Category: Whimsical inventions

Today’s invention is inspired by watching people share earbuds when listening to the same iPod.

When two or more medics need to listen to a patient’s interior (when one is being instructed for example) they can combine their stethoscopes so as to listen at exactly the same location.

They achieve this by one medic detaching their instrument’s head and plugging it into that of the other medic, as shown.

Naturally, this would provoke all sorts of status-related wrangling about which was unplugged etc, but the patient would certainly benefit from more precisely-controlled information flow.

Some people seem to have a problem with sweat, or at least sweat stains on their clothing.

Today’s invention relieves these delicate flowers of their embarrassment.

Users would wear a pale shirt during eg exercise. This would reveal a map of their personal sweat distribution.

Their next T-shirts could then be constructed with patches of material in these zones pre-coloured so that, when wet, they became indistinguishable from the rest of the material (eg a dark grey shirt would have lighter grey patches built in).

Now that we are all connected via ‘small world’ communications networks, it’s increasingly difficult to stand out from the crowd.

Once you adopt some new product or behaviour, everyone you know, and everyone they know etc., is immediately able to mimic you.

That may be a compliment and no real problem for the innovative, but it’s irritating. Some things that are hard to copy allow this viral memetics to be resisted.

Ringtones are an example. Today’s invention is a ringtone which consists of your own voice saying “Excuse me I have a call.”

This avoids annoying everyone within earshot (much less intrusive than music) but it would have to be said anyway and thus saves the owner some effort (whilst allowing your incoming calls to be distinguished from others’).

It also removes anyone’s incentive to copy, even if that weren’t difficult to achieve.

Home advantage is something which affects many sports, and no-one knows quite why. Huge amounts of money are spent by professional teams in filming the changing rooms they will visit in a season, for example.

Today’s invention is a way to employ this phenomenon in a new way.

Knowing the power which smell has to evoke feelings, each club would trademark its own local odour. This would be sold at grounds in aerosol cans, adding another source of revenue.

When travelling to away games, these cans would allow each side’s supporters to express their allegiance and also to provide their team with memories of home wins at critical points in a match.

I’m married to a trainee bagpiper (and this is not a plea for sympathy).

Today’s invention is an attempt to make carrying the heavy pipes during a day-long event (eg Highland Games) somewhat less exhausting.

Three of the pipes would be specially strengthened and fitted with extendable carbon-fibre sheaths, with abrasion-resistant ends. They would emerge from the bag via a sturdy plate, to which they would be hinged.

During rest stops, pipers could invert their bags and sit on the plate, using the sheaths as the legs of a tripod stool.

Queueing is a major problem for themepark operators like Disney.

Today’s invention is a way to help alleviate several of the difficulties (and is inspired by the type of child’s high chair which converts into a trolley/table).

For a small additional fee, groups of queuers could rent a set of seats, mounted on a rolling platform. This would pivot upwards from the side, once everyone was safely strapped in and allow occupants a better view of the cleverly designed surroundings.

Such a solution also provides a convenient resting place for eg a family whilst they are served a meal (possibly by waiters on stilts).

In addition to easing the waiting process, this has the effect of apparently shortening the queues.

I came across a question recently which was whether anyone knew of a way to have a walk-in bath and how that might work.

Today’s invention is one possible solution, which takes no account of the costs involved.

A large tank in the shape of a trough is bent around in a circle and rotated about a central horizontal axis. This axis acts as a conduit for water which is fed into the trough. it is held there as a layer by centripetal acceleration.

A bather can climb up a ladder and walk out on a gantry into the flowing water. This can be arranged so that the drag of the water exactly equals his weight and thus a bath can be taken in an upwardly moving stream.

Think about all the portrait photos on the web (including all those billions of facebook poses). Rather than concentrate on the forced smiles or the pouting, today’s invention is a software tool which can draw conclusions about a webpage based on the backgrounds of the facial images.

Detecting portraits is pretty straightforward. Once this is achieved, a texture and colour analysis should be enough to determine whether the portraits are:

This automated approach provides an extra search filter, allowing one to rule out of consideration a large number of unattractive organisations.

Today’s invention is a way to boost the speed of a tank.

The vehicle in question carries a number of shells containing solid rocket propellant. This would be specially formulated to allow relatively slow-burning, sustained-thrust output.

When an extra burst of acceleration is required, the tank’s main gun is rotated to point behind it and a series of these special shells is fired. The resulting exhaust from the gun barrel provides enough drive to eg force a tank through some barrier or out of boggy terrain.