Bubble wrap was originally supposed to be sold as wallpaper. In 1957, engineers made a textured wallpaper by sealing two air-filled shower curtains together, but nobody wanted to buy it. Several years later they realized it would make great packing material, and now $400 million worth is sold annually. Source
There’s a 3D-printed sundial that lets light through at the right angles to produce a digital clock shadow, which displays the current time in 20-minute increments from 10:00 until 16:00.
Also, the necessary files can be downloaded from Thingiverse so you can 3D-print your own sundial, if you have the materials to do so.
These rare color photos of Paris were taken over 100 years ago.
In 1909, a wealthy French banker named Albert Kahn wanted to document the world using a new color photo process called Autochrome Lumière, so he commissioned 4 photographers to take their cameras all over the world.
One of the cities they documented was Paris.
Starting in 1914, Kahn’s photographers, Leon Gimpel, Stephane Passet, Georges Chevalier and Auguste Leon, documented life in Paris using color filters made from dyed potato starch grains.
They made these color photos over a century ago (with a small amount of color enhancing done on the original shots).
In addition to the many shots of Paris, around 72,000 Autochromes from around the globe were created through Kahn’s project.
