Word: gadget
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Inventing comes almost naturally to Winchell, a graduate of a New York school of industrial arts. At age 13, he realized that his sinus trouble seemed to ease when he held his nostrils open, so he contrived a V-shaped gadget to do the job. Later he patented a transparent lens cap for cameras (to help the amateur who shoots with a lens cap on) and invented a device made out of plastic ice cube trays, used for transplanting seedlings...
...researchers now appears to have found one. Physicist Hans Stephan and Drs. Hans Stoboy and Adalbert Schaede have developed a device called a Cardiomed that monitors the working heart and tells when it is not beating at the proper rate. Not much larger than a billfold, the battery-operated gadget checks on the heart through electrodes stuck on the chest. It emits a single beep whenever the heart rate falls below a predetermined lower limit, a double beep whenever it rises above a preset ceiling. Doctors who have experimented with the device (retail price: $280) find it particularly useful...
...tradition of the electric toothbrush and the high-speed electric cocktail mixer, the latest effort-saving gadget is the Name Caller, which does away with the need of dialing a telephone. By pressing a button on the device, which can be easily attached to the phone, a user can reach any one of 38 numbers. Besides its speed and convenience, the Name Caller provides a foolproof way for a baby sitter to phone police, firemen or the family doctor in an emergency. The gadget-about the size of a small bathroom scale-has been available for only four months...
...suppress that feeling of embarrassment, the worry about what other people will think of them. If the neighbors are playing their radio at a level that suggests that they are deaf, pound on the wall. Or ring their doorbell and expostulate in calm, well-reasoned tones. If a bargain gadget advertised for sale turns out to be not as advertised, arm yourself with the advertisement and demand redress. Faced with an outrageous bill for a crankcase repair, demand to see the "flatrate manual" used in the trade to standardize prices for parts and the mechanic's estimated time...
...being offered to fed-up Manhattanites are inexpensive ($5 and under) tear-gas sprays, available in many drugstores. Often combined with dye that marks an attacker for police identification, these sprays come disguised as everything from cigarette lighters to lipsticks. There is also the $9.98 electric shock rod, a gadget that operates on four ordinary flashlight batteries and, according to the firm that markets it, releases "enough power to stop an angry bull in its tracks." The rod is more likely to prove shocking to the user when it fails to deter the attacker...