13 March 2009

Trendables -- 6 products that can

-able, everyone's favorite "can-do" adjective suffix, is enjoying a revival. 20-some years since its heyday, we've found it stitched to no less than six modern product names, deriving for them a certain adroitness that a lonesome noun mightn't have provided. And two of these products, as it happens, have been demoed at TED.

1. Siftables: The cookie-sized computers with motion sensing, neighbor detection, graphical display, and wireless communication. (See David Merrill's demo of Siftables at TED2009.)

2. Inventables: A subscription service used by consumer product companies who want to create unique products. (Watch Keith Schact and Zach Kaplan show off products from the future.)

3. Instructables: A how-to and DIY community where people make and share inspiring, entertaining, and useful projects, recipes and hacks. (Watch Saul Griffith show hardware solutions to everyday problems.)

4. Mashable: Touted as the world's largest Web 2.0- and social networking-related news blog.

5. Reactable: An electronic music instrument with a slick, multi-touch interface.

6. Lunchables: Children's meal combinations, often called "the taste of elementary school" by the Gen Y cohort.

Give us more examples in the comments, if you are capable.

(Image: Mike Femia)

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