If your in an area with mosquitoes you probably don't like them.
In case you haven't seen the commercials, apparently there is some new type of mosquito repellent that you don't spray on. You just clip it on (Link: http://www.off.com/clip-on-mosquito-repellent/).
I haven't tried it yet, but it seems like a pretty good idea if it works. But what about when your not spending a significant amount of time outside? What about when you run out real quick to grab something from the car? Even if you don't get bitten there is a bigger problem. It seems like no matter how short the time, mosquitoes fly in while your door is open. The only thing more annoying that being bitten while outside your house is being bitten while inside your house.
It seems someone could retrofit those OFF clip on spray things such that they could be mounted above a door. A motion sensor would trigger it whenever the door is being used. The idea would be to create a screen of repellent across the door. Perhaps you would still be bitten while outside, but at least they wouldn't get inside.
I suppose it could even be designed to 'mist' repellent on people on their way out the door. This way you wouldn't get bitten if you didn't think about putting on repellent. The mist likely wouldn't be too good of a covering so it would only be helpful for quick trips in and out. I'm not as sure about this feature though, because its not necessarily pleasant being covered in bug repellent (which is I assume part of the reason off is making clip on repellents).
Even if the mister feature where not to be implemented, I still think the basic idea would be pretty nifty. I hate seeing that I have let mosquitoes into the house when I open the door and humans need a little extra defense.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Car Logins
If you share a car with other people, for example family members, then you probably know that it can be annoying to have to readjust the seat, mirrors, and sometimes radio presets every time you drive.
Well many keys have anti-theft chips installed in them. Many luxury cars have the side windows and seats on electric control.
Imagine if each driver had their own key that was color coded (to avoid mixup) and a small identification chip. When they turn on the car, the seats and mirrors could automatically readjust to wherever they were set the last time that same key was used to start up the car. Likewise each key could have its own set of radio presets.
Its almost like logging into a computer with a personalized desktop.
This wouldn't be hard to do. Just put a bit of memory storage in the car, and ensure that the seat and window controls are wired into the a central computer system.
If car companies really wanted to get fancy the information would be stored in the keys and be inter-compatible between cars. Perhaps a hypothetical 5 person family with 3 cars would then have 5 keys, 1 for each family member. Your presets could follow you around from car to car (separate seat adjustment data would likely be stored with each car). A particular car company offering such a feature would create incentive for families to purchase more than one car from that manufacturer.
You wouldn't need to share presets, or fiddle with the seat. Each and every time you drive things could be just the way you would like it.
Well many keys have anti-theft chips installed in them. Many luxury cars have the side windows and seats on electric control.
Imagine if each driver had their own key that was color coded (to avoid mixup) and a small identification chip. When they turn on the car, the seats and mirrors could automatically readjust to wherever they were set the last time that same key was used to start up the car. Likewise each key could have its own set of radio presets.
Its almost like logging into a computer with a personalized desktop.
This wouldn't be hard to do. Just put a bit of memory storage in the car, and ensure that the seat and window controls are wired into the a central computer system.
If car companies really wanted to get fancy the information would be stored in the keys and be inter-compatible between cars. Perhaps a hypothetical 5 person family with 3 cars would then have 5 keys, 1 for each family member. Your presets could follow you around from car to car (separate seat adjustment data would likely be stored with each car). A particular car company offering such a feature would create incentive for families to purchase more than one car from that manufacturer.
You wouldn't need to share presets, or fiddle with the seat. Each and every time you drive things could be just the way you would like it.
Monday, June 28, 2010
Life Club
I was at the health club the other day and thinking about how it could be so much more.
Rather than a place you just go to exercise it could be a place you go to better your whole life. It could be made into a place where you would want to spend your spare time and want to hang out.
This post is basically how I would set up my hypothetical life club.
When you check in at the front desk you would be given a pedometer / heart rate monitor. This would help keep track of your physical activity.
The gym portion of it would be pretty similar to most health clubs. The cycle bikes would power little generators (something some gyms already do) to promote greener thinking.
Also like many gyms there would be a little cafe. The cafe's menu would be designed to promote healthier eating. A twist would be that one could receive a discount on his or her purchases there based on his physical activity (as measured by the heart rate monitor and pedometer). This would help provide that little extra motivation to really push yourself in the gym.
But the whole point of the life club is that it doesn't stop at just the gym. It's like if a gym ate a community center. There would be a club garden where club members could sign up to get a little plot of soil to tend to. An activity room with an air hockey and foozball table. A small theater that could sit maybe fifty people. They would show a movie each day (likely something old to keep the licensing down). There would be other rooms with tables and chairs that you could check out to use for a party or just hang out.
Then there would be classes. Offering classes is nothing new to health clubs, but the range of the class topics would be increased. You could register for a gardening class or a healthy cooking class for example. Almost like an adult education center.
For younger members there could be a tutoring center. In some cases these tutors could be other members. There could even be a supervised play area to allow parents to drop off their kids before going and working out.
Regular social events could be planned. Socials or perhaps competitions depending on the interests of the members. I imagine the atmosphere being a bit similar to that of college.
And things would not necessarily need to end at the club. A persons physical activity (once again monitored by the pedometer / heart rate monitor) could be logged online. That person could then login to his account on the club's website to see this. A parent could track their child's workout and offer various rewards at home.
Now here is the key: marketing. You couldn't see this thing as just a health club with more. To many people pass up on extras their health club offer. It would need to be marketed as a complete package. If the majority of the members are not using these extra services, the effort failed. If the majority of the members are not socializing and learning from one another, the effort failed.
Such a center would be pricier than a regular health club. However, this may make it difficult for people who then want to register for a class or something that may have an additional cost. The way around this is to up the base membership price by a small amount, but then make that include one free class per season. Further incentive would be to offer membership discounts based on physical activity in the gym or perhaps participation in social events.
Now this may not seem like a good business move, but I feel that it would keep people attending and keep them involved. If they are making use of your facilities they are less likely to cancel their memberships. Too many companies focus on recruitment rather than retention.
Something like this may flop. People might not be willing to sign up, they might not make use of their memberships, they might cancel their memberships, they might not care about some of the facilities; there is any number of ways in which this could fall flat on their face. But if someone had a bit of investment capital and is willing to take a risk, it seems like it could at least be worth a try.
Rather than a place you just go to exercise it could be a place you go to better your whole life. It could be made into a place where you would want to spend your spare time and want to hang out.
This post is basically how I would set up my hypothetical life club.
When you check in at the front desk you would be given a pedometer / heart rate monitor. This would help keep track of your physical activity.
The gym portion of it would be pretty similar to most health clubs. The cycle bikes would power little generators (something some gyms already do) to promote greener thinking.
Also like many gyms there would be a little cafe. The cafe's menu would be designed to promote healthier eating. A twist would be that one could receive a discount on his or her purchases there based on his physical activity (as measured by the heart rate monitor and pedometer). This would help provide that little extra motivation to really push yourself in the gym.
But the whole point of the life club is that it doesn't stop at just the gym. It's like if a gym ate a community center. There would be a club garden where club members could sign up to get a little plot of soil to tend to. An activity room with an air hockey and foozball table. A small theater that could sit maybe fifty people. They would show a movie each day (likely something old to keep the licensing down). There would be other rooms with tables and chairs that you could check out to use for a party or just hang out.
Then there would be classes. Offering classes is nothing new to health clubs, but the range of the class topics would be increased. You could register for a gardening class or a healthy cooking class for example. Almost like an adult education center.
For younger members there could be a tutoring center. In some cases these tutors could be other members. There could even be a supervised play area to allow parents to drop off their kids before going and working out.
Regular social events could be planned. Socials or perhaps competitions depending on the interests of the members. I imagine the atmosphere being a bit similar to that of college.
And things would not necessarily need to end at the club. A persons physical activity (once again monitored by the pedometer / heart rate monitor) could be logged online. That person could then login to his account on the club's website to see this. A parent could track their child's workout and offer various rewards at home.
Now here is the key: marketing. You couldn't see this thing as just a health club with more. To many people pass up on extras their health club offer. It would need to be marketed as a complete package. If the majority of the members are not using these extra services, the effort failed. If the majority of the members are not socializing and learning from one another, the effort failed.
Such a center would be pricier than a regular health club. However, this may make it difficult for people who then want to register for a class or something that may have an additional cost. The way around this is to up the base membership price by a small amount, but then make that include one free class per season. Further incentive would be to offer membership discounts based on physical activity in the gym or perhaps participation in social events.
Now this may not seem like a good business move, but I feel that it would keep people attending and keep them involved. If they are making use of your facilities they are less likely to cancel their memberships. Too many companies focus on recruitment rather than retention.
Something like this may flop. People might not be willing to sign up, they might not make use of their memberships, they might cancel their memberships, they might not care about some of the facilities; there is any number of ways in which this could fall flat on their face. But if someone had a bit of investment capital and is willing to take a risk, it seems like it could at least be worth a try.
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Safer Lawnmowers
Lawnmowers are essentially giant whirling death blades with nothing to prevent non-grass things from 'falling' into them.
A lot of electric razors have metal meshes designed to pull in hairs, but keep the blades away from the skin. Something like this could work well on a lawnmower. The holes in the mesh could be fairly large. They would need to be just small enough to make it hard to stick your finger through.
Not only would this reduce the chance of people having unfortunate accidents with lawn mowers but it could also reduce the chance of other problems. It would be a lot harder to run over a lawn hose for example. Rocks and branches wouldn't get sucked up and spit out.
To get it to work, the grill should not be horizontal, but rather at a slight angle to help catch the grass rather than just push it down.
Such a device could be sold in a kit that could be retrofitted to existing lawn mowers or come pre-attached.
With safer lawnmowers it could become more reasonable to have automated Roomba like lawnmowers without worrying about them killing us all.
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Glow in the Dark Lampshades
So this idea could be annoying, but I could also see it being pretty cool.
I would like to see some lampshades that could glow in the dark. Either the whole thing could glow, or patterns (that would be invisible under regular light) would glow.
It is basically a way that your lampshade could 'store' some light that might be wasted otherwise. Then when you turn off the lights they could provide a 'nice' ambient lighting. It could also be a helpful way of finding the lamp in the dark.
Artistically you could even do some interesting things on the lamp shade. For example you could have a normally visible floral paten of unblossomed flowers. The glow in the dark patter would then show the flowers unfolding.
Though as I said, it could be annoying. Sometimes when you turn off a light, its because you want it to be dark. But in limited situations, I could see such a thing being a nice addition to a home.
Friday, June 25, 2010
Identification and the Intenet
We trust the government to do a lot of things. One of these things that receives little objection and that we do not think about is identification. Society relies on birth certificates, social security numbers, and drivers licenses to identify individuals.
However none of these help much with identification on the internet. You can not see these 'documents' in person to assure their authenticity and you can not look at the person to make sure their picture matches.
Yet identification is of critical importance on the internet.
If a person is banned from a forum, nothing is really to stop them from just creating a new profile. Online polls can be spamed by the same person over and over again. The ease of having dummy accounts leads to an increase in spam.
But at the same time anonymity is valued on the internet. Well I put forward that we can have the best of both worlds.
Image that the federal government instituted a Internet ID or IID service. To register you would need to go in person to your DMV. You would create a username and password that would then be associated with your identity.
Now if a website wanted to check your IID, they would have a button on their signup page while you are filling out the signup form. The button would redirect you towards the governments IID website. There you confirm your identity and the IID site sends back either an 'ok' or 'not ok' message to the original site. The IID will only send an 'ok' message if two things happen:
1) The IID site is able to verify the users identity.
2) The IID site checks a database checks a database to determine if the user has already created a profile on the site.
All the original site knows is if the IID site was able to confirm your identity. They don't know who you are, but they know that this is your first time creating a profile. They are never exposed to your IID profile name or password. You are still anonymous.
Using this would not be required. It would simply be a service offered up by the government. Websites may choose to make it a mandatory part of their registration process, but that is up to them.
I suspect private companies have likely tried doing something like this before. The problem is, the system needs to be unified and trustworthy if people are going to bother signing up for it. Hopefully people would not be worried about the government selling their personal information (because it all ready has a lot of it).
People could even create some sort of public profile that could sit on top of their IID. They would not need to use their real name, but this profile (essentially a 2nd username and password) would be tied to their IID. Sites that support this Universal IID (UIID) could allow people to login in with their UIID without first registering at the site. Personally I hate having to register at a site I am only going to use once. This would help mitigate this annoyance.
Now there is one problem with this proposal. The 'www' part of most urls. The internet is world wide. If a website required an IID verification to login, then citizens of other nations would have no way of logging into the site. If they allowed people not from the US to register without an IID, then what is the point of the whole thing.
If we allowed other nations to participate in the IID system we would need to ensure that they are being rigorous about checking people's identity when they first register. If they were being lax in this the entire system would be undermined.
I do not know how to deal with this problem. Perhaps I could think of a way with enough thought. It may also be that there is no way to implement such a system without isolating our websites from the rest of the world. And that would certainly not be acceptable.
However none of these help much with identification on the internet. You can not see these 'documents' in person to assure their authenticity and you can not look at the person to make sure their picture matches.
Yet identification is of critical importance on the internet.
If a person is banned from a forum, nothing is really to stop them from just creating a new profile. Online polls can be spamed by the same person over and over again. The ease of having dummy accounts leads to an increase in spam.
But at the same time anonymity is valued on the internet. Well I put forward that we can have the best of both worlds.
Image that the federal government instituted a Internet ID or IID service. To register you would need to go in person to your DMV. You would create a username and password that would then be associated with your identity.
Now if a website wanted to check your IID, they would have a button on their signup page while you are filling out the signup form. The button would redirect you towards the governments IID website. There you confirm your identity and the IID site sends back either an 'ok' or 'not ok' message to the original site. The IID will only send an 'ok' message if two things happen:
1) The IID site is able to verify the users identity.
2) The IID site checks a database checks a database to determine if the user has already created a profile on the site.
All the original site knows is if the IID site was able to confirm your identity. They don't know who you are, but they know that this is your first time creating a profile. They are never exposed to your IID profile name or password. You are still anonymous.
Using this would not be required. It would simply be a service offered up by the government. Websites may choose to make it a mandatory part of their registration process, but that is up to them.
I suspect private companies have likely tried doing something like this before. The problem is, the system needs to be unified and trustworthy if people are going to bother signing up for it. Hopefully people would not be worried about the government selling their personal information (because it all ready has a lot of it).
People could even create some sort of public profile that could sit on top of their IID. They would not need to use their real name, but this profile (essentially a 2nd username and password) would be tied to their IID. Sites that support this Universal IID (UIID) could allow people to login in with their UIID without first registering at the site. Personally I hate having to register at a site I am only going to use once. This would help mitigate this annoyance.
Now there is one problem with this proposal. The 'www' part of most urls. The internet is world wide. If a website required an IID verification to login, then citizens of other nations would have no way of logging into the site. If they allowed people not from the US to register without an IID, then what is the point of the whole thing.
If we allowed other nations to participate in the IID system we would need to ensure that they are being rigorous about checking people's identity when they first register. If they were being lax in this the entire system would be undermined.
I do not know how to deal with this problem. Perhaps I could think of a way with enough thought. It may also be that there is no way to implement such a system without isolating our websites from the rest of the world. And that would certainly not be acceptable.
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Volunteering for Tax Refunds
What is more important, a persons money or time? I would argue without a doubt time. Everyone has the same amount of time and there is not good way to gain more. You can 'free up' time but you are still confined to 24 hours a day. And in the end time can be converted to money. You can do more with it.
So why is it that society rewards those who donate money more than it does those donating time? Giving a donation to a charity gets a person a nice tax break, whereas volunteering provides no real external benefits (there are internally motivated benefits).
Just as people receive tax benefits to donating money, they should receive a benefit for donating their time.
Now there are some difficulty with this. It is easy to know if someone has donated money. The IRS simply needs to follow the paper trail. Methods would need to be put into place to allow people to 'prove' how many eligible hours of volunteer work they performed. I'm not sure what the best answer to that is and would need to think more on the problem.
I just used the words 'eligible hours.' I did this because not all 'volunteer' work should count. This should not be too large of a surprise, not all 'donations' count equally. So what types of volunteer work are we talking about.
There is volunteer work like assisting at a soup kitchen, sorting food donations, and assisting at a nursing center. These amount of time people put into this type of work would at least be traceable with a bit of paperwork. They also provide a clear benefit to society.
But we can take it a step further. Lawyers could do work pro bono and doctors could put in time at free clinics. There is no reason to disallow people from using their talents and abilities to help.
This could also apply to public servants. Police officers, firefighters, teachers, ect putting in overtime could have this overtime go towards a tax break. Now this tax break would 'reduce' the government's income, but it would also reduce their operating costs in paying overtime in this example.
You could also imagine public works projects being arranged where the construction workers are earning tax benefits.
Overtime this could encourage more people to volunteer while helping to provide valuable service to those in need. As time progressed we could end up with a society more focused caring for their fellow man. Even if there are not any major societal changes made, at least some good is being done.
If you really wanted to take things to an extreme the government could start raising taxes and raising volunteer benefits. Employers could institute volunteer programs where their employees can put in extra time using the companies equipment and where the product is going to help society (the employer would likely get a tax break from this).
Volunteering can tend to help people's feeling of self worth and esteem as well as giving them a chance to hone or improve certain skills. So these types of tax breaks basically encourage people to improve themselves and their community around them.
So to summarize, offering tax breaks in return for volunteer work could have affect a great change on society. And even if it did not really change anything on a large scale, at least it is rewarding people who are doing good work. And if it does encourage more people to volunteer, even if they aren't changing the world, they are still benefiting personally.
So why is it that society rewards those who donate money more than it does those donating time? Giving a donation to a charity gets a person a nice tax break, whereas volunteering provides no real external benefits (there are internally motivated benefits).
Just as people receive tax benefits to donating money, they should receive a benefit for donating their time.
Now there are some difficulty with this. It is easy to know if someone has donated money. The IRS simply needs to follow the paper trail. Methods would need to be put into place to allow people to 'prove' how many eligible hours of volunteer work they performed. I'm not sure what the best answer to that is and would need to think more on the problem.
I just used the words 'eligible hours.' I did this because not all 'volunteer' work should count. This should not be too large of a surprise, not all 'donations' count equally. So what types of volunteer work are we talking about.
There is volunteer work like assisting at a soup kitchen, sorting food donations, and assisting at a nursing center. These amount of time people put into this type of work would at least be traceable with a bit of paperwork. They also provide a clear benefit to society.
But we can take it a step further. Lawyers could do work pro bono and doctors could put in time at free clinics. There is no reason to disallow people from using their talents and abilities to help.
This could also apply to public servants. Police officers, firefighters, teachers, ect putting in overtime could have this overtime go towards a tax break. Now this tax break would 'reduce' the government's income, but it would also reduce their operating costs in paying overtime in this example.
You could also imagine public works projects being arranged where the construction workers are earning tax benefits.
Overtime this could encourage more people to volunteer while helping to provide valuable service to those in need. As time progressed we could end up with a society more focused caring for their fellow man. Even if there are not any major societal changes made, at least some good is being done.
If you really wanted to take things to an extreme the government could start raising taxes and raising volunteer benefits. Employers could institute volunteer programs where their employees can put in extra time using the companies equipment and where the product is going to help society (the employer would likely get a tax break from this).
Volunteering can tend to help people's feeling of self worth and esteem as well as giving them a chance to hone or improve certain skills. So these types of tax breaks basically encourage people to improve themselves and their community around them.
So to summarize, offering tax breaks in return for volunteer work could have affect a great change on society. And even if it did not really change anything on a large scale, at least it is rewarding people who are doing good work. And if it does encourage more people to volunteer, even if they aren't changing the world, they are still benefiting personally.
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Redesigning Car Seats
Today's idea might seem a bit silly at first read. But give it a chance and think about it.
Why in the world are car seats built in a manner similar to couches?
Couches are both heavy and bulky.
Now I must admit that I had been impressed with the way that seats in some modern vans can fold into the floors. But they are still taking up a fair bit of space in those compartments.
My proposal is to make car seats more like folding chairs.
If you own a van, go out and remove your seats. Then drop some folding chairs in there. You might make a few observations. The could easily be divided into a pros and cons.
Pros:
1) There is more leg room.
2) They fold up easier and take less space.
Cons:
1) It seems pretty dangerous.
2) It is less comfortable.
First to explain the pros. Folding chairs have a lot less structural material to take up space: less cross beams, less springs, and less foam (ultimately I think it is the foam padding that takes up the most space). This opens up more feet for peoples legs, or to just tuck 'cargo' underneath. In the event you need to put something large in your car, these seats fold up to a very small space compared to the giant car seats that you currently used. The size of these things means they could even be used in sedans.
There is actually one other pro I didn't mention. These seats would be easier to clean. Couches (and seats by extension) have nooks and crannies thats hard to vacuum. And getting underneath them can be equally as hard.I leave it to the reader to imagine how easy it is to clean the floor of your car if all the seats fold up.
But what about the cons? First I will address the comfort issue. I have sat in some pretty comfortable folding chairs. Now I am not talking about folding metal chairs, but some of chairs are these fabric affairs that are actually pretty comfortable. Some of them even have cup holders. Then there is no reason the angle of the back could not be adjustable. The amount of tension in the fabric could even be adjustable to change the stiffness. That's not something you can do with car seats. Ultimately it is just my opinion but I feel that these chairs can be just as comfortable as car seats.
Now there might be an issue with suspension. I imagine the undercarriage of car seats help them dampen vibrations in the car and deal with bumpy roads (if not someone should look into this). Well there are various methods in which the fabric tension in the chairs could be dynamically adjusted to achieve this affect.
So what about safety. Obviously a method would need to be designed to secure these chairs to the floor. This could make it 'safe' during normal driving conditions. But what about accidents. In a bad accident the structural integrity of the cars fame is compromised. I imagine that the seats integrity would provide some additional safety. So obviously we would want to make our seats out of some strong material. Likewise, pretty much anywhere you already have supports on your seat, you could add additional supports parallel without significantly increasing the size. In fact, I could imagine that in certain accidents this system could potentially be safer. Adjusting the tension in the fabric (and thus stiffness of the seat) when an accident is detected could help in certain situations.
Ultimately I will admit that making this and ensuring passenger safety would require a lot of testing and good old fashioned trial and error.
Now there may be one final objection. Say you have duck-taped a bunch of folding chairs to your car. It looks pretty tacky. Few people would want to use this if it looks ugly. Well thats simply a matter of designing the chairs to match the interior. Put some sleek curves into the frames and add some plastic casing to hide ugly parts. People would still be resistant to adopt something so 'new' but that's a problem for the marketing department.
Why in the world are car seats built in a manner similar to couches?
Couches are both heavy and bulky.
Now I must admit that I had been impressed with the way that seats in some modern vans can fold into the floors. But they are still taking up a fair bit of space in those compartments.
My proposal is to make car seats more like folding chairs.
If you own a van, go out and remove your seats. Then drop some folding chairs in there. You might make a few observations. The could easily be divided into a pros and cons.
Pros:
1) There is more leg room.
2) They fold up easier and take less space.
Cons:
1) It seems pretty dangerous.
2) It is less comfortable.
First to explain the pros. Folding chairs have a lot less structural material to take up space: less cross beams, less springs, and less foam (ultimately I think it is the foam padding that takes up the most space). This opens up more feet for peoples legs, or to just tuck 'cargo' underneath. In the event you need to put something large in your car, these seats fold up to a very small space compared to the giant car seats that you currently used. The size of these things means they could even be used in sedans.
There is actually one other pro I didn't mention. These seats would be easier to clean. Couches (and seats by extension) have nooks and crannies thats hard to vacuum. And getting underneath them can be equally as hard.I leave it to the reader to imagine how easy it is to clean the floor of your car if all the seats fold up.
But what about the cons? First I will address the comfort issue. I have sat in some pretty comfortable folding chairs. Now I am not talking about folding metal chairs, but some of chairs are these fabric affairs that are actually pretty comfortable. Some of them even have cup holders. Then there is no reason the angle of the back could not be adjustable. The amount of tension in the fabric could even be adjustable to change the stiffness. That's not something you can do with car seats. Ultimately it is just my opinion but I feel that these chairs can be just as comfortable as car seats.
Now there might be an issue with suspension. I imagine the undercarriage of car seats help them dampen vibrations in the car and deal with bumpy roads (if not someone should look into this). Well there are various methods in which the fabric tension in the chairs could be dynamically adjusted to achieve this affect.
So what about safety. Obviously a method would need to be designed to secure these chairs to the floor. This could make it 'safe' during normal driving conditions. But what about accidents. In a bad accident the structural integrity of the cars fame is compromised. I imagine that the seats integrity would provide some additional safety. So obviously we would want to make our seats out of some strong material. Likewise, pretty much anywhere you already have supports on your seat, you could add additional supports parallel without significantly increasing the size. In fact, I could imagine that in certain accidents this system could potentially be safer. Adjusting the tension in the fabric (and thus stiffness of the seat) when an accident is detected could help in certain situations.
Ultimately I will admit that making this and ensuring passenger safety would require a lot of testing and good old fashioned trial and error.
Now there may be one final objection. Say you have duck-taped a bunch of folding chairs to your car. It looks pretty tacky. Few people would want to use this if it looks ugly. Well thats simply a matter of designing the chairs to match the interior. Put some sleek curves into the frames and add some plastic casing to hide ugly parts. People would still be resistant to adopt something so 'new' but that's a problem for the marketing department.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Preparing our Cars to Drive Themselves
Someday cars will drive themselves.
It might be awhile, but it is going to happen. Every year 'prototypes' get a bit better at it. It does not require technology stolen from technology or unproven theories. It is simply a matter of making better sensors and better algorithms.
Now there are two things that we could be doing to make this happen faster.
1) Preparing our Roads for Self Driving Cars
2) Preparing our Cars for Self Driving Cars
Option 1 probably won't happen. It would involve installing magnetic pylons into our roads so that cars could detect them better. The reason this isn't likely is simply the cost. It would involve completely replacing our road infrastructure. Besides, its looking like this won't really be necessary.
Option 2 we could start doing right now. Basically my idea is to make cars more 'visible' to one another. If a car knows the location and speed of all the cars around it, the task of not hitting them becomes a bit easier. In fact, some knowledge of where other cars are in relation to yours would be a requirement if your car would drive itself.
It would not cost too much, or be too hard, to install a line of RF transmitters and receivers along the dorsal line of new cars. For now they would not do anything other than transmit some identification information. However, when self driving cars start to roll out they could use this information to better maneuver the roads. Because there is a whole line of transmitters, and not just one, by analyzing timing differences you could determine the direction, relative speed, and distance of this other car.
If designers of self driving cars knew that 75% of cars had this installed (for example) they could take advantage of this information. Now the cars would still need conventional sensors, but this could potentially provide more reliable information that could allow the cars to travel safely at higher speeds.
This would be an investment in the future. But like all investments it might not pan out. But the cost should not be too high.
There would, however, be some 'immediate' benefits.
Once enough cars had these installed, cruise control could start taking advantage of the sensor information. Cars could relay information about their surroundings to their neighboring cars.
You could imagine a situation in which a bunch of people are driving at 50 MPH down the highway. One guy slows down to 30 MPH for some reason. If the cars are suitably close, this will send a shockwave of people slowing down backwards. This is basically how traffic can slow down even when there are no accidents or lane mergers.
Now imagine your car knew that some guy 20 cars up has just slowed down. Rather than waiting for the shockwave to hit your car, your cruise control could drop its speed maybe 10 MPH right away. This will create a gap between your car and the one in front of you. Assuming the guy who started the traffic jam eventually speeds up, this means that the heavy slowdowns could die out in front of you.
Cruise control could be set to 'keep pace.' Basically cruise control could even be useful in stop and go traffic (of course as mentioned above it could go along way towards 'eliminating' some forms of stop and go traffic).
This type of dynamic cruise control would require some effort to program, but it would be much easier than creating software that could fully drive a car (which would need to be able to identify road hazards and steer around them).
One final benefit I want to mention is accident mitigation. The system could potentially determine if you are about to slam into the guy in front of you. If it was able to this, it could automatically apply the breaks (hopefully in time to avoid the accident). Now some people might not like the idea of taking control away from the drive like this. Ok, there is another way this technology could help save lives.
If your car essentially knows it is going to be in an accident before it happens, it can start preparing the passengers for the accident. Tighten the seat belts up automatically, maybe even 'pre-deploy' the air bags. In fact being able to deploy airbags before the accident starts could allow for a 'revolution' in airbag design.
One slight concern with this general idea is that I would be worried it could mess with the radio reception of cars. On one hand there is a lot of room in the electromagnetic spectrum to use. On the other hand, passing through an I-Pass booth scrambles my radio.
Ultimately for any of this to be useful, I needs to be in more than one car. In fact it needs to be in more than a few. For it to really work I imagine the majority of the cars on the road would need this technology. That's precisely why we need to start installing it today. We might not have self driving cars for another 20 years. But if that's the case we could have a lot of cars with RF dorsal transmitters on the road by then.
It might be awhile, but it is going to happen. Every year 'prototypes' get a bit better at it. It does not require technology stolen from technology or unproven theories. It is simply a matter of making better sensors and better algorithms.
Now there are two things that we could be doing to make this happen faster.
1) Preparing our Roads for Self Driving Cars
2) Preparing our Cars for Self Driving Cars
Option 1 probably won't happen. It would involve installing magnetic pylons into our roads so that cars could detect them better. The reason this isn't likely is simply the cost. It would involve completely replacing our road infrastructure. Besides, its looking like this won't really be necessary.
Option 2 we could start doing right now. Basically my idea is to make cars more 'visible' to one another. If a car knows the location and speed of all the cars around it, the task of not hitting them becomes a bit easier. In fact, some knowledge of where other cars are in relation to yours would be a requirement if your car would drive itself.
It would not cost too much, or be too hard, to install a line of RF transmitters and receivers along the dorsal line of new cars. For now they would not do anything other than transmit some identification information. However, when self driving cars start to roll out they could use this information to better maneuver the roads. Because there is a whole line of transmitters, and not just one, by analyzing timing differences you could determine the direction, relative speed, and distance of this other car.
If designers of self driving cars knew that 75% of cars had this installed (for example) they could take advantage of this information. Now the cars would still need conventional sensors, but this could potentially provide more reliable information that could allow the cars to travel safely at higher speeds.
This would be an investment in the future. But like all investments it might not pan out. But the cost should not be too high.
There would, however, be some 'immediate' benefits.
Once enough cars had these installed, cruise control could start taking advantage of the sensor information. Cars could relay information about their surroundings to their neighboring cars.
You could imagine a situation in which a bunch of people are driving at 50 MPH down the highway. One guy slows down to 30 MPH for some reason. If the cars are suitably close, this will send a shockwave of people slowing down backwards. This is basically how traffic can slow down even when there are no accidents or lane mergers.
Now imagine your car knew that some guy 20 cars up has just slowed down. Rather than waiting for the shockwave to hit your car, your cruise control could drop its speed maybe 10 MPH right away. This will create a gap between your car and the one in front of you. Assuming the guy who started the traffic jam eventually speeds up, this means that the heavy slowdowns could die out in front of you.
Cruise control could be set to 'keep pace.' Basically cruise control could even be useful in stop and go traffic (of course as mentioned above it could go along way towards 'eliminating' some forms of stop and go traffic).
This type of dynamic cruise control would require some effort to program, but it would be much easier than creating software that could fully drive a car (which would need to be able to identify road hazards and steer around them).
One final benefit I want to mention is accident mitigation. The system could potentially determine if you are about to slam into the guy in front of you. If it was able to this, it could automatically apply the breaks (hopefully in time to avoid the accident). Now some people might not like the idea of taking control away from the drive like this. Ok, there is another way this technology could help save lives.
If your car essentially knows it is going to be in an accident before it happens, it can start preparing the passengers for the accident. Tighten the seat belts up automatically, maybe even 'pre-deploy' the air bags. In fact being able to deploy airbags before the accident starts could allow for a 'revolution' in airbag design.
One slight concern with this general idea is that I would be worried it could mess with the radio reception of cars. On one hand there is a lot of room in the electromagnetic spectrum to use. On the other hand, passing through an I-Pass booth scrambles my radio.
Ultimately for any of this to be useful, I needs to be in more than one car. In fact it needs to be in more than a few. For it to really work I imagine the majority of the cars on the road would need this technology. That's precisely why we need to start installing it today. We might not have self driving cars for another 20 years. But if that's the case we could have a lot of cars with RF dorsal transmitters on the road by then.
Monday, June 21, 2010
Orientation Dependent Ringtone
As I mentioned yesterday I had a different Idea on dealing with the problem of cell phone ringers.
I’ve split this into a second post because I feel that it is suitably different. It is something that could also likely be immediately implemented with a software update.
I know personally, if my phone is in my pocket, ‘1 Beep’ mode is loud enough for me to know that its rung. However, I generally leave it on the highest ringtone. The reason is that eventually I will set it down somewhere on a table. I leave the ringer on loud in those cases so that I can hear it from the next room.
Well a lot of phones now come equipped accelerometers. They can sense their orientation in your hand and will change the screen orientation to match. Well whenever I see my phone on a coffee table, it is lying flat. When it is in my pocket its usually at some weird angle.
Phones could use this accelerometer data to adjust the ringtone volume. If the phone sense that it’s at a flat horizontal position and not moving, then turn up the ringtone. If it’s vertical or some other angle, turn it down to beep (or vibrate / soft-ring / whatever the user sets in the preferences).
This is something that phones already equipped with the hardware (iPhones and many of the phones inspired by iPhones) could do with just a software update. It would take a bit of work calibrating to ensure that it was not twitchy and always changing the ringtone. You would not want it to be overly sensitive, or under sensitive. But this is nothing that a few weeks of testing couldn’t hammer out. If people wanted this, I wouldn’t be surprised if we could have it in our phones by the end of next month.
I know it’s something that I would use.
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Location Dependent Ringtones
Have you ever been in a situation where you realized your phone should probably be on vibrate. Maybe its at the movies, in a class, during a mass or funeral, or in any number of other situations.
If you are like a lot of people you will forget to silence your phone at least once and have had it ring when you would prefer it not to. Or maybe you remembered to silence your phone, but forgot to turn the ringer back on afterwords. Then at the end of the day you realize you have a bunch of missed calls.
Wouldn't it be nice if there was a way your cell could automaticaly adjust its ringer. Well it can, with a bit of work on everyone's part.
Places where cell phones should typically be silenced can have small, weak, and cheap RF transmitters at their entrances. Phones could be equipped to read these signals and their software could then kick the phone into vibrate, silence, one beep, or some other mode based on user preferences. Then when you leave, your phone would switch back to whatever it had been on before hand.
The technology could even be used to transmit information about the location to your phone. A church could transmit their bulletin. A movie theater could send showtimes. A theater could send the playbill. This would of course not necessarily be the goal, but a nice side benefit.
There are challenges of course. From a technology perspective this wouldn't be too hard. But it would require phone manufactures to agree on at least some standards (frequency ranges for example). It would also require locations to install the transmitters for the idea to be useful.
Tomorrow I will discuss another solution to the problem of ringtones.
If you are like a lot of people you will forget to silence your phone at least once and have had it ring when you would prefer it not to. Or maybe you remembered to silence your phone, but forgot to turn the ringer back on afterwords. Then at the end of the day you realize you have a bunch of missed calls.
Wouldn't it be nice if there was a way your cell could automaticaly adjust its ringer. Well it can, with a bit of work on everyone's part.
Places where cell phones should typically be silenced can have small, weak, and cheap RF transmitters at their entrances. Phones could be equipped to read these signals and their software could then kick the phone into vibrate, silence, one beep, or some other mode based on user preferences. Then when you leave, your phone would switch back to whatever it had been on before hand.
The technology could even be used to transmit information about the location to your phone. A church could transmit their bulletin. A movie theater could send showtimes. A theater could send the playbill. This would of course not necessarily be the goal, but a nice side benefit.
There are challenges of course. From a technology perspective this wouldn't be too hard. But it would require phone manufactures to agree on at least some standards (frequency ranges for example). It would also require locations to install the transmitters for the idea to be useful.
Tomorrow I will discuss another solution to the problem of ringtones.
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