Home 2012 February (Page 2)

Month: February 2012

#1888: Smartank

A friend of mine who’s an economics prof told me once that his entire discipline can be summarised by answering the question “How far would you drive out of your way to buy fuel at a discount of n%?”

Today’s invention is a vehicle which will be aware from moment-to-moment of its current fuel load and consumption rate as well as the distribution of petrol stations (and prices) within driving range.

This, together with the driver’s input of his/her destination and urgency allows an approximate optimisation to be undertaken, so that the car can be rerouted to take on board fuel -if the combination of detour shortness, low price and urgency justifies this.

This analysis would involve evaluation of the cost/benefit ratio of a detour ie (extra time and extra fuel used) vs (fuel cost saving).

(If the price were sufficiently low at a particular location, it would be worth driving there in a car with a specially enlarged tank. This approach could be further augmented by making predictions about the future price of fuel. In other words, is it worth driving for x km today for a discount of n% when the price in three days’ time will be discounted by n+m% ?)

#1887: Headlinks

I have never managed to achieve fast enough Internet access (is loading 70 tabs in my browser simultaneously really that unreasonable?)

Today’s invention is a smart program which knows when my browser window takes up less space that the whole of my screen (as it often does when I’m trying to get stuff done on a laptop).

It communicates the current dimension of the browser window and requests that only those images on the server that will actually be visible get downloaded to my machine.

This would give me enough material to assess the top lines of many web pages so that I could avoid loading more content, close their individual tabs and thus free up some bandwidth for more interesting material.

#1886: DustDrive

Organic dust is explosive -everything from sawdust to coal to flour has the potential to form a cloud of particles and, at the right concentration, blow up.

This seems to be also true of nanoparticles (making nanoparticles consistently is very demanding, but even micron-sized mists exhibit this property to some extent).

Today’s invention is therefore a simplified way to introduce fuel into an internal combustion engine.

A rod of organic material is advanced by a geared micrometer and abraded each time the piston moves upwards across its surface. This creates a gas of particles which are mixed with the incoming airstream.

The subsequent compression of this mixture raises its temperature enough to cause it to explode and drive the following cycle.

The fuel rod would be very much safer to transport than liquid petroleum, since no particles would be released from its surface unless friction were applied. Varying the forward speed of the rod could control the fuel inflow precisely.

#1885: Notalonephone

One downside of mobile phones is that whoever calls you may be unaware of your current circumstances and the people who are within earshot of your conversation.

This is less than good if, for example, you are being phoned to arrange an interview when your present boss is in the room.

There is probably a privacy-invading solution which invoves carriers pooling location data for any bystanders, but they would have to have their phones on -besides which, the sharing of that information might be illegal.

Today’s invention is therefore a way to alert a caller to the fact that you aren’t free to chat -without the embarrassment of having to say so.

A combination of cellphone button presses could be made to send a tone, or even an ovelaid text message on screen.

A small repertoire of these codes could stand for ‘can’t talk now’, ‘can’t discuss that’, I’ll call you back later’, ‘I’m entering a tunnel’, etc.

These actions could be arranged to be done discreetly by thumb, without removing the device from one’s ear.

#1884: Totempod

Small-format digital cameras are now capable of such high quality output that they are commonly used by professionals as backups -to grab a shot which they might otherwise miss.

These devices often come with a wireless shutter release.

Today’s invention is to attach several such cameras to the stem of a monopod and to arrange for them to take photos automatically when the main SLR release is pressed.

The basic configuration would see the small cameras all pointed at the same point at some fixed distance in the forward direction.

A more advanced set-up would have them aimed slightly to the left, right, higher and lower than the main DSLR (perhaps even by having the main camera transmit to them its target so that they could offset themselves, spatially, temporally and in terms of aperture settings).

This would provide automated ‘bracketing’ of even fast-moving subjects, ensuring that a photojournalist would rarely miss that critical moment.

(I’d also like to see a shutter release which offered the option of working by just exerting downward pressure on the monopod).

#1883: SpinDriver

Wheelchair users compete in a number of sports. Despite what I think about golf and what the rules probably say, today’s invention is intended to allow those in wheelchairs to get involved on a more-or-less equal basis.

The chair would be able to tip slightly to one side, into two different, stable positions (levered onto a strut, shown in red).

The first of these (1) would allow the raised wheel to spin a club head up to speed manually. Dropping the wheel into the second position (2), at the right moment, would allow the ball to be struck.

With practice, this system could be used for putting too.

#1882: Anonymusket

Tracer rounds are commonly used by armies who want to redirect their small arms fire more precisely at a target.

One difficulty is that, by letting off a burst of brightly-lit bullets, it’s easy for an enemy to identify their source and return fire.

Today’s invention is a bullet which has a rear-facing skirt, within which an insulated metal plug sits (red).

This would be heated by the firing process so that its flight could be followed by the shooter, using infra-red goggles, but without being visible to an enemy.

#1881: ShotPlotter

Top athletes spend time visualising their next performance. This generally has a good effect on their results.

The process seems to rely on sportsmen and women being able mentally to step through some critical elements of their play, as if they were actually competing.

Today’s invention is a (highly secure) smartphone app which allows athletes to watch a simulation of themselves during their next event. For a soccer player, this might involve eg taking shots from set pieces.

A given player would be able to rehearse the preparation, target selection, etc days before a game and repeatedly view this from slightly different angles.

An avatar, wearing his shirt and with his haircut (and tattoos) would then be seen to run to the spot and score against a goalkeeper in the opponent’s colours and with appropriate crowd noise and other sound effects.

The app would also keep a record of target points selected and suggest some randomisation, so that the player’s actions would be harder to predict from game to game.

#1880: BrandBrush

Every corporate entity is concerned to portray a coherently branded image to the world.

This gets challenged when colour images are uploaded to a website (by random employees with no visual taste -think eg Microsoft here).

Stock images of customers wearing magenta and teal dropped into a subtle Pantone-branded background can look truly ghastly, even if the subjects are apparently ecstatic about the products and services on offer.

Today’s invention is therefore an image processing program which reads the colours in an image, pre-upload, and automatically replaces each with the one which is closest from within an offical corporate palette (compare this with the picture on the left).

This is pretty easy to achieve technically, looks much better than a uniform colour wash and could be manually checked before publication.

#1879: SleePod

It’s getting ever harder for hotels (and airlines) to justify their prices, especially in the business class market segment where expenses are being squeezed.

Today’s invention offers a new feature that might help everyone concerned.

This is in the form of a sleep ‘pod’ which has computer controlled lighting, sound effects, thermal management, aroma and mattress characteristics.

This unit would allow a traveller to climb into a luxury version of a Japanese hotel capsule, placed in their room, and seal themselves in.

The pods would be of a uniform high-quality design, that could even be accommodated within an aircraft.

Once inside, an occupant would plug in their memory stick containing all the prerecorded data about the lights within their bedroom at home, the sounds of their partner sleeping and the stiffness distribution of their own bedsprings.

This would help eradicate the problem of failing to sleep in a strange bed when on a business trip, where sharp, well-rested wits are especially required the next day.