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What inventions have you come up with but can't be bothered to make?


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Posted
I still remember an idea from a comic when I were a lad: torch with a black beam for looking for things you don't want to find. Pity that Physics is against this!
Posted (edited)

An app for a smart phone that uses GPS (or your home wifi) to detect when you are in your house, and not ask you for the unlock swipe/code while you are there.

 

The amount of times I have to unlock my phone while on the sofa is annoying! Yes, I could disable the lock code, but knowing me I'd forget to re-enable it later on!

 

 

EDIT: A little while ago I was working online briefly with someone from America, on creating a better way to create & format eBooks for self-publishers (if anyone has done it, it's a right pain!). Nothing much has happened with it yet though.

Edited by Pete10141748
Posted
i believe sweet dreams for android does that turns on wifi if you are at set locations rather than using 3g turns off all data after a set time
Posted
I was having a think earlier while I pondered a room refurb that it would be really handy if retractable power leads existed, or even better... elastic power leads. Imagine a lead half a metre long that can stretch to two metres when necessary.
Wireless electricity (aka broadcast power) eliminates the need for cables. This makes mains powered electric cars viable. At the mo, dragging an extension lead around is an inconvenience!

 

On a more practical note, why not fit small turbines to all sink plug holes, toilets, etc and use the flowing waste to generate electricity? Every time somebody uses the loo, more power to the national grid. Highway wind turbines are a good idea too.

Posted
Wireless electricity (aka broadcast power) eliminates the need for cables. This makes mains powered electric cars viable. At the mo, dragging an extension lead around is an inconvenience!

 

well yes but last i heard it was a good way of wasting power as it was pretty inefficient

Posted
Wireless electricity (aka broadcast power) eliminates the need for cables. This makes mains powered electric cars viable. At the mo, dragging an extension lead around is an inconvenience!

 

I suspect that practical wireless electricity - for more than just charging phones from a dunky may - is a few years and a lot of legislation and regulation away. Think how much people panic about mobile phones giving us all brain cancer; wireless electricity probably will give them a heart attack, if not though direct cause and effect.

 

On a more practical note, why not fit small turbines to all sink plug holes, toilets, etc and use the flowing waste to generate electricity? Every time somebody uses the loo, more power to the national grid. Highway wind turbines are a good idea too.

 

You probably end up doing more harm to the environment building those than you'd save with the free electricity :ohwell: much like solar panels at the moment, in fact...

 

 

Someone I knew once reckoned bikes should have dynamos hooked up to a hot plate in the frame so you could keep a thermos of coffee warm while you went out cycling. Although that'd probably just make the thermos too hot to hold more than anything else!

Posted
A shopping trolley that scans items and adds them up as you put them in and deducts when taken out of the trolley, then pay for it at the end...love to make that!...........but i cant be botherd :)
Posted
A shopping trolley that scans items and adds them up as you put them in and deducts when taken out of the trolley, then pay for it at the end...love to make that!...........but i cant be botherd :)

 

Good idea in theory I think but how would it know if you were taking an item out or if you were putting an item in. Might get confused and end up adding the item to your list several times when you put a few in and then took the few out and it just decided that you were putting them in and not taking them out ?

Posted
Another good one whether it is possible or not I honestly don't know ( not my idea ) was wireless over light ( lights all over the country , in peoples houses, restaurants, take away places , etc etc )
Posted
I always wanted to patent a remote control for a telly that you slid into a slot on the telly to recharge it - removing the need for searching in cupboards for emergency batteries!
Posted
I always wanted to patent a remote control for a telly that you slid into a slot on the telly to recharge it - removing the need for searching in cupboards for emergency batteries!

 

Isn't there an android / iPhone app where you purchase an infrared adaptor ( which fits on either phone ) and you can then customise the app to have whatever buttons you want in whatever layout and control the telly or any other infrared device so sky box / virgin media box / dvd / blu ray player etc ??

Posted
Good idea in theory I think but how would it know if you were taking an item out or if you were putting an item in. Might get confused and end up adding the item to your list several times when you put a few in and then took the few out and it just decided that you were putting them in and not taking them out ?

 

Very Good point, a good reason why it's never been invented!!

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Posted
Another good one whether it is possible or not I honestly don't know ( not my idea ) was wireless over light ( lights all over the country , in peoples houses, restaurants, take away places , etc etc )

 

Possible, sure.

Posted

I know Sony are set to do something similar to this with their 3D TV's (allow two players to play on the same screen using the whole screen) but here goes anyway:

 

Why not build a box to exploit the dual images 3D TV's output? You'd have it outputting one HDMI feed to one channel and another the other channel. Two people then wear 3D glasses, but both eyes are the same polarity - the result being the missus can watch Sky while you play the XBox on the same screen[/]. Only downside is one of you would have to wear headphones (and you'd both have to wear glasses of course)

Posted
I know Sony are set to do something similar to this with their 3D TV's (allow two players to play on the same screen using the whole screen) but here goes anyway:

 

Why not build a box to exploit the dual images 3D TV's output? You'd have it outputting one HDMI feed to one channel and another the other channel. Two people then wear 3D glasses, but both eyes are the same polarity - the result being the missus can watch Sky while you play the XBox on the same screen[/]. Only downside is one of you would have to wear headphones (and you'd both have to wear glasses of course)

 

Sony have done it with the PlayStation TV, and LG are doing it as well now: http://www.lg.com/au/technology/lg-cinema-3d-tv/index.jsp

 

It's similar thinking to the Wii U as well, from what Nintendo are saying - if you're on the Wii U and someone else wants to watch the telly, you can start playing the game on the touchscreen instead. How satisfying that will be, and what happens when the game you're playing uses that screen cleverly, remains to be seen...

Posted
when in london i could do with an app - possibly called Find me a taxi?

 

i never know where i am and there is never a taxi that is for hire

 

you would sign in, and flag (or order) a taxi using your GPS (ideal for visitors or the lazy). The taxis then recieve the message saying you want collecting and a map to where you are?

 

the taxi driver would accept each job depending on their distance to you.

 

That actually exists (at least the ordering a taxi bit): London Taxi App

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Posted
Sony have done it with the PlayStation TV, and LG are doing it as well now: http://www.lg.com/au/technology/lg-cinema-3d-tv/index.jsp

 

It's similar thinking to the Wii U as well, from what Nintendo are saying - if you're on the Wii U and someone else wants to watch the telly, you can start playing the game on the touchscreen instead. How satisfying that will be, and what happens when the game you're playing uses that screen cleverly, remains to be seen...

 

Have panasonic got something like this then or they not followed suit ( just yet ) ?

Posted
A shopping trolley that scans items and adds them up as you put them in and deducts when taken out of the trolley, then pay for it at the end...love to make that!...........but i cant be botherd :)

 

Im sure ive seen news articles where that was being trialled

Posted
Have panasonic got something like this then or they not followed suit ( just yet ) ?

 

Not as far as I know, but presumably Panasonic's version would be based on Active 3D rather than the LG's Passive 3D (and commensurately more comfortable glasses and convenient usage)

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Posted
Im sure ive seen news articles where that was being trialled

 

Only thing I remember was using a PDA / Bar Code scanner device where you have it attached to the trolley and scan in the items you want to purchase and at the end before you walk out the shop you insert and insert your own pin to pay and then go, a self checkout per trolley instead of having physical self checkouts ( about 10 or so ) and still having to wait in a que

Posted

I kind of have an idea for something cool but its not an invention because it's already been invented.... You know in supermarkets you see those big tubes by the checkouts and staff put money in them and money goes whizzing up the tube and off it goes.... well the same sort of thing BUT between houses and streets... So for instance a pipe at my house that goes to my inlaws.... it would be used for things like "could I borrow some sugar" and there you go you'd insert the bag o' sugar into the tube ... type that persons tube number in along with the password and .... BANG... It appears at the other end and they now have a bag of sugar and they can tube it back to you once they are finished. Obviously the more you pay for an install the bigger the tube you get ;) the bigger things you can tube to people. I imagine it would work on some sort of vacuum thing!

 

Could also be done at corporate level too - maybe between offices ... who knows!

 

Good eh? :)

Posted
Only thing I remember was using a PDA / Bar Code scanner device where you have it attached to the trolley and scan in the items you want to purchase and at the end before you walk out the shop you insert and insert your own pin to pay and then go, a self checkout per trolley instead of having physical self checkouts ( about 10 or so ) and still having to wait in a que

 

Waitrose do it :)

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