What’s New? No-Tie Ties, Quiet Waking

David Cecil offered an irresistible guarantee from his booth at the world’s largest invention convention.

“You’ll never have to tie your tie again,” he said.

To demonstrate, Cecil tugged at the knot in his silk tie as if to loosen it. Instead of one end of the tie slipping out of the knot, the tie zipped open.

“Once you start wearing one, you’ll never go back to tying a tie. It’s the perfect tie-less tie,” said Cecil, who represents Zippertie Enterprises, a Pittsburgh company marketing the tie for the inventor, an anonymous Midwesterner.

Cecil pulled again on his tie, this time on the short end, and the zipper hidden in the knot closed up.

“A perfect double-Windsor knot!” he said.

Cecil and hundreds of other promoters and inventors set up shop at the Monroeville Expo Mart, near Pittsburgh, for the Invention-New Product Exposition.

Among the other items displayed were a portable fire escape that can be anchored inside a window, a trap designed to lure fleas off carpet and a device to repel mosquitoes with sound waves.

The three-day exhibition also featured the unveiling of a water-powered engine designed by Yoshiro Nakamatsu, known as the “Edison of Japan” since he invented the floppy disc for computers and the digital wristwatch.

Nakamatsu said the nonpolluting engine, called Enerex, runs on tap water alone and can generate three times the power of a standard gasoline engine.

“It will generate electricity for any purpose,” he said. “Petroleum will exhaust in 100 years.” He said he will modify the engine and build a special vehicle to be powered by it.

Nakamatsu also showed some of his other inventions, including “brain food,” which he said contains “good elements” to encourage clear thinking. The snack food, which tastes something like seaweed, is sold in Japan.

Nakamatsu, 62, said that listening to Beethoven and swimming have helped him maintain the creativity that has led to more than 2,000 patents in the United States and Japan.

“My best place to create inventions is under the water,” he said. “So I swim every day.”