Evolution of Invention in the Last 50 Years

In 1963, John F. Kennedy (JFK) was the president, the Beatles released their 1st single in US "Please Please Me", and Mickey Mantle signed a contract with the New York Yankees for $100,000. Society and technology has evolved quite a bit over the last 50 years, and advancements in invention have been a large driver of change. In the last 50 years between 1963 and 2012, the number of patent applications and patent grants issued by the United States Patent and Trademark Office has increased by roughly 500%.
To celebrate the innovation that has taken place over the last 50 years the patent and new product marketing experts at Innovate Product Design have come up with a very interesting infographic that explores the evolution of invention.

The infographic notes several trends over the last five decades, most notably the dramatic increase in the number of patent applications and grants. However, a spotlight is also cast on some of the most influential innovations of the last 50 years, including the commerical jetliner, the remote control (TV), cellular phones, GPS technology, and perhaps the most life-changing evolution of them all, the internet. Also, the infographic offers a useful overview of the disntinctions between the three different types of patents including, Utility Patents, Design Patents, and Plant Patents.

Enjoy this infographic, and please feel free to submit your comments or questions, including any inventions of the last five decades that you think should have been included on this list!

© 2013 Innovate Product Design

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The Future Of Tracking

GPS Tracking Costs

As the use of GPS tracking gets less expensive the possibilities for its use become too many to even list. But we’re gonna try anyway!  Just imagine a tracking unit on anything expensive, well we have that now actually. But it gets a little difficult to track things that are only slightly expensive. For example liquor bottles at a bar, now if you get down to it they are relatively inexpensive to purchase, especially for a bar.  They buy in such volume that an average bottle of rum like Captain Morgan will probably cost them $13 or $14 (probably even less). But if they are able to pour 40 or 50 shots of rum from one bottle at $4.50 a shot, that $13 bottle is now worth $225!  Now take that across the board, or bar in this case, and you have a lot of money in liquor.

If you are able to track those bottles and the number of times they are turned over to be poured what would the value of that be?  Imagine a bar being able to count the number of time a bottles is poured from, compare that to the night’s receipts and bam, you now know if anyone is skimming off the top!
Staying on the bar and restaurant theme think about the equipment onsite. Large refrigerators and dish washing equipment can run into the tens of thousands of dollars. If you are able to link these machines to a tracking app you can measure the amount of cycles they run through in any given time period. Compare that to the maintenance on these units and owners can see how efficient their equipment really is operating, ort how they can operate more efficiently.

The Pad Lock

I’ve always thought the pad lock was a good idea but if you put that pad lock onto a small object that was easily removed from its location then what was the point?  Imagine a small tracker in a pad lock, not only can it tells you if it’s been moved, but it can tell you if it’s been tampered with or even if and when it was unlocked.  I can think of a lot of applications for a device like this.  A commercial company that has equipment in the field that is locked up well out of the sight of people would love to have a tool like this. What if you went on holiday for a few weeks and left your new grill locked up on the patio.  Will it be there when you get back?  If it is not then just track the lock and see if it’s still with the grill.

GPS feature in phones

We have the ability to find and track our mobile devices now.  They in fact use more than just GPS actually; these devices that are cellular devices can use triangulation from cell towers to find their location.  While it’s not as accurate GPS it does work well.  How about putting this technology into items like watches or your wallet?  Well I’m sure you wouldn’t be surprised to know this is already happening.  There are many different products on the market that can track your wallet or purse for you now.  Technology has come a long way and it’s only going to get better, smaller and less expensive.  We can look forward to saving a lot of time and money in everything we do, simply because of technology!

Citations:

• Learn more about GPS and how it works

Josh Schied, the author of this article and the owner of GPS Tracker App blog, is a passionate technology writer. He likes to blog about everything that is GPS and navigation related. Get in touch with Josh on Facebook.

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