Category: Possible inventions

Today’s invention is a coat with variable thermal insulation. Sponges are great at containing static air, which in turn is great for holding in heat.

The idea is to make a number of sponges roughly in the shape of muscle groups in the torso (different coats would be needed for males and females as usual). These sponges would be placed in airtight (metallised) bags which would then be joined to form a liner for the coat. Each bag would have a simple valve (making them a bit like wine bags).

When wearing the coat on a cold day which warms up, the user simply presses on some combination of bags so as to squeeze the air from them and flatten the sponges. Each bag’s valve seals again and the coat has become much less insulating in a number of places -depending on personal preference.

When it gets cold again, the valves are squeezed briefly, allowing air to be sucked back in by the elasticity of the sponges themselves.

I’ve seen the owners of cars like Lamborghinis graunch large sections of their plastic bodyshell to crumbs during accidental contact with a kerb or a pothole.

Today’s invention is a road-car body skirt which moves up and down automatically in response to the ups and downs of the road surface immediately in front of the vehicle. These irregularities could be detected by some kind of idler wheel but, more elegantly, by a small scanning laser beam (We already have acoustic parking detectors but there is a need for more than beeping when travelling at speed).

This would allow a car to travel rapidly on a motorway, with the skirt fully down (reducing both drag and road noise significantly -the skirt would cover most of the wheels themselves, when in the lowest position).

Encounter a brick or a speed bump and the skirt would rise to accommodate the obstruction.

There’s a lot of research being directed towards creating systems which can automatically detect ‘suspicious’ behaviour within public spaces. In particular, it’s possible robustly to detect someone who is ‘loitering’ -any object of a certain size which appears in a succession of video frames at slightly different locations is considered worthy of investigation.

Today’s invention is to link this video analytic technique with a highly-directional loudspeaker. Once someone has been found to be hanging about, a recorded verbal message would be sent to them (so that no-one else could hear).

This would probably take the form of a request to show some identification to the camera. This would then allow it to zoom in and automatically extract some further information from the text.

Failure to respond appropriately to this unexpected challenge might result in the system issuing an alert to a human operative to investigate further.

ATM-skimming is a form of theft in which people attach devices to record one’s card details electronically and film one’s PIN number being entered into a bank’s hole-in-the-wall machine.

One relatively cheap technique to prevent this is to equip each ATM with a small recessed lamp, shining brightly and obliquely onto the front plate of the ATM (each machine might even have the lamp located in a slightly different position).

This would cast shadows from any protruding parts of the plate. A line would be engraved to correspond with the edges of these shadows.

Users would then immediately be aware of the presence of anything added to the ATM, including illegal card readers, cameras, etc.

There are lots of things I encounter daily that I’d really rather not handle. Without getting too OCD about this, they include toilet seats, discarded rubbish and keypads.

Today’s invention is a thin, curved pair of washable plastic tongs which is worn discreetly behind one’s (longer than normal) belt, for example, and which can be used to move or manipulate items without having to don protective gloves.

Once used, the end can be easily wrapped around one’s waist again (gripping one’s belt loops) and then run under the hot tap and dried when next a bathroom is visited.

Tyres on racing cars usually carry a lot of branding, but this becomes invisible at speed.

Today’s invention is yet another new publicity technique, which involves applying a brandname or url to the circumference of a tyre as usual (applied in fluorescent paint) and also equipping each hub with a non-rotating, stroboscopic light.

This takes account of precise wheel rotation speed and is timed to flash each time the branding is readably oriented. This gives the impression that the car is travelling on tyres which are still and which each bear a stable, clear message.

Each wheel might carry a different one and thus advertise something other than tyres.

It seems that bicycles are starting to make use of electrical suspension systems.

Today’s invention is an adjunct to that approach. It is a lightweight wheel which contacts the ground ahead of the bike and detects the detailed shape (and consistency) of the ground..

The scoutwheel’s motion would be monitored electronically (even optically) so that the suspension characteristics could be tuned in almost realtime to the geometry about to be encountered.

This tuning could occur by using straingauges to control the electronic suspension directly, ie in hardware, rather than having to deal with the millisecond delays caused by software-based processing.

My laptop routinely gets filled with dust, which I use a can of compressed air (occasionally) to clean out.

Today’s invention is to build into such machines a small piston/cylinder/valve unit which compresses the air it contains every time the laptop lid is closed.

When the machine judges it needs cleaned (perhaps by actively monitoring conductivity on the surface of a circuit board for the effects of grime or perhaps spilt liquids) the valve would be opened and the machine’s interior blasted clean of crud.

This might also work for eg clamshell phones and other electronic kit embodying a possible lever mechanism.

I’m fascinated by motor neurons: brain cells which fire when you are performing an action or when you see someone else doing it (It seems eg that if you anaesthetise one hand and then watch someone else’s hand being touched, your motor neurons create the sensation that your own hand is being touched).

Today’s invention is a tool which makes use of one’s motor neurons. It consists of a screen through which a subject places his hands. To these a mild local anaesthetic is applied (to the skin).

On the screen, a film portraying some manual skill is then shown, so that it appears to be undertaken by the subject himself (from pottery to driving a racing car).

After a few minutes, the subject begins to feel that he is actually performing the task. This can act as an effective form of semi-immersive gaming/tuition. Over time, it may allow people to absorb expert-level skills more directly than via a prolonged apprenticeship.