Category: Feasible inventions

Today’s invention is to allow the effective use of smartphones in ultra-cold weather.

A mitten has a transparent window made of thin plastic, so the screen is perfectly visible. Inside, there are straps which hold the device so that it stays approximately in place without having to be gripped.

Another zipped aperture allows the other hand to be placed inside the mitten to touch the screen.

I’m again a bit annoyed that electronics companies seem to have hired no mechanical engineers. Why else do they continue to make electrical connections as robust as glass?

Today’s invention is a way to overcome the terrible problems associated with micro-usb connections (without losing all the benefit of small plugs).

If this tiny bit of kit attached to your new mobile device breaks or gets hamfistedly misaligned and damages the system’s interior, you are into the zone of throw it away and fork out for a new one.

Instead, how about retro-fitting a nice, smoothly contoured plug which fits onto the female connection within your device for as long as it lasts?

When you want to charge or undertake data transfer, you plug into this a nice big strong, positive-contact connector which is itself a permanent home for the standard, brittle male component on the end of the cable.

Today’s invention was inspired by the amazing family Williamson.

Now that smartphones are getting voice interpretation abilities, wouldn’t it be great if you could set your cameraphone down and have it take pictures of you say 0.5 sec after yelling your codeword at it?

(Obviously, your word would need to be easily user-modifiable to stop pranksters photographing you at inopportune moments.)

How about having the system interpret wider instructions like: “shutter? fastshot, instagram sepia, delay one second, send to Patrick” ?

It might be fun to have your smartphone take a shot every time it heard some keyword in conversation (a modern-era swearbox perhaps?)

Today’s invention is symmetric Lego bricks which are made with either knobs or recesses back-to-back (as shown).

This would allow many more interesting combinations of structures to be created (as would a single brick design with both faces each containing male and female components).

There is now a fashion for not wearing ties, even whilst sporting a suit. It’s clearly more comfortable to leave one’s top button undone.

This, I’ve noticed, causes men, especially those with lardy white necks, to look really untidy about the neck region -as their collars sag open limply.

Today’s invention aims to fix this -unobtrusively. A strip of velcro is attached inside the shirt, as indicated by the blue patch (bottom right). Note that the collar is comfortably open but still retains a smart appearance.

The top image shows the two edges of the shirt (blue) held in place by the velcro strips (red and green) below the level of the top, undone button (the black lines are the regions of adhesive backing, left in place).

The lower image illustrates that this comfortable solution can be easily undone to remove the shirt.

I find that when I travel on public transport I routinely find my lower legs being bitten by fleas -just above the sock-line.

This can’t just affect me, so today’s invention is foam pad which attaches to the instep of one shoe using an elastic strap around the shoe.

This would be completely unobtrusive normally but when one sits on a bus or train, the pad, which would contain tea tree oil, could be slid to the heel area, using the strap, and rubbed gently on the floor.

This would release a little oil and deter even the most determined of parasites.

Today’s invention is another way to help ensure that police officers can use firearms more safely, ideally without firing them.

Each handgun would be fitted with a bright led which would be switched on by being withdrawn from its holster and which would shine on the weapon.

The weapons themselves would be nickel-plated, or even coated in luminous paint, so that any police guns being handled would be highly visible under the illumination.

Imagine if the light brightened and dimmed at the pace of the police officer’s pulse, as detected via the grip.

This could be made bright enough to dazzle or confuse an armed criminal but would at least alert them to the need to surrender.

Still on the subject of rubbish, today’s invention is an office desk waste bin design.

Having bins lying about an office can cause people to trip and a day’s worth of sandwich packages and orange peel may start to smell pretty bad.

Instead, office desks could be made wider than normal to accommodate a long, thin paper bag each. This would be hidden beneath a clip-in lid, so that any waste on the desk could be brushed into it.

One leg might accommodate cans, another paper and another food remnants.

This would encourage recycling and still maintain a more streamlined working environment.

Wheelie bins aren’t that easy to move about when full of refuse.

Today’s invention is an extra set of wheels for such bins.

These would be mounted on a common axle and driven by two small independent electric motors, mounted to a frame.

The bin owner would attach two swingarms to the normal bin wheel axles, place the extra wheels at the front and rock the bin back through a few degress so that the front edge was on the frame, slightly clear of the ground.

The motors would be activated remotely so that the bin could be directed across a garden and onto the pavement for collection (a little like the latest golf bag trolleys).

Once out there, the wheel unit would be removed and safely stored until the next bin collection.