(no subject)

I've had some trouble with bike tires lately. I had a small, cheap hand pump I carried on my bike, but I managed to break it and I needed a new portable pump. So I went out on the internet and found a small rechargeable battery powered pump that works incredibly well.

Similarly, last year I needed a new lighter because my last one was out of lighter fluid and wasn't refillable, and I went out on the internet and found a rechargeable electric lighter that doesn't need any lighter fluid, it just works by creating an arc between two electrodes.

What's in common with these devices is I don't think they could exist ten years ago, maybe even five years ago. Battery storage efficiency has improved so much and a lot of the power transmission hardware that goes with it has also been improved, and smart charging hardware has advanced, and there's probably a few other advancements I'm not even aware of... all of these things are largely driven by research for electric vehicles and smart phone technology, but the knock-on effects are starting to be noticeable in other areas you wouldn't even think of. Suddenly devices that needed to be plug-in don't need to be, suddenly generating higher voltages is easier and safer and requires less power and space. There are a lot of common gadgets that we should probably take a look at and see if someone has built a better one taking advantage of these new technologies...

Also, my work is way upstream on the pipeline to these products, but it is connected tangentially to some of these advances, and it makes me feel like my work has some meaning any time I find a new device based on them.