Category: Possible inventions

People seem to bid more aggressively for items with a red background.

Today’s invention is a related development for online auctions.

Items up for sale would appear in your browser initially on a white ground.

If you find your bid is say 30% less than the top bid, the item will now appear in your browser against a background that has been made 30% redder.

This encourages you to bid in proportion to the extent that your bid is short of the current highest.

Imagine a rifle which allows an infantryman to direct the fire of very large calibre weapons on board eg helicopters and tanks.

Most grunts or squaddies have difficulty with aiming their weapons precisely enough to harm the enemy at anything beyond the normal ‘pray and spray range.’

Today’s invention is a system which allows a soldier, possibly with sniper training, to fire a device towards an opposition installation. This would be like a very large flare, designed to be clearly visible to the people on the receiving end.

Instead of exploding, it would communicate a message. If the targetted troops hadn’t surrendered within say five seconds, a shell would automatically be fired at the location indicated by a transmitter on the flare.

This would encourage even experienced soldiers to discontinue the conflict in the face of such unequal odds -and thus save some lives.

Today’s invention is a multi-tube fuselage design for airliners.

This would be subject to the same drag force as a conventional wide-bodied jet. Although the bundlebody perimeters would be twice as long in total as that for the conventional machine, the wall thickness in each case could be made half as thick, due to the enormous increase in pressure resistance which comes with narrow cylinders.

Each narrow cylinder would have local space in which to store one’s baggage (ensuring that any terrorist explosions are isolated in effect and that the crew, flying in another cylinder, are better protected).

The narrow tubes would be easier to support in the event of a depressurisation incident.

Aircraft could be much more easily configured, on the ground, by detaching some tubes, to cope with sudden changes in passenger bookings. In addition, the views for all passengers would be improved.

It seems that IOTD gets a namecheck in connection with how ideas drive growth -here: “The Great Courses“.

Today’s invention is therefore dedicated to my friend, and notable academic, Scotte Page.

Much has been said about windscreen wipers. Today’s invention is a system which has a camera monitoring the onset of the vehicle driver’s next eyeblink.

When that happens, a superfast windscreen wiper is activated, so that the dreadful, rhythmic thrashing that occurs on wet days goes unseen and thus avoids limiting his/her field of view.

I just read this (weirdly ungrammatical) item and thought I’d rush out today’s invention before some global sports equipment manufacturer can patent it.

If it’s indeed true that splaying fingers and toes allows one to swim significantly faster, then the same can be applied to oars, paddles and maybe even propeller blades.

Today’s invention is therefore a rowing blade that has the same wetted area as usual but which consists of separate ‘fingers.’

I used to love to watch Fred Dibnah demolishing giant buildings using burning railway sleepers or a handful of blasting powder.

Demolition is still big business, but knocking down buildings is a noisy, slow process, given that concrete is usually heavily reinforced with steel.

Today’s invention is therefore a relatively cheap, quiet and rapid way to take a building down.

A folding four-legged spider is passed into a ground floor room via a window. This is opened out and each of four footplates set against the corners of the room. The legs run up to a central core which is in an elevated position.

Sudden,downward pressure on the core forces the feet outwards, tensioning and displacing the walls just enough to punch holes in the corners and destabilise the whole structure,

This pressure could be generated by dropping a large mass or firing a single explosive charge (It might even be possible to use a hydraulic, drill-like mechanism to corkscrew the core towards the ground).

This will cause the upper floors to descend and the edifice to collapse.

When the rubble is later removed, the spider can be extracted and reused.

People who have had to have a glass eye fitted can be left with a somewhat lifeless expression on one side of their face.

Today’s invention is a pair of glasses which a person with a glass eye can wear to reduce this effect.

A small camera in the frame surrounding their healthy eye can detect its angle of gaze.

This is communicated to the other half of the frame which contains a set of electromagnets.

These magnets act in concert to move a metal iris under the surface of the (static) glass eye, so as to mimic the movements of the healthy one.

Today’s invention is a way to refuel vehicles without actually stopping. No more queueing, interrupted journeys or handling noxious chemicals.

A car would drive, at reduced speed, through a service station and have automatically injected into it, from below, either a new battery or a new tank of petrol.

These packages would be armoured and designed for zero leakage. They would be stored in a mechanised feeder magazine.

A charge would be automatically made to the account of the vehicle owner.