James Michael O'Dwyer is an inventor who grew up in Muttaburra, Queensland, Australia, chiefly known for his Metal Storm weapon.
O'Dwyer completed grade 12 education, then went on to be a manager at Woolworths Limited [1] before his inventions were able to provide an income.
An American company Breeze Technology Holdings has the rights to one of his inventions - air-cooled sneakers. [2] [3]
O'Dwyer spent 15 years developing a rapid-fire gun prototype called Metal Storm that uses stacked projectiles. Metal Storm can fire up to 1,000,000 rounds per minute, or 16,000 rounds per second, and was declared by Guinness Book of Records to be the world's most intelligent and fastest firearms. [4] The technology was being commercialised by a company also called Metal Storm, but they requested their shares be suspended from trading on 20 July 2012 [5] and later was placed in voluntary administration. [5]
In late 2015 DefendTex, an Australian-based defence R&D company acquired the intellectual property, trademarks and other assets of Metal Storm. [6]
BHP, formerly known as BHP Billiton, is the trading entity of BHP Group Limited and BHP Group plc, an Anglo-Australian multinational mining, metals and petroleum dual-listed public company headquartered in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
The MG 42 is a 7.92×57mm Mauser general-purpose machine gun designed in Nazi Germany and used extensively by the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS during the second half of World War II. Entering production in 1942, it was intended to supplement and replace the earlier MG 34, which was more expensive and took much longer to produce, but both weapons were produced until the end of World War II.
Woolworths Group Limited, a major Australian company, has extensive retail interests throughout Australia and New Zealand. It is the largest company in Australia by revenue and the second-largest in New Zealand. In addition, Woolworths Group is the largest takeaway liquor-retailer in Australia, the largest hotel and gaming poker-machine operator in Australia, and was the 19th-largest retailer in the world in 2008.
Southern Cross Media Group Limited, doing business as Southern Cross Austereo, is an Australian media company which operates broadcast radio and television stations. It is the largest radio broadcaster in Australia, operating 86 radio stations, and has a reach into every state and territory.
The Advanced Individual Combat Weapon (AICW) was an Australian prototype combination assault rifle and grenade launcher developed as a technology demonstrator. The AICW combined a standard 5.56 mm assault rifle based on the successful F88 Austeyr with a superposed load grenade launcher developed by Metal Storm.
EnergyAustralia is an electricity generation, electricity and gas retailing private company in Australia, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Hong Kong-based and listed CLP Group. EnergyAustralia also had a portfolio of generating sites using thermal coal, natural gas, hydro-electric, solar energy, and wind power.
Ergon Energy is a subsidiary company of Energy Queensland Limited (EQL) a Government owned corporation owned by the Government of Queensland. It distributes electricity to around 738,000 customers across Queensland, excluding South East Queensland through a distribution network regulated by the Australian Energy Regulator (AER) who set the prices that Ergon is allowed to charge for distribution.
The M7 Clem Jones Tunnel (CLEM7), known during its development as the North-South Bypass Tunnel (NSBT), is a A$3.2 billion motorway grade toll road under the Brisbane River, between Woolloongabba and Bowen Hills in Brisbane, Queensland. The tunnel was progressively opened to traffic from late on 15 March 2010 until just after midnight on 16 March 2010. It was completely open by 12:02 am.
ST Engineering Land Systems Ltd , in Singapore, is a strategic business area of ST Engineering and handles land systems and specialty vehicles.
AGL Energy Ltd is an Australian listed public company involved in both the generation and retailing of electricity and gas for residential and commercial use.
The Stuart Oil Shale Project is an oil shale development project in Yarwun near Gladstone, Queensland, Australia. It is Australia's first major attempt since the 1950s to restart commercial use of oil shale. The project was originally developed by Australian companies Southern Pacific Petroleum NL and Central Pacific Minerals NL (SPP/CPM) and developed now by Queensland Energy Resources. The original facility built at the end of the 1990s was dismantled and the new demonstration facility started its operations in 2011.
The Electricity Commission of New South Wales, sometimes called Elcom, was a statutory authority responsible for electricity generation and its bulk transmission throughout New South Wales, Australia. The Commission was established on 22 May 1950 by the Electricity Commission Act 1950 to take control of power generation in the State. The Commission acquired the power stations and main transmission lines of the four major supply authorities: Southern Electricity Supply, Sydney County Council, the Department of Railways and the Electric Light and Power Supply Corporation Ltd, known as the Balmain Electric Light Company, to acquire the Balmain Power Station. The Commission was responsible for the centralised co-ordination of electricity generation and transmission in the State, and some local councils continued to be distributors of electricity only.
TechnologyOne Limited is an Australian enterprise software company founded in 1987. The company is headquartered in Fortitude Valley in Brisbane, Australia, with other offices in United Kingdom (UK), New Zealand, South Pacific and Asia. It is listed on the Australian Securities Exchange with the symbol TNE and is a constituent of the ASX 200 index.
Queensland Energy Resources Limited (QERL) is an Australian oil shale mining and shale oil extraction company with the headquarters in Brisbane. It is the developer of the Stuart (Yarwun) and McFarlane oil shale projects.
Ambre Energy Limited is an Australian coal and oil shale company. It has offices in Brisbane and Salt Lake City.
This is a timeline of Australian inventions consisting of products and technology invented in Australia from pre-European-settlement in 1788 to the present. The inventions are listed in chronological order based on the date of their introduction.
Linc Energy was an Australian energy company specialized on a coal-based synthetic fuel production as also on a conventional oil and gas production. It was engaged in development and commercialization of proprietary underground coal gasification technology. Produced gas was used for production of synthetic fuel through gas-to-liquid technology, and has been planned also to be used for power generation. The company had its headquarters in Brisbane, Queensland.
Metal Storm Limited was a research and development company based in Brisbane, Australia, that specialized in electronically initiated superposed load weapons technology and owned the proprietary rights to the electronic ballistics technology invented by J. Mike O'Dwyer. The Metal Storm name applied to both the company and technology. The company had been placed into voluntary administration by 2012.
Moreton Resources Limited is an Australian coal mining company. In 2007–2013 it was specialized on underground coal gasification and electric power production by produced syngas. In addition to Australia, the company planned underground coal gasification projects in the United Kingdom, India, Pakistan, China, and Mongolia.
The Caldwell machine gun is a machine gun of Australian origin. It was developed by Thomas Frederick Caldwell.