GOODS & SERVICES: New Ideas, Nov. 16, 1953

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GOODS & SERVICES

TV Banking. The New York Savings Bank began remote control banking in its Rockefeller Center Branch, where tellers use closed-circuit television to check signatures and account balances kept at the main office. Because records are centralized, the branch needs only half the usual working space, hopes to be able to cut costs 25%.

Tiny Titan. The first commercial transistor powerful enough to replace vacuum tubes in control devices for industrial machines was announced by Minneapolis-Honeywell Regulator Co. The size of a thimble, it is 100 times more powerful than any transistor yet available, said Honeywell, can handle 20 watts of current.

Sturdy Stopper. Virginia's Highway Commission has bought 10,000 plastic traffic signs from General Tire & Rubber Co. for use on its roads. Lighter and tougher than steel, yet only one-eighth to one-tenth inch thick, the plastic signs withstand the attacks of man and nature better than metal ones.

Handy Man's Metal. For home craftsmen, Reynolds Metals Co. has brought out a soft aluminum alloy that can be cut with scissors, trimmed with a penknife, or shaped with ordinary woodworking tools without harming them. With Do-It-Yourself Aluminum, available in 36 items —rods, sheets, bars, angles and tubing—any handy amateur can make furniture, metal awnings, tool boxes or storm windows and screens. Cost of materials for an average-size, null storm window: about $8.

Cool & Dry. Westinghouse Electric Corp. showed off five room air conditioners, its first in eleven years, priced from $320 to $595. It also demonstrated a new electric dehumidifier that plugs into any 115-volt socket, removes up to 3 gals, of water from 10,000 cubic ft. of air each 24 hours, also doubles as a space heater in cool weather. Price: $160.