2/14/07
This week was the final. Four finalists were brought together with their inventions, and now they even have commercials for their products!
My favorite commercial was for the optic depilatory. Imagine this...
The commercial begins with a white screen and a computer animated hair starts pacing at the bottom of the screen (like in jaws, na-na, na-na) A deep voice speaks as this image continues and the hair gets larger and larger, "It has plagued man-kind since the beginning time. Always coming back. Well, now, we have a solution!" (music : Ta-da!) Cut to a science lab and a middle aged man with beady little eyes sits behind a desk presenting his new product, "The optic depilatory has proven a great success!" Then still sitting, he props his leg up on the table revealing perfectly shaven skin and a shinny black high heal! His colleague comes out and inspects the effects and announces they just got the results that the clean-shaven look will last a full two months. The scientist's beady eye's grow huge, he stands up, stammers about, and then hurries out of the room, stumbling and falling several times on those impossibly high heals!
I'm sure the videos can be watched online at channel M6 for those of you who have been following this post. It's worth it.
Sure that was the best commercial, and the barbecue commercial was dumb, but the guy who invented the barbecue really is the inventor of the year in my mind. And this is supposed to be about the inventor not the invention. All of the inventions are cool, and these last four will be distributed by Wal-Mart's biggest competitor world-wide : a French chain called Carrefour.
Interesting enough two out of the four candidates pleaded with the voting public by jousting lightly, "You must vote for me so that France can market this item BEFORE America does!" So there must be people working on these products in the US as well. They are very excited when they can make claims and prove they're still in the running with the world powers. France does have the honor of many inventions, like the radiators that are keeping us warm tonight, and motion pictures. And Leonardo Da Vinci invented contact lenses and a helicopter for the king of France in the middle ages. He doesn't get credit for them though because in both cases they were too heavy to be practical.
The results were :
#4 ecological outlet - your simple tv remote turns off the power strip your tv is plugged into so that all of your equipment turns off simultaneously (not just going to stand-by like normal remote controls do) saving you hundreds of dollars and saving the environment in the end
#3 a pocket make-up kit - one plastic compact includes everything you need, mascara, several eye shadows, multiple lipsticks; you choose how many of each, personalize your make-up kit and refill each section as it gets used up
#2 optic depilatory - one session, two months; works on legs and men's beards with just the flash of a light, in the comfort of your own home (we got to see this one working, it's incredibly simple)
#1 vertical barbecue - no more cancer in your barbecue! and it turns the meat with a remote control!!! (we also saw the consumer test where this BBQ competed against a traditional charcoal grill, the testers wouldn't eat from the regular grill after they had a sausage from this one)
2/7/07
This happened to me last week too. It's 6pm and I'm anxiously awaiting my television show to come on. Of course that fateful moment also represents that Rob will get home from his debate club and we will eat dinner. But I'm also very excited about the show. Last week they announced which 6 of the 1,000 contestants would continue to the next round. This week we should see them actually building their products. I can't wait.
