Today’s invention is a program which is sensitive to the size of elements displayed on the screen of the device it runs on.
I’m thinking here primarily about maps, on which the route between start and destination is displayed.
In order to provide maximum detail, the route would automatically be rotated and scaled to fit the screen diagonal (as closely as possible, without chopping off bits of the journey).
The whole business of seat reservations on trains causes major difficulty. In particular, the mix of reserved seats and non-reserved seats always makes life hard for passengers and train staff.
Passengers find it hard to detect where they are supposed to sit and if the vehicle itself has to be changed at the last minute (as happens regularly on the trains I use) then all those little bits of cardboard slotted into seat backs have to be either reset, by hand, or disregarded.
The situation is further complicated by the fact that seats may reserved only between some intermediate stations during a long journey.
What is needed is a cheap, flexible, software-controlled way to update central information about seating so that it is visible on the train.
Today’s invention is therefore a small robot printer (red) which moves in a straight line along the outside of a train at window level. It would be held in place by suction cups alternately attaching and detaching as it scuttles along. This action would be undertaken only in stations, with the device sheltering on board whilst in transit.
Each window would have temporary images sprayed onto it by the bot using eg bright yellow, water-resistant, non-drying paint. There would be a number related to the seat position and another unique to the passenger’s ticket for that seat. It would state the stations between which the seat was reserved and I’d also like to see a small image of the passenger’s face (eg for season ticket verification) but that could be optionally obtained from one’s social network profile.
Thus a passenger could easily find their reserved seat and there could be no argument about who had made the reservation. A quick check in the preceding station would allow seat bookings to be refreshed with current data, enabling people without reservations to use seats which were not being used.
Any last minute changing of trains would allow the bot to wipe off its paint and repaint in seconds.
No disrespect to any company that makes absurdly-expensive vacuum cleaners and now hand-driers, but today’s invention is a cheaper approach to drying hands that might suit eg hospitals in countries that can’t afford £1000 a shot.
It consists of a plastic funnel, shaped to accommodate a pair of hands.
This attaches to a bog-standard vacuum cleaner.
The funnel is pegged to the wall above a sink. Wash hands, shake into sink. Switch on the vacuum with your foot. The airflow dries your hands. Any excess runs into a pipe and down the plughole.
Ok, it probably takes an extra ten seconds, but if air drying is such a safety boon, this might save some lives somewhere.
Today’s invention extends the idea of a rotating-wheel space station, in which the spinning can press objects against the interior of the outer surface of the torus, creating artificial gravity.
Instead, I foresee the use of rocket-powered race vehicles, running on the flat inner surface, as shown.
Races could be viewed through transparent sections of the ‘roof’ of the station.
The spectators would enjoy high-speed contests with no air resistance…so the vehicles could be almost any shape.
There would also be the added thrill of knowing that one false move would mean vehicles disappearing off into space.
Too high a speed could cause the crowd to be pinned to their observation couches or float around uncontrollably (depending on the race direction).
It’s not uncommon for a lift to admit people on one side of the compartment and discharge them from the opposite side when they reach their destination floor.
Today’s invention is a lift which travels inside a shaft big enough to allow it to rotate (slowly) about a vertical axis as it transits from floor to floor.
People would wait at one of four doors, out of sight of each other. The lift compartments would have a door on each face. When each door opens, a walkway is automatically dropped to allow ingress or egress across the gap (in directions indicated by internal displays before getting to the next floor).
In a multistorey building, each lift can decide, during transit, which way to face when it next stops.
This allows the lift itself to calculate, based on data about the current call button pressings, which doors to open so that the numbers of leavers and joiners are as nearly equal as possible. Since all four doors might open at once, loading and unloading can be smoother.
All of which means that the lifts would each run nearly full, and allow faster boarding, whilst minimising overcrowding.
Today’s invention is a stunt vehicle which works on the same basis as the Barnes-Wallis bouncing bomb (actually more like the Waboba).
A low-weight car with extra-large, deformable tyres would accelerate to up a shallow ramp and fly across a water surface at high speed.
Just before hitting the water, its front wheels would be spun about vertical axes (red) so that their rotation was now in the backspin direction.
This would allow the vehicle to skim (for at least one bounce) across the water and land on the opposite side of eg a river.
This could be used as a magic trick or as part of an advertising campaign.
Ants decide what category of work to do based on the numbers of different types they encounter. If they run across lots of foragers, they may be chemically signalled to become one too.
Today’s invention is an app which performs a similar function for urban-dwelling humans.
Wearing one’s phone with face-detecting camera facing outwards would allow a passive count to be made of eg smiles encountered during the day, or the relative numbers of different clothing colours (adjacent to faces).
It might even be possible to estimate the speed of movement of faces during a given day to arrive at some idea of the level of urgency among the inhabitants of different areas visited.
These data would allow one to understand what colours were in fashion and the mood of the local population, so that your own behaviour could be chosen to conform or differ -and without having to actively record any of these subtle observations.
Today’s invention is an approach to creating a genuinely space-saving kitchen.
It takes the form of a multi-hotplate hob, mounted vertically.
The saucepans would each be made of copper and have a flat side. They would hook in place on the hob and have handles parallel to the wall.
E-waste is a growing problem. Batteries especially are generally hard for consumers to get recycled and end up getting dumped in landfill.
Today’s invention is to adopt one of the large circular batteries as a unit of currency.
Equipment manufacturers could design their kit to run off several of these. To operate your phone, it would be just like popping in some loose change.
When they can no longer be recharged, people are still going to hang onto them to use in making small purchases (perhaps tied to other green recyclable goods).
The battery cases would need to be stamped with some kind of hard-to-fake symbolism (at least as secure as current coinage).
Ultimately, they will all get returned to banks, which can act as collectors for the major recycling programmes.
Lots of lawnmowers have blades which flop out of the way when they encounter something like a stone or a twig. This means however that they can’t effectively cut thick grass, because the blades just yield much of the time.
Today’s invention is a ‘cowcatcher’ for mower-facing debris.
A v-shaped prow has a set of prongs (yellow), spring-loaded so they press gently and independently on the ground between the blades of grass.
As the mower moves through the grass, this comb will allow the herbage to pass through, but only stones etc of the order of a blade of grass in width.
Larger rubbish is deflected by the comb into the receptacles ahead of the front wheels, thus avoiding damaging the rotating blade.
