#1240: Optomisation

I’ve been reading about how to save a fortune by changing my printer font so as to minimise ink usage.

In this spirit, today’s invention is a printer which presents a small optometrist’s chart on a touch screen control pad.

The user selects the line which contains the smallest readable characters, whilst standing over the machine, and the printer reformats all the pages in the current document to produce printed text which occupies the least space (saving on ink and paper).

For uberzealots, I’d also propose that the printed documents use a hybrid font (in which eg the ‘a’ is the one which uses the least ink from among all fonts, etc.) I suspect this might be a bit like an uneven version of Arial.

#1238: Blink-Ink

3-D is the new 2-D. If you are fed up though with having to wear those cardboard and cellophane specs to watch the latest movie, today’s invention can help.

It consists of a double-ended aerosol filled with organic dye. This is used to spray a small patch of semipermanent red dye on the inside of one eyelid and a small patch of greenish blue dye on the inside of the other.

When you close your eyes in front of a suitably coloured stereo pair of images on a screen which has the illumination ramped way up, you can not only see shapes on the screen through your lids but they will, in addition appear to be 3-dimensional.

This would allow you to watch 3-D movies whilst appearing for example to be asleep (should that ever be necessary).

#1224: Hushouse

If I’m staying in a hotel, it’s often hard to work out which room is making that infernal racket late at night.

Today’s invention is a way to help. Each room would have a touch sensitive cube on a fixed stalk. If the occupants were bothered by noise, they could simply press the sides to show from which direction it seemed to be coming. This would send signals to a central computer allowing the offending room to be identified as shown.

It might even be possible (joy) for this to result in the automatic volume reduction or disconnection of any TVs or stereos plugged in within that room (perhaps in proportion to the number of other guests irritated).

#1223: StoreStare

Mobile phones typically have 8+ megapixel cameras built in.

Rather than have to raise these to one’s face, I’d like to be able to just record what I see. Today’s invention therefore is to mount one such camera in the frame of some spectacles.

The rest of the electronics, including power supply, could be held on a pocket unit which would also accommodate a remote shutter release.

When you want a record of whatever you are looking at, simply stare at it and press the button.

#1216: FeatureFocus

The web is full of sites which provide a shopping function like this, in which a chosen region of a product image can be shown in close-up.

So, the bits people look at can be used as a way to discern what they want to buy. If they pay attention to the fur collar, the zip, the pricetag, that tells you something about their interests. Whether they buy or not, you get a wealth of information about their priorities.

Today’s invention is a tool which simply monitors the close-up window’s placement sequence and spots patterns which enable enhanced product development decisions. If a number of people leave the page without buying, having just seen the details of the leather grain, you know something needs fixing.

The tool would also do some tricks like issuing messages such as ‘was it the [leather]? Maybe look at these items instead…’ It might even be possible to offer realtime, personalised discounts: ‘Maybe it’s not exactly what you were looking for -so how about 5% off?’