Category: Feasible inventions

The web is full of sites which provide a shopping function like this, in which a chosen region of a product image can be shown in close-up.

So, the bits people look at can be used as a way to discern what they want to buy. If they pay attention to the fur collar, the zip, the pricetag, that tells you something about their interests. Whether they buy or not, you get a wealth of information about their priorities.

Today’s invention is a tool which simply monitors the close-up window’s placement sequence and spots patterns which enable enhanced product development decisions. If a number of people leave the page without buying, having just seen the details of the leather grain, you know something needs fixing.

The tool would also do some tricks like issuing messages such as ‘was it the [leather]? Maybe look at these items instead…’ It might even be possible to offer realtime, personalised discounts: ‘Maybe it’s not exactly what you were looking for -so how about 5% off?’

Today’s invention is another tool to help improve the handwashing of hospital medics (a New York Times article recently claimed that washing only happens about 1/3 as frequently as training requires).

All medical staff in contact with patients would wear a brightly coloured bracelet. This would contain an aerosol full of harmless, water soluble paint.

The bracelet would also contain a timer which would ensure that a small spot of bright paint was delivered onto the back of a medic’s hand, say every ten minutes throughout the day.

Appearance of the paint would remind wearers to wash their hands at once. Patients could raise an objection if either the bracelet wasn’t worn or there was a spot of paint on the hand of their examiner.

Today’s invention attempts to overcome the problem of placing baggage items on an overhead location in public transport.

Often I see people struggling to achieve this, either because the bag is too heavy, or they can’t manage to squat and thrust it into place without endangering people sitting below.

A curved shelf section would be installed at frequent intervals along a carriage/compartment/cabin. A cable would run from a catch attached to the shelf to a pulley in the ceiling.

Attaching bags to a hook on the upper end of the cable would allow them to be hoisted aloft and secured there, without causing a safety issue for those seated below. Use of extra pulleys would increase the mechanical advantage available. The slight slope of the shelf would allow the baggage items to descend later under control.

Today’s invention is a GPS-equipped phone device which is linked to the airbags in one’s car.

In the event that a bag is deployed, a message detailing the location is automatically sent to a preselected list of contacts (including eg the ambulance service, police, next of kin, Twitter, etc).

I’m perpetually irritated by our vacuum cleaner hose blocking up. Today’s invention is a response.

Just as when someone develops a restriction in their airway, this vacuum cleaner would have a sensor fitted to the motor which could detect the rise in current drawn when the hose began to block.

Quickly, it would change the motor direction, causing a sudden reversal of flow or ‘cough’.

This would last for only a fraction of a second, so that there would be no danger that a blockage could emerge from the hose inlet at any speed.

The cough could be repeated several times in succession if the motor load was not rapidly reduced.

There is now great interest in robotic systems which can help retrieve wounded soldiers from a battlefield.

Today’s invention is a hybrid animal/machine system which does not rely on machine intelligence -and might therefore work robustly.

A small terrier is equipped with a light body shield. This is attached to an armoured trolley via a lightweight cable. As the dog runs, the cable becomes slightly taught and the animal’s choice of direction is transmitted to the trolley’s motors via the bend within the cable. The dog can thus direct the trolley, running on powered tracks, but without having to pull it.

When the dog detects a wounded soldier it finds the scented tag attached to a harness with which he or she is equipped. The dog has been trained to drag the tag and drop it into an aperture on the trolley. A winch automatically pulls the soldier aboard and the dog runs back to base pursued closely by the trolley.

Today’s invention is a browser plugin which remembers what content a user has scrolled through before and, if asked to display it again, does so with the content greyed out. The more showings, the paler the content.

This would alert the user, before starting to re-read any such material, to the fact that this was old news -without having to filter and completely reformat the stories on eg the BBC website, only some of which change in the course of a day.

It would also lessen the frustration associated with coming across content repeated on different sites dressed up in alternative colours, formats and fonts.

Astronauts, especially rookies, apparently have great trouble sleeping in near-zero gravity.

They seem to miss the sensation of pressure on their bodies from a horizontal bed and covers. Strapping themselves in is a poor substitute.

Today’s invention is therefore an astronaut sleeping bag which forms a loose seal around the sleeper’s neck. The rear face of the bag is attached to a spacecraft wall surface at many locations.

The other end of the bag is connected to a small, silenced vacuum pump which sucks out the air and has the effect of holding the astronaut down onto the wall surface with a user-controlled pressure. This feels more like the experience of sleeping in his/her own, 1-g, bed at home.

I’ve described knot-tying techniques before and today’s invention is a new one. Imagine trying to tie a complex knot for the first time.

Take a long rope of snap-together beads and roll around it a sheet of moist cardboard -or pastry.

Have the complex knot tied by an expert so that the coating is included in the body of the knot (have the expert make many of these). Allow the coating to dry and stiffen, forming a knot-shaped shell. Pull on the free ends of the beaded rope so that it can be extracted.

You now have a shell which can be used to pass rope through, from one end -automatically forming a complex knot. The coating can now be stripped off, reconstituted and reused, leaving the finished knot behind.

Today’s invention is a small but robust clamp I can use to stop my seven year old daughter from reading all of her latest book at one sitting.

This would be lockable in position and also limit any attempt to read the end of the story first.