Inventors Wanted (Add To The Wishlist) 281
krugdm writes: "In his latest NYT column, David Pogue has a list of nine inventions that he'd like to see that are just awaiting inventors. The range from the silly MP3 Toothbrush to the potentially useful Microwave Plus+ that self programs. How much of this is possible?" Industrial designers, arise!
NYT Registration (Score:2, Informative)
Wish List: 9 Innovations in Search of Inventors
By DAVID POGUE
OU can say what you want about the bursting of the technology bubble (just not in front of the children). True, the Super Bowl lost some advertisers, 20-year-olds lost their beachfront condos, and investors lost their shirts. But for technology writers, it was a great time to be alive.
These days, though, there seems to be a measurable deceleration in high-tech innovation. Sure, PC's are getting slightly faster, palmtops slightly brighter, and DVD players slightly cheaper, but where are the big, bold new ideas for consumer products? Where are the inventions on par with the pen scanner, the discount Web drugstore and the robot dog?
Maybe industry executives just need a little inspiration. Here are some ideas for new products that should exist, but don't -- at least, not according to the exhaustive search conducted by my research staff (that is, my wife on Google). If you're an inventor, take these ideas with my blessings. I ask nothing in return but a smile, a firm handshake and 10 percent of the net.
MICROWAVE PLUS+
It's beginning to dawn on manufacturers that we need better ways of getting data from one source to another. The redundantly named VCR Plus+ feature, for example, simplifies programming your VCR by letting you plug in a code found in the newspaper TV listings.
But even in 2002, frozen-food packages still bear ludicrously imprecise instructions like, "Heat at High for 3 to 7 minutes (ovens vary)."
"3 to 7"? Let's get our act together! Microwaves equipped with Microwave Plus+ would have a tiny bar-code reader on the front panel. In half a second, this little eye would scan the cooking-information bar code that would appear on each package of food. The oven's software would adapt those instructions to accommodate its particular wattage and abilities. Everybody wins: The food and microwave makers see sales rise, emergency rooms see fewer burns, and consumers get perfectly cooked food.
PUNCH-IT-UP ALARM CLOCK
The modern clock radio can play CD's, wake up two people at different times, and even beam the current time onto the ceiling. So why do we have to set the time using the same controls cavemen used in the Stone Age?
You still have to hold down slow, imprecise buttons that on most models go only forward in time. If you woke at 8 this morning, you can't reset the alarm for 7 a.m. tomorrow without fast-forwarding through 23 hours' worth of flickering numbers.
Haven't these companies ever heard of a phone-style number keypad? We should be able to set the alarm for 8:45 just by tapping the 8, 4, and 5 keys in sequence. You'd save two minutes a night, which you could use for any number of activities, like sleeping.
BLIND DATA
The most excruciating aspect of being single in the city is the information void. There you sit on the subway, surreptitiously eyeing some attractive stranger, with no way of knowing if that person is single, sane, straight or solvent. For all you know, he or she doesn't speak your language, is heading at this moment to a new life overseas or has just dumped someone who looks exactly like you.
Bluetooth, a new (and real) technology that wirelessly connects gadgets within 30 feet of each other, could eliminate this kind of agony. Like the Japanese Lovegety toy for teenagers, the Blind Data would be a tiny transmitter, worn on a key ring or pendant. But instead of beeping when just anyone of the opposite sex came nearby, the Blind Data would be a far more discerning gizmo. You would program it with the vital statistics of both you and the kind of soul mate you're seeking. When your transmitter vibrates, it means that somebody else's is vibrating, too. Somebody less than 30 feet away is looking for someone just like you.
At the very least, you'll sit up straight and quit picking your teeth. You'll look around you to see who else is sitting up straight and looking around. If you don't like what you see, you just move on. And if you do decide to smile and introduce yourself, you've got one heck of a great conversation starter.
TIVOCORDER
A TiVo (news/quote) (a real product) can do a lot of things, from recording your favorite shows automatically to pausing live TV. Furthermore, it's always recording whatever is on the current channel, even if the TV itself is turned off. At any time, you can turn on the TV and rewind up to 45 minutes into the past to see what you've just missed.
It's a tantalizing idea. Now suppose TiVo came out with a tiny, pen-shaped digital audio recorder. Once in your shirt pocket, it would continuously record the sound around you. At any time, while continuing to record, you could play back the last 20 minutes of whatever you've just heard: a co-worker's brilliant utterance, something you didn't quite catch on the car radio, or driving directions somebody rattled off too fast. (As on the real TiVo, it would continue recording even as it played back.)
Because it would always be on, you would never worry about missing something important. And no family argument would ever again devolve into, "But you said . . . " and, "No, that's not what I said!"
MP-TEETHBRUSH
In the 90's, the hot new-product formula was to tack an MP3 music player onto some existing gizmo. We had MP3 cameras, MP3 phones, even MP3 watches.
But they missed the MP3-playing toothbrush. At what other time would a little music be so welcome as during that boring hygiene moment?
INTERCOM-PUTER
Every year, more people buy second and even third computers, which they often connect as a network. How odd, then, that when husband and wife are both at their machines, they still communicate by yelling from one end of the house to the other.
The Intercom-Puter would be an inexpensive U.S.B. intercom that connects to each computer and exploits your network wiring. Just push a button to talk ("Phone for you," "Have you seen my glasses?"). It would be quick, convenient and simpler than software-based intercom systems, which require microphone and speakers for each PC.
FLUMAPPER.COM
Young children are walking cotton swabs, and schools are the world's biggest Petri dishes. Your kindergartner comes home, feverish and miserable, and you have to listen to the doctor on the phone say: "Oh, yeah, that's going around. He'll have high fever for 24 hours, then two days of vomiting, with a little rash for another week."
If the bugs are this identifiable, a little notice might be nice -- perhaps in the form of a Web site that tracks the various flu strains that float across the country. It would look like a national weather map. But it wouldn't just show you which states had flu cases, period, like the simplistic maps at Fluwatch.com and elsewhere. Instead, color-coded clouds would show you exactly which types of mini-epidemics are sweeping through. You'd know at a glance what's "going around," what symptoms you're in for and which kinds of places to avoid.
This site wouldn't need banner ads. Subscriptions from wary, weary parents would be quite enough support.
SNAPFLAT SCREEN
Flat-panel screens are glorious but still expensive. As time goes on, we wind up having to buy more and more of them -- in palmtops, laptops, digital cameras, camcorders, PC's, and lately, car dashboards and television sets.
Clearly, the world is waiting for the SnapFlat Screen: a detachable, interchangeable flat panel that you can move from gadget to gadget. After all, you use only one of these expensive machines at a time. At the end of the day, you can snap the screen onto your Web appliance to see how much money you've saved by buying one universal screen instead of six proprietary ones.
THE I-PODULE
The built-in hard drive of the iPod, Apple's tiny white-and-chrome music player, holds 10 gigabytes. That's enough for about 2,500 songs. When connected to a Macintosh, the iPod also acts as a standard hard drive, ideal for moving files between machines. But why stop there? "Tiny" and "capacious" are two words that don't come together very often. The iPod could be the heart of a new generation of storage-hungry gadgets.
Imagine a digital camera with an iPod slot: you could take thousands of pictures without running out of film and slip the iPod into your computer to transfer them. Then you'd snap the iPod into a camcorder for capturing video, from there to your cellphone to send files or photos to a friend, and maybe even into a cash machine for a quick download of your statement.
Just don't lose the thing.
Not quite Microwave Plus, but... (Score:3, Informative)
Not quite as easy as the VCR+ idea, but a step in that direction.
Plus, it cooks with light! How retro-2001 of them.
=Brian
flumapper.com (Score:2, Informative)
Looks like I'm pretty safe this week.
Re:Cheap clocks that set themselves (Score:3, Informative)
It's been years since I had a TV, VCR, or alarm clock that didn't sync itself. They are done via radio broadcast or embedded signal in TV broadcast. Having my microwave or clock on my stove grab it from the power grid would also be useful.
For those who couldn't figure out why their VCR's were wrong in the valley a few years ago....here [reportercentral.com].
microwave plus already done (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,20040, 00.html [wired.com]
Already done... mostly (Score:5, Informative)
90% of what you're asking for is available with the Nikon D1X and D1H models. Both are capable of recording data from a NMEA compliant GPS unit:
- http://www.nikontechusa.com/Nikontechnicalnote9.h
t m [nikontechusa.com]
The direction recording capability isn't there, and the mapping features you request aren't included with any software bundle I'm aware of. I'd think that, with a non-trivial amount of effort (and some simple [delorme.com], moderately complex [delorme.com], or downright expensive [autodesk.com] software), your goals are achievable.Re:still waiting (Score:1, Informative)
Now, why he needs both a cell phone and a pager in one unit is beyond me...
So you've got an invention? (Score:3, Informative)
Firstly promoting inventions to industry is hard, really hard. A manufacturer is taking a gamble that your product will take off in the marketplace and convincing them to pick up your idea is not easy. This is where Royal [royalinventions.com.au] come in. We promote these ideas professionally and greatly increase the chances of future royalty incomes for the inventors. Have a look at the site for some of our successfully promoted ideas.
Microwave w/ barcode already exists (Score:2, Informative)
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1
seems this already exists since sept 2000 (patent # 6,124,583 )