Free Republic

<p>DALLAS – Arch West, a retired Frito-Lay marketing executive credited with creating Doritos as the first national tortilla chip brand, has died in Dallas at age 97.</p>

(CNN) -- President Barack Obama signed legislation Friday that will overhaul the U.S. patent system for the first time since 1952. "We have to do everything we can to encourage the entrepreneurial spirit wherever we find it," Obama said at a signing ceremony at a high school in Arlington, Virginia. This measure "cuts away the red tape that slows down our inventors and entrepreneurs." Obama used the occasion to promote his $447 billion jobs plan, calling patent reform a "part of our (larger) agenda for making us competitive over the long term." Among other things, the measure, dubbed the America...

They mocked the Wright Brothers, too. So if Laura Nell Britton’s latest invention, the Trash Can Storm Shelter, catches on, she’ll stand in good company. Britton recently sunk two large plastic trash cans into the ground outside her Rolling Greens home, then installed rebar and poured cement around it and, voila! — instant, inexpensive shelter against the power of a tornado. Now she’s hoping the idea will gain momentum and that the trash can manufacturer, Toter, will help her market this novel use for their product.

A Japanese man paralysed from the waist down has embarked on an ambitious trip to Normandy to climb a mountain... with the help of a cutting-edge robotic suit. Father-of-two Seiji Uchida, 49, will be carried up Mont Saint Michel - a World Heritage site - by a companion clad in a cybernetic exoskeleton which can boost the wearer's strength tenfold. For Mr Uchida, who lost the ability to walk 28 years ago after a car accident, reaching the picturesque abbey at the top of the mountain on the French coast is just the beginning of his trip of a lifetime.

It was a feat that would have made Buzz Lightyear proud...or extremely envious. But for Yves Rossy, who finally completed his flight over the Grand Canyon in a jet suit, it must have been a relief. For the Swiss adventurer, dubbed JetMan, was forced to cancel his daring spectacle at the last minute on Friday due to red tape and safety issues. Despite the setback Rossy did not give up and on Saturday strapped on his wings and took to the skies for a spectacular eight-minute flight over a five-mile radius

It is axiomatic that the struggling U.S. economy is slowly climbing out of its hole. President Obama and our elected representatives regularly wax eloquent about job growth, innovation and the opportunity and future for the once-great United States. But the recovery, critics say, given the depths of the worldwide economic melt-down of 2008, is far too anemic, and job growth too stunted, all because of cumbersome, growth-stifling laws and policies. It is also axiomatic that most, if not all, net job creation in the U.S. today comes from small, entrepreneurial companies less than five years old. As Kauffman Foundation economist...

Jamie Hyneman is on the right, beside costar Adam Savage. Register UK - Jamie Hyneman has been working with the US government to devise lightweight armor for US military vehicles in Afghanistan and Iraq, all thanks to his work with materials such as TNT and C4 in the frankly unconventional setting of MythBusters. Hyneman's armor had to be ultra-lightweight so the vehicle doesn't get bogged down, but also capable of standing up the shrapnel and blast damage from a powerful IED while protecting the humans inside the vehicle from the pressure wave accompanying a blast. Hyneman was contacted by a...

KINGSPORT, Tenn. -- Harry Wesley Coover Jr., known as the inventor of Super Glue, has died at his home in Kingsport, Tenn. He was 94. Coover was working for Tennessee Eastman Company when an accident resulted in Super Glue, according to his grandson, Adam Paul of South Carolina.

Daniel Reetz loves trash bins. A big one in Fargo, N.D., was where he found most of the materials he used to build a scanner that was fast enough to scan a 400-page book in about 20 minutes without cracking the binding. The two Canon PowerShot A590 cameras and two lights that he lashed together with a few pieces of acrylic and wood cost him about $300 in all, considerably less than the $10,000 commercial book scanners on the market. When he was finished, Mr. Reetz, now 29 and working at Disney Research’s laboratories, put his 79-step how-to guide on...

Eric Jacqmain, from Indiana in the US, covered an ordinary fibreglass satellite dish with 5,800 tiny mirror tiles - and made his very own 'death ray'. When aligned correctly it can generate a heat spot a couple of centimetres across, with an intensity of 5,000 shining suns, the 19-year-old claims. The inventor then posted video of his invention on YouTube, with people commenting in awe of the power of the satellite. The ray generates enough power to melt steel, vaporize aluminum, boil concrete, turn dirt into lava, and obliterate any organic material in an instant. It stands at 5ft 9ins...

Lunacy dims Edison's inventionAlan Levine Casa Grande Dispatch Published: Tuesday, September 21, 2010 10:33 AM MST The General Electric factory in Winchester, Va., the last major U.S. plant making standard incandescent light bulbs, is scheduled to close at the end of the month. When it does, the remaining 200 workers will lose their jobs, marking a rather ignominious end for a company that produced a product that Thomas Alva Edison gave to us and the rest of the world back in the late 1870s. This is a direct result of Al Gore’s global-warming scare tactic, which is largely responsible for...

CORNING, N.Y. (AP) -- An ultra-strong glass that has been looking for a purpose since its invention in 1962 is poised to become a multibillion-dollar bonanza for Corning Inc. The 159-year-old glass pioneer is ramping up production of what it calls Gorilla glass, expecting it to be the hot new face of touch-screen tablets and high-end TVs. Gorilla showed early promise in the '60s, but failed to find a commercial use, so it's been biding its time in a hilltop research lab for almost a half-century. It picked up its first customer in 2008 and has quickly become a $170...

NEW PRODUCTS: Planning in works for making parts for passenger rail cars, use of high-rail stimulus fundsNew York Air Brake Co. will be ready for new business if the state's proposed high-speed commuter railroad lines become a reality. The Watertown railroad brake manufacturer has two products used in passenger rail cars, said Marc B. Robbins, locomotive sales engineer. "It really is a little different than what we're used to working with in freight," he said. The biggest difference is stricter safety requirements. One such product is a brake that has a passenger version, CCB II-P. "It's one of our most...

The U.S. Coast Guard has complained that there is not enough plastic tubing in the United States to construct the booms needed to contain the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. And neither BP, the Coast Guard, nor any other part of the U.S. government seems to understand how to effectively clean up the fouled Gulf. A technology that could effectively and actively remove oil from the surface of the ocean in all weather conditions would be a huge advance for the efforts going on in the Gulf right now. In fact, such a technology was designed and tested in the...

In one of the many new age music albums, there is a song called "Fly Away" and the constant refrain is "Fly Away, Fly Away, Fly Away," and the refrain really describes what you can do with this new invention. The catch is of course with this, you can only fly away in your imagination. TFT INSTRUMENTS Company has designed a new flight simulator that can be used for entertainment (with both movie studio sets/movie productions), airports, and shopping centers.

David Croslin is the President of a newly created company called "Innovate the Future." His company is seeking to assist both established and startup companies using his professional network and reputation, experience of an internationally acknowledged innovation leader to help companies grow, make the right connections, and become successful internationally.

When it comes to computer technology, thin is always in. It’s indisputable that the thinner, lighter, clearer, the better when dealing with the latest computer gadget. This keyboard is the epitome of the high standards expected of the technological version of the fashion industry. It’s based on image as well, that is, image recognition technology.

Walter Fredrick Morrison, the man credited with inventing the Frisbee, has died aged 90. Utah House Rep. Kay McIff, an attorney who represented Mr Morrison in a royalties case, said he died at his home in Monroe, Utah, on Tuesday. "That simple little toy has permeated every continent in every country, as many homes have Frisbees as any other device ever invented," Mr McIff said. "How would you get through your youth without learning to throw a Frisbee?" Mr Morrison's son, Walt, said that "old age caught up" with his father and that he also had cancer. "He was a...

(PhysOrg.com) -- Spray-on liquid glass is transparent, non-toxic, and can protect virtually any surface against almost any damage from hazards such as water, UV radiation, dirt, heat, and bacterial infections. The coating is also flexible and breathable, which makes it suitable for use on an enormous array of products. The liquid glass spray (technically termed “SiO2 ultra-thin layering”) consists of almost pure silicon dioxide (silica, the normal compound in glass) extracted from quartz sand. Water or ethanol is added, depending on the type of surface to be coated. There are no additives, and the nano-scale glass coating bonds to the...

His Name Is Branding Magic; Thomas Edison Is 'So 20th Century' Decades after he died penniless, Nikola Tesla is elbowing aside his old adversary Thomas Edison in the pantheon of geek gods. When California engineers wanted to brand their new $100,000 electric sports car, one name stood out: Tesla. When circuit designers at microchip producer Nvidia Corp. in 2007 launched a new line of advanced processors, they called them Tesla. And when videogame writers at Capcom Entertainment in Silicon Valley needed a character who could understand alien spaceships for their new Dark Void saga, they found him in Nikola Tesla....