Tag: fabby

Today’s invention is a way to encourage people to wash their hands after using public toilets.

There are often just as many sinks as toilet cubicles, so why not site one sink inside each cubicle?

A user closes the cubicle door and if, when they open it again, they have not run the tap for at least 30 seconds, a light switches on over the door -together with a loud message of admonition ‘Washing your hands helps protect everyone’s health, bozo.’

(Ok, maybe not the last part, but you get my drift).

Despite the damage it no doubt does to the environment, by pumping out carbon dioxide, I do like my wood burning stove.

I don’t like the job of starting fires though -especially the business of needing wood of different sizes on hand as kindling.

Today’s invention is a way to use the fire to generate its own kindling for the next day’s fire lighting.

A copper bar within the fire is held in place by two levers. As the bar heats, two blades at the ends of the levers are forced into the ends of a log beneath the fire, splitting it enough to act as kindling.

Several such bars could act simultaneously on several logs.

I was helping to run a Scottish Crucible event last week in which we talked about smartphone app. business models.

Pricing apps. is a difficult thing to get right in general. Today’s invention is context-sensitive pricing for downloadable products.

The idea is that certain programs are worth a lot more, depending on the location of the consumer.

If, eg you want to entertain your children with a game during a car journey, then you’d have to supply your location and destination coordinates (verified by GPS).

Planning ahead would allow the game to be downloaded at home at low cost. Deciding to buy at the journey midpoint would, say, double the price.

Buying it five miles from your destination would see the cost fall again, due to the lessened utility.

Today’s invention is a washing line which detects the onset of rain and withdraws its washing into a waterproof housing.

The rightmost post would hold a spring loaded washing line reel and a relative humidity sensor.

When rain threatens the clothing, each of the (yellow and orange) items is withdrawn inside a tall shelter (dark blue).

The line wraps around a rotating, motor-driven, spiral rail which keeps the clothing from being crushed together.

if the weaher were bad enough, a small fan might be activated to dry the washing whist still hanging in the shelter.

Today’s invention is another alternative washing line.

This consists of a number of semicircular sections of hoops, attached to each other so that each semicircle can be rotated about the diameter and locked (forming something like a crankshaft).

This allows the line to run over a path, so people can walk underneath. Half-hoops set in the horizontal plane allow Pi/2 times as much washing line length than normal.

A section placed in a U orientation could even allow children to help by hanging up their own clothes.

When you get equipment (such as a laptop) checked before flying, usually some time-pressured individual has to view the scan image and decide if it is harbouring something illicit.

Today’s invention is aimed at making this task easier and much more accurate.

In future, all complex electronic gear such as computers, cameras, phones etc should have a barcode engraved, somewhere inside the case, which represents an individual product.

This would appear in a scanned image and allow the imaging system itself to access and compare the image with one taken of the gadget interior as it left the factory (or at least a detailed schematic).

If discrepancies are detected, there is some explaining to do.

Terrorists could obviously access and modify the barcode, but to little effect -they would still find it almost impossible to hide any additions or substitutions (eg of explosive material) within a well-known interior layout.

This would allow many more items to be scanned per minute, lessening the frustration which passengers now feel about the whole queueing to fly process.