Amazing Inventions for the Year 2020 by Philips

You may wonder where Philips Electronics, the company that makes reliable TVs, close-shaving razors, and innovative light bulbs, is going these days, now that it's been recognized as a fashion innovator by Time Magazine. (November 12, 2007). Experimenting with futuristic concepts, Philips is enlisting the public's involvement, an innovative strategy designed to beat the invention failure rate.

Quoting statistics from a 2005 article in Business Week that "up to 96% of all new projects fail to meet the targets for return on investment," Philips questions the linear business structure that identifies and moves an innovation through a pipeline. Should an innovation be pressed through an internal pipeline or allowed to simmer, be sampled, added to, matured into something that is really perceived as a need by society. To find out, Philips is offering its innovations to "society" for feedback and discussion.

Philips has identified "Design Probes" to spur conversation and feedback from the areas of politics, economic, culture, environments and technology futures. These six areas have been designated Design Probe Projects:

1. Skin: Dresses


Clothing That Lights Up When You Do

The dress above is one of two designs Philips created as a prototype of how electronic textile development can react to subtle changes in the skin. A second design, the Blubelle dress (see Phillips’ Emotional Sensing Dress) won Time Magazine's favor in the Fashion category of the 2007 awards for best invention .

2. Skin: Tatoo


Tatoo Brought Out By Touch

This Design Probe involves a tatoo technology that is brought out by touch. These images show the tatoo filling out as the lovers embrace. There's a short sensual video of the entire tatoo revelation on the Philips website
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3. Skintile: Electronic Sensing Jewelry


Electronic Sensing Jewelry

A wireless, stick-on sensor forms this jewelry's special attraction . As Philips writes: "It explores a range of functionalities in new product forms that are playful, sensual, mood affected, bio activity stimulated, and arousal enhancing. It is a semi disposable, bio compatible, non-allergenic, breathable, mass customizable, self contained body worn accessory."

In this image, a dog is wearing a prototype of a mask designed to detect illness in humans by elements in their body odors. Dogs are being trained to detect humans with cancer, so perhaps some of the eventual technology will be derived from learning more about dog's sensing abilities. The object of this smell device, though, is to enable humans to identify illness in each other.

4.Smell


Dogs Can Detect Disease

Humans are strongly affected by smell anyway... either attracted or repulsed by it. Philips brought this bit of information out on its website that I thought I'd share with you: "Tests have shown that women can identify the most genetically suitable partner for reproduction purely on the basis of smelling a T-shirt he has worn."