Today’s invention is a picture frame which contains an old-style acoustic burglar alarm, wired to a small motor. The frame can accommodate any abstract work of your choice.

A few random times a day, if the sensor detects that no-one is in the room, the motor rotates the picture quickly through a random multiple of 90degrees, giving the owner more visual variety and an added talking point.

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?’

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 is therefore a paramotor fan which can tilt from a horizontal axis to a vertical one, when the pilot realises that a crash landing is imminent. It would automatically jettison the glider canopy once the decision to use the motor in this way was made.

Although the fan could never support a pilot’s weight on its own, it could, in an emergency, greatly reduce the rate of descent, especially if driven at an almost self-destructive speed in this last-ditch mode.

Today’s invention is a new form of wind turbine. Two sets of turbine blades rotate about a horizontal axis on top of a column. The outer ends of each set of blades are supported by a bevel-geared ring which bears on a vertical-axis bevel gear wheel near the ground. The blades-and-wheel assembly is free to rotate about this vertical axis in response to changes in wind direction, as usual.

As the wind blows, the gearwheel rotates a generator located conveniently near ground level and protected within the support column (which can be a comparatively low-strength structure). No more swinging the whole affair around in the sky.

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.

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).

The ship would carry a large mirror held aloft on stalks.

It would also have a large pontoon supporting metal plates heated directly by the ship’s engines.

This arrangement would generate a synthetic mirage -one in which a distant observer would see a patch of sea, rather than the ship itself.

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.

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.