Sir James Dyson, one of the true kings of innovation in industrial design, is at it again with yet another radical redesign in his vacuum cleaner technology, and he stopped by the ABC News studios to reflect upon his career and to address the breaking news regarding alleged corporate espionage at his company, at the instigation of a rival manufacturer.
Dyson confirmed to us that a lawsuit has been filed against German rival Bosch for allegedly stealing company secrets through a rogue Dyson engineer. The engineer is suspected of being paid through a shell company in exchange for Dyson's company secrets, specifically regarding patented motor technology. In the past decade, Dyson has settled patent lawsuits with rivals Dirt Devil and Hoover, and Sir Dyson confided to Bill that these type of situations were some of the lowest points of a long career.
When he first began building his own line of vacuum cleaners, Dyson's major issue was that the technology had remained stagnant for too long. After building thousands of prototypes he became famous for the "Dyson Ball," making vacuuming cool and hip, turning a utility into a show piece that fits perfectly next to your iPad and McIntosh amplifiers.
Never satisfied, Dyson came by to show off his newest attachment, the Tangle-Free Turbine. This new attachment takes on the notoriously pesky hair that gets caught in the bristled spinning cylinder at the base of the vacuum, forcing you to get on your hands and knees and clear the tangled mess by hand. To fix that unruly mess, the Tangle-Free Turbine replaces the standard bristled spinning cylinder with two counter-rotating discs that balls hair, creating clumps instead of tangled strands, and sucks them through the centrally located vacuum suction. This one product alone was the result of over 100 different prototypes, and several patents.