Category: Feasible inventions

Ad blocking software is simply great, but I suspect that many of the good, free things available via the Internet will just disappear if the advertising revenues from online ‘eyeballs’ dry up.

The problem with attending to adverts, however creative and targeted (most aren’t either), is that they get in the way of one’s current tasks.

Today’s invention is therefore a browser plug-in which collects all the information about those online adverts which have been blocked and offers them to the user as a concentrated ad-break…perhaps a couple of times a day, or when the browser is being closed.

These would be shown in the order of being blocked and one screen at a time, so that no scrolling ‘below the crease’ would be required. Extra incentives for viewing/clicking these might be offered (since they would otherwise just be deleted and remain ignored).

A user/viewer might be required to click certain buttons on the ad. page to indicate that they had sat through this display.

Having had to use a TENS machine for pain relief recently, I soon got bored with the stored patterns of electrical stimulation (to which the muscles adapt very quickly).

So I thought that today’s invention should be a new TENS device in which the electrical signals are driven by the frequencies of the wearer’s music being played on his/her MP3 player.

This would help the therapeutic effects of listening to music and provide a much wider variety of massage for the tissues.

Do the people at Hot or Not actually do anything commercially valuable with all those photographs; all those data about people’s preferences? Maybe the figures gathered aren’t actually very meaningful (given that most of the photographs are usually abysmal).

Anyway, I’ve been losing sleep again about advertising. Now that there is an intensifying war going on to capture people’s attention, where are they actually looking? Answer: at members of the opposite sex.

Today’s invention is a business model which consists of ranking the attractiveness of a large number of people (eg via Facebook or the HON site mentioned above). For, say, the 1000 top-ranked attractive women in a given city, supply them with a Cafepress T shirt with information about products of interest to young men (bars, cars, jobs, whatever). It’s not clear if this would work reciprocally for female customers and T-shirted males.

The females would be publicly identified by their shirt as significantly more attractive than average and could be further incentivised by the shirts each carrying a personal code -so that purchases driven by it could result in the wearer receiving a % payment.

Those who work with wheelbarrows, only occasionally, know that moving loads about in this way can be hard work and even cause injury.

This applies particularly when the barrow is first lifted off the deck (when the back may be used more than the legs) and also when tipping material out of the barrow by lifting the handles as shown.

Today’s invention is a small lever device, inspired by the centre stands which racing motorcycles use.

This would allow the user to flip the lever down from its storage position above the sides of the barrow onto the ground and stand on the plate, thus raising the handles a little so as to be reached more easily without bending one’s back.

Then, when emptying the barrow, it could be stepped on again, fully, as shown. This would drive the roller forward and lock the barrow safely in position so that the hands could be repositioned to allow the whole system to be thrust forward.

Fed up carrying or tripping over powercords that are too long or finding appliances with cables that are just too short?

Meet the Beadlead.

Today’s invention is a variable-length power cord which is made up of insulated beads.

These stab into one another to form a chain…just like a child’s necklace. Internally, they each contain an electrical conductor so that electricity can flow along the internal conduit they form.

This design also provides cords with a high degree of flexibility.

Car doors are supposed to keep us safe -but sometimes they can be highly dangerous.

The drag of a passing vehicle or a strong gust of wind can whip a slightly open door into the path of another car, or someone’s face, or inwards onto the fingers of a child (this says nothing about the damage to the car caused by doors being snapped backwards and forwards).

Today’s invention is a relatively simple modification to car doors. It is an internal locking mechanism which only allows the door to be moved when the handle is being held in the open position.

This might best be implemented as a frictional brake device, located at the hinge axis. A similar approach might be applied in domestic doors to lessen the chance of crushing children’s fingers in the hinged edge.

Toothbrushes, whether electrical or mechanical, come in different stiffnesses (although dentists seem to disapprove of anything which is firmer than cotton wool).

Today’s invention is a mechanism whereby a standard toothbrush can benefit from some variation in the stiffness of its bristles.

As shown, when the wing nut on the back is twisted, the yellow plate is drawn downwards, making the brush more flexible.

Typing…it’s still a hard task for me to undertake, despite the amount of it I do each day.

Today’s invention is twofold. First, I suggest making the keys on a keyboard with convex domes rather than sharp-edged depressions as is currently common.

This avoids some of the tactile confusion my fingers succumb to from these multiple facets and allows a positive sensation that one’s fingers are actually squarely on the top of each key.

Second, as a non touchtyper, I’d like to see keys which operate a little like the shutter release on cameras. Press a key in a little and the character appears on-screen. Remove pressure and it disappears. Only if you depress a key fully will the character stay as part of one’s text display.

This allows hesitant typists to check what they are about to write -and might even help create more confidence for touch typing (especially when used in concert with domed keys).