#1841: Dilutext

Synaesthetes come in several different shades (as well as textures, sounds…)

Those of us who associate colours with letters and numbers often have trouble when eg learning mathematical symbols and reading text (My associations include
1=black, 2 =yellow, 3=red/brown, 4=black, 5=mustard…)

Today’s invention therefore is a piece of code which will let a user list their individual associations for an entire set of alphanumerics or other set of symbols and then display each of those symbols on every screen in a pale, complementary colour (eg red for green).

This would lessen the strength of the links to colour and could be finely calibrated to suit the individual concerned.

#1840: StopScreen

Given the frequency of traffic jams, today’s invention is a way to render them less excruciatingly boring.

Cars would be equipped with a screen embedded within their boot lids.

When a car became motionless, its screen would automatically start to show a brief movie to the vehicle stopped immediately behind.

The length of the movie chosen by the system would be appropriate to a prediction made of the jam duration by communicating with traffic cameras.

This channel would inevitably include adverts and local driving information as well.

#1839: SwapSeater

If you have a multi-seat peoplemover vehicle, there is often quibbling within a family about who gets to sit where.

Today’s invention is to have the seats in such a vehicle movable -like the pieces in one of those sliding puzzle squares.

Seats can slide so that there is always one empty space and thus any arrangement is possible. The sliding might also occur whilst in transit.

In addition, this allows individuals to preserve their complicated seat settings, rather than having constantly to reset these -as well as permuting family members to achieve minimised social friction.

#1838: Burstory

It drives me crazy that online movie clips stop and start irregularly, depending on what else is happening over the network and within my local operating system.

Today’s invention is a new way to script movies designed specifically to be watched over a limited bandwidth web connection, without the usual stuttering.

New scripts would consist of a series of discrete, punchy scenes. Each of these would be shown only after it was downloaded in full.

In this way, you could watch a long movie as a series of unfragmented events, separated by a minute or so if necessary.

This would change the nature of filmwatching somewhat, but would greatly reduce the frustration.

#1837: Wingtipped

Today’s invention provides a way for carrier based jets to avoid the need for folding wings (which add complexity and weight to already complicated systems).

Instead, jets’ undercarriages would be arranged so that they could all adopt the same angle of tilt and thus crowd closely together on the deck.

These machines could even be equipped with parking sensors that cars commonly have, in order to minimise contact between closely parked planes.

#1836: SplashScreen

Who can be bothered to refill the screenwash in the car? I can’t ever remember to do so until I press the pump switch and no water emerges on my windscreen.

Today’s invention is a water scoop, fitted beneath a vehicle, which gathers water from puddles a vehicle drives through.

The scoop would be located behind one of the tyres, so that some splash from every puddle would be caught in it and fed to a tank.

This water is then filtered before use so that drivers in rainy countries never need to replace their screenwash.

#1835: AmpRamp

A genuinely better mousetrap is hard to come up with.

Today’s invention is intended not for domestic use, but for when plagues of rodents descend on stockpiled food resources.

A very large number of rats or mice would be channeled onto a rotating belt. The belt surface would move backwards but still allow rats to make net progress along it.

As this belt moved, it would spin up a generator whose output was wired to metal plates embedded within the belt itself.

This would allow the kinetic energy of a flood of vermin to electrocute a proportion of the running rats, causing their bodies to be discarded (mostly) into a pile at the upstream end.

#1834: Printuplicator

If you’re an impatient type like me, you’ll be frustrated by the slowness of almost all laser printers.

Today’s invention offers a way to speed things up.

Small areas of the image to be printed would each be written onto a flat, charged plate by dedicated, local lasers.

A bank of such plates would allow both sides of many pages to be printed at the same time.

This would parallelise the process so that the overall print time for a multipage document could be reduced to milliseconds (at the expense of hugely duplicated hardware).

#1833: Hangair

Inspired by Cloudbase in the Captain Scarlet TV series, today’s invention is an aircraft carrier for drones.

These are carried within the fuselage whilst the carrier’s crew sit in a cockit embedded within the main wing section.

At altitude, the nose and tail open, providing drones with instant takeoff airspeed.

Returning drones can land at this airspeed, using autopilot, via the rear door.

#1832: KeepCap

I hate having to inflate the tyres on my car. Specifically, I hate having to crouch in the dark, whilst using a filthy, heavy piece of communal equipment which hisses sporadically, rasps the paint off my vehicle and charges me 10p per tyre.

Then there are the dust caps. Working so as to get the job done before the compressor gives out requires a certain deftness. Should the caps all be removed beforehand to speed inflation?

Today’s invention represents an attempt to avoid losing one’s dustcaps (and temper) on the forecourt.

Each cap is made in two sections joined by an integral strap. The cap is rotated as a whole until the top half comes free. This helps wipe the threads clean.

Now the airline is attached, so that at no point must cap be removed from valve.

If for some reason it becomes detached, then the dayglo green colour makes finding it relatively easy.