Gizmodo Australia sits down with the winner of the James Dyson award, Ed Linacre to talk about water, patents, science fiction and why copper wool can lead to beautiful moments in science.
What’s in the water down under? This is the second year in a row an Aussie has won the James Dyson Award, with both designs also aiming to save lives — albeit in very different ways. This year’s winning product is Airdrop, a network of pipes that sucks water from the air and irrigates drought-stricken Australia with the condensation it needs to grow plants.
Imagine looking at Google Maps on your tablet, and feeling one corner grow heavier where your destination is located. Or reading an ebook on your phone, and being aware of the fatter side of the book.
Sir James Dyson, inventor of perhaps the most recognisable consumer vacuum on the market today, is completely comfortable with failure. He’s good at it—failure I mean—but most great inventors are.
The Dyson Awards are one of the highlights of the year for us – after all, what else could bring a life-aid bazooka to fruition? But James Dyson – yes, he of vacuum cleaner fame – needs your help. He needs YOU to enter the 2011 awards with your problem-solving inventions.
A buoyancy aid from Australia has won this year’s James Dyson Award, which battled alongside 14 amazing finalists. Made from hydrophobic foam which expands in the water, the Longreach aid can be fired 150m out to sea to save lives.
There are just four days until the international winner of the James Dyson Awards is announced from one of the following 15 finalists. Some amazing inventions are up for it, including that water sterilisation bottle from the UK.
An English graduate has won this year’s James Dyson Award, which is a coveted design award in the UK. Taking on the noble challenge of finding a cure for water sterilisation, Timothy Whitehead’s bottle cleans water in just two minutes flat.
Sir James Dyson, the man behind the bagless vacuum and the bladeless fan, designs products that solve problems. We caught up with him and talked about one of the biggest engineering problems the world currently faces: the Gulf oil spill.
