The newly released TIME Best Inventions of 2024 was a lovely diversion today and I probably (definitely!) spent way too long digging into the many different products and ideas on the list. From there, I selected eight that really stood out to me in particular and they are below. The full list is worth a read.
Diaa – A Ukrainian marriage app that allows couples who are physically separated by Russia’s invasion of the country to propose and get married via video call. It’s simple, necessary and an absolute tragedy that it even needs to exist in the first place.
Toi Labs TrueLoo – This AI powered toilet seat optically scans stool and urine samples for signs of health problems. Probably overkill for your home, but this is already rolled out in 50 senior living facilities and it’s easy to imagine the potential life-saving benefits there.
Yondr Pouch – It’s hard to think of a company mission more urgently needed than Yondr, which promotes moments of disconnection by locking your device inside a pouch. You may have experienced Yondr at a concert or show in the past, but the fastest growing market for Yondr are schools–a perfect use case for this clever and necessary product.
FinaMill Spice Grinder – If you love fresh ground spices but find them hard to have available and buying lots of grinders is wasteful, this is the ideal solution. The FinaMill has interchangeable pods so you can keep several with different spices and just grind them when needed. The ultimate adulting product or gift for the aspiring gourmand.
Literally Cotton – Aside from the exceedingly clever brand name, the premise of this company is perfectly futuristic: lab-grown cotton. If they can make it work at scale, the idea that we can now fabricate instead of grow cotton could transform entire industries.
Technicolor Dream Pen – This pen is actual magic. You can scan any color on any item and the pen will remix to give you an exact match. I desperately want this pen and I am pretty sure I have exactly zero logical reasons to use it and that I’ll tire of it immediately. The ultimate impulse buy.
Niche Direct Admissions – The colleges come to you. That’s the promise of this beautiful example of flip thinking – a platform where students can put in their details, scores and background and then let colleges proactively admit them. It’s not only a great way to boost the confidence of the aspiring college-bound teen, it also helps get students to consider schools that could be a great fit but not yet on their radar.
Rebind Book Club – While this idea is probably quite clunky in practice (I haven’t had a chance to try it yet), I love the vision behind it. The platform uses AI to let you have deep intellectual conversations about a classic book with someone notable. It’s the sort of conversation that’s hard to come by in real life and perhaps ideal for a simulation … if it’s not uncanny of course.
