Steve Jobs, Apple’s visionary co-founder, passed away yesterday, and the web is filled with an astounding outpouring of respect and gratitude for his work.  It’s a testament to the impact personal technology – mass-produced consumer products – can have on people’s lives.

At The Henry Ford, we document not only the work of innovators, but the ways people use technology in their everyday lives.  We collect artifacts that by their physicality and tangibility, their heft and their look, connect visitors to history and the lives of the people who used them. The Apple products in our collection – including an Apple IIe, a Lisa, a Macintosh, an iMac, an iPod and an iPhone – were used by ordinary people to write, teach, do business, play games, listen to music and connect to each other.  Jobs’ product genius was in making those activities easy, transparent and fun – and in making the products highly desirable.

An Apple iMac, on display in the Your Place In Time exhibit inside Henry Ford Museum.

In the early 1980s, with Jobs at Apple’s helm, the company popularized the mouse and “graphic user interface” – the cheerful icons and desktop and folder metaphors that we still use in everyday computing.  These innovations made computing accessible to everybody, not only people who could code. Over at our OnInnovation site, Steve Wozniak, Apple’s brilliant engineer co-founder, talks about how making computing fun and easy was the company’s goal from the beginning.

Jobs famously described the company as located at the intersection of technology and the liberal arts. He infused a respect for creativity, intelligence and design into the company’s products – integrating color graphics quite early, for instance, and making one of his own passions, music, the key to a new kind of product, the digital music player.

The products Apple made under Jobs were never cheap.  They were aspirational consumer goods that promised to make your life better, to make you a cool nonconformist, to make you “think different.”  Did they? Maybe and maybe not, but Jobs’ legacy reminds us that our tools can change not only the way we live our lives, but the way we think about ourselves.

Suzanne Fischer is The Henry Ford’s curator of technology.

In case you haven’t heard, Maker Faire Detroit is back! Close to 350 makers are heading to The Henry Ford to show their  robots, race cars, flame throwers, animations, food and crafts.

80 percent of makers are new this year – that means there will be hundreds of inventions will be making their Maker Faire debut! First time makers include I3 Detroit’s John Sugg and his Atari 2600 turned synthesizer keyboard; and the Girl Scouts from Birmingham who turn everyday items and trash into neckties, bracelets and sunglasses. Also while you stroll through the fair, be sure to look for Philip Robert’s creation; Robbie the Robot. Robbie is a 5-foot-tall roaming robot complete with a webcam for streaming audio and video of scenes throughout the fair! What a cool way to see more of the sights of Maker Faire!

What would Maker Faire be without its veteran favorite attractions? Some acts returning this year include: the Coke and Mentos guys, The LifeSize Mousetrap, the i3 Detroit Hackerspace, and Handmade Detroit.

4 days until Maker Faire officially begins! If you haven’t purchased your tickets – look here. We cannot wait to see you at the Faire this weekend. What maker are you most excited about seeing this year?

Looking for a different way to experience Black History Month? Take a walk through history with us!

As part of this year’s new programming for Celebrate Black History!, on select days each week in February you can take a free guided tour through Henry Ford Museum to learn about different types of innovations and the unique challenges that African Americans have faced in realizing those innovations, both social and technological.

You’ll learn about the accomplishments of some well-known historical figures and perhaps ones you’re less familiar with, beginning with a Detroit-area innovator – Elijah McCoy, the son of former slaves who escaped to Canada via the Underground Railroad.

Raised and educated as a free black man, McCoy saw a need for better oil lubrication for steam locomotives – so he worked to innovate and improve the existing designs for an automatic lubricator. One of his McCoy Lubricators is now on display inside Henry Ford Museum, behind the Henry’s Assembly Line activity near the Currier Shoe Shop.

From there, your presenter will lead you to other artifacts that help tell the stories of such African-American leaders as Frederick Douglass, Rosa Parks, Lewis Latimer and, of course, George Washington Carver.

The African-American Innovators Tour is offered Wednesday through Sunday, departing from our cornerstone at the center of Henry Ford Museum at 10 a.m., 11 a.m., 1 p.m., 2 p.m. and 3 p.m.

Join us for this new tour, then tell us: What surprised you most about an African-American innovator’s history? How or where do you see their work continuing today?

Have you heard? We’re getting a new addition to Henry Ford Museum – the Edison2 Very Light Car, winner of the Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE!

This uniquely-designed car won the grueling X PRIZE Mainstream Class, which required cars to seat four passengers, go at least 200 miles on a tank or charge and meet stringent performance, handling and emissions standards, all while achieving over 100 MPGe (phew!).

Media have a chance to see the car this week during the North American International Auto Show’s media preview days, but you can get an up-close look at this Edison2 vehicle soon at Henry Ford Museum! We’ll have more details to share soon.

Would you consider driving a car like the Edison2 Very Light Car? How do you think these types of cars would change the way the world drives?

Maker Faire is a two-day, family-friendly event that celebrates the Do-It-Yourself (DIY) mindset. It’s for creative, resourceful people of all ages and backgrounds who like to tinker and love to make things. So much to see, you will need 2 days to see it all!

Basically, Maker Faire Detroit will be the ultimate tinkerer’s event, at the home of America’s greatest tinkerers and innovators.

We’ll pass along more details as we get closer to the event, so stay tuned!

This is a guest post from Judy Endelman, Director of the Benson Ford Research Center.

On April 29, 2009, The Henry Ford’s “Collecting Innovation Today” team interviewed the octogenarian inventor Stan Ovshinksy at the United Solar Ovonics plant in Auburn Hills and at the Institute for Amorphous Studies in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.

Stan Ovshinsky has a mission.  He wants to save the planet and solve the world’s problems through science and technology.  He wants to replace fossil fuels with non-carbon-based renewable energy sources, such as solar and hydrogen power.  Stan Ovshinsky is self-taught. Before he graduated from high school, he was working as a tool-maker and machinist. He invented a new lathe when he was barely out of his teens.  Most of his research has been to develop sources of energy that don’t harm the planet and that can be readily available to all peoples.  Possibly because Japan has never had a domestic oil industry, the Japanese were early adopters of Ovshinsky’s inventions and saw the importance of what he was trying to do.  The Japanese were one of the first to acquire his machinery to manufacture solar panels and Toyota put his nickel-metal-hydride battery in its Prius hybrid.  He was an enthusiastic supporter of GM’s first foray into electric cars—the EV-1—which also used his battery.  But GM killed the project and crushed all of the remaining cars, something he is quite bitter about.  Now he’s modified a Prius to run on hydrogen which he prefers to the conventional hybrid (because it uses no petroleum products for fuel).

Stan Ovshinsky’s work isn’t done.  And even though his late wife thought his work had made the world a better place for all humanity, he still has lots more he wants to do.

We conducted the interview at the Institute for Amorphous Studies in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.  Stan has been interested in the study of amorphous and disordered materials since he was a teen-ager in Akron, Ohio.

Stan pointed out some of the features in the hydrogen Prius.  Then we took a drive in it.

Every room at the Institute has at least one framed periodic table on the wall.  This one is in Stan’s office.