When cutting up firewood, with nothing else to think about, it occurred to me that the process might be better organised.

People who want to saw wood slowly, using a normal ripsaw and a consistent action, but who have limited musclepower can make use of today’s invention.

It consists of a simple vise which grips wood of any shape in the usual way. After each stroke of the saw, the vise (and wood) is rotated precisely (using a computer-controlled motor), so that a perpendicular to the saw contacts the wood surface symmetrically.

This minimises the amount of wood sawn through in each stroke and thus the rate at which energy needs to be expended.

Helicopters throw up massive amounts of dust when they have to operate off unprepared surfaces. This is bad because aero engines don’t enjoy inhaling the stuff and also the pilot’s view of the landing site is obscured.

Today’s invention is a lightweight mat which is carried beneath a helicopter in a tube. When a landing is planned, the tube is lowered to the ground and motorised wheels on either end rotate the tube so that the mat rolled up inside anchors itself at one side and is extracted -forming a flat, dust free helipad.

After take-off, the drive wheels reverse, rolling the mat back into the tube which is then hoisted back up under the belly of the aircraft.

Today’s invention is a vending machine which is wheeled into an elevator car and secured there.

This allows people using the lift to make purchases whilst in transit and can be replaced with a refilled machine at the start of each new day.

Each machine would plug into the electrical services of the lift, reducing the required number of vending machines, promoting movement of people from department to department within a corporation and potentially providing greater comfort for anyone stuck inside.

Anyone whose been to the cinema knows it’s possible to create an artificial, high-precision, 3-D stereo sound field. Now imagine equipping a room with a bank of speakers which generate a sound field corresponding to that which might created by a single noisy insect moving around inside.

This acoustic point source could be made to appear to move about a room, or within a vehicle, allowing someone to follow the sound as if following a real insect.

This might be used to help direct people around a predetermined circuit. It might work as a replacement for the voice in satnav systems, for example. By simply driving towards the noise of the virtual insect (as created in realtime by the car’s sound system).

Today’s invention is an augmented reality application which allows a group of people conducting a search to collaborate more effectively (They might be scanning an area for hidden explosives or searching for evidence in connection with some crime, for example).

Each user wears a set of glasses which knows its position and orientation and projects a bright, individually coloured patch of light onto the surfaces he is looking at. Everone’s glasses also contain a camera which detects and tracks his coloured patch.

The information about those areas which have been inspected, by anyone in the group, is pooled and obscured in everyone’s field of view.

For a more thorough scrutiny, it might be arranged that each patch of space need be independently inspected by say two people before being obscured.

Today’s invention is a toothbrush head which replaces the normal top on a toothpaste tube.

Instead of squirting paste onto the head, it can now be squeezed through from behind the bristles.

When finished teethcleaning, the brush is run under a tap, washing off all surface paste (which otherwise encrusts the tube nozzle and cap).