Are you talking about the Dyson Airblade? I'm not actually convinced that they work significantly better than the old-skool ones. Still, as I understand it, ma

Are you talking about the Dyson Airblade? I'm not actually convinced that they work significantly better than the old-skool ones. Still, as I understand it, making those tiny powerful fans is non-trivial, and it was more a case of the invention driving the application instead of vice versa. It was a case where Dyson (no relation to Freeman, tragically) started building tiny powerful motors for their vacuum cleaners and then went looking for other applications. Or perhaps it's just a case of a "no hair on fire" demand. People just haven't been spending the last thirty years thinking "Man, I wish this hand dryer worked better", let alone "I wish I could pay a lot more for the dryers in my public bathrooms so that my customers could dry their hands marginally faster".