- Elwood "Woody" Norris pointed a metal frequency
emitter at one of perhaps 30 people who had come to see his invention.
The emitter -- an aluminum square -- was hooked up by a wire to a CD player.
Norris switched on the CD player.
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- "There's no speaker, but when I point this pad at
you, you will hear the waterfall," said the 63-year-old Californian.
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- And one by one, each person in the audience did, and
smiled widely.
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- Norris' HyperSonic Sound system has won him an award
coveted by inventors -- the $500,000 annual Lemelson-MIT Prize. It works
by sending a focused beam of sound above the range of human hearing. When
it lands on you, it seems like sound is coming from inside your head.
-
- Norris said the uses for the technology could come in
handy -- in cars, in the airport or at home.
-
- "Imagine your wife wants to watch television and
you want to read a book, like the intellectual you are," he said to
the crowd. "Imagine you are a lifeguard or a coach and you want to
yell at someone, he'll be the only one to hear you."
-
- Norris holds 47 U.S. patents, including one for a digital
handheld recorder and another for a handsfree headset. He said the digital
recorder made him an inventor for life.
-
- "That sold for $5 million," Norris laughed.
"That really made me want to be an inventor."
-
- He demonstrated the sound system at the Oregon Museum
of Science and Industry, also called OMSI, on Thursday.
-
- Norris began tinkering as an inventor at a young age
-- taking apart the family radio and putting it back together again. He
said ideas come to him when he's driving around or talking with friends.
-
- "I don't know how I got to be an inventor, but I
guess some kids can play the piano, and I can invent."
-
- Norris will receive the Lemelson-MIT Prize at a ceremony
here on Friday.
-
- One of his most recent patents is for the AirScooter,
a personal flying machine designed for commuting. It reaches speeds up
to 55 mph and is light enough -- under 300 pounds -- to not require a license
to fly.
-
- The AirScooter was also on display at OMSI, although
Norris didn't fly it.
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- The machine has a single seat, a four-stroke engine and
is barely 10 feet tall. Its pontoons allow it to land on water. The machine's
fiberglass and aluminum construction keeps its weight down. Bike-style
handle bars move two helicopter blades, which spin in opposite directions.
-
- Norris' AirScooter was shown on "60 Minutes"
last Sunday. He said since the airing of the show, more than 7 million
people have visited the AirScooter's Web site.
-
- Norris said he and his crew have tested the AirScooter
for four years, and he couldn't have created the machine without a skilled
group of aeronautics engineers around him.
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- http://www.businessweek.com/ap/tech/
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