Category: Possible inventions

I met someone the other day who had a hard-to-pronounce surname. In fact it was so difficult to say that he didn’t pronounce it and simply handed out his business card.

So today’s invention is a business card for people who may have a hard-to-say name. Based on the same technology as those dreadful musical birthday cards, these might each contain a small chip with a soundfile on board (This could be passed wirelessly to the chip but in practice, you might have to live with a version of your name spoken in a machine-like voice constructed from a menu of syllables, chosen from the manufacturer’s website). The card could incorporate a contact switch, activated simply by pressing it.

Now that meetings are increasingly likely to involve a wide diversity of participants, it may well improve subsequent name recognition and avoid some embarrassment for people to supply each other with a way to hear names sounded out clearly, even after the meeting itself.

One can only hope that people don’t start handing out personal ringtones.

People tend to habituate and take little notice of announcements which are frequently repeated. You only need to watch the antics of air stewardesses telling frequent fliers about lifesaving emergency procedures -and being studiously ignored.

This phenomenon is even move noticeable when it comes to recorded announcements on the railways. It’s perfectly possible to hear an automated announcement of which n stations a train is about to visit, n times in the course of a journey.

Today’s invention is simply to persist with oft-repeated messages but to have each recorded by a variety of different, engaging voices saying the material with slightly different phrasing. In this way, a higher level of attention can be generated for each announcement.

As long as the diction was clear, regional accents or a heightened emotional note might be used to good effect -especially if a warning was involved. Each message might vary randomly in tone from start to finish in order to keep people cognitively ‘tuned in’.

I was recently unfortunate enough to be briefly in hospital. There is a lot of stuff wrong in hospitals, even if we overlook the central fact that there are many too few doctors -a situation engineered purely to maintain their fee rate.

One particularly lamentable aspect is the lack of patient privacy. I found myself unavoidably party to conversations, behind flimsy fabric screens, that should really have stayed private between doctors and their patients.

Today’s invention is a double hood device, one end of which is worn by a doctor; the other by his/her patient. This could be made in the form of eg two polystyrene hemispheres joined by a semi-cylindrical tunnel. Medics would have to ask patients if they wanted to talk privately and if so, both would place a hemispherical helmet on their heads and talk quietly via the tunnel.

In this way, their discussion would remain confidential -both could sit without discomfort and without increased risk of cross infection.

Several such devices could be cheaply made available in every ward, perhaps designed to nest compactly together. If made in soundproof fabric, they could be designed to unfold in an origami-esque way.

Some organisations are obsessed with their internal pecking order. It’s presumably a reflection of our tribal origins that we like to know that Beryl in accounts reports to Mr Bainbridge, acting Deputy regional vice undermanager -even if he’s incompetent and she really runs the outfit.

It’s often true that the status organogram of a big organisation, despite being so carefully drafted, doesn’t really reflect who talks to whom.

Today’s invention is a software tool which automatically detects and updates the de facto reporting structure within an organisation.

Every time an email is created, this program records a list of the people to whom it is sent, cc’d and bcc’d. Over time, sufficient data are gathered to allow a map of the actual interconnectivities between people to be shown. This would represent direction, frequency, bandwidth and priority of exactly who talks to whom.

In this way, those individuals who are most critical to the communications process can be easily identified. My suspicion is that these crucial individuals will not be those at the top of the notional pyramid.

Analysis of Subject lines might also allow identification of eg any large scale wastages of bandwidth, such as that person in purchasing who’s always sharing their weekly footbal results, wedding photos or ‘amusing anecdotes’ by spamming half their colleagues.

When trying to train a dog, I believe many experts now advocate the use of a clicker device. This is basically a flexible square of metal which, when deflected and released, emits a loud and consistent click: much more consistent than a word of command from an owner.

The idea apparently is to make the noise when the animal is behaving as required.

Today’s invention combines this with another form of Pavlovian reinforcement, the use of ‘treats.’

A container, similar to a saccharin tablet dispenser, would be used to spit out one treat pellet at a time. This action would deflect a metal plate, causing the required click.

The noise and pellet would reinforce each other’s effects and become associated with behaviour that was desired by the owner.

Gambling for most people is harmless enough…you pay some money for some small anticipative thrills in connection with the possibility of winning a pocketful of cash.

For others, the whole process is fraught with danger…addiction wrecks lives, for both gamblers and their families.

Today’s invention is a slot, or other form of gaming machine, which is designed to help.

A machine would be able detect which individuals may be exhibiting addictive behaviour (by eg monitoring responses to offers by the machine to bet increasing amounts of stored ‘credits’ and by sensing the frequency and intensity of button pushes etc).

In the event that a machine had been used continuously in this frantic fashion for more than a few minutes, it could simply stop working and provide a telephone number for Gamblers Anonymous, a short video message from an ex-gambler celebrity or it might subtly and gradually reduce the small payoffs which make these games addictive. Lessening the tension for individuals who are keen to experience it would be a good way to decrease their engagement and dissociative behaviour.

Ideally, there should be a reward for walking away before the game is ended by this method. Something like a healthy snack or a badge saying “I beat the calming machine” would at least be better than providing cash which could fund future games. This kind of machine might well be adopted eagerly by gambling businesses, anxious to clean up their greedy, irresponsible image.

When you explore new territory on a cycle, it would be nice to have a guide travel with you to inform you of the inside story of what’s where and what it all means.

Today’s invention is a virtual cycle tour guide.

It consists of a voice recorder, laptop, earphones and a compass strapped to a cycle -all of which records exactly how far the cycle has moved and every small change of direction taken.

At each new location (for which data have been recorded), a snatch of audio commentary is played (which was saved by some previous rider at the same spot).

In this way, riders can make, and share, digitally recorded commentaries, tagged with location information (an approach which would be impossible for pedestrians, without some form of GPS system).

Update: since writing this, I see that someone has been thinking along similar lines… 

Every hole in the hedge is now a coffee shop and every one of those is filled with them: disposable spoons, I mean. Whether in the form of wood strips or plastic swizzlers, they are just an irritant.

They litter the floor or poke you in the eye, mid-drink.

Today’s invention is a stirrer which is integral to the cup itself (particularly good for use in eg airlines and trains).

When folded, from a single sheet of card, and stuck together, the new cup includes a hinge, standing proud of the lip. Running down from the hinge is a stirrer, made of the same material as the cup, which sticks into the drink. This spoonlike flap is driven backwards and forwards through the liquid by a press-out arm which penetrates the fixed vertical support for the hinge.

After use, the whole thing gets dumped in the paper recycling. No need for everlasting plastic or additional deforestation.

For reasons best known to themselves, lots of people like to illuminate their vehicles in unusual ways. This often takes the form of banks of leds in bright colours. On a giant truck, this can be very distracting at night, since any vehicle thus equipped looks like it’s in a scene from Close Encounters. Similarly, there are popular blue lamps that shine underneath ‘custom’ cars and may even flash to the rhythm of the occupant’s choice of ‘music’.

Today’s invention takes things a stage further and offers the chance of lighting one’s wheels with a set of strobe lamps, set to flash exactly in synchrony with rotation frequency.

As you drive along, with strobes off, the message, advert or image on your wheels and tyres is just a blur. Switch on the strobes, in response to some traffic event, or just when passing a friend, and all four wheels start to provide a static, brightly coloured display. It might say “Eat at Joe’s” , “txt me:1779666” or display a couple of giant eyes on one side of the vehicle…Given how keen people are to have personal numberplates, this might just be used to spell out owners’ names.

It might well be possible to fit four different strobes per vehicle to illustrate the speed with which a car is being driven: one wheel carrying a message saying “30mph”, another “40mph” etc Useful when fitted to police vehicles keen to provide a reminder to motorists as they drive alongside them.

Golfballs travel further because they have a dimpled surface which creates turbulence in the air nearest the surface. This, in turn makes for a much narrower wake, a reduced pressure difference between front and back faces and thus a decrease in drag force.

All of this is good for golfers but it might actually be useful in other contexts. For a blunt shaped, slow moving vehicle, for example (say 10km per hour), it can be shown that the drag cofficient is halved by adding dimples to the surface.

This means that, for future versions of urban bubble cars and delivery vans, a big saving in fuel economy can be achieved just by a small change to the surface geometry. The dimples might actually work just as well by protruding outwards and would certainly be easier to manufacture by attaching small hemispheres to a bodyshell -aeropimples.

If anyone ever decides to return to the use of powered balloon flight for freight transport, this invention may become significant.

This doesn’t apply, of course, to high-speed, aerodynamic vehicles. The Spitfire was marginally slowed by the decision to use domehead rivets on certain of its surfaces.