Home Posts tagged "fabby" (Page 26)

Tag: fabby

#1399: Splashield

When adding food to boiling water, it can be dangerous to remove a saucepan lid and dump it in. The splashing is particularly bad, even if the steam doesn’t get you.

Today’s invention is a saucepan with a handle which behaves like a chute. A small platform at the distal end of the handle allows you to slide food elements (eg gnocchi) into the water, without removing the lid or getting splashed.

Any steam which travels up the handle will be avoidable but most will actually condense on the inside of the handle, lubricating the downwards movement of the food.

#1390: JawJar

Today’s invention is a development of the standard, screw-threaded jar.

All sorts of these vessels exist, in a variety of materials. The idea is to engrave onto the helical surface of the container’s screw thread a groove like the surface of an old LP record.

This would be ‘played’ by a corresponding needle set or moulded into the threads of the lid, whenever the jar was being opened.

With the lid shaped to act as a loudspeaker, such a device might issue a brief warning about the misuse of medicine within or to those about to steal one’s milk from the communal fridge. It might simply say ‘Thanks from Pepsico.’

#1386: 7LeagueLegs

Today’s invention is a novel way to enjoy exercise. It consists of a small trampoline on wheels.

When someone bounces on the trampoline, sensors in the springs around the base pass data to an onboard computer which calculates accurately the direction and in-flight time of the user.

These data allow the trampoline’s wheels to be driven along the ground to catch the user when next he/she descends.

With practice, someone could thus learn to make long-distance bounds, eg along a road or track, whilst the trampoline automatically repositions itself to support the next, enormous step.

#1381: ShoalShaper

It seems that shoals of fish are subject to a tension between the tendencies to swim closely to avoid predators and to spread out to get enough oxygen.

(There are examples of eg dolphins blowing bubbles in order somehow to direct a shoal, so maybe the injection of some extra oxygen allows the fish to bunch up more, making them easier to eat).

Today’s invention is an air line from a fishing boat. When a shoal is detected on the sonar, this line would descend into the shoal, aerate it and allow the fish to form a tighter than usual ball…resulting in a higher than normal percentage caught in the vessel’s net.

#1377: CarouSell

Manufacturers of eg edible goods are obsessive about understanding what we like best. Today’s invention is a box for chocolates or biscuits which allows communication about our preferences.

It consists of a (grey) annular box, like a slide carousel, in which eg biscuits are arranged on their sides and visible through a transparent, annular lid.

The lid must be rotated so that a slot in it corresponds with the biscuit of one’s choice. As this happens, a small (red) pen leaves a line on a roll of paper wrapped around the outer face of the carousel. When the pen stops, it leaves a small blot.

Microscopic analysis later of the blots and the line’s local ink depth allows interpretation of the order in which biscuits were visited.

Consumers could be offered a small incentive to mail the paper sheet back to the manufacturer to aid product development.

#1357: BlimpBags

Crisp packets are designed with a foil lining to ensure the product stays fresh.

Today’s invention is to add some novelty to a rather conservative market segment by making more use of the metallised bags.

Fill them with helium and sell them, like balloons, attached to a string.

Helium wouldn’t stay in the packets nearly as long as air is kept out, but, given the small weight of product per bag, imagine the advertising benefit to the company that tries this out first of having people walk back from the shops with their brand held aloft.

#1354: LiftLess

Today’s invention is a way to improve the fitness of occupants of a skyscraper or tower block.

At, say, the seventh floor, the lift controls would only allow the lift to be called to travel to floors 9+ say and 4- to stop anyone using it to travel up or down only a small distance (buttons labelled 9,8,7,6,5 and 4 would simply be omitted or covered on that floor).

This would encourage people to make those small journeys via the stairs.

There would need to be a dedicated, keycard-access lift for disabled people in the building.

#1351: SeeCurity

People get cameras stolen all the time. Today’s invention is a security feature which attempts to make them useless to thieves.

Each digital camera would require that the first picture taken after switch-on was of the owner’s face. It’s relatively easy to make existing on-board face recognition work well when required to know one face reliably. (It might be possible to require snapping something else known only to the owner, such as a particular watch face or a page in a passport).

If the first picture is something else, then the camera would automatically shut down -making the theft of cameras pointless.

#1344: Adtention

I was reading about this uninspired piece of robot research, when it occurred to me that there is an opportunity in the no-holds-barred business of advertising.

You have probably seen that old prank in which a person stares into the sky, at nothing, yet who then gathers a crowd staring in the same way. Well, today’s invention is based on a similar approach.

A webpage, or electronic billboard, has simulated pairs of eyes peppered around it between the content items. Advertisers can pay to have the pairs of eyes appear to move so as to look at their ad (drawing the attention of viewers).

Pay more and the eyes spend more time moving towards your advert.

(For a conventional hoarding, you might have robot mannikins in a nearby shop window shift their gaze towards them).