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By David Zax | 03-03-2011 | 11:11 AM
The 2011 Inductees to the National Inventors Hall of Fame
Eric Fossom, CMOS Sensor
Steve Sasson, The Digital Camera
George Devol, Unimate Industrial Robot
N. Joseph Woodland, Bernard Silver (1935-1963), Bar Codes
Carleton Ellis (1876-1941), Margarine
Mary Anderson (1866-1953), Windshield Wiper
Eadweard Muybridge (1830-1904), Stop Action Photography
Peter Cooper Hewitt (1861-1921), Mercury-vapor Lamp
Henry Phillips (1890-1958), Phillips Screw
Warren Marrison (1896-1980), Quartz Clock
Eureka! Halls of Fame aren't just for baseball players and rock stars. Here are a few inventions from the most recent class of inductees, announced today. Ten living inventors have been honored, plus 29 historical inductees.
Eric Fossom received the honors for the CMOS Active Pixel Image Sensor. Fossum led the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory team that invented the camera-on-a-chip. You've probably got a few such censors in your room right now--in your camera phone, web-cam, or DSLR, for instance. The tech will have brought in about $6 billion in 2011.
Steve Sasson, a Kodak engineer, found a way to capture an image, convert it to an electronic signal, digitize and store it. In other words, in 1975, he made the first digital camera. Almost all of today's digital cameras derive from the structure Sasson envisioned.
George Devol envisioned the Unimate industrial robot, pictured here, the first of which debuted at an automotive plant in 1961. It revolutionized factories worldwide, and gave birth to the modern robotics industry.
Bernard Silver once overheard a grocery chain exec wistfully say something about wishing he had more product information at checkout. Silver and Joe Woodland invented the first optically scanned barcode (a prototype shown here, circa 1960). About 5 billion scans take place daily around the globe.
Organic chemistry isn't just for med students. Carleton Ellis used his knowledge of orgo to develop margarine and other products, like longer-lasting housepaint and better printing inks.
Mary Anderson was a real-estate developer and entrepreneur. She came up with the first windshield cleaning device in 1903, got a patent a few years later, and the invention became standard-issue on cars by 1916.
Muybridge, an artist and inventor, made the first stop action photography, a precursor of the cinema. In the process, he studied animal locomotion, forever settling a long standing debate about whether horses achieved lift on all four legs in a gallop.
Peter Cooper Hewitt, an electrical engineer, made the first mercury-vapor lamp in 1901. It was a precursor to the fluorescent lights of today.
What took the Hall of Fame so long on this one? Henry Phillips invented the by-now ubiquitous, indispensable screw.
Warren Marrison was a telecommunications engineer. In 1927, he got the idea to base a clock off of the vibrations of a quartz crystal in an electrical circuit. The vibrations were highly regular, making his clock a considerably more precise time standard than those that came before.
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