Handy to have ...

For fish fans, the days of rolling up their sleeves and scrubbing the sides of their fish tanks are long gone: they don’t have to reach deep inside…

The move away from plastic and toward paper seems to have arrived in the food industry. A frozen food manufacturer has invented paper packaging and…

In the future, elevator cabs may travel through buildings without ropes and cables – and not only up and down, but also sideways. The system is…

The history of Vorwerk shows how a carpet manufacturer can grow into a world-famous corporation. Its strategy for success: premium-quality products…

Is there a screw loose? With the clic system, there’s no need to ask that anymore: the furniture is assembled in just a few simple steps without the…

Goal or no goal? The camera-based GoalControl system makes it easier for referees to decide.

How can high-quality videos be made available everywhere? To answer this question, three Berlin-based researchers developed a video coding format that…

Cold beer at the touch of a button without electricity: the CoolKeg made sophisticated cooling technology party-ready. The product came onto the…

It was a breakthrough in speech recognition: the Verbmobil could automatically analyze and translate spoken dialog. It was developed in the 1990s by a…

In 1989, Klaus Krinner gave many families a wonderful gift: he invented the Christmas tree stand with single-wire technology. His company is still…

Physicists Peter Grünberg and Albert Fert discovered giant magnetoresistance (GMR). This was used to increase the capacity of hard drives as early as…

It revolutionized the music industry: the MP3 format. Scientists from the Fraunhofer Institute developed this format in the 1990s. Since then, it has…

Today, we make social arrangements, send congratulations, and have entire conversations using messenger services. In the 1980s, these mobile…

1981 saw the arrival of something special for music lovers: the first CD was presented to the public. The high-tech material Makrolon from Bayer…

Engineer Dieter Binninger wanted to revolutionize the way we tell the time. He developed the eternity light bulb for his “Berlin Clock” on…

In 1977, the company Sennheiser set a new standard in audio technology with its Unipolar 2000 headphones. The principle: a combination of open…

No summer would be complete without a pair of sunglasses. The fact that the accessory sits so lightly on our noses today is thanks to the work of…

Hundreds of thousands of years ago, humans cooked their food over open fires. Today, instead of fires, stoves are available in many variations – and…

Many people carry them around in their wallets every day: bank cards, health insurance cards, or customer loyalty cards. This form of universal data…

The company Henkel from Düsseldorf has produced a huge number of inventions. Besides Persil, these also include the Pritt Stick. More than 130 million…

In 1967, Wolfgang Hilberg invented the digitally coded transmission of time for radio- controlled clocks. 18 years later, people could wear this…

Buoyancy aids that are placed around the arms – “water wings” – are commonplace today. They were invented by businessman Bernhard Markwitz in the…

Today, black and white is at most a cinematic device used in movies. As late as the 1960s, German television viewers knew nothing else. Until Walter…

It was a consumer classic of the post-war period: the first pedal go-kart, or “Kettcar”, was built in 1961. Over 15 million have been sold to date.

It’s almost as well known as “Monopoly” and “Mensch ärgere dich nicht” – and not only because it shares the same first letter: in 1959, Werner…

What would a toolbox be without wall plugs? The first one came onto the market in 1958. It was invented by entrepreneur Artur Fischer.

Barbie has been a favorite in almost every child’s room for decades. The toy company Mattel presented her for the first time in New York in 1959. But…

Always in tune with the times

“An Mutti denken, Constructa schenken.” This was the slogan for the first German fully automatic washing machine and roughly translates as: “Think of…

The German soccer team’s victory at the 1954 World Cup is legendary. While the match is known as the “Miracle of Bern”, one person caused a sensation…

It’s hard to imagine day-to-day life today without food packaging. There is a rich history behind the handy cartons – for example the story of Günter…

In 1928, Fritz Pfleumer, an engineer from Dresden, developed the first magnetic tape for recording sound – laying the foundation for tape cassettes.

A vacuum between two containers – that sounds as simple as it is ingenious. The idea came to glass technician Reinhold Burger in the early 20^th…

Oskar Picht accomplished a great deal to improve the quality of life of blind and visually impaired people: he invented the braille writer.

How can food be preserved for longer? Rudolf Rempel had the answer: more than 125 years ago, the chemist developed an “apparatus for the independent…

Whether on a coat, handbag, or wallet: the small press stud makes many of our everyday movements easier. It was invented over 130 years ago by…

How can moving images be transmitted from one location to another? On a memorable winter’s evening in 1883, engineer Paul Nipkow had an ingenious idea…

Liesegang is a household name for many people in Düsseldorf. For decades, the company was synonymous with innovation and quality in projectors and…

In addition to many a fashion faux pas, the 1980s saw a whole host of useful innovations enter the market or revived: one example is woodchip…

Hardly any other German inventor has had so many “monuments” erected to him as Ernst Litfaß: in Berlin, he built the first pillar advertising events…

Matches can be found in every household. The chemist Rudolf Christian Böttger from Frankfurt invented the safe version in the mid-19^th century:…

Surfing the internet, sending e-mails, or using PC applications: all these are possible for blind people today. A milestone in the 1970s was the…

Turpentine oil, fuller’s earth, and lime – these components helped Justus Claproth to come up with an important invention in the 18th century: the…

Golf enthusiasts have introduced some hard-hitting technologies and materials to the course over many decades. A journey through the history of the…