#1258: LapStrap

Laptops are equipped with all manner of software-based security measures but that doesn’t count for a lot if someone can jab in a USB device eg and boot up your machine (If your BIOS isn’t password protected, for example).

Today’s invention is a simple device to make any such access to physical connections very much more difficult.

The diagram shows a plug placed in eg a USB socket and attached to a strap which passes under the machine and into a clamp fitted to the other side.

The strap can be locked in place, making attachment of any peripherals impossible without doing serious damage to the device or the machine.

#1257: SawSlots

Today’s invention is intended to lessen the effort required when cutting wood with a handsaw.

The side surfaces of the saw blade have slots machined into them so that a uniform, constant flow pattern can be set up in the narrow air passages between sawblade and wood.

This forms a ‘street’ of vortices in the slots which act as air bearings, reducing the drag in both forwards and backwards directions (air having low inertia, a reversal of this flow pattern is not particularly hard to achieve).

#1256: FareShare

Most people have an aversion to car sharing. Most people also have an aversion to fuel price-induced poverty…not to mention the damage which road transport does to the environment and our health. So we will increasingly have to choose to travel with other people (whom we may not know).

Today’s invention is therefore a modification to the electric urban vehicle of the future. We can get away with about 1/4 as many of these roaming the streets by building them so that they will only move when occupied by four people.

This could be detected by a hard-to-fake combination of bodyweights in seats, heartbeats recorded via seatbelt sensors and fingerprint-reading door handles.

To make a journey in such a vehicle, you would go to a stop and indicate your destination on a touchscreen. If you hadn’t bothered to coordinate with three friends, others waiting at the stop could then join you for parts of the journey along a designated route.

If someone got out before your end-point, you might have to wait at that stop until someone else wanted a ride on the same route. This alone would encourage people to finish an increasing proportion of journeys on foot.

Once these vehicles were in place, it might be possible for say two occupants to agree to pay a hefty surcharge to be allowed to travel without others on board.

#1255: Holdsmobile

Today’s invention is a new intuitive driving interface -something like a mouse moving on a mousemat.

A car driver grips a model car and moves it across the surface of a model rolling road inside the fullsize car. As the model car is turned, so the axial direction of the rolling road turns relative to the real car.

As the speed of the model is varied so the rolling road accelerates and the speed of the real vehicle responds.

A crude version of this could be achieved using eg an iPhone or Wii attached to the base of a model vehicle. It would be particularly good for people with a problem reversing or for those with physical disabilities (since there are no pedals etc required).

#1254: Entropen

New Scientist’s column ‘The Last Word‘ is often a great source of questions just waiting to become inventions.

I was inspired by it today to think about a pen which maximises the lifetime of its ink supply, without greatly diminishing legibility.

Today’s invention is therefore a pen incorporating a tiny inkjet printer with one printhead and a small camera.

As the pen is moved across the surface of the paper, it spits out dots at a uniform rate.

When the camera detects that the pen is changing direction or printing near other dots, it increases its print rate. In this way, sections of straight line, where the information content per dot is low, are represented by small amounts of ink -and vice versa.

(You might build a version with the background dot rate proportional to the acceleration, as determined by a small on-board sensor)

#1253: CarrierBarrier

For all the clever electronic systems on board, naval ships are still vulnerable to attack by torpedo and by small, fast boats.

Aircraft carriers in particular have a turning circle the size of the equator. Today’s invention is intended to help such large ships resist attacks.

It consists of a mobile palette which can be rolled into position to secure a jet plane rigidly to the deck of a carrier. In the event of an attack, palettes would rapidly swarm under parked planes, turn them to align axially with the direction of approaching threat and fire up their engines.

Given the massive power output of a deckload of jets, this would cause the vessel to roll severely. Firing of the engines several times in synchrony with the roll rate would produce waves of huge amplitude -big enough to sink or deflect many forms of near-surface attack.

#1252: LayerLogs

Getting a fireplace to light up can be a challenge. Somehow there is never enough of the different constituents (ie various grades of kindling) and I end up using 20 matches attempting, fruitlessly, to get the bark on a solid log to burn.

Today’s invention is therefore fire briquettes which each consist of a solid wood upper surface and a series of other strata of decreasing density. The lowermost layer would be loosely-bonded paper.

A machine could be devised to make these in bulk. This would take the form of a rectangular metal box into which pieces of wood could be dropped, followed by twigs, cardboard and then paper. Slots in the box would allow the contents to be tied in a layered bundle which could then be sawn into stove-sized lengths.

Place several of these at angles to one another in a fireplace and light the papery underside of each…instant conflagration.

#1251: HandHoldall

I have noticed that schoolchildren are carrying ever increasing amounts of stuff with them (especially books, despite the one-laptop-per-child initiative). This can’t be good for a developing skeleton.

Today’s invention is therefore a schoolbag which has a handle hinged at one end. The handle requires that its sides be pressed together before the bag is lifted, in order to judge the strength of the user.

When next the bag is set down (detected by sensors within the base), the handle determines whether the bag has been carried for long enough to endanger the user’s joints. If so, the handle de-hinges for a preset period to give the user some time to recover.

The handle can also detect which hand is being used to lift the bag (by the relative pressure on each side) and thus can also encourage a change from left to right (by leaving the hinge open until the hand is changed).

Two such bags could even communicate wirelessly -to ensure eg that nearly equal loads had been placed in each.

#1250: n-ike

If we can have bikes and trikes then why not an n-wheeled vehicle called a n-ike? (just waiting for the ‘cease and desist’ letter from the world of humourless chinese trainer manufacturers).

Today’s invention is a simple way to make a bicycle frame using wheels. Two would be used to hold the rear axle and the seat. One more would be clamped between these to hold the drive sprocket. A fourth would be clamped to this one to hold the steering yolk.

With the two on the road that makes six wheels in total. This arrangement offers lightness, ease of manufacture, a way to reuse old wheels and the possibility of personalising the riding geometry by changing the clamping positions.

#1249: FacePlace

Google Street View is fun and also hugely useful.

Today’s invention is a way for occupants to express their personalities via this medium, if they choose to.

A property owner or tenant could mail a special division of Google with proof of their occupany. They would then receive a software key in the post allowing them to upload a limited number of facial images to append to their home’s image in Street View.

The faces could be automatically checked before being made public (to ensure that they weren’t all Obama or pac-men, etc).

These faces would then would lie on an optional overlay viewable by anyone interested in eg Who lives at number 58?

A slightly more advanced version would allow individuals’ Twitter feeds to be viewed by clicking on their facial images.