Babylon is Falling

Life as we're living it is unsustainable. I used to think I could save the world. There's no substitute for oil, too little too late. Prepare for the fall of Babylon!

Money of the Beast

Residential roadway volume control

Having recently moved back to the Tri State, I am woken up several times a night by wailing sirens. I live in the downtown area, so I figure the ambulances and police are driving through since its the most logical path through downtown. So anyway here is my suggestion. You know how on the highway there are those special walls that are built to take sound waves and deflect them back across the highway at the grooved walls so that the sound doesnt escape the horizontal span of road. Well, imagine that in a residential area, perhaps built into the walls of homes - deflecting the sound waves, and at the top some sort of mirrored triangulation to capture the waves and stop them from rising, like a top covering (twisting/curving/bending sound waves), so you have a 50 ft by 50 ft box, which contains the sound waves force_field_ed to street area. This way the sirens noise is only bothering those who it is pertinent for, drivers who need to get out of the way.

API tie-in mashup

Big data business idea, Tie into popular utility web B2C portals like phone, power, cable to extract monthly billing data and perform cost–benefit analysis on the account history. This would produce a clear graph chart of all usages, so that the end user could glance at clear averages and advises re: plan specifics or adjustments, making the most logical and desired metrics easily viewable. This could also rate service in contrast to other providers, and provide other interesting account analysis metrics.

proximity geo connector

A location-based app that seamlessly visualizes other logged-in users in realtime. The mobile screen shows a mosaic of 50 people in all different sized squares, filling up the screen. Mousing over a photo pulls up a brief tag cloud (possibly with folder subtags to conserve on space)

Another mode would be a livefeed videochat, where users who are signed in (broadcasting from front facing cameras) again, are shown in a randomized mosaic 'videos cloud' based upon proximity location and interests-wise, which determine the size of the scattered thumbnails.

The prog would algorithmically pair, as well as visually display these 50 users via tag / location sensitivity. If you already know someone, you remove them from the scattered 'introduction' mosaic; which then populates with new people.

Users are rightfully daunted by the anonymous nature of the web. There is no way to substantiate the face behind the profile. The way it works now, like on Facebook, is that only after you meet someone do you connect to them via the web. This is a more human-faced approach to inspire local micro-networking.

Semi-automated Prison System utilizing moving walls

One way to cut down on prison maintenance costs, as well as cutting down on prison violence, would be to fully automate the processing of prisoners from the minute they enter, through daily tasks, to the final exiting of the prison (apologies for the cattle-like language usage). And while most prison facilities have some form of computerized automation, most still require human involvement in mundane tasks, mainly involving the movement of prisoners around the system, leading to dangerous situations for both the guards as well as the prisoners themselves.

The proposed semi-automated prison system consists of a number of drop-in cubicle-like pods: general living quarter pods, hygiene pods (shower & sink), and could even be amended with leisure pods: computer-based library pod, gym pod, etc. These pods run on rails and are dropped into place as needed, similar to the cubes presented in the movie "Cube", only less booby-trapped. Consider the following scenarios:

• Prisoner gets to use the showers at 7am every day. However, for whatever reason, the prisoner refuses to move from his/her cell. A system operator realizes this, and activates the moving walls that gently nudge the person in the direction of the cell door. The shower pod gets lowered into place before the cell door opens, allowing the prisoner to use the facilities.

• Prisoner has completed a given task, and is rewarded for the completion by dropping the gym pod into place.

• Prisoner is a model "guest", and has earned extra-special privileges: A pod replete with small patch of grass, tree/shrubs, simulated bird song, and a window with a view of the sky is lowered into place.

• A prisoner has died. The moving walls activate, shoving the deceased into a waiting incineration pod.

Systemwide self-learning data input correction

This notion comes to mind via speech recognition, but it applies to any platform where multiple inclusive functions correlate. I notice on my android phone that I am constantly correcting the voice to text output. The same mistakes occur over and over. My idea is for the speech software to notice the type of text edits I am retyping, and utilize that data to amend it's own errors for future voice scanning. If it could learn from my corrections, and thereby tweak itself to be more in tune with me, by anticipating my intent -next time it wouldn't keep making those same errors. Subtagged: Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing Technologies, Speech segmentation, Speech recognition

Posthumous post

This is an idea for a website, which allows users to verify their identity, and gives them a platform to input text, images, and video into a profile page. This would be released posthumously and only made public upon the user's confirmed death. This would be a great way to share some final intimate feedback with the world that you otherwise might be uncomfortable to share, and it would be an official last statement that could be read at one's funeral. I am pretty sure that a legal will can't occur online, but this is more of a lighthearted sharing time capsule. Another cool use of this would be that if you deal with someone shady,  you could note it, or there could even be a cellphone app add-on which logs your GPS. This way in the case of unnatural death, the data could help police investigations.

Online kiosk-like IRL shopping center

Imagine a mega mall filled with specialty type items like wearables, to expensive appliances, medical or technological devices, but the purpose is not to leave with any physical products. Once you find what you like, it would be shipped to you. The reason for not stocking product for immediate distribution is because this is only about the shopping selection process. The mall would only need to stock of one or two of each product in each size. Users come in to try-on, and physically handle products in niche categories, that would classify as "wish I could try it once first, but heck, I'll just order one of these 5 options online". Users would get a firsthand feeling before commiting to an expensive permanent purchase. Sure it would be annoying to have a to wait a few days for the purchases, but that's how it is when you order online anyway. At least this way, you can try several higher end models, whereas when shopping online that would be costly or impractical, and you would need to just pick one.

Hypothesis about the purpose of bugs and plantlife

When you zoom in on bugs, they definitely exhibit some traits reminiscent of humans, like physical structure (arms, legs, face), eating/defecating loop, behavior patterns, struggle for survival. We rightly should feel bad when squishing a bug, if not alone for the wasting of meticulous technology and nature's creation. Maybe there could be an eventual significant usage for this overbearing presence in our atmosphere.

At present our relationship with animals is as 'pets' (irrational beasts with fangs), or seeing-eye dogs, or simply the quest to exterminate bugs, so we invent dog collars, and mosquito shock lamps and restrict the bugs from our boundary, which results in them getting tazed or poisoned.

Imagine a future where bugs are controlled by manipulated airwaves, or maybe a mobile app that emits specific tonal patterns. The bug's mind is re-programmed and delegated with a task suited for it's composition. All bugs would be programmed not to harm humans, so if you saw one, you wouldn't be freaking out, but rather assuming your technology would provide it with a flight-plan of usefulness, and take into account the bugs feeding and survival! Some of my intended usage for the bugs:
 · A wall of bugs standing guard at a certain GPS parameter.
· Utilizing bugs to observe and report for other dangers or climate concerns.
· Use bees to enrich and balance weather patterns.
· Repair the ozone, etc.

Similarly, plantlife could be algorithmically contoured, (mashed-up, grafted, DNA spliced) to be custom grown to conform to specific moldings for product manufacturing purposes (speed growing custom designed lumber), or for personal useage, such as a small flower or plant, which is built in sync with your personal DNA, to provide specific nutrients based on individual medical shortcomings, and taste preferences.

Humanize Phone Prefs UI

Humanize phone settings to standardized human-based labels like: SELECT ACTIVITY: Eating, Sleeping, Restroom, Casual Meeting, Business Meeting. For each of these the user could choose the interruption level (quiet ring, vibrate, vibrate and ring, etc). A user would just inform their phone what they were doing, and the phone would adjust accordingly. Then in your contact specific record you could select when you want that contact to interrupt/ring you (ie. eating, business meeting). Sure the ringtone setting app exists, but I am talking about making the UI more centered around physical human logic, using labels that directly apply to human life as a universal standard UI toolkit.

If a user is sleeping, and they get a phone call from their friend who they opt to share location/activity streams with, it will notify the friend that they are sleeping, or on another call with category: 'business meeting'. The option for sharing would be part of the per user > ring options.

Type tone

Using alpha numeric keyboards or telephone number buttons - to transmit information instantaneously. So that in billing situations, you don't need to to shout out your personal details for 10 minutes. Rather I ought to be able to input and transmit this data with my telephone or PDA keyboard, in a non obtrusive way (no loud tone noise for the receiving party). The info should instantly appear in on their monitor. This sort of exists with automated phone ordering systems, but that's not as seamless as it could be.

Underwater enclosure bubble

Imagine a motor connected to pressurized air stream jets. The motor unit is also tethered to a sphere of plastic via many small ropes. When then air starts to shoot it 'expands the plastic sphere into a balloon (see photo). The numerous jet streams would be engineered to not shoot if a human is in front of them. So the human could move around the bubble, and conceivably, the motor unit could steer, while the human drives it from a tablet. I dunno the physics of it all, just a random thought.

Gel-padded luggage

Here is an idea for transporting delicate electronics (like a large CPU) in the airplane cargo. Buy an oversized hard shell suitcase. Fill with gel foam padding (same material as the wrist-pad gel protector) 3 inches thick, bracketed to the inside of the suitcase shell, when the metal CPU is placed inside, if the suitcase is thrown 2 feet in the air, when it lands on that thick gel, it should cushion the impact.

Instantaneous web meeting point

Lets say you are seeking a long range trucker to hitchhike your rig to, so you can travel cross state, and you only have a few hours to make it happen. Replying or posting to Craigslist seems like an unsure thing. Or lets say you need eggs to bake cookies at 3:00am and the stores are closed, and you wish you could rely on your densely populated neighborhood for the eggs. Here is an idea to network people together based specifically upon time sensitive geo / localized keyphrases.

Imagine a chat room, similar to the 1990's AOL chat, (which phased away), but you have a selection of video thumbnails from users that are plugged in 'in this moment' to connect with, for instantaneous micro transactions. I suppose that based upon the volume of similarity, you would be connected with the closest group of peers seeking common keywords. Great dating implications. Maybe this exists already and is not really an invention.

biomed wetware

This isn't an idea inasmuch as a prediction of where advances in medicine will lead. Imagine a tiny digital control board in your arm [or cellphone], where you control levels of vitamins, chemical balances, dopamine, via an mini bio-organ unit buried inside of the humans solarplex. It would be just like an egg puzzle, with compartments of various size, that spin and slide around to reach an exit opening and pour out their contents into the humans bloodstream. Just as a soft drink machine has tubes lined up to output different flavors. The tiny computer unit would primarily diagnose and blood-test/detect for an imbalance (potassium, blood sugar, adrenaline, etc), and then immediately react with medication (from it's "mini pharmacy") by fauceting out very potent chemicals / vitamins to correct said blood levels, in a manner more intensely focused, than a sporadic 8 hour dose pill. Subtagged: Bionanotechnology, Nanobiotechnology

Insta-feedback audience

(This idea stems from my previous post; temple diodes). TV show rating reportings / statistics are sharpening with the advent of new technology (digital GoogleTV), so these metrics can be better quantified. I think that the audiences capacity to anonymously like/dislike shows will become more apparent thereby reflecting future programming. Imagine in the center of the audience of a talkshow, is a robot (3 times the size of a normal human) sitting there. The face of the bot is programmed to show basic emotions. It would be controlled via viewers in their private homes. Based upon how funny or unfunny the show is, this audience robot, would react. Thus providing an instantaneous indicator of feedback to the show host. I think this idea came from watching Spartacus, where he is forced to fight to the death in a Roman amphitheater because that's what the audience wanted, but when cornered, an audience member wouldn't admit to wanting to see that. So the anon nature of reporting metrics could push pop media into a funny place with this robotic feedback... /random

veggie carbohydrate desserts

I recall hearing food inventors producing vegetarian tofu with the exact texture and crunch of real chicken meat. What about potato cookies and tuna fish cake?

'What we are hungry for' is controlled by our mood and hormones as opposed to the body. The stomach signals for hunger are because of the body's need for vital nutrients, yet statistically chocolate is the most commonly craved food in the United States (conditioned subconscious Pavlovian taste aversion).

People crave items high in fat and calories, since fatty, sugary foods, which are not even hunger satiating, release opioids into our bloodstream which bind to brain receptors and provide feelings of pleasure and mild euphoria.

Maybe we could eat healthy food at the same time as outsmarting the mind's food cravings by enjoying vegetables engineered to look and taste like cookies.

un chore-ize teeth brushing

I hate to stand still for 5 minutes when brushing my teeth. I hate the burning of toothpaste /mouthwash, and my arm needs to get wet. My whole presence needs to be disrupted and genuinely annoyed by this necessary task.

50 years into the future I bet there will be a contraption built like a mold, to slot around two sets of teeth, with many tiny bristles built into it’s walls on mini revolvers. This contraption would have tiny jetstreams of water, a quarter inch away from the tooth, so it could just fit inside the mouth. The contraption contains just the right fit/ amount of pressure /release of toothpaste equally, and has the ergo/aero dynamics necessary to slip in and out of the mouth, 30 seconds later to a fresh maintained cleaning. Photo via neatorama

Electronically melt snow

The news is talking about how this blizzard is shutting down the roads, and I wonder about an electronic method for deleting the ice. Imagine teabags full of dry magnesium chloride flakes or pellets, blown around a caged box. Each teabag would by sized too big to pass through the caged grating, and also contain a magnet of specific polarity. The idea is to keep the particles in motion and fan blow the teabags around this caging, thus creating a 12 foot wall that passes through the airwaves and is driven through the streets, so that as the salt passes through the air at random, a wide range of area is dispersed with the chemical salt like a large melting blanket. The unit would affix to a snow plow, (possibly behind the plow) and as it passes through the air, would best disperse the salt. I realize that salt prevents ice from freezing, and it doesn't magically melt snow. My idea is to better mix-in the ratio of particle coverage, as well as speculate aloud in hopes of inspiring a potential solution.

brain-controlled warm weather

One of the things that blows about winter is the cold clammy, rigid, sticky-dry feeling of moving your joints / muscles against cold shirt fabric. In situations where I am outdoors or in a big space without great heating, I wish there was a pill I could take that would trick my brain into feeling warm and ignore the coldness in the room and on my skin.

Drinking liquor or alcohol to stay warm actually only tricks you into feeling warm, while it actually makes surface blood vessels open wider. This changes the blood flow and causes the core to lose heat faster. You will feel warmer but actually be getting colder.

Could the brain be chemically programmed to temporarily think and feel like the weather conditions weren't quite as cold. This would take the edge off and make an annoying situation one is stuck in anyway -more comfortable. I am not talking about a hypothermia risk, all I need is for my brain think that it is 10-20 degrees warmer. It seems more economical to turn up the heating thermostat neurologically. And from what I've read, the (moderate) cold weather helps immunity.

thermo indicator on metal cookware

When baking in the oven, once the food is cooked and on my plate, I put back on the oven mitt, and place the hot metal baking sheet back inside of the oven -to cool off. The reasoning for this is because if someone else in the house, happens upon the kitchen and touches the cookie sheet, they'd get singed. This may already exist, but anyway, my idea was for a cheap thermo indicator to be embedded into the side or rim of the metal cookie sheet. Preferably with a blue/red light diode to indicate cold/hot, or a thermometer to signify the temperature of the metal. Sort of like how some AA batteries have a power indicator that you push with your thumb. Only this one is meant to indicate 'not to touch'.

Ideally the whole metal grill/rack piece should change color to red when the temp is hot enough to burn human flesh...

The next application of this would be a sink faucet having an LED on the top of the spout, which indicates the heat level of the water coming out.

Paperless shopping, please: Receipts mailed to your inbox?

It occurred to me recently that while my local grocery shop has all my details thanks to their persistence in getting me to sign up for their bonus card, they still force-feed me paper receipts of my purchases every single time. This might be for legal reasons (proof of purchase, etc.), but I would say the time has come to offer a smarter alternative via the magical, new-fangled system called e-mail.

Imagine you are in the self-check-out lane, finishing up your purchase, and instead of having the blaring machine implore you to grab the multiple bits of paper (receipt, coupons, customer copy of the receipt), you're given the choice of sending it to your e-mail address. The e-mail would include the UUID of your purchase, and links to CSV/PDF files of your purchase, plus coupons and other marketing garbage. As an added service, at the end of the month you would receive a tally e-mail of all your purchases, also with CSV/PDF versions downloadable from a secure site.

Why has no store chain implemented this yet? They'd save money on paper purchases, it would speed up the check-out process, and they have a reason to send me an e-mail that they can fill up with marketing stuff!

Hydrophobic food packaging

We've all seen those dishwasher tabs that are enclosed in a clear, slightly sticky see-thru plastic which dissolves upon contact with water in the dishwasher. Why not apply the same principle to food packaging?

Take ramen packaging: With the whole thing (ramen and spices) enclosed in hydrophobic packaging, you could throw it in boiling water, hey presto, 5 mins later the packaging and the little sachet holding the spices have dissolved. Easier to manufacture, less environmental impact, AND it's quicker and easier to cook!

Bonus points for inventing flavored packaging, so you end up with even less packaging materials.

Patents pending.

Coca Cola flavored toothpaste

Who was the jerk that invented mint toothpaste? Who determined that all adults love the stinging stench of menthol mint. Mint stings my tongue really bad, many other people had identified with this sentiment. This is an emergency plea on behalf of people with taste receptors. Bubble gum and Coca Cola flavored toothpaste for adults is urgently needed. WTH why do big companies only produce that stuff for kids?

Cipher Drinking glass

An empty glass resembles a meaningless colorful mosaic, until a liquid is poured into it, revealing its name. Each side of the glass is reserved for a specific drink.

The Dekrypt glass though complex in appearance in fact runs on a very simple idea. Differently colored shapes are scattered across the glass surface in a seemingly random pattern, however their position is hardly accidental. The true purpose of the glass mosaic is revealed when colored liquid is poured into it (orange juice, milk, Nescafe or coke) The pattern of shapes and empty spaces on the glass combined with the color of the liquid inside the glass end up forming a textual sign, revealing what exact drink or refreshment you are having, with each side of the glass reserved for a specific drink. Besides being a novelty item with entertainment value it can also serve as a marketing item for beverage companies as it has a promotional potential.

Idea by: relogik.com/cipher

Mousepad mouse

My idea is for a mousepad sized (large size) touchpad (like the little mouse touchpad on laptops). On the left and right side, there would be a slider which zooms scale in or out, so the user could comfortably scroll/navigate closer to their intended destination - at the same time as zooming-in or out.

Disclaimer: this probably exists already, but since I am not sure, I am posting anyway.

Babyglow - Colour-changing baby PJs warn of fever

A 42-year-old father-of-one has invented a babygrow that could warn parents if their child is suffering from a fever. Chris Ebejer, a pub landlord from Suffolk, has created the predictably named "Babyglow" garment that changes colour to indicate a child's temperature.

Available in pink, blue and green, the babygrow, that contains a special ink pigment with heat-sensitive molecules that Ebejer spent 6 years and £700,000 developing, turns white when the baby's body temperature rises above 37-degrees.

Ebejer has now signed a £12.5 million contract to produce 900,000 Babyglows a month worldwide. The tiny garments are due to be available in October for around £20 each. src

Tsunami alarm for coastal areas.

Let's say you take a 10 hour nap, and 1 hour after you go to sleep there is a horrid announcement that a tsunami/earthquake/twister is coming and everyone has to evacuate, you would sleep through it. Hence an idea for a special home alarm which sounds in case of natural disaster, and can only be set off by the emergency broadcast system.

chair to table

Every time I pull into my desk, I sit on my rolling office chair, and grip the edge of the table with both hands, and slide myself in - close to the desk. I have noticed that I need to use both hands, since I guess my weight weighs on the chair. This is probably also intentional, so the chair doesn't slide loosely, although that could be acomplished with wheels that glide much more smoothly, and control to stabilize the chair, like the clicker some chairs have on one of the wheels.

I remember hearing about how midgets exert themselves, when clamoring to sit on a regular sized chair, and this lowers their lifespan years. So I was thinking about a cord that pulls the seat, close to the table, and you can snap it off with a simple seatbelt like buckle. But actually- this could probably be done with a strong magnet. In the future we may see furniture with a button pad near the seat-arm side which controls sliding the chair back /from the table edge, and stabilizing it from rolling to unmovable position.

Transparent trap

Imagine an ultra thin strip about 12"x3" with sticky glue on the top/front and griplike material on the back, the transparent mousetrap (or wood tiling). The idea could be applied for flying insects, by having a sticker on the back of a sliding transparent shelf.

Which led way to me thinking about undetectable traps, by placing traps in a certain situation where you would be expected to be by a criminal attempting to harm you.

In a robbery holdup, the teller is expected to hold their hands up, and not hit any signal. A hidden foot trigger inside the toe of the shoe could be a solution, or, the cash register is rigged with a (visually hidden) motion sensor under the bills, and if all the bills get scooped up without an unnoticeable specific alarm code, the police are alerted.

Or for home protection, a second code that goes into the alarm, which gains you entry, but also notifies the police that you are being coerced.

256bit Candy

Imagine a material like those Listerine strips, about 50 of them stacked on top of each other, each with a different flavor. Perhaps a truffle sized ball with 256 squares, each tiny square containing a different candy flavor. I wonder what that would taste like. Imagine a single candy which fused hundreds of different tastes like Skittles, M&M's, Mints, Jellybeans, Sour Candy, Licorice, Lollipops, Lemon drops, Taffy, Cinnamon, Candy Corn, Gummy Bears, Reeses, Jolly Ranchers, Swedish Fish, Sour Apple Rings, Starburst all compressed into a single bite.

Ubiquitous Web

The Ubiquitous Web will provide a framework for exposing device coordination capabilities to Web applications particularly starting with a dynamic properties framework integrating C++, UPnP, WSD, Jini, Salutation, into the web (DOM event /WSDL /SOAP). For example binding a camera phone to a nearby printer, using a cell phone to give a business presentation with a wireless projector, and viewing your mailbox while listening to your messages. The resources can be remote as in a network printer and projector, or local, as in the estimated battery life, network signal strength, and audio volume level.
-W3C

Predicting 50 years into the future. Transfer speeds, Data capacity

As the years go by, we invent some high-speed internet with such a fast bit-rate that people start making basic webpages in wallscreen size resolution, which are some kind of high def media experience. As it is, data in printed form is becoming obsolete, since in 20 yrs the size of a book will be a hot laptop touchscreen more powerful than my desktop. The internet is going to ruin certain print based industries. Who would want to buy a DVD again when you can transfer the shit from your phone in 1 second.

A new company called Otoy plans to simulate actual 3d environments in real time over a lightweight webbased 3d protocol.

Healthier Premium Hotdogs

We've all heard the horror stories as to the ingredients of frankfurters. That tail and toenails and bones and gross scraps are ground up in a machine. Well, I dont know how much truth there is in that, however, I am stricken with an obvious question; Why don't I see alternative brand $20 hotdogs in the supermarket, made of premium meat?

And again, with chicken, I have to remove the fat and tendons from the breast, which is tedious. I often wonder why they don't sell premium cleaned food products.

Film Pill

Have you ever seen a movie and thought to yourself, "The protagonist in this story reminds me of a friend, if only they could see this film, they went through the same mistake".

For example imagine the viewer wears goggles and the film playing is them crossing the street and not noticing anything, and then bam a car hits from the side, and the camera tumbles. This would remind people to instinctively look right and left before crossing. Or, a film about a battered woman, where some part of the story, is exactly what occurred with a woman friend, you have an inclination to show her the movie so she can see a perspective of herself.

This idea is to constructively embrace the mediums of psychological therapy and theater, to make a concrete articulated point (like Bertolt Brecht with politics).

natural endurance/durability excersized electronically

I'm worried about when I sneeze, and jerk my head to the side, that i am shaking my brains, and they fall back against the inside of my skull like a wave, and I shudder thinking about it.

Any time I shake my head fast, I have this scenario playing in the back of my mind, where I am damaging my brain as a result. I mean, this is a pile of mush in the top of my head surrounded by water blood and bones, its all quite surreal.

Obviously medicine isn't as evolved as it will be in future years. Perhaps in the future people will sleep in bubble wrap, because when someone is sleeping their limbs get all mangled and this probably bears significant negative consequence as far as bodily wear-and-tear is concerned. Maybe that's a contributing factor to us all getting brittle and dying at age 80.

the cylindrical gallery

art galleries. you know the type... exhibits with carefully spaced works to see, not touch - and if you try, or appear to come close to possibly trying, you may have to speak with a certain someone who otherwise stands silently in the corner. a protector of the collection, the assets, the wealth which most galleries represent.

lets imagine a gallery wall with evenly spaced pieces of similar height - lets create a red horizontal line to encapsulate the pieces on the wall, a stripe. now lets tweak that to fit the design of a candy cane, but inverted. we find ourselves in a circular passage, these lines of works swirling from the wall to the ceiling to the other wall to the floor and back on up.. with a base understanding being you can walk on these things, touch them! case in point, a rather large piece in the center of the exhibit which takes all possible floor space; a painting of lava... see you on the other side!

Where's Oscar the Grouch?

Trash is a stupid invention. It is not useful and destroys our environment. No other creatures on Earth have invented such a thing.

It would be interesting to let the right people play with it like in Sesame Street. I try not to make so much trash, but darned be all that recycling isn't standard everywhere yet.

If it can't be recycled, why should we make it? I might be lazy......but not THAT lazy.

surrealist signage

city, county, state, federal - signs with gruff statements. impersonal, disinterested static looming figures looking on our daily lives without a nod. why not spice things up a bit? "Please... NO PARKING ...Thank You!" ...a stencil? a marker? a projection. whatever medium possible to make these emotionless figures a bit more compassionate and understanding of the everyman everyday. if anything it would get a few laughs and that never hurt anyone.

also, you've seen those florescent orange on black rectangular signs on the fences and in the windows of house before - telling you to BEWARE OF DOG and KEEP OFF THE GRASS, more and more you'll see NO SMOKING. well, what if you took those and cut them up a bit? how about SMOKING THE GRASS (you can do this one easily with the last two i mentioned ready to go - just glue "smoking" over "keep off") or BEWARE OF GOD? let your imagination run wild. you could even get fancy and print out your own custom rectangles via sign companies, theres some online who would be happy to assist you.

sensory deprived creative processes

have you ever tried painting blind? well, if youve painted, you probably have - look at your hand, or your shirt or your pants, or the floor. you dont think thats a "painting"? well, thats up to you.. your palette might be interesting to look at, too. these accidental or byproducts of your supposed creative purpose may possibly be more interesting to me/others/you(?) than what you had originally intended to do. try putting charcoal between paper under your feet while drawing on an easel upright and seeing what types of dance moves you generate - i was nicely surprised. paint in absolutely darkness, without ever looking, and then maybe someday you will see it on display and admire it or not understand it - without knowing it was your own.

you could do the same writing music without listening! using, say, a multitrack editor's blocks as the only visual (perhaps without a waveform detail to give no hint of its contents). then, once youve finished writing, you could listen - or send it to a friend who can distribute it under some unknown pseudonym. perhaps someday you would hear it, love it or hate it, perhaps wonder who made it...

celebrity documentary with anonymity

inspired by bill murray i had the notion of working with a figure of our time, someone of note, who would be game to possibly share an aspect of their lives in some nonstandard format. it could be totally customizable - the figure anonymous entirely or until they/i/we pass away - released 100 years in the future. a document to share an aspect of reality that would otherwise go unknown or suppressed by the present day. time capsule films to give another side of stories people already know. people people already know. there is an opportunity for a more truthful (at least a different type of) experience in creative works of this nature than those adhering to traditional production timelines or methods.

translation please

with all the various website engines available for online translation, one can get a wide variety of robotic interpretations with each texts conversion. then, if done again, it will continue to morph. eventually the meaning could change entirely. this could be used to simulate AYBABTU (remember?) sentences, unique forms of poetry, bizarre lyricism, codes, who knows. babel on...

reinstrumentation

paul mccartney played bass with his face on the white album - with a simple tweak of eq its possible to simulate a variety of instrumentation via vocals. or take the sound of driving on a gravel road which could easily be mistaken as a crowds applause. substitution of sounds gives things a more surreal, magical quality. take a piano and use it as a drumset by cutting its attack/decay to match a more percussive instrument, and the drumset pitchshifted along a scale as though it were a piano - i guess this has already been done to some degree with keyboards, but that was only the very beginning of what is possible. what if a song was re-arranged dependent upon the global locality, so that if it were played in japan it would be made with japanese instruments, brazil with brazilian, so on... in our modern digital era the possibilities are, for all intents and purposes, endless.

comics speak funk

the system of symbols used in comics is old fashioned, we all know the word balloon and the thought bubble, the rectangular exposition. occasionally you see some loose text in a panel here or there. lets get more creative with this stuff people - lets make these word balloon extended mandibles, with teeth on top and bottom! lets make the thought bubbles actual brains leaking out of their skulls! and symbols for sensory stimulation.. manga has quite a few comics symbols - some translate. theres probably many more that exist already in the world - emoticons, tribal totems, universal symbols. why do comics have to be so clear about what theyre saying? ive heard it said that if a story cannot be communicated without words its not being drawn right. let them speak graffiti! speak funk, comics! rock on

sinewave lockgrooves

vinyl records have some interesting possibilities. one simple idea for all those minimalist listeners out there is taking a series of lockgrooves (an endlessly playing loop) at interval throughout the entire width of the vinyl. most lockgrooves ive heard are at the center of the record, giving you only a short duration for the needle to make a complete loop - but there is a change in duration as you progress outward toward the edge.

lets assign a waveform, say a comforting sinewave, to each lockgroove - the modulation frequency could apply directly to the duration of the loop; uninterrupted. as you listen to the loops nearer the center of the record, the modulation rate increases, and the resulting frequencies are higher in tone. this record could be used as a template for future, more elaborate loops, with the same durations/vinyl cutting setup.

Thought Data Storage

You know how sometimes you are trying to explain an idea to a friend and no matter how hard you try, your friend just doesn't get it? If only there was a way to download one's thought to an external hard drive. Then, one could upload the very thought into your friends brain, and your friend would instantly 'get it'.

Modularizing Automobiles

Tell me this hasn't crossed your mind before. Imagine your automobile being able to be any kind of car you need it to be. When you're cruising down the highway, it's a sports car. When you're hitting the town for a hot date, it's a luxury sedan. When you need a little extra hauling capacity, it's a pickup truck. Different auto-body "shells" for different occasions.

And the modularization wouldn't have to stop there. Automobile components could be standardized based on the optimal designs on the market. The net result is we would put fewer kinds of car chassis out on the market, which would lead to standardizing car components, which would in turn drive down the costs associated with car maintenance.

All of this could be easily achieved with today's manufacturing technology. Plus, automobile industry would benefit from the "accessorizing" people would do on their cars for the sake of "fashion."

Getting computing off the keyboard

What a tremendous idea for a blog Danny. I find myself thinking up a ton of these little gems, throughout my day, with no place to put them for safekeeping. We have sophisticated voice recognition technologies. We have Flash to provide rich, interactive, visual experiences for exploring data. We have touch-screen interfaces. Why are we still keyboard-bound?

You have to admit, the keyboard is a rather outmoded piece of work. I'm looking forward to the day when alternative ways to interface with computers, enhanced by advanced data visualization techniques get us off our dependency on keyboards. When recording information is a simple matter to talking to the computer, imagine the impact on human productivity. Or when exploring data is freed from the technological limitations of the point-and-click mouse. One interesting benefit of this development would be that people might return to writing like they talk, and talking like they write, reversing some of the impact keyboards had on people's communication skills.

unchartered oil

Imagine a contraption where the outer side of it looks like the outside of the gasoline cap that screws into the car, and the reverse side of it looks like a computer. It screws into the car only once, permanently. When you pull up to a gas tank, you press a button near the radio, and the gas cap automatically slides open and a contraption comes out to affix to another such contraption easily standardized to work with regular gas pumps for such cars. this invention is undoubtedly coming, since it sucks to fill up the gas in the cold, but it may take us slow humans some time.

Peace encoding corrective transmission

There are certain things about another’s negative tendencies/characteristics that we deem unimportant enough to relate aloud. This failing of theirs, is evidentially internal, and if I attack it now, I will doubtless become their enemy. Tolerance would be easier than exerting the motivation to get myself hated on, for nitpicking someone, and if they want to be irrational, who am I to stop them. Somehow in the moment, it would seem very rude to say: Minor_variable SUCKS about your attitude.

Imagine on an alternate universe the standard thing to do, in such a case, is not to gleefully glossophobically gossip at their shortcoming behind their back, but rather to simply and honestly transcribe in a green color ink, the personality flaw which left a bad impression, being crudely honest, on a tiny rolled up square of paper rolled in particular 16ths, lol, and then flattened between two leafs, and with 2 stone pebbles, wrapped in tinfoil. Because this is socially accepted as the customary method of delivery for this information, it isn’t even embarassing to be seen receiving such a phenomenalist corrective data package publicly, because every few days in life, you would get one, as our moods flux and our patterns develop. Its the type of thing that took just enough effort that you had to slightly care about someone in order to do it.

Healthier Smoking

Why cant a healthy cigarette be made of vegetable peelings? If we took dried out zucchini scraps and processed them 50 times and simulated a cigarette… Is anyone even experimenting with these possibilities? I wonder how much money anti smoking groups budget for TV spots. Why isnt there a lung wash, or some pills, or throat balms for smokers to take preventively? Why dont any smokers medicine products exist aside from that gross tasting filter-piece and chemotherapy. There ought to be tons of intermediate medications, patches and nose creams and electronic handheld wands that do some small measure of chemotherapy while your smoking, to hold it over your chest. Maybe all of this ridiculousness would help people curb smoking. Weird health devices for preventative-degradation appear to be the appropriate measure to = billions of packs of cigarettes being sold.

“A safe cigarette that can both satisfy smokers’ demands for taste and nicotine delivery and placate public health concerns is the Holy Grail of the tobacco industry. The company that comes up with it first likely could dominate the entire industry by selling the newfangled smoke at a significant premium and grabbing market share from its competitors.” Src: Nova

Coinage currency condensed

Imagine a bus pass sized card which slips into either a credit card terminal or some special reader/interceptor to eliminate the purpose of coin change. Basically the card holds a maximum of $50 lets say, and its purpose is to replace change, and fit in the wallet. I dont think this needs much more explanation, it seems very simple.

Check Please

[this idea is currently under development in a major technology institute. Copyright 2005]

Imagine a standard electronic interface to be added to tables in restaurants. this would have only a few buttons, with basic icons similar to the icon for the stewardess in the airplane. The icons would be: (1) Need waiter (2) Urgently need waiter (3) Need check. This way you avoid a situation where your waiter is standing over you and you arent ready to order, or, you are engaged in a conversation, and similarly, when you want the check, it just as well prints out from your table (with the below extension)

Here is the spec I set up for our MBA team:

The problem: A waiter, poking his/her head around, looking anxiously to see if his customers have enough bread, and water, and if they are ready to order, or still conversing, or are ready to leave.

The solution: A merging of refurbished hardware and technological ingenuity geared for an efficiency promoting solution.

Refurb Palm Pilots are programmed to use their IR ports, which carry beams a distance of approx 30 feet, to a receiver. The palm pilots have a basic drawn map of the restaurant (tables and setting). The patron can press one of 3 basic button symbols on a controller on the side of the table, thinner and less than the size of a credit card.

Once the patron is ready to order he can click a button for such cause. Once ready to leave, or if they need to call upon their waiter to visit them for any reason, he should do so upon seeing their symbol light up.

Implications for other types of IR communication, as well as digitizing the written-out-check process are discussed in phase 2

A variety of possible applications ranging from airline style stewardess controls, to napkin holders embedded with a more powerful IR beamer are under development

Further implications of replacing the older demeaning ‘bell’, are a mood light which hangs slightly over the table with certain detections of anxiousness.

The overall purpose of this project is to increase productivity of a waiter- per-table and the connotations that can have on electronic dining of the future

Project Checkout Deliverables:
An actual marketable product based on appropriate research, data communication, technology applications, wireless applications, XML code.

long line at register

It baffles me how we can place barcodes on products, yet we cant build a gateway you walk the shopping cart through, to auto scan every item and simply give you a total price. This would enable you to:

Pack your groceries as you shop, and not need to repack and unpack them in the checkout line

No need to hire people to work the checkout register

harder to steal products by sneaking them past checkout operators eyesight if scan methodology improves

temple diods

Imagine something that affixed to my right temple near my eye/ear which basically is just a red or yellow light. Chemicals in our physiology, (pheromonal/dna) or even a toe triggered pedal, could activate either the red or yellow diod.

The idea would be for pleasure to be yellow, and anger to be red, this way, if you are interacting with someone in close proximity or quarters and you step on their toes accidentally, rather than let it slip because people aren’t always talking and communicating, if the light turned red, the other person might say- “Oh! what did I do to offend you?” with a non-egoist eagerness to learn what was interpreted as hurtful, so it doesn’t re-occur.

Electronic pest control still requires inventor. Uncool.

You would think by 2008, we would have the capacity to somehow electronically get rid of insects, fleas, & pests.

Staff of the Federal Trade Commission's Division of Enforcement announced that they have sent warning letters to more than 60 manufacturers and retailers of ultrasonic pest-control devices, stating that efficacy claims about those products must be supported by scientific evidence. FTC staff reviewed print and catalog advertisements and conducted a "surf" of Internet sites marketing such devices. They found that many of the advertisements make explicit claims about the products' ability to eliminate rodents or repel insects. According to staff, these types of claims may not be in compliance with the FTC Act, which prohibits false and deceptive advertising. (src FTC)

Summary: Various devices on the market claim to repel bugs and rodents with ultrasonic or electromagnetic energy. These devices have repeatedly failed to do what they claim to do in scientific trials.
Jack DeAngelis, PhD
OSU Ext. Entomologist

Digital palm read

Most households have a digital cam, or computer/ cellphone cam. Never travel to the psychic for a palm reading again (if you do that sorta thing), scan your hand in your scanner or take a digital pic and have 20 on-call psychics get back to you with their estimation of the palm.

Improved franchising menu

If you want to franchise a McDonalds /Subway /Wendys /Baskin Robbins, you need to pay $35K for some generic materials, licenses, and standard set up with FDA, IRS, and complex labor issues.

To improve on this model altogether, imagine if for 100K a franchise company offered the ability to open a plaza with 10 different coupled fast-food cuisine, it would seem to be a better offering to have different types of opportunities, than have someone just think of you, when they want a donut, or chicken, Chinese food, a grill, etc

It seems evident, that to open a business location, and deal with the processes involved in having a restaurant, that if they had all the logos of major fast food places, outside, people would be 10x more inclined to consume there.

Liquid speaker screen

On a scrap of paper in my pocket:
A liquid crystal display which projects sound its sound thru it’s cracks. To increase portability in multi-input touch screen displays. Ie. lithographed piezoelectricity

This makes me want to explore resistive properties.

additional data being sorted.

Post to: prayer

This is more of an intellectual novelty for the religion demographic. The idea is to set up a website to have a form field where you input your prayer or need/necessities > you press ’submit’ > then you see a page with like 200 little clippets of text from different religions for example:

1. ‘oh sweet and lovely saint maria i pray on behalf of you’ query ‘ending of blessing’
2. ‘baruch atah adonai elohaynu melech haolam’ query ‘ending of blessing’
3. ‘allah acbar mibarech oti’ query ‘ending of blessing’
4. ‘latin maximum greek godess ophelia’ query ‘ending of blessing’
5. ‘wiccan invokation in the soul of blah’ query ‘ending of blessing’
6. ‘ashba buddah buddah hari krishna’ query ‘ending of blessing’

I could go on and on with examples of specific intonations set to magically mystically affect change, based on each religions theory. User could either concentrate or speed-read aloud the whole 200 listings, covering all bases so to speak.