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¶ Transistor medical-recording devices. Soon to be available to doctors, they can be swallowed, will track down causes of a patient's stomach upset.
¶ A facsimile-mail system. To be tried by the Post Office for the first time next month, it may revolutionize mail delivery. In a test between Washington, D.C., Chicago and Battle Creek, Mich., letters will be opened automatically, their contents electronically scanned and transmitted in less than a second. At the terminal points, the letters will be reproduced photographically, put back into envelopes and delivered by special messenger.
¶ An electronic telephone exchange. Now being field-tested by Bell Labs in Morris, Ill., it handles calls 1,000 times faster than present equipment, commits to its electronic memory a list of numbers each customer frequently calls, provides private, two-digit numbers for each to save dialing time. Businessmen away from their offices can notify the electronic memory, and it will automatically switch all calls for them to their temporary numbers. ¶A computer communications net. Called the SABRE System, it is being built by International Business Machines for American Airlines. The computer will keep in simultaneous automatic touch with American ticket offices everywhere, enable them to provide up-to-the-second information about seating available on flights all over the U.S.
¶A language-translating computer. Built by IBM, it translates Russian into English, has a vocabulary of 55,000 words. Its first assignment: translating each day's Pravda for the Air Force. It works at a rate of 1,800 words per minute, turns out rough but readable English.
¶ A torpedo finder. Able to swim 2,000 ft. beneath the surface, it was built for the U.S. Navy by Vitro Laboratories, can be adapted for commercial use. The Solaris is an eerie, Jules Verne monster that probes the ocean floor with four 500-watt floodlights and a television eye. When it spots a lost torpedo or other wanted object, a giant crab's claw snaps out, hoists the catch back to the surface.
¶ A "pickle picker." Made by Chisholm-Ryder, it can harvest and sort nearly an acre of cucumbers in an hour.
¶ A tomato picker. Developed by the University of California and the Blackwelder Manufacturing Co., it enables one harvester and 13 other workers to do the work now done by 60 men. Like many another invention, it has already led to a further development: a new breed of tomatoes, with tougher skins to prevent damage from the machine and that ripen all at the same time. ¶"Cookies" for cows. International Harvester's hay pelletizer makes wafers from hay as it is mowed in the field. The wafers cut a farmer's loading and storage costs, lend themselves easily to automatic feeding in barns.
¶ A midget gas turbine engine for cars. Developed by the Williams Research Corp., the engine weighs only 50 Ibs., is a mere 10 in. thick and 19 in. long, yet produces 75 h.p. It will be field tested in Jeeps next month by the Army.
¶ An electric stair-climbing cart. The "Stair Cat" was introduced by General Electric for moving appliances and heavy equipment, hefts a 500-lb. load up or down stairs at the rate of 18 ft. per min., automatically brakes when the motor turns off.