#1436: BlastBoxes

If an airliner turns out to be carrying a bomb, hidden in the luggage/freight hold, today’s invention is an internal arrangement designed to protect the plane and its occupants.

The baggage etc would be held in containers as usual, but these would be located on heavily reinforced racks so that if a bomb detonated, the containers would be expelled rearwards from the fuselage, by the explosion itself, leaving the plane free to continue.

Each container would have its own parachute to allow later collection of the luggage etc and also any forensic evidence.

#1435: Segmentimer

I began thinking about how much time each of the segments in a 7-seg digital clock display spent being illuminated.

The image shows the distribution I calculated (with red more frequently ‘on’ than orange, and the central colon omitted).

Today’s invention is to make such clocks with more robust segments corresponding to the red patches etc, in order that product lifetime is maximised. This might apply more to the mechanical flipover devices that can be found in eg airports and train stations.

Extending this thinking to digital calculators, if financial data obey Benford’s law then maybe the longterm distribution of segment activity for a business’ calculator (clearly different from the clock example above) could be recorded in order to indicate, in an instant, whether eg a company’s financial transactions were fraudulent or not.

#1434: Barrelauncher

Multistage rockets work well but today’s invention is a possible enhancement.

Each stage is nested within the previous one, so that when its annular rocket is ignited, the expanding gas pushes against the mass of the previous, expended can and provides the subsequent, nested stages with some extra boost as they travel together down the bore (like a shell fired from a flying cannon).

Having a large number of stages would allow orbit to be achieved, even if there were some misfires, in a way that would make a conventional rocket just too long and unwieldy.

#1433: StreamLift

Given that lifts are getting faster and traveling through greater heights, the lifetime cost of overcoming their air resistance may be significant.

Today’s invention is therefore to attach streamlining shells to the tops and bottoms of lifts so that they may create much less turbulence within their shafts.

If these could be made in a lightweight, reinforced material, the underside one could also act as a crush zone in the event of an unplanned descent.

#1432: WedgeHead

Sick to death of screwdrivers which can’t stay in contact with their screws, today’s invention is a combination which remains firmly together during screwing in or out.

It takes the form of a screw with a tapering notch made in the head. All sizes of this screw can make use of a single screwdriver with a correspondingly tapered blade which fits inside snugly…in such a way that springing out under load is impossible.

This design also allows the user to attach a screw to the driver blade firmly, so that the screw can then be used in places where fingers can’t reach to steady it.

#1431: SharedSize

Online purchases are increasingly encouraged by recommendation engines and social networking.

Today’s invention is a way to allow people to swap clothing with others who share the same measurements.

A website like Amazon would note who bought eg dresses in size 12. These contact details would allow those people to opt in to a system which then enabled them to be identified as buyers of certain items, to discuss their views and offer to swap clothes in the knowledge that they will fit.

This results in better social networking, enhanced product information via customer feedback and a greener, less wasteful approach to fashion.

#1430: Tablind

Today’s invention is a tablecloth which is stored like a rollerblind in the form of a springloaded roll at one end of a table.

This allows a less-than-pristine tablecloth to be quickly removed for activities requiring a clean surface -such as doing homework -but without having to wipe everything down and fold coverings up for temporary storage.

Use a strong enough spring and you can even perform the old stage trick of pulling the tablecloth out from under that vase on the table top.

#1429: PrePresentation

Presenter-View mode in PowerPoint can be very useful.

Today’s invention is a different viewing mode, for the authors of presentations, which allows them to see what their slides will look like to someone sitting at various locations in an auditorium.

This might be integrated in such a way that each presentation room in a large corporation or university could have its geometry, projector details and lighting characteristics accessible to the presentation program.

This would help avoid creating slides with illegible wording or imagery which was meaningless when viewed from an oblique-angled seating position. It might even be possible to have the program boost the slides’ contrast, increase fontsize etc automatically -to suit a particular set of viewing conditions.

#1428: Breakfaster

When a toaster is first used in the morning, both the bread and the heating elements are cold.

Today’s invention is a control circuit for toasters which monitors the temperature of both heater and toast and which continuously adjusts the current flowing to the element so that the intensity of browning and the delivery rate of slices are both constant.

#1427: Rubberneck bottleneck

It’s an unfortunate fact about people that we seem to have a strong sense of morbid curiosity. This is what causes traffic tailbacks as motorway traffic slows so that drivers can look at an accident on the opposite carriageway.

Today’s invention exploits this character flaw to overcome another: the tendency to drive too fast.

A transporter would be used to move a variety of crashed cars from a breaker’s yard each day to locations where speeding was a problem.

Passing drivers would occasionally see a fresh vehicle wreck and moderate their speed…due partly to momentary shock but mostly so that they could ‘rubberneck.’