Archive for: May 2010

Wine-in-a-box is actually wine-in-a-metallised-plastic-bag-in-a-box.

This is great for keeping the wine fresh, but not so good in terms of elegantly serving a ‘luxury’ product.

Today’s invention is therefore a bottle which contains a plastic bag full of wine. The bottle comes with a bag inserted and with the usual plastic tap incorporated into the bottle neck.

This allows the contents to be dispensed from a bottle which can be resealed conveniently, without allowing air to contact the wine in between openings.

Military vehicles often need to carry various electronic self-identification technologies on board to ensure that they are not accidentally attacked by their own side’s missiles.

Today’s invention is a simpler, less costly version of this approach, applicable to every vehicle, in which a 2-D barcode (eg QR code) is carried on a pull-out, printed panel (as flags are traditionally used).

This ensures that optically guided missiles will not engage with friendly vehicles marked in this way and it also allows the code to be almost indistinguishable (to human eyes) from the background camouflage pattern applied to the vehicle in question.

This makes it hard for enemy spies to copy the code and use it to protect their own tanks (especially since a new code panel could be printed out daily).

Today’s invention is a combination of social networking and exercise technology.

It consists of a regular gps running device with a phone built in. When running in a big event, information about your distance and heartbeat is automatically provided to your Twitter followers (especially tagged eg #exhortation if the readings indicate that you were flagging or in distress).

The followers can then tweet replies which are text-to-speech-ed, via a small loudspeaker, so that you can hear their words of support.

Public safety sometimes relies on having crowds behave in sensible ways. I’m always surprised when using underground train systems that there are signs saying “keep to the right when ascending” and yet the stairs themselves offer no incentive to conform.

Frequently, the whole system clogs up because of someone with a wheeled suitcase deciding to climb on the side that is being used by 1000 others to descend.

Today’s invention is a side-by-side, two-lane staircase which makes it easier to climb on one side and descend on the other.

The stair risers are of different heights. This alone stops people using them in a daydream or when eg running.

The red profile is best suited for ascending, having bigger steps at the bottom and shallower ones at the top (when you are getting tired).

The blue profile has deeper steps nearer the top, but once one’s downward momentum has gathered, the steps get smaller towards the bottom (so that one’s knees and ankles don’t suffer from ever-increasing jolts on the way down).

Motorcycle exhausts are never really an attractive feature of any machine.

Today’s invention is to use the frame of a bike as a conduit for exhaust flow from the engine. This would work particularly well in those machines with large-section box frames (into which various filters might easily be fitted, without significantly increasing ‘back-pressure’ on the engine).

There would be an outlet from the frame, somewhere at the rear of the machine.

This would also lessen the weight of a bike (even if some local strengthening were required and a silencer attached to the exit).

There is a real problem that people aren’t yet opting-in, in large enough numbers, to donate their organs after (brain)death.

Today’s invention is a web-based mechanism which makes it easy for a person to assert online that they’d like to donate in this way.

The website would also make it a very easy requirement for the recipient to change their name to include that of the donor. So Joe Smith who lives on after a donation by John Doe would be immediately and officially converted, in all official documentation and correspondence, to Joe [John, Doe] Smith.

In this way, a donor and his/her family could feel that their memory lived on and was fully appreciated by the recipient.

I read today that people sitting within five rows of an exit have a greatly improved chance of exiting a plane unscathed in an emergency.

Today’s invention is to equip new airliners with benchseats arranged in circular arcs around the doors of an airliner. This allows everyone to be sitting within only a few rows of an exit (it might be possible to sell sets in row five from an exit at lower prices than seats in rows closer to the door).

The seats would be colour-coordinated with the doors so that everyone would know which to exit by.

Some people would end up sitting facing backwards (but that too is safer, usually).

Modern snipers can kill people who are up to two miles away. To do this, they use some very advanced calculations to adjust their aim according to the anticipated effects of wind, humidity, altitude etc.

These influences are so great that snipers may have to aim at a point 2m to one side of their actual target.

Today’s invention is a defence mechanism against such attacks. The blue force roll out a camouflaged line of sensors B, using eg a radio controlled robot vehicle. These lie on two parallel tracks, so that the passage overhead of the shock wave of a high-velocity bullet can be detected and its direction estimated.

This information is sent wirelessly to a line of air blowers A (faster than the bullet can travel). A few of these can issue an upwards jet of air in a random direction, from underneath the passing round.

This deflection can be more than enough to cause the shot to miss with very high probability; alerting the blue force to red’s position and undermining the sniper’s confidence.

Today’s invention is a false chimney for wood-burning stoves, which allows large bits of timber to be burned -ie without having to chop them into pieces small enough to insert via the front door.

Door A in the false chimney is opened and a large piece of wood inserted. Door A is closed and the door B opened, allowing the wood to drop into the flames.

When B can be slid into the closed position again, A can be reopened and the cycle repeated.

Today’s invention is a doormat which consists of a flat matrix of short, vertical, plastic tubes all of which are sealed into a base tray.

The tray is connected to a vacuum cleaner device.

When someone is sensed to have stepped onto the mat, the vacuum cleaner motor starts up and draws air down through the matrix of tubes.

This extracts from the feet of the visitor a large volume of dust and debris which would otherwise be walked into carpets etc. This collected mess can occasionally be tipped from the tray into a waste bin.