Five Recent Inventions That Aren’t as New as We All Thought

Elizabeth S. Anderson

Selfie sticks, touchscreen devices, e-cigarettes and many other things seem like fairly modern inventions.1. selfie stick: 自拍桿；touchscreen device: 觸屏設(shè)備；e-cigarette: 電子煙。Indeed, most of their “inventors” list them as newly invented and even go as far as seeking patents2. patent: 專利。. But the fact is, many of these “inventions” have already been in existence for quite some time. They may have earlier lookalikes that ended up not going into production or that went into limited production due to one reason or another.3. 它們?cè)缦瓤赡苡羞^相似品，但不是沒有投入生產(chǎn)就是由于這樣那樣的原因而限產(chǎn)。lookalike: 相似品。Some also made it into full production but were recalled4. recall: 召回。due to poor sales.

1.Selfie Sticks

The first selfie stick was invented long before the first handheld5. handheld: 手持的。mobile device was made. A selfie stick was definitely invented by the Japanese man Hiroshi Ueda in the 1980s. A photographer and worker at the Minolta camera company, Hiroshi made the selfie stick because he and his wife were unable to take pictures of themselves during a trip to Europe. (When he asked a boy to take pictures of them, the boy ran off with the camera.)Frustrated, he invented something that would allow him take a picture of himself: He called it the “extender stick.”6. frustrated: 感到受挫的，失望的；extender stick: 延伸桿。Since the iPhone really hadn’t been invented yet, a small camera was to be attached to one end of the stick. It also had a small mirror in its front so that users could see how they would look in the photograph. He patented the “extender stick” in 1983. The product was mass produced7. mass produce: 大批量生產(chǎn)。for sale but it was a commercial failure. The quality of the pictures was low. Besides, previous research showed that the women back then were embarrassed by the idea of taking pictures of themselves. The selfie stick was then reinvented by Wayne Fromm in the year 2000, three years before Hiroshi’s patent expired8. expire: 過期。. Fromm called his the “quik pod.” He believes he is the inventor of today’s selfie sticks and has even sued9. sue: 控告。several other selfie stick producers. When asked about Hiroshi’s selfie sticks, he said they were “prior art.”

話說太陽(yáng)底下無新事，眼下的一些時(shí)興的發(fā)明其實(shí)都能在歷史中找到相似或相近的前身。但因?yàn)闀r(shí)代和環(huán)境的種種限制，這些發(fā)明沒能流行起來，而埋沒在了光陰的塵埃中。時(shí)過境遷，讓我們翻看有哪些看似空前絕后，實(shí)則卷土重來的“新”發(fā)明吧。

2. Touchscreens

In 2007, Apple released the first iPhone: a full touchscreen phone, complete with its own virtual10. virtual: 虛擬的。keypad. To many, Apple had done something new,something never seen before. They had made the first touchscreen phone. But this was incorrect: Apple did not make the first touchscreen phone, nor was the touchscreen a new invention.

To start with, a year before the first iPhone was released, LG had introduced a full touchscreen phone.Even that was not the first, though. The world’s first touchscreen phone was IBM’s Simon, which was released in 1992. And touchscreen technology even predates11. predate: 在日期上早于……。the Simon. The first touchscreen device was a tablet12. tablet:（計(jì)算機(jī)的）輸入板，手寫板。made by E. A. Johnson in 1965 that was used by air traffic controllers until 1995. Bent Stumpe and Frank Beck made the first capacitive13. capacitive: 電容性的。touchscreen in the early ‘70s. Unlike Johnson’s tablet, it could not be pressed with the fingers. Instead, it required a stylus14. stylus: 觸控筆。. In 1971, Samuel Hurst developed the first resistive15. resistive: 電阻的。touchscreen, which he called the “elograph.” It responded to the fingers as well as a stylus. In 1985, HP invented the world’s first touchscreen computer, called the HP-150. In 1993, Apple also released its first touchscreen device—the Newton Personal Digital Assistant. The product was a flop16. flop: 徹底失敗。,recording low sales.

3. Wheel Skates17. wheel skate: 巨型輪滑鞋。

Wheel skates look somewhat like regular inline skates, except that the wheels are much larger, up to the size of bicycle tires.18. inline skate: 單排輪滑鞋；up to: 相當(dāng)于；tire:輪胎。They are seen as a cross between an inline skate, a ski, and a bike.19. cross: 雜交，混合；ski: 滑雪板。Recently,a company called Chariot20. chariot: 原指古代馬拉的兩輪戰(zhàn)車，這里用于品牌名。Skates said they had come up with something unique—the Chariot wheel skates. According to the company, wheel skates are“revolutionary21. revolutionary: 革命性的。new skating products.” Revolutionary?They do at least revolve22. revolve: （使）旋轉(zhuǎn)。. New? No. The first wheel skate was made more than 142 years ago.

It even featured in the March 19, 1870, issue ofScientific Americanmagazine.23. feature: v. 作為專題出現(xiàn)；issue: （期刊的）期，號(hào)。Made by Thomas Luders from Olney,Illinois, and called a “pedespeed,” the wheels then were much smaller, measuring around 36 centimeters (15 in) in diameter.24. measure around: 大小在……左右；in: 即inch，英寸；diameter: 直徑。Luders also said the skates could be used by anybody, irrespective of their physique.25. irrespective of: 無論；physique: 體格，體形。He himself was a large, heavy man, and he claimed he could use them for two straight26. straight: 連續(xù)的。hours without getting tired. Another version of wheel skates, appearing in 1923, had its tires on the inside of the foot rather than outside. (Other than the size of the wheels, the main improvement made by Chariot Skates is the small tire at the back of the bigger tire for increased stability.27. 除了輪子的尺寸，沙里奧輪滑鞋最大的改進(jìn)就是在大輪后面安了個(gè)小輪，以增加穩(wěn)定性。other than: 除了。)

4. E-Cigarettes

E-cigarettes first started becoming popular in 2012. They work by heating a nicotine fluid to mimic a real cigarette.28. nicotine: 尼古??；fluid: 液體；mimic: 模擬。Their invention is usually credited to Chinese pharmacist Hon Lik, who reportedly created it after he dreamed that he was drowning in a cloud of vapor.29. credit to: 將……歸功于；pharmacist: 藥劑師；drown:淹沒；vapor: 蒸汽，煙霧。His father had died of lung cancer caused by cigarettes. He himself was an unrepentant smoker who had unsuccessfully tried quitting by using a nicotine patch.30. unrepentant: 頑固不化的；quit: 戒斷；nicotine patch:尼古丁貼片。

The fact is, Hon Lik is not the first person to invent the e-cigarette. Way back in 1963, Herbert Gilbert made the world’s first device that could be used to inhale tobacco-flavored air.31. inhale: 吸入；tobaccoflavored: 煙草味的。In Gilbert’s original version, there was no form of combustion and it was free of nicotine.32. combustion: 燃燒，氧化；free of nicotine: 不含尼古丁的。He later designed a prototype33. prototype: 原型。that used a battery to create heat. He also used different flavors of water to create steam34. steam: 蒸汽。. He presented his prototypes to different chemical, pharmaceutical, and tobacco companies, but they simply turned down his prototypes.35. pharmaceutical: 制藥的；turn down: 拒絕。

5. Bladeless Fans36. bladeless fan: 無葉風(fēng)扇。

Simply put, bladeless fans are fans without blades. They work by sucking in air at their base and then blowing them out through several holes in their ring. The fan is reported to have been invented by James Dyson, who calls it the “Air Multiplier37. air multiplier: 空氣增倍機(jī)。.” Just like the flying jetpack,it earned a spot inTime’s list of notable inventions of 2009.38. flying jetpack: 飛行噴氣背包；earn a spot: 贏得一席，博得一個(gè)名額。And just like the jetpack, it was not the first of its kind. The first bladeless fan was actually patented in 1981 by a Japanese company called Tokyo Shiba Electric. Although Tokyo Shiba’s bladeless fan was never manufactured, James Dyson’s initial39. initial: 最初的。design of a bladeless fan design looked so similar to that of Tokyo Shiba Electric that the patent office refused to grant40. grant: 同意給予，準(zhǔn)予。him a patent.The patent granted to Tokyo Shiba had already expired, but the patent office still required something substantially different before it could grant a new patent to James Dyson.41Dyson’s patent manager, Gill Smith, did not deny the similarities between both bladeless fans but said the difference between them was the“technology.”