple's idea.Other phone companies must be jealous, and want that freedom.That means more and better phones will come out.

Fourth, with a modern operating system, the iPhone is not just a phone or a music player, it's a portable computer.Fifth, in the next few years, the current iPhone will only be a "prehistoric device" because there will be more and more modern new iPhone models, with cheaper prices.

HIEU TRUNG