Where
Things Work RightWhere
Things Work Right
** New ideas added 02/15/05 starting at number 154.
154. Vicodin Airbags -
Accidents give me a headache.
Very few people feel good right after an accident. It would be nice
if the makers of airbags were allowed to attach
a sealed package containing a couple of vicodin onto the side of the airbag
so once it was deployed the pills would
be readily available. They'd have to seal the package well enough
for the pills to remain potent for several years of
course, but that's probably doable. As for the potential problem
of somone breaking an airbag open just to get at
the couple of pills in it, the odds of that happening are fairly remote.
The cost of replacing the airbag would be
prohibitive from the owner's perspective, and not worth the trouble from
a drug addict's perspective. (An addict
would be more likely to steal the whole car and sell it to get a month's
supply of his favorite drug.)
155. Itty Bitty Vacations -
Train trips from your desktop.
Sometimes it would be nice to be able to take a short trip during a break
at work. This new subscription-supported
service might be just what I need.
Subscribers would be able to go to a web site and see thumbnail views of
streaming video coming from the front of
trains traveling down scenic routes in real time. You could pick the one
you want and switch to full screen mode,
maybe taking a short trip through some snowy mountains when it's a particularly
humid day where you're living, or
letting your mind wander as you travel down the tracks watching the fall
leaves for awhile. If you're feeling miserable
and it's a pleasant day outside you could zoom in on a train traveling
through a dreary, rainy day. And vice versa.
Done well, you wouldn't even see the train behind you as you floated down
the tracks.
To make the business a success there would have to be a lot of cameras
to choose from (increasing the scenery
options) so railroads that allowed the cameras on the front of their engines
would get a share of the subscription
dollars. If more variety was needed, the service could be expanded to include
cameras on subway trains and
commercial planes. The view from a plane might be especially refreshing
- it would look like you're floating through
the clouds.
156. One-Armed ATM -
Just a little bit more convenient.
Drive-thru ATM machines are usually built at just the right height for
my vehicle, which is a truck. While I was
waiting in line watching people in the cars ahead of me trying to reach
up and hit the right buttons and read a screen
that was at the wrong angle for them it occurred to me that a flexible
arm you could pull into your car would be a lot
easier for everyone to use.
This new arm would be rectangular in shape and slightly larger than the
largest form of paper currency in whatever
country the ATM was in. On the end of if would be a small touchpad and
screen similar to the credit card interfaces
most stores have now. If something like this existed then people could
just pull it into their car, make their transaction
and push it back out again. To keep it from getting in the next guy's way
a timer would count down from the time the
ATM card was removed and automatically pull the arm back to its ready position
after 10-15 seconds and refill the
touchpad with the maximum amount of cash a person could withdraw during
any single stop. (Of course there would
also have to be a security feature inside the arm that would sound an alarm
if someone tried to saw the arm off and
drive away with the cash.)
157. Removed
158. Hubcap Feedback -
When waiting at a light beside some guy who wants to share his music with
you whether you like it or not, the only
recourse we have now is to either turn our own radio up higher, resulting
in a musical battle, or shut the windows and
hope his music can't make it through them. All-weather hubcap speakers
would give us a third solution. They'd be
designed so that as the musical volume coming from a car beside you increased,
the distance between a microphone
and amplifier on this hubcap device decreased. The closer they got together,
the greater the screeching feedback.
Since the speakers would be facing away from you, the other driver would
bear the brunt of this screeching. If he or
she turned up their radio to overcome the noise they'd only succeed in
making the screeching louder. The only thing
that would turn it off would be them lowering the volume on their radio
below the level that the new device deemed
acceptable (local noise ordinances might set the guidelines here). Since
each hubcap would only react to the car on
the offending side, cars on your other side wouldn't be effected.
159. Universal Gift Registry -
Encompassing all holidays, birthdays, stores.
Tired of being asked over and over what you'd like for Christmas/your birthday/whatever?
Tired of trying to get
some kind of clue what the people on your list would like? The Universal
Gift Registry would make your life a
whole lot easier.
When you clicked on an account name in this new gift registry you'd be
taken to a simple list of annual events with a
description of items the account owner would like for each occasion.
Each item could also have one or more links
attached to it that you could click on and be taken to a site where the
item could be purchased online. No more
running around hunting for just the right gift. Click and you've
got it.
There would be a couple of differences between this registry and the other ones that already exist.
1. It's not store-specific. Links could made to a variety of stores. The
more links the better, just in case the
first store ran out.
2. It's occasion-specific but not occasion-limited. Under each user all
of the usual annual events would be
included - Christmas, Hanukkah, birthday, anniversary - with appropriate
requests for each occasion.
3. It's a single-signon solution. You don't have to register at several different web sites.
While this idea might seem tacky to some people it's really not all that
much different than the normal process of
giving someone an idea of what you'd like for a gift. When you're
asked what you'd like now you have two choices,
give the asker an answer or avoid the subject so they'll have to guess.
Since the people who are asking are trying to
do something nice for me, I don't have any problem making their job easier.
To make it even less tacky I'd put
everything I could ever imagine wanting under my account name so people
would know I didn't expect to receive
everything that was there. This would in no way keep gift givers
who enjoy shopping and surprising people from
continuing to carry on the way they've always done it.
160. Nightmare Prevention Pillow -
For those whose nightmares are accompanied by sleep paralysis (usually
teenagers), this pillow would let them
sleep easier. Sensors built into it would monitor their brain waves
and whenever the characteristic pattern appeared
(anxiety, an abrupt change from a REM state to full consciousness, and
the absence of movement) a soothing voice
would come out of the pillow reassuring them that they had just been dreaming
and would soon be able to move
again. Just knowing that this safeguard was in place might help the
sufferers sleep better.
To make this device even more convenient (especially if the voice disturbs
someone you're sleeping with) it could be
designed somewhat like a hearing aid. The piece that holds it in
place between the ear and scalp would measure the
brain waves (like electrodes do now) and relay that information via a small
receiver embedded in the pillow to a box
on a night stand that would determine what to do. If it decides a
nightmare is taking place during an episode of sleep
paralysis it can transmit the soothing voice to the earpiece part of the
device to let the sleeper know what's going on.
This might sound impossible but they've already been able to train patients
with sleep terrors to recognize a pattern
of light so when they see it during a terror episode they know what's going
on and the terror goes away.
The device could also be designed to detect teeth clenching since it's
close enough to the jawbone to do it. When it
sensed that sleeper was clenching their teeth it would start vibrating
for a little while to relax the muscles in that area.
In both cases the box on the night stand is required to do the heavy diagnostic
work. The earpiece has to stay small
enough to be worn comfortably or else the person wearing it will never
be able to fall asleep (which would be another
way to solve nightmare, sleep paralysis, and jaw clenching problems I suppose,
but the adverse health costs would
be unacceptable).
161. Drill on a Leash -
On almost every home improvement show there's someone with a cordless drill
putting screws into something, The
odd thing about those drills is that the battery is in the handle.
That must get pretty tiring for people who have to do
a lot of drilling after awhile. A quick search on google didn't
turn up any alternatives either so I'll suggest one here.
Cordless drills could be redesigned so that their battery can be detached
and either left on the floor or worn on a
belt, taking their weight off of the user's muscles. In this new
design the battery case would be connected to the drill
by an 4 to 10 foot cord which would be strong enough to let the user pull
it around as they moved through the work
area (for times when they didn't want to wear it on a belt). The
cord could also be detached at both ends and the
battery hooked back onto the drill so it could still be used the way it
is now for those who like this configuration.
There's no reason we couldn't also add detachable batteries as a feature
on other power tools where the battery
has to be lugged around with the business end of the tool.
162. Removed
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