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The Evolution of the Microfiche and the Modern Alternative – Microfiche Conversion

Microfiche, whilst being for a long time the industry standard for storing a bulk amount of larger scale documents such as drawings and blueprints, have been obsolete for a while now. Despite this, they have kept a certain fondness amongst many who have used them for years and years and even with relative newcomers. This might be something to do with the retro value of them or the fact that you’re actually looking at something that innovated by making something considerably smaller when things were very big indeed.

To this day, microfiche are still widely used and, as such, are still a perfectly viable storage method as they hold out pretty well in terms of storage and usability, though they do lack some of the modern upsides that we have become accustomed to. The problem that lies with the humble microfiche is that they can’t easily be shared among other people, they can’t be printed as such and it’s becoming increasingly difficult to view them. The latter point is due to the vast majority of people moving away from the microfiche and onto more modern alternatives such as digital file formats with which you can do pretty much whatever you like with the fiche images.  This means that the machines have become niche items that are increasingly hard to find, operate, or even rent, never mind the cost of finding parts for older machines, and as such the prices rise considerably and you can face spending up to £15,000 on a microfiche reader for a particularly good one. The alternative is microfiche conversion to digital. I’m sure a lot of the purists are not fans of the idea of this, but the fact is that progress and moving forward is going to catch up with the standard microfiche reader sooner rather than later even more so than it already has. Microfiche readers are, to be frank, obsolete, and have been for quite some time.

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Industrial Design for New Inventions

So you’ve got a great new invention that’s going to change the world and/or make you incredibly rich? The question now is what do you do with that great idea and how do you take it from an abstract concept floating around inside your skull into something that you can sell to others on a large scale and that will change the world for the better?

Well this will partly depend on your invention, and if you’ve come up with a new piece of software for instance then you will not really need any manufacturing and can rather just roll the idea out yourself and see if it takes off. It worked for Mark Zuckerberg, and it can work for you.

However for most of us our great ideas are not software inventions, but rather practical things that can really help us around the house. Things like chair designs or new tools that fulfill a need that’s there. These Eureka moments come at times when we find ourselves trying to do something and struggling more than necessary. Wouldn’t it be a lot easier ‘if’ we think – and that’s when we have the great idea. It might be a new type of packaging that keeps food fresher while being easy to use for the consumer, or it might be a new type of game that families can play together.

Throughout history there have been countless instances of these Eureka moments and they have very much shaped the way society is today. Every time you use a screwdriver, drink out of a cup, lean at a desk, play with a power ball gyroscope, walk on stilts, or sweep with an extra long broom… you are using someone else’s invention. Did you know that the Hoover vacuum cleaner was invented by none other than President Hoover? Likewise perhaps even more surprisingly the cat flap was invented by Isaac Newton!

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