Ten Inventions I Want To See

I confess I’m a reluctant technologist. I have a latent love for the stuff, but 90% of what gets bandied about as “the wave of the future” is about productivity, which I find funny, since I think our problem is quality, not quantity (we have 50+ million blogs, and how many excellent ones?). I often miss what whizzes by as the latest and greatest because I want the timeless stuff. Things so good they last more than a year, or crazy as it might sound, a lifetime.

And one day, instead of ranting to a friend and being all negative by just complaining about what isn’t, I made a list of inventions I wanted to see. Sure, they’re impossible, or betray various laws of physics, but so what. I’m turning all the filters off to see what happens.

Here they are:

Annoyance teleporter: A device that teleports annoying people into a small, dark, damp room with someone they find as annoying as I find them.
Garbage Destination: A picture on every garbage container of where the garbage placed inside actually goes.
Food ScanOmatic: A wand you wave over any food item that shows you where it originally came from, how it got to you, and which, if any, major food conglomerates were involved in its production.
TempColor: Pots, pans, plates and cups that change colors to show how hot or cold they are (spectrum of red for hot to blue for cold). Also for water faucets, coffee mugs, bathtubs, etc.
Travelrama light: A world travel stipend for every USA high school graduate. Sure, not an invention, but so what. Only 20% of Americans have passports. Is it any wonder we are often lost and clueless about how the rest of the world works? Most of us have seen almost none of it. We’d be collectively less stupid as a species if we all traveled more. And I’d start with the young: I’d make exchange programs near mandatory if I could.
UltraTravelrama: Instantly teleports everyone in the world to the place they most need to go, and teleport them back in a day. (Yes, includes auto-safety feature that wont teleport people in the middle of doing dangerous things, etc.)
Blabbermouth: Cell phone application that tells you what percentage of time you have been talking vs. listening per call, with lifetime and per contact stats.
Shop Idiot Remover: The requirement, by law, of a trapdoor at the front of the line of any busy Starbucks, Bagel or Sandwhich shop, that autodetects when the person at the front of the line is clueless, and moves them to the back of the line. (NYC does not need to install these – the staff thankfully do it themselves).
Worldo: A bracelet that tells you three things, updated in real time. 1) How much wealth you have 2) How much of the earth’s resources you consume 3) How happy you are. All are indexed against national and world averages (See GNH).
DreamPic: takes pictures of the things people see in their dreams. (I thought this was my own idea, until I realized I’d seen the movie Brainstorm, with Christopher Walken. So I’d want a dumb version of that device, that only takes pictures and only once per dream, ensuring people still have to interpret whatever they see in the picture).
ChildMinder: Gun you can fire at people that makes them instantly remember the happiest moment of their childhood. Also comes in hand grenade form.
Treetalking: A language for talking to trees and stones so they can tell us everything they’ve seen.
Comprehendo: An e-mail program that prevents people from replying to a message until they’ve actually read the whole thing.

Have some fun – forget constraints for a minute. What inventions are on your list?

Best invention gets a signed copy of Making Things Happen.

Posted Thursday, August 21st, 2008 at 3:36 am

in creative thinking, humor | 27 Comments » |

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Mal Ross - August 21, 2008 at 4:19 am #

G-Force simulator – a device you can turn on yourself (or others) to simulate the G forces you feel from any number of situations:
– driving round your favourite race track
– riding a rollercoaster
– taking off in a plane (still a thrill for me)

Just be wary of any car passengers you carry – if they think you’re driving too fast, they might threaten to simulate a crash at your current speed. ;)

DeltaTango - August 21, 2008 at 5:42 am #

Not entirely an invention but …
One day we were talking about which super-power each of us would like to have. And I came up with being the Education-Man: Every time parents telling bullshit to their children, I would appear out of nothing (perhaps in the guise of a stereotypical teacher), giving them parents a wedgie and teach the children how it really is.
Regrettably there’s high demand for such a super-power.

Jay Zipursky - August 21, 2008 at 6:14 am #

BusStopper – A device (radio or laser) that will signal the bus driver that you’re running like mad to catch HIS bus so he’ll wait for you. Perhaps it’s only available to monthly pass holders and built into the pass itself.

Drew Kime - August 21, 2008 at 7:10 am #

Yes-finder: A device that will tell you, for any question, who in the bureaucracy has the authority to approve the request so you don’t have to waste time with seven intermediaries.

justin akehurst - August 21, 2008 at 7:13 am #

I have a few inventions I would like to see in my lifetime.
1. An ultimate interactive whiteboard that can instantly save what was written to it, able to mirror to another whiteboard for instant collaboration across any distance that also doubled as a videoconference screen. This would be very useful to teleworkers and distant branch offices.

2. A social networking site that would be targeted to those that want to preserve family history. It could store photos, movies, stories, audio recordings. All of which would be cross referenced, geotagged, dated. Hear your great grandfather talk about a particular picture or event. Other family members add in their pictures and audio and would enrich the total history captured.

These two ideas are the ones that occupy my thoughts on what I would do if I had enough time to work on it.

Steve Walker - August 21, 2008 at 7:21 am #

RedundancyEliminator – A tool that ingests all the worlds information and only shows it to me once. Eliminates the 24/7 repetitive news and the thoughtless blog posts repeating the same info over and over. Must be smart enough to realize the same information stated in a different way and the same news stories from a different network. Also maybe a switch/checkbox for eliminating opinions. Would have to know what I’ve seen so I wouldn’t miss anything, but would prevent me from seeing the same thing twice. Think of the productivity gains! :)

Dwayne Phillips - August 21, 2008 at 8:09 am #

A Blessing Counter. A device on your wrist watch that counts your blessings and displays the count. It would need at least a 256-bit counter so that it wouldn’t over flow every week.

Ryan - August 21, 2008 at 8:33 am #

Warp Shoes: I enjoy my walk to work and frankly wish I could walk to anywhere in 15 or 20 minutes. You still get a good stretch, a pleasant view, the feeling of being outdoors and seeing other people, but it doesn’t take forever to go home for the holidays.

Anton Petrushenkov - August 21, 2008 at 9:23 am #

LifeModerator: BioChip that enables you to silent, kick or ban forever from your life anyone who’s disturbing too much. Lifetime warranty strongly recommended.

Meg Bear - August 21, 2008 at 9:33 am #

1) [I have a friend who shares this idea] Tivo for Radio
2) GPS+PDA+Person Locator+ Ski trail map — locate anyone on the mountain and figure out how to get to them

Percy - August 21, 2008 at 9:33 am #

1) TeleBlock: A cell phone application that will figure out when a telemarketer is calling and play an annoying noise (e.g. nails on the blackboard) instead of putting the call through.

2) AgentSmithMute: A device that will mute your annoying co-workers (a la Matrix) who insist on speaking in a loud voice across cubicles.

3) WaterPure: A device that will let you zap a glass of water so it’s drinkable.

4) TVFaves: A TV software program that will remind you when your favourite programs are on and even send you an SMS to your mobile, so you won’t forget. (Admittedly, with TiVo you may not need this but we don’t have TiVo (yet) in India)

5) TakeMeThere: A browser plugin that will click through those annoying flash intros (or ads) and take you to the web page automatically.

6) RoadSmile: A sensor on your vehicle that will figure out when you’re going to lose it because someone cut you off on the road and sends calming thoughts directly into your brain.

Loki - August 21, 2008 at 6:52 pm #

Auto-Dialer-Plus – a device that not only dials the correct number for you, but presses the necessary combination of options to let you speak not just to an actual human, but to that actual human’s immediate supervisor.

Mahesh T - August 21, 2008 at 11:38 pm #

Wireless Electricity: Would love to charge the laptop and mobile without wires going all around. Even better…A world without a need for Batteries!!

Memory Chips for Brain: So that we can store all the wonderful moments of Life in all detail and names of everyone we ever meet.

Sense Snapshotter: Capture all the senses. Now, we can store and replay only visual and audio. What about Smell, Touch and Feel, Taste? How do
we explain our friends the smell of rain on dry soil.

-Mahesh
Celebrating Life…

lasloo - August 22, 2008 at 9:09 am #

AnythingFinder When people ask me for the one superpower I would want… it would be the ability to find (and know all the relevant details) anything that someone was looking for. Now, realistically, most of the time I’d be using this superpower just to find my wallet, keys, and late library books!!

fabiobeta - August 22, 2008 at 12:14 pm #

MindThreader When I have a question/task I can do on-line, a copy of my mind is sent on the errand an gets back with the result and the memory of doing it.

modificator - August 23, 2008 at 12:44 pm #

Tracking Device. when some bullshit steals one of my important and expensive belonging, , i could track down where is that belonging now, buy using a miniature aerial, or sumthing like that, which could be “inserted” in that belonging. . .

motomom - August 25, 2008 at 12:50 pm #

Food ScanOmatic: A wand you wave over any food item that shows you where it originally came from, how it got to you, and which, if any, major food conglomerates were involved in its production.

It exists (pretty much). Perhaps only in prototype form.

Harv Griffin - August 26, 2008 at 10:09 am #

Enjoyed your list!

Here’s one more.

Teleportation Suppository, to automatically teleport feces out of the digestive tract. Put another Tel-Sup in the bladder, and toilets would become obsolete!
hg47

Carlos Rizo - August 30, 2008 at 2:27 pm #

Technology related:

Ctrl+Zetit: an invention to undo things in life that just happened to you. Broke an expensive jar at your inlaws’s house? No problem… just Ctrl+Zetit!

Blog-Knowledge-distillator : Don’t have lots of time to read your RSS feeds and the related comments? This invention will summarizes the most salient points and lines of thought of every conversation, not just the basic thumbs up or down. Then this ‘knowledge’ is added to Wikipedia for future refinement.

Health related:

SayWhatDoc? An invention that allows patients to translate whatever the heck their doctors are saying during the consultation, in real time.

Wehealth: a invention that informs chronically ill patients about their current health parameters, in real enough time, along with their financial situation through a live-feed, Bloomberg-style. Anxiety-meter sold separately.

Lawful-net-tapping: an invention, within the privacy regulation, to allow people to listen or view your live text (SMS, Chats), voice (phone) or video (teleconference) so they can, perhaps, offer some advice. Ideal for big metropolis where people don’t know their neighbors.

More family oriented:

WhyDaddyWhy: an invention for toddlers, well not really…it is an invention for their parents who sometimes are clueless about how to respond to some of their kids’ questions.

What’sthat: a device to be used only by infants who’s parents are exhausted of interpreting the world to them. Yes, it sounds awful so it should be sold only to parents with more than five kids.

Family-IQ: an invention that allows families to preserve the lessons learned during life of their long gone loved ones as part of the familiar-intelligence.

nobody - August 31, 2008 at 11:19 pm #

erm … I think you’ll find “4. TempColor” already exists, and has done for quite a while. I’ve seen it used on pans, stovetops, cups, plates. .. And I’ve seen glowing red/blue for hot/cold faucets at thinkgeek (even for the shower).

Chiquita - September 4, 2008 at 10:50 pm #

InterCommunicator: A universal translator that goes beyond the words, but understands what the other person really thinks about what you are saying, and what they really mean in response. Cuts through the ambiguity and aids in real communication!

Ian - September 5, 2008 at 3:59 pm #

There’s a lovely website that devotes itself entirely to this idea: http://www.halfbakery.com. It used to be one of my favourite sites (I spent waaaaay too long on it) but a few years back they had a crash and lost their entire archive. Most of the joy of the site was the comments that people added about the ideas being suggested, and sadly a lot of that was lost… It’s still a fun site though.

Chuck Floading - October 16, 2008 at 8:15 pm #

Hey, somebody already invented the light sensor thing that tells you if your tap water is running hot or cold. It’s called the Glow Flow. Not 100% what you wished for, but close.