Slashdot Mirror
Inventors Wanted (Add To The Wishlist)
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!
VR Porn ....
to go where no geek has gone before
The range from the silly MP3 Toothbrush
Watch the cavity rate rise in America in a few years due to the toothbrush becoming illegal under the DMCA.
mp3 toothbrush sounds a little quirky, but you knever know! Who'd think that every wired home would need an internet enabled fridge either? oh, i'm the only one? whoops...
"Martha Stewart can lick my Scrotum......do i have a scrotum?" -- Sharon Osbourne
I'm still waiting for a PDA, mp3 player, graphing calculator, pager, cell phone, digital camera with lots and lots of memory and really low battery usage. Has to have a full color lcd too. Or whatever the GBA screen is made of. Has to have wireless net connection too.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
Here's the article without the registration:
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.
Didn't he just invent them?
If you want a daily dose of half-baked inventions, check out The Half-Bakery. It's an excellent site for the inventive/whimsical mind.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
I'd like to see real hoverboards, enough with the 2 wheel segways, i wont be happy until the wheel is obsolite
I bet you could convince more kids to brush if, say, you had a toothbrush that played the Barney theme song while you were brushing.
Yes, it sounds dumb, and I doubt it'd be too successful with grown-ups, but kids are a completely different ball game.
I have a Sony Dream Machine (ARV: $20) that someone gave me as a gift several years ago. It has two buttons to set the alarm: forward and backward. If you hold them down, they zoom through the time extremely fast. So if the alarm is set to 8:30, and you want to wake up at 8:15, you just hit the back button for a couple of seconds. This is all without the clutter of a numeric keypad. I've seen it on alarm clocks that dated back to the late 70's.
:)
I'm sure Bose or Bang and Olufsen has made a $300 clock that has a numeric keypad to set the time, but this method works equally as well, and it has the added benefit that mere mortals can afford it.
Simpli - Your source for San Jose dedicated servers and colocation!
The new-and-improved DMCA or whatever they are calling it nowadays? You know, the one where not all comsumers are eye-patch wearing, parrot shouldering pirates...
The day this is invented: hell will freeze, pigs will fly, the leafs will win the cup, and I'll subscribe to slashdot ^_^
Comment removed based on user account deletion
what could make the toothbrush cool is a sonic toothbrush that uses your favorite mp3, and plays through you head line a "bone phone" type device 42 5F 4B
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
There is nothing so good that someone, somewhere, will not hate it.
It has to be the sausage egg and chips machine that can churn out portions of our god-endorsed national diet every 5 seconds.
Imagine how this would revolutionise modern food process management as we see it today.
You walk into a food-store and say 'I'd like something thats convincingly healthly whilst still having the fat content of a small car' - they go sure
CLUNK CLUNK
Out pops the sausage egg and chip life saving meal.
Stupendous.
This is only a small subset of what he's proposing, but it's more than just an idea.
"Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos!"
Remember those light switches that were computer controlled back in the Apple II days? I think that the x-10 folks sell them now. But I refuse to purchase anything from anyone who advertises like they do. Anyway, how hard *would* it be to have a stove, microwave, etc. controlled by those? VCR's and the like can already be controlled by recording the IR stuff. But I think setting things up so you can send an email and start the cooking before you get home would be great.
A sensible suggestion, and something Apple is probably working on.
Oh no... thats useless...everything they say is FUD.
DRM? No thanks, I'll just get it somewhere else...
INAL but I don't think you can just record everything for your own privet playback with out first informing those being recorded. I might be wrong and you just can't use the recording for some things. Though I always thought this was part of why security cameras were video only.
-Mike
I think there's a t-shirt in there somewhere.
I must admit that most of these ideas are pretty good. I mean the microwave plus+ idea is soooo obvious. The alarm clock idea I've had myself for a loooong time. And the tivocorder is good as long as someone can design a mic that doesn't record static when it scratches against the inside of your pocket (yeah i tried doing this with my MP3 player). I predict some of these will probably come to reality. Definitely the alarm clock and hopefully the microwave plus+
.02 for the day.
Just me
Eddy.WriteLinux.Com
Those who can invent, do it. ;-)
Those who can't, become patent lawyers
--
no matter how lame sounding these may be, the writer could easily get patents for these and trick inventors into creating this stuff.
The best invention of the late 20th century, but it doesn't get it's due credit.
Get a life guys. If you have nothing post, I have a suggestion: DON'T Post anything.
...Modded down already....
I've made precise descriptions of the invention Cringely mentions and have filed for proper patents for them. Since his column isn't fully descriptive of the devices I doubt the USPTO will find them to be sufficient "prior art". Thanks, Cringely!
A TV were the volume goes down (or off) when ads come on?
Something that sends a shock down a phone wire to anyone trying to sell you something over the phone?
Something that will order a pizza for you...
A toilet seat that lowers itself...
Beer that brews itelf..
can you imagine what kind of nightware ths coud cause?
Oh no! there's a small epidemic at the school, keep jimmy home for a month.
I'm a parent, I hate it when my kids are sick, but I recognize the fact that they must get sick.
Sure, you got something thats killing people, yeah I want to know, but they already deal with that aw well as could be expected.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Sheesh. My parents had a numeric keypad on their alarm clock. could set the time, the alarm time, the radio frequency..
The blind data already was invented in Japan where people with similar interests would start beeping if they met someone compatable near by according to their preferences.
intercom=puter.. as far as I know, sensible people will use something like icq to talk to each other on the computer even in the house rather than yell across the house.. I don't know what incompetents he think still yell.
The "BLIND DATA" seems like a fun idea at first, but if you think for a moment: every time a good-looking gal/guy would step on the bus, the whole bus would start vibrating.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I want a digital camera with integrated GPS and digital compass. When I get home from a trip, I should be able to download all of my images and see them as icons on a map, indicating where the picture was taken, in what direction, and at what time.
He missed the one thing I want -- cheap clocks that set themselves. I've got cheap digital clocks in my VCR, TV, Microwave, coffee maker, etc. etc. Keeping them all set to the right time, especially when power is lost, is a real pain. They are never synchronized to each other, much less the right time. (Yes, my computers do run NTP, but that's another story).
I've seen clock radios which know the time via WWV, but that's a bit expensive to put into all these appliances -- there's several different ways you could do this, but I want one that just works -- maybe a time signal could be broadcast over the power cables? It needn't add but a few pennies to the cost of the item, and would make my life tremendously easier.
My cell phone sets its clock from the basestation automatically, and doesn't even have a way to manually set it. This is my favorite feature of my phone -- the time is always right.
Can't we have this for appliances?
Try the CDC (scroll down)
Looks like I'm pretty safe this week.
0xB
I just want a device that hooks to my phone that allows me to administer a shock to the person on the other end of the line.
"So lets get this straight... you opened an attachment on an email from someone you don't know and then ignored the virus scanner notice that it was infected and opened it anyway... hold please." *ZZAAAAAAAAPPPPPP!!*
I think they'd sell like crazy, I can imagine the advertisements already...
"Train users in HALF the time... also works on Telemarketers!"
I promise I wouldn't abuse it... too much!
- The auditors said to secure the server... hand me that duct-tape -
I *really* do hate to nitpick here, but the story title really is misleading (and, unfortunately, made me think about those God-awful "inventor assistance" infomercials). This guy isn't looking for inventors per se, although some engineers might be nice.
You know, guys and gals to actually produce something tangible from the concepts he's come up with (err... invented). This is more like a job listing for the engineering types of Menlo Park (a la Edison-esque).
MICROWAVE PLUS+
The reason why the cooking instructions are so vaguely is that although ovens may have the same amount of watts the food can heat up different depending on various conditions.
Cooking is fun! I would never ever demand a turn-key-solution for one of my life essentials!
PUNCH-IT-UP ALARM CLOCK
Already exists
BLIND DATA
Hey, another way to find a relationship! Silly, everyone knows that the chemistry between two persons can not be expressed in "vital statistics". What about a "courage device" that gives a geek some balls to approach a woman?
TIVOCORDER
Hmm, what would other persons think if every word they say may be stored?
MP-TEETHBRUSH
Yah
INTERCOM-PUTER
Microsoft Netmeeting?
FLUMAPPER.COM
As if there is only one kind of germs at one place at a time. I have survived kindergarten. The greatest invention would be jail for parents who refuse to immunize their kids against measles.
SNAPFLAT SCREEN
This things still weigh pounds. Who shall carry them with the whole time?
THE I-PODULE
Now this isn't bad at all. The devices just would need a plug for it.
I want two thigs: A Tivo for my radio (I timed it the other day. 14 minutes of actual program, 16 minutes of commercials in each half hour. Aaargh.), and an 'in-flight recorder' for my car. When some jerk cuts me off and I ram him, or some cop claims I didn't signal a turn, I'd like to have proof to back up my claims of innocence. Of course, it should have an 'erase' button just in case ...
my MP3-player/PDA/Cell Phone/Oven/Microwave/Refrigerator/Gaming Console/Toothbrush/All-in-one Knife/Machine Gun, that fits in the palm of my hand.
The sequel to lovegety has already been done, kinda.
This scheme would unfortunately destroy an important indicator of technical prowess, because NOBODY'S VCR would ever flash "12:00" again. How could you more easily discern whether aunt Mabel/uncle Frank is scared of anything more electronic than a toaster, except by a quick peek at the VCR?
Freedom: "I won't!"
Joel Avrunin & Philip Weiss, students at cornell, have already invented the "perfect" alarm clock.
Full details and plans can be found here.
I want a wearable computer with face recognition software so that I will never have to worry about remembering names again!
Yeah, lets all get stupid inventions that waste our time and contribute nothing to the world...
$$$We can all get rich!$$$
MY LIST:
1) Orbiting Solar Collectors/Solar Pumps that supply an virtually infinite amout of free energy to the world for the next 5-7 billion years.
2) Matter Replication/Creation device that either creates matter directly out of energy (to the used in conjuction with the above) or else uses nanotechnology to fabricate things when supplied with component molecules.
3) Safe Flying Personal Transportation that uses either next generation Spinning Disk (tm) technology, or just good old fashioned rotors. (incedentally, I mean safe as in "safe as a car". It doesn't have to be perfect, bust just good enough to let us all travel through the skies with reasonable minimal risk to ourselves and the world)
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
Some companies keep ideas about technical advancements secret under Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs). Whenever you are asked to signed one before learning or implementing an idea, some people justify the NDAs by reasons such as "maximizing future profit" and/or "balancing research costs".
The tactical reasons behind NDAs are to make a genuinely good idea impossible or harder to implement by competitors. Sometimes even the employees and stock-holders in the company are not given details about the idea.
That is, to me, surprising, as secrecy breed suspection, false or too high expectations, and potential ruin the general public's trust in the said company. It also causes delays in adaption and sharing of new knowledge and make other researchers waste their time on solving an already solved problem.
In the 1970s and 1980s, at XEROX Parc, scientists shared most of their ideas openly with visitors. Real innovations flourished.
A more recent example is the algorithm in the most popular search engine on the Internet, Google. It is not kept secret, but published. (google after Pagerank).
Publish your ideas openly (as real sciences), and let anyone comment and criticize them. Perhaps one of them eventually will lead to innovation.
OleAll I want are simple things...
... microwaves without clocks on them, just a knob with the intensity and the time to cook (an analogue clock which does something for about three minutes, not a digital one which does 2:57 to the second)
... a phone on which I can call my friends, not a phone on which I can call my friends, play games, keep a diary, listen to music, read my email. Just a phone.
... an alarm clock which I can forgot to set so I will accidently sleep in one day. It happens sometimes, nothing you can do about it.
Maybe it's just me, but I want to take care for my own stuff in my own pace. I want to come too late sometimes because I forgot to set the alarm. I want to be not reachable because I just want a day off. I want my food to be just a little too hot or too cold because I overcooked it or because I turned off the oven too early. And I want to feel bad when I forgot to tape my favourite show. And I want to feel happy when I find a friend who taped it.
I'm not a robot, these things are part of life!
bash$
My VCR sets its clock from the Teletext signal of the first channel it has been tuned to. I guess you live in Europe and get Teletext. I dont know about the US and NTSC though. Here, many TV channels have a "teletext" signal which is a very simple hypertext system that has been around since 1975. (At least the docs I've read about it are that old) Each page of text shows a clock on the top of the page. When I press the "clock" button on my remote control, it shows the teletext clock. If the channel doesnt have any teletext signal, I can not get a clock to appear on that channel. You find a page by typing its number on the remote control. All pages are transmitted continously during the vertical blank. Each page consists of 24 lines of 40 characters. Six lines of text are transmitted each frame on six scanlines.
"We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
Oh, wait, you have to be a corp with a huge bandwagon of lawyers, "financially support" a few polititions, and maybe "convince" a few "friends" in the patent office to do that, my bad.
*waits for someone to mod him up, then for the next person to mod him back down again 5 minutes later, again*
Any sufficiently advanced influence is indistinguishable from control.
#1: Martial arts video game where you use your body as input for the game.
i
#2: True Artificial Intelligence
www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/~sager/a
But so far, I can't understand Microsoft's DirectX SDK, and I can't compile Crystal Space for DJGPP. With being poor and depressed its hard to stay focused on things that will revolutionize the world though.
God spoke to me
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,20040, 00.html
What about those clothes from "The Diamond Age". The ones with all the nanomachines in them that get out stains. Now that'd be worth paying for.
Netjak.com independent reviews of domestic & import video ga
Even more, it would be great for capturing specific songs to add to your MP3 collection. If it were either built-in or highly portable, you could leave it on all the time. You wouldn't have to think about it except when you heard something you wanted to save.
Ok, I will never be able to make this, but if someone does I want a free one.
:)
I want a laptop that has the touchpad actually on the surface of the keys. The keys would have to be relatively tightly spaced from each other and have flat surfaces (though they somewhat do now) and some algorithm would have to account for the space between them. But, with a key next to my shift key, when held down, the thing turns on and I can't type but it becomes a trackpad. Could only be a few keys, or perhaps even all of them. Clicking and all that would be through taps and gestures as is the case now.
Make me one, pweeze?
--
Dear David, We are developing some of what you propose, and others have considered or developed others. I detail in turn: Microwave Plus+ We contacted SHARP in the early 1990s about such a device as we were interested in developing the technology. They claimed that one of their competitors, (Panasonic I think) had tried it and it was a market failure. Punch-It Up Alarm Clock I have an advertisement from a very very old issue of either Omni or Scientific American for a very advanced twin alarm clock radio from GEC, with a numeric keypad. Blind Date I had this idea years ago, and it will be introduced into our popular oNumber Directory at http://www.onumber.net that allows you to setup a secure profile. We plan to use wireless technologies and mobile devices. Tivocorder We are developing such a device, with a lot more than 20 minutes capacity that will probably be marketed at something like Black Box, Back Box or similar. Ideal for meetings, proving someone said something during a conversation etc. MP-Teethbrush Cannot help you there. But you can always try banging a spoon on your teeth to make music? Intercom-Puter Coming from us as part of something rather special we're working on. Flumapper.com The BBC website has a number of hidden 'weather' maps that do display a lot of information, air pressure etc. Not sure if they cover allergies. Snapflat Screen We considered developing something called the 'sidescreen' and even bought the domain name, but put it on hold. Our idea was a small 10" screen to snap onto laptop screens to provide an expanded desktop. Our Sidescreen would be very thin, drawing it's power from the 'hosts' video or USB port. I-Podule Now it is here that you have hit the nail on the head. We are developing a) A small head mounted camera (tubecam) that can be plugged into a hard drive device, such as iPod. b) A hard drive based high resolution digital still/camcorder known as 'Memento'. However, Memento will only be bought to market if Apple or Sony don't beat us first. I think Apple named the iPod as they did because it is not just a music player. They have plans to expand it and allow 3rd parties to use it for other purposes. Already you can use it to store your contacts.
O'WONDERWe're working on it.
My VCR has the automatic-self-set feature, but it's rarely worked. I don't know whether its the signal screwup described in your link (given KTEH's budget woes, I doubt if they can keep anything fixed) or something weird in my cable system. Either it doesn't work, or doesn't handle DST right, or god knows what. But if I keep it in manual mode, it keeps good time, doesn't get screwed up by short power outages, and does handle DST correctly. Easier to leave it on manual and only deal with it after long power outages.
Please note the word "cheap" in the message you responded to. I own a cheap WWV clock. Can't seem to acquire the signal.
It's worth noting that Windows XP is the first OS to come preconfigured with time synchronization. Given the poor accuracy of most computer RTCs, you have to wonder why this took so long.
Your "Blind Data" suddenly starts vibrating. You look around, locate the girl that you think should be your match, walk up to her and say:
My you-know-what started vibrating in my pants as soon as I saw you...
Two days later, when you come out of coma, you painfuly realise that she was not the one with the other vibrating "thingie".
But in a way, it has already been done cheaper. GE has a small 1.0 cubic foot microwave that has a simple one button "reheat" mode. I am not certain how it works, but I think it measures humidity/steam output of the food being "cooked" - so it sits there for a while cooking, then when just right, it stops. It isn't perfect (some foods confuse it, especially if the food has a wierd combo of fat/water content, and is cold), but it works most of the time.
For most of my TV dinners, I simply set the time for 4 or 5 minutes, and leave all the plastic wrap on - this works for the majority of TV dinners out there. If I have a large TV dinner, and the directions say "5 minutes on high", I will sometimes do "10 minutes on medium (50%)", so that it cook thoroughly.
The other thing you have to do is let the food sit a few minutes after you have cooked it, to let it completely warm up (however, don't do this with TV dinner fried chicken, because you will be eating chicken jerkey after letting it sit).
Now, you want to know REALLY funky? Go to the store, and get some "Maria's Frozen Burritoes" - while not the best things on the planet for you, nor the most tasty - they are fun to cook - they even taste differently depending on how you cook them (microwaved vs oven vs pan-fried vs deep fried) - serious!
Alright - maybe I eat too much frozen food (and I have the gut to prove it too, so nyah!)...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
this, self-congratulatory techno-fetish masturbation sessions, I'm ashamed to work in technology.
It's not like "Gee, we've solved a lot of problems, world hunger, peace, space exploration, lets have some fun"
No, it's more like a "let's see how stupid and low we can go"
I.. Just... want to be loved.. :( booo hooo hooo hooooo. Can you invent anything for that? oh yeah, lovegety or whatever its called. Its kinda corny though. like dating, dating services, jocks and those cute little teddy-bears.
:)
Maybe if they added some kind of tracking system so you could home in in your match, and then kinda bump into them because you are both staring at your screens. Just like in all the films. sigh.
Also, it could utilize the wireless network to create some kind of P2P love-network, where you can find your match on the other side of the city, and then use the other nodes to find each-other. (and download a few pirate mp3s on the way)
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
You might want to talk to these people. I am sure they can provide you with a "3D engine".
#1: Martial arts video game where you use your body as input for the game.
Consider reading this paper. You're a little late.
#2: True Artificial Intelligence
www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/~sager/a
What exactly is "true artificial intelligence" versus "false artificial intelligence"? You mean neural networks, production or expert systems? What are you talking about? This guy is working on a project to simulate a human image with "intelligence" behind it. Perhaps you mean something that will pass the Turing Test?
I know it may seem cool to randomly throw out a few items you don't know anything about that you would like to "invent", but give it a rest. But, I guess I should try it for myself...
Nah, wasn't so much fun. Use Google.
Why bother.
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
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, moderately complex, or downright expensive software), your goals are achievable."...America's great minds of today, teaching America's great minds of tomorrow. Poor bastards." -- A Beautiful Min
Alarm clocks that you can plus into a network... and they listen for an NTP broadcast, and sync to it.
--Nuintari
slashdot : where an opinion can be wrong.
Microsoft is planning this with their future webpad computers.
It's called a microdrive... smaller (yes, in both size and capacity), but almost universal, and when plugged into your computer it can function as a hard drive, and you don't need a mac to use one.
__________________________________________
Take comfort in your ignorance.
Grandmaster Plague
I have several on my wish list, and all are possible technologically right NOW.
:)
1. A networked house. Fully networked, everything integrated, and some nice voice recognition bot to remind me about apointments and when i should shower to get ready for work. I want my computer to turn on the speakers in my bedroom playing an energetic mp3 from my collection, and if i say snooze out loud, i want it to fade out and wait 15 min. i want the shower to memorize my favorite temperature. how F'ing hard is this? Just say "shower" and it starts up at the desired temperature. i want those heated toilet seats like in japan, and while we're at it, i want my bathroom tile floor heated. in fact every aspect of my house should be fully climate controlled. i want solar roof shingles to lower my bills, as well as peizoelectric carpet to turn my footsteps into voltage. the springs in the bed should do the same. i want my windows to be that titanium based transparent solar panels, and i want them double paned and to look like old windows, not those new ugly aluminum paned ones. i want a vacuum that is cordless and doesn't vacuum up stuff that it shouldn't, and vacuum by itself. same with the lawn mower. both should have solar panels. hell anything with a big surface should have solar panels so i can lower my bills. while we're at it, i'd like flywheel electric storage as described by U.S. Flywheels. Or was that all bullshit? where are you know skunk works engineer?
2. My car. I want an electric car. not some pussy battery based thing, but an electric flywheel powered car that can use as much juice as it wants at a given time. if i want to peel my tires completely off, i should be able to. and i want this system housed in a classic car. a mid 60's dart would do nicely, or a 67 malibu. better yet a pre 64 car, so i don't need seetbelts. i want the windows all titanium based solar cells, and the paint to collect solar energy also. and i want all this in a package that will drive me at least 300 miles before a VERY FAST charging at a power station. and you can charge electrical flywheels almost as fast as you can drain them, so this should be even FASTER than pumping gas. when i'm there i want the pump to register my liscence plate and charge me automatically. in fact, i shouldn't even have to get out of the car. the whole thing should take about 10 seconds.
3. i want better rail systems. here in the us, particularly in california, we don't have much. there's only 2 places i can go by rail. LA and san diego. i want to go to any of the big cities, and for cheaper than a bus ride. rail is cheap to operate.
4. i want a better WINE. no more of this windows crap. an ez distro that anyone can operate that is identical to win 98 se, free, stable, and will run all your precious dos games from 1985.
5. i want cheap lcd projectors. why the F#*% are the so expensive? they're just a little sliver of lcd and a flashlight!!! and i want this to be higher resolution that HD tv. i want 1600x1200 cuz my geforce 4 can handle it no problem.
6. i want a huge boycott of radio until the fcc laws are changed. i don't know how anybody can listen to a full HALF day of corporate advertisents, interspersed with the worst half of your dad's top 40 collection, but that is all radio is where i live. we should all boycott it.
7. we don't need radio, cause we'll all have DSL or better. and it'll be a cheap public utility. screw that, i pay enough taxes to have fiber optics, and they should be DIRT CHEAP. way, way cheaper than my trash pickup service (~$15 a month) because once the infrastructure is there, that's the end of the costs almost completely.
8. then i won't have to pay for cable either, which has as many ads as regular tv now, and barely any extra content, and is WAY OVERPRICED.
9. i want dvd's and cd's to benefit the artists, not AOL/TIMESATAN or some other big corporation. CD's and DVD's cost about $.04 to make. there should be that price, and let's say $2 per copy for the artist(s). then i'll even give the corporation oh.... $.09 per copy. and they'll still make a profit. so cd's and dvd's shouldn't cost more that $2.13 unless there are huge expenses incurred like for LOTR where they have to buy a huge aussie linux server farm. then they can charge me an extra buck, cuz, hey, it'll be worth it.
10. I want movie's to be $5. and i don't want ANY ADS. Isn't that why you PAY to go to the movies? To avoid the ads on TV? And i want sodas etc. to be a dollar or less. I don't know how they get $5 per soda at the local theater, i know *i* smuggle a 2 liter in my jacket, or a six pack depending.
11. Smoking anywhere in public should be illegal. If suicide is illegal, then smoking (a very slow version of suicide) should be, besides it's rude, smells like shit, and is disgusting. not to mention the huge evil corporations that you are supporting by buying cigerettes.
12. I want a quantum computer that can emulate any previous generation computer. Because YES i'm still going to play the original NES version of Dr. Mario. I bet the cia already has one.
13. I want nanotechnology. I want a molecular assembler. It IS possible, it IS feasible, and i bet there already IS one in some government lab, right next to the quantum computer.
14. I want a better understanding than we currently have about the relationship between gravity and electricity.
15. Then i want to take all this stuff and GET OFF THE PLANET, hedging humanities bets (and maybe life itself's?) against the cosmic odds of us getting demolished by one big slow moving rock. Or of somebody unleashing a crazy nano designed virus, which i think is MORE likely to happen if the government restricts legitimate researchers of nanotech.
Now the flames start.
rhy
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
..i saw the tivocorder 'idea' - hasn't this moron ever heard of a tape-recorder!
The Truth: There is no string:)
If I understand correctly, the Cybiko already does something "blind data" like.
Speaking of clocks, I often prefer *analog* alarm clocks, *not* because of the face, but because it is easer to change the alarm settings. I don't wan't to push a button 50 times to back up 10 minutes. I want a knob that I can twirl with my thumb and forefinger.
Monday traffic is lighter than Wednesday traffic, for example, so I can grab a few minutes more of sleep.
The problem is that I cannot find analog clocks in stores anymore. I feel like grandpa looking for a typewriter.
Perhaps if the digital clock had 6 buttons to change the (alarm) time: +1, +10, +60, -1, -10, and -60.
Table-ized A.I.
Another good interface is the one I have on my alarm clock. My alarm clock has 3 buttons: fast forward, fast reverse, and slow forward. This lets me zip over to the correct ballpark and then fine tune without getting carpal tunnel syndrome. (note to alarm clock manufacturers: my purchasing decisions are based almost entirely on the interface you use to set the time.)
-a
How to rationalize theft.
(* i want the shower to memorize my favorite temperature. *)
That reminds me. There are a lot of people in this house, and somebody always decides to take a shower in the other bathroom or wash something when I am in the shower. The water temperature jumps all over the place.
Are there any easy-to-install gizmos that will automatically even it out so I don't have to play musical chairs with the temperature? It interrupts my singing also.
Table-ized A.I.
There's a killer robot clone on the loose and he looks like Queen Elizabeth. BEWARE!!!
I think the MP3 toothbrush may be a little overkill, but a built-in AM/FM radio driven by kinetic energy should be within reach?
It is common knowledge that when you apply vibrations onto the teeth you can "hear" the sound clearly.
-skurk
www.6502asm.com - Code 6502 assembly or.. DIE!!
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 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.
I've had this baby for several years now and haven't read a frozen food package since.
Among other nifty features is a big red button marked "Frozen Food" I just pop the dinner in, press the button and minutes later I'm enjoying a perfectly cooked meal.
I'll go through withdrawls if this thing ever craps out.
satire, n: 1) witty language used to convey insults or scorn; 2) a form of humor lost on most slashdot moderators.
would get my daughter to brush her teeth! bring it on!
CDE open sourced! https://sourceforge.net/projects/cdesktopenv/
Howabout a cheap 64-bit workstation
How about good, functional perforations? There's nothing worse than trying to tear off a paper towel, and ending up with about 20 feet of it on the floor.
Or, Saran Wrap (TM) that gets mangled all to hell because the cutty strip is crappy.
"Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
Comment removed based on user account deletion
ntp (Network Time Protocol) for mobile phones.
All phones today have a built-in clock, and they are "on-line" all the time.
Ralph: "What time is it?"
(people looking at their phones)
Phil: "It's 10:13"
Clark: "No, it's 10:17"
Matthew: "No, mine says 10:15"
You hear it every day.
-skurk
www.6502asm.com - Code 6502 assembly or.. DIE!!
Why can't the technology in the cuecat device that Radio Shack was touting be incorporated into a microwave.. food manufacturers could print a bar code on their packaging and we could scan it... or brush it past a reader instead of the keypad...
then it would cook perfectly... everytime...
Shawn R.
smr@absaustin.com
You can usually press both buttons at once in alarm mode and it'll reset the alarm to midnight.
A hot water on demand system which heats with microwaves. The Union of Concerned Scientists recommends in The Consumer's Guide to Effective Environmental Choicesto heat water for tea and coffee in a microwave oven rather than on a stove for energy efficiency. I wonder if it's just as, if not more, efficient when scaled up for supplying hot water throughout the house in general use and heating.
Is this a crazy idea?
Anonymous Cowards shouldn't be allowed to post the first two minutes after a new article appears. No more wasting points moderating first posters down.
-skurk
www.6502asm.com - Code 6502 assembly or.. DIE!!
This news story describes a technology that vibrates a lollipop against the teeth... which gets transmitted to the inner ear, playing music. Pretty Neat. Combine that idea with a one of those vibrating head toothbrushes, and MP3, and you could blast plaque away with Metallica, just as Lars always intended. ;-)
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Yep, that's what I want...
Put a warm can of beer in, and 30 seconds to a minute later it comes out frosty cold!
Garg
Garg
Alumnus, Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters
He studied the shape of the vortex, he invented (all supposedly, of course) power generation devices, climate control devices, pipes that cleaned water, and it's said that the natzi's kidnapped him in WWII to have him build a flying saucer. Many think that he came damn close. He was a contemporary of the guy who's behind Biodynamic Faming, and Schauberger had a lot of research and ideas into agriculture, farming and composting. He had many interesting acomplishments in his time, and they called him the Water Wizard.
The books I've read about him have inspired me and some day I hope to recreate some of his experiments. A search on amazon will find several books about him, all of which are good, and a search on google will find more than the measly link I've provided. I'm sure someone who reads german could find most of his original works.
Anyway, the point is, maybe some of the most amazing inventions have already been surpressed once or twice (Tesla anyone?)
Cheers, Joshua
When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout!
On-demand, at-outlet water heaters have had several surges in popularity. I think my dad sold them (electrical ones) as a kid door-to-door in Knoxville (1950s), when many middle-class-and-below homes did not have running hot water, and neither did some wealthy ones. "Hot water? There's the stove, sonny!" That's how he took baths until the age of 4 or 6.
;)
;) (He scoffed at at that idea, pointing out that electricity at least in wealthy countries like the U.S. is quite reliable, and outages are not worth worrying much about.) So my reasoning is pretty much psychological; rationally, I like the on-demand system a lot. But boy, I'd like at least a backup tank of piping hot water for when the apocalypse knocks out the electrical grid, for one last long hot shower.
And if you look at old issues of Pop. Science / Pop. Mechanics (at least 70s / 80s), you'll see ads in the back for such systems, too. Whole Earth Catalog techno-hippy appropriate-technology types have been advocating them for a few decades as well
My dad and I talked about these recently; he can't understand why they're not popular here in the U.S., while hugely popular / widespread in Europe. I know the reason that *I* like to have a hot-water tank is that if a system fails while I'm in the shower, the water in the tank is already hot, and I won't get frozen
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Jogwheels are one of my favorite interfaces, I wish they were more widely used, and I think they would be a good way to approach the thumbliness of a good analog alarm clock. (I like the wind-up Westclox models ...) I'm interested in the new Powermate from griffin (http://www.griffintechnology.com/audio/pwrmate_fe atures.html) though I dunno if it's friendly with any free operating system. The idea is the thing! I'd like an alarm clock with a pseudo-analog face and a USB port :) Hook in your external jogwheel, set your time, set your alarm time, and boom :)
Lots of devices should have jogwheels (some of the following do already, but not enough for my taste) -- microwaves. thermostats. video cameras (not just some high-end VCRs). CD players. answering machines. car stereos. Assorted other dashboard controls, like interior illumination, dashboard illumnination, cruise control speed, radar detector sensitivity, etc etc.
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Not only did this clock exist with a 10-key keypad, but it went one BETTER - it had *digital* tuning, and you could punch in the frequency to tune to. This was the only alarm clock I've ever seen (besides Bose) that combined digital tuning with a vacuum-fluorescent display instead of an unreadable LCD. 12 FM and 6 AM presets.
It was made by GE in the 1970s and early 1980s; unfortunately, my drunk roommate destroyed mine when he broke it and tried to "fix" it. Greatest alarm clock ever built.
Oh, and it was called the "Great Awakening."
Just a thought
Simulated Artificial Neural Networks (software driven) are extremely slow when compared to hardware driven ANN, but as far as I know to Hardware driven neural networks can't be modified and reordered relinked etc.
I don't think the Field of AI will mature until after some self-modifying ANN chip and some drivers to use it is invented, and made available to the common PC.
What do you think It could attach to the main board and handle all (or at least a good deal of) AI required by the computer.
Or has this already been done?
MICROWAVE PLUS+
;) Not to mention the fact that other variables (crappy power, aging microwave ovens, even the temprature of the food before being cooked) would affect the "ideal" cooking time to enough of a degree to throw off any automated system.
;) ), and manufacturers have to cut costs to sell them cheap enough to compete. A ten-digit keypad, plus the two or three other controls to tell it what to adjust, would cost significantly more to design, implement, and manufacture than the two or three buttons most clock radios have now. If it was done, the model produced would cost more than similar models with three-button time setting systems. A few people would probably buy it for the convinence, but most would simply reach for the cheaper model sitting next to it. In any case, the time saving would be minimal. It takes me about 30 seconds to set my alarm clock to any time, not two minutes. If it "counts" too slowly for you when holding down the button, there's a very easy workaround: just hit the button once for each hour/minute you want to move. It's much faster than waiting for the clock to do it for you! ;)
;) )
:)
;)
;)
;)
;)
;)
;)
It would be nice, but unfortunatly, it just isn't practical.
Most modern microwaves have preprogrammed buttons for common generic food items (i.e. warm a muffin, defrost 1lb of meat, heat a cup of coffee, pop 1 bag of popcorn). These usually work reasonably well. Having these types of options for specific items, however, would be next to impossible. Since every microwave differs and every micro-meal differs, someone would have to test every possible micro-meal in every "Microwave +" microwave. The product wouldn't sell well unless it could handle a good portion of the microwaveable stuff out there. Go to your local grocery store's freezer someday and start counting products...it ain't pretty...
However...I suggest a compromise: a user-programmable microwave. Put a bigger LED display on there and let the user enter his or her favorite items into a list along with their cooking times. After you've cooked an item a few times, you know how long it will take in your microwave - so you program it in. When you want to cook it again, just select it from a menu or punch in a hotkey sequence, and off it goes!
PUNCH-IT-UP ALARM CLOCK
Again, a nice idea, but not likely to happen. Clock radios are cheap products (unless you wake up to a Bose WaveRadio or some such nonsensical item
BLIND DATA
This is a pretty clever idea! Privacy implications aside, it might actually be a workable and marketable item, especially in larger cities. (I doubt it would go over well in rural areas...when you can count the number of people you meet each day on your fingers and toes, you probably know most of 'em already
TIVOCORDER
This would be an interesting gadget, for sure! However, I think we're still a little ways away from the technology required to implement it (microphone, storage, simultaneous playback and recording from the same device without feedback or interference, and the power supply) in such a small package and make it affordable. Down the road, however, this could be very doable. Maybe we could even create a video version someday...now that would be a fun little toy!
MP-TEETHBRUSH
Cute, but redundant. Why not just wear your MP3 watch, cellphone, etc. into the bathroom with you?
INTERCOM-PUTER
It would be quick, convenient and simpler than software-based intercom systems, which require microphone and speakers for each PC.
Um...actually, it would be a USB-connected microphone and speaker with a software interface, unless someone figures out a way to make the USB port talk directly to the Ethernet port without stepping on normal network traffic...
Kind of an interesting idea, but there are so many other ways to implement a similar arrangement that don't require specialized hardware that it's hard to imagine it being very popular. What's wrong with ICQ?
FLUMAPPER.COM
Could be very workable on a community level, but it would require a *lot* of coordination to be implemented on a larger scale. Kind of pointless, too...by the time there are enough cases to register, it's probably too late
SNAPFLAT SCREEN
Not such a great idea, really. How could you come up with a single screen that attaches to all of those devices? Do you really want to wrestle with a Handycam and attached 14" TFT display, or surf the web via your laptop on a 2.5" camcorder LCD? How 'bout watching your new Lord of the Rings DVD on a tiny black and white Palm screen, or stuffing a 42" plasma display into your back pocket to look up phone numbers? There's a reason all those devices have proprietary displays; they were designed from the ground up to integrate with the products they are used on and fill the specific needs of those products.
Flat-panel displays will come down in price, like any technological product. Just have patience...
THE I-PODULE
Definatly the best idea on the list. However, development on high-capacity interchangeable storage media has been going on for some time, so I'd hardly call it new or in need of invention...
DennyK
Watching at TNC for how cops chaising bad boys I found that it would be much easier would they use a whale harpoon gun attached at the front of the police car.
Why don't they just combine NYT and /. registration into one UID? Microsoft will sell you a passport, I'm sure.
The lameness filter has some pretty low limits.
This would be the single biggest breakthrough. I must have a dozen or more clocks in my house and they are all set wrong/differently. I need only one to do the required 'timing' and the only one I can sync is my PC clock.
;-)
Make a central unit, get the manufacturers to agree on a standard (yes, this is the main problems) and they can all produce devices that run off the main unit or at least talk to it - is it really that difficult?
I guess it would be a PC, I guess we'd need a network but then I have a networked house but none of my devices (tivo, stereo, PCs, cooker, washing machine...) talk.
I have a timer that does the dishes and laundry during the night, I have timers in my heating system, in my tivo to record stuff and of course I have a really crappy one in my PC (and loads more). They all have different methods of being set and the only one I can control remotely is my PC.
My cooker has a great timer. Push a button and turn a dial to set it. Simple as that. Dial goes forwards and the time goes fowards, turn it back and the time goes back. Not intuitive but it works real great once you know what to do. I don't think this guy really wants a keypad, he just wants a better way. Keypads suck, I want to say "Computer, wake me at 10am with some gentle Nirvana"
It would be nice, but unfortunatly, it just isn't practical.
Why not? The food would contain a heating code and it would be up to each microwave manufacturer to ensure that their microwave will heat the food to those specs. Some microwaves it might take 5 minutes and others only 3, but it is up to the microwave to determine how long it will take based on the heating info of the product.
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?").
...
In Doctor Evil Voice: Back in the Sixties I invented a device called a "microphone"
It would be quick, convenient and simpler than software-based intercom systems, which require microphone and speakers for each PC.
Right... since every computer probably already has speakers and potentially a microphone, I'm sure it would be much easier and cheaper to go out and buy one of these USB gizmos to place next to every computer. This is the stupidest idea I've seen since the mp3 toothebrush.... oh wait.
a quick search at the US patent office:
= PT O2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=/netahtml/search-adv.htm&r=25&p= 1&f=G&l=50&d=ft00&S1=(microwave+AND+barcode)&OS=mi crowave+and+barcode&RS=(microwave+AND+barcode)
.. oh well
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1
seems this already exists since sept 2000 (patent # 6,124,583 )
It's been done, just not on sale in N. America
or anywhere outside Japan, yet.
GPS integrated into ordinary cellphones (well ordinary for Japan means color, Java, midi, etc) is in stores now. One model has a good digital compass; a few programmer friends were salivating recently). This model actually doesn't have Java but does have 65K color, 16 voice midi, automatic time setting (?), an advanced email client, and support for a plugin camera.
Check it out here, the latest model (notice the compass in the upper left corner). The page is in Japanese, but it notes that this model is a step ahead of other GPS phones. It has a "heading up" feature that tells when you turn and it rotates the map 90 degrees so that it is pointing the way you are walking. The heading says, "The GPS mobile phone that comes yet closer to a car navigation system".
I found the main page from Panasonic about it here which is much more detailed. Some pages want Flash but if you follow the links you will see a lot more about the different functions. Hmmm maybe I better pick one up..
Just read the PDF (again Japanese sorry) and it has yet more info.. the email client has 3d animated characters that make faces at you depending on the mail, and it plays games like soccer and there is a fishing game which lets you find a school of fish with the GPS at fishing holes all around Japan and then try to catch them. 102 grams, 132x176 pixels. Scared how much it's going to cost.
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.)
How could this audio device keep recording while playing back? It won't work. Here's why:
On an actual Tivo the unit continues to record content from the cable/satelite/antenna while the viewer watches the show from the hard drive.
On this "TIVOCORDER" it won't work that way. (Assuming the mic and speaker are both on the pen) If the user replays the audio from the pen while it is still recording, the pen will only record what is coming out of the speaker (and other backround noises but the speaker will make most of the noise.)
So, there isn't anything to gain by having the unit continuely recording even while playing back messages.
I know that it's a minor detail, but it is a Friday night and I'm here on Slashdot.
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
I have an alarm clock that has a small but managable number pad on it, just 2 simple little lines of numbers. That entire article was a big let down if you ask me. Sounds like our technology writer friend wrote his column in about 3 minutes before deadline after a week long bender... or maybe I just didn't like the article cause I am at work on a fscking friday night!
Lord, what fools these mortals be!
>A ten-digit keypad, plus the two or three other controls to tell it what to adjust, would cost
>significantly more to design, implement, and manufacture than the two or three buttons most
>clock radios have now. If it was done, the model produced would cost more than similar models
>with three-button time setting systems.
Well, look at cheap wireline phones . . . $10 for a 10-digit keypad, lots of electronics, packaging, advertising, etc. So the keypad wouldn't really cost much at all. I think it's a great idea.
are you ready - this dawned on me one day - because it only happens in some houses I've lived in and not others, but anyhow...
If your hot water tank temperature is REALLY HOT, then you will set your shower to be partially hot water, partially cold (say 70/30, whatever).
If your hot water tank is set at just above what you'd like to have for a shower, then you willl shower at 95-100% hot to cold.
(did that make sense?)
anyhow, in the 70/30 case, when someone turns on hot or cold water, it affects your 70/30 balance - bad.
in the 100% hot case, turning on other water in the house has no effect - you still have 100% hot (and it is still the same temperature, until you start to run out of water in the tank)
anyhow, if that doesn't make sense (who's got time to make sense these days) then just set you hot water tank at near perfect showering temperatures, and see how it works...
Someone, please explain this to me!
When I'm microwaving something late at night, the beeper is waay to loud. It's got a clock, it knows it's 2 in the morning, why doesn't it silence the beeper?
I thought the microwave that my parents got could solve the problem. It actually has a microphone. But, no, it doesn't use it to make sure the beep is an appropriate level - it uses it for a stupid voice recorder function. I mostly use it record sounds of small animals being microwaved (ribbit.... ribbit.... ribitribitribit!!) No! not actual animals!
Ok, so my parent's microwave has an appointment reminder. So, one night we were sleeping in the kitchen (don't ask) and needed to wake up early to catch a plane. We thought we could finally use this. We entered the time (keypad entry '3' '3' '0' 'AM'), and the day, and then it asked us what kind of appointment it was. Why'd it need to know? Who cares. We pushed the button for "doctor's appointment". It then responded "alarm set for 2:45am". Somehow, it determined that 45 minutes was the time needed to drive across town, find a parking space, and walk to rest of the way to the doctors office. I suspect that it had different times for different events, but we were too tired to try to figure it out. We canceled it and set it again for 4:15.
After my microwave is done, it'll beep every 2 minutes to remind me that my food is ready (it even says "food is done" - is that an undercooked chicken lawsuit waiting to happen?). But, as far as I can tell, it'll do this forever (my roommates haven't let me test this hypothesis yet). Even when my food is cold and dried out and totally unedible, it'll still beep. Maybe just beep a couple of times at 2 minute intervals, and then after it's cold, change to 20 minute intervals and leave the light on so I'll notice it when I'm good and ready.
Makes me long for the old-style microwaves with a "time" dial and a "power" dial, a start button, and a single bell when it's done.
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
I'm thinking that the microwave would be practical, but not the way you are thinking. You think that each product should have their own setting, but think of it as there are several thousand preprogrammed setting on the microwave when you buy it. Each product in the store then has a number on it, lets say 2854 cooking code, which could be 3:10 on 85% heat. The codes will always be in place, and would account for nearly every product, just enter a cooking code. Several products could use the same code.
Of course, standards have to be in place. Each oven would have to adjust their time to the power of the oven compared to the standard oven used. If something has to be from frozen, then the codes have to change, but that should be put on the product label. It definitely would work.
You idea of a decent digital camera must not be very decent IMHO. I'd have to say atleast $600.
I'm sure Bose or Bang and Olufsen has made a $300 clock that has a numeric keypad
I can believe that the piss-poor UI on clocks is due to cheapness, but I think $300 is just a tad on the high side for an estimate.
You can get a numeric keypad on a $14.95 el-cheapo phone that probably has just about as much electronics in it as a clock, barring the display panel (OTOH, the phone needs a mic and a speaker, not just a buzzer).
First, there's nothing innovative about the Intercom-puter. My girlfriend sits back-to-back with me at a PC that runs as an X terminal off my workstation. We chat, we plan, we argue--all over IRC. It would work just as well with e-mail or instant messaging.
Second, I was thinking the other day about the tremendous amount of energy wasted with stairs. What about making each stair move a half centimeter when stepped on and that movement translated into eletrical energy; perhaps by increasing the rotational speed of a fly wheel, or directly to a generator? In a private home, most stairs probably aren't climbed enough to make a difference, but what about at an instution? Or perhaps, tiles or pressure plates beneath a flexible floor (linoleum or carpet, for example) that translated the gravitational energy into electrical? Is this workable? Could it be done inexpensively enough?
Wil
wiki
I've seen better ideas at the half bakery and this list sounds way too seinfeld-ish to take seriously, but lets take a look.
MICROWAVE PLUS+
Sounds good on the surface, but microwave ovens suck in general so giving an exact time like "3 minutes and 12 seconds" will still leave some cold spots on the food and really hot spots somewhere else. Customer reps would get nothing but angry phone calls. At least VCR+ can deliver the goods. Except when the show runs late, gets preempted, etc but those are exceptions and for the microwave its all fuzzy logic.
PUNCH-IT-UP ALARM CLOCK
Nice, I wouldn't mind, but manufacturers might not like to add 8 or so new buttons especially if it'll raise costs, which it most likely will. Be smart when you shop, make sure you have both up and down for hour and minute and you'll be fine. What Clocks really need is a long-life battery to keep the time after the power's been cut.
BLIND DATA
This is the worst idea. How many american adults are bold enough to go up to a stranger and suddenly sex them up? Japanese teen culture is a bit different than American adult culture. What incentive would attractive people who get hit on left and right have to get one of these? Sounds like technology to help a social problem. Nice, but who wants to be with a socially inept person? I doubt many american parents would even let their teens own one. The stigma of video dating and the personals are going to apply to this as well.
Expect swingers and alt-culture types to pick this up. Though unless its incredibly cheap and considered a fad no one is going to pick it up.
TIVOCORDER
You would need to build an AMAZING microphone before this just delivered a lot of mumbling and static. You're also liable for all sorts of privacy no-no's. "Hey bob is recording our meeting on his pen!"
MP-TEETHBRUSH
Hehe. No comment.
INTERCOM-PUTER
This is stupid, I'm gonna blow money on some hardware when I can just 'net send' or IM. I can see it now, "Okay type in double-u double-u double-u yahoo dot com forward slash zee four..."
FLUMAPPER.COM
I don't think the author undertands how the flu works. Vaccinations are decided upon before any epidemic by their likelyhood of being the big bugs of the season by sampling sick people. When a patient has the flu that means he or she has any number of germs affecting them, not one that we can do a quick test for and shoot a vaccine over before school starts.
The map would be nice, but what would you do with it? Make sure to wear latex gloves and wash your hands every period? Eventually someone is going to want names of who is sick with what, and that's going to be a big mess. There's already a rash map for this strange rash epidemic going on now. Doesn't seem to be helping much.
SNAPFLAT SCREEN
Well, they'll stay expensive forever if no one buys more than one little screen every so often for every device. I can't imagine this handling the wear and tear and the kids are going to kill each other over who gets the screen when they get back from school.
THE I-PODULE
Cool idea, but its an old one. Currently, PDAs are the swiss army knives of the digital world. I'd rather see a small 50-100 meg device plugging into everything from ATMs to Coke machines than a 20 gig monster acting like an external SCSI drive that fits in your pocket. Its not worth the price of a mini-hard drive when they should be coming with the data hungry devices you've paid for.
Just a few notes on the Tivocorder. It would be very simple to have simultaneous playback and recording. Simply have the playback through an earpiece, and have the recording through something like a microphone clipped on the chest. And as for storage, simply use the I-Podule or other high-capacity unit. The iPod would actually be quite ideal, as its battery lasts the better part of a day, and the memory capacity means that the disk would only be active once every 20 minutes.
This has to be one of the stupidest things I've ever read on slashdot.
Actually I've stopped using my real alarm clock, and now I just use the alarm function on my cell phone--I can use the keypad to set the alarm, and the time is always correct, even if the power goes out in my apartment. I also tend to have it with me when I'm crashing at a friend's house and need to wake up at a particular time.
As far as I'm concerned, this cell phone (a Samsung 3500) is the best alarm clock I've ever had.
(* in the 100% hot case, turning on other water in the house has no effect - you still have 100% hot (and it is still the same temperature, until you start to run out of water in the tank) *)
You seem to be dooming our "hot" water to be "warm" only. I would probably be out-voted.
Interesting idea, though.
Table-ized A.I.
I have one of those "magic" VCRs that is supposed to automatically pick up the time. It does, sort of -- it's usually off, sometimes by 2 hours, sometimes by 8 hours... never seems to be right. But since I've gotten TiVo I don't really care anyway...
"Biped! Good cranial development. Evidently considerable human ancestry."
... you dont have that? Back here in the stone-age (a.k.a. Germany) weve had that for years. Search google for DCF77. A time signal is broadcast via radio. There are receivers for servers (serial cable), there are watches that receive the signal, and, of course alarm clocks. That means daylight savings time comes and goes and my alarm clock handles it all by itself.
Oh yes, that particular alarm clock also lets me enter times via a numeric keypad.
And what are we to think when the neighborhood priest's device goes off whenever little Jimmy goes by?
I don't want a microwave oven that goes strictly by time, whether I punch a time in or it reads the time off the package. I just want an oven that I put the food in, press the button, and it dings when the food is done.
All of 'em seem to have hot and cold spots, even with a turntable. Can't they be made to distribute the microwaves more evenly?
For defrosting, is there a wavelength of microwaves which is moderately absorbed by ice, and absorbed by water very little? Normal microwaves are more absorbed by liquid water than ice; the first part to thaw gets cooked while the rest stays frozen.
(The FCC, of course, has say-so about what frequencies you can use. I suspect ovens use frequencies determined by other factors than what's best for cooking. Perhaps rules could be relaxed for ovens designed to keep the microwaves inside better?)
Best of all would be if there was a way to sweep a beam of microwaves around the oven, and detect the temperature of the food in the beam. Concentrate the beam on the cold spots. Set a temperature, and it dings when the entire object is evenly heated to that temperature, without having to mess around with probes.
Combine with a convection oven and maybe one of those GE "cooking with light" things to brown the surface if desired.
For the Microwave+ it could work in a system similar similar to cddb. i.e.:
1) The user scans the barcode of the product (not a special cooking time barcode, just the usual produce barcode)
2) The microwave looks up this code with the central server (Of course the microwave would be connected to the internet!)
3) The central server would provide either cooking instructions, or a "not known" message
4) If cooking instructions are provided, then the oven does any adaptations it needs, and cooks the food. Otherwise it asks the user to manually enter the times as per usual (possibly asking what wattage the instructions say, so it can do its own translation), which it would submit back to the main database
5) After cooking, the microwave would pop up some kind of "was the food cooked ok?" message, which would allow it to report dodgy cooking times back to the central server
It would have to work on some kind of majority system (i.e. not just take the first submitted time as gospel, but instead take some kind of statistical average) but I don't see why this wouldn't work.
(A modification would be to make it download all the latest times and perform its submissions late at night, rather than having to connect to the server every time)
Help me! I'm turning into a grapefruit!
I have an analog (electric) alarm clock that runs on a D-cell. It runs about 3 years on one battery...
MSN 8: Now Microsoft even has bugs in their ad campaigns.
It wouldn't be too hard to come up with a microwave that can scan barcodes, which as far as I remember have unique product identifiers, but the fact is it would also have to know things like:
* are you putting the whole pack in ? Could be solved by having a weight sensor, but would also need to know about the weight of the plate or dish.
* are you using different items to make a meal ?
* do you want to cook it or just defrost it?
....
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
1: Microwave with thermal imaging camera, and a focusable beam, it would detect cold spots, and blast them. Also with a focusable beam, heating could start from deep within something like a chicken. The only draw back would be the incredible price.
2: Showers should have a peltier element to fine tune temperature, the thermo-static devices in most showers react to way to slowly.
I have an alarm clock with a numeric keypad, a pm button and an enter button to set the time. It works great and I bought it at the Ames department store near my house. I think I paid about $30 for it. It's the same size as any other basic ditigal clock. My only complaint is the klaxon-like alarm sound.
..men in black, get to know what I'm eating. Cash transaction aren't enough.
I don't want them finding out the odd combinitions I get cravings for in the middle of the night.
I understand his complaint about alarm clocks not having keypads. I don't really need one in my alarm clock. But I've noticed that most VCRs these days don't even let you punch in the start and stop recording times when setting the timer. (None of the last 3 VCRs I've bought allow it.) You have to use up and down arrows on the remote to select the recording times. It's completely stupid; it takes much longer to set the times, and there is an entire numeric keypad on the remote already! I assumed they started doing it to "dumb down" the process of setting the timer. But the VCR I had 10 years ago would let you just punch in the times using the numeric keypad, and it was much faster and easier in my opinion.
...The Flying Car.
That is all.
fuck all these inventions... where's the beef? I'd also add to this list a matter transmitter... all I've ever wanted for Christmas is a matter transmitter...
the Moller Skycar? http://www.moller.com/skycar/
Authentication is a useful part of any Internet protocol. That's how you prevent spoofing and unauthorized use of servers. (Authentication is already a part of existing time protocols.) And authentication nowadays is always based on encryption. End of conspiracy theory.
That being said, Microsoft DRM really sucks. It's badly engineered, and gives no thought to usability. No, wait, those are positive features, because they'll limit the technology's acceptance!
You're insane. That's a horribly complex system. What we need is a code that factors in the cooking time, power level, wattage and volume of the microwave.
"2256" on my microwave might mean 90% for 3 mins because I have a 1000W/1.2 cu ft. On yours it might mean 90% for 1:45 because you have a 1400W/0.8 cu ft. Either way the food comes out the same. It's like VCR+ - all the information's in the code. Does every TV show have its own code? No, but every time slot/channel/length does.
Your idea sounds like one of those unworkable undergrad projects you do when you first learn about the wonders of client-server. Completely impractical.
I'm happy with my microwave. I don't need to have all this connectivity and ease of use when it comes to a microwave. I've never had a problem cooking food with it. If it's undercooked, put it back in, but I've never really overcooked something in the microwave. After the first 5 times or so of using my new microwave, I learned how long to cook various foods based on the cooking directions.
To me this is a case of "we have the technology to do it, but do we need to?"
WWJD.... for a Klondike bar?
http://www.costco.com/frameset.asp?trg=product%2Ea sp&catid=354&subid=627&hierid=629&prdid=10017886&l og=
hanzie
********* sig: If you don't like the law, get filthy stinking rich, and buy a better one.
But if there's even *one* cellphone network in your area that broadcasts timesync, and if the protocols support receiving it without sending back reply packets, it should be pretty cheap to build a receiver that listens to it to incorporate in whatever device you want.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
[insert witty comment here]
The Geequalizer, a tension-adjustable pair of bike petals that can be put under the desk to work out while you work! (Note: Should only be used on casual Friday.)
The Hold-a-phone, a system designed to allow people that are in a holding queue on the phone to help each-other with problems (a-la an AOL support channel -- "oh yeah, I had that problem, just type Alt+F4").
and, of course, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a comprehensive thesaurus, dictionary, encyclopedia, map, and astral guide (for those sudden horoscopal urges), with optional PDA, MP3, Vorbis, digital camera, digital microphone, and tamagochi accessories.
[insert witty comment here]
My thoughts on why you would need both a cell and a pager is that you would have the pager be a part of the phone and be built into your Rolex wristwatch (or some even nicer, but most assoc. rolex with expens.), so that you can turn your phone off for meetings (even the vibrate), and not disturb anyone, yet have the watch [vibrate/shock/flash/beep softly/glow] when you have a new message || when someone calls. obviously this feature would be turnoffable, however, it would work on the same freq as the cell component.
:]
i think that what the high level poster is referring to is the phone out of The Saint (Val Kilmer), which takes has the kb built in. only, ya gotta build in the pocketknife first.
--drach out
2^3 * 31 * 647
In school we once had to do a project about a new made-up product. we 'invented' a 'freeze-o-tron' sort of an inversed microwave. It freezes foodproducts instantly.
Is it doable?: probably.
Is it usefull?: not really.
Rather than the car alarm ringing so the whole neighborhood can hear it, beep on just the owner's key-chain.
The car might still sound an alarm, but not the annoying nap-killing sounds they do now. How about just, "Warning: this car is sending a signal to alert the owner, Brutus, who owns a Winchester."
Table-ized A.I.
Sometimes when I am sitting somewhere, I want to scratch certain places that either I cannot reach, or would not be appropriate in public.
Thus, I envision a flat insect-like crawler that can be controlled to move to any spot under one's clothes to scratch.
It could be controlled by pressure pads under one's sleaves or perhaps near or on the belt.
Table-ized A.I.
It's done. The jpeg format has EXIF(Exchangeable Image File) information. Here's a page on it, and here's the actual EXIF spec (pdf). Check pg 62 for the GPS field info.
EXIF has fields for a wealth of information on settings, equipment, lighting, date/time, etc. Basically everything you could ever want to know about an image. This also includes a whole set of GPS fields, including lat, lon, alt, gps tag version, which satelites were used, speed of GPS unit, direction of image, and much more. Also has open comment/user defined fields, so you can put your own info in there for any purpose you want.
So the data format is there, you just gotta find the equipment to populate it. Another post mentions some Nikon equipment that does this; I'd be interested to hear which of the GPS fields it records for you.
"I don't know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve."
If CDDB can work, then I don't see why the system I described could not
Help me! I'm turning into a grapefruit!
Whether or not your camera can record it, your GPS can accumulate the data. Download it to your PC later using GPS Trackmaker.
I think it overlays it onto maps and stuff. Freeware version avail.
(Now if somebody will please buy me a D1X, I'll let you know how it works with that...:-) )
Heard this one on the Radio, Steve Wright in the afternoon.
....
A Sit on Hover Mower.
Imagine the racing series for this