Category: Possible inventions

Today’s invention is used to prove one’s status as a person, and not a robot, when eg signing up to something online.

One attaches a microphone/stethoscope to one’s wrist and connects this to the computer being used. This records a snatch of heartbeat data.

Then the computer selects some task at random which is designed to change the heartbeat response in some broadly predictable way (such as presenting a small stress-inducing spelling test or coordination task).

This makes it much more difficult for automated systems simply to play a recording of some person’s heartbeat patterns.

A system might be devised which could identify individuals from their cardiac behaviour under different forms of stress.

There are lots of ways to identify bodies eg from dental records or via fingerprints…or even the serial numbers on breast implants.

Today’s invention is another technique which involves the use of an especially fine contact lens -to be worn on the back of the eye.

As anyone who wears contacts knows, it’s possible to get a normal lens stuck in this position and, with a bit of calm manipulation, to retrieve it. Murder or disaster victims could be identified more easily if they wore such a device -which would only be easily accessible to the person when alive, or a surgeon when deceased.

These lenses might also be used by spies intent on transporting documents covertly, in miniaturised form.

For those people with difficulty manipulating cutlery and chewing, today’s invention is intended to help out.

It consists of a fork-like tube with a grid over an aperture at one end. The tube is placed in contact with food on a plate which is then minced to a user-selectable level and sucked into a chamber. This process can be repeated with different foods so that a mixed ‘forkful’ is created.

This is then placed in the mouth of the user and gently blown into their mouth so that it can be swallowed with a minimum of chewing.

Many submarines are equipped with underwater-launched weapons, such as Cruise missiles (or Polaris, in a previous era).

Today’s invention is to use these for the humanitarian purpose of rescuing sailors.

In the event that a vessel was firmly stuck on the sea bed, each of its missiles could be automatically engaged with the casing, via a locking ring attached a number of high-tensile chains.

Firing the missiles sequentially could then provide a means of forcing the sub to the surface in a reasonably controlled fashion.

I really enjoy the idea of recursion -especially the technique of introducing elements into an image which can then be acted upon to change the image itself.

Today’s invention is a digital camera which has an extendable arm at the end of which some small, mutually-perpendicular spirit levels are attached.

To achieve an image with edges truly horizontal and vertical, the arm would be extended into the field of view and focussed upon.

The camera software would know where to look in the image to detect the spirit levels. It would then be able to lengthen or shorten two legs of the tripod, on which this system sits, pneumatically, via an electronically controlled pump/valve device.

The arm would be withdrawn, the scene refocussed and the picture taken.

It seems that one of the reasons that the brain may have such a folded outer surface is that it acts as its own cushion when the head suffers impact.

Today’s invention is therefore a helmet liner which consists of a resilient rubber sheet squeezed in the void between an inner and outer shell.

The sheet could be manufactured with indicative sulci and gyri crease lines moulded into it (based on where the cortex has evolved to locate these folds). This would be dropped into the outer shell, and the inner shell pressed in on top, slightly compressing the sheet itself.

There may be some applications in which the space in which the folds form could be filled with a light fluid for increased damping/cushioning.

Today’s invention is an alternative use for an assault rifle-type weapon.

Load the firearm’s magazine with blanks (especially powerful blanks might be a good idea). Then slip onto the shoulder pad one of a range of impact tools…such as an axe head, a spade or a stone chisel. These would come with thumbscrew clamps to fit any rifle (together with various additional external handles, similarly attached).

Press the tool against a tree or a wall and pull the trigger. The automatic-fire recoil would be strong enough to act as an effective tree feller or rock drill etc -useful for building rather than as a way to kill people.

Washing dishes is so last century. Today’s invention is a dishwasher which handles only crockery consisting of three elements: a generic cup, plate and bowl (although similar approaches could be used for pans and cutlery too).

The crockery items are manufactured with protrusions on the underside, so that eg a number of bowls can be stacked very closely on top of each other (toploaded into the machine).

When closed, intensive jets blast water at the small gaps between items (which have been designed as flow channels in which the water speed will be very high).

If all the crockery were also made of reflective (or translucent) material, each could then be inspected by automatic camera, to check its cleanliness and if necessary, apply more focussed washing.

Such directed washing could make better use of heating and water resources and also save overall wash time.

Wave machines, in all their various designs, extract energy from the sea.

Today’s invention is a wave machine which also acts as a ship for transporting eg cargo.

As shown, the machine is equipped with propellers so that when it has extracted and stored enough energy, it can travel for some distance -without using any fossil fuel or creating any pollution.

If you can build a camera with an integrated projector, then the next step has to be a laptop version.

Today’s invention is a laptop without a conventional (heavy, fragile, costly) screen.

This would project onto any close-range, near-vertical surface and thus also do away with the issue of the screen acting as a divider between people -allowing them to view everything as a side-by-side show.

This would also project the cursor of course (enabling click location to be registered in the usual way).

Amazingly, this doesn’t seem to have been patented yet (although it’s probably just stuck somewhere in the broken works of the IP system). If you wanted to go the whole hog, the keyboard unit could also be replaced by a projected, virtual one, emitted from the same projector as the screen content.

This would obviously be inadequate for lecture-scale presentations, but the power required for screen-sized illumination on a nearby wall or partition would be just about feasible.