Category: Possible inventions

Now that huge numbers of people have access to video cameras, today’s invention attempts to add something to the value of the resultant recordings.

As you move about making a movie, the camera will record individual images of the subject which happen to be taken from locations about 6 cm apart horizontally (ie the interocular distance). Cameras which embody accelerometers can be made to identify and link such image pairs.

The pictures can then be recombined to create a 3-D stereo pair (viewable via a stereoscope or, with a bit of recolouring, via the usual red/green filtered spectacles).

For slow camera movement, there may even be sufficient numbers of these views to create a 3-D movie of the event in question).

For those of us who like to screwdriver open the various items of electronic equipment we own, today’s invention provides an additional note of caution.

Each enclosure would be equipped with a wireless connection to the internet. Opening such a box, outside an authorised workshop, would automatically trigger an auditory alert to be issued from the device (this might also say DANGER).

If the enclosure remained open, say for a further 30 seconds, the device would transmit a message to its manufacturer invalidating the warranty. This would be copied to the owner.

Today’s invention is a way for sailing boats to stow and hoist their sails without all the usual rolling and stowing and yo-ho-hoing.

The sail itself would be a stiff shell, exactly mirroring the hull of the boat.

This would be attached to a curved rail running from fore to aft and which would rotate about the long axis of the vessel. This would allow the sail to be mechanically extracted from the slot in which it is stored.

The rear section of the rail would carry no sail, so that the wind could enter via this gap and help drive the boat.

I was left in charge of a bag of Maltesers on a warm day recently.

Some of chocolate layers on these had melted just enough to allow them to join with their fellows in a rather beautiful, molecule-like arrangement, which solidified when the temperature later fell. The honeycomb centres were strong enough to form a ‘backbone’ structure welded together with chocolate.

Today’s invention is a tool to allow people to make their own edible images (in a similar way to Hama beads which can be joined by melting together with an iron).

This consists of a plastic sheet with small holes forming a hexagonal lattice. Maltesers can be located on the holes, forming a pattern. A second sheet with holes is placed on top and the sheets are then clipped together so as to hold the pattern in place (Place a transparent, lower sheet on a laptop screen displaying a binary representation of eg a loved-one’s face and this would allow the required layout to be specified).

Warm air from a hairdryer is then blown between the sheets so that the Maltesers become joined. The resulting shape can then be withdrawn and placed in eg a gift box or in a resealable bag before eating.

It would also be possible to extend this from a base layer into a 3-D sculpture.

Learner drivers need all the help they can get.

I still remember when driving a manual car for the first time, that my feet had a hard time working out where the pedals were…you tend to discover that you are braking rather than operating the clutch only by the dynamics of the vehicle as it responds…which is much too late for safety.

Today’s invention is a set of attachable sensors, one per pedal. When one’s foot hovers over say the brake, a different sound is emitted than from the accelerator. The strength of each sound could be made proportional to the central positioning of the foot. I’d also suggest making the noises resemble the normal sound of braking or accelerating (ie dropping in pitch or rising).

This allows an early-stage learner to stop trying to look at his feet and anticipate the next action required.

The legs of offshore platforms have loose fitting ‘garter’ type rings fitted so that the rise and fall of the water level will allow them to rub away marine life which clings to structures within the wave zone.

Today’s invention is analogous, but it addresses instead the problem of dead insects on the blades of a wind turbine. In some places this can reduce efficiency of the blades significantly.

Each blade would have a loose bracelet which would fall to the end of a blade (being retained by a lug on the end) and back to the hub as the turbine rotated. The movement of the bracelet would be enough to scrape off most of the insect remains -without having to stop the mechanism for cleaning or lower its operating efficiency.

It seems that head massage may have a role to play in preventing dementia in certain people with restricted cranial bloodflow (assuming you are not keen on the idea of trepanation).

Today’s invention is therefore a motorcycle helmet adapted so that the internal padding is replaced by inflatable bags.

These are pressurised and depressurised in waves, controlled by a computer and selected by the wearer to give maximal comfort/stimulation/relief from congestion. The rigidity of the outer shell allows opposite balloons to create quite high pressure on the skull.

It seems that economists have determined that people will increase their tendency to act in accordance with a word printed on the inside of a T shirt (even if no-one else can see the word).

Today’s invention is therefore a small, inward-facing electronic badge which lights up when one’s head penetrates (and stretches slightly) the neck hole of a t shirt.

Worn on the inside of the shirt, the badge would flash up a single word eg ‘cooperative’ or ‘clever’ and thus help the wearer achieve their best possible interactions during the challenges of the day ahead.

Animation is now often performed by computers semi-automatically. An artist supplies first and last key frames and the machine interpolates as best it can.

Foveola is a shape recognition engine which embodies an effective measure of similarity.

Supplying the system with a small shape will automatically generate a list of all shapes in the database which are sufficiently alike, in order of similarity.

Today’s invention is to employ this to create animated movies. If the user enters a start and an end shape, they are regarded by the system as key frames. For example 9 might retrieve 8,E,F and 0 might retrieve 9PRF.

This then allows the following ‘film’ sequence to be created automatically, by reversing the second sequence and joining both together to fill in the gap between key frames: 98EFRP90.

Bullets are designed to do damage, often to a human target.

Today’s invention is a new form of bullet with the opposite intent. Medics on a battlefield would be equipped with a (white+red cross-labeled) rifle. This they would use to fire a very low velocity round at soldiers who had been wounded.

The medical projectiles fired would contain anaesthetic and perhaps even some coagulent or active medicine. This would potentially allow a wounded soldier to save their own life by crawling clear of danger or stabilise them so that their retrieval could be delayed until it was safe for medics to attend and evacuate their comrade.