Category: Possible inventions

Shopping in supermarkets…it’s a nightmare. One of the worst aspects is simply finding where product x is, amongst the forest of signs for products a,b,c etc. Wandering about looking is supposed to satisfy your hunter-gatherer instincts as well as induce you to buy more stuff (I’m not sure at all about this).

Today’s invention is to equip each store with say 100, separately switchable pocket projectors. These would each be located in a different section of shelving (one for sauces, one for breads etc) and aimed at a nice flat ceiling vertically above them.

The shopper walks into the store, grabs a small wireless microphone, labeled with a unique symbol or number, and says the name of a product category eg “baking.” Press a button on the mic and immediately, the projector where this stuff is housed flashes on the mic’s number for a second so the shopper can get there directly.

This massively reduces the signage in stores and allows produce to be moved around flexibly in the way that retailers love to do.

Today’s invention is a design for a modular tank (or armoured fighting vehicle, if you will) which is a little like an eggbox.

A tracked chassis is used as usual, but within this base are housed hemispherical modules, each geometrically strong and heavily armoured. One, the crew module, would contain the vehicle controls -but without the weak point at which a normal turret attaches to the upper deck. This module would still rotate but only to allow crew to enter and leave through the hull when its underside hatches were deliberately aligned.

Control cables and a ventilation duct would penetrate this hemisphere via a central axle (these might even include video cabling, obviating the need for any windows in the crew compartment).

A second module would contain the vehicle’s engine and a third its armament (remotely controlled) and ammunition.

In this way the crew could be maximally protected from noise, fumes and external attack, whilst malfunctions of the vehicle’s main sub-units could be addressed by rapid, in-field substitution.

Surgeons with shaky hands? I don’t want to even think about it, but it seems that there is research going on to develop handheld systems capable of detecting and reacting against natural levels of tremor.

Today’s invention is a much cruder version of this type of thing. Ordinarily, using eg an iPhone with its accelerometers on board wouldn’t be nearly accurate enough to analyse the dynamics in realtime of any manual task.

Imagine however a hairdresser attempting to recreate Mrs Miggins’ favourite style (or anybody executing a repetitive manual task -like shaving).

The movements made when performing a cut with which the customer was happy could be stored aboard the phone. This information could be accessed again later by another stylist. The chances of recreating the right cut would be small but for the fact that the iPhone can give very rapid instructions, via eg arrows on its screen, about where the trimmers should be moving in the next instant.

This visual feedback could make all the difference in terms of precision and an iPhone-like device could be easily attached to a variety of tools -opening up a trade in guidance programs stored by experts.

People seem to listen to the radio in their cars a lot. This is despite the adverts which both plague and enable the medium.

Today’s invention is a light which is visible externally on vehicles and which changes colour, depending on the station to which their radio is tuned.

This would allow people listening to the same programme to share eg a broadcast joke whilst in traffic jams and develop more of a feeling of community. It might also allow audience members to try listening to the favourite station of people driving a vehicle which they admire.

The most useful aspect of this would be to enable automated, realtime collection of listening statistics by area (using roadside, colour-sensitive cameras) so as to tune the costs and timing of advertising (it might even allow for a new form of social segmentation: ie are those Bentley owners really listening to Radio 3?).

I believe that a postmistress somewhere in an English village has begun writing the names of the children who buy crisps and drinks from her on the packaging. This allows her to identify any litter and to ban the miscreant youngster responsible from her shop in future.

For sellers who don’t know their customers personally, the problem of litter usually goes unaddressed.

Today’s invention is a vending machine which takes only notes as payment. Each item on sale is printed with a machine-readable code. People who buy from the machine, only receive their change if they place the ’empty’ in the tray provided. If they choose to throw their litter around, other people can get their change.

The machines might be networked together so that it would be possible to dump an empty can in a different machine to the one from which it was bought and still get the correct change.

I’m told, by a biologically inclined friend, that many medicines work at certain times of day and are largely ineffective at others. Having to take tiny amounts of pharmaceuticals at precisely timed intervals is not an easy regime to adopt. Today’s invention offers an alternative.

A container, in the shape of a large pill, contains a variety of drug material, a small iron core, a dispenser and an electronic timer. The pill would obviously need to be coated in a biocompatible material.

Once swallowed, a user would attract the pill to the wall of their stomach, using a strong external magnet. When it was in place, turning the magnet would cause a suction cup on the pill’s outer surface to attach itself to the inside of the stomach.

The electronic timer would dispense the right drugs at the right times and then release the suction cup, allowing the pill to be excreted (and reused if necessary).

Now that smoking is outlawed in public places, it’s time to do something about the trash which smokers feel it’s ok to jettison in their wake. The crowds which gather outside foyers seem frequently to ditch their stubs and packets for the rest of us to walk through.

Today’s invention is a vending machine which allows smoking but which retains all the associated detritis.

Users would select a cigarette brand from an illuminated panel and make their payment. Each would then be allowed to unroll a length of hose with a crimped end forming a mouthpiece. A cigarette would be lit within the machine and the smoke pumped from inside to the smoker.

When they were finished, the hose would be withdrawn automatically, cut off and binned for recycling.

The vending machine could support several smokers simultaneously and might be located within a shelter with a fan in the roof in order to retain the exhaust fumes.

As we’ve seen recently in Australia, when a railway line gets really hot, the thermal distortion can be severe and result in permanent damage to the track. Similarly, in cold conditions, lengths of welded track can pull themselves apart, due to contraction. Such sections are commonly inspected on foot, when the weather is severe.

Today’s invention is a mechanism to limit the potential damage to railway track in extreme conditions.

A very small, light cart runs with its center of mass barely above the level of the track. This is semi-autonomous and travels at over 100mph. The cart contains:

The cart will oscillate over considerable distances, changing the temperature a little at each transit. When a train needs to get past, it will automatically rotate off the track and then replace itself again. Many of these cheap units might operate in concert, together maintaining a great length of track.

Lifts in tall buildings tend to be very energy efficient. This is because the design involves installing massive counterweights which move downwards when a lift compartment is moving upwards.

Today’s invention involves replacing the counterweight with another lift. Joined by a cable, the itinerary of one lift would therefore be the complement of the other ie in a 100 floor building, lift 1: 1->2->4->60 lift 2: 99->98->96->40.

These rolling itineraries would be displayed near each lift door so that people would have an extra choice of waiting for the next one moving in their preferred direction or grabbing the additional lift.

An even smarter system would allow travellers to enter their destination floor at the keypad and then calculate what their best option was (possibly also taking into account the widespread psychological preference for moving, anywhere, rather than waiting -and also the possibility of approximation: taking the lift to within a stair-walkable distance of their target floor).