Getting into and out of vehicles, especially those with low, sporty profiles can be difficult.
Today’s invention is seats which detect if anyone is sitting on them and which can be driven forwards or backwards, when the vehicle is stationary.
When a front door is opened, and that seat and the one behind are empty, it will slide back to allow easier access.
Similarly when a back door is opened, if the seats on that side are unoccupied, the front one will slide forwards.
Mudflaps. They are primitive, ugly and highly non-aerodynamic.
Today’s invention is mudflaps which withdraw into the vehicle body, scraping themselves clean as they do so and sealing flush with the bodyshell.
This allows for the best possible combination of protection against flying dirt (for surrounding vehicles as well), aerodynamics and aesthetics.
It may be mostly cosmetic, but today’s invention is a computer keyboard with keys that glow when pressed.
The colour of the light emitted might vary with the speed of key depression.
The keys would then dim exponentially, with a user-defined time constant, so that the computer owner gradually learns the visual-temporal pattern associated with typing a given word, say, and will thus be better equipped to spot spelling errors in realtime (especially in irritating passwords).
I was in a major city today during a rainstorm and noticed that certain locations each had a pile of broken umbrellas on the pavement, dumped by their owners as the local wind had reduced them to tatters.
Today’s invention is a gustiness map overlay for Google Street View.
This would be based on crowdsourced information about where damaging winds usually occur (mostly on street corners) and result in a display in the form of a superimposed ‘heatmap’ on a mobile phone clipped to the shaft of their brolly.
Owners would be better prepared to re-orientate their umbrellas and thus reduce the waste which unexpected blasts cause.
Knocking on a door in a unique temporal pattern may be used to tell the building occupants that someone they trust wants to come in.
This is hardly the security of our cyber-era -or is it?
Today’s invention is a related alternative to the conventional secure login methods for a touchscreen-enabled device.
A user touches the screen anywhere in a certain temporal sequence. The machine can detect this and decide whether to log him in or issue a refusal. Either way, the touching can be done silently and in such a way as to be very hard to shoulder surf.
Mark Sheahan (Inventor In Residence at the British Library) recently gave me some tips on how to make more money from inventing.
Here is the checklist he uses when advising Inventors via the British Library ‘Ask- an-Expert’ service:
Best solution: Is their idea the best solution to solve the problem for the target market?
Patent search: The importance of getting a professional patent search carried out, before spending significant amount of time and money on the idea -and who to use.
Market and size: Ways of finding details on the market and its size, to gauge whether it is worth commercially pursuing. Also, how they intend to reach this market, or help with it.
Manufacturability: If a physical product, can it be made, is the cost sustainable and is it fit for purpose? Getting ‘proof of concept’. Maybe showing them how I think it should be made can help.
Adding value: Most new ideas are generally better or cheaper – ideally both. I look for ways of adding value to the invention, so it offers more.
Reality check: I talk about “Getting off the train” now and again. An objective approach asking yourself the question “Is this worth continuing and, if so, am I moving in the right direction?” can often lead to a fresh perspective.
IPR strategy: Securing strong defendable intellectual property rights (IPR), be it a patent, registered or unregistered trademarks and design rights, copyright or, more commonly, a strategic combination (advice and direction).
Avoiding sharks: Avoiding invention promotional companies and doing proper due diligence on everyone – companies or individuals – that you intend to do business with (how to do this).
Business Models: What is the best way to set up the business, taking into account the product or service they are offering and how they want to exploit it?
The Business Plan: Best way is to compile a Business Plan with a focus on the most important commercial elements of their venture.
Contracts: The various contracts you will need to understand in this business, for example NDA’s, shareholder, licence, distributor and agency agreements etc. and maybe many more.
Funding options: How to get investors and/or available grants.
Negotiation: Getting the best deal, whether negotiating for a cost of something small or in a full blown licensing deal (some of the basic tricks to use).
Licensing: Why license? Plus the general terms and conditions of a licence.
Timeframes: Being realistic about the timescales involved in having an idea and making money from it, plus coming up with an exit strategy, if things go wrong, or right.
Objectives: What do they need to do to get the outcome they want? Clarity of intent can help direct them.
Re-motivation: This involves encouraging them to move forward, but may be in a different and more focused way, e.g. ‘’I like it, but …’’.
On-going support: Advise joining Inventors’ Clubs/organisations. Aside from providing a peer group where many find themselves ‘in the same boat’, they offer an opportunity of sharing experience, advice and expertise on many aspects of invention development.
I’ve also attached a related article Ask A Expert British Library Mark Sheahan. Contact me for further details.
People who spend their working lives scrutinising images from baggage scanning machines, need all the help they can get (as well as a doubling of their pay rate).
It seems that if you are prompted by hearing words, you tend to be more effective at detecting related items.
Today’s invention is therefore an MP3 recording which randomly says words like “wires”,”blade”,”drugs” etc to a person engaged in this task, so that they will maintain vigilance and improve the chances of discovering illicit baggage contents.
Politicians who represent opposed, even warring factions are often very unwilling to be seen shaking hands with each other. They either shake or they don’t and whilst not shaking, relations stay cold; peace deals tend not to get done.
Today’s invention is a way to transform this decision from a binary to an analogue one.
It consists of a telescopic tube with a false hand located at either end.
A pair of politicians can approach this tube, select how long they want their side to be and then grasp the hand adjacent to them.
In this way, an arm’s-length handshake can take place together with an indication of the preferred distance of each participant (for the benefit of their constituents).
It may be that if one side is close to a normal shake and the other is visibly standoffish, that public pressure is increased on the unwilling party, boosting the chances of an early coming together. The next shake should involve some change in the chosen lengths.
In any case, a certain amount of humour injected into the situation might even help to break the ice.
Military robots are a) very scary and b) absurdly complex.
Bomb disposal robots can however save lives but their cost and technical sophistication makes it increasingly unattractive to leave damaged machines in the hands of an enemy force.
Today’s invention is a bomb disposal robot containing a UAV that ejects itself and flies home if the armoured, but technically rudimentary, outer vehicle is disabled.
The UAV ‘brain’ contains all the costly, classified control technology etc and thus avoids this being destroyed or captured.
This approach limits the need to apply huge amounts of armour, since the sensor unit can continuously assess the likelihood of forthcoming terminal damage to the outer vehicle.
Lots of high-value liquid products, like paint or wine, require their packaging to be effectively resealed in-between usages, to stop their volatile gaseous components from escaping.
Today’s invention is an alternative to the established technique of ensuring good seals and possibly reducing internal air pressure, so that a vapour-rich, stable atmosphere is maintained inside.
It consists of a small cannister, like a ‘soda bomb’, which contains extra, pressurised vapour of the type given off by the contained liquid.
A valve on this is briefly opened each time the container is sealed, so that less volatile material is lost from the liquid into the headspace above. Opening the can also results in an enhanced scent of the product being given off (which for wine is good thing).
