Archive for: September 2009

Today’s invention is a microscope without any of those confusing and time-consuming focus knobs.

Instead, a fingerprint swipe device identifies the user (take the rubber gloves off first) and then sets the focus of the system accurately for the current level of magnification -based on one’s personal spectacle prescription (if any).

It might also alter the colour and intensity of illumination, based on pre-stated preferences -particularly useful for shared microscopes in busy labs.

I was standing behind Clive James in a supermarket food queue once and, rather than engage him in discourse on Piero della Francesca, I merely scrutinised his basket. I was surprised to find him buying sausage rolls with tomato.

It made me seriously think about how I could live a small part of his life for a mere £2.49 (plus loyalty points). Today’s invention is a website which can be used by celebrities to publicise what they consume (whether food or books or whatever).

They upload their receipts (in return for extra discount and publicity). The rest of us get some kind of vicarious post-twitter contact with the media pantheon -and their shopping.

I tend to think that hunt sabotage has more to do with fighting the class war than saving creatures from suffering.

Today’s invention is weapon on behalf of the ‘game’ animals and the human beaters who find themselves economically dependent on this form of feudalism.

It is a swarm of small robots which can be used to pre-beat an area of moorlands so that hiding grouse or pheasant are driven away before the chinless hoorays range rover onto the scene.

These would be capable of maintaining a coordinated line across the terrain, moving quietly beneath the foliage so as to remain concealed. The failure or destruction of one would be automatically adjusted to by the others and they could be programmed to rendez-vous later in the back of a waiting truck (using eg GPS units built into each).

Most significantly, no human beaters would find themselves walking towards a line of shotguns held by merchant bankers.

As ever, when I hear of some problem, I’m usually thinking of a way to turn it to advantage.

There is now so much junk up there in space that the shuttle is having to jink out of the way occasionally to avoid the odd bag of tools or gas oven that they jettisoned on a previous orbit. Even colliding with a fleck of paint, at the kinds of relative velocity available in orbit, can cause toughened glass to perforate.

Today’s invention is to make use of this space junk. When building giant machines in orbit, as I believe is planned for eg forthcoming space stations, it would surely be useful to have a serious drilling facility. Instead of injecting a huge machine into space, align the workpiece in the back of a shuttle or equivalent and steer towards a piece of junk of the right size and velocity.

Presto, guaranteed holes in whatever you want. This technique might also be used to erode the surface of workpieces, providing a form of milling machine.

There would need to be a ‘swarf shield’ following this workshop, to catch the resulting debris, but at least much of its kinetic energy would have been dissipated as heat in the machining process. This heat might also be used to form materials in eg casting and forging processes.

I’m slightly surprised to see giant 4x4s driving around with ski racks on the roof.

A much less ugly approach, given their massive ground clearance, is to mount a shallow, tough box on the underside of the vehicle. Today’s invention would thus allow skis to be slotted in from behind the vehicle, making them much less likely to fly off in transit and also providing better aerodynamic performance (mostly by smoothing off the car’s neglected underside).

This discreet, tray-shaped box would also be potentially much more secure for expensive skis than leaving them roofside. The box itself might be used as a sledge.

Today’s invention is a new form of motorcycle chain. Each link has the ability to lock to its neighbour(s) rigidly, on receipt of a computer-controlled signal (using something like a small solenoid).

As the chain is driven in the usual way, at a) it becomes flexible as normal and at b) it becomes a rigid beam. The situation reverses at c).

Clever timing of the signals allows this smart chain to act as lever arm and springs, thus reducing the weight of the machine by a significant factor.

Footballers and other sports players wreck their knee joints by twisting. Many designs of boots attempt to lessen the stresses which cause this.

Today’s invention is one such consisting of a cylindrical ‘cookie cutter’ blade moulded into the base of a boot. This would be edgy enough to provide good grip on the surface but not so sharp as to allow injury to people coming in contact with it.

The foot could be well planted on the turf and then the player could spin around the centre of the cutter, without causing any internal damage.

The whole process of booking seats on public transport is a potential nightmare. People sit on your seat and then you have to fight with them so you can sit down, or you may find that you have accidentally parked in a location reserved for someone’s aged relative. In either case, embarrassment ensues.

Today’s invention makes booking a seat a well-defined event. Instead of attaching an inconspicuous piece of paper to the back, train staff flip the base around a fore-aft axis marked X. This locks the seat with a number of random-height hoops sticking up. Impossible to sit on or even put a case on. No danger though of causing anyone injury.

When the seat owner appears, they unlock it using their credit card (or via a keypad), flip the base and sit in upholstered luxury.

A smarter system might have remotely powered seat rotation setup in direct response to the booking computer’s signals.

I’ve been fascinated by self-erecting cranes for some time. These work by having a cage which can move up or down the column of previously built units (blue). When it stops, the bottom part of the cage engages with a unit and pushes upwards off its roof, lifting all those units above one unit higher.

If you want to build a tower by this method, the fastest approach is a)
keep the cage at the bottom and keep injecting units without waiting for them to be lifted any higher. If, however, you want to minimise the stresses on the cage, then b) is a better option ie insert units at the top.

If you wanted to build a towerblock in which each unit was a floor of the building, b) would be used. A novel, ‘instant’ fire escape would need to operate in a) mode.

Today’s invention is a simple algorithm for building such towers.

Knowing the maximum safe load for the cage, inject from the bottom for maximum speed of construction until this load is reached.

Then, move the cage up one unit and inject at this new level. Repeat this last step until building is complete.

Films, whilst entertaining to watch, are often nearly as much fun to discuss afterwards. Indeed, I’m convinced that the films you like (or more precisely, the most memorable scenes) are strong indicators of the person you are.

Today’s invention is an online dating agency whose matching algorithm is based on the scenes which people say most move them.

A person could create their profile consisting of the usual personal data but then add formatted information about the 20 film scenes that most affect them (eg “LeMans, 23 mins, nostalgia, reminds me of boyhood in the 60s”). The scene information could be selected from an on-screen database or added and edited by hand -or from here.

The emotions stated could be ones of irritation or disgust or joy, just so long as the named scenes evoke strong feelings in the person concerned. These views would be used to optimise matches from within the database of potential ‘dates’.