Archive for: February 2009

Vari-focal glasses are all very well, but I’d like to see something a bit more adaptive.

Imagine a pair of spectacles fitted with a rangefinder of the type supplied in autofocus cameras. Each of the lenses is circular and can be driven by an independent motor to rotate in a housing which only allows the eye to see through a portion of each lens (think CD drive control, here).

In today’s invention, these lenses would have optical properties which varied with circumferential position (12 o’clock might have a much greater refractive index and/or curvature than 3 o’clock).

The lenses automatically and independently react to the distance signals given by the rangefinding mechanism, so that the retinal images remain in focus as one’s viewing direction changes.

Today’s invention is a simple device which enables someone to create for themselves a snug-fitting, low cost storage or carrying case for objects which need a higher level of protection than a simple box provides.

The object to be stored is placed on eg a redundant telephone directory, a block of waste wood or a pile of used printer paper clamped to a desktop. It is manually drawn around using a suitably fat felt tip pen, leaving a closely fitting outline.

An electric drill, fitted with a hole-saw attachment (of an appropriate radius) is attached to a small ‘turtle’ like cart with crude contour-following capability. This moves around, drilling to a fixed depth inside the contour, until it has been hollowed out.

A smarter version would be capable of also drilling some isolated holes outside the contour, in order to reduce weight eg for shipping/carrying purposes.

I have numerous part-used cans of paint in my garage…most of which will lie there until their contents solidify. I suspect that this is a common enough phenomenon.

Today’s invention is a facility to which all such residues could be taken and donated. As well as lessening the chance that this material just gets dumped into a drain, the bank would assess the age and chemical compatibility of deposits.

Many people and local organisations have a need for utility paint -without a strong preference as to colour. The bank would be able to supply them with a large enough volume, by mixing donated paints, at a small enough price, to satisfy their requirements.

Queuing: not only is it hard to spell, the very concept is a pain in the ear.

Today’s invention is a small, roomba-like robot, whose only function is to wait in line on your behalf.

These would be cheap enough so that you could drop one on the end of several queues. Each would have a hook which would engage with the device in front’s rear loop. This connection would only be released when the bot ahead had finished queuing so as to maintain the correct order, despite attempts by people to interpose their machine and thus jump the queue.

Each bot would also have your mobile number displayed and a push-to-lock cabinet on top, so that whatever was being waited for could be confirmed, placed inside, locked and only opened by the owner when his/her bot(s) returned to them (directed e.g. by on-board gps).

You buy a bottle of some delicious (perhaps expensive) drink but don’t want to consume it all at one sitting: what can you do?

Today’s invention is a bottle design which allows a certain amount to be drunk and the rest saved, whilst limiting access to the remaining contents by air.

The hour-glass-shaped bottle would be of plastic and contain several constrictions. When one has removed content to the level of any one such neck, the upper part is twisted so as to close the narrow gap above it and then pressed downwards so as to partially crush the upper portion of the bottle.

Reattach the lid tightly to prevent air entry and the bottle stays in crushed mode, protecting the contents. Untwisting and extending the squashed neck again allows pouring the next glassful.

In the fancy restaurants I occasionally used to visit before I had children, sorbet would sometimes be served between courses in order to ‘clear the palate.’

I have a personal theory that If you really taste an individual food e.g. sugar, without it being masked by other tastes, your body can more easily deal with metabolising it and also decide more accurately when it’s had enough.

Today’s invention is a device for improving the taste of food, by cleaning one’s palette in between forkfuls, as well as possibly reducing the tendency to gorge (in search of a sufficiency which is disguised by a mixture of tastes).

This takes the form of a fork with an insulated handle which is loaded with a tube of sorbet before eating starts. A diner can turn a screw in the end of the fork and squeeze a small amount of sorbet onto the eating end -which can then be consumed in the usual way in between bites of the main meal.

When it come right down to it, nobody looking at a weather forecast cares whether there will be light precipitation followed by a drop in pressure and an easterly gale. The question they really need answered is “What should I wear today?”

The weather forecast has been reduced to a single icon for a long time now. In the olden days of broadcast tv, representing the regional forecast as a stylised cloud symbol was probably as good as things got. Now, however, people expect a much more personalised preparation for what’s in store.

Today’s invention is an online weather forecast display in the form of images of the correct types of outer wear for the day ahead. This might be further personalised by taking into account the kinds of activities planned for the day (ie an October trip to the beach might involve taking a swimming costume as well as an overcoat).

This might even use images of clothing items from an individual’s own wardrobe to make the selection still easier.

Today’s invention is a way to provide people with a reminder that we are connected to even the most distant places on the planet.

A paving slab is replaced by a display screen mounted in a public space. This screen shows the view captured by a webcam pointing vertically upward, but located at exactly the opposite side of the globe.

By looking down onto the slab in London, for example, one would see the sky in a particular spot over Australia, giving the impression of being able to see straight through the Earth. During the day, Southern hemisphere stars would be visible, and at night, the floorscreen would illuminate the public space in which it was located with the bright light of someone’s else’s day.

Obviously the cameras and screens would be reciprocal, as would signs warning that walking across one wearing a kilt is probably a bad idea.

It is important to me to get a seat when I’m travelling by train in the rush hour. This means getting on board without having to indulge in fisticuffs and that, in turn, means that when a train stops, I need to be standing by the doors.

The trouble is that trains seem increasingly to come to a stop with a positional error of more than a few metres, so I miss the chance to park my rear end.

Today’s invention is a device, something like the toe-operated calculator described in ‘The Newtonian Casino. ‘

As a train passes me on the platform, I shine a torch at the windows of the first carriage. This torch incorporates a light sensor which allows a processor to count the number of seconds it takes for each of say three windows to pass (by noting the dark periods during which the light fails to reflect off them).

This allows a deceleration graph to be obtained and used to predict where the carriage doors will end up in relation to my current position. Before the train stops, the torch emits a directed flash which illuminates briefly a spot on the platform where the doors will stop and to which I can preemptively sprint.

Today’s invention is a new way to use an existing product.

I usually make coffee using one of those insulated Smartcafe mugs with a filter element intended to squish the grounds down into the bottom of the cup.

The main problem with this design is that I end up with a sedimentary layer of coffee remnants which are really hard to extract from the base of the cup, once the beverage has been consumed. It also means that I have to cart about an inch of coffee grounds, right next to the liquid I’m drinking. So, why not use this device in a more effective way?

Place the filter element in the empty cup, so that it rests on the bottom. Now add the powdered coffee beans on top. After brewing, slowly withdraw the filter element, so that the grounds are carried upwards on top of it.

Extract the filter element (which might need a slightly increased tray depth) and simply tap it into the recycling bin, leaving a cupful of liquid coffee behind, ready to drink. No more scraping at the residue in the cup to make it fit for reuse.