As made interactively evident by a retro-futuristic Google doodle, Tuesday would have been the 183rd birthday of Jules Verne. Had he lived to see 2011, the French science fiction writer also would have seen many of his fanciful inventions made real—more or less.

Nautilus Electric Submarine

Electric Submarines

In perhaps his most famous novel, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea,Verne’s Captain Nemo travels the world’s oceans in a giant electric submarine, the Nautilus—the inspiration for the portholed Jules Verne Google doodle.

Aside from its organ, formal dining room, and other luxuries, the Nautilus isn’t all that different from some modern subs, such as the circa-1964, three-passengerAlvin (pictured), which is powered by lead-acid batteries.

Like Alvin, the Nautilus was fully powered by electricity, “which at that time had a kind of magical aura,” said Rosalind Williams, a historian of technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

In the book Captain Nemo describes electricity as “a powerful agent, obedient, rapid, easy, which conforms to every use, and reigns supreme on board my vessel.”

Television News Cats

Newscasts

In an 1889 article, “In the Year 2889,” Jules Verne described an alternative to newspapers: “Instead of being printed, the Earth Chronicle is every morning spoken to subscribers, who, from interesting conversations with reporters, statesmen and scientists, learn the news of the day.”

The first newscast didn’t happen until 1920, according to the Associated Press—nearly 30 years after Verne imagined it. The first network-television newscast would have to wait another 28 years, according to CBS News. By 1974 millions were able to watch U.S. President Richard Nixon resign on TV (pictured).

Solar Sail Light Propulsion

Solar Sails

In his 1865 science fiction classic, From the Earth to the Moon, Jules Verne speculated about light-propelled spacecraft. Today, the technology has a name: solar sails, one of which is pictured here in an artist’s concept for NASA‘s orbiting NanoSail-D. (See “Solar Sail Hybrid Launches Today From Japan.”)

Today, Verne is widely regarded as a prophetic writer who imagined many modern technologies decades before their times.

“He predicted a lot of things that have happened, but that’s because he was reading a lot and talking with people and he knew what was going on in the world around him, so why should we be surprised?” MIT’s Williams said.

“It wasn’t magic. He was just paying attention to things.”

Spacecraft

Lunar Modules

Jules Verne also wrote about what are today called lunar modules, such as the cone-shaped crew capsule atop this NASA rocket. In From the Earth to the Moon, he described “projectiles” that could be used to carry passengers to the Moon.

Verne imagined “a big gun going off, and you get enough force to break through gravity,” MIT’s Williams said.

Verne generally took pains to explain how his imagined inventions worked. “He’s not like H.G. Wells, who makes up a substance that takes you to the moon,” Williams said. Verne’s “ideas about how you do things were always grounded in material realities.”

Sky Advertising - Skywriting

Skywriting

Jules Verne was a keen observer of the world around him, and one of the fields he paid attention to was advertising. In “In the Year 2889,” Verne described “atmospheric advertisements”—similar to skywriting (pictured).

“Everyone has noticed those enormous advertisements reflected from the clouds,” Verne wrote, “so large they may be seen by the populations of whole cities or even entire countries.”

Despite his fascination with gadgets and machines, Verne had no engineering training, MIT’s Williams said.

He had a background in law “and worked in the theater,” she said. “And he had friends who were, for example, interested in heavier-than-air flight. So he hung out with people who were interested in science and inventions and exploration.”

Video Conferencing

Videoconferencing

In “In the Year 2889″ Jules Verne describes the “phonotelephote”—a forerunner to today’s videoconferencing technologies, such as the setup above, used to connect distant family members in North and South Korea in 2005.

The phonotelephote allowed “the transmission of images by means of sensitive mirrors connected by wires,” Verne wrote.

Verne’s phonotelephote is one of the earliest—if not the earliest—reference to a videophone in fiction, according to Technovelgy.com, a website that catalogs inventions and ideas from science fiction.

Verne’s imagination was also heavily influenced by scientific and technical journals, MIT’s William said.

“He read voraciously,” she said. “He went to the men’s club where all these journals were and he took notes. So he was aware of a submarine that was being tried out in the North Sea, for example.”

Taser

Taser

Jules Verne’s favorite topic of speculation was the vehicle, but he also wrote about weapons that didn’t yet exist. For example, in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, he described a gun that delivers a strong electric jolt, much like a Taser “electronic control device” (pictured).

Of his device, Verne wrote: “The balls sent by this gun are not ordinary balls, but little cases of glass. These glass cases are covered with a case of steel, and weighted with a pellet of lead; they are real Leyden bottles”—18th-century devices used to store static electricity—”into which the electricity is forced to a very high tension. With the slightest shock they are discharged, and the animal, however strong it may be, falls dead.”

Verne didn’t portray all his inventions as beneficial. “It is a mistake to think he is presenting all these gee-whiz gadgets as something desirable,” MIT’s Williams said.

“Verne is all too keenly aware of the military and policing potential of new inventions, and highly distrustful of contemporary societies to use them wisely and justly.”

Splash Landing - Splashdown Spacecraft

Splashdown Spaceship

In From the Earth to the Moon, Verne imagined a spacecraft landing in the ocean and floating—just like this Mercury capsule.

There were other 19th-century French authors who weaved current technologies into their works, but Verne is remembered today because he also happened to be a great storyteller, MIT’s Williams said.

“He worked 20 years in a theater,” she said. “His characters are simple and they do neat things … [Verne's] genius is combining deep story lines with up-to-date things and this great excitement about science and invention.”

‘Garage inventors’ is a term used to describe individuals or groups of inventors that create independently. They are not on a salary or salary/incentive basis, paid by their companies to invent; they work alone, on their own or in small groups, generally in someone’s garage or other part of the home. Many of the 2010 Popular Science invention winners actually did report having worked in their garages – literally. Popular Science recognizes the accomplishments of these independent inventors yearly in the June issue of its magazine.  Here are the 10 winning inventions…

1. OneBreath: An Inexpensive Portable Ventilator

Inspired by the need to help more patients in a crisis situation, such as a pandemic, postdoc fellow at Stanford University, Matthey Callaghan developed a no-frills ventilator that runs on a 12 volt battery that works for up to 12 hours and can be easily transported. 

Because hospital ventilators typically cost from $3,000 to $40,000, hospitals generally would not have enough ventilators for patients who need them in a pandemic.  Callahan and a few fellow students took on the ventilator project so that hospitals would be prepared… just in case. Their device uses a $10 pressure sensor like one you would find in a blood pressure monitor.  It pumps air into the chest through the mouth and a sensor monitors how much air is in the lungs.  Sensor data is fed into a software program to calculate the data, letting the ventilator know when the patient needs air again.

OneBreath portable ventilator system with inventor Matthew Callaghan

2.  KOR-fx: Ultra Sensation Gaming Device

A visiting physics professor at Rowan University, Shahriar S. Afshar is living in campus housing, which makes him subject to the bass vibrations from surrounding gamers’ rooms.  The interference made it pretty hard for Afshar to get his work done.  An inventor since childhood, Afshar invented the KOR-fx as self protection.

The KOR-fx is a device that connects to gaming consoles, PCs, or music players.  It sits around the shoulders, and the two transducers that lie on one’s chest  translate stereo sound into stereo vibrations.  That way, gamers can feel complete immersion in their games without involving others who are not playing.  “We can induce the sensation of rain, wind, weight shift, even G-forces,” he said.  His company, Immerz, is in talks with several studios to add these effects to films.

KOR-fx shown by inventor Shahriar S. Afshar

3. SmartSight: A Third Eye For Assault Rifles

After 10 years and many prototypes, inventor (and perfectionist) Matthew Hagerty finally is close to what he wanted his invention, the SmartSight, to be: a third eye for soldiers that enable them to see around corners and even behind their backs without putting themselves in the line of fire.  SmartSight’s latest design includes a 1.5 pound video camera positioned under the end of an assault rifle, a tiny computer that receives the video transmission attached to a soldier’s vest,  and a tiny display monitor worn on a soldier’s protective glasses that receives video images in real time from the computer.

The whole device weighs only three pounds, and though Hagerty says he would like to make the device even lighter, his SmartSight invention, as it is, can save thousands of soldiers’ lives from ambushes.  Just think about being able to point and shoot a weapon at a target without even physically facing it. 

SmartSight outfitted rifle, inventor Matthew Hagerty

4.  EverTune: Guitar Tuning Revolutionized

Guitar players and their audiences are in for a shock.  Cosmos Lyles and Paul Dowd have invented a guitar tuner you only tune once.  Right.  Not in the middle of a song, not between songs, not between sets.  Just once.  EverTune, the pair’s invention, is a bridge that keeps your strings in place by the action of six springs and levers that keep the strings’ tension, even if your tuning pegs loosen or tighten accidentally.

Lyles and Dowd are in talks with guitar makers to embed EverTune in new guitars, but EverTunes will be made separately to fit many older guitars. I’m just wondering what guitarists will do to buy some extra time between sets now… drink some more water, I suppose.

EverTune, inventors Cosmos Lyles and Paul Dowd

5.  SoundBite: Non-Surgical Bone Conduction Hearing Aid For One-Sided Deafness

Hearing aids amplify external sounds for those that have some residual hearing. But when the cochlea (the auditory portion of the inner ear) doesn’t function, hearing aids don’t do any good.  For single-sided cochlea-involved deafness, there is a transplantable titanium device implanted to the base of the skull nicknamed BAHA.  But Amir Abolfathi, former Invisalign vice president, came up with a new idea while sitting in traffic one day. (That’s when inventors get their best ideas!)

Knowing that teeth are excellent sound conductors to bone, he thought why not create a bone conduction aid from the mouth.  With the help of an otolaryngologist, Abolfathi developed the SoundBite, an acrylic tooth insert (a custom-molded retainer) with a receiver that picks up sound from an in-ear microphone and then transmits the sound from the teeth to the bone up the jawline to the cochlea.  

In clinical trials, typical reports from patients in tests if the device were that the SoundBite restored 80 to 100 percent of their hearing.

SoundBite invented by Amir Abolfathi

6.  Groasis Waterboxx:  A Biomimetic Planter

In his past life as a flower exporter, Pieter Hoff often oversaw the evening activities of his lilies. He noticed that the plants collected condensation on their leaves and the water droplets were sucked in by the leaves as they cooled. Mimicking nature’s efficient watering system, Hoff developed a planter that could capture water in the same manner to foster sapling trees even in harsh conditions.

The Groasis Waterboxx is designed as a plant incubator, which cools faster than the night air, allowing water to condense and flow into it along with rainwater to keep the plant and its roots hydrated and protected. Hoff’s tests of the Waterboxx in the Sahara have been quite successful; after one year of growing saplings in the desert, 88 percent of the trees he planted had green leaves, while 90 percent of those planted in the local method died from the scorching sun.  Check out groasis.com and help test these Waterboxxes!

Groasis Waterboxx, inventor Pieter Hoff

7.  Zoggles: Anti-Fog Device

The device you see on Don Skomsky in the above photo is a Zoggles, but Zoggles is actually a whole technology that Skomsky and Valerie Palfy invented to keep fog from forming on lenses and windows.  The pair created a device with a humidity sensor and a temperature sensor that would stay colder than, say, a windshield, so they would sense when fog was coming and would turn on an automobile’s defroster.

But Skomsky was able to use an obscure formula to predict when fog would form based on the temperature and humidity, so that the bulky controls could all fit on a chip.  The Zoggles now operate with that chip, which calculates when the lens needs to be heated and activates a heater that shuts off when it is no longer needed.  Palfy and Skomsky are planning to license their technology to manufacturers of motorcycle helmets, windshields, scuba masks, and military gear.

Zoggle inventors Don A Skomsky and Valerie Palfy

8.  Mini Infuser: Foolproof Programmable, Disposable Infusion Drug Pump

Mark Banister wasn’t on his way to developing the first programmable infusion drug pump, but while investigating another idea, the infusion pump idea grabbed him. After working with an incubator program at the Arizona Center for Innovation, he was able to develop this drug pump in a way that could save hospitals money and make patients feel a whole lot more secure.

The Mini Infuser is the only disposable drug pump that can be programmed to dispense drugs continuously.  Taped to the patient’s chest, a microprocessor inside the pump sends dosage information to the polymer that Bannister developed to deliver the correct dosages.  Upon receipt of dosage information, this special polymer will expand and displace the proper dosage from the reservoir within the pump where the drugs are stored.

Mini Infuser invented by Mark Banister

9.  ECO-Auger: Fish-Saving Tidal Energy Turbine

Windmill turbines that convert tidal energy into electricity are costly and involve permanent installations that may harm marine life.  W. Scott Anderson, an industrial engineer, invented a simpler, less invasive tidal energy converter that’s less costly and more marine-friendly.  It uses an auger, a spiral-shaped device that has tapered ends, so as not to harm fish.  When the current spins the auger, it induces a hydraulic pump in the nosecone of the device to pump high pressure oil that turns a generator outside of the water.

Though Anderson had made several small prototypes of the ECO-auger to test function and safety around fish, he has hand-crafted his first large prototype that has a two-foot diameter and a polyurethane/ fiberglass auger.  In a test, Anderson said it captured 14 percent of the water’s energy, which is not as much as the windmill turbines, but Anderson says the percentage will go up as the diameter of the augers increase.  He is sure that ultimately the ECO-Auger will be more cost effective and just as productive as the windmill turbine.

ECO-Auger, invented by W. Scott Anderson

10.  RAD Technology: A Drag-Ready Snowmobile

Shawn Watling, a self-taught engineer, has created the first rear-drive, adjustable rear suspension snowmobile that is faster, safer, and more efficient than the snowmobiles produced today.   Snowmobile racing since he was only 9 months old (presumably as a passenger), the 35 year old Watling decided to put together his own snowmobile out of a scrapped ATV, a 130 horsepower snowmobile motor and transmission to drag race on his local drag strip.

The ‘Frankenstein’ was fast, and a dynamometer test revealed that 85 percent of its engine power was delivered to the ground, while a typical snowmobile only hit about 55 percent.   This result led him to discover that it was the rear suspension on front drive manufactured snowmobiles that increased rolling resistance and prevented adequate track tension.

Since Frankenstein, Watling’s rear-drive prototypes have been numerous, but five years later he has made corrections in everything that slows a snowmobile down, and his RAD (rear-axle-drive) Technology has also produced a safer snowmobile that’s more fuel efficient.

RAD Technology, invented by Shawn Watling