See fresh Facebook status updates via RSS feed from all or some of your friends in one nice list on your phone

1) Visit: http://www.facebook.com/notes.php

2) On the bottom of the column on the right, under the “subscribe to these notes” option, right click and copy the “My Friends’ Notes” URL. Paste the URL into notepad - it should look like this:

http://www.facebook.com/feeds/friends_notes.php?id=XXXXXXXXX&key=XXXXXXXXXX&format=rss20

3) Change the word "notes" to the word "status" so that it looks like this:

http://www.facebook.com/feeds/friends_status.php?id=XXXXXXXXX&key=XXXXXXXXXX&format=rss20

If you would like to see status updates of ALL your Facebook friends, you are done and can use this URL in your favorite RSS reader (skip to step # 7)

4) If you would like to only see updates from specific friends, visit

http://www.facebook.com/home.php

Click "More" at the bottom of the column on the left so you could see the "Create New List" link; click "Create New List", name and create a new list of people you want to see the status updates for.

5) Once you save your list, you should see its name in the column on the left; Right click on it, copy the URL, and paste it into notepad. It should look like this:

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/home.php?filter=fl_############

6) Notice the the number after the "fl_" and add it to the URL from step 3, so that your final URL looks exactly like this (but with numbers/keys):

http://www.facebook.com/feeds/friends_status.php?id=XXXXXXXXX&key=XXXXXXXXXX&format=rss20&flid=############

7) Add the URL from the previous step to your favorite RSS reader as a subscription. I like http://reader.google.com since it works well on the iPhone.

Now you can see all your friend's status updates without visiting Facebook (or looking at ads). Plus if you add other RSS feeds from real news sites, you can see all the news you care about in one nice updated chronological list without visiting any sites - just visit http://reader.google.com instead (or add it to iPhone Home Screen as an icon). Some examples of RSS feeds:

World news: http://news.google.com/news?ned=us&topic=w&output=rss
Top Stories http://news.google.com/?topic=h&num=3&output=rss
Economist http://www.economist.com/rss/daily_news_and_views_rss.xml
News from your zip code: http://news.google.com/news?pz=1&ned=us&hl=en&geo=11235&output=rss

...Just look for other RSS links on your favorite sites...

Enjoy! (Hope Facebook doesn't hide this feature again...)

Built-in bluetooth headset in a cell phone

It's been a while and another summary post is long overdue soon.

For now, I just had to post about another "I was telling my friends they should make this years ago" moment:

A removable bluetooth headset integrated into the cell phone: LG Decoy.

Flashlight PDA

I was in high school (~1997?) and asked my classmate about this: Why not build a PDA/Laptop in the shape of a flashlight which projects the screen wherever you point it (correcting the focus and aspect ratio distortions on the fly by measuring the distances to the surface, like a camera's autofocus system). I told him the pressable trackball would be under your thumb.

The small pressable trackball has of course been now popularized by the Blackberry Pearl cell phone. The focusing and the distortion correction could now be done by a camera that would let the pda know if the projected screen is a perfect rectangle. More importantly of course is that small projectors are now finally being built. Explay is a company that demonstrated one recently. So, now, at the end of 2007 it is all coming together... Yet - where is my "flashlight" PDA?

And here it is: Epoq EGP-PP01 KIRF - now shipping 8/25/2008 (It only took ~10 years)

And another one: Samsung Show i7410

International Loan Interest Rates

I bet I am about to reinvent the wheel with this idea:

Since the mortgage interest rates vary between different countries, why not set up a lending company with offices in many countries, borrow business loans from banks in the country with the lowest current rates and lend this [wire-transferred] money at very competitive rates in the remaining countries (accounting for exchange rates and transfer cost, of course).

I would think this is how it already works, however currently the US loan rates seem to directly depend on the rate set by the Federal Reserve (and not on the lowest current rate in the world, as it would given this idea)

Update: my friend informed me of Carry Traders who apparently operate on similar principles, but within the market framework and borrow specifically short term, while lending long term. My initial idea is to lend mortgages for the same long term as they are borrowed.

Eco5 has useful international interest rate data, and
EconStats has the historical US interest rates

Update #2: I got a second tip regarding the formula which I thought would be cool to put together. Of course it already exists and it is called Interest Rate Parity.

Share Google Spreadsheets & Docs with "Users"

Currently, Google Spreadsheets and Docs allow you to share your document with either a Viewer, who can not modify it, or a collaborator, who has full editing access.

On the day after Google Spreadsheet launched, I proposed to create a third type of sharing - with a "User", only allowing the modification of cells specifically identified as "modifiable by users." This would allow a complicated spreadsheet to be posted for everyone's use without anyone being able to edit the formulas by mistake.

When applied to [Writely] Google Docs, it would allow the author to post forms, and then possibly collect response data via GoogleBase which should be auto-setup when the author posts a form.

Original post is here; The countdown to implementation has started...

Search for Parking Online

A while ago I thought how nice it would be to have a live free parking spot map online. (I am sure everyone wished for this while looking for parking at one point or another.) Given the infrastructure requirements it definitely doesn't seem like a project for a single person to complete, so instead of just dreaming, companies are apparently starting to build these systems. I can't wait...

A Silly Thought

I have recently come across an article which talks of Nassau county police starting a pilot program of talking urinals which automatically warn users to take a cab if they have been drinking.

Is there a market for a urinal based analyzer for "simple" but useful things such as testing for diabetes (among other things)? If installed in malls, revenue could come from the ads on the "For further diabetes workup, you may want to contact Dr. ____" cards. Hopefully the benefits of diagnosing diabetes early and lower testing costs would outweigh the potential ethical concerns...

Third eye for the police

A webcam in the front bumper of a police car could feed the video frames to an optical character recognition software which would fish out license plate numbers of the passing vehicles in near real time and continuously search the database of stolen vehicles as well as owners with suspended licenses or multiple unpaid parking tickets (etc.). Such a system installed on multiple vehicles could work continuously, logging the GPS location of the vehicle and the time of the match even while the police car is parked.

Update (May 16th, '06): Came across this article about Automatic Numberplate Recognition (ANPR) cameras already installed and in use in London. I guess I was a couple of years late with this, although installing these into police cars which circulate around the city seems like the next logical step...

Update 2: I suspect Nice Systems are thinking about this

Update 3: ...and here is the GLAVID / Platefinder product from g2tactics (noticed in July 2006 via the Wired LPR article; apparently there was a previous Wired LPR article as well)

Update 4: an e-mail about this to friends triggered a google ad to SeeCar License Plate Recognition system apparently being developed since 2003

Three more before I forget

1) Today I saw this article about order by chaos and immediately thought back to what I told my dad while learning about entropy in school: What if chaos is just a form of higher order that we can not yet comprehend and simplify? This would put the nature's perceived drive to increase entropy as a basis for explanation of how such apparent complexity of the world around us came to be. I still suspect this may be the case, whether the apparent chaos is due to a high number of input variables, a concept parallel to Heisenberg uncertainty principle or a rule similar to rule 110 in cellular automata.

2) If one computer is running a multiplayer 3D first person shooter game, while another computer is running a bot, a way to connect the two would be via USB ports. To avoid modifying the code of the retail games, the computer running the bot would have to emulate a keyboard over one USB connection and a mouse over another USB connection. Does a USB Keyboard/Mouse emulator driver exist? If not, I should save up for a patent...

Update (June 2006): One of the comments to this story mentions using a USB Thumbdrive presenting itself as a keyboard and injecting keystrokes.

3) On a silly note: I can't believe that I have not seen a semi-automatic mechanically movable toilet seat widely available in the retail stores yet. When this topic came up I mentioned that the system to differentiate men from women may be an interesting one and that even a manual pedal control would make things more comfortable, although not automatic. My uncle-in-law's response: "Differentiate men from women by weight [on the plate in front of the toilet]." That could work great for a family... Although I suspect those who will be able to afford it may opt for a urinal. Which I guess in turn makes this more of an idea regarding user identification by weight. A Bluetooth chair seat plate which re-logs you into the system after being logged out for inactivity? Or maybe even keeps you logged in if you have not left your seat?

Another Round

It has been a while - so here are a couple of ideas:

1) A couple of years ago I told one of my friends how it would be interesting to correlate the news.google.com news articles from the past couple of days to today's stock prices. The algorithm I envisioned would "fish" for correlations between somewhat predominant word combinations in the articles and changes in stock prices. Imagine how excited I was when I saw that the new finance.google.com service lists news articles with the company name next to the stock price graph and points out with arrows when each news item came out directly on the price graph. A correlation is only a step away.

2) On a related note, online trading services such as etrade already provide a way for their users to place a stock on a "hot stocks" list (or a "watched stocks" list). Now if the progression of stocks from "unnoticed" to "watched" to "purchased" to "sold at profit" is analyzed across the user base in real time, not only the most savvy investors can be singled out, but also the service can (for a fee) offer the results of such analysis in real time back to its users, displaying stocks which recently became most watched (by the investors whose predictions are above average at bringing profit). Such a service would only display aggregate information to respect the individual users' privacy.

3) If one was to take a two hour home video of a birthday party and subtract from it, frame by frame, pixel by pixel, the two hour star wars movie (given the same resolution), the result would be a two hour nonsensical "difference" movie. Now if the "difference" movie and the home video are posted on a service such as google video, which (for now) allows posting movies of unlimited length for free, we would have two movies neither of which violates copyright, freely available for download. It is only the users with their knowledge of the two movies' relationship and a simple client side software which downloads and reconstructs the film which could be accused of copyright infringement. Of course, the "difference" movie and the home video do not have to be separate files - they may be interleaved frame by frame or interlaced. This way the copyrighted work is not stored by google and yet freely available. I suspect I should read more about steganography...

That is it for now.

The cell phone and your cheek

How often do you wash your cell phone? And yet every day - sometimes several times per day you clinch it to your cheek. We already have soft rubbery cell phone sleeves out there. All that needs to be done is an impregnation of these phone covers with silver. This has already been done for stethoscope diaphragms. Now, who do I call to set up an infomercial? ;-)

Another Batch of Ideas

It's that time again...

1: So if a radiologist looks at a graph of blood flow to the kidney (obtained via doppler ultrasound), he can tell by the shape of the curve if the kidney is inflamed/edematous or not since the capsule surrounding the kidney is pretty rigid. I wonder if one can use this method on a carotid artery to detect intracranial hemorrhage.

2: Considering ebay allows inserting images and html (?) into item listings, it would be interesting to set up an ad banner service which would focus on marketing a trademark (or an actual product) through e-bay listings either by offsetting the costs to actual sellers or by placing "interesting" listings... Brainstorming and cost/benefit analysis would be needed... But its just a thought.

3: Alcohol is a regulated substance, but I suspect that chemicals reacting to produce it are not. I wonder if two such reactants could be packed into separate compartments of the same bottle. This would circumvent all the alcohol manufacturing, storage, and sale laws and fees currently in place.

4: I have noticed how Azureus detects whether a new version of it is available and proceeds to download it from the peers in the network. If this service would be expanded to detect and download new versions of all the installed programs it would be pretty neat. I guess I am asking for a free personalized P2P based VersionTracker with less clutter. A single user with the latest version of a program would broadcast the release (or just the news of its existence) to the whole P2P net.

5: Let's say two (or more) people at different geographic locations have the same video file (or a DVD disk.) Why not have video player software that would synchronize the playback of that file over the internet? It could also overlay remote microphone audio (for a "teleconference") or at least provide a chat line overlay at the bottom of the screen. This would allow people to have the experience of watching a movie together while being apart...

6: Your cell phone checks whether any new messages are available every so often, thereby communicating with the nearest cell tower. The e911 standard requires cell phone service providers to be able to pinpoint your position on the map in case of emergency (via triangulation?) If one was to set up a program analyzing locations of "new message" requests coming from the same phone, we could have a nationwide live traffic reporting service. Of course, I am getting used to not being the first one with an idea: Cell-Loc is doing it. [Sorry - link pops their ad]

Here is a couple of old ideas about video games:

7. Given algorithms such as Instant Scene Modeler and high resolution satellite maps why hasn't anyone released a 3D FPS game with levels based on real neighborhoods? The ultimate way to immerse the players would be to place them in their home neighborhoods based on zip code and overlay live yellow and white pages data to create properly named "background" characters. Maybe Grand Theft Auto 10 will think of this gimmick.

8. Fighting games usually rely on direction keys and 3 to 6 action keys to control the characters. Back in high school I wondered why a "punch" key had to always result in the same punch on the screen. In real life a punch will always be different depending on what the opponent is doing. Shouldn't the press of the same punch key trigger a check of what the other player is doing and then result in a different "response" move every time?

Ok.. that is it for now... I'll post more thoughts when I recall them.

Black boxes in our cars

It was a sunny late spring afternoon during my freshman year in college in 1998. I was traveling back to New York on the Greyhound bus, and next to me was a man in his twenties who turned out to be an MIT graduate student.

The conversation eventually brought us to one of my ideas. He seemed interested, and I was happy to talk to a future engineer. The idea was my first attempt at a far fetched business plan:

1 Create a black box which would record the vehicle's speed, pedal presses, steering wheel position, and its position and orientation in space for the past five minutes while the car is in motion.

2 Create a computer system which would pull the data from such a box and recreate in three dimensional space the path of the car based on its final position.

3 Show the auto insurance companies how they can recreate the scene of a car accident and hopefully decrease their lawyer costs using such a system.

4 Convince insurance companies to offer insurance rate discounts to customers willing to have such a black box installed in their car (as it is done with LoJack).

5 Get the auto manufacturers to preinstall a black box inside their vehicles as a feature. (At that time I was not sure what benefits would auto makers get from doing this)

6 Lobby congress to make a black box in all new cars standardized and mandatory. This was necessary for the next step to happen.

7 Have the black boxes in each car broadcast their current (last 5 seconds) data into the [specialized?] cell phone towers.

8 The data would be fed into a powerful "chess-brain" computer. Such a computer would be capable of monitoring traffic patterns and sending "traffic-jam ahead" warnings to approaching vehicles.

9 End result: Implement self-driving cars. If the car (or the "chess brain" computer behind it) knows the current actions and positions of all the surrounding vehicles, proper adjustments in speed and directions as well as changes in overall route can be made on the fly. The traffic would always move in the most optimized fashion possible.

I knew then that the biggest things missing from this plan were the immediate incentives for drivers to give up their ideas of privacy and the clear financial incentives for the insurance companies. Thanks to Slashdot I found these missing pieces of the puzzle: Pay-as-you-drive car insurance. A black box with an additional feature of tracking its location via GPS allows the insurance company to bill you based on the level of danger of the roads you take. The amount of driving will of course be taken into account as well.

Our Managerial Accounting professor always emphasized the importance of eliminating what she called "peanut butter costing" in order to separate true profit making parts of the business from the money loosing ones. Pay-as-you-drive insurance allows the insurance companies to implement such a system and clearly assess liability potential for each driver. Drivers on the other hand will be lured by potential savings.

Given this key incentive, I can't wait for someone to implement my plan... I know the gears are already turning - Progressive is working on it.

More information, discussion on the topic, and the current state of affairs here:

Slashdot Discussion 1
Slashdot Discussion 2
Slashdot Discussion 3
Slashdot Discussion 4
October 5th, 2006 (~8.5 years later): Pay as you drive GPS enabled insurance launches in UK Since Reuters link is dead, here is the company: Norwich Union
Clarion DRC-3 DriveEye Camera captures 20 seconds of video before and after the accident jolt (as does Fujitsu DREC1000)

Some more new (and old) ideas

It has been a while since I updated this intermittent stream of consciousness… Since the last post I simply kept a running log of ideas in my phone (a rather large yet handy 3650). As usual, some of the thoughts are new, while others are simply memories of old inventions.

1 :: There is a multitude of regular and immunohistochemical stains currently being used to reveal tissue qualities for diagnosis by pathologists. Why not use high resolution spectroscopy and Raman spectroscopy to scan an unstained slide and correlate the pixel signatures to the colors obtained from staining a slide? Can a single spectroscopic scan of an unstained slide be later used to digitally emulate multiple conventional stains?

2 :: During a brain cutting session, I was surprised that an egg slicer was not used to do the job. The resident said that apparently one exists, but it was not used in order to pay more attention to each cut surface. Why not make a slicer with separately moving blades then?

3 :: If a brain was sequentially cut in 5 micron slices, and each slice was stained for a neurotransmitter receptor, could we recreate a three-dimensional map of the brain?

4 :: During dictations, some physicians say the word "period" so many times, that it made me think: "There ought to be a button on a digital Dicta[tor]phone for that!" Of course such a button would record the word period onto the tape (or into memory) when pressed...

5 :: I wonder how long it will take for live context-based microscopy help to appear... This could be a nice way to train a neural net during sign outs. For now it’s the residents getting trained...

6 :: A pathologist often needs to mark a slide with an arrow – not a very comfortable task. What if a slide cover would be coated with a chemical which would change color in response to a red (but not green) arrow projected by the microscope? I am sure a more elegant solution is out there…

7 :: There seem to be a very large number of billboards constructed around us. Yet, so many trucks drive around with clean sides. There must be a way to map interstate truck routes of various parcel companies and centrally resell ad space on the sides of the trucks in bulk.

8 :: Could a TV set with a built in microphone have a mode to auto adjust the volume according to the noise level in the room?

9 :: From what I understand, parking meters are simply a source of revenue for the city. Now, a two dollar Metrocard allows you to ride the subway in New York once, while a thirty day unlimited ride card costs seventy dollars. Why isn't there an "unlimited parking" card? There has to be a price point for monthly prepayment that would allow you to park at any meter for as long as you want. All a meter maid would do is check the license plate against a list of customers. She could even call into an automated system…

10 :: While thinking of a two-dimensional treadmill, I remember thinking that a torus can not only be rolled like a tire, but rotated "inside out" around the center of its cross section (as long as the material allows). It would be interesting to see such concept employed for instant parallel parking (or in two dimensional treadmills of course.) This idea appeared in my head at least eight years ago...

11 :: As soon as the New York City subway metrocards came out, I asked my friend why doesn't some company pay the city to place a phone card on the back of each card. If it is worth the effort, the phone company could even link into the metrocard account and charge from it in two dollar ride increments.

Well – that's enough for today. I'll add more once I have time. Now I have to read some Neurology and sleep.

Chemotactic factors in the brain

While I was sitting in on a neuropathology signout, another idea came to me: Would it be possible to inject chemotactic factors into the brain to attract the tumor cells into one area for subsequent removal? When I said it out loud, it turned out that the attending is researching exactly that. I felt proud - and I hope the idea works out.

How about this: What if some cellular congregations are misdiagnosed as neoplasms, while being a result of a focal oversecretion of chemotactic factors?

Foiling Google's GMail

I have a suspicion GMail creators thought of this at some point, but here is my prediction anyway:

Someone will open up a website offering a ROT-13 encryptor/decryptor as well as an internet explorer toolbar application. The application will automatically switch that e-mail you just typed up into the encrypted version, while the recipient will either paste it into a web form or use their own toolbar to auto-decrypt it.

The reason: Google's ad-words filters will not match a single word. Oops.

Lets see how long it will take for this to appear (if at all?)

Update: 8/26/2006 - Freenigma crypto browser plugin is promising to do what I described above via a Firefox and using real cryptography. Freenigma web site name was registered on 03/07/2005, which makes my prediction about 7 months ahead of that time...

Poor man's patent in the Digital Age (apparently done, but can it be popularized?)

You probably know what a "poor man's patent" is. Describe your idea on paper, put it in an envelope and mail it to yourself. This way you have a sealed envelope with a post office date stamp on it.

In theory, e-mailing something to yourself should have the same effect. You can also be pretty sure your ISP logs all e-mail from the past two years (or more) for law enforcement. This way even if your message gets deleted, a back up copy of it is probably safe somewhere.

A disadvantage of e-mailing something to yourself is that the full description of your idea, unprotected by an envelope, passes through someone else's hands.

What if an online service called www.ProofOfOrigin.com opens up? The service would have a downloadable client software which can be ran on your computer. The client software would ask for a [text] file and compute a unique SHA-1 hash from it (a cryptographically secure checksum.) This hash/checksum would then be submitted to the ProofOfOrigin.com servers and logged under your personal account. At that point you can put the original file in a safe place (burn to CD, or even print it out, if it is pure ASCII text).

You still have your file and you have not shown its contents to anyone. ProofOfOrigin.com has a unique fingerprint of this file associated with the real name of the submitter - you.

Such a service will not prove that you are the original creator of the file. What this service will prove is that you possessed a copy of that particular file on a specific date. Just like a Notary Public who stamps a sealed envelope.

[If legally accepted] This can be used for all the things a Notary Public's seal is used for.

Ok - so I just searched for "notary" and found a service called Surety.com which has been doing something similar since 1994. Oops - I am only a bit over 10 years late with this idea. Someone like Paypal however can enter this market pretty easily - they already have a large number of customers with verified identities.

Update: Just took a better look at Surety's web site, and these guys had a genius solution for becoming trustworthy. They run their whole database of hashes through the same [SHA-1 hash] algorithm and publish the resulting hash in an AD section of New York Times every week. This way no one can accuse them of backdating a hash - its all verifiable. They also "backported" their system to today's legal system by Notarizing via a human Notary Public their printed list of hashes every so often. Wow. I am impressed. Now I wonder if there is a way to create a competing distributed/redundant system...

Build your own WiFi Hotspot

So if I put a Linksys WRT54G Wireless Router (or another Broadcom based router) on my balcony, it could become a source of revenue. Having a balcony next to a public beach could help a lot. All that needs to be done is a firmware replacement with one of these:
Sveasoft, or OpenWRT, or eWRT, or Wi-Fi Box. Or you can use Linspot on a Mac with any router. Wi-Fi box specifically was favorably reviewed. Just make sure reselling bandwidth does not violate your broadband provider's terms of service. Speakeasy even seems to encourage it.

This is a Slashdot Idea - not mine, but I like it =).

MMPI-2 type of test to match couples? (my old idea)

When I learned about the existence of the 567 true/false question Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory test for the first time, I thought that it was a pretty interesting way to "map" a personality. Several months later I had a random idea (this was probably around 1998, since my undergraduate psychology course was in the fall of 1997... or was it in 1999 during my abnormal psychiatry course?) In any case - I thought it might be worth a try to create a similar type of test and administer it to couples who have been married for over 30 years. Mapping their answers would provide us with predetermined good matches. Then all that is left is to open a web site and administer the same test to new members. Once predetermined personality matches are found by this service, it would notify the two potential matches... Well - I was definitely not the only one thinking about this. Dr. Warren founded his eHarmony matchmaking service based on a similar method back in 1998... [I am not affiliated with his service in any way, and there is no link because his web site gives you a pop-up ad on exit.]

I think I am on to something. People with original ideas seem to be a dime a dozen, with each not knowing there is eleven more out there with the same idea....

Red/Blue transparent prisms in a highway divider? (my old idea)

I noticed that while I drive, I tend to decrease my speed when I see flashing lights. I usually try not to speed, but this "reflex" works even at low speeds. How about installing groups of red and blue transparent columns as part of the highway divider where the road bends (in dangerous speeding zones)?

In such a set up the headlights of the oncoming traffic would pass through these blue and red columns and create a visible effect of a police car blinker to the cars coming from the opposite direction. No energy source is required. Scared drivers slow down a bit. Works for both traffic directions. Works automagically in the evening or at night, or - in low visibility conditions when people turn on their headlights. The costs of pieces of plastic and their installation are nothing when compared to even a single life saved by decreased speeding on a dangerous curve. Prism shapes can makes such a set up work even for straight sections of the road.

This is one of my older ideas. From now on I'll just mark posts with my old ideas I happened to recall as such in the title field. If you don't see "(my old idea)" in the title - than the idea in that post is fresh! (Well, at least to my brain...)

Bayesian Filter for Slashdot Moderation?

Spam filters using bayesian methods [www.paulgraham.com] are becoming very popular (and accurate!). After learning a bit, they are capable of picking out spam pretty well. How about applying a bayesian filters to Slashdot posts and seeing what happens? The "teaching material" (old posts with scores) is readily available. Will a trained filter recognize a "5, Funny"? or a "3, Interesting"? Who is willing to build such a post judge?

Flipping through channels sometimes makes you stumble on a talk show like this. Can you diagnose the audience members behind the talk show host? (There, I found a good use for my cell phone camera: taking pictures of the TV screen...)

Look at this product! Didn't I describe this idea to you years ago?

Fueled by my own previous post, I have decided to list all the ideas that I have independently come up with, and that I later saw implemented somewhere. This way I can move on to posting the fresh thoughts. You have to admit - its a good feeling when you see a product and can say "Hey - I thought of this years ago!"

---

1 :: I think I was 7 or 8 when thought to myself - "Hey - a spiked wheel can be used to separate items on a conveyor belt... Or something." A couple of years later I saw an article in a magazine describing a funnel with such a wheel (and a rotating handle) built in. The item was meant to be filled with sugar from the top, and rotating the handle would dispense a spoonful of it from the bottom... I know the connection is a bit lame here, but this was the very first time I experienced the feeling of "epiphany reloaded." I think this was the time I realized that some things I make up might be useful.

2 :: Why can't you press a button on your VCR or TV and have your remote beep, so you can find it easier? Apparently I wasn't the only one thinking that. A couple of months later I saw a TV commercial highlighting that very same feature of a Magnavox VCR. Philips [Magnavox] TV Model TP3697B also has this feature. Apparently Sony has it now as well, calling it a "Remote Commander Locator."

3 :: While in high school (some time between 1995 and 1997), my father and I decided to attempt to patent one of the ideas from my notebook. This was, to put it simply, a trackball (an upside down computer mouse for those who have never seen one). The difference was that the trackball was to be the size of a room, and a human wearing virtual reality goggles would be the hamster inside the ball. Functionally, it was supposed to be a two dimensional treadmill, allowing you to move on a plane, and allowing the computer to know where you've moved. Applications? Imagine actually running from monsters within the virtual corridors of Doom 3. Or actually walking through the 3D model of restored ancient Rome in a museum. Or playing a full court tennis game with Agassi at your local arcade. Basically it would improve the immersion in a CAVE system. The company did a patent search for us and it showed nothing similar on file with USPTO. Given that the company wanted five thousand dollars to prepare and file a patent, we decided it was not worth it, and let it go. A couple of years later I saw "SPIN" which was basically an implementation of this very idea. Here is a SPIN pdf with more pictures and a full schematic/description. These guys went with projecting the environment on the surface of the ball instead of wireless goggles... I still have a poor man's patent (a sealed envelope mailed to myself with a full schematic) laying around somewhere.

Update 4/11/08: As part of the Cyberwalk Project, European researchers will demonstrate their version of the omni directional treadmill soon. (Courtesy of a Slashdot post)

Update 4/12/08: VirtuSphere has a functioning model in this video. Even better is Virtual Space Devices' Cywalk video (a treadmill within the treadmill design that I thought back then would be too hard to construct; Also seen in the Darken's Treadmill. Moving tiles is another solution.)

4 :: A charger for your cell phone... a charger for your PDA... a charger for your laptop... and your digital camera... and your wireless phone... maybe even your bluetooth headset or your wireless mouse. They all want to be plugged in, like little tamagotchi pets, yearning for your attention. Why not have a big mouse pad with a checkerboard pattern of cathodes and anodes? Have the charger contacts on the outer surfaces of your "digital pets" (make "sticker" adapters for existing ones) and simply have the charger pad feed them when they are carelessly laid on top. The mouse pad would be plugged in and would simply monitor for proper resistance between its surface contacts. Once a certain resistance is maintained, a charge would be applied. No need to plug anything in - simply put the item on top of your [charger covered] desk. Imagine my surprise when a year and a half later I read about MobileWise and their approach, which is as close to what I described as it can get... Hopefully we will see the product on the market soon... Splashpower has an interesting competing technology, which seems to be based on magnetic field. Apparently, existing devices can also be retro-fitted with special batteries in order to work with Splashpower pads...

Update on 4/4/2008: Splashpower is bancrupt, but WildCharge and eCoupled are still working on it...

Update on 11/30/2008: Final product - a wireless charger for game controllers.

Well - this is all I can remember for now. If I recall any more ideas pursued by others, I'll add them to the list.

When your ideas are implemented by someone you've never met

So I am watching the news in Boston before going to sleep and see a report on the "PocketVault." I almost laughed. About two years ago I described this very device to my father and asked him "Why hasn't anyone else thought of this?"

Of course their version includes a fingerprint scanner and a 15 minute life for the magnetic stripe. I admit I didn't think of those two features back then. Overall however the device is just the way I envisioned it. Good job guys ;-) And good luck.

PS: I honestly did think of this all on my own. If I wanted to lie, I'd pick a much more prominent invention to lie about. Like "Hey guys, look! I invented a toaster! Or the Internet! Or sliced bread!" Anyway. Why am I even explaining myself? It's not like I am trying to sell you something...

PPS: I think I am just going to post all my ideas in this blog from now on. Maybe someone will be able to make them useful while I am still in school.

Idea number 555:
1 Create a service which would set up several thousand GMail accounts.
2 Charge company X money to send e-mail (between those accounts) containing keywords triggering Company Y's (Company X's competitor) ads.
3 Exhaust Company Y's ads on bots reading those GMail accounts.
4 Profit!!!

Idea Number 556:
1 Create a service which would set up several thousand GMail accounts.
2 Charge company X ransom money to NOT send e-mail (between those accounts) containing keywords triggering Company X's ads.
3 Exhaust Company X's ads on bots reading those GMail accounts if they don't pay the ransom.
4 Repeat 1, 2, 3 to increase profit!!!