One man's junk is another man's treasure -- that's the bromide behind eBay. And sometimes if you look hard enough you can find a device that changes everything. An invention so magnificent, so unknowable, that its discovery alone could "make you feel good all over the world" without even making a bid. The prototype pictured above has universal purpose: it can inflate helium balloons when it detects hot lava, find gold floating in the sea, or let you know when a horse wakes up with the Swine Flu. Really, the choices here are limitless. And for just $10.51, the "Universal Invention of the future" is yours -- hurry, just 8 hours left. Check the video treasure after the break, you can thank us later.
I actually read through that god awful patent (the english page anyway)..
and the patent is simply for a construction, that lets you put something with a button in it...
clamp it in...
easily position a micromotor over a button..
then push the button with the micromotor..
hell, the patent is rather specific though in saying you can have two micromotors to push two buttons...
so what this guy is selling is a knockoff cause it only has one motor and can only push one button..
Will it run Crysis?
you beat me to it
What, no lasers?
From the posting on Ebay (this guy has *mad* graphic artz skillz!), this incredible invention appears to be a way of using stepper motors to position a solenoid to push a button on a cellphone. What an incredible gift to mankind, and all for $10.51!
Awesome use of the Stargate film music
WTF is "N1H1"?
The thing that raises horses' temperatures...Duh...
It's what plants crave.
Go get some and let us know what it is
in all seriousness though, it's swine flu. but really, you couldn't google that?
And I thought H1N1 was swine flu. Sorry we're all idiots, and thanks for correcting us. There certainly was no sarcasm involved here.
That it, i have now offically lost all hope for the human race.
(battery not sold with the invention)
Dealbreaker.
Considering this is a third world country, I think its a great idea. It's not sad at all, its using old yet completely viable technology witht he latest technology. The big tech companies will poo poo it, while secretly developing it and selling it at over inflated prices in the developed world.
The only constraint this system has it that the transmitter on the sick animal will transmit to the box that activates the solenoid switch, so you won't know which animal is sick in the field. You'll have to use more manual means to determine which one it is. But at least now you know you have a animal in the field running a temperature. Likely they only have a few animals any way since it is subsistence farming.
I hear you and agree that its good creative thinking, but come on now...
I'm pretty sure animals, as well as people, occasionally get a degree or two warmer without being sick. Also, I don't think big companies are secretly developing technology that has been around for years already. And honestly, the reason its sad is that this guy is probably putting all his time and effort in to this, which will more than likely go nowhere. As well as putting all his hopes and dreams into something that will more than likely be useless in the end. Its not sad that he's trying, but just if he truly thinks this is going to change the world and his situation. He's better off moving on to the next idea.
I.... I didnt realise France was a third world country...
But... it's Friday. Really, this is soooo Sunday "news".
He sounds Nigerian.
Another man's junk is never my treasure.
So if Thurston Howell, III was throwing out his wifes old 10lb diamond to get her a new one you wouldn't see it as treasure. You sir are mad!!
I wish I could uprank you more than once.
I swear that guy is in my embedded systems class right now. The kid in my class has the absolute WORST ideas for microcontroller projects, plus he is a terrible student and doesn't know what he is doing. At least I know he has a future selling crap gadgets on eBay!
The grammar hurts my eyes... end me...
Torture device anyone?
This guy is all over the internet.... http://www.google.com/#q="Milliot+Bernadette"
Engadget you need to fix the URI encoding in the comments system it don't work very with quotes "" (see above)
He'll be a millionaire if he uses it for pr0n
Comment of the day
Best part of this video is the music. Stargate!
Will it work with my Mac?
I thought the Slap Chop was the universal invention of the future...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWRyj5cHIQA
And to think we give DARPA and MIT millions of dollars every year for what? 30% effecient solar panels that only work when it's sunny. A couple of these, some volcanoes, and a little imagination, presto! Free energy. We're doing this all wrong. He's got my vote for the Nobel.
doctors all over the world will be thrilled to receive phone calls from horses!
i came back from the future to let u guys knows that this really works!!! lol
ps. in the future we have also discovered unicorns
None you get it! Don't you understand? This is a gift from an alien - that explains the bad grammar. The device is obviously using superior technology that none of us mere mortals can even begin to comprehend.
After laughing myself stupid, I can actually see where the guy is coming from. I thought it was a joke at first but clearly it's not. It could be particularly useful, say, if you had it hooked up to your house alarm. Alarm is trigged - you instantly get called, so you can drop what you're doing, go home, and get shot by a burglar. Then again if it was that important and you had third party security, they'd probably call you anyway, and the police would be at the house arresting someone at the same time.
*** Insert snarky comment about lack of dilithium chamber here ***
now THIS thing has more potential to create Black Hole than the Hadron Collider!
We're DOOMED!
i was just about to place my bid when sadly, it ended.
I disagree. There was no talk about his rich prince cousin who needs to get money out of the country but can't because of the tarrifs and so he decided to contact you, honest American investor with great references, to help him transfer the money with a 20% fee so long as you are okay with using Western Union, a perfectly legitimate and protected money transfer company that would certainly never be used for scamming.
whew...out of breath.
I totally posted this as a reply to Jack. Perhaps any potential bidders can forego the bid and donate the $10.50 to Engadget to upgrade their comment system.
Patrick Stewart needs three hands for this one.
Don't underestimate this guy.... a famous, and very successful entrepreneur in Australia called Dick Smith (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Smith) is rumoured to have gotten his start in his electronics while still at school. He'd offer kids at school a "wireless for three pence" (much less than the going rate) so they would hand over the money. He'd give them a box, with half-a-dozen wires poking out of it, to which they'd say "that's not a wireless".... so he'd remove one of the wires and say "now it is" **
That guy built a national retailing business (which still bears his name http://www.dse.com.au/), a food company, a publishing company, has flown a helicopter around the world and apparently donated $15m to charity over the years....(http://www.abc.net.au/sundayprofile/stories/s1416294.htm).
Either that, or the guy's a nutter...
** because it had become "one wire less" (just to help the Americans get the joke)....
holy crap this thing is amazing!
even though i'm an electrical engineer, i am simply mystified by the advanced space-age technology used here...
DAMN YOU ENDGADGET!
That's 3:05 I could have used doing anything else.
So it can become a gold detector - "with the correct detector attached" - it seems here that everything that floats is in breach of that part of his patent ...