The winner of LG’s next phone design challenge has been announced–and by the looks of things, it appears that Spider-Man’s web shooter was a major source of inspiration. The device is actually a pen-shaped cellphone/mobile projector that can throw images, video and other information on the back of the user’s hand when mounted on a wrist strap. I’m not sure if LG still plans on manufacturing the winning concept phone, but slinging a mini or pico projector image around like a web shooter has definite geek appeal.
The folks at LG must be running out of ideas because they are once again tapping the general public for new designs. Earlier this month, they launched a touchscreen UI contest, but now they have moved on to hardware with the Innovation Challenge. The goal: design your dream phone. The payoff: LG will manufacture your phone (one of which you get to keep), pay you $10,000 and adorn your pad with a LG 52″ LCD TV and a HD-DVD (whaa?) or a Blu-ray player. Better hurry though, the contest ends on 4/30. [LG Innovation Challenge]
You know, I really love it when (sorta) average guys out-innovate mega-corporate profit machines, like that homemade MRI machine. But this is more amazing: John Kanzius has no background in cancer research but might have invented a real cure. He was diagnosed with leukemia, and struck by the idea that radio waves could kill cancer cells. So he built a prototype machine using pie pans and conducted tests on hot dogs injected with copper sulfate—the radio waves only heat up metal spots, for tactical nuking without nasty side effects. It’s now being tested at the University of Pittsburgh and M.D. Anderson Cancer Centre, where the lead doc says that it “may allow us to treat just about any kind of cancer you can imagine.”
You may not have heard of Google’s Innovate or Die competition, but it was a US$5000 contest for coming up with a method to provide rural communities with water—an endeavour that doesn’t sound glorious, but is quite important to thirsty people. Aquaduct, the winning team, created a bicycle that can both help transport water quickly and easily, but clean that water at the same time! Congrats to Aquaduct, whose team of 5 easily averted a tense situation by being able to divide up the prize with simple math. [Google - Thanks Diem!]
