Best Of The Rest

(3 of 5)

Clearer Than Crystal
Would you pay for what your car radio now gets for free? You may be ready for satellite radio. Two rival companies are betting that drivers are sufficiently fed up with bad reception, tired playlists and irritating ads to fork out around $10 a month (plus up to $1,000 for a receiver) for dozens of stations offering ad-free music, sports, news and weather. Signals are beamed from "Rock" and "Roll," XM's pair of stationary satellites, and from Sirius' three orbiting birds.

--AVAILABILITY XM debuts nationally this month; Sirius is aiming for early next year
--TO LEARN MORE Visit xmradio.com or siriusradio.com

Vertically Challenged
Imagine a robot small enough to crawl through pipes to check for chemical leaks or sneak under doors to spy on intruders. Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories have created the Mini Autonomous Robot Vehicle Jr. to do just that. Smaller than a cherry and powered by three watch batteries, MARV Jr. can cover 20 in. per min. on custom-made tracks fashioned from strips of latex balloons. Future versions may include miniature cameras, microphones and chemical microsensors.

--INVENTOR Ray Byrne, Ed Heller and Doug Adkins; Sandia National Laboratories
--AVAILABILITY Around 2006, for under $500
--TO LEARN MORE Visit sandia.gov/isrc/Marv.html

Slugbots to the Rescue
They are every gardener's nightmare: big, slimy slugs that eat holes in lettuce leaves and gouge craters in tomatoes. Now Ian Kelly, a computer scientist at the California Institute of Technology, has developed a robotic slug catcher that not only identifies and eliminates slugs but could eventually power itself with its victims' bodies.

Here's how the Slugbot works: a lawn mower-size machine with a long arm shines red light on the ground to identify a shiny, sluglike object, then analyzes its shape. When it finds a slug, it picks it up and drops it in a hopper. Bacteria inside the robot eat the slimy critters--a process that releases electrons that can be captured and, in theory, keep the bot's batteries perpetually charged.

Kelly says he has perfected the slug-identification-and-retrieval system but estimates that it will be several years before the slugbot is ready for market. Biggest hurdle: getting the robot to convert those captured mollusks into usable energy. While the concept of microbial fuel cells has worked in laboratory tests, applying it to slugs turns out to be a sticky proposition.

--INVENTOR Ian Kelly
-AVAILABILITY About 2004
--TO LEARN MORE Visit micro.caltech.edu/people/Postdocs/ian/tta.html

Model Employee
She's always on time. She never complains. And she's cute too. Meet CoWorker, the office robot. About 3 ft. high, this Pentium-powered bot uses sonar sensors to keep her from bumping into walls and people as she rolls along at a languid one mile an hour. A digital camera perched atop her rotating, cranelike neck can wirelessly transmit pictures of remote assembly lines, construction sites or high-security areas straight to the boss. A home version, tentatively planned for the future, might keep an eye on granny--or the nanny.

--INVENTOR iRobot
--AVAILABILITY In 2002
--TO LEARN MORE Visit irobot.com

Stink-Free Shoes
Even if you don't give a hoot about antibacterial soaps and surfaces, here's one good reason you might consider buying a pair of antibacterial shoes or boots: odor control. That's right--the fewer microbes taking root in your footwear, the better your shoes and feet are likely to smell. Teva's entire 2002 line of sandals will be coated with AgION's silver-based antimicrobial compound. Many hunting boots from Rocky Boots (shown below), Georgia Boot, LaCrosse Footwear and Thorogood Footwear already incorporate it.

--INVENTOR AgION Technologies
--AVAILABILITY Now
--TO LEARN MORE Visit agion.com

Permanently Pressed
Hate ironing? A fashion house in Florence, Italy, has developed a wrinkle-free shirt that also makes a distinctive fashion statement. The sheer, silver-hued Oricalco is made of titanium-alloy fibers interwoven with nylon. Just toss the shirt (shown here wrinkled on one side) in your suitcase before a trip, then take it out and blow it with your hair dryer to dissolve the creases. (A second version rolls up its own sleeves on hot days to save you the trouble.)

--INVENTOR Corpo Nove
--AVAILABILITY Next April, for $4,000
--TO LEARN MORE Visit www.corponove.it