James Dyson -is he really a billionaire, as reported in the press? Cool, we desperately need more people who have made serious money from inventions. Some of his have been rubbish, but that’s the point: he will have a better one tomorrow, since he keeps on going.

His latest idea is the air multiplier. As a fan, probably not that great an invention, but as a design object product…sheer genius.

I haven’t done all the fluid dynamics calculations, but today’s invention scales this approach up and applies it to an area for which James won’t hold the patent: helicopters.

Imagine a ring of multipliers arrayed around the fuselage of a helicopter -pointing downwards. Each would be fed from the exhaust of its own jet engine. This would make such a vehicle very much less damage-prone than rotors and even allow conventional ejection seats to operate safely.
(NB this is very different from the VTOL vectoring which eg a Harrier jumpjet performs, due to the entrainment or ‘multiplier’ effect).

Flying long-haul is a test of patience, especially in cattle class.

Today’s invention is a way to make use of existing in-seat technology to help relieve an extra few minutes of boredom in between restless twitching, movies and sporadic naps.

Each seat back display could show the basic booking details of the seatholder, as selected via the same interface used to choose between ‘AirCrash III’ and ‘Alien Apocalypse’.

This information could be optionally augmented, in a form of aerial graffiti, with extra details about their reason for flying, what they thought of the chicken and their ultimate destination.

Overtime, a history of seat occupancy would build up -adding interest and value to each position. People would perhaps pay a premium to sit in the 51b steerage seat used by George Clooney when he was 21, for example (he hated the chicken).

Everyone knows that green screens are used by filmmakers who want later to insert a more interesting backdrop to a scene.

Today’s invention adopts the idea by colouring, in a nice uniform matt green, all items of filmaker’s hardware on a set which might inadvertently extend into a shot.

Any instances of this unnatural shade appearing in recently taken images could automatically alert the crew in realtime, by beeping.

This would allow amateur directors to avoid having to reshoot multiple scenes because for example, someone allowed a microphone boom to be captured as a reflection from some shiny surface..

Today’s invention is a way to create a personal message inside a bottle of fizzy drink (or ‘soda’).

A labelmaker device is used to print a short message, such as a name, as a negative image on a transparent tape. This is then attached to the outside of any plastic bottle filled with gassy drink.

A small heat lamp (perhaps built into the labelling device) is briefly shone on the tape template, This activates nucleation sites on the inside of the bottle wall, so that whenever the cap is removed, the message is spelt out in bubbles on the surface.

Blisters are one way in which the body reacts to damaging friction.

Rather than wait to develop an unpleasant, painful blister, today’s invention is a stick-on synthetic blister, designed to provide the same level of skin protection but without the searing pain and infection risk.

This would consist of a thin, durable, flexible envelope containing a bio-compatible lubricant.

One side of this blister would have an adhesive patch which would allow it to be applied before wearing new boots on a long walk, for example.

Everyone who has to wear a bulletproof vest complains about the bulk and weight -people have been killed because they chose to remove uncomfortable kit.

Today’s invention is a vest which concentrates the most protective elements (eg ceramic shields and kevlar patches) primarily in front of the body’s most vital organs.

This anatomical emphasis increases flexibility, reduces weight and has the effect of achieving a more workable compromise between survivability and wearability.