Category: Feasible inventions

It’s annoying that my toaster will pump out two slices together, since even my ravenous appetite can’t deal with more than one at a time.

This either results in one slice being left cooling on the plate or having to micromanage the start time for the next slice (when I’d rather be eating in peace).

Today’s invention is a toaster which has a timer for each slot which allows an offset to be programmed in.

This means that slice 1 appears with maximal speed but slices 2, 3 etc appear perfectly toasted at a user-specified interval determined by how long it takes you to butter and eat a piece.

The toaster might even learn that you tend to extract slices 3 and 4 after longer delays than 1 or 2 and thus match your breakfast eating pattern exactly.

Today’s invention is keyboard buttons which are capable of additional movements than merely in the vertical direction.

As well as creating eg an R on the screen by pressing directly down, these keys would allow a rotary flick to the left to erase the R character if created in error.

Pressing down any combination of buttons simultaneously with one hand, whilst moving the hand laterally across the keyboard, would provide easy, intuitive cursor control across the screen, so that there would be no need for a conventional mouse or trackpad (or ‘nub’).

Flicking each key in any of, say, the other seven major compass directions would allow additional functionality to be programmed-in.

This would also enable many more combinations to be recognised by the keyboard, providing for eg much more memorable log-in passwords in the form of patterns executed with a single, depressed finger.

Today’s invention is a way to ensure that one’s luxury car doesn’t get stolen.

The driver’s seat would have a lock mechanism attached to its spine via the headrest locating holes.

Locking the car door (with no weight on the seat) would cause the driver’s seat motors to drive the seat back forwards into contact with the steering wheel. The lock would engage with the wheel and automatically snap closed around it.

This would make the car visibly impossible to drive away -at least without being prepared to wreck the interior.

It would also avoid the need to carry around all sorts of extra ironmongery.

Today’s invention is a software plugin for networked diaries.

When you set up your out-of-office message, the programme would automatically ask you for someone to handle your high priority messages. It would then detect if the person who is nominated to take those urgent calls (Ms A, say) has themselves booked a holiday while you are away.

If they have, then you would be informed and any emergency calls would be automatically redirected to Mr B (as nominated by Ms A) during that period.

The depth of this redirection sequence would be limited so that the ultimate call handler still had some idea of what to do.

In particular, this approach would also ensure that no loops could form ie
MsA->MrB->MsC->MsA would be ruled out.

Today’s invention is handcuffs which automatically open after a given time period.

These would be cheaply made and come with a clockwork mechanism embedded which allowed the owner of the cuffs to specify how long they would stay locked.

Cuffs like these might be useful if a police force needed to restrain rowdy individuals for a while, without actually imprisoning them, or to impose house arrest on someone for a short period (perhaps for their own safety).

The clockwork could be wound using the cuffs’ own key which would then be stored in a small box with a push-to-lock door attached to one cuff.

After a set time, the box would spring open.

Today’s invention is a tape measure with two reels on board, as shown.

This allows the distance between two points (A and B) to be measured precisely without the casing (green) getting in the way.

It also means that by allowing the reels to slide into contact with each other, the tape when pulled from one side will emerge to the same degree from the other.

This would facilitate location of the mid point of AB exactly, which can be a useful time saver, especially within a restricted space.

I’m strongly against smoking: it killed my mother.

Having said that, I really don’t want to have to share my visual surroundings with people who are carrying cigarette packets with gruesome images of gum damage and rotting lungs etc.

This imagery is supposed to discourage the use of tobacco, but if anyone in government were serious about cutting the related costs of healthcare, the price of a cigarette could be easily set at £300.

Until then, today’s invention is a slip-on cover for a standard sized pack of cigarettes. It would be plain in colour.

I’d also recommend pasting any ghastly images on the inside of the lid, so that every passing child isn’t subjected to this disturbing health porn propaganda.

My computer desktop is a flat surface which replicates the uniform, physical nature of the screen itself exactly.

Today’s invention is a way to introduce more interest and feedback from items on the desktop and thus add extra engagement with elements on one’s computer screen (assuming it’s not a touchscreen).

Each window, border, icon, etc would have a defined depth and texture.

As I run my cursor across a desktop item, the cursor would shrink or expand noticeably, according to whether it was defined to be set more deeply or less deeply into the screen. Bringing items to the ‘front’ would make the cursor bigger when subsequently moving over them.

Secondly, the machine would emit a different sound as the cursor was traversing a screen element labeled rough than over one identified as smooth.

These parameters would be linked to the local visual pattern so that a cross-hatched area would make a rasping sound whilst a glassy, reflective region would cause the cursor to apparently make either a gliding, swishing noise or perhaps the squeaking sound of a dry finger on glass.

Today’s invention is a program to optimise the strength of a telescopic crane.

When using such a crane either fully (1) or minimally extended, the loading allowed will be well defined. I’ve often seen them used in configuration (2), however, which seems like it has potential to damage the mechanism (unless it’s so over engineered as to be much more costly than it need be).

The program envisaged would, for a given intermediate reach, work out p,q,… etc which would minimise the maximum bending stress in the booms.