Archive for: January 2012

I’ve joked before that hunting will only be a sport when the animals are equipped with weapons.

Today’s invention is a truly sporting rifle.

Instead of being camouflaged, this would have a number of small screens attached, each displaying moving, coloured patterns and with the potential to emit sounds.

The telescopic sight would have a camera embedded within it.

These add-ons would handicap the hunter in a quantifiable way. Users of such rifles would find it more challenging to approach a game animal but when sufficiently close, they would have the option to kill it or photograph it.

For people who don’t need to eat game, I’m hoping that creating an image of such a creature, with their sights superimposed and details of their increased visibility at the time embedded, would allow more bragging rights than returning with a corpse.

This would thus help preserve the lives of many wild animals.

It seems that if you have to move from room to room whilst remembering even simple items, the doorways themselves can trigger forgetting of the crucial data.

Today’s invention is therefore a small recorder which can be attached to a door (for use within eg stockrooms or on board ships)

As you approach the door, simply say what your current task is eg “find the yellow-handled screwdriver.”

On emerging through the doorway, a speaker on that side would repeat the message, keeping you on track.

Today’s invention is a fountain pen incorporating a small, battery-driven fan.

When one has written using the pen, the fan starts up and directs a stream of air leftwards or rightwards to dry the ink before smudging can occur.

Trucks which pull out and pass each other create enormous drag effects.

Today’s invention tries to minimise these.

Each of the thre trucks driving up the page is equipped with an oval-section trailer. A continuous curtain runs in very low friction rails at the top and bottom edge of the trailer.

Each curtain is driven by a small motor clockwise or anticlockwise, depending on the direction of the curtain to the left (which would be sensed optically, on approach).

In this way, the normal Couette flow between trailers is avoided, since the curtains maintain a flat velocity profile between trucks which overtake each other with small relative velocities.

According to Targeting Innovation 4.8 billion people have a mobile phone while only 4.2 billion own a toothbrush.

Given the general health benefits of oral hygiene, today’s invention offers a way to combine these two devices.

Each basic mobile phone (with a protuberant aerial) would come supplied with a rounded crocodile clip on the end.

This would be used to secure a natural brush, such as a thistle, burdock or a clump of wool to the end of the antenna.

Engaging the phone’s vibrate mode would create a primitive but effective buzzing, similar to that of electric toothbrushes, and enabling a more effective tooth cleaning regime.

Today’s invention is a flag made of two layers of the same material from which weather balloons are constructed.

This is very flexible and yet can contain helium for long periods.

Several small helium-filled spaces would be created when the two sheets were joined, located along the upper edge of the flag.

These would help support the (small) weight of the flag and allow it to ‘fly’ even when the windspeed was very low.

Visiting Australia recently made me think a lot about the dangers of bushfires.

Today’s invention is an attempt to help.

When a fire approaches one of a number of outstations, the temperature difference between the firefront and underground can be used to power eg a Stirling engine.

This could then be used to automatically pump water onto the roof of a building under threat, damping down any windblown sparks and smouldering embers.

I can’t understand how all those Holywood companies expect people to consume movies on handheld devices.

The screensize in general makes watching a film on one wholly different from the big screen experience in a cinema.

Today’s invention is a way to make better mobile movies.

A film is shown to a test audience using eye trackers. This allows determination of where people are looking on the screen.

Small areas centred on these points of interest would then be automatically extracted to form a sequence – a more watchable mobile version of the original product.

Today’s invention is a bicycle frame which incorporates two solid rear wheel discs and a chain cover.

The rear wheel axle is held between the solid disks, so that all the chain and gear change mechanism is encapsulated between them.

This reduces greatly the amount of drag associated with spinning wheels and thrashing drive train on a high speed racing bike.

Synaesthetes come in several different shades (as well as textures, sounds…)

Those of us who associate colours with letters and numbers often have trouble when eg learning mathematical symbols and reading text (My associations include
1=black, 2 =yellow, 3=red/brown, 4=black, 5=mustard…)

Today’s invention therefore is a piece of code which will let a user list their individual associations for an entire set of alphanumerics or other set of symbols and then display each of those symbols on every screen in a pale, complementary colour (eg red for green).

This would lessen the strength of the links to colour and could be finely calibrated to suit the individual concerned.