#2479: GripPay

Everything you buy will soon be payable for using a contactless card. If you choose to use one of these, rather than pay by phone, you will encounter a problem.

The cards need to be held close enough to the reader and parallel to its surface.

That action makes it hard to grip the card properly. You can hold it by one edge, but this often fails to read. I’m thinking here about the London Underground Oyster card. Faffing around those turnstyles at rush hour makes you unpopular. Or you can hold the edges using one finger on each, but this feels insecure and is hard to get the card close enough to the surface.

Today’s invention solves these problems using a milk bottle cap seal as shown. This would be simply glued onto your card. Fold up the tab, pinch it between your fingers and swipe the card close to the reader. This gives more reliable performance at almost zero extra cost.

When inserting that card back in a wallet or even into an ATM, the tab is simply folded flat.

#2478: Rolleredge

Today’s invention is a simple add-on for paint rollers which allows one to paint up to an edge or skirting board without getting the paint anywhere it shouldn’t go.

This is designed to be manufactured for a few pence and to be easily cleanable.

When you press down on the roller handle, its springiness allows the shield to stay flat on the surface whilst the roller paints it.

#2477: TalkTimer

Today’s invention is a microphone to be used in the Q&A section of conference meetings.

It is equipped with a simple timer, so that the chairperson can set the interval for which each questioner can speak. This is publicly announced beforehand.

The chairperson may also set the guest responder’s microphone for a different, but still limited, duration.

In this way, the usual self-promotional speechmaking or unfocussed waffling is strictly limited and many more people get to ask questions and receive relevant, pithy answers.

It should be possible to have the microphone emit a warning beep before it stops working each time.

#2476: Stirring Engine

I may have mentioned that patience does not come easily to me.

It’s a particular problem when dealing with people who have a loose grasp on the concept of urgency..or when I want some tea.

Today’s invention is a technology to speed up tea making (who can afford the time required by natural circulation, when active dunking would be faster?)

Here, I employ my love of thermodynamics by applying a Stirling engine in a novel and strangely satisfying way.

The (jasmine) tea bag string is applied to the engine’s crank so that the bag is oscillated through the hot water, hastening teatime.

#2474: BiaSwitch

Light switches tend to be bistable devices, equally at home in either the on or off position.

Certain people, especially in my experience teenagers, tend to be unaware that they have left roomlights perpetually on.

Today’s invention is a reminder to switch off the lights but which also includes a couple of supportive ‘nudges.’

A lever is attached, using a sticky pad, to a switch, so as to make it physically more difficult to activate the lights than to deactivate them.

Deactivation is actively encouraged by providing a small, glow-in-the-dark hand which a departing teenager is marginally more likely to high-five.

#2473: FasterGas

I’m normally impatient, but it gets worse when I’m hungry.

Today’s invention is a way to cook things faster on a gas hob.

It’s very common to have a kitchen cooker with four gas rings arrayed in a square. Imagine having a device consisting of three linked pipes (light grey). This can be placed on top of the four burners so as to direct the flow of gas from all four to the single lit one.

This allows a fourfold increase in heat transfer to the pot you want to boil first (or, using a pressure cooker, the pot you want to heat most intensely).

The unit can of course be repositioned to direct the extra heat to any one of the four burner locations.

#2472: BrightBooms

In these troubled times, it’s sometimes necessary to put in place roadblocks to arrest the progress of suspected criminals.

It’s hard for police to get to the right place to intercept them, without risking their own lives and those of bystanders.

Today’s invention is street lamps which can be lowered, by wireless signal, using a hinge at their base. They could thus block a road and act as a reinforced barrier to speeding vehicles.

Once lowered, the lamps themselves could be made to flash on and off to draw attention to the local road closure (right hand diagram).

Lamps might also interlock across the road for added impact strength.

#2470: TyreFlats

Offroad vehicles like ATVs and trailbikes use knobbly tyres to provide grip on uneven surfaces.

The downside of this is that, when these tyres hit tarmac, they have a dangerous tendency to suddenly adhere to the surface and flip the vehicle over unpredictably (more than 300 people died in on-road ATV accidents in 2011).

Today’s invention is a set of clip-on rubber covers for knobbly tyres (shown here in translucent red). These have smooth exterior and an interior surface that loosely fits the pattern of knobs, so that they stay in place when the driver/rider encounters tarmac and thus they allow short, slow journeys to be made in safety.

This has the additional benefit of improved fuel economy when being driven on-road.