Ideas

Companion Animals

2016/04/28: pet emergency kit – food, water, medications, leash, carrier, space blanket, wound care, rabies tag.  Will.  Window sticker for rescue workers.  Wallet card.

2014/06/06: Cat bodysuit to keep the wearer from chewing, mowing, or scratching.  Takes the place of cones and paw booties.

2014/05/31: Feline and canine equivalents of the Bristol stool scale with odor and color components.  (There is a color scale for human urine – but collecting a urine sample from a cat is more trouble than it’s worth.  A color scale for human stool wouldn’t be as useful since the color of a human’s stool doesn’t correlate well with that human’s health or diet healthfulness… excepting certain shades of brownish chartreuse.)

2014/04/04: As an adjunct to the fresh entrees in the deli section of Whole Foods, offer fresh raw cat and dog meals.  Could even be ground to order.

2014/06/15?: Create occasion cards for companion animals (to appear as though the cards are coming from the animals to their human companions or their human companions’ friends and relatives).  CNP added idea to include a one-time use pad on the card to enable a paw print signature.

2015/05/06: World’s Best Cat Litter offers Meowther’s Day cards via Facebook (for the price of a Facebook login).  https://www.facebook.com/worldsbestcatlitter/app_822610781159374?ref=ts

Biking and Night Activities

2014/06/06: Light emitting pant garters for biking.  Need to be easy to get on an off but not so easy that they pop off during movement.

Home Electronics

2014/07/04: Arduino based ‘Programmable Firefly’ kit.  Trigger was 2014/07/04 broadcast of a Science Friday interview with Mark Branham of the University of Florida.  He talked about ways to emulate a female firefly’s flashing pattern to attract the much flashier male fireflies.

2014/06/06: Clock radio with WiFi and smarts.  Can set the alarm via MS Outlook, gmail, iPhone calendar, or Lotus Notes.  Can record podcasts a la the Shark and playback on demand.  Can access Pandora.

HCM

2014/04/28: Collaborate on team status and accomplishments on a running Web page.  Feature a different team member each week.  Record outcomes as well as milestones and deliverables.

Gnomes – Front Porch

2014/06/06: Deer scaring gnome – voice, lights, water, zapping, chile pepper spray, … ?  Also use to scare off pooping dogs and cats; and to chase off fruit-picking kids.

2014/05/?: Migrated into gnomes, including desktop terrariums.

2014/04/05: An idea based on the lion statues on Santa Clara Ave that get dressed up for every occasion (they are currently holding Easter baskets and wearing bunny ears and fluffy pink tutus).  Offer a line of statuary and a wardrobe of seasonally-appropriate accessories and DIY patterns for each.  The banners will become passe once they face competition from the lions.

Nutriate

2014/03/26: Wrappers restaurant concept… intro to East Bay Express article on a new tamale restaurant talks about some wrapped food variations.

East Bay Express review of the Tomato Sherpa service.

2014/03/20: Pomona Prof. Tomás Summers Sandoval CMC ’94 in speaking to an alumni group about his book The Making of Latino San Francisco stated (not necessarily word-for-word “cultural continuity via the palette”.  I think that extends beyond what we eat to what we grow.

2013/10/23: ‘Packaged food’ not ‘processed food’.

2013/10/23: Crowd source nutrition label information by asking people to use mobile devices to scan labels.

Wikipedia

Convert docent talks into Wikipedia articles.

Grandparents

An app, Web site, and product line that makes it easy for grandparents to build a community around their grandchildren.  Photos, stories, genealogy, advice, education funds, …

Home Schooling

Subscription / insurance service for substitute teachers for home schoolers.

IP Law

http://blogs.kqed.org/newsfix/2013/04/16/government-secrecy-orders-on-patents-keep-lid-on-inventions/

PowerPoint Version Control

Refer to the Clutter Buster Inventions page for this and other data decluttering inventions.

Multilingual spell and grammar checkers

Idea came up in a 2013 February 4 conversation between Penelope Gordon and Jean-Francois Barsoum.

Chocolidor

(Suggested early December 2012 by Jean-Francois Barsoum.)  PEG 2012 Dec 19: Similar in concept to a humidor, a chocolidor (chocador? chocolador?) keeps chocolate at the correct humidity (too high a humidity relative to the storage temperature can cause sugar bloom to form) and temperature (too high a temperature can cause fat bloom to form).  As noted in the HowStuffWorks article titled “Why does chocolate turn gray sometimes?” (referenced in the Wikipedia article on Chocolate bloom), chocolate that’s bloomed (gray or whitish surface discolorations) is okay to eat.  From personal experience sugar bloom is more detrimental to the texture (and flavor) than is fat bloom.  When the sugar crystallizes on the surface, not only does the surface get grainier (not as noticeable with a grainier raw chocolate), but the layer just below gets a little spongy – presumably due to the migration of sugar to the surface.

Rhythm Education

PEG 2012 Dec 19: I had a dream… and we were all playing and singing and dancing… in perfect harmony.  The setting in the dream was a large, airy, rectangular classroom.  The instructor was at one end looking over two facing rows of students (young teens, not that it matters) seated at DJ turntables (a pair of platters for each student).  The instructor was calling out different types of music and the students were responding by ‘playing’ appropriate rhythms on their turntables.  In addition to calling out the music type, the instructor may have also played a (non-manipulated) snippet of music with which the students would syncopate.  As I awoke from the dream I held on to the details and added dance to the instruction: instead of using DJ turntables, some students ‘play’ the rhythm and syncopate by dancing on a touch sensitive mat (such as the mat used in the interactive video game Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) or the piano mat that the Tom Hanks character danced on in the movie “Big”).  Tap shoes would certainly be another way for dancers to generate rhythm, but I prefer the idea of a mat which can be programmed to translate the location, degree of pressure, rate of acceleration, and direction of movement into a broad aural library – much broader than that generated by taps.  (Also, a mat can be used by those without the balance or coordination for tap shoes.)

Ear Bling

PEG 2013 Apr 19: Samurai sword earbuds.

PEG 2013 Jan 1: Popularize (and monetize) ear jewelry that doubles as hearing protection.  This idea was inspired by the lack of attendees wearing ear plugs to a quite loud New Year’s Eve party.  (At least one musician was wearing ear plugs.)  Somewhat akin to the fad of wearing a bluetooth earpiece to evening events- but much more upscale.

Bananas in the Boudoir

PEG 2013 Jan 1: Personal lubricant (especially for the vagina) made from banana (peels).

Allergies

PEG 2013 Jan 24: The recent Fancy Food Show had a few booths carrying fennel pollen.  The dry powder had the concentrated flavor of fennel.  I’m curious if consuming fennel pollen (harvested locally) has the same allergy prevention benefits as consuming bee pollen.

On a different note, theoretically one of the big benefits for the infant of breastfeeding is allergy prevention.  I’m curious to what extent that benefit exists if the mother is experiencing allergy symptoms, treating allergy symptoms with prescription and/or over-the-counter medication, or has allergies but no active symptoms.  And what about environmental (e.g. dust) vs. food (e.g. shellfish) allergies?  Would it be much more effective for the infant to receive breast milk from a mother without allergies?  If yes, does it make much of a difference if the donor lives in the same geography as the infant?  And what about a mother and infant who relocate?  Does it take time for the mother’s milk to develop allergy inhibitors specific to the new location?

Gophers

Raise gophers to be landmine detectors.

Baked Chips

Lentil-quinoa flour base with carrot and dinosaur kale puree.  Ethiopian spice mix.  Flaxseed meal.

Car Finder App

< 2015/06/22: App ties into your car’s GPS and connects to a mapping app to direct you to your parked car.  For a non-GPS car, the app allows you to map your car when you park it.  Can also use the app to find your GPS-tagged child or animal companion.

Walk and Bike Safely App

< 2015/06/22: To avoid having your cell phone out and visible, when using a mapping app your phone vibrates once briefly for right, twice briefly for left, and once less briefly for turnaround.

Lost and Found App

2016/10/07: Enables larger facilities to have a distributed lost and found system.  Photos of found items are added to a database and are tagged with when and where the item was found (automatic option based on geotag), descriptive characteristics (selected from a menu; optional automatic identification), and where the item is being held (automatic option based on geotag).  If you’ve lost an item, then via the app you can enter your description, search the database, and if there’s a match, connect with the item holder to coordinate collection.  (The app handles verification for more valuable items such as a lost wallet.)  The app would also handle language translation.  It would be particularly useful for amusement parks, multi-building complexes, shopping malls, and large public spaces.

Internet Phototourism

Idea generated by 2013 February 12 Christian Science Monitor ‘Good Reads’ clip on “phototourism” (photographic tourism) trumping big-game hunting in some African countries.  For example, one study in Botswana reports that trophy hunting accounts for only 0.1% of GDP while phototourism accounts for 11%.  Virtual safaris – and virtual birdwatching – could further tip the balance toward habitat preservation by augmenting the in-person revenue stream and by funding cameras to watch the animals and by crowdsourcing monitoring for poachers and other threats to the animals’ survival.

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