Smithsonian.com

New research says olive oil is one healthy fat. Courtesy of Flickr user renedepaula

Usually, when we talk about innovation, it has to do with some whizzy new invention, like a robot ant colony, or a novel approach to solving a problem, say a wind turbine that doesn’t wipe out bats and birds.

Rarely does it have to do with something as ancient, or prosaic, as olive oil.

Sometimes, though, research tells us something new about something old and it forces us to view it with fresh appreciation. So it is with olive oil.

In this case, it’s two studies. The first, done by the German Research Center for Food Chemistry, focused on whether it’s possible to lower the fat content of food without making it lose its flavor. The problem with a lot of low-fat food, as the researchers pointed out, is that people tend to compensate for how unsatisfying the meal was by overeating later. Their mission was to see if oils used to flavor food could make people feel full.

So they split up 120 people into five groups and had each of them add 500 grams of yogurt to their diets every day. For four groups, the yogurt was enriched with one of four fats–lard, butter, olive oil and canola oil. The fifth group ate straight yogurt. After three months, the scientists found that the people who ate yogurt laced with olive oil not only had the greatest increase in their blood of serotonin–a hormone that’s been linked to people feeling sated–but also that they tended to eat less other food.

Then the researchers ratcheted things up a notch. They split everyone into two groups. One ate plain no-fat yogurt, the other ate no-fat yogurt with an aroma extract that made it smell like olive oil. And guess what–those eating yogurt with the olive oil fragrance cut back their calories from other foods and also showed better results in glucose tolerance tests.

The aroma made the difference.

The grain in Spain

Another study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine in late February brought us more good news about the Mediterranean diet, the main ingredient of which is, yes, olive oil, along with lots of fruits, vegetables, nuts and whole grains. Fish and red wine are okay, but, as doctors like to say, “in moderation.”

Researchers in Spain found that people on a Mediterranean diet had 30 percent fewer heart attacks, strokes or deaths from heart disease than people who followed more conventional diets that included red meat. In fact, the diet’s benefits were so obvious that the research was stopped early–the scientists thought it was unethical not to allow people in the control group to switch to the Mediterranean. It was the first time a study showed that a diet can be just as effective as drugs in preventing cardiovascular problems.

So a toast to olive oil. Make it red wine. In moderation.

Food smarts

Here are eight other recent studies that taught us something new about food and diets:

1) Is there anything bacon can’t do?: If you’re a repeat late-night snacker, you may want to reintroduce yourself to bacon and eggs in the morning. A study just published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition concluded that people who eat breakfasts high in protein are considerably less likely to chow down on foods loaded with sugar or fat late at night.

2) The Doritos say they’ll make you feel better, but they lie: For all the talk about foods that can put you in a good mood, it turns out that junk food can be quite the downer. Research at Penn State University found that bad eating habits can sink a person’s mood, particularly if that person is woman worried about what she eats. The women in the study almost always felt worse after they munched on junk food.

3) Your mother was right–spit out the gum: Here’s one more reason to lose the gum–although it’s one your mom didn’t know about. It seems that the minty flavor that keeps your breath feeling fresh can discourage you from eating healthy fruits and vegetables because it makes them taste bad, the same way orange juice can taste funky after you brush your teeth. In fact, researchers at Ohio State University determined that people who chew gum eat more high-calorie sweet foods.

4) Hold the latte: For those looking for a reason to cut back on the coffee, here you go: Scientists at Johns Hopkins say that coffee, black and green teas and the flavoring known as liquid smoke can damage our DNA. Specifically, they found that they tend to make a certain “repair” gene become highly activated, which usually means a person’s DNA is in some distress.

5) And in case you hadn’t heard, eat more veggies: There’s even more evidence that if you increase the fiber in your diet, you’ll be doing your health a big favor. In the latest research, an analysis of eight other studies, completed at the University of Leeds, scientists determined that a person’s risk of having a stroke dropped by 7 percent for every additional seven grams of fiber he or she ate every day. They recommended consuming 20 to 35 grams of fiber daily. Most Americans eat only half that much.

6) You eat what you are: If only you knew this when you were a kid: You’re a picky eater mainly because of your genes. That’s what researchers at the University of North Carolina concluded after finishing a study of 66 pairs of identical twins. In fact, they go so far as to say that 72 percent of a child’s avoidance of certain foods can be blamed on their genes.

7) Here’s to more, longer-living fruit flies: Okay, so there’s still debate over the nutritional value of organic food, at least for humans. But fruit flies love the stuff. And it’s apparently really good for them. Scientists at Southern Methodist University say that based on their research, fruit flies that eat organic treats tend to live longer and lay more eggs.

8) What a piece of work is man: And finally, a study reminding us that sometimes we humans are about as smart as fruit flies. A researcher at Cornell has found that when people see a green calorie label on food packaging, they tend to think the food inside is healthier than it would be if it had a red or white label. That’s even if the number of calories are the same. Ah, the Dumb Diet.

Video bonus: Dieting can be funny, at least in commercials.

Video bonus bonus: A food classic: When dogs dine.

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Samsung TVs get smarter. Photo courtesy of Samsung

Since the beginning of mankind, we’ve wanted our kids to get smarter. Since the beginning of the 21st century, we’ve wanted our phones to get smarter.

So when are we going start wanting our TVs to get smarter? Or will we always be content with them being dumb, as long as they’re big and dumb? Okay, maybe not dumb, but most of us don’t yet feel a compelling need to have our TVs think like computers, as long as the picture looks pretty up there on the wall.

Which always makes things interesting at the Great Gadgetpalooza also known as the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). For the past several years, the big electronics companies that focus on hardware, such as Samsung and Panasonic, and the big tech companies that focus on software, such as Google, have been rolling out nifty products at the annual Las Vegas spectacle with the promise that this is the year that Smart TV goes mainstream.

Boob tube no more

And so it’s been at this year’s version of CES, which ends today. Samsung has done its part to convince us that the time has come for us to love TVs for their brains by unveiling what it calls its S-Recommendation engine.

It’s software that, as Samsung puts it, not only understands what you like, but recommends things it thinks you’ll like. (Sure, Amazon’s been doing this for years, but this is your big, dumb TV we’re talking about.) And it doesn’t just suggest TV shows, but could throw in streaming programs options from the Web, or even video you’ve shot on your smartphone.

The goal ultimately is to get you to do all those things you’re now doing on your smartphone or your tablet–say, watch Hulu or Skype with a family member or check out your Facebook page–on your TV instead. To encourage that behavior, Samsung has revamped its Smart Hub so you can flip through all of your entertainment options in five different index screens–one that tells you what’s on regular old TV now or soon, another that lists movies and on-demand TV, a third that pulls in photos or music or video stored on any other devices around the house, a fourth where you can Skype or pull up Facebook and a fifth that provides access to any apps you’ve downloaded.

And neither of the above requires pushing a lot of buttons on a remote. The S-Recommendation engine responds to voice commands and the Smart Hub is designed to be controlled with hand gestures.

For its part, Panasonic has rolled out a feature it calls My Home Screen, which allows each member of your family to create his or her own homepage on the TV, where easy access is provided to their favorite digital content, streaming video and apps. Some of the company’s Viera models actually come with their own cameras that tell the TV who turned it on. And as a smart TV should, it dutifully brings up that person’s home screen.

Plus, Panasonic unveiled “Swipe and Share 2.0″, which lets users move photos from a tablet or phone to a big TV screen, where they can then be edited with a touch pen.

But can you love a TV?

So that seals it, right? This must be the year when TVs take back center stage, especially now that they’re finally learning to care about our needs, right?

Maybe not. We’ve built some pretty strong personal connections to our cell phones and tablets. And a lot of people think it’s going to take a while for us to develop that kind of bond with a TV, no matter how smart it is.

As Greg Stuart, CEO of the Mobile Marketing Association told Ad Age earlier this week: “”People don’t have that kind of interactive relationship with their TV. The TV on the wall is a family device. It’s a multi-user device. If I want to share something, its going to be with a personal device, and that’s going to be my tablet or my mobile.”

TV or Not TV?

Here are other recent TV innovations:

• Robert, 6th Earl of Grantham, meet Tony Soprano: One day, thanks to Samsung, two people will be able to watch full-screen versions of Downton Abbey and Sopranos reruns at the same time. By adapting 3D technology, the company has created a TV that can display a different and full resolution image to each viewer depending on whether they’re sitting to the left or the right of the screen. Of course, both people would have to wear special glasses that come with headphones so you can hear only the sound for your show, but is that such a big price to pay for domestic peace?
• Read my lips. No more Gangham style: LG, the other South Korean TV giant, has upgraded its “Magic Remote” so that it now responds to natural language. You say the name of a show or even something like “videos with Gangham-style dancing,” and your choice pops up on the screen.
• I got my MoVo workin’: Also at CES, the Chinese TV manufacturer TCL showed off an HD TV called MoVo that uses facial recognition software to identify who’s watching and then make programming suggestions customized for that person.
• Okay, who blinked?: Meanwhile, Haier, another Chinese company, has developed a technology it calls Eye Control TV where, yes, you can change channels by moving your eyes.
• Ah, to be 65 and only see ads for meds: It was only a matter of time. A company called Gracenote will soon begin trials on a technology that, based on your viewing habits and personal data, will personalize the TV ads you see. Isn’t that special?

Video bonus: You didn’t make it to the big electronics show this year? Not to worry. Here’s the Samsung demo of its S-Recommendation engine. Remember, people tend to gush a lot at CES.

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Nanshu Lu’s electronic tattoo that reads your vital signs. Photo courtesy of Nanshu Lu

In the spirit of the post-holiday season, allow me to present my final list of 2012: six innovators who are pushing technology in fresh directions, some to solve stubborn problems, others to make our lives a little fuller.

Watch for more from all of them in the new year.

1. Keep your hands off my robot: We’ve all seem videos of adorably cute robots,, but when you actually have to work with one, they apparently can be less than lovable. That’s where Leila Takayama comes in. She’s a social scientist with Willow Garage, a San Francisco area company that develops robots, and her job is to figure out how to get humans to connect with mechanical co-workers.

She’s seen cases where robots have gotten on people’s nerves so much that they park them in a closet. One of the keys, she’s found, is to make robots seem more fallible. Like having them shake their heads when they fail at something. Oddly enough, Takayama says, a reaction like that can make a robot “seem more competent.”

She’s worked on robots designed to help elderly people, recommending that the number of cameras on the robots’ heads be reduced because too many could make people uneasy. More recently, she’s been analyzing a robot called Project Texai, which is operated directly by humans, rather than running on its own. And she’s discovered some interesting things, such as how people who operate the robot don’t like it when other people stand too close to it or touch its buttons. “There comes a point for a lot of people when they feel as if the robot is their body.”

Another key question she’s wrestling with: Is it better to have a robot at eye level with a person when he or she is sitting or standing?

2. One day even lamp posts won’t be dumb: As Chris Harrison sees it, the world is full of surfaces, so why are we spending so much time touching little screens or tapping on cramped keyboards. Harrison, a researcher at Carnegie-Mellon University, has been a leader in finding ways to turn everyday objects–a couch, a doorknob, a glass of water–into interactive devices.

His approach is to use the natural conductivity of objects–or attach electrodes to those that aren’t–and connect them to a controller that responds to different types of signals. A couch, for instance, could be wired to turn on the TV if someone sits on it in a certain spot. Or you could turn off all the lights in your place by twisting the doorknob or tapping on a table. Almost anything with a surface could be connected to a computer and allow you to make things happen with simple gestures or touches.

3. Finally, a tatt for Grandma: There’s no questions that health tech is booming–although that’s not always a good thing considering that health apps don’t always live up to their hype. But Nanshu Lu, an engineering professor at the University of Texas, has created a product that could have a huge impact on how we monitor what’s going on inside our bodies.

She has refined what are known as “epidermal electronics,” but basically they’re electronic tattoos that can track your vital signs, including your temperature, heart beat and brain and muscle activity. Lu has managed to develop ultra-thin, water-soluble silicon patches that contain tiny sensors and can actually bond with skin. No adhesives necessary. They last through showers and exercise, never losing their ability to gather your most personal data. The hope is that one day her tattoos will be able to treat diseases.

4. In phones we trust: When you’re out on the road or on vacation in a new place, it can get frustrating to have to search for info on your smart phone. Really, if your phone is so smart, shouldn’t it be able to anticipate your needs and feed you info as you need it, based on where you are and what time of day it is?

That’s the premise behind the mobile apps software developed by Flybits, brainchild of Hossein Rahnama, director of the Digital Media Zone at Toronto’s Ryerson University. Flybits is already being used at several Canadian airports and Toronto’s transit system to coordinate with a traveler’s itinerary and provide information that’s both personalized and contextually relevant, such as directions to the car rental counters or the gate to your connecting flight after you get off a plane.

The company has also developed software it calls Flybits Lite, which lets you know friends and other contacts who are taking in the same concert or watching the same movie you are.

5. Do you really want to know how many times you’ve ordered donuts?: It would be easy to dismiss the Memoto Camera as the epitome of 21st century self-indulgence. It’s a postage-stamp sized wearable camera that documents your life by taking two photos every minute, or roughly 2,000 pictures a day.

For most of us that’s one big load of digital tedium. Martin Kallstrom, the man behind the concept and CEO of the Swedish startup Memoto, would acknowledge as much. But he also knows how many memorable moments are missed–”the day your daughter took her first step, or that night you laughed the night away with friends.”

Clearly, he’s not alone in believing that a “lifelogging” camera is an idea whose time has come. He and his partners had hoped to raise $75,000 on Kickstarter. By the time the fundraising campaign ended earlier this month, online backers had pledged more than $550,000.

6. And no, it won’t fetch you a beer: For several years now, Steve Castellotti has been all about brain-powered machines. But his latest innovation, Puzzlebox Orbit, is taking the concept to the public. It’s a little helicopter you control with your mind.

Given that this is not something we do every day, it comes enclosed in a protective sphere so the rotor blades don’t chop up the furniture. It also comes with a device called the Puzzlebox Pyramid, which serves as a combination base/remote control unit for the chopper. But since your mind is doing the controlling, the Pyramid’s role is to wirelessly transmit your brain activity from a headset you wear. It also lets you know how you’re doing–a circle of LED lights on the Pyramid’s face is designed to reflect your level of concentration or relaxation.

Thanks to a funding boost from Kickstarter, Castellotti and his chief engineer and partner Hao Zhang plan to start selling the Puzzlebox Orbit for about $90 next year. But Castellotti believes it won’t become just another pricey tool that ends up in the basement. He sees it as teaching tool that can be used in schools to introduce kids to neuroscience and also as a way for people for people to start to become familiar with the potential of biofeedback.

To spur that process, the company will make its source code and hardware schematics available and encourage developers to hack away. For example, says Castellotti, a “motivated experimenter” might hack the Puzzlebox system so his TV would automatically change channels when his concentration level stays too low for too long. Say so long to vegging out.

Video bonus: Take at look at Chris Harrison’s most recent project, called Skinput, It involves the use of an armband with bio-acoustic sensors that can turn a body into a touch screen.

Video bonus bonus: And here’s a Puzzlebox Orbit tutorial that was part of the Kickstarter pitch for its nifty brain-controlled toy.

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The Best Inventions of 2012 You Haven’t Heard of Yet

Innovators to Watch in 2012

Finally, a suitcase that follows you around. Photo courtesy of Hop!

Earlier this week I rolled out the first half of a list of a dozen of the more innovative ideas of 2012.

We’re not talking Google Glass or invisibility cloaks or other flashes from the future. No, these are less splashy things, yet, in their own ways, no less inspired and probably more likely to become a part of our daily lives. They’re the creations of people joined under a common maxim, namely, “There’s gotta be a better way.”

So, muffled drum roll, please…the Fresh Ideas of 2012, Part 2:

7) While you’re at it, can you pick up a paper and some gum: Yes, suitcases with wheels were a big breakthrough, but Madrid designer Rodrigo Garcia Gonzalez says why stop there? Why should we still have lug luggage?

So he has invented a new kind of suitcase he calls Hop!. What makes it so special is that it follows you around like the most loyal of pets.

Well, technically it follows your smart phone. The suitcase contains three receivers that communicate, via Bluetooth, with an app on your smart phone and, put simply, it follows that signal. The same controller also directs a dual caterpillar track-type system on the bottom of the suitcase to move it along. If the signal gets lost, the bag locks itself and vibrates its owner’s phone.

Of course, there are issues to resolve–think of the security challenges of an airport full of roaming luggage–but Gonzalez deserves props for giving us hope that we’ll one day break loose from our bags.

8) Anticipation was so overrated: It never really made much sense: In a world increasingly geared to instant gratification, we waited for ketchup. It took forever to come out of the bottle, but we seemed willing to live with that.

Not Kripa Varanasi and his team of MIT engineers. They’ve developed a substance called LiquiGlide, which, when coating the inside surface of bottles, helps ketchup and mustard slide right out. Now this may seem a trivial modern indulgence, but, as the LiquiGlide team estimates, roughly a million tons of food could avoid being tossed in the garbage if it wasn’t getting stuck in bottles. So it’s only right that we go with the flow.

9) Which gives new meaning to “All you can eat”: While we’re on the subject of food waste, let’s give it up for WikiCells. These are the edible membranes created by Harvard professor David Edwards and French designer Francois Azambourg that encase food and liquids. In other words, it’s packaging you can eat.

The membranes, meant to mimic the skin of a grape, are made of food particles, such as cheese or dried fruit, and are held together by calcium or magnesium ions. So far, the pair have conjured up a tomato membrane containing gazpacho, an orange one filled with orange juice, a chocolate version holding hot chocolate. They’ve even created a grape-flavored pouch filled with wine. The goal is to do away with plastic bottles and packaging. Let’s raise our membranes to that.

10) Talk to the glove: Four Ukrainian students have designed gloves that can communicate with a smart phone and, as a result, developed a way for people with speech and hearing disabilities to talk to people who don’t use or understand sign language.

Their invention, which they call Enable Talk, works like this: The gloves are lined with 15 flex sensors in their fingers that can recognize sign language and transmit the message to a smart phone where it’s converted to text. The phone then says the words that the gloves sent.

11) So now we can stay focused on not changing the oil: If you’re like me, you have no idea when you last checked your tire pressure. It’s a blind faith thing. As long as the tires keep rolling, no need to look for that little gauge you bought many tires ago.

Goodyear understands this so they’ve gone ahead and invented a tire that takes us out the equation. It does this by inflating itself. A regulator in the tire senses when the pressure drops below a pre-set point and opens to allow air flow into the pumping tube. As the tire rolls, deformation flattens the tube, pushing air into the tire cavity. And we’ll no longer have to worry about keeping our tires pumped up. Not that we ever did.

12) No longer will a charger come between you and your phone: A few years ago the 11-year-old daughter of Wake Forest University scientist David Carroll wondered aloud if a cell phone could be charged solely by human body heat. Good question, thought Carroll, and earlier this year he and his team came up with an answer.

They unveiled Power Felt, a fabric that uses nanotechnology to convert heat into electricity. It’s still in the early stages of development but initial results suggest they’re on to something big–an inexpensive material that could use the heat from your car’s engine to run its AC and radio and the sun to power your home’s appliances and yes, your own personal warmth to keep your cell phone alive. Thanks, Dad.

Video bonus: While we’re talking about nifty ideas whose time is about to come, it’s pretty certain that Samsung will come out with a bendable phone next year. As you can see in this video, it passes the hammer test.

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An app that finds your keys. Or the cat. Photo courtesy of Stick-N-Find

Within the next week or so, the year-end reviews will start rolling out like strips of prize tickets in a games arcade.

Most will revisit events that we’ll all remember, albeit some we’d rather forget. My own list is a little different. I want to look back at ideas that haven’t received a lot of attention, but struck me as being particularly clever and ripe with potential. Chances are you haven’t heard of many of them. But chances also are you will.

Here’s Part 1 of my list of a dozen ideas whose time is about to come:

1) Sadly, it does not say, “You’re getting warmer.”: Are you flummoxed by how often you lose things–your keys, your TV remote, your glasses. Have I got an invention for you. It’s called Stick-N-Find and it works like this.

You attach one of the Bluetooth-powered stickers to whatever object you’re tired of losing, then download the Stick-N-Find smartphone app. The app will tell you how far away you are from the missing item–it has a range of 100 feet–and you can set off a buzzer in the sticker. If you’re in the dark, you can trigger a blinking red light. Where has this been all my life?

2) Will it do nails? It may be a while before we see it in action, but Dyson, the British company that makes those high-powered Airblade hand dryers, has filed a patent for a tap that would wash your hands with water, then dry them without you having to move an inch. Put your hands under the tap and sensors release water. Move them slightly so that they’re under two connected tubes and warm, dry air shoots out. You’re wet, you’re dry, you’re outta there.

3) All hail plastic: Using nanotechnology, a team of researchers at Wake Forest University has developed a plastic material that glows like a soft white light when an electric current is run through it. Its inventors say it’s as efficient as an LED light and twice as efficient as a fluorescent bulb. But what makes it so innovative is that because it’s plastic, it can be made into any shape. Imagine a soft glowing ceiling panel replacing those hideous fluorescent lights above your head.

4) And all hail fewer jerks on planes: Gemma Jensen used to be a flight attendant for Virgin Atlantic so she has seen more than her share of airline passengers doing the jerk. I’m talking about that moment during long flights when just as you’re starting to nod off, your head tips forward. End of snooze.

So Jensen has invented the J-Pillow. It’s a step up from the familiar U-shaped pillow that keeps your head from falling from side to side, but can’t stop it from dropping forward. Her pillow comes with a “J-hook” that goes around the neck and under a person’s chin. Doctors seem to like it because it keeps your spine aligned while you’re sleeping on a plane. Which explains why a panel just chose it Great Britain’s Best Consumer Invention of 2012.

5) Cause that’s how they roll: Two former MIT students have designed a camera that bounces and rolls. Who needs a bouncing camera, you ask? How about firefighters who have to see inside a building or a swat team looking for hostages? That’s what Francisco Aguilar and Dave Young had in mind when they invented their ball-shaped device outfitted with six wide-angle cameras packed inside a rubber casing.

The idea is that first responders could toss it into a space they need to survey. Its cameras could snap pictures every second as it rolls, then send them wirelessly to a smartphone where they would be stitched together to provide a 360-degree view.

6) Can I make Kit Kat bars in that thing?: There’s nothing new about 3D printers, but Virginia Tech’s College of Engineering has come up with a novel way to give its students access to the nifty replicating devices. It has set up something it calls DreamVendor, which it has described as a “vending machine with infinite inventory.” What it is is a station of four 3D printers where engineering students can load in their designs and wait for the printers to do their magic. It’s free for the students, but it’s not hard to imagine some entrepreneur refining the idea of vending machines that print stuff.

Video bonus: And under the category of an idea whose time is still coming, there’s the LuminAR lamp system invented in MIT’s Media Lab a few years ago. Still being refined, it allows you to screw a LuminAR device–it’s combo projector/camera/wireless computer–into a standard light socket and turn your desk into an interactive surface. See for yourself.

Read The Best Inventions of 2012 You Haven’t Heard of Yet (Part 2) here.

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