The Inventors Hall of Fame Honors the Greatest Living Innovators

Our everyday lives are bettered by visionary inventors, and we were reminded of that on May 2, 2012, when ten new inductees to the National Inventors Hall of Fame were honored by David Kappos, Unders Scretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office. The 40th annual induction ceremony took place at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the National Portrait Gallery, the site of the historic Patent Office where the Hall of Fame’s first inductee, Thomas Edison, received his patents.Most of the 2012 honorees were on hand, including Barbara Liskov, whose innovations in the organization of computer programming can be found in almost all modern programming languages; C. Kumar N. Patel, whose carbon dioxide laser developed while at Bell Labs is an essential component in the medical, industrial, and military arenas; and Gary Starkweather, who while with the Xerox PARC facility invented the laser printer. They were joined on stage by 21 previous inductees.Three honorees were inducted posthumously, including Mária Telkes, known as the “Sun Queen” for her pioneering work in solar energy; and Steve Jobs, whose influence spanned personal computing, film animation, consumer technology, and digital publishing.A list of all ten honorees and their accomplishments can be found on the USPTO web site.

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) will kick off its annual Independent Inventors Conference tomorrow a

Jennifer Hudson, Christina Aguilera and John Mayer will be among the presenters and performers at the 28th annual Rock and Rock Hall of Fame induction ceremony in April, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum announced Wednesday.

The Basketball Hall of Fame will shift its 2010 induction ceremony to August 13 in part because of the 1992 US Olympic gold medal Dream Team's likely induction, officials said Thursday.The ceremony has typically been staged in mid-September, but would conflict with the World Championships in Turkey this year and US NBA players from that squad would likely be among those on hand to honor the landmark 1992 lineup.

Eight-time Grand Slam singles champion Andre Agassi, among only six men to achieve a career Grand Slam, has been elected to the International Tennis Hall of Fame, officials said Thursday.Agassi's induction ceremony will be conducted July 9 at the Hall of Fame in Newport, Rhode Island, during the ATP Hall of Fame Championships grass-court event. He will be the only enshrinee in the recent player category.Former world number one Agassi announced the honor at Agassi Prep, the public charter school he founded in Las Vegas in 2001 for at-risk youth.

Linus would be pleased.

The Robot Hall of Fame needs help to select four robots for induction into the hall. The new robots will be inducted in a ceremony Oct. 23, when they will take their place alongside such notables as NASA’s Mars Sojourner, Honda’s ASIMO and Star Wars’ R2-D2 and C-3PO. The robot nominees [...]

The Internet Society today inducted the inaugural members of the Internet Hall of Fame. Present in the revered hall are 33 innovators, including one Albert Arnold Gore Jr.