Category: Possible inventions

I have tripped over my laptop’s transformer many times, almost causing the machine to crash onto the floor.

Today’s invention is to redesign these bricks into a low profile wedge shape. This would be inherently harder to stumble on but, when wedged under a door as a stop, the chance of tripping is much reduced.

In addition, because the transformer itself is anchored by the door, catching one’s foot on the cable should result in detaching the cable from the box, rather than tugging the machine, or whatever, off the desk on which it’s parked.

I love the idea of emergence, especially when it applies to engineered systems.

Imagine a flock of miniature UAVs. These are programmed with the usual rules about maintaining a safe distance from neighbours whilst flying at the same speed and direction.

Today’s invention is to take this one step farther and to have individual drones fly so as to take up positions relative to each other eg “fly at 30 degrees 1-wingspan to the North, South, East or West of your nearest neighbour.”

During a long flight, UAVs could cycle through a large number of combinations of such simple geometrial variants, thus creating a huge number of possible shapes eg line astern, cruciform, 8 of diamonds, S-shape -both regular and perhaps irregular.

The critical thing would be that all the vehicles would be in constant communication, so that they would be broadcasting their current rules and other, resulting conditions (such as fuel economy).

This would allow the drones to try any simple behaviours which seemed to be working well for others. Just like a realtime genetic algorithm, this would attune the flock to varying flying conditions (eg when fuel is running low and heading into a storm, flying efficiently and less closely would be an experimental finding that was quickly and widely adopted).

Even in connection with those books not in digital format, unlicensed photocopying can be a problem.

Today’s invention is a simple fixture designed to make a real book much less easily copied, whilst not restricting anyone who wants to read the content.

It takes the form of a fine, but tough and flexible metal cable which runs around the outside of each book (inside the binding) and across top of the pages themselves.

This allows the book to be opened enough for easy reading, but makes it impossible to place it on a photocopier (even one designed for fast, semi-automatic imaging). Handheld scanners could still be used to allow legitimate recording of individual passages.

Any tampering with the cable would be immediately obvious eg to librarians or other lenders.

People in busy tower blocks can become stressed by fighting their way onto and off lifts. This is a similar situation is some ways to getting on and off trains…a problem that used to be dealt with by having carriages with multiple side doors.

Today’s invention is a resurrection of this idea as applied to lifts.

Each lift would consist of say 30 cubicles, each big enough to accommodate perhaps 2 people and with a glass door to prevent claustrophobia.

When the lift stops, the cubicles would be accessed in parallel, so that there would be no fighting to get in or out on time. The glass doors would also allow anyone to see which cubicles were available.

These long, narrow lift carriages would each occupy up to half the width of an office block, to allow room for upwards and downwards lifts.

If you share some piece of equipment with several colleagues or flatmates, there is sometimes a need to monitor hygiene.

Today’s invention is an internal camera which detects the sudden appearance of a mess within eg a microwave oven (by looking for any contrasting blots or blobs on the pristine white walls/floor) and then captures an image of the next person to open the door.

It would be quite amusing to use face recognition to issue a verbal warning “That’s the second time this week you’ve made a mess [facename = Jean]”

This could be applied to other shared facilities but many of them couldn’t legally be equipped with an imaging device.

Making a colourful circular display using lights and the persistence of vision is a technology that you can buy off the shelf to decorate your car’s wheels.

Today’s invention is an upgrade to that approach.

If you are sick of the small size of your smartphone screen, you can clamp the device onto a handle with an internal motor and spin it, as shown.

Running an application simultaneously allows the persistence of vision to show eg messages or even low-res movies on a virtual screen area roughly 3Pi/4 times as big.

Today’s invention is a toilet seat which is hinged at the front of the toilet. This would be (strongly) sprung open by default (ie standing vertically at the front of the bowl).

To use it either simply back onto it and sit down -or to use it standing up, move around to one side.

This has the twin advantages that people with difficulty sitting down smoothly can locate themselves safely. Also, no handling of the seat is required.

(No sign of this anywhere in various patent databases, but that may be because of my limited choice of search terms)

It seems that concussion-type injuries are exacerbated when the head is accelerated hard about the vertical axis of the neck.

This causes neurons in the frontal brain regions to be particularly severely stretched and damaged.

Today’s invention is a modification to safety helmets so that they can respond to incoming impacts (illustrated as pressure waves in blue).

When accelerometers in the helmet detect a dangerous rotation rate about the neck axis (shown as a cross), compressed air jets located on the chin and forehead are activated, so as to resist the impact force profile.

There would be two jets pointing left and two pointing right to deal with impacts from either side.

This lowers the rotation rate of the head itself, minimising possible injuries to the frontal lobes.

Everyone who meets at my local coffee shop seems to do so mostly at 10:30 am, secondly on the hour and third most frequently, every half hour. This reminds me of the El Farol problem.

Today’s invention offers a way to even out the staff-stress and waiting times.

It is simply to adopt a congestion charge. Make the prices, displayed electronically, all increase as the headcount of customers increases within the coffee shop.

The level of increase required to redistribute the customers to other times of the day, without alienating them by absurdly large pricehikes, would require some experimentation.

It’s probably better to treat it as a dynamic ‘happy hour’ in which prices, which are high by default, decrease as the crowds disperse.