Today’s invention is a way for users of libraries and bookstores to make more effective use of the book stacks.
Each book would be equipped with a barcode on the spine.
Scanning the spine of the book with your phone would cause a stored text-to-speech recording of the book’s blurb to play (audible by using earbuds, so as not to disturb other browsers).
This would allow people to make a quicker assessment of publications, without having to extract books from shelves.
These days it’s ridiculous that, if I have to print something, the print should ever emerge from the printer unreadable.
When this happens, a lot of paper gets wasted, not to mention the time and frustration involved.
Today’s invention is therefore a program, running on my printer, which will identify text portions of a print job and automatically rescale them so that the printed font size will correspond with what is, for me, a comfortably legible size.
This might require some messing with the formatting of a complex document, for example, but the printer would ensure that all elements get printed clearly, even if the regions aren’t as closely packed as they were on the original page.
People put the wrong fuel in their cars all the time.
One reason for this is that sometimes a person will be filling a can with unleaded at the same time as topping up their diesel car. Somehow, the nozzles get put back in the wrong holsters.
Today’s invention is a simple fix, which would also make life hard for mischevious folk who swap nozzles around purely for amusement.
Each nozzle and holster would have male and female features which prevented, say, the diesel nozzle ever being put into the hi-octane holster.
Slideshows are a technology which has really run out of steam, but which has not yet been superseded.
Today’s invention offers a small way to augment slideshows by improving their automatic timing using content sensitivity.
The basic idea is that each slide would have the number of ‘items of interest’ in it counted, by software, and then its duration on-screen would be calculated to be in proportion.
A team photo with 30 faces in it would be on-screen for longer than a single portrait.
This works particularly well for faces, now that selfie culture and its associated software are everywhere. The approach could be applied even to technical presentations, so that a lecturer could simply label slides of greatest importance with eg ****, so that these would stay on show for longer than those labelled *.
Seats which nest together are common in schools, auditoria etc.
Today’s invention extends that to vehicles.
Imagine a plane or a bus or even a domestic people mover in which all the back seats can move forwards or backwards on rails (I’d like them motorised).
The seat parts would be horizontal and set at slightly lower heights towards the rear of the vehicle.
This would allow for much more flexible loading of people and/or luggage, without the need to remove seats. It would also enable seat spacing to be programmable, depending on the needs of a particular journey.
Shorter people could opt to sit at the rear, so that their feet could reach the ground more easily.
If you are building a website for a team who try to avoid hierarchies, one way to represent this is via photographs of the people involved.
Rather than the usual five white guys in suits sitting in front of a bookcase, today’s invention allows team members to appear of equal status.
Everyone gets, say, a dozen headshots taken, each with their gaze (and maybe even their face angle) in a different direction.
When a website visitor clicks on the face of person X, the page refreshes to show an image of X looking straight ahead and all the other people in the matrix of faces looking directly at her.
In addition to this, clicking on a face at, say, the top right of the array might cause that face to migrate to the middle of the crowd, with all those eyes following her progress to the centre of attention.
If you haven’t got space or cash to buy a car lift, then you could always dig a pit -or struggle with a few jack stands when trying to service your car.
Today’s invention offers an alternative approach.
I already own some incredibly strong plastic ramps, but they are much too small in length. It’s possible to lift only two wheels of a car at once.
Instead, imagine a set of nesting ramps of the shape indicated in the picture. These would be easily storable and you could buy as many or as few as necessary.
As shown, these enable a sturdy platform to be built so that a vehicle can be raised to an effective working height.
(The necessary end stops are omitted from the image. I’d imagine each as a recess which would allow the driver to sense when his car had reached a safe limit for reversing. These recesses wouldn’t interfere with nesting for storage or inversion when building the platform.)
If you want to use one of the many devices for removing a stuck jar lid, that’s fine.
What about holding the jar itself, though?
Today’s invention is a block with a v shape removed (red). This is set in a drawer as shown so that it holds the body of a jar and is then squeezed between it and the worktop edge.
Leaning on the front of the drawer allows your lid grip device of choice to be effectively employed.
Consider the humble match. For generations, people have been burning their fingers as they took longer than expected to light their log fire or their birthday candles.
Today’s invention helps avoid these injuries.
The sleeve of the matchbox would have a thin coat of silver foil on one side (grey). There would be a cut-out indicating a safe place to grip the cardboard of the device (pale blue).
Inserting a match through the holes shown allows the match to be struck on a rough surface, and held whilst burning for longer, but with no subsequent danger to the fingers.
(‘Safety’ matches would be sold two boxes at a time, so that the special sandpaper on the second box could be used to spark ignition.)
Sometimes I am very surprised not to be able to find one of ‘my’ ideas anywhere…already on sale or lurking in the dusty drawers of the patent office.
Today’s invention is one such small spark of inspiration.
Opel Adam berry red at IAA 2013
Everyone has seen the wheels of bicycles spinning as they are driven down the motorway on a bike carrier strapped to a car. There is a small industry focussed on providing straps etc to stop this overuse of wheel bearings and the possibility that bike mileage computers will give inaccurate readings.
Another small industry involves people making domestic wind turbines from bicycle wheels equipped with vanes between the spokes.
Today’s invention is to take advantage of wheel spinning in a car’s slipstream. It makes sense to use any spinning to generate some electricity.
A bike mounted on a rack has a friction dynamo pressed lightly against its wheel. The protruding wheels’ spokes could be fitted with clip-on vanes in order to promote their wind-driven rotation. As a wheel spins, it generates energy which can be used to illuminate extra rear lights during night driving, for example…or to charge smartphones/tablets.
