Dear Reader, Who hasn’t heard of Alexander Graham Bell? He is widely credited as the inventor of the telephone. However, if that is what you know, then you don’t know enough about the telephone. In June 2002, The Guardian reported that the US Congress had recognised that a poor immigrant from Florentine, Italy, was the […]
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Death of the ATM Inventor
Dear Visitor, My apologies for not updating this blog recently. On May 15th, 2010, John Shepherd-Barron, widely credited to be the inventor of the ATM machine, passed away at the age of 84. The automated teller machine, or the ATM, as it is usually known, is an example of an invention that has become part […]
Failure & Neglect
The Story of the Inventive Man Who Didn’t Patent His Invention Once, in a faraway land, an inventive man observed a social phenomenon. He saw how society did things, used things, and thought about things. He observed a problem, but society did not know that it had a problem. It was just that he wasn’t […]
Origami & Patents
Introduction How many philanthropists have raised money for charity by making and selling origami? Fifth grader Sebastian Carpenter, only 11 years old, did just that, raising USD$610 for a local charity in Massachusetts. Sebastian created and sold Christmas-themed origami to family friends, hoping to raise only $50. As word about his cause and his creations […]
WWW-What? On Domain Names and Cybersquatting
Dear Reader, Introduction The business of registering, holding and selling domain names has become an industry in itself, almost akin to real estate. In January 2005, when the tsunami tragedy shocked the world, a 20-year-old Canadian art student, Josh Kaplan, listed a domain, “tsunamirelief.com”, for sale on eBay.com for USD50,000. New York Post suggested Kaplan […]