Word: gadget
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...visionaries who figure out how to harness the sun, build a battery to store the wind or engineer the renewable fuel that won't compete with the food supply. (It could be the actual Google guys, who have launched an aggressive clean-energy initiative.) "Inventing a better gadget isn't enough anymore. We're trying to reshape the way people live," says SolarCity CEO Lyndon Rive, a South African who went to California for the world underwater-hockey championships, got caught up in the Internet boom and never left. He built and sold an IT-support company...
Dyson Inc.'s new bladeless electric fan resembles anything but a fan. The company calls it an "air multiplier." To the average sci-fi enthusiast, it looks like a miniature replica of a stargate - but alas, this gadget does not create a wormhole that teleports people to distant worlds. (See pictures of 50 years of the hovercraft...
...moving parts, however, it's safer for children. At 3.5 lb., it's also eminently portable. And even though the plastic shell looks delicate, Dyson's engineers claim that the product has survived test drops from stairwells and tables. In short, it has all the characteristics of a new gadget that can be copied and mass-produced in some Chinese factory - for hundreds of dollars less. But before you set your sights on a bootleg version, Samways says that the Air Multiplier's deceivingly simple structure is the result of a laborious design process that can't be easily copied...
...eaton manufacturing plant in Roxboro, N.C., makes a 3-in. gadget called a lash adjuster that keeps pressure constant on engine valves, increasing fuel efficiency. Last year Brian Whitfield, a supply-chain analyst at the factory, had plenty of work scheduling orders for raw materials, components and packaging. But with the collapse of GM and Chrysler, business ground to a halt, and when Whitfield arrived at his cubicle on Jan. 20, he found an e-mail from management announcing layoffs. He looked around and saw people leaving, carrying boxes. Then his boss called him into the conference room. "Basically...
...Eaton Manufacturing plant in Roxboro, N.C., makes a 3-in. gadget called a lash adjuster that keeps pressure constant on engine valves, increasing fuel efficiency. Last year Brian Whitfield, a supply-chain analyst at the factory, had plenty of work scheduling orders for raw materials, components and packaging. But with the collapse of GM and Chrysler, business ground to a halt, and when Whitfield arrived at his cubicle on Jan. 20, he found an e-mail from management announcing layoffs. He looked around and saw people leaving, carrying boxes. Then his boss called him into the conference room. "Basically...