STOP THE PAT! From hairpiece to sew-ins, The Weave Scratcher offers a simple solution to the most common predicament: itching. Source Direct helped create this product in 2011 and we are excited to announce it is taking off. ESSENCE magazine featured The Weave Scratcher as their top tool for “soothing an itchy sew-in weave”. We have been picked as “Amazon’s Choice” for weave scratching products online. Sometimes a good product requires time, attention, and patience while carefully building a following.
The Weave Scratcher was created to help ease discomfort without disrupting your style. To better understand The Weave Scratcher, it helps to understand why people experience itching in the first place.
During the braiding and weaving process the hair is pulled very tightly. When hair is pulled too tightly, the scalp becomes irritated and can develop an inflammation of the hair follicles. This inflammation reaction can account for that furious itching sensation. Even when done properly, an excess or lack of moisture to the scalp can turn quickly turn the scale. Seborrheic Dermatitis, commonly known as dandruff, is the other common perpetrator for this problem. An overgrowth of yeast on the scalp triggers an inflammation of the roots. This causes an array effects including a buildup of dry layers, flaking, and itching.
Anything from getting the hair wet to sweating without carefully drying the scalp can cause these itching sensations, and what a list! There’s too much to worry about with maintaining and caring for weave, so Source Direct spent a lot of time developing the right tool to properly assist.
Its firm but flexible design is meant to fit in between any hair weft or braided base with ease. The soothing bobby pin ends massage your head comfortably and carefully. It’s light and compact size allows clients to use the Weave Scratcher when at home or out and about. This tool can fit perfectly in your wallet, purse, clutch, or pocket. Our design is embodied to best suit the needs of our clients and their scalp. This handy tool is perfect for anyone who wears wigs, braids, or extensions.
We look forward to announcing the exciting collaborations we are currently working on, as well as more news to come. For anyone interested in joining the Source Direct Inventors Club, call 888-373-3876.
Krissy Pizzo is the social media expert and writer for Source Direct, an Invention Company based in Palm Harbor, Fl. If you have any additional invention tips or comments, feel free to email her at kpizzo@thesourcedirect.net. If you absolutely dread using email, you can comment below!
Who doesn’t savor that feeling of anticipation, counting down the clock for your favorite movie, music, or video game to be released? For us, our eyes are on the prize: product development. Waiting for our favorite new inventions to hit the market can feel unbearable, but 2018 is here, and we’re ready! Here are some inventions wrapped with interesting or promising discussion since announcement. Let me know if I missed anything, so I add any new product developments to future lists. In the meantime, here are some highly anticipated inventions I can’t wait to put my hands on:
4. Sleep.Ai
This product settles the classic couple’s dispute: snoring. Does your spouse say you snore, or maybe you’re not getting the sleep you need? Sleep.Ai helps diagnose the problem. Literally.
It’s alright, I’m not a morning person, either….
This wearable product comes in the form of a soft arm strap that connects to an app on your phone. Simply record your sleeping through the app, and its’ expert-built-algorithms analyze both the factors and remedies to reduce snoring. If you snore too loudly or uncomfortably, the wearable arm strap will gently vibrate, like a “soft poke”. It will not disrupt your sleep, eventually training your snoring habits over time. Do your teeth grind? They have an app for that, too!
This product is on my list because it uses invention assistance to help diagnose snoring, teeth grinding, and possible sleep apnea. National Sleep Foundation states snoring affects approximately 90 million American adults – 37 million on a regular basis. This is not only a very common struggle, but poor sleep and sleep apnea can accumulate into bigger problems in the long run.
“The partner of someone afflicted with sleep apnea loses approximately one hour of sleep per evening and may wake up as many as 21 times per hour, a side-effect of apnea known as “Spousal Arousal Syndrome”
Even the partners of struggling snorers are suffering. It’s about time they received some outsider assistance. I look forward to watching Sleep.Ai’s effectiveness in helping not only the user, but relationships as well.
3. HoverBike
I know, it’s disappointing, we were all looking forward to jet-packs in the future. We may be lacking in that regard, but hopefully the Malloy Aeronautics revolutionary HoverBike can remedy this dilemma. This diverse tool can lift it all. It’s most current build allows transporting up to 300 lbs of food, aid, equipment, or most importantly, people! Welcome to the future.
The design is backed by research conducted at the US Army research labs. This vehicle can lift 130kg (300lb) just like a helicopter, can fly to the same speed and height as a typical light helicopter, but unlike a helicopter it can operate safely close to the ground and around people, and can be done so, with little or no training.
This English based team has already signed a contract with the US Army granting them full collaboration with their research laboratory. With the help from SURVICE Engineering and only 2 mysterious Angel investors, they’ve basically created a user-friendly helicopter bike. 2018 doesn’t get any cooler than that.
HoverBike’s easy to learn, easy to use features make this invention market friendly. That combined with it’s sheer strength and power based off a helicopter makes the HoverBike stand out from any similar prototype of the past. Its’ patent is currently pending, but they anticipate this product to enter the market by the end of the year. We may not have jet-packs, but we’ll have the HoverBike.
2. Canute Braile e-reader
Bristol Braille took due diligence working closely with the blind community and for the blind community when creating this special e-reader. Nooks and kindles are integrated into our society at an affordable price, and Bristle Braille took the initiative to accomplished this feat for the blind community.
This pristine new braille e-reader holds thousands of e-book files easily accessible by its interactive user interface. Canute introduces the first “multi-line” technology, in comparison to the single-lined machine standard. Multi lines are incredibly important because they give greater interpretation of context to subjects such as science, mathematics, music notation, and even poetry.
“The foundation of Center for Braille Innovation was to be the broker around the world and find what new technologies we can leverage to really support braille, e-braille as well’
says Brian MacDonald, president of the National Braille Press, a contributing organization to the Braillists community. He continues,
“I have to give credit to two guys…two doctoral students at MIT from India. They went to a school for the blind there and saw that these kids were struggling to just measure inch marks…just struggling”
The Bristol Braille community works with the Braillists, in addition to other organizations, in the research and creation of the Canute. If it sounds like a lot of organizations and groups came together to work on this, it’s because they did.
Bristol Braille Canute is expected for release by Spring of 2018 and is available for pre-order now.
1. Pilot Translating Earpiece
After closely watching every step of this product’s development, this invention makes top of the list, no question about it. I believe Pilot to be the most exciting, and potentially, the most influential of all. What’s greater than breaking barriers, in real time? Everything from their design, product development, online marketing, and user-friendly interface makes this the most anticipated product of the year for me.
Pilot’s earpiece provides universal audio translation from one earbud to another, in real time. Essentially, you can speak to your friend in your native language, and they will hear theirs. CEO of Waverly Labs, Andrew Ochoa, initially came up with this world changing idea when he simply met a French girl. He felt frustrated by his inability to communicate with her, all efforts to use translating apps to no avail. He recalls the experience to be horrible, and I can understand why. Having phones up, in our face, takes away the human connection of speaking with someone. The goal of the Pilot Translating Earpiece was to take us back into the real world, phones down, connecting with another human being.
It’s easy to see how the function of the invention is invaluable, but what separates Pilot from other tech doesn’t stop there. With electric product development, every minute detail makes a difference. I find all of Pilot’s aesthetics to be visually satisfying in every category to hit. Their logo is smooth and original, the headphones come in three polished colors, and even their websites graphics are super. The headphone’s sleek design is almost reminiscent to Apple’s AirPods with it’s clean and slender design. Even the small holding case screams of the stylistic modern tech design, and it works.
If you’re now looking forward to the release of any of these exciting products please like, share, and subscribe with your friends. I have so much more I look forward sharing with you on future releases, tips, and general inquires about the inventing community.
Who hasn’t, at some point, searched high and low for their cell-phone charger? When the power bar on the screen creeps toward zero percent, a sense of panic can set in if a power source to recharge is not readily available.
Two high school juniors are working on an invention to solve that problem and forever banish that feeling of dread. Plus, it’s a device that could be in great demand in developing countries that lack the infrastructure for charging cell phones.
Sydney Conn and Leena Vyas have a simple solution: Use the wind to help charge cell phones.
Best friends since the second grade, the teens won $5,000 in the Innovation Connector’s Big Idea Pitch for their Breeze Charger. The competition took place a few weeks ago in Muncie.
Conn is a junior at Winchester Community High School and Vyas is schooled at Tippecanoe High School in Tipp City, Ohio, near Dayton. They met in second grade at the Montessori school in Greenville, Ohio, and quickly became friends.
In its basic guise, the entrepreneurs have developed a way to harness the power of the wind to turn a propeller that turns a generator, creating electricity to charge a cell phone or rechargeable battery.
Vyas got the idea while on a family trip to India. She noticed many people didn’t have a proper home, but almost everyone had a cell phone. It was a big problem, she said, to find somewhere to recharge the phone. “So the idea came to use the wind created by a moving vehicle to charge the devices,” she said.
That can be a car or a rickshaw, either pulled or powered by pedals or a small engine. The two said their invention could be used in developing nations where there is no reliable supply of electricity.
Vyas worked on her idea in the seventh grade as a science fair project. Vyas asked Conn to join her in their freshman year, 2015, when they presented their invention at a conference in New York City.
The prototype used a large propeller and a stick from one of those flags people attach to their car windows to show support for their favorite team.
The second model was much smaller, but too expensive to produce because of the plastic casing. It also didn’t work well in low wind conditions.
“So we realized we needed a fan that spun easier,” Vyas said. “And we wanted to be able to use it on bikes so it could be used in Third World countries, even if you didn’t have a car.”
Ever resourceful, the pair solved the expense problem by using part of a plastic water bottle, an item that is plentiful in developing countries, they said.
Models three and four ditched the propeller, after consulting with engineers, in favor of a “muffin fan” that spins much more easily. Think of the fan in the back of an older desktop computer for a visual.
The larger fan spins better, Vyas said, “because it had more surface area for the wind to hit.”
Conn said a switch was added so the user could recharge a battery for use later or a cell phone.
It only takes one minute to charge the battery at 30 mph, and six full charges can juice up an iPhone 7. Flip phones, Conn noted, take less power than iPhones.
Conn said her aunt heard about the Innovation Connector’s Big Idea Pitch on the radio and encouraged the girls to enter.
In preparation, Conn attended workshops there and the girls worked on a presentation. On the first night of competition, they went up against 40 other entrants, each doing a three-minute presentation or pitch. They advanced into the top five.
The top five (actually six were chosen) moved on to the Excellence in Innovation Awards Banquet where they presented their ideas to about 350 community movers and shakers and a panel of judges. Conn and Vyas were the youngest presenters.
“They had a special ‘it’ factor,” said Ted Baker, executive director of the Innovation Connector. “The cool thing is, they won with a great presentation and a well-thought-out product that has meaning to it.”
Did the girls think they would win?
“No!” they both said at once.
“We were super nervous. We practiced our pitch probably 50 times before we went,” Conn said.
“I would have been a lot more nervous if I was up there by myself,” Vyas added. “Having Sydney there made it a lot better.”
Besides the $5,000 prize, which the pair will split and use for college, they also get to use the Innovation Connector’s marketing, consultation and legal services to further develop the Breeze Charger.
Both girls are thinking about careers, and it’s a good bet theirs will include science.
Conn is seeking a career in the medical field, possibly becoming an anesthesiologist.
Vyas wants to be an engineer.
Their college choices have not been made, but they speak highly of a recent visit to Earlham College, where they met the head of the entrepreneur center.
As for the Breeze Charger, the plan is to further develop the design and get it patented.
Vyas said they want to make 10 working breeze chargers and give them to people to test out. “Then, once we finalize our design, we hope to send them overseas so people can use them for the main purpose we created them for.”
“Our main goal is to help people rather than for us to earn money,” Conn said. “We want to help people in other countries that don’t have the same opportunities that we have in the United States.”
Via http://www.thestarpress.com/story/news/local/2017/12/25/cant-get-your-cell-phone-charged-two-high-school-juniors-have-solution/964395001/
Outside Denver, a talented 12-year-old is getting national attention. It’s not for her music, it’s for Gitanjali Rao’s contribution to science.
“If my mom asked me what do you want for Christmas, I’d be like, lead,” Gitanjali said.
That’s right, lead, which Gitanjali needed for an invention.
“Imaging living day in and day out drinking contaminated water with dangerous substances like lead. Introducing tethys, the easy to use, fast, accurate, a portable and inexpensive device to detect lead in water,” Gitanjali said in her presentation for the Young Scientist Challenge. She won the national competition for her invention.
It was inspired by a real-world problem. “I’ve been following the Flint water crisis for about two years,” Gitanjali said.
In Flint, Michigan, nearly 100,000 residents drank lead-contaminated water for more than a year.
“Lead is mostly harmful to younger children, about my age — giving them growth defects and potentially damaging their brain,” Gitanjali said.
Gitanjali said that despite living in thousands of miles away from Flint, “that’s not something I want to go through, what the Flint residents went through .. our water quality’s just as important as doctor’s appointments or dentist’s appointments.”
If you’ve never tested your water, Gitanjali said “that’s a big problem!”
With Gitanjali’s device, instead of taking days to send water samples to a lab, her device detects lead in seconds using carbon molecules — and a mobile app.
She’s one of many who love science at school, but one of the few who turned an idea into an invention, said teacher Simi Basu.
“I am so confident that she will be able to take it to the market if we keep providing her help,” Basu said. She said what makes Gitanjali different is that she is a “risk taker — she’s not afraid to fail.”
She said her next project is to create a “happiness meter which measures the amount of serotonin in your body or the amount of gamma rays and I still have to figure out how this works.”
Outside Denver, a talented 12-year-old is getting national attention. It’s not for her music, it’s for Gitanjali Rao’s contribution to science.
“If my mom asked me what do you want for Christmas, I’d be like, lead,” Gitanjali said.
That’s right, lead, which Gitanjali needed for an invention.
“Imaging living day in and day out drinking contaminated water with dangerous substances like lead. Introducing tethys, the easy to use, fast, accurate, portable and inexpensive device to detect lead in water,” Gitanjali said in her presentation for the Young Scientist Challenge. She won the national competition for her invention.
It was inspired by a real-world problem. “I’ve been following the Flint water crisis for about two years,” Gitanjali said.
In Flint, Michigan, nearly 100,000 residents drank lead-contaminated water for more than a year.
“Lead is mostly harmful to younger children, about my age — giving them growth defects and potentially damaging their brain,” Gitanjali said.
Gitanjali said that despite living in thousands of miles away from Flint, “that’s not something I want to go through, what the Flint residents went through .. our water quality’s just as important as doctor’s appointments or dentist’s appointments.”
If you’ve never tested your water, Gitanjali said “that’s a big problem!”
With Gitanjali’s device, instead of taking days to send water samples to a lab, her device detects lead in seconds using carbon molecules — and a mobile app.
She’s one of many who loves science at school, but one of the few who turned an idea into an invention, said teacher Simi Basu.
“I am so confident that she will be able to take it to the market if we keep providing her help,” Basu said. She said what makes Gitanjali different is that she is a “risk taker — she’s not afraid to fail.”
She said her next project is to create a “happiness meter which measures the amount of serotonin in your body or the number of gamma rays and I still have to figure out how this works.”
When she does, the science world will be waiting.
Via https://www.cbsnews.com/news/gitanjali-rao-12-year-old-girl-troubled-by-flint-water-crisis-invents-lead-detector/
Innovation isn’t (only) about the product, its also about the business model!
Innovation can be a function of any company or any industry but it’s the disruptors that are innovating on so many fronts which is having such ineradicable impact. They are the ones bucking the old way of doing things for a more modern innovation mindset. If you were to stop somebody on the street and say, “what is innovation what’s innovative?” They may say the iPhone is innovative. Seventy-five percent of the answers you will get will be about a product. Jim says, “Products only develop or deliver 10 percent of the value in an innovation ecosystem. Ninety percent of the value is by innovating around the business model, customer experience, and process.”
A great example of this is Dollar Shave Club. For decades, the shaving category was entirely focused on product innovation, launching new and improved ‘blades’ at an ever-increasing premium price. However, we can’t forget some early product marketing and business model innovation done by Gillette —to essentially give away the handheld razor in order to sell more high margin razor blades. When Dollar Shave Club was launched in 2011, it knew that competing for head-on with Gillette or Schick (razors) in product innovation or for shelve space of retailers wasn’t a smart move. So instead, Dollar Shave Club decided to compete in contrast to the very business model that had historically been Gillette’s strength.
They didn’t create a revolutionary new razor (product innovation) or try to compete on price. Instead, they disrupted an entire industry with its business model innovation. Yes, they used a funny video (that has since been seen more than 25 million times) on social media to spread the word about great their product is. The anti-marketing-marketing approach of Dollar Shave Club focused on humor, simplicity, and value, instead of the traditional slow-motion shave and hand-on-face messaging of Gillette. And if you were really paying attention during the entire 1:33 second YouTube video, you would have noticed they started with “for a $1 per month we send high-quality razors right to your door” which got culminated with Dollar Shave Club’s $1 billion sale to Unilever.
All that sounds great – a one in a billion (literally) opportunity and you might be right. But there are ways which can you make a difference within your own company when you see an opportunity to create a new business model but face existing systems, structures, and C-Suite power?
First, embrace your idea or concept. Think through how the normal way of doing business is getting in the way of doing business as normal.
Second, create an innovation lab that (1) can’t be thwarted by high-level execs and (2) is left alone to innovate not only products but business models as well.
The next time you’re ready to tackle disruption, don’t make the mistake of just focusing on innovating around your product. Think about tipping the business model to drive an even greater change.
Jim Harris, a principal of strategic advantage with 20 years’ experience as a professional speaker and consultant. Jim speaks internationally at more than 40 conferences a year on topics including innovation and creativity. Jim is also a columnist at The Huffington Post and author of the international best-selling book, Blindsided: How to Spot the Next Breakthrough That Will Change Your Business Forever.
via https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/why-innovation-isnt-only-about-the-product_us_5a53e492e4b0f9b24bf319e4
Matt Thompson, 48, of Garden City spent more than 100 hours creating what he calls the “Michigan beer/pop chair.”
He was inspired by a similar Labatt Blue chair, but he says he came up with his own dispensing mechanism that slides pre-chilled cans to a seated drinker’s elbow, reports Elisha Anderson of the Detroit Free Press.
The skilled woodworker build it from Cedar.
“It was a lot of fun,” he tells the reporter. “And I thought people would be entertained.”
His Facebook video below has nearly 10 million views in four months.
"Source Direct was instrumental in helping me get my No Think Wedges on the market. From a drawing to finished product, they were there the whole time, excellent quality work." - Mike Nicholson, Owner of E-Z Cure
"You are in good hands with Source Direct. I have nothing but good things to say about Ed Mauro and Source Direct. My experience with them have been great and very professional. They are a company that goes far beyond their call of duty and will do all that it takes to get the job done." - Charisse Edey, NY
Who hasn’t, at some point, searched high and low for their cell-phone charger? When the power bar on the screen creeps toward zero percent, a sense of panic can set in if a power source to recharge is not readily available.
Outside Denver, a talented 12-year-old is getting national attention. It’s not for her music, it’s for Gitanjali Rao’s contribution to science.
With Gitanjali’s device, instead of taking days to send water samples to a lab, her device detects lead in seconds using carbon molecules — and a mobile app.
Matt Thompson, 48, of Garden City spent more than 100 hours creating what he calls the “Michigan beer/pop chair.”