Home Automated Windows

I was sure this already existed. However, searches on the major home automation sites did not turn up any hits.

The idea is automated windows.

Whenever we turn our AC on or off, we need to run around our house like headless chickens closing or opening all of the windows.

An automated thermostat control could judge the exterior and humidity and based on user preferences decide if the AC should be on, the AC should be off and the windows closed, or if the AC should be off and the windows open. A signal would then open or close the windows.

Now the first thought I had is, perhaps these aren't sold as a solution because a lot of older windows can be a bit tough to open. Maybe stuck windows makes this too unreliable. But then I realize, if you are going to be dumping money into a home automation solution, it would not that much of an additional cost to replace the window tracks and fix the windows up.

So what are the best ways to go about making a window that could open and close by itself? Ultimately I think you would need to play around with a bunch of different ideas and decide which one has the best mix of reliability, low cost, and ease to install.

However it seems that there are a couple of general categories that would bear investigation:
Hydraulics/pneumatics - They could be attached to the top of the frame and pull the window up, or be embedded in the wall beneath the frame and push the window up.
Cable with motor - A cable or cables would attach to the top of the window and go up to the top of the frame. A motor could wind up the cable and pull the window up. This option seems like the easiest to install in an existing home as it could just be bolted into the top of a window frame.
Teeth and gears - If the side of the window was covered in 'teeth'  and there where powered gears in the frame, they could push the window up or down. This seems like perhaps the best option, except for a few problems. One, it requires space on either side of the window to be free for installing the necessary parts. Two, it seems like the one most prone to injury if a finger was caught in the teeth.

Tying this into one of my previous ideas, it seems like if it was combined with Integrated Window Fans it could create the ultimate automated climate controlled home.

Perhaps getting this to work would be expensive. But home automation is already expensive. I am just shocked that the major home automation companies do not offer a solution already.

Riding Lawn Mower Trimming Attachment

I was in the hospital visiting a relative when I saw an interesting sight. It seemed to be a riding vacuum cleaner driving past in the hall. The thing that really interested me was the fact that the driver had a hand held attachment. He held a hose that he was using to get the spots along the walls. This got me to thinking.

On riding lawn mowers, often you can not adequately get the trim. You often need to grab a push mower or weed-whacker to complete the edging. Not only does this take longer, it negates part of the convenience of having a riding lawn mower.

It would not be a difficult task to create a weed-whacker that could 'clip on' to a riding lawn mower. The weed-whacker could even draw power (through a cord) from the lawnmower.

When you reached a point that the lawnmower could not properly deal with, you whip out the whacker attachment. If it had a long pole/handle you could do use it from the seat of your mower. Once you were done with the edging, you would just turn the whacker off and fasten it back into place.

This wouldn't be a huge convenience, but I bet its marketable.

Credit / Debit Card Memos

When you write a check, you can jot down a memo on it. This small 'feature' can make it much easier to keep track of what the check was written for.

The problem is, most people don't use checks most of the time anymore. I cannot count the number of times when I was looking at my statement and asked myself "what in the world is this charge?" I then need to go through all my receipts and try to figure out what I was doing around that time. Over 90% of the time they turn out to be legitimate charges. Perhaps I went to a gas station and they routed it through some company in India, or maybe I ordered something online and the charge went through some company in England. Sometimes the names on the statements seem to be little more than random letters, being an acronym for some organisation.

Whatever the reason, the names on a credit or debit card statement are frequently of little use when attempting to track down charges. The ambiguity can make it difficult to be responsible and aware of what is being done with your cards.

There is a simple solution. Credit card and debit cards could allow you to enter memos when using them.

This would be easiest to implement online. Whenever there is an online 'purchase' forum, there simply would need to be an extra box to allow the user to type in a quick note for themselves: "B-day gift for mom","New laptop case","Online Magazine subscription." Basically something to help a buyer remember what those lines on his or her statement represent.

It would be a little harder at stores and gas stations. After all, you don't have keyboards on hand there. You do however, have keypads to enter your pin. Numeric keypads are how people typed text messages for years before phones came out with full keyboards. If I counted right it would only take 6 key presses to type in 'gas' at a gas station. Or perhaps a person simply enters in a 3 letter combination that is their own secret signal to themselves that the charge is legit. It is not the most ideal of ways to do it, but it is relatively easy to implement.

The hardest would be at places like restaurants, where you had your card over. The best way I can think of in this regard is for them to have a 'memo' line underneath the signature line. They would then need to scan that in and send it to your credit card company.

Most places would not need additional hardware. It would simply be a matter of updating the software that deals with the cards. If people don't want to take advantage of it, they would not need to. But for those that did, it could greatly simplify the 'balancing of their checkbook.'

Ultimately this would require two things to happen. Credit and debit card companies would have to put in the system to support this. Then stores, gas stations, online retailers, and restaurants would need to support it as well. The second point would be the harder to enforce. A credit card company could easily require online retailers to have a memo form (or otherwise would not honor any charges) because updating online checkout would simply be a matter of adding one line of code. For other stores, they could provide 'Memo Secure' stickers for retailers to advertise that they are helping customers protect themselves.

Its something that could take awhile to be implemented. But then again, it took awhile for debit card or even credit card support to become widespread. The only way the system will improve is if we begin working to improve it.

'Three Things' - An Educational TV Show

There is a game that tends to be used as an icebreaker when a bunch of people meet one another for the first time. Each person says three things about themselves. However, only two of the things are true. Everyone else needs to guess which one the person made up.

This game could be converted into a TV game show fairly easily.

The average person tends to have a large number of preconceived notions about science that are simply false. Sometimes it happens because a news outlet reports misinformation, or at least unverified information. Other time people fall victim to illusions because of Hollywood. Other times, its simply because the universe doesn't always work in an immediately intuitively obvious way.

The show would be a game show with prizes. Each question would give them 3 options. Sometimes the options would just be facts. Other times they would be clips from a TV or print news source. All the choices would discuss some scientific principle. It could range from statements as simple as 'There is no peer-reviewed experimental evidence linking mercury to Autism' to something like 'tests have shown astrology to be no more accurate than random guessing.' News and print clips would of course be longer.

One of these statements would be incorrect. For news clips, rather than faking a clip, they would take archived footage of a news channel reporting non-science as science. The contestant would need to correctly choose the false statement.

After the answer was revealed, the show would spend a minute explaining why each true fact is true and spend time 'debunking' the false science.

In between questions the show could explain what the difference between pseudoscience and science are, what it means to be peer-reviewed, why 'certification' doesn't mean the same thing as 'credible' and other issues that the viewers may not necessarily know.

I envision such a show as a combination of 'Who Wants to be a Millionaire' and 'Myth Busters.' Such a show could easily be educational and entertaining. To introduce drama you could include many of the 'lifelines' from Millionaire (probably not the 50/50 lifeline unless you added a 4th true statement). You could also include one lifeline where the contestant is given additional information related to a choice of their choosing that is guaranteed to be factual.

This same format could easily be applied to topics beyond science as well. It could also easily translate into a computer game.

As long as the show was well directed, I could see it being a smash hit.

Bluetooth Enabled Hearing Aid

From people that I know who use hearing aids, I have heard that using phones can be a problem. Apparently in many instances hearing aids are unable to pick up the sound of the phone really well.

One of the reasons that phones can have trouble with hearing aids is because the hearing aid is converting the sound a second time. It is a bit akin to trying to listen to a phone where on the other end the phone is set next to another phone and the sound is coming from that other phone.

However, there is no reason that second step of audio transmission can not be skipped.

I do think that there is a solution. Many people now use Bluetooth headsets while on the phone. In addition to being more convenient than wired headsets, the sound is often clearer than talking on the phone regularly. It is definitely in the realm of possibility for a to feed audio directly to a Bluetooth enabled hearing aid. This would allow for a step where the sound can be garbled to be skipped.

This could work with either a cellphone or specially equipped home phones.

This idea could greatly improve the ability of some individuals to talk on the phone. However, one issue is the 'target' demographic. This solution could require some 'complicated' setup. Bluetooth devices do not automatically pair up and require a bit of configuration. Unfortunately, many of those in the target demographic with weak hearing tend to be uncomfortable with complicated technology.

However, this hurdle is nothing that a focus on user friendly design could not handle.

Better Website Censorship

I am going to start off and say I do not entirely agree with the ethics behind this idea. Or rather, in general I disagree with censorship intended to limit free speech, and this idea would make censoring people who disagree with your viewpoint easier. However, in the same vein of free speech and following the intentions of my website, I am making this post.

There are many sites that censor aggressively. They have admins and automated bots scowering forums and comment sections on their site. They remove any comments that do not agree with their stated viewpoints. They remove anything that questions their logic or the validity of their arguments. Some sites will report blatantly false information as accurate and prevent anyone from saying otherwise on their site.

Inevitably, if the site is remotely popular, this will spawn a backlash. Perhaps people will discuss the censorship on another website's forum. In some cases entire sites are devoted to the suppression of free speech on just website.

Ultimately, the reason this happens is because people are aware that their freedom of speech has been impinged upon. The best way to do this is simply not to let them know they have been censored.

On many sites, when an admin removes a comment it can be a teaching moment. A person can learn 'ok, foul language is not accepted on this site,' or some similar lesson. However, if a site is removing comments because they criticize the site, they are not going to change the posters mind by doing so. Instead the poster will see that his comments have been removed and become incensed.

The way to deal with this is rather than removing 'undesired' posts, simply hide them. The only user who can see a hidden post would be the user who made the comment. There would be no indication to this user that the post has been hidden. He or she has no immediate reason to assume that they have been censored.

Likewise rather than banning someone, he is silenced. Only the admins would be aware of this, and to the silenced user his account would seem to work like normal. However, all of his posts would automatically be hidden. Any personal messages he sent to other users would never reach their recipients. A user who has banned but never realizes it may not be so quick to create a new account to 'troll.'

Now a user who has been 'censored' may eventually grow wise. If he or she has multiple accounts they will catch on quickly. However, the reason many people create multiple accounts is to work around bans or previous censorship. If they are blissfully unaware that no one is reading their comments, they may never bother creating a dummy account.

The other way in which they may grow wise is if they notice that people never seem to respond to their comments. However, it is not uncommon to make a comment on a website and have no one respond to it, even if they can read it. People often skim longer posts and threads and miss some comments. Depending on the situation, I could see a large period of time passing before someone finally caught on. They could, for some time, simply think the other users are bad at reading or paying attention.

If the site wanted to be really tricky, they would have bots that would create automated replies to any threads that a 'banned' user would create. He or she would be the only user who could see these replies. Effectively it creates a labyrinth of a subform to trap 'trolls.' They may eventually learn of the deception and escape, but until they do, they have been neutralized.

To throw people of the trail the occasional thread could be deleted traditionally and the occasional user could be straight up banned. For example if someone used fowl language, they may even expect to see their post removed, and doing so could keep them from being suspicious. The deception, hiding their posts from everyone but them, could be reserved for only the posts that dissent from the viewpoint your site promotes.

Now there could be even larger backlash if users discovered that this technique was used. However, sites that are already censoring opposing viewpoints are already facing disparaging remarks on other sites and this could let them avoid that. Yes, it is deceptive, but many sites do not mind deceptive. Would I ever use such a system on this blog? No. Of course it may be hard to figure out.

On a lighter note, the method of 'silencing' users rather than banning them could be effectively used even on sites that do not try to limit people's expression. Yes, it is still deceptive, but all sites have to deal with trolls. And sometimes a troll isn't someone who disagrees with you but is a legitimate jerk who is disrupting a site and needs to go.

Extended Museum Exhibits

As time goes on more and more people have 'smartphones,' or at least phones with abilities traditionally attributed to smart phones.

While some organizations have begun to take advantage of this fact, many more have not. I will be discussing some ways in which the capabilities of modern phones can enhance old entertainments such as a museum.

There are several ways in which this idea could work. On its most simplest level an art museum, for example, could release a phone app for their museum. While wandering through the museum the phone could figure out what exhibits you are looking at. This could be done in any number of ways including RFIDs, WiFi, bar code scanning, or even image recognition of the exhibit itself.

The app would then pull up additional information about the exhibit, or information related to it. I know I have been in situations at museums where I wish I had had more knowledge at my fingertips beyond what was provided by the signs and placards in the museum. In our theoretical art museum the app could allow you to bring up a bio of the artist, find the location of 'related' paintings, or perhaps see pictures of other paintings by the artist not on display.

Depending on how the exhibit identified itself, this information could either be transmitted from the exhibit itself, or more likely from central server that the app would reference.

Other 'museum like' locations could take advantage of this. A zoo for instance is a prime candidate. The app could pull up all sorts of additional information on the animals on display. It could even mention the 'personal' histories of these animals for those who were interested: when they were acquired by the zoo or born for example. If the zoo had cameras in the animal's pen, perhaps people could then watch the video feed on their phone.

Now, much of this could be accomplished with signs. But it seems to me, the more signs and more text at any given exhibit the less of it will be read on average. This would provide additional information to those who desired it. It is very similar to renting a set of headphones to listen to an audio tour at a museum. In fact, I see this idea as a natural evolution of those audio cassette tours. It would not even be unreasonable for a museum to charge for this app. 

In addition to providing additional information the system could be interactive. The app, in its settings, could perhaps allow for an 'age' preference. This could allow for content to be better targeted to demographics. It would make it easier to create an exhibit that would be both 'kid friendly' while interesting to adults. 

I mentioned earlier that there were several ways that this could be implemented. Now, each museum could make their own custom apps, but this would be inefficient. A great opening for a new product would be for a single company to make such an app (and hardware to be installed at exhibits) and market it to museums. The product could be called something like "Museum Plus."

A unified system used by multiple museums would reduce deployment costs. It would also be better for the end user, as they would only ever need to obtain and learn how to use one app rather than a different one for every museum they attend. I feel the potential profit in marketing such a system worldwide could be quite impressive.

While this idea will not revolutionize anyone's life, it is these incremental steps forward that marks mankind's progress towards  fully integrating technology into out daily existence.