Home Archive by category "Feasible inventions" (Page 18)

Category: Feasible inventions

#2466: TextileTest

Manufacturers spend huge amounts of time and money testing materials for durability.

Today’s invention provides a benefit to customers, whilst getting them to undertake some free crowd-testing activity.

Imagine an office chair designed to accept standardised fabric inserts. Inserts would be supplied in large numbers of different types to the company buying the chairs. This gives people the chance to choose something about their working environment and it also prolongs the life of office furniture -which often gets dumped once it starts to get shabby in only a few areas.

The chair manufacturer would be able to note people’s choices of colour and fabric and also monitor how long each lasted.

These inserts could even be made from eg clothing fabric or materials destined for car seats.

#2464: Horrifilter

Medics and other health professionals take a lot of time gradually building up their own resistance to the sight of blood, decay and other dramatic bodily processes.

Dentists in particular sometimes need to show their patients the insides of their mouths, however. So keen are they to point out the finer points of dental surgery that they sometimes forget this disgusts patients -and may even scare them.

Seeing a super-sized, full-colour image of a mouth, even my own mouth, is something that fills me with enough horror that I usually forget to listen to the message about improved flossing technique, or whatever.

Today’s invention is a way to detune emotional response to such images. Automatic processing of the video image would be done in real time so that the pictures shown to patients would be just a sequence of normal-size diagrams. This would be achieved by using time lapse, conversion to greyscale and edge detection filters (as shown)… so that the impact of the usual sloppy, textured, bloody mess would be neutralised.

#2463: AccommoDash

Today’s invention is intended to help people who have trouble adjusting their focus from the road ahead to the details of their dashboard.

It might also benefit from some extra illumination in the form of a directable, soft focus pen light.

#2461: Bonuspice

Vending machines are the ultimate self-checkout system (I generally hate self-checkouts, but vending machines don’t yell at you). It’s always nice to get a free gift and doubly so when you are forced to act as your own check-out person at the supermarket.

Today’s invention is a self-checkout incorporating a small vending machine which communicates with the till itself. This could be loaded with packets of eg spices (or other sauces and condiments).

When you happen to have bought ingredients which could be used to make a particular meal, the machine automatically gives you a free recipe and a packet of appropriate spice.

#2460: GravelGliders

I bought one of these chassis washers to help protect my car from the salt which my local council throws around liberally, most of the year.

It works well, although Karcher have now suddenly withdrawn the accompanying underbody wax fluid from sale (maybe it was toxic/flammable??). I’ve explained how little that impressed me.

I was also unimpressed that they showed no interest in licensing today’s invention. The chassis washer is great on neatly laid German flagstones, but on anything less flat, like gravel, its tiny wheels just bog down and become a plough.

So…skids. These would press into the washer, in place of the existing removable wheels. It’s clearly not rocket science, but makes the original product a lot more versatile at a small extra cost.

#2458: Summarease

It takes a heck of a long time to view one of those multi-season TV series.

Who has time for binge watching even the highest quality productions?

Today’s invention is a new way to watch an entire box set’s worth in an evening. Ok, so you miss out on most of the subtlety, but you certainly get all of the drama in one massive hit.

Series editors already expend massive amounts of effort in putting together the ‘previously on’ sections to introduce each episode. The idea is to stitch all of these together to make a single, super-cut rapid-view summary film.

At say 30 seconds per episode and say 100 episodes, that works out at 50 minutes of high octane entertainment.

At least enough to be able to discuss the whole thing around, say, a barbecue with your paesani.

#2455: FolderBolster

People who drive race cars understand that they are hard to enter and exit. There may be roll cages and carbon fibre tubs to negotiate as well as seat bolsters and head restraints.

Much of this driver packaging doesn’t work very well in a road going sports car. Not only do race cars offer a restricted field of view, but ordinary drivers are a good deal fatter and less mobile than the average track pilot.

Yet, roadgoing sportscars tend to mimic the features of their racing brethren. This means that the ‘racing’ seat option will often have side and leg bolsters which rise high above the seat surface to provide some bracing as you enter the Mulsanne straight (in your dreams).

After a short while, the leather or alcantara gets so badly scuffed here that it looks like an old teddy bear’s paw. This is costly to fix/replace.

Today’s invention is therefore sportscar seats whose bolsters hinge out of the way to allow the driver/ passenger easier access (along axes A-B and B-C) (There would need to be a locking mechanism too).

Yes of course these can be motorised (at the usual enormous cost of options).

#2454: TomeTop

I live in a house with lots of books (good) and dogs (not so good).

Animals create a lot of dust and this clogs the outer page surfaces of books, even when stored in a bookcase.

Today’s invention is a better dust cover. It comes with an extra flap on one side (a) which can be folded into the other side of the cover (c), leaving a roof over the page edges (b).

A similar flap could be made to wrap the front edge of the pages (opposite the spine).

Although marginally more expensive, this dust cover could be filled with even more breathy praise for the work inside than normal…(or just ads for the next book).

#2453: Autowash

(I didn’t like yesterday’s lens cap thing, on further reflection, so I just replaced it…)

Hospitals, labs and kitchens are badly affected by micro-organisms on many working surfaces.

Normal taps are in contact with infected hands, and may act as a source of cross contamination, if they not cleaned frequently.

Today’s invention is therefore a tap shaped so as to ensure that the touched surfaces, and the user’s hands, get washed every time it’s used.

#2452: Hosecret

Garden hoses look very unnatural and out of place in a garden of which you are at all proud. Manufacturers seem to go out of their way to make them in primary colours (even the bright green versions are highly visible).

Today’s invention is therefore a garden hose with an exterior texture and bunches of simulated leaves that make the humble hose look like a natural vine or creeper.

The hose can then either be laid along a path or draped around your country cottage, once it has been used (thus not detracting from the look of your perfect lawn and weedless flowerbeds).