#762: Zebread

Sliced bread is a benchmark for inventiveness.

Having performed several searches, as usual, I haven’t yet come up with any prior claims in connection with today’s invention: a loaf consisting of both brown and white slices.

People like variety, so I reckon this is a reasonably healthy way to introduce some novelty and add extra interest to a staple foodstuff. One brown and one white loaf would be sliced in the usual way and interdigitated, like two halves of a pack of cards, resulting in two such mixed loaves.

A more advanced version would have several different types of sliced bread involved. It might even be possible to introduce a toasted image onto some of the slices before ‘zipping’ the bread together to conceal eg a surprise message (and tie this in, perhaps, to some consumer competition).

#761: BlaID

I’m scandalised by having just read about a Swiss Army knife with no blade. What are the folks at Victorinox thinking about? Maybe the Swiss Army will be relying on dazzling their enemies with the dinky laser pointer which is included?

Today’s invention reuses product components they already have available to ensure that your knife can only be used by you.

Use the existing fingerprint-reading technology to control, via a simple electromechanical lock, the opening of the pocket knife blade -thus avoiding unfortunate accidents/ violence/ lawsuits as a result of unauthorised usage.

#760: RiotSquawk

Legitimate protest is one thing: rioting is quite another. I’m no supporter of the companies who happily sell stun guns and cattle probes etc to repressive regimes, but today’s invention is certainly non-lethal and might help disperse people in a street riot before anyone gets hurt (they can mock their government online…often more effective and usually less dangerous).

Take a standard polycarbonate riot shield and embed twenty or thirty loudspeaker cones in its surface, facing forwards. Each shield bearer, and that probably means policeman, would be equipped with a belt mounted battery which would drive all of the loudspeaker cones on a shield.

This would generate enough noise to make standing in front of a wall of such shields uncomfortable (even with ears plugged). The shields themselves might be slightly concave so as to help focus the sound energy emerging from them. A large number of such shields could be coordinated by aiming them at e.g. anyone foolish enough to be carrying a weapon. This cacophony could be further intensified by driving the speakers in phase and thus setting up a ‘wall’ of antinodes between crowd and police.

#759: Explosuit

I have an abiding respect for those who work in bomb disposal.

There are many different designs of protective suit available to these people, although I have serious doubts about how effective they would be in the event that an explosive device initiates whilst they are working on it.

The suits, which are intended to protect against fragments, heat and pressure injuries, certainly don’t lend themselves to any kind of quick getaway. Today’s invention is therefore something like an automatic ejector seat, designed to fling the bomb disposer out of harm’s way.

A disposal suit would be fitted with an extra shield in the form of a sprung rocket nozzle protruding forward from the armored breastplate. in the nozzle, an explosive charge would be located -on the far side of the shield from the disposer. The disposer would lean forwards, locating this charge close to the bomb as he works on it just within arm’s reach.

In the event that the bomb detonates, the charge attached to the suit would explode as the detonation wave from the main bomb passes through it. The shield/nozzle would focus the blast and would act like reactive armour -throwing the wearer away from the bomb, before the main blast effects could reach him.

#758: Game-off

Beset by handheld games consoles, being used by various offspring post-Xmas, I’ve become aware of how important it is to limit the obsessive usage of these.

Today’s invention is an additional, password-protected interface on all such devices which allows a responsible adult (or even a meanie parent) to specify in advance times when they may be used.

This might have a small alarm to alert the user when access is allowed and also when it’s about to end.

#757: Securtain

Today’s invention is simply a DVD on which is stored a movie of someone in silhouette getting up out of an armchair and periodically walking about.

This is projected onto the inside surface of a curtain in order to act as a deterrent to would-be burglars.

On occasions, the shadowy person disappears off to one side of the window for periods of several minutes at a time.

When the end of this classic of the cinema is reached, a script simply reruns each section between such disappearances -in a random order so as to avoid the repetition being detected.

#756: ShrinkSkin

I find the properties of coffee grounds fascinating (beyond the normal effects of three double espressos). Whole books have been written about the odd rheology of this soft, yet abrasive powder. I was recently playing with an evacuated foil packet of coffee and it occurred to me that it had incredible strength for its weight (caused by the particles being jammed together by the sucked-in skin of the foil).

Today’s invention exploits this property. An example application would be to create a bicycle frame using a single fattish inner tube filled with a coffee-like particulate material (and air). The cycle parts would be loosely attached to this tube to begin with so that the frame could be bent over on itself: a foldaway bicycle.

Now, straighten out the frame tube and evacuate the air (using a variant on a standard bike pump). The frame immediately can be made to rigidify…stabilising the relative positions of the wheels, bars, pedals etc enough to allow the device to be ridden away.

#755: PlimsollWine

Imagine pouring wine slowly from a bottle into a glass. As you look down on the bottle at any instant, the wine’s surface can be seen to touch the inside of the bottle along an elegant perimeter shape. An instant later, some wine has left the bottle and the perimeter has moved downwards, taking up a different perimeter shape.

Today’s invention is to mark a series of these perimeters on bottles, during their manufacture, at vertical intervals corresponding to eg 1 unit of alcohol.

This would allow someone serving wine to monitor exactly how much went into each glass and thus protect the health/ driving licence of the drinker.

#754: ChanceChange

The gaming machines industry is big business. Today’s invention is a new variant.

A player causes coins to dropped somewhere onto a pile of similar ones resting on a flat plate. The plate has vertical edges on three sides. Eventually the pile becomes critical, so that adding a single coin will cause a ‘landslide.’

These events will vary in size each time a coin is dropped on the pile, so that a variable number of coins will fall off the open front edge of the plate into a prize tray accessible to the player.

Under these conditions (self-organised criticality) there will be a very small number of huge avalanches and a large number of very small avalanches (Frequently, the initial landslide will fail to trigger others and no coins will fall from the plate).

This combination would strongly encourage people to play, whilst actually paying out minimal amounts in winnings (statistically limited, over the long term, but occasionally giving the impression of uncontrollable ‘house’ losses).

#753: Turbotide

Ships have propellers which are designed to fling water relatively rearwards in an efficient manner. Tidal power is one area of ‘alternative energy’ which seems as if it has some chance for being cost effective.

Today’s invention is to combine this information and create a simple source of energy.

Take ships which, due to economic conditions, are not currently being used and moor them securely in regions of high tidal flow activity. Equip each with a generator, if they haven’t already got one on board. Allow the tidal movements to drive the props with the hulls anchored in position (they might need to be driven up to speed to overcome inertia). Store the energy extracted in batteries which can then be transported into dock when fully charged and connected to the grid.