Whyfore

Design Inspiration for the Inventive Mind..

Ten Million Dollar Idea?

I’m a big fan of X-Prize style innovation. Instead of hiring a research team, and building a whole facility to research a subject, just start adding to a prize fund for whoever the first person is to give you the answer you seek. This way, you end up getting facilities, minds, correlations, and other resources you may not have realized existed working for you, all without paying a cent until you see results.

Several years ago, Google started a project along these lines, asking the public for their ideas to change the world. They offered big connections and prize money to those ideas they chose as the best. They ended up far behind schedule, and I wasn’t that impressed with their choices in the end, but I like that they tried. My submission is below:

A data path exists for processing credit and debit transactions at stores. Use this system to upload store receipts to online accounts. The customer could then use their account at home (like online banking) to use this information as they see fit, and the aggregated data could be used to varying degrees (allowing for privacy) to better the retail system.

  • Like online banking or Amazon recommendations, it could be both secure and useful to all involved.
  • Allows people to track their own spending in an interactive fashion while saving manhours.
  • Potential for adsense like contextual marketing.
  • Could merge with personal finance software, calculate nutritional intake for dieters, alert people with allergies. etc.
  • Affects a large portion of the world (everywhere you want to be).
  • Employers can keep tabs on company credit card usage.
  • Checkboxes to make easy tallying and splitting of bills for roomates.
  • Reminders or suggestions for recurring purchases.
  • Easy to find one click tech support, manuals for bought products.
  • Competing stores could send advertising telling you how much you would have saved shopping with them.
  • Quicky target customers with product recalls. This could have prevented many deaths recently in China.
  • Could integrate with massive medical databases to find hidden correlations between products and health.
  • Manufacturers could target customers with coupons and offers.
  • Environmental: Saves paper on receipts, manuals, coupons, advertisements, as well as the other impacts from creation and delivery of such products.
  • Google is one of the very few companies with the resources, expertise, and trustworthiness to make this a reality. If you don’t do it, who will?

What problem or issue does your idea address?

  • Waste Management
  • Deforestation
  • Clutter
  • Wasted man-hours
  • Unnoticed product recalls
  • Compulsive spending
  • Allergic reactions
  • Credit Fraud
  • Running out of milk
  • Lost product manual/warranty
  • Advertising wasted on the uninterested
  • Medical research
  • Landfills

Rooster SteadyCam

Chicken mounted camera

If you want to avoid shakycam footage, there are a ton of ways to stabilize your camera, ranging from DIY projects, to a huge variety of devices (see here) ranging from simple and affordable, all the way to professional units where if you have to ask the price, you can’t afford them. All these options weren’t enough for this guy though, he’s taken the DIY approach to a new level, giving his rooster a helmet cam. If you’ve ever picked up a chicken, you know that when you move their body, their head stays in the same place (vestibular ocular reflex).

Why buy a fancy steadycam, when you can just carry a chicken? Video below.

It seems to me he has the camera pointed the wrong way. Chickens don’t look straight ahead, they look to the side. The real challenge here is to keep the chicken interested in looking at what you are filming, which could be a good way to make movies for people with short attention spans.

(via Hackaday)

Using Rock Band / Hero Games as Instrument Trainer

With the flood of dumbed-down instrument games like Guitar Hero that do wonders for your button pushing but don’t do much for your guitar skills, there has been a flood of innovators trying to rig controllers that will make real instruments work in the game.

In the above video, we see a simpler solution. Instead of focusing on the instrument, focus on the sound. By using the Rock Band mic, she is able to control the game via flute.

Obviously, this would be better if the game were designed for such, but I don’t see much chance of that coming from the big developers. What we need is a good open source program to do for the mic what StepMania did for the dance pad. If anyone out there knows of a good equivalent, let me know and I will update this post accordingly.

(via Neatorama)

The Human Body Used as a Conduit for Data

alps-human-data-transferrance

The ALPS device pictured above creates a modulated electric field capable of traveling through the human body, using it like a wire. They have it set up to transfer a photo from the unit, through your body, and into a handheld device.

It has obvious potential for things like having your cellphone pick up data from things you touch, ID cards, and in implanted devices.

(Via CrunchGear)

Books for Dummies

If you are the computer geek of the family, you’ll appreciate the above clip. The disconnect between technophobes and technophiles isn’t a recent occurrence, but lately it is becoming less about class and more about interest and aptitude. Computers are constantly conquering previously analog realms, from calculations, to games, to news to photography, to shopping, dating and socializing, it is getting hard to be a member of society without a certain amount of proficiency. Those who are only now finding something that engages them on the computer are having a tough time of it. A small group of them take to it like a duck to water, but the rest often find themselves utterly lost in a set of conventions that, while sensible and simple, are completely alien. The video above seems at first glance to be a ridiculous spoof, but it’s a little scary just how close it comes to the truth.

How to Levitate Objects With Your Mind (open Thread)

A few things I took note of recently:

Upon going through my logs, I was amused note how highly I ranked for the search term “how to levitate objects with your mind”. I’ve never written about any such thing, but it reminded me of a couple of recent products. For all of you aspiring psichokinetics out there, here are a few tools to help with your brain exercises:

  • Neural impulse actuators are an emerging technology which begins to the gap between electronics and the mind. The first consumer versions are geared towards games, but can be hacked to do other things.  is a new (out soon) video game controller headset that reads brain waves in order to perform game functions. It isn’t going to replace your old controller in the short term, but may be handy for things like switching weapons and function keys. If I were severely handicapped, I would be filled with a lot of hope by these devices. I bet Stephen Hawking  would dominate with this (get well soon man).
  • The Mind Flex (made by Mattell) Is a new game with a sensor that reads your brain waves and uses them to control a fan that flies a ball around an obstacle course. I’m not sure how much this gives you for those ‘real’ telekinesis skills, but it looks like a good party game after a few drinks. You can find the the Mind Flex on amazon.
  • The Force Trainer works along the same lines, levitating a ping pong ball in a tube.
  • On the levitation front, we have already posted the FunFlyStick, and the Levitating Coaster, which can levitate objects up to two pounds.


Develop your powers of concentration, you will.

On another note:

Rubik’s pepper mill.

This guy built an awesome mousetrap out of delicately balanced kitchen items and a strobe shutter camera to capture the whole escapade on film. Cute pictures.

Is someone always one step ahead of me? I plotted here to build a portable pathway out of moss to follow me around, but this guy did it.

Please consider this to be an open post as well. Feel free to post a link to your blog, throw up a link to something you think should be featured on this site, or talk about what is on your mind. All comments will be moderated, so don’t be spammy.

Don’t Piss Off Crows (mutually beneficial synanthropy)

I’ve always had a great admiration for crows. While other animals retreat from society, or scuttle around at night, crows embrace it and take an interest in finding ways to make the system work for them. I’ve witnessed them just down the street from my home using cars to crack walnuts. Most of the ways they have adapted society to their needs weren’t taught to them by people, they figured it out and taught their friends. 

Joshua Klein has shown himself to be smarter than the average crow, and if this works, the average person, by taking things one step further. He designed a vending machine for crows. They put in a coin, it spits out a peanut. He calls it mutually beneficial synanthropy. In the video (another great TED Talk) Klein explains how the system trains the crows. I don’t think this will be necessary. Once the first few learn how to use it, the whole continent will know in short order. Sure, it starts with picking up loose change they find lying around, but pretty soon you have murders of crows mugging people in dark alleys for their change so they can get their peanut fix. 

The crazy thing about crows is they are smart enough not only to figure out how this works, but also to teach their friends. They are natural pack rats and are attracted to coins anyway. There are a lot of crows in the world, and a lot of loose change. Klein professes an interest in advancing the project to teach crows how to pick up trash or other beneficial tasks, but I’m still back at the vending machine concept. The idea really is brilliant. I wonder what else we could teach them to do?

Yessss….everything will go according to plan…*cackle*

Persistence of vision app for the iphone

iphone_persistence-of-vision

Light Writer is an iphone app that displays flashing lights in order to create a persistence of vision effect. It allows you to write messages or images in the air with a wave of the hand. It sounds like a great way to quietly send a message to anyone in sight. I imagine it would only be effective in pretty dark conditions ,but I’m betting we haven’t seen the end of this app. It could be big. Available here via itunes.

(via crunchgear)

Logic Wireless: Logic Bolt – Projector Phone

 

wireless_projector_logicbolt

A while back I posted a review of a laser projected keyboard with bluetooth connectivity, and was wondering how long it would be until our cellphones simply projected a keyboard and display, essentially creating a full sized laptop that would fit in a shirt pocket. That day is approaching faster than I anticipated. Logic Wireless will get you half way there with this phone it is displaying at CES ’08 going by the name ‘Logic Bolt’, which contains a projector capable of projecting an image up to five feet away with two hours worth of battery life.  The phone has a touch screen and a 3 megapixel camera, and will sell for around $600.

(via MobileCrunch)