Stanford Business

AUGUST 2006


Showcase of Innovations

The 2006 Cool Products Expo, sponsored in April by the Business School’s Product Design and Manufacturing Club and Stanford’s Alliance for Innovative Manufacturing, showcased products and prototypes from 38 exhibitors.

Photos by Kurt Anderson or courtesy of manufacturers

 

Has Legs: When you let go of the Oliso Steam Iron handle, built-in legs raise it, preventing possible burning, scorching, and tipping. The manufacturer estimates a time savings of nearly 30 percent over traditional irons that are placed in the upright position. www.oliso.com

 

Drawing Board: Currently not planned for production, the Concept Centaur uses the same self-leveling technology as the two-wheeled Segway Human Transporter but can go twice as fast. Four wheels allow it to handle more diverse terrain as well as accommodate an additional passenger. www.segway.com

 

 

Dirty Work: Unlike traditional vacuums that lose suction as their bags fill with debris, the bagless Dyson creates a vortex of the incoming air in a see-through chamber that separates the dirt and discharges the air without losing suction power. www.dyson.com Dangerous Downhills: Meant for the serious action sports enthusiast, the Captain Avalanche sled has patented steering innovations, the first on a runner sled since the Flexible Flyer of 1889. It was built for descending steep hills at high speeds and uses aircraft-grade aluminum runners. www.captainavalanche.com

 

Safe Landings: A built-in parachute designed to carry the entire plane and its passengers to safety is manufactured into every Cirrus aircraft. The eventual impact is the equivalent of a 10-foot fall, which specially designed landing gear and seats will help absorb, the company says. www.cirrusdesign.com

 

Alternatively Fueled: There is no traditional engine in this Ford Focus FCV. Instead, a hydrogen fuel cell creates electricity to power the vehicle’s motors for up to 200 miles. The only exhaust it emits is water. www.ford.com/en/vehicles/specialtyVehicles/environmental/fuelCell/

 

Chat Time: Meebo, a company co-founded by Seth Sternberg, Class of ’06, offers a web interface that people use to log onto several instant messaging services at once and also from computers without messaging software. It currently supports AIM, Yahoo, MSN, ICQ, Jabber, and GTalk. www.meebo.com

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