Five great inventions that changed the world

The History Hour

BBC

History, Society & Culture, Personal Journals

4.4 • 879 Ratings

🗓️ 14 July 2023

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Max Pearson presents a selection of this week’s Witness History stories.

In 1999, Aibo: the world's first robot dog, hit the shops in Japan and sold out in just 20 minutes.

We hear from Toshitada Doi who spent six years on the project when he worked at Sony. Plus we hear from Dr Ella Haig about the development of artificial intelligence.

Japanese software developer Shigetaka Kurita created the first emoji in 1999.

Valerie Hunter Gordon, from England, invented disposable nappies in 1947 after the birth of her third child. We hear from Valerie’s son, Nigel Hunter Gordon.

Hungarian journalist László Bíró was sick of smudging the ink from his fountain pen and so he invented the ballpoint pen in 1938.

Finally, a Hungarian architect Ernő Rubik invented what's known as the Rubik's Cube.

Contributors:

Toshitada Doi on developing Aibo: The world's first robot dog Dr Ella Haig, Reader in Artificial Intelligence, in the School of Computing at the University of Portsmouth in the UK Japanese software developer Shigetaka Kurita, who created the first emoji Nigel Hunter Gordon, the son of Valerie Hunter Gordon, on disposable nappies Hungarian journalist László Bíró, the inventor of the ballpoint pen Hungarian architect Ernő Rubik, the inventor of the Rubik's Cube

(Photo: The original Aibo. Credit: Jun Sato/WireImage via Getty Images)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Who is your pick for the all-time greatest African midfielder?
0:03.5	He's the most naturally talented player that I played with.
0:05.8	See if your choice made the list on Match of the Day Africa Top 10 from the BBC World Service.
0:10.5	Find it wherever you get your BBC podcast. Service. our podcast from the BBC World Service with me Max Pearson the past brought to life
0:24.1	by those who were there this week an inventions special we hear from a Japanese
0:29.2	software developer who created the first emojies I'm glad that I created the first emojies. I'm glad that I created what I wanted to create,
0:37.0	but I never imagined people all around the world
0:40.0	would be using them.
0:41.0	The disposable nappies remembered by the inventor's son.
0:45.0	She believed it was ridiculous in that day and age that something quite so old fashion should be going on and so she really felt that something should be done about it
0:56.2	Plus mr. Bido and his ballpoint pen
0:59.4	ideal for chewing ideal for writing it's a shaft of transparent plastic and with the characteristic
1:07.5	durable cap. And the fiendish Erno Rubik of the Rubik's Cube fame.
1:13.0	I was interested about to create something that is mobile, simple, and contains some kind of task.
1:22.8	That's all coming up later in the podcast, but we're going to begin with
1:25.8	Iboe, the world's first robot dog.
1:28.4	It first shuttled its way into Japanese shops in 1999.
1:32.2	Rina Stanton Sharma has been looking at the Iboe story. We launched with a test sale of 3,000 items and this sold out in 20 minutes so I was really pleased with that.
1:51.0	It was popular worldwide and featured in many international magazines and newspapers and I think that was because it was the first ever real autonomous robot product in the world to be put on general sale.
2:06.4	That's Toshitadadoy, a former senior vice president of Sony who spent six years developing Eibol the robotic dog.
2:17.0	Eibol could bark, walk, wag its tail, and play with a ball.
2:27.0	But he also came with a hefty price tag of $2,500,
	...

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