Invention Of The Day – Page 180 – Just another break-step productions sites site

#1089: Screensaver

Apparently there is a new danger in the business of flying. People are increasingly reporting that their laptop screens are being cracked by the decision of the person sitting ahead of them suddenly to dump the seat back into the lazyboy position.

This used to be infuriating enough, but imagine having a seventeen hour flight with some snoring stranger in your lap -and a smashed laptop aaarrgghh!

Today’s invention is a cardboard tube which fits over the end of all armrests and obscures the ‘reverse’ button. To release it, you have to slide the tube off. This action takes a couple of extra seconds and exposes a sign on the other end of the armrest, which attracts the attention of the person behind.

The sign would say “look out, seat back about to descend!”

#1088: Bi-drive

There’s not much that can be done to improve on the basic bicycle design.

Today’s invention, though, is an attempt to provide all-wheel drive to this venerable contraption.

It only takes a few degrees of handlebar rotation to steer a bike: any more and you simply fall off. This allows both wheels to be driven by a flexible, toothed rubber belt which passes over a drive wheel in the middle and coordinated derailleurs on each wheel hub.

It opens up the possibility of optimising the angular velocity of each wheel independently, improving traction on a variety of surfaces.

Risk

In silicon valley, where they aren’t shy about making money, it’s actually seen as much riskier to work for a major corporation than a startup. If the startup goes down, you have some valuable, transferable experience which will get you hired by some other garage company in the raft of such organisations. If a big company fails, it sinks like a stone, flooding the market with competitors for jobs on the next bandwagon.

Elsewhere, we desperately need to develop some healthier attitudes to risk. Leaders (remember them?) have to be prepared to defend investing even public money in experimental ways. Cherry picking, ie looking for a lottery win-sized certainty, via endless ‘due diligence,’ is flawed and sends the wrong message: “Don’t do anything until you get the guarantee of a big slice of shiny investment.”

Making money isn’t necessarily synonymous with greed. Graft need not be unglamorous. Ideas aren’t cheap.

#1087: Everywear

Adverts fascinate me…mostly because the process by which people, including me, buy stuff in response to such promptings is not at all understood.

Today’s invention is a new form of advertisement which would be embedded in products – potentially in all locations which suffer from wear over time.

One example might be the soles on a pair of shoes. As these get worn, an image embedded in the material is gradually revealed. This process could be timed (by knowledge of average wear rates) to occur just as the product was about to be thrown away, saying things like “if you liked this, then get the latest from www.newandshiny.com”

Such images might be made in layers so that longlived products could reveal small recommendations for many different, related items over time.

#1086: Cloakeys

Computer keyboards are far too complex…there are options built in that I never ever use…the keys just sit there doing nothing other than acting as targets for typing errors, of which I make many, dirt collectors and a source of visual distractions.

Today’s invention is therefore a keyboard overlay which can be fashioned to correspond with any individual’s preferences.

You would specify which keys you never press (eg about 35% of the ones on the machine I’m using now). Once you provided details of the model of machine you were using, this would allow an overlay to be created which clipped in place…covering the useless ones with a connected grid of blanks (in the correct uniform colour), whilst leaving the others unaffected.

#1085: MissMist

Driving in heavy rain, I’m always intimidated by the spray thrown up when passing a heavy lorry. This obscures my vision and compromises safety, irrespective of how fast the wipers are moving.

Today’s invention is a wide-angle camera which is mounted on a stalk and which can be extended forwards of the windscreen and ahead of all of the oncoming spray. The camera lens would project with a lens cap in place to keep it dry as it penetrates the spray. Then the cap would be moved out of the way (its small aperture would be much easier to keep rain-free than a whole windscreen).

This allows the driver of a vehicle to view a monitor inside the screen which shows a clear picture of the road ahead.

#1084: CoverTuned

Vehicle insurance companies can charge what they like, since we all must be insured to drive. Today’s invention is an opportunity for one of them to break ranks and make the costs fit the risk for each customer.

It consists of an in-vehicle computer which calculates the journey risk profile each time you turn the key in the ignition, based on some stored data and by answering a few extra questions.

It seems that the time of day affects the chance of an accident, as does the weather forecast, driver details and the maintenance history of the vehicle. This information would be stored in the system.

Specifying your planned route on Google maps, via an onboard screen, would allow all this information to be mashed up and a real-time quote generated. This would be authorised to be paid, using one’s stored account details, before the journey began.

#1083: BackUp

Today’s invention is a device intended to allow a tank to escape the battlefield when its running gear has been damaged.

A motorised set of spare wheels (or tracks) is attached to a frame stored eg at the rear of the vehicle.

When a track has been destroyed, the turret rotates, engages with this frame (perhaps using the main gun barrel, if appropriate), rotates to the damaged side and provides enough traction to shed the damaged components and retreat rapidly.

#1082: Dustream

When setting a fire, I find I usually create a small pile of kindling refuse and sawdust on the hearth. Rather than go in search of the vacuum cleaner, I’d prefer to use today’s invention: a draught-driven suction tube.

Set the draught to maximum for a few seconds and direct the (insulated) end of the flexible metal hose at the detritis in front of the fire.

This is sucked up into the chimney gas stream, burning the particles of dust and leaving the hearth area comparatively clean.

#1081: Lensensor

It drives me nuts that contact lenses are now so thin and flexible that, whilst super-comfortable to wear, they can easily become inverted in the packaging.

When this occurs, I can’t easily detect it and so have to extract and reinsert (with all the handwashing and eyelid-pulling pallaver that that entails).

Today’s invention is a C-shaped plastic bracket onto the lower-surface of which an opened, transparent lens package is placed. A small lamp on the lower surface shines upwards through lens, liquid and case to form an image inside the upper arm of the C.

The resulting image is different in size, depending on the orientation of the lens.