Novelty, Innovation and Invention

Novelty is the perceived quality of being new. The word “novelty” itself is novel to me because honestly, I have never encountered such word before. Novelty comes when we see something not seen or fresh to us. It brings surprise and excitement. I guess when I first watched the first Jurassic Park movie in the cinema, I happened to have this “novelty” feeling. Graphics of gigantic dinosaurs which seemed to be realistic enough impressed me till my eyes were wide-opened. That is how I put the word “novelty” here.

Innovation means modification of something that has been created into something better and more useful. In other words, it is upgrading an invention. Japanese people are known to be very innovative because they just love to modify inventions that have been made in European countries (especially cars). The Japanese engineers have their own engines for car racing and motorcycle grand prix. Somehow they manage to make their own brands and the brands become popular. For example, Sony came up with the first impressive CD-player which was incredibly popular back in 1980’s. There a lot of inventions that have been made and this has inspired the young generation to edit or to “recreate” them to be something even more futuristic and believable. Well, it was Sony again who invented Discman (disc walkman) which was a dream of every teenager in 1983. The image below shows the picture of the first Discman, D-50.

Creating something new based on pre-existing ideas which involve long thinking process and models that could be references or guidance. The fun thing about inventions is there are no rules to be followed. A failure is a new beginning of invention. Furthermore, Thomas Edison had failed thousands of times before he successfully created a working filament which gives out light. Then, there came the invention of light-bulbs which have been used by us from generation to generation. Just imagine what would be without Thomas Edison’s discovery? We would still be leaving with candles and firewood every night!

This is some simple invention (picture below taken from http://www.ezprezzo.com/crazypics/weird_inventions.html ) I would like to share with you guys. I find it funny and amusing. It’s weird and creative. In my opinion, this thing might be useful for patients in the hospital or for sick fellows who are having trouble of getting tissues (you know when we’re sick, we tend to get lazy).