Home Archive by category "Possible inventions" (Page 72)

Category: Possible inventions

#1403: Gone-dola

Helicopters aren’t supposed to be able to accommodate ejector seats…so today’s invention is one such system.

A rotary-wing aircraft is equipped with an internal, sliding palette to which all the seats are attached within a boat-shaped tub (broadly similar to the way in which large packages or vehicles are air-dropped). This has a drogue parachute and a main chute attached to each end.

In an emergency, the drogue is fired backwards, extracting all personnel strapped into the gondola, supported by the two main chutes.

Even if only one main chute opens, a safe landing can be made (at sea, buoyancy bags would be automatically inflated).

#1401: TumTime

Small changes in internal temperature can apparently be used to drive the body’s circadian rhythms.

This suggests today’s invention: a new remedy for jetlag.

This takes the form of a pill-shaped pellet inside which is sealed a mobile phone receiver and a small motor whose output shaft rubs against the inside of the pellet wall.

When you are to take a flight to a new timezone, you swallow the device and engage an automatic sequence of calls to it. These are timed to occur so that the frictional heating of the pellet interior warms one’s body just enough, during its transit through the gut, to mimic the diurnal temperature variation normally experienced at your destination.

#1400: Flashare

When people take photographs using their cellphones eg at a concert, those cameras on board which have flashguns greatly deplete battery reserves because the cameras work independently.

Today’s invention is a way for such cellphone cameras to cooperate and share their flash illumination, so that everyone has enough light to take their shot.

When many people are poised to take a photo at the same venue, with their fingers on the shutter release at the same time, their cellphones could communicate this fact and calculate how much flash energy should be supplied in total. This would then allow the devices to share the load and individually produce only a small amount of light.

A more advanced version of this could, using GPS, take the relative positions and even orientations into account to create a well lit scene from almost all shooting positions.

#1398: SkySheaf

Skyscrapers have always fascinated me.

Today’s invention is a skyscraper which is constructed from a collection of touching cylinders moving vertically in and out of silos in the ground. This reminds me a bit of Marineville, as created by my all-time hero Gerry Anderson.

The cylinders could be made of reinforced concrete and driven hydraulically. Once in position, ports would be opened between adjacent levels in the cylinders to create a set of communicating rooms on a given floor.

If there was a need to change the relations between these rooms, the towers could be driven to a new configuration (making eg a giant courtyard in the form of a central recess).

If under some kind of attack, or if a fire occurred, the towers could be withdrawn rapidly underground, allowing occupants a way to escape.

#1395: LegLift

Physical supplies still need to be transported about within office buildings -even if they are networked and increasingly paperless. This can still include paperclips, ink cartridges, cups of coffee, cables, batteries, memory sticks, postit notes…

A small fleet of conventional robot vacuum cleaner-type devices might be employed to fetch and carry -especially in a large, open-plan organisation.

Today’s invention is to equip each desk in an office complex with an ‘intelligent’ leg. This would contain a small elevator capable of interfacing with the floor-going robots and carrying its payload to the physical desktop via its interior shaft.

Supplies could be requested onscreen by a user (or autonomously by eg a printer) and collected by a bot from a central store or vending machine. This would eliminate the white collar crime of stealing office supplies (since the deliveries would all be recorded) and minimise time wasted chatting around the coffee machine or stationery cupboard.

#1394: SoilShield

Today’s invention is a way to provide even softskinned military vehicles with added protection from eg roadside bombs.

Each vehicle would carry several lightweight cages, one for each face. These would be attached to the vehicle via strong frames which would allow the cages to be angled downwards so they each act like the bucket of a bulldozer and are easily filled with earth/rocks by driving the vehicle for a short distance.

Once the vehicle has been driven fast or airlifted to a position of conflict, the cages would be filled rapidly, providing it effectively with several blastwalls behind which its crew could shelter.

On reaching a safer area, or when before making a quick getaway, the cages could be opened and their contents jettisoned in seconds.

#1393: Meshh

Today’s invention is a refinement for noisy, networked office machines.

A device on the network detects when a telephone (mobile or wired) is answered in the vicinity and pauses its activity so that the ensuing conversation won’t be disturbed by the noise of printing, shredding or blowing air.

Similarly, if there are active phones in the room, any ringtones emanating from additional incoming calls will be automatically told to mute themselves somewhat.

#1392: LogiClock

I’ve always had trouble dealing with analogue clocks. Having two hands on a central spindle, both measuring the same thing but at different rates, is just confusing.

Enter today’s invention. This is a clock consisting of two of those ubiquitous electronic clock units, with their minute hands bonded together. The right hand clock rotates in space about the fixed left hand one, once an hour. The left hand clock also carries an hour hand in the usual way.

When you want to know the time, it’s indicated as a sequence. Look at the fixed clock for the minute hand position and then to the moving clock for the hour.

#1391: BraziLoom

Today’s invention makes use of the Brazil Nut Effect in which a jar containing a range of different-sized nuts will, when agitated (in a gravitational field), end up with the biggest nuts on top

Instead of nuts, we use large beads with a specially streamlined shape, together with spherical small ones.

Each of the large beads contains a reel of thread or tape which unwinds as its bead is propelled upwards relative to the small ones. This results in a thread running vertically downwards beneath each of the large beads on the surface. Turn the container through an angle and repeat the agitation. A new set of parallel threads will form.

Manipulating the container in 3-D can drive the large nuts under and over existing threads, forming a warp and weft structure.

When this is sufficiently dense, the small beads can be allowed to flow out of the container -leaving a self-organised fabric behind.

#1388: Gapparent

Lots of sports have the scoring of goals, via some arrangement of posts, as an objective.

Today’s invention is to arrange for the posts in say, soccer, to change size (slowly) according to the distance between goals and posts. The apparent size of the goalmouth, from the perspective of the player currently on the ball, will thus stay constant.

This means that players will try shooting from farther out because a ball kicked from 50 yds away will will be presented with a much greater scoring area than one kicked from 5 yards.