100 TIME November 30/December 7, 2020
BEST INVENTIONS 2020
ARTIFICIAL
INTELLIGENCE
CLEARING THE
AIRWAVES
Krisp
As millions adjust to
remote work, unwanted
background noises—
yelling kids, roaring
lawn mowers, barking
dogs—have become
the scourge of online
meetings. Think of
Krisp as your mute
button for all that. The
noise- canceling app,
which costs $5 a month
if you pay annually and
is compatible with any
video conferencing
software, uses machine
learning to differentiate
between your voice
and background
sounds, fi ltering out
unwanted noises so your
colleagues only hear you.
— MADELEINE CARLISLE
WELLNESS
2020’S GO-TO
DATA SOURCE
Johns Hopkins
Corona virus
Resource Center
If you’ve ever consulted
a COVID-19 hot-spot map
or noted the infection
fi gures on the cable news
crawl, you may have
the experts at Johns
Hopkins University to
thank. Its Coronavirus
Resource Center is the
de facto clearing house
for pandemic stats.
The center’s data has
been downloaded
billions of times, helping
governments to decide
where to dispatch
resources and when to
reopen—and individuals
to suss out the safety of
hosting a socially distant
backyard barbecue.
—MARJORIE KORN
SUSTAINABILITY
THE FUTURE OF FARMING
FarmWise Titan FT-35
With its shunning of chemicals, organic
farming can seem like a low-tech pursuit.
But this weed-destroying robot, weigh-
ing in at about 3 tons, would like to
have a word about that. The FarmWise
Titan FT-35 is a driverless tractor that
uses machine learning and computer
vision, rather than herbicides, to eradi-
cate weeds from farmers’ fi elds. Travel-
ing along a conventional tractor’s path,
the machine identifi es both the planted
crop—broccoli, lettuce, caulifl ower and,
soon, tomatoes—and the weeds disturb-
ing its growth. In an instant, it reaches
for the weed within 1 cm of precision
and pulls it. Ten FT-35s are currently
deployed in California and Arizona, with
more to come in 2021. —JESSE WILLCONSUMER ELECTRONICS
BETTER BUDS
Nuheara IQbuds^2 MAX
Wireless earbuds are increasingly capable of
blocking the noise of the outside world while
you listen to some tunes. But when you can’t
hear the person right in front of you, it’d be
nice if they off ered a little help. The IQbuds^2
MAX ($319) are on the case. They deliver on the
audio front but also are the only wireless buds
that feature both active noise cancellation
and audio-processing technology capable of
isolating human conversations, tuning out
everything except the people or sounds you
want to hear. Not only do they make it easier to
hear your friends on the subway or at a noisy
café, they can also help stem the debilitating
eff ects of hearing loss—a condition that
aff ects more than 466 million people
worldwide. —PATRICK LUCAS AUSTIN