Home 2009 January (Page 2)

Month: January 2009

#768: Lifepipe

Wherever there are crowds, there is the danger of crush-related injuries. Today’s invention is a simple and low cost way to reduce this problem.

In public spaces a tall, cylindrical dispenser would be provided with a smash-to-open aperture at a convenient height. In the event that people were being squeezed by overcrowding in such a space, sections of thick-walled pipe could be quickly extracted by anyone within reach (each perhaps 20cm in diameter and 30 cm long).

These would be rolled and kicked along the ground between the legs of the unfortunate crowd members, allowing a sub population of people to stand on them and lever their heads and shoulders clear of the others. This reduction in pressure between people would ease conditions for everyone and avert the immediate danger of suffocation, trampling and crush injury, until a way to disperse the crowd was achieved.

#767: Strapeze

It’s always a pain when someone gets in your car who can’t find the seatbelt attachments or who has difficulty engaging the buckle in the catch mechanism. This is true of eg children or people who find it hard to bend over to see where the various attachments need to go.

Today’s invention is therefore an aftermarket attachment which overcomes these problems.

The seatbelt clip is engaged permanently in the catch device. A crescent-shaped guide (shown in pink) fits under both of the straps and is raised by the driver pulling on a strap which runs over a pulley attached to the vehicle ceiling (not shown) and down the back of the passenger seat.

The crescent guide is then high enough for anyone to sit in the passenger seat without needing to touch any belts. The driver can then lower the crescent, so that the seatbelt drops into the correct position and the standard tensioner makes it fit snugly around the passenger.

#766: Watchglasses

Very small digital watches are available at almost no cost.

Today’s invention is a clip-on version of such a watch which is designed to attach discreetly to one’s spectacle lens and thus provide a readable indication of the time, just by glancing upwards and without having to wear a wristwatch.

It might be possible to exploit experimental psychology findings and place the watch display at the location in the visual field to which people naturally attend when thinking about ‘time’.

#765: SeatSense

Today’s invention is a set of pressure sensors which are installed in the feet or casters of an office chair.

These can be used to to pass information to a desktop computer and thus detect whether and for how long the occupant has been seated, their fidgeting or immobility, if they are perched on the edge of their seat and the straightness of their posture. It might even record such data over time and monitor weight and other longer-term changes.

The user’s machine can then issue health-related suggestions, via the screen, such as:

“time for a break?”,”maybe sit up straighter?”,”don’t lean back so far”,”you seem agitated, try herbal tea, not coffee?” etc.

#764: Liftlimiter

There are very, very few occasions when the use of a firearm is going to create a solution. If however obviously bad people are attacking definitely good people, then I want the innocent parties defended as accurately as possible by eg a police marksman.

Today’s invention is a small metal brace which allows two semi-automatics to be fired simultaneously. This assumes their (substantial) combined weight is supported by both hands of the weapon-wielder.

The brace attaches the frames of the two guns together in such a way that pulling one trigger also pulls the other (and allows the two slide mechanisms still to operate).

This doubles the firepower (and recoil), but the idea is that by mounting one weapon in the opposite orientation to the other (ie with the additional weapon’s barrel below the marksman’s hand and its grip pointing skywards), their tendency to wander off-target during recoil (uplift) will be cancelled out. This will improve accuracy and limit ‘collateral damage’ (The barrels’ axes would need to be set to intersect at a fixed target distance).

#763: Helios

Today’s invention is entirely decorative.

It is what used to be called a ‘standard lamp,’ consisting of a spherical, then-walled metal balloon with a lamp attached. The sphere is filled with helium and anchored to the floor by the lamp’s power cord.

Light from the lamp reflects off the sphere and the cord allows some movement of the lamp as it experiences the natural air movements in the room. Several adjacent lamp units amplify this effect.

#762: Zebread

Sliced bread is a benchmark for inventiveness.

Having performed several searches, as usual, I haven’t yet come up with any prior claims in connection with today’s invention: a loaf consisting of both brown and white slices.

People like variety, so I reckon this is a reasonably healthy way to introduce some novelty and add extra interest to a staple foodstuff. One brown and one white loaf would be sliced in the usual way and interdigitated, like two halves of a pack of cards, resulting in two such mixed loaves.

A more advanced version would have several different types of sliced bread involved. It might even be possible to introduce a toasted image onto some of the slices before ‘zipping’ the bread together to conceal eg a surprise message (and tie this in, perhaps, to some consumer competition).

#761: BlaID

I’m scandalised by having just read about a Swiss Army knife with no blade. What are the folks at Victorinox thinking about? Maybe the Swiss Army will be relying on dazzling their enemies with the dinky laser pointer which is included?

Today’s invention reuses product components they already have available to ensure that your knife can only be used by you.

Use the existing fingerprint-reading technology to control, via a simple electromechanical lock, the opening of the pocket knife blade -thus avoiding unfortunate accidents/ violence/ lawsuits as a result of unauthorised usage.

#760: RiotSquawk

Legitimate protest is one thing: rioting is quite another. I’m no supporter of the companies who happily sell stun guns and cattle probes etc to repressive regimes, but today’s invention is certainly non-lethal and might help disperse people in a street riot before anyone gets hurt (they can mock their government online…often more effective and usually less dangerous).

Take a standard polycarbonate riot shield and embed twenty or thirty loudspeaker cones in its surface, facing forwards. Each shield bearer, and that probably means policeman, would be equipped with a belt mounted battery which would drive all of the loudspeaker cones on a shield.

This would generate enough noise to make standing in front of a wall of such shields uncomfortable (even with ears plugged). The shields themselves might be slightly concave so as to help focus the sound energy emerging from them. A large number of such shields could be coordinated by aiming them at e.g. anyone foolish enough to be carrying a weapon. This cacophony could be further intensified by driving the speakers in phase and thus setting up a ‘wall’ of antinodes between crowd and police.

#759: Explosuit

I have an abiding respect for those who work in bomb disposal.

There are many different designs of protective suit available to these people, although I have serious doubts about how effective they would be in the event that an explosive device initiates whilst they are working on it.

The suits, which are intended to protect against fragments, heat and pressure injuries, certainly don’t lend themselves to any kind of quick getaway. Today’s invention is therefore something like an automatic ejector seat, designed to fling the bomb disposer out of harm’s way.

A disposal suit would be fitted with an extra shield in the form of a sprung rocket nozzle protruding forward from the armored breastplate. in the nozzle, an explosive charge would be located -on the far side of the shield from the disposer. The disposer would lean forwards, locating this charge close to the bomb as he works on it just within arm’s reach.

In the event that the bomb detonates, the charge attached to the suit would explode as the detonation wave from the main bomb passes through it. The shield/nozzle would focus the blast and would act like reactive armour -throwing the wearer away from the bomb, before the main blast effects could reach him.