#536: GumGrips

Brushing one’s teeth effectively has all sorts of health benefits. Technique counts for a lot, though, and today’s invention attempts to encourage good practice.

It takes the form of an electric toothbrush, consisting of two conventional heads but mounted in the scissor arrangement shown. A reel of dental tape in the handle runs from the centre of one brush to the other (and is collected on another disposable reel).

The scissors are lightly sprung in the open position. The tape is moved along the surface of one’s teeth until it finds a gap into which it is then pushed. The ‘scissors’ are squeezed closed and brushing of the teeth and gums occurs on both sides at the same time, in a mostly gum-to-teeth direction, whilst flossing also takes place.

Each brush head would be slightly wider than normal so that brushing, centred on the inter-tooth gap, would simultaneously clean more than half the width of the teeth on either side (the floss between one’s teeth would limit the side-to-side rasping, which I seem to do unconsciously, as well as making it uncomfortable to scrub in the tooth-to-gum direction).

#535: ValueAds

Online advertising is interesting only to experts in online advertising. Fewer and fewer people are actually clicking on the banner ads which often deface otherwise reasonably attractive web real estate.

Today’s invention is a way to increase the attention paid to such ads.

When someone clicks on an ad, the coordinates within the banner are sent by the browser to the ad server. This determines whether the click has occurred at a number of ‘lucky locations.’ When the browser opens the new page, it announces that a prize has been won (or not). This might take the form of redeemable coupons, vouchers, micropayments or discounts for products on the site of interest.

Obviously, the lucky coordinates would need to be automatically changed, from moment to moment, to stop either manual or automated searching for some fixed hotspot.

All of this leads to more enthusiastic, participative clicking-through and might be employed to help overcome the fierce resistance to ads in games which is now being shown.

#534: Bungee blunter

A friend of mine recently had a bungee cord detach itself unexpectedly and whip the metal hook into his eye. Fortunately no serious damage was done, but these items are capable of storing enough elastic energy for a fatal impact, so it was a lucky break.

Today’s invention is a spring-loaded rubber cap for bungee hooks. This would be easily attached to both hooks on every such cord. When putting a bungee in place, the rubber helmet would be grabbed and used to stretch its internal spring, so that the bungee hook was exposed. This would allow the hook to engage with whatever it was being used to secure.

If at any time the hook were to become suddenly freed, with the bungee stretched, the spring in the helmet would pull it down over the hook very rapidly. This would ensure at least that anyone being hit by the free end would encounter only the protective rubber shield and not the hook inside.

#533: Rotatoar

Today’s invention is a simple watermill, the blades on which behave like oars…(-or the arms of a swimmer doing the front crawl).

When in the water, the surface of each blade is at right angles to the direction of motion, providing maximal thrust. As the blade leaves the water, it is smoothly rotated by a cam so that the blade surface is aligned with the direction of motion. This streamlines the blade during its passage forward through the air and minimises the air resistance which would otherwise act as an unintended brake on the system.

This could be applied to a new generation of paddle steamers as well. In addition, now that marine vessels are being equipped with electrical power which allows drive units to be bolted on to the hull anywhere, such paddles could be attached entirely underwater…because the drag on the forward stroke could be minimised.

#532: Deckoy

Today’s invention is another attempt to stop thieves ripping off one’s fancy new in-car entertainment system.

When leaving the vehicle, a coverplate is often attached to hide the player in the fascia. My suggestion is to avoid those enticing matt black plates and use instead one which takes the shape of a convincing cassette tape player, complete with protruding cassette.

No thief in their right mind will be interested in stealing such an outdated, unsaleable unit and one’s car will therefore remain unmolested.

#531: Jaggedges

The human visual system is particularly good at detecting small misalignments (ie as small as the width of a pencil viewed at 300m).

Today’s invention makes use of that fact to help provide screen displays which are less susceptible to ‘shoulder surfing.’

Such tiny misalignments in gratings of lines can be seen, but only when viewed from straight ahead. A shape can thus be seen in the diagram, formed simply by small jumps in the black lines. These jumps, and the shape, would be much less visible to anyone observing them from, in this case, the 10 or 4 o’clock position.

The display on eg an ATM touchscreen could flash up an array of apparent numbers formed from misalignments in a grating and a bank customer could then choose their pin number, without showing these digits to bystanders.

#530: WalkWheel

It had to happen sometime: IOTD reinvents the wheel (again).

A wheel (in this case of a bicycle) is replaced by two sectors. Each of these can rotate independently about their common axle. The bicycle is moving right to left. When the sector marked ‘a’ has come close to the end of its tyre’s contact with the road, the other sector marked ‘b’ is flipped around the axle counterclockwise to take its place, just in time to provide smooth forward motion (with much lower rotational inertia than normal).

Such a setup requires a spring mechanism to drive the sector and a robust trigger to activate the process. The axial spring would be wound by the forward motion of the machine and the triggering could be quite crudely coordinated using a mechanical latch.

This arrangement also allows a greatly reduced weight and space requirement for a fold-up machine. It’s also rather a cool way to ride about, always looking as if one is about to fall off.

Rather than flip counterclockwise from a to b, the sectors might swap places by raising the rear one off the ground and ‘stepping’ clockwise from position a to b (at the cost of added complexity). This would save some frame height (and the cost of material) as well as reducing the energy drain from the system.

#529: Rollerr

The scroll wheels on computer mice seem to be highly variable in terms of the precision with which they locate the cursor. I know this because today’s invention is a technique for quantifying these errors.

Open up your favourite browser and point it at Google maps. Now you can centre the map on some prominent feature (I use a huge, white-roofed exhibition hall in Vancouver). Next, secure the mouse to the desk (duct tape works, as ever) and use the scroll wheel to zoom out to ‘space’ and back a fixed number of times (say 5). Record the new screen centre location on the map (this will have changed, in general, due to sloppiness in the way the scroll wheel mechanism works). If you can stop the hypnotic process of zooming in on terra firma, eventually you will have characterised the on-screen precision of your scroll wheel.

This probably isn’t important for most users, but I understand that it affects some games players’ performance. In addition, if you have identified a brand of scroll wheel which operates with known, high accuracy, this could then be used to detect any hand tremor in users of an untethered mouse.

#528: Coolometer

Many thermometers operate on the basis that some internal fluid expands when heated.

Today’s invention turns that on its head by making a thermometer consisting of a fluid with a very low coefficient of thermal expansion (eg coloured water) in a glass enclosure which expands greatly on heating (eg soda glass).

When this device comes into thermal equilibrium with something hot, the glass will expand, whilst the liquid stays at almost constant volume. The temperature will thus be measured by the fall in the liquid level.

Similarly, a temperature fall will be registered as a rise on the coolness scale.

#527: Frugasity

Today I was reading one of those increasingly hysterical stories about how the high price of ‘gas’ is causing US drivers to consider more economical driving techniques (£1.12 per litre is what I’m paying in the UK…probably enough to cause a riot if the US govt inflicted our levels of tax over there).

Anyway, one of the suggestions I read was to drive as if one were on a pushbike…ie to live with a reduction in speed whenever the vehicle engine suddenly comes under increased load eg when heading uphill. Most people have a tendency to sink their right foot and try to maintain uniform speed, so this seems like reasonable advice.

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Today’s invention is a modification to the accelerator pedal which helps implement this regime and save fuel. A tlit sensor detects when the vehicle is heading uphill. Other sensors measure the load being pulled and the weight of its occupants. These data are interpreted by a hydraulic resistor which makes the pedal harder to depress when the engine is experiencing such harsh demands.

Gradual changes in loading, such as in smooth overtaking, could be arranged not to affect the accelerator pedal stiffness in this way.