Everyone is familiar with the feeling when the shower or the tub gets full of hair after washing your hair. A new Hungarian invention named HairHanger was designed to solve this problem easily, according to Szeretlekmagyarorszag.hu.
All women and men with long hair have probably experienced the phenomenon when hairs begin to flutter into the shower or the bathtub during hair washing.
People can easily find themselves in the midst of a sea of hair that is hard to get rid of and that clogs the sink. It is the greatest fear of long-haired people.
It is difficult to keep your bathroom clean when you encounter the disgusting bunches of your own hair everywhere. No one likes to have a bath in a “hair soup”.
That is why a brand new Hungarian startup, the HairHanger was developed. The IndieGoGo page of the product promises that it solves the problem of cleaning up your hair in a tidy, cheap and easy way.
As you can see in this video, HairHanger can be attached to the wall, and its tiny plastic prickles are responsible for catching your fallen hair. After finishing your shower, you can easily remove the bunch of hair from the device and throw it into the bin.
“Our product is practically ready. The aim of our campaign is to reach the minimum sum to initiate mass production (due to the minimal amount of ordering). We have launched our project without any significant financial investment. The invested work (design, development) is the contribution of our friends from the university”, lead designer Dániel Sütheő stated.
As many of the genius inventions, HairHanger was also born during a shower. The basic idea popped up in the mind of Dániel’s girlfriend, Laura. She wanted to end this “hairror”. Laura was shocked by the hygiene — or more like its lack — in the dormitory, and her opinion was confirmed by her friends.
So the product is currently collecting backers for mass production. If you back them on IndieGoGo, you will get one HairHanger for 12 dollars, four for 40 dollars and ten for 80 dollars, if the project will be funded. “Fixed founding” means that your contribution will only be transferred to the production team if they reach the goal of 20,000 dollars.
HeatVentors, a company that revolutionizes heat storage, did quite well in startup contests. Their pilot projects are about to launch, and they are planning to take their invention to China. They do not fear copycats, as Forbes.hu reports.
Founders of HeatVentors Rita Farkas and Zoltán Andrássy both studied as energetics engineers. They have been dealing with phase change materials for five years — writing their thesis about them — and now they use them for creating a product and building a company.
Zoltán stated that they were mostly encouraged at professional conferences to try and make a profit off their ideas. This is how HeatVentors was founded, as the founders decided to get involved in the world of business and law. Still, they tried to remain what they are: engineers.
HeatVentors has become a financial success: they have won 10,000 euros of support in the Climate-KIC accelerator program in June.
But what is so original about their ideas? Well, most of the heat containers run on water nowadays. We store energy by heating and cooling water. HeatVentors, however, use phase change materials’ state of matter. It is like an ice cube. “As we melt or freeze the material, we can store much more power, almost without any change in temperature”, Zoltán explained.
The greatest advantage of the new technology is that it requires almost 90 percent less space than water containers. They are also able to store heat energy between 100 and 600 degrees Celsius. This system is proper for heating, freezing and renewing systems, as well as for solar plants.
The other great advantage of HeatTank energy containers is that they repay their value more quickly. It means that the required investment is a couple of hundreds of euros per apartment buildings, which will be regained in 3-4 years.
Building a product based on their studies was a difficult task. It had to be connected to energetics and building-engineering, contain novelties and challenges, but still be marketable.
Now they are developing in two branches. On of them is a family product that is splendid for family houses and apartment buildings. These systems can be installed by any ordinary heating engineer. It would be available not only at HeatVentors, but in the supply of larger companies as well.
The other branch concerns unique products like larger HeatTanks. These could be purchased by larger companies and installed in their several facilities. HeatVentors was intentionally looking for niche markets where they could prove the usefulness of their products with pilot projects. They claimed that they are debating with both Hungarian and multinational companies, with four large companies among them who were discussing the launch of the pilot projects.
The size of their products is the key: whenever another attribute changes, size has to be recalculated. They are even planning to move to the Chinese market, and they do not fear any violation of copyright.
“We have won second prize in Women Startup Competition’s semi-final in Budapest. The online jury voted us in the finals in London”, Rita states. They have won a trip to China where they could introduce themselves in three cities and four great factories. They were also among the winners of MVM’s mentor program’s first round and won the second prize at Nestlé Demo Day.
They are planning to sell their technology in China. They do not fear copycats, as any copy will work only among the proper circumstances. If it is changed, the size has to be redesigned. And only Rita and Zoltán are able to do that. The container cannot be used by any copyist.
They have received offers from some investors, but they are still spending their prizes and preparing for new competitions. Their first pilot projects will launch in months. They are also planning to design additional products based on this technology.
Hungary could be rightfully called the country of inventions and clever minds. We might be a small country, but the best of the nation contributed to the development of the world in a big part. We don’t even realise how many of the things we use every day were invented by Hungarians. It would be impossible to list all of these, but we attempted to give an overview 🙂
We have written several articles about great Hungarian inventions, but they are all different. This time, we were inspired by a post on 9gag, which collected some of the most important Hungarian inventions in a witty way. It’s basically a long infographic, which was a reaction to a comment saying that Hungary is a small country and nobody cares about it. But the creator of the post thinks that the world needs to be reminded about the importance of our country. Listed below are the bullet points that back up this statement:
If you had an accident and you need to get to the hospital right away, or if there was a destructive forest fire…then Oszkár Asbóth’s invention, the helicopter will come to your relief.
If you want to call your friends and family to inform them about the accident…then your call will go through the telephone exchange, which was invented by Tivadar Puskás.
When in the hospital, you won’t see dead new-borns thanks to Ignác Semmelweis, “the saviour of mothers”, who initiated regular sterilisation for doctors.
Regarding the topic of curing and health, vitamin C was discovered by Albert Szent-Györgyi.
When you have fully recovered, you can get home from the hospital in many ways: you could go with a car (Ford Model-T: József Galamb) or take a bus (articulated bus: Gábor Lassú, László Rózsa, Béla Színi), but none of these could operate without a carburetor, invented by Donát Bánki and János Csonka. Moreover, you could also choose to take the train (electric locomotive: Kálmán Kandó) or rush home with an airplane (high-altitude engine: Albert Fonó). However, the most environmentally-friendly option would be the bicycle. Remember to turn on your lights at night (dynamo: Ányos Jedlik).
Once you’re home, you’ll need to get back into the swing of things. You may want to turn to the computer for some help, which was first created by János Neumann. Programs like Word and Excel, created by Károly Simonyi, could also help you out.
Before going to sleep, don’t forget to turn the lights off (Wolfram-bulb: Sándor Just, Ferenc Hanaman, Imre Bródy), because it consumes energy (biogas reactor: Péter Kiss).
A nice story, right? It’s just as witty as this one. The story and the list could go on for ever if we wanted to add other inventions like the Rubik’s cube, binoculars, transformer, safety match, soda water etc. until the list would bust due to the hydrogen bomb ;).
If you’re visual type, you might like the following two videos, which illustrate the most significant Hungarian inventions in a similarly enjoyable way 🙂
Platio, the Hungarian smart pavement, got a lot of recognition in international media, and now the inventors of it have come up something new: smart benches with solar panels. Nlcafe.hu reports that the whole world is interested in the smart benches set up at Városháza Park, Budapest.
Both the Hungarian and international media was swoon by a Hungarian invention, called Platio. Platio is a kind of pavement that harnesses and transforms those resources that would otherwise go to waste. These are human steps, biking, sunlight and night time public lighting.
The inventors of Platio came up with something creative and environment-friendly again, smart benches to be precise. These benches were made available to the public this summer at Városháza Park and can be used to charge your smartphone. Two international papers have written about it already, Mashable and Inhabitat.
The team worked together with the creators of Hello Wood, as they produced the wooden part of the benches. However, this time the emphasis is not on the exciting and comfortable design of the benches, but on the fact that they have the solar panel Platios built-in.
This pop-up island of relaxation has made the area a much more friendly and tranquil place. Apart from the smart benches, table tennis- and teqball tables have been set up for those looking for a fun time. There were flower-boxes installed and two fire hydrants were transformed into drinking wells, so now the park is not only pleasant, but also safe in this hot weather.
The Platio team has entered into a competition by one of the most prestigious landscape architecture magazines in the world. You can vote for them here.
Check out other amazing Hungarian inventions here.
The Beachegg is being tested on Beach Lupa. According to szeretlekmagyarorszag.hu, this innovation may be one of the biggest Hungarian IoT blasts.
It was developed by Virgo System in 2016, the same company that built up and sold iWiW to Telekom for around 3.2 million EUR. The device is known as the unstealable Hungarian beachegg, which is an IoT (Internet of Things) device. The Beachegg is the rival of “magictowel”. It is a safe that protects your properties on the beach. It makes its debut at Beach Lupa.
No worries if it’s stolen – the thief will be caught
Szeretlekmagyarorszag.hu quotes an anecdote about a foreigner, who was surprised at the beach when seeing Hungarians trying to protect their properties with only a towel on their top. Although the “magictowel trick” has become a kind of tradition at the Hungarian beaches, we all know it is useless against thieves. This problem now seems to be solved by a Hungarian invention – isn’t it a bit ironic?
The main point of the Beachegg is that it protects our properties with a four-layer safety system: the first layer is the metal shell, the second is the loud alarm activated by motion, the third one is the safety guard (who is also warned by the stolen egg), while the fourth one is the online system, which can locate the stolen egg within one square metre on the map.
Source: facebook / Beachegg
All in all, the Beachegg is safe, its usage is comfortable, and can be rented at the beach for the price of a tonic. You take it out in the morning, pack your stuff in it, go swimming, then take it back.
It started as a cooler box – turned out to be a precious egg
The Beachegg was Gergő Halmi’s idea in 2015. He had in mind a rolling device resembling a cooler box that can also be fixed to the ground when he looked up Virgo System.
Then came Balázs Csapó, Creative Director of Virgo System, who saw the future in IoT. He said the idea is good, but it would be strange to see the girls in their bikinis pulling a box behind themselves on the beach. So they came up with the egg-shape, and instead of fixing it on the ground, they connected it to the Internet.
Source: facebook / Beachegg
After that, the concept of the trendy and sexy Beachegg was born. It quickly became hot in the Hungarian press in 2016, but its debut was still far away. The reason of that is that Halmi and Csapó stopped working together, as Halmi bought Csapó’s share. He did so because their idea of the Beachegg’s operation was different. Csapó wanted to sell it directly to the users, while Halmi wanted to build a unique system with the beaches.
As the company is run by Halmi, you can’t by your own Beachegg, but you can rent it on the beach. However, they offer the full pack to the beaches: they get a trendy stand (egg-shaped, of course), which has 60, 120 or 180 eggs. This is accompanied by the software background providing the safety.
Source: facebook / Beachegg
The company has developed so far that it only waits for the orders of the beaches, and can produce as many eggs as needed. Moreover, there are further plans to expand the service to protect children as well. The new technology is already under construction. According to the plans, it will look after the children with a bracelet. If the child goes further than a certain number of metres, the smartwatch on the parents’ wrist shows the location of the child as a compass.
It came out on Beach Lupa on July 1st
The Beachegg is being tested in this season. Gergő Halmi has said that people love it and up until now he received only positive feedback both from the beaches and the users. It seems that we can proudly state that not only the magictowel, but also the unstealable Beachegg is a Hungarian invention.
Source: facebook / Beachegg
Csapó keeps on developing the IoT system and constantly works on Linda, the coolest scooter ever.
According to inforadio.hu, the researchers of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences’ Research Centre for Natural Sciences made a fundamental discovery in connection with the functioning of the nervous system. Their results can contribute to the better understanding and more effective treatment of cognitive disorders.
It has been known for a long time that sleeping betters the anamnesis, and that one of the basic consequences of the lack of sleep is the decay of the memory. From this regard, a cerebral rhythm called slow wave activity, that characterises the deepest sleeping phase, is especially important. The decrease of this activity directly obstructs the long-term fixation of the memory.
Even though the importance of the slow wave activity has been known for quite a while, no one knows how it exactly works and what causes the presence of similar conditions, like epilepsy.
The Hungarian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Organic Chemistry analysed the role of astrocytes in the process, which are star-shaped cells. Even though astrocytes are the most populous cell types in our brains, their role was underestimated for a long time. It was believed that their only task was to “keep the nerve cells alive”.
But the research of the past decades made it clear that they also control the functioning of nerve cells as well as highly influence the activity of the location of the information transmission between cells.
Therefore, László Héja and the colleagues of the Hungarian research team assumed that astrocytes don’t only influence the network functioning of nerve cells on an individual level, but also on a higher level, and they were able to prove this.
With the help of rat experiments, they proved that astrocytes could be the conductors of the symphony that harmonises the functioning of nerve cells. The researchers hope that their findings can contribute to the better understanding and more effective treatment of cognitive disorders and dementia.
Napi.hu reports that Antony Jenkins, former chief executive at Barclays, told Bloomberg that banks in their traditional form might go out of use, as the technological resources needed for electronic banking are becoming cheaper.
After being fired from Barclays, Jenkins founded the 10x Future Technologies company, which offers banks cloud computing. Jenkins, who spent 35 years in financing, wondered why modern technology isn’t implemented into banking. The answer, he argues, was that the new systems and methods are too expensive, but the situation is changing.
[button link=”https://dailynewshungary.com/hungarian-invention-revolutionise-way-use-laptop/” newwindow=”yes”] Smart technologies: a Hungarian invention will change the way we use our laptops[/button]
Two-phase collapse
As Jenkins said, the traditional banks are going through the Uber-phase right now. The car-sharing mobile app has shaken the taxi industry and the same thing is happening in the world of financing right now thanks to technology. Banking became easier with the appearance smartphones and contactless credit cards.
The next phase is the Kodak-phase, which is much different than the previous one. This will set in when customers realise that the technological inventions offer the same service as their banks do, but is much simpler and better than the traditional method.
Jenkins even gave an example: the American Eastman Kodak Co. was founded in the 19th century. The company was a pioneer and played a key role in photography and filmmaking, but it could not adapt to the spreading of digital recording. It went bankrupt in 2012, only to reappear a year later in the printing industry. However, it is barely a shadow of its former self.
Destructive changes
Banks are closing sub-offices to be able to spend more on improving their technological devices. The reason is that customers choose to do their banking online or with the help of smartphone apps.
At the same time, numerous start-up companies concentrating on new technological improvements are spreading in the private sector of banking services. Jenkins believes that the big traditional banks will not be able to adapt to the changes, as they cannot get rid of their old-fashioned business methods and thinking. He further argues that, in 5-15 years, they will become the Kodaks of the financing world.
Some quotes make you really think about the subject matter, others you’ll just pass by, feeling like you’ve read it at least a thousand times. Sometimes you stumble upon a good one, sometimes you really need one for a greeting card. These are some of the rarest quotes from Hungarian scientists, collected by tanarno.cafeblog.hu.
Quotes about happiness
“Rich is the person who has more money than desires, and poor is the person who has more desires than money… The key to happiness is not to acquire more, but to be content with what we have, and to fill the empty holes in our lives instead of enlarging them” – Albert Szent-Györgyi, Nobel-prized biochemist
“The pessimist is such a man who is always right, but never happy” – Ede Teller, atom physicist
“It is of key importance to do things from time to time that is not of key importance” – László Mérő, psychologist-mathematician
“Life is too short to be a pessimist” – György Oláh, Nobel-prized chemist
“Some who is happy will make others happy as well, but if the well is empty, what will you draw from it?” – Farkas Bólyai, mathematician
Quotes about school, knowledge
“Man is the only being that is capable of constant thinking, thus making sure that chaos will strive even when his mind is at work.” – László Mérő
“To see things that no one else sees, and to think of things that no else thinks” – Albert Szent-Györgyi
“Books are meant to hold onto knowledge, while we are using our minds for better things” – Albert Szent-Györgyi
“When it comes to mathematics, you don’t understand things, rather you simply get used to them” – János Neumann, mathematician
“School is supposed to teach you how to learn, to awaken your thirst for knowledge, to introduce you to the joy of a well-done work, to give you a taste of the excitements of creation, and to help you find the line of work, that you’ll fall in love with” – Albert Szent-Györgyi
“It is not right to stay silent when I know something others don’t” – Ede Teller
Quotes about health
“What is a healthy person? As a psychologist, I can say that there is no such thing, everyone is sick, but in their own ways” – László Mérő
“There are but few other choices with which you can influence your health, than what food you buy and eat” – Albert Szent-Györgyi
“Meaningful silence is the most expressive” – László Mérő
Quotes about life
“Do not fret: you have a head and a heart. Do not fret. I trust my head and I trust my heart, and I trust that they can work together” – Ede Teller
“The last drop is not to be blamed that it is the last one, for it is the same as the others” – László Mérő
“The politician has his mind set on the next campaign, the statesman on the next generation. People vote for the best politicians and then they wonder why they become bad statesman” – Albert Szent-Györgyi
“What we do not understand, we call coincidence” – Ede Teller
“You are not supposed to agree on everything, the world is made colourful by the different opinions” – László Mérő
“However painful and overwhelming it is to admit you are wrong, denial will not serve as a solution” – Ignác Semmelweis
Nowadays, board games have gained a new popularity. Despite the fact that the video game market is full of entertaining multiplayer experiences, people still have the need to come together in one room, sit around a table and touch the game pieces and dices with their hands. That is why more and more new titles are appearing, and in many cases, we can thank Kickstarter for providing great opportunities for creative designers. Let us see five international success stories that were initiated by Hungarian creators.
Let us begin with the greatest success so far: Trickerion’s Kickstarter campaign occurred in January of 2015 and it received almost ten times its planned 30,000 dollars of funding goal. The game was inspired by the 2006 movie Prestige as it puts the players into the roles of rival magicians from the 19th century who are contesting for the favor of the audience. One of the game’s Easter eggs is that Hungarian champion magician of the world Soma Hajnóczy is one of the playable characters.
Saltlands
A little bit more than a year ago, three young men came up with the idea of creating a game in which players must survive the cruel circumstances of a Mad Max-like post-apocalyptic world: this is how Antler Games was founded and Saltlands was created. It is a competitive game in which players struggle with the drought, the extreme weather and the raiding bandits and try to escape from the salty desert by vehicles either run by oil or wind. The greatest advantage of the game is probably its unique world, which is made even more living by Soma Csátvák’s recently published novel Saltlands – Isten után.
Anyway, Antler Games recently finished the Kickstarter campaign of their second game Critters Below.
Published on the 60th anniversary of the Revolution of 1956, the game tells the story of Hungarian history’s two dark weeks and the desperate fight against the communist tyranny. It is a cooperative game in which players play as freedom fighters, who are trying to eliminate all ÁVH (State Protection Authority) and Soviet forces from Budapest and deliver food, medical equipment, information, ammunition and other necessities to the revolutionist. There is also a competitive mode in which one player takes the role of General Zhukov and tries to oppress the revolt through leading the Soviet forces, while the other 1-3 players fight against him.
Another game by Dávid Turczi, the mastermind who also plaid a role in developing Trickerion and Days of Ire. This Euro-style game puts the players into a futuristic environment in which different political ideas struggle for world domination with the help of legions of exosuits. The greatest specialties of the game are that it is divided into Eras and the past Eras are available again later in the game with the help of “time travel”, and that the four political factions – called “Paths” – offer quite different playing styles. The goal of the game is being the dominant Path by the end of the fourth Era when the world gets hit by an asteroid and a cataclysm occurs, letting only one idea to rule humanity.
Korona Games has already become successful in Hungary with Magyar Népmesék (Hungarian Folk Tales), Kard és Korona (Sword and Crown) and Pókháló (Spider Web), but with the successful Kickstarter campaign of Hexpanse, they got to the international market. This abstract wargame takes the players to the distant future when humanity created an intergalactic empire and a new precious material called hexilium has been discovered, which is mostly mined on Mars under harsh circumstances. The unsatisfied miners of Mars revolt against the Terran Empire, and the greedy Union of Trade Worlds and the power hungry Interstellar Nomads also join the conflict.
Each player leads one of the four factions into the intergalactic war, which is played on hex-based maps. The players conquer hexilium mines, train armies, hire mercenaries and use tactical tricks to defeat each other. The goal of the complex but easily learnable game is to either eliminate all the other factions or form a “victory pattern” from one’s units on the game board.
Previously we have reported about a Hungarian invention to fight ticks and a cane that is equipped with an electronic sensor, now we will present you three other medical inventions from Hungarian geniuses (based on szeretlekmagyarorszag.hu’s article).
Medicine and technology are walking hand-in-hand, with numerous technological inventions helping doctors and patients as well. Hungarians are quite at the front in medical technology: lately, a mobile app was made to help diabetes patients, a credit card-sized pocket EKG and an online appointment making app were invented.
Blood-sugar journal on your phone
Diabetes affects over 400 million people in the world, with 700 thousand known Hungarian patients, and approximately 500 million others, who do not know of their condition yet. When dealing with diabetes it is crucial to be able to get access to information about one’s condition, and also to keep it under control. The new Hungarian mobile app of the Dcont brand, is designed to help: since almost everyone has a smartphone, they can download the app and enter their blood-sugar levels, carbohydrate intakes, while it also serves as an insulin therapy journal, immediately and automatically via a Bluetooth connection between the Dcont app and a smart glucose meter, NEMERE. Dcont was developed by the Hungarian-owned 77 Elektronika Kft, which has been focusing on improving, developing and manufacturing glucose meters in the past 30 years.
photo: dcont.hu
EKG machine in your pocket
Heart problems and diseases cause most of the deaths in the world, especially in Hungary. These diseases must be kept under control, this can be done by going to regular medical check-ups and keeping a close watch of your heart rate even at home. WIWE is designed to make this easier for patients. Developed by Sanatmetal, the small device, not bigger than a credit card, is linked to a mobile app, with which you can check your heart rate and blood oxygen levels on several occasions a day. The data can be sent via e-mail to your doctor, thus the risks of strokes or sudden cardiac arrests are reduced.
photo: mywiwe.com
Private doctor just a click away
According to a survey, Hungarians prefer private clinics to public ones, and 15% of them go to regular check-ups. Making an appointment can be done now online, via Foglaljorvost.hu, and more and more patients are relying on this comfortable and easy method: there are already 50 thousand registered users. 1200 Hungarian private doctors are registered in the database, representing 90 specialities. Users can comment on doctors, share their experiences, thus picking the best choice is made easier for someone who is not quite sure who to turn to.
There are other Hungarian inventions, like Hand in Scan, which is meant to revolutionise hand sanitising in hospitals, already being used on three continents, or Laborom, an app which you can easily download your lab results with.
The novelty, which was named “tick fungus” by its inventor, is capable of totally eliminating the parasites.
According to Szeretlekmagyarorszag.hu, the new pesticide that is specialized for killing ticks may be on the market by the end of the year. This invention offers a way to get rid of the bloodsuckers more effectively than ever before. The struggle against ticks has been quite difficult, because they are among the toughest parasites.
They can stand extreme circumstances and lay 22,000 eggs a year, which makes it possible for them to proliferate on an incredible level. During the blood sucking process, they spread sicknesses such as the Lyme disease, even though there is a vaccine for some of the illnesses spread by ticks.
They are most likely to appear in forested areas and climb onto both people and dogs from the taller grass, but some of them come down from the top of the trees or thick bushes. The fortunate thing is that there is a fungus species, which can be used to make a product that is capable of eliminating one hundred percent of the parasites.
Retired chief medical officer and chairman of Lyme Borreliosis Foundation Béla Pál Bózsik told Magyar Hírlap that the idea of “tick fungus” came from a conference in San Francisco twenty years ago. The mycelium was first tested on ladybugs’ wings, lacewings’ larvae and ticks, and the fungus harmed only the latter ones.
After that, the product was tested in the Danube by spraying the tested mixture. A year later, the treated and the untreated territories were compared, and the difference was enormous.
The Hungarian product has already been patented, so it has a green light to the market. It will be merchandised in liquid form and it will be used by spraying. If everything goes as planned, it will be appropriate for both home and industrial use.
Forbes.hu reports that a Hungarian team is working on a new scooter prototype, which could give a long-needed boost to the Hungarian motor industry. Linda, the scooter, might become the new favourite: it looks retro, it has a variety of extra functions and it’s lightweight.
At first glance Linda might remind you of a ’80s sci-fi with its squared shapes, pastel blue and bright yellow colours, but do not be fooled: it’s equipped with the latest technology. Inside the wheels, electric wheel motors are hiding, underneath the floor panel you will find lithium-ion batteries, and there is a self-winding charging cable. Instead of a traditional dashboard, it is equipped with an LCD screen, where you can fix your phone as well.
Servo Movement is charged with perfecting the Linda scooter, and came into being as a fusion of Virgo Creative and fps. If you were wondering, the vehicle is operated via a mobile application, which will also help you find the charger stations (which will be soon) scattered over Budapest. So, yes, the scooter is an IoT device.
The scale-modell / photo: https://twitter.com/ServoMovement
Balázs Csapó, the founder of Servo Movement, said that the original idea comes from Peking. He was there nine years ago, and upon seeing how many people used electric bicycles, it occurred to him that this would put an end to the thoughtless wasting of time and energy, usually prevalent in big cities. However, there is a big issue: if you have a shed or garage, then you can easily plug your scooter in and charge it, but not everyone has the opportunity to do this. Csapó further argues that the modern society is in grave need of a good electricity sharing method since we live in an era where we are quite dependent on electricity: our phones, gadgets, vehicles need a recharge from time to time.
According to law, no one can start ‘selling’ electricity willy-nilly, that’s why there are no e-car charging stations that require you to pay, although, a couple companies are already working on a solution. The moment the charging stations come into being, numerous Servo Movement chargers will be installed all over the Hungarian capital, which will be equipped with simple 220 volts sockets, along with USB cables suitable for phone charging. If this doesn’t happen, then the company itself might start their own charging service.
The Servo Movement charging station / photo: servomovement.com
Unfortunately, electric bikes are not popular enough. Yet. This is where Linda comes into the picture with her lovely colours and stylish design. Csapó doesn’t believe that the traffic problems will be solved only by swapping regular cars for e-cars, they still take up a lot of space, and we don’t use them to their full potentials if we travel by ourselves.
Changing the battery might be the wrong approach, says Csapó. If the charging stations are more frequent in the city, then people would not charge the bikes fully, only up until the point where they judge it to be enough. Additionally, if there are enough stations in the city, then the parking time will double as the charging time does. Linda is not the first electric smart scooter, as Gogoro is being tested in Taiwan and Berlin, but Servo Movement has made a more user-friendly move: the 220 charging stations can be used by anyone, while the Gogoro stations are limited to the brand.
The first Linda is launched next year, the team is already eager to find out whether they can revolutionise the Hungarian motor industry or not. If they do, then they would like to use the Balatonvilágosi Industrial Park as the factory plant. The Linda scooter is developed by a co-operation between Virgo Creative, Müszi and Sapka Művek.
According to szeretlekmagyarorszag.hu, we can say goodbye to the classic mouse that takes up quite a lot of space and the inconvenient and frequently unreliable TouchPad, thanks to a new Hungarian invention. You’ll only need your hands to control the process 😉
The tiny gadget and its software developed by Gergely Márton supersedes the use of the inconvenient mouse and touchpad – you only need to gesture with your fingers above the keyboard as the program reads your movements right away.
Photo: www.facebook.com/CozyTap
The CozyTap projects the picture of the web camera onto the hands of the user, however, its real power lies in the control software which ensures basic mouse functions, scrolling and zooming. It also has a creative side: users can create different shapes, forms and control signs with their hands.
Moreover, left-handed people can also use CozyTap just as easily as right-handed people. You don’t have to move your hands away from the keyboard to be able to click into a document, add text or do anything that you would do with a mouse.
You can support the Hungarian developers here. Your support equals a pre-order in case of a successful crowdfunding.
Nlcafe.hu reports that blue taps are being attached to the red hydrants, which make it easier for you to access the water. You can drink from them, fill your bottles or sprinkle some cold water over yourself. The taps are popping up both in Budapest and in the countryside.
The brains behind the idea are a group of architecture students, who were preparing for a science project when the thought occurred to them that there are but a few public wells from where you can drink. The problem is as follows: there was a huge decline in the number of public wells in the past decades, and those that remained are in a pretty bad shape. Even though, when there is a heat alarm, then bagged water is being distributed to help people cope with the hot temperature.
photo: https://www.facebook.com/IvocsapProject
Upon finding out that in Hungary, the same water flows into hydrants as into the houses and apartments, the team came up with the idea to install a separate tap on the hydrants, from where you can draw water. According to Sarolta Hüttl, the project leader, they did not have sponsors for the first prototype, and they had to finance it themselves. It was finished in 2013 and had many disbelievers, so the team decided to test it and hopefully prove them wrong. It had great success at festivals, and later the group applied for sponsors, managing to persuade the Budapest Waterworks to help them. The joined effort of the capital city and the students resulted in more than a 100 taps installed in Hungary.
A closer look at the Rehydrate tap / photo: https://www.facebook.com/IvocsapProject
The taps are very easy to operate, you just have to push the button on them and the water will be flowing for 15 seconds, then it’ll stop. You can easily fill your bottles as well, so you won’t have to worry about finding the next tap – which should be 150 meters away from the one you just used. All of the taps are properties of the local authorities responsible for the water distribution, who do a regular check-up on the taps, making sure that they function as they should. The latest tap in Budapest was installed in the 14th district, but plans are underway for the installation of an additional nine taps. The best part of this innovation is that the hydrants can still be used during fires.
Csaba Kiss and his research team (Hungarian Science Academy – MTA) found a tiny moon revolving around a dwarf planet. This finding was proven by data collected by Hubble and other observatories. Index.hu reports that, according to the MTA’s publication, the Solar system’s third biggest dwarf planet’s moon could be helpful in making a model of how the Solar system came to be.
Kiss and his peers were observing the Kuiper belt (over Neptune’s course) with the Kepler space observatory when they noticed that the 2007 OR10 dwarf planet is revolving on its spindle too slowly. They were suspecting a so far unknown moon’s gravitational pull to be responsible for this, and with Hubble they actually identified the orb. In the archives of the Wide Field Camera 3, they found two separate records – with just a year difference between them – of the 2007 OR10, which were proof that there is a gravitational link between the planet and the moon orbiting it. Based on the measurements made by the ESA Herschel observatory, it van be seen that a 240-400 kilometres big moon is orbiting the approximately the 1500 km diameters dwarf planet.
“The fact that – with the exception of the Sedna – we’ve found moons orbiting all of the dwarf planets point to the fact that these orbs came into being billions of years ago, and there were more frequent clashes. This puts strong constraints on the orb-creational models.” – stated Kiss.
According to John Stansberry, a researcher at Space Telescope Science Institute (Hubble), the presence of these moons reveals a lot about the speed relations of the clashes. If there are clashes between objects which’s speed is too big in relation to each other, a lot of debris is created, which is scattered far away from the system, but if this speed is relatively small, then only an impact crater is created. For a moon to be created, the relative speed has to be somewhere in-between.
However, the situation is quite ironical, as, according to the observatories’ measuring’s, there is no proof of the relationship between the slow orbit movement and the presence of the moon. Thus, it is possible that it is not the recently discovered moon that is at fault, but still, this does not diminish the importance of the discovery.
Szeretlekmagyarorszag.hu presents us with the story of Pál Járay, who was decades ahead of his time, thus changing the car manufacturing scene forever.
The way cars look was ever changing in the first decades after the first vehicle appeared on the roads. The design we see today is the fruit of years’ of long work, but as they became easier on the eye, they also became more comfortable and, most importantly, safer.
Streamlined car-bodies played a crucial role in the progress of cars, yet not many know that a Hungarian man – whose revolutionary thinking changed everything car-related – invented this.
Pál Járay was born in 1889, in Vienna, to Hungarian-Jewish parents. He began his career as an airplane-developer, and during WWI, he was inspecting the hydrodynamics of zeppelins at Luftschiffbau Zeppelin. In 1920, Járay chartered the new zeppelin design: it had the smallest drag, it had a rounded front and tapered back. Thanks to him, the operational costs of zeppelins was reduced by almost half.
After this, he became interested in cars, achieving the same levels of greatness in car development as well. In 1921, he chartered a car design too: the streamlined automobile. According to his idea, the perfect car has a raked windscreen, the wheels are right below the car-body and the passenger compartment is drop shaped.
In the beginning, manufacturing companies were indifferent to his idea, but he eventually made his breakthrough in the second half of the 1920’s. It was first at Chrysler Airflow that Járay’s designs were implemented. Thereafter came the Tatra 77, and later Audi, Bugatti, Voisin, Adler and Maybach used his plans, too. The Volkswagen Beetle is an excellent example of his designs.
Thanks to Járay, race cars started breaking speed records: because of the streamlined car body, the drag was reduced, thus speed grew and consume decreased. Another benefit of this design is the lack of the slip-stream left behind by cars, thus they don’t kick up that much mud or dust.
According to some research, the Járay-design’s drag is the smallest. The achievements of the Hungarian designer are still being taught and put to use, even though nowadays the classical streamline is going out of fashion.
According to 24.hu, more than 21.5 million models of the Volkswagen Beetle were built from 1938 until the end of production in 2003, making the Bug the best-selling car of all time that was hardly changed during its 65-year history. The name is typically associated with Ferdinand Porsche, the founder of the famous car company. There are, however, two engineers of Hungarian origin without whose contribution the famous Beetle would not be the same today. This is their story.
Béla Barényi, the father of car safety
Béla Barényi (1907-1997) was born in Hirtenberg, Austria in the Austro-Hungarian Empire of Hungarian and Austrian heritage. After graduating from Vienna College, he was employed by several automobile companies including Austro-Daimler and Adler, before joining Daimler-Benz (later Mercedes-Benz) in 1939.
Béla Barényi
In 1925, he made his first designs for a “people’s car” which later became the Volkswagen Beetle, and he released his plans in 1929 but did not patent them and the plans could be freely used by anyone. When Porsche released his prototype, Barényi criticised various aspects of the safety of the car as well as its likeness to his own plans. In the ‘50s, he filed a lawsuit, which lasted years and ended with Barényi’s victory. In the end, he only demanded one German Mark of compensation, but his name became forever associated with the Volkswagen Beetle.
Barényi is also known for his contribution to the field of car safety. When he was asked about the car of the future at his interview for Mercedes-Benz, he allegedly talked for 22 minutes about his ideas on how to enhance the safety of cars in the future. After being hired by Mercedes-Benz, he became the head of the pre-development department, and patented as many as 2500 inventions including the crumple zone, the non-deformable passenger cell, and the collapsible steering column.
Josef Ganz, the inventor of the people’s car
There is another engineer who contributed greatly to the development of the Volkswagen Beetle. Josef Ganz (1898-1967) was born in Budapest as the second child of a Jewish family. His father was Dr. Hugo Markus Ganz, a German journalist for the Frankfurter Zeitung and his mother was Mária Török, a Hungarian woman. The family first moved to Vienna, then to Frankfurt am Main in 1916.
The young mechanical engineering student made his first car design in 1923. He couldn’t afford to have the prototype made, so he began publishing in various magazines about progressive car design, and soon after graduation, he became the editor-in-chief of Klein-Motor-Sport. His ideas challenged the heavy and unsafe car designs of the time. Béla Barényi was also a contributor to the magazine.
One of the first designs by Josef Ganz
In 1929, Ganz’s career took off. He started contacting companies to build a small “people’s car”, which eventually resulted in the Ardie-Ganz in 1930, followed by the Maikäfer of the Adler factory a year later. In the next two years, Ganz worked as a consultant with Daimler-Benz and BMW on the design of the first models with independent wheel suspension, the Mercedes-Benz 170 and the BMW AM1.
The Ardie-Ganz
The first company to build a car based on the patents of Ganz was the Standard Fahrzeugfabrik, whose Standard Superior was presented at the 1933 International Motor Show in Berlin. The new Chancellor Adolf Hitler expressed interest in the design and low price of the car, but eventually it was Ferdinand Porsche who receives the commission for a people’s car that cost less than 100 Reichsmark and was capable of 100 km/h (62 mph). The first models were completed in 1936, and in 1938, the building of Wolfsburg, the headquarters of Volkswagen began. The production of the Beetle continued after the war, and the last Volkswagen Beetle was made in July 2003.
The Maikäfer
Meanwhile, Ganz’s design had fulfilled Hitler’s criteria years before Porsche got the job, but Ganz was under considerable attack for his Jewish heritage. He was removed from his position as editor-in-chief, and in 1933, he was arrested by the Gestapo for alleged blackmail of another car company.
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The next year, Ganz left the country, and settled in Switzerland, but he was still hunted by the Gestapo, and the Swiss automobile industry was not welcoming him. In 1949, he left for France, then in 1951, he settled in Melbourne, Australia, where he died in 1967.
His story was forgotten until Paul Schilperoord discovered a short article on him in a 1980 issue of Automobile Quarterly. He began researching the life of this forgotten engineer, and he published his findings in a book called The Extraordinary Life of Josef Ganz: The Jewish Engineer Behind Hitler’s Volkswagen, restoring Ganz’s legacy to its proper place in the history of the automobile.
The engineers of Óbuda University have developed a white cane equipped with an electronic sensor to help facilitate the mobility of blind and visually impaired people, nlcafe.hu and uni-obuda.hu writes.
The ARIADNÉ guide system, developed by the engineers of Óbuda University, is intended to provide an effective solution for the mobility of blind and visually impaired people through 21st century technology.
The ARIADNÉ guide system consists of the traditional mobility tool, a white cane which is equipped with an electronic sensor. The cane interacts with a special guiding strip, the other part of the system, to help the user get to their destination independently. The cane relays information about one’s surroundings through sound and vibrations.
The special mobility tool is the same size and weight as a traditional white cane. The sound and vibration of the cane can be individually programmed. The cane can be wirelessly charged, and the entire length of the cane is covered in a reflective material.
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The corresponding guiding strip can be fixed to the pavement or integrated into the road, both indoors and outdoors.
The ARIADNÉ system has been successfully tested by the Hungarian Federation of the Blind and Partially Sighted, and the patenting process has begun.
