Posts Tagged: "Evolution of Technology"

One of the first and most widely-used public key systems for cryptography is known as RSA cryptography, named for the trio of inventors who developed the system at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the late 1970s: Ronald Rivest, Adi Shamir and Leonard Adleman. These three inventors have each been inducted as part of the 2018 class of the National Inventors Hall of Fame and this Thursday, September 20th, marks the 35th anniversary of the issue of the seminal patent in the field of RSA cryptography. With this important date upon us, we return to our Evolution of Technology series to explore the development of this encryption system which has been incorporated as a fundamental aspect of many transaction systems and secure communications protocols.

Organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) are semiconductor films composed of an organic compound having electroluminescent properties which utilize an electrical current to emit light. The technology has wide applications and has been incorporated into digital displays for mobile phones, automotive dashboards and television screens. OLEDs can be constructed to be thinner and lighter than liquid crystal displays (LCDs) and also provide…

Warren Johnson one of the 2018 inductees into the National Inventors Hall of Fame for his invention of automatic room temperature control. July marks the anniversary of two seminal patents in the field of temperature control for which Johnson received this honor. Today, we return to our Evolution of Technology series to shed some light on how one of the most important advances in modern HVAC technology was conceived and developed.

The synthetic elastic fiber known as spandex, a name which comes from an anagram of ‘expands,’ is used in a wide range of clothing and apparel from sportswear to casual clothing to undergarments. Spandex also has applications in medical dressings such as diapers and bandages… This Tuesday, February 27th, marks the 56th anniversary of the issue of the original spandex patent. The inventor of spandex, Joseph C. Shivers, Jr., is a 2018 inductee into the National Inventors Hall of Fame… His induction to the National Inventors Hall of Fame comes posthumously, but modern society continues to reap the benefits of Shivers’ inability to let go of a problem many years ago.

Dr. Frances Ligler is a pioneer in biosensor activity and a member of the 2017 class of inductees into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. This New Years’ Eve 2017 marked the 26th anniversary of the issue of a foundational patent in the field of portable optical biosensors, devices which are more adept at providing biological analysis in the field and outside of clinical lab settings.

Somewhere near the end of 2011, I responded to an ad that was left on Craigslist. A website called IPWatchdog.com was looking for a writer to contribute content on Apple’s patenting activities… Over the past five years, I’ve learned a lot about what it means to be an inventor in today’s patent system. I’ve learned that, unless you have the deep wallets to create advocacy groups which beat the drums for further patent reforms in service to the efficient infringer lobby, you tend to get railroaded by the system… In short, I’ve learned that the United States of today is not the same country where the famed garage inventor can become a business success thanks to hard work and ingenuity. Today, the true beneficiaries of innovation seem to be those well-entrenched interests who can copy without great fear of reprisal, leaving the actual inventors without any true ability to commercialize and profit from their intellectual property.

Bíró was not the first inventor to conceive the use of a rolling ball in socket mechanism for an ink writing utensil. By the latter part of the 19th century, a few designs for this type of utensil would be developed and even patent-protected by their inventors. Although none of these became truly commercially successful… It’s probably not an exaggeration to say that the invention of the ballpoint pen likely saved the lives of Bíró and his family… When anti-Jewish laws went into effect in Hungary in 1938, Bíró fled to Paris and eventually wound up in Argentina with his brother and other members of his family.

The next major development in bicycling technologies comes in the 1860s, when the first attempts are made at adding a driving mechanism. This would be the start of the pedal bicycles that we see traveling along streets and sidewalks all over the world. These models began utilizing rotary cranks which were attached to front wheel pedals to power the bicycle forward. These velocipedes were often commonly known as “boneshakers” due to their rigid metal frames and wheels; rubber wheels weren’t introduced until later, in the late 1870s. The frame, constructed of iron, could easily reach up to 100 pounds in weight. Although these look like contemporary bikes, these models had a much lower gear ratio, resulting in a bike that traveled much slower than today’s versions.