An overview of gadgets and inventions that can change our lives for the better

How to reduce harmful emissions from shipping? How can four different models fit in one pair of shoes at once? How can a smart cane help the blind and visually impaired “see” obstacles in their path? How to see E. coli in your hands? And how to get rid of the habit of biting your nails? Kommersant continues to talk about new and old inventions with great potential.

Whitening my fiberglass sail

According to experts, the share of the shipping industry in global gas emissions into the atmosphere is about 3%. What appears to be a small proportion actually means that more than 830 million tons of common pollutants and global warming greenhouse gases are released into the atmosphere every year by ships. One way to deal with this problem is to reduce the use of fuel by ships.

British engineering company BAR Technologies suggested your own version: sails made of fiberglass WindWings, that is, literally – “wings of the wind”. The blades of wind power plants are made of fiberglass, the material can withstand significant loads, which is why it was chosen for the manufacture of rigid sails. Sails WindWings 37.5 m high are installed on the deck of the vessel. At the touch of a button, they can be folded down and placed on the deck, for example, when there is no wind or when the vessel approaches the loading and unloading area. All parts and assemblies of the sail system are made of durable materials approved for use in shipbuilding. The sails can be installed both on new vessels in the process of their construction, and on those already operating, they are suitable for vessels of different sizes and types.

According to experts, the use of WindWings allows ships to save up to 1.5 tons of fuel per sail per day without losing speed. Emissions are reduced by 4.65 tons per sail per day, or 30%.

WindWings sails are now being tested in real conditions on a cargo ship Pyrix Ocean, chartered by construction company Cargill, one of the partners of the WindWings project. The ship is on a voyage from China to Brazil. It is expected that the journey will take him about six weeks. BAR Technologies CEO John Cooper, who at one time worked for the McLaren Formula One team, estimates that “by 2025, half of new ships will be powered by wind.” “And why I am so sure of this is because of the savings: 1.5 tons of fuel per day. Put four sails on a ship, and already 6 tons of fuel are saved, and this is 20 tons of carbon dioxide that will not enter the atmosphere – and in just a day. The numbers are impressive,” he explained in an interview. BBC.

Shoes turn…

But it is possible to pollute the environment less without sails – with the help of shoes. For example, do not buy four different pairs, but buy one. Quite enough, especially if this pair can be easily changed, getting sandals, sneakers, open sports shoes, slippers. Such shoes-transformer came up with Munjoi company and named it All-Dai. As the developers note, overproduction – including shoes – leads to the depletion of natural resources and accelerates the rate of air, water and soil pollution. And All-Dai shoes are designed to solve this problem. Not only do you not need many pairs, but one is enough, and it is made exclusively from materials of plant origin: cotton, hemp, algae and sugar cane.

clear seeing cane

October 2021 marks 100 years since the invention of a white cane for blind and visually impaired people, by which you can easily recognize such a person. At the same time, the cane has become a kind of symbol of independence for people with disabilities, a tool that allows them to overcome distances outside the home with some degree of confidence. Now there are about 250 million such people in the world. Over the previous 100 years and even over the past decades of the rapid development of the latest technologies, the white cane has remained, in fact, the same stick with which you can feel the road and obstacles on the way. And only in 2021 did the developers get their hands on this very important subject, so appeared smart cane for the blind and visually impaired WeWalk. But then what just wasn’t built into it. WeWalk looks almost like a regular white cane, but with a thickened handle that houses the control box. The control buttons on the handle, as well as a small touchpad, are located just in the place where the user’s thumb rests.

The cane connects via Bluetooth to a smartphone application, monitors the location of a person, tells him where and when to turn, what type of transport, what route number and at what moment you can get on, and will warn you when to get off. (you can listen to the tips both in the headphones through the application, and just directly from the cane).

The cane can “speak” in 10 different languages, including English, Spanish, Russian, Arabic. At the same time, the cane “sees” obstacles on the way not only at ground level, but also at chest level and above, which could not be achieved with an ordinary white cane. Therefore, the WeWalk user will not stumble upon a low-hanging branch or a road sign or lamp standing in the way: the cane will warn about them by vibration in the handle.

In addition, just going for a walk with such a cane, you can learn a lot about what is located along the way, what cafes, museums, galleries, monuments, parks are in the area. And if suddenly, during a walk, the user touches his smartphone somewhere and cannot find it, just press the button on the cane, and it will give the command to the smartphone to beep. And vice versa: using a smartphone, you can find a cane. Despite the presence of a control box, the weight of the WeWalk cane is not very large, since it is made of graphite. Depending on the length, which is selected individually, WeWalk weighs 360-370 g. According to users, the appearance of WeWalk dramatically improved their quality of life, expanded their horizons, increased their efficiency, and all this helps to reduce the level of anxiety, fear, increases confidence in and gives you a great deal of freedom.

E. coli will not pass

New York startup PathSpot created a device, which will greatly facilitate the life of all those institutions and institutions where it is extremely important to keep cleanliness. This is a scanner that, using fluorescence spectroscopy, determines in two seconds whether there are pathogenic microbes on a person’s hands, and warns if it detects them. The company says that they are massively ordering such scanners from catering establishments, medical, preschool institutions, farms, etc.

The scanner is usually hung on the wall near the washbasin, where employees wash their hands before work and during the working day. After washing their hands, they bring them to the scanner and find out if it’s clean or if they need to rub more. The scanner detects the most common pathogens, including E. coli, norovirus, salmonella, hepatitis A virus, listeria, etc. According to startup co-founder Christine Schindler, in most cases people do not wash their hands, even if they lather and rub them. To effectively remove potentially harmful germs from hands, she says, you need to use soap and rub your hands for at least 20 seconds, not only the palms, but also the creases between the fingers and wrists, not forgetting the dirt under the nails.

The use of the scanner also allows real-time information to be collected and displayed on which hand cleanliness problems are most common among employees in a given establishment or facility.

The equipment also counts the time that has passed since the last hand washing, reminds you to check the cleanliness of your hands again, etc. The analysis shows that in the first month of operation of the scanner, the number of cases of infection of employees or visitors decreased by 75%, and after six months – by 90%.

Freedom from bad habits

Many people try for years without success to stop biting their nails (onychophagia), or pulling out their hair (trichotillomania), or pinching their skin (dermatillomania). All of these habits fall into the category of obsessive-compulsive disorders and are either a symptom of a mental illness or develop in healthy people against a background of stress. Sometimes the situation goes so far that people have their nails bitten almost to the meat, bald spots form on their heads from torn hair, and skin suffering from pinching is covered with bruises and wounds.

Designer Anila Idnani suffered from trichotillomania for more than 20 years and was very worried about this. One fine day, she decided to create a company that would develop something to rid Anila herself and hundreds of thousands of other people suffering from trichotillomania from the habit of pulling out their hair.

The result was HabitAware, whose specialists developed smart bracelets Keen. They track the repetitive, obsessive movements of the user and give a signal similar to that of someone carefully taking your wrist.

Since all these actions – biting nails, pulling out hair and pinching skin – are performed by people unconsciously, a signal given at the right time makes a person stop and realize what exactly he is doing. And gradually the bad habit goes away. The effectiveness of Keen bracelets can at least be evidenced by the fact that already in the first year of sales, HabitAware received orders worth more than $1 million. And then the American National Institute of Mental Health awarded the company a $300,000 grant for further research in the field of getting rid of bad habits.

Alena Miklashevskaya