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Dyson's 400-MPH Hand Dryer

by Tom Samiljan on June 26, 2007 at 05:17 PM



You may not have heard of James Dyson, but you've probably heard of or seen his iconic yellow vacuum cleaners. The 60-year old-founder and chairman of Dyson may have revolutionized vacuum cleaners with the innovative no-loss-of-suction design DC01 and DC15 models, but now he's turning his energies towards...public restroom hand dryers?

That's right, Dyson today debuted the Dyson Airblade, a sleek hand dryer that blows 400 miles-per-hour's worth of air through a paper thin opening, creating a blade-like strip of air (hence the name "Airblade"). This technique literally scrapes water off your hands and dries them in as little as ten seconds, which uses up less energy than most hand dryers and paper towels. We tried it out earlier – it works (without drying our hands since the air isn't too hot).

But this is all a roundabout way of introducing our two-minute interview with the inventor of high-tech doodads for the household. Here, Dyson talks about his new invention, gadgets that could use makeovers, and whether or not he plans to buy an iPhone.


What made you turn to hand dryers? These look just like the ones they have in Japan.

They haven't got these in Japan. They're the same shape as the ones in Japan, but ours are different. We were developing air blades for something else, and just put our hands over them one day and saw the water completely disappear. The next step was to develop a small and powerful enough motor to power such high pressure. Most hand dryers don't work, in my opinion.

You reinvented the vacuum cleaner, the washing machine, and now, the hand dryer. What other household item needs a makeover?

I think they all could. I love looking at objects and finding things that don't work properly or irritate us or our customers and try to solve those problem. We're working on some things I can't talk about right now.

Name one thing that drives you the most crazy about a gadget you own?

I think the whole business of how to use gadgets and and how to set them up is awful, since everybody uses a different vernacular. I find it very frustrating that you can't just go up to most gadgets and just use them.

Are you getting an iPhone?

I live in England, where we won't have them. So not at the moment.

You're stranded on a desert island. What gadget do you bring?

It would have to be a propeller. I always thought the propeller was a pretty great invention. Before that, you had paddlewheels, but the propeller enables all kinds of vehicles -- airplanes, boats, ships, even jets – that make the modern world what it is today.

So you'd take care of the motor on this desert island?

Oh yes, as long as I had a propeller, I could figure out the rest.

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Tags: breaking+news, Dyson, Hand Dryers, HandDryers, top

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