Slashdot Mirror
Open Sourcing Innovation
Super_Z writes "Reading an old issue of The Economist, I came over this - whynot.net - a forum for ideas - effectively open sourcing innovation. Doing so, these ideas can hopefully be adapted faster and on a broad basis. Now if I can only get someone to take up and produce my radarguided laser mosquito trap."
I prefer the Half Bakery. All the innovation, half the feasibility!
I'm guessing the the "inspiration" for this project involved a random selection from a hat full of buzzwords. I'm getting fed up with people getting credit for adapting a paradigm such as open source and applying it to something you wouldn't normally associate it with. Just once I'd like to see a project such as this backed by examples of successful output.
Now if I can only get someone to take up and produce my radarguided laser mosquito trap.
That was my idea, it came to me right after the Hamburger Earmuffs!!
The only problem with a radarguided laser mosquito trap is that it will also fry whoever is being bitten by a mosquito at the time,
well thats not always a bad thing!
The Global Ideas Bank has been around for quite a while (in Internet time ;-)
:-)
There are several other, similar sites as well.
Is there a portal to such sites... yet?
1. Goto whynot.com
2. Steal idea
3. ???
4. Profit!
A nice community idea. The site seems /.ed so I can't check... but what prevents someone/some company with low moral standards heading over there, getting ideas and patenting them/slightly changing them and pretending they came out of the R+D department?
Good idea, but I am cautious.
Because the site is down!
.NET is embracing the Beast!
Or...Because using
Vote for global prefs bug
Did anyone else read the "open sourcing innovation" as "outsourcing innovation"?
Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
Just today, Australia's ABC had a program -
"In the National Interest" (avail via Audio
on Demand) on Open Source methods being
transplanted from S/W dev't to scientific
research in genetic engr'g, etc.
So... call it all the names you like...
it still seems to be doing some good, eg
giving folks in remote/isolated places of
developed countries or developing countries
opportunities to contribute to progress of
State of the Art.
It apparently works.
Slashdotted before 20 comments.. it must have been overwhelmed by free thought. Crashed by will power, be it.
Doing so, these ideas can hopefully be adapted faster and on a broad basis. Now if I can only get... ...a better server, people would flock by the millions!
The coolest voice ever.
Which is why "intellectual property" is such a bullshit concept.
Anyone can have good ideas, it's actually putting it into practice which is the difficult bit. Intellectual property implies that you can have an idea, patent it and then charge anyone who actually wants to put it into use. You should have to produce a *working* prototype for anything you want a patent on.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
radarguided laser mosquito trap? Oh thats nothing. My mosquito/fly trap: use the radar to detect the sector in which movement occurs, turn IR cameras in that direction and use them to get the exact position of the fly/mosquito. Now the biggest difference: I'd use low caliber, high RPM, pneumatic-powered Gatling gun. Sure it's not as cool as using lasers, but still provides a good challenge for precise calculations and movement prediction. Bullets could be easily molten and recycled.
but turning them into reality is brutally hard work.
Honestly: one lunch with some intelligent company and a little wine can produce enough ideas for five years' work. No big deal.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
There's no such thing as radar-guided laser mosquitos silly.
then won't need bullets. Of course you will need to be wearing your tinfoil hat when you use this.
They say it as if Open Source innovation did not exist before. Just cause Debian is a geezer nowadays doesn't mean it isn't dash cunning and clever of the Linux community
Keep the faith, share the code
Actually, your RFID tagging would show you that they send them to India for interpretation.
Should Exist has a very strong little commmunity centered on actually carrying out the ideas that they come up with. I seriously suggest checking them out.
The philosophy behind many of these "idea sites" is to make good ideas/products public so that do-gooders can realize them. If a corporate pirate steals an idea from such a site, it is only half of a crime. This is because, although they took the idea without permission, the product is eventually created - thereby achieving what the board sought in the first place.
This site has the ultimate security system
It crashes whenever somebody goes to it...nobody can steal their ideas.
See also http://shouldexist.org, for ideas that (well), should exist. :^)
Based on scoop (the same engine that runs Kuro5hin), and been running for a few years now. There's some neat stuff within there.
--Robert
The sonic-queued, solar-powered, multi-homed, focusing mosquito, wasp, bee and fly vapouriser was the creation of a lazy afternoon many decades ago.
One day I'll actually get around to building it; but only after my ......
....nope, you're not ready for that just yet.
Reason why I do not favour open source is because of what could happen if everyone chose open source. This could lead to noone making money off of producing software, which in turn leads to noone getting paid for writing it. So, I have to take a job where I can make money, just so I can write open source in my free time. Sucks, cause I do want to make money on my skills.
You wouldn't believe this but there is such research going on, using low cost techniques such as sonar, digital imagery etc. The problem is more of making sure you do not zap someone in the eye, as the human eye can mimic the flight pattern of a misquito, especially when tracking female rear assets.
Just a heads up.
...is bats with frick'n lasers strapped to their heads!
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. BB
For the idea to work in everyones favor I think, that we would need the government to restructure the ground rules for business such that companies found it advantageous to reward people for generating open source innovations. Otherwise its a self f*&k fest.
But once product or process ideas are published on whynot.com, this means nobody can turn around and patent the broadest form of the idea. Of course, engineers who implement the ideas can patent the specifics of their inventions, but they can't get a monopoly on what's been published.
Thanks for mentioning this. However the aim of the global ideas bank is 'soft' inventions, things that'll (hopefully!) improve society rather than patentable processes. It would be great to have a 'generous thought' portal to concentrate both types of thought.
On y va, qui mal y pense!
This is actually one thing most open-source lacks, unfortunately. Nobody seems to be interested in trying out new ideas.
I've been following Bowie Poag and the stuff he has been making recently. He has a bunch of idea he talked about for years, but now actually has the code to back it up with. He is the only guy I know who does anything diffrent, well, beyond the guys working on ElectricSheep , that is.
Some of it is really cool.
These ideas must be free of patents or patented in such a way that anyone can use these ideas in any product.
Then I will support the project.
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
We need a way to patent the ideas or protect our ideas from being patented.
Otherwise a site like that is useless. Currently it costs too much money to patent anything, so only the rich CEO can afford it.
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
Sharks with lasers on their heads!
For developers/inventors who would like to try to concieve and develop a product that requires the contribution of a large number of people, who do not have the support or money of large corporations, Open Source could well be the right way. The core of any product, is the *idea* that differentiates it.
says me, seun
There is another great Idea Board called SlipHead Design.
They have some pretty cool ideas on there and really seem to have the 'right feel' of what a good idea board should encompass.
Have you seen SlipHead.com? It is similar to Half-Bakery but the format is a bit better.
= 9J =
that has got to be the dumbest, most un thought out post Ive ever read. I have a feeling the guys working at Red hat are making money and getting paid...
Stixx
"Honestly: one lunch with some intelligent company and a little wine can produce enough ideas for five years' work. No big deal.
"
So how come you didn't come up with 'E=m*c^2'?
I've noticed this has gotten a flamebait. maybe because the moderator has forgotten thing like "E=MC^2". Something that most would agree is not only a good idea, but something the majority wouldn't have come up with.
Maybe we believe good ideas are easy, because we follow classic logic. "Breathing is easy because I breathe". Never mind that an ashmatic or other people with breathing diseases would disagree.
The fact that someone would have eventually came up with the equation doesn't make it easy, and it taking as long as it did, proves that it is NOT easy.
Compared to that, getting the world to accept "E=MC^2" was downright easy, especially with it's implimentation in The Bomb.
So yes "ideas" are easy, GOOD IDEAS are not so easy.
If all you do is write software you might not agree, but when you are trying to invent something, what goes down on paper is what is plausible, what might or should work and frankly that's often just bullshit which skims over the real showstopping implementation problems.
The need for a real working prototype which actually demonstrates that it can target and zap mosquitos successfully with a real laser would force inventors to actually go through the process of solving the many and real problems.
It would make it nearly impossible for patents to be overly broad.
It would mean that the patent would have to have enough *real* information in them for a competitor to build a working clone when the patent has expired.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
That's just the trap!
let's make a piece of software that assembles a mirror from google cache. Or wait, let's just float the idea and hope sb else does the work..
Innovation should be secret. If I invent something, only I should ever be able to profit from it. In fact, only I should ever be able to use it. Patents should never be published. In fact, even licensing inventions should be illegal. If you want to use something (say a wheel), you should have to invent it yourself. It's the only way you kids today will value all the hard work the older generations put into all this stuff that you think of as "commodities" today!
I approached these guys ages ago about their domain - intending to publish information about why Microsoft's .NET was a bad idea (mostly just the passport side of things which is now cactus anyway). It's good to see a domain I wanted put to good use, rather than a handful of others which are still placeholders or want $$lots which they'll never get.
Wow, doesn't take much to turn you on, does it? Try something with a centrefold.