From: Lawhorn_W <Lawhorn_W at bls.gov>
To: "'WSFA members'" <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA]  Interesting Inventions from NYT
Date: Thu, 28 Mar 2002 09:09:07 -0500
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>

This article was in the NY Times this morning.  I thought it might also be
topical.

Wish List: 9 Innovations in Search of Inventors

By DAVID POGUE

OU can say what you want about the bursting of the technology bubble (just
not in front of the children). True, the Super Bowl lost some advertisers,
20-year-olds lost their beachfront condos, and investors lost their shirts.
But for technology writers, it was a great time to be alive.

These days, though, there seems to be a measurable deceleration in high-tech
innovation. Sure, PC's are getting slightly faster, palmtops slightly
brighter, and DVD players slightly cheaper, but where are the big, bold new
ideas for consumer products? Where are the inventions on par with the pen
scanner, the discount Web drugstore and the robot dog?

Maybe industry executives just need a little inspiration. Here are some
ideas for new products that should exist, but don't - at least, not
according to the exhaustive search conducted by my research staff (that is,
my wife on Google). If you're an inventor, take these ideas with my
blessings. I ask nothing in return but a smile, a firm handshake and 10
percent of the net.

MICROWAVE PLUS+
It's beginning to dawn on manufacturers that we need better ways of getting
data from one source to another. The redundantly named VCR Plus+ feature,
for example, simplifies programming your VCR by letting you plug in a code
found in the newspaper TV listings.

But even in 2002, frozen-food packages still bear ludicrously imprecise
instructions like, "Heat at High for 3 to 7 minutes (ovens vary)."

"3 to 7"? Let's get our act together! Microwaves equipped with Microwave
Plus+ would have a tiny bar-code reader on the front panel. In half a
second, this little eye would scan the cooking-information bar code that
would appear on each package of food. The oven's software would adapt those
instructions to accommodate its particular wattage and abilities. Everybody
wins: The food and microwave makers see sales rise, emergency rooms see
fewer burns, and consumers get perfectly cooked food.

PUNCH-IT-UP ALARM CLOCK
The modern clock radio can play CD's, wake up two people at different times,
and even beam the current time onto the ceiling. So why do we have to set
the time using the same controls cavemen used in the Stone Age?

You still have to hold down slow, imprecise buttons that on most models go
only forward in time. If you woke at 8 this morning, you can't reset the
alarm for 7 a.m. tomorrow without fast-forwarding through 23 hours' worth of
flickering numbers.

Haven't these companies ever heard of a phone-style number keypad? We should
be able to set the alarm for 8:45 just by tapping the 8, 4, and 5 keys in
sequence. You'd save two minutes a night, which you could use for any number
of activities, like sleeping.

BLIND DATA
 The most excruciating aspect of being single in the city is the information
void. There you sit on the subway, surreptitiously eyeing some attractive
stranger, with no way of knowing if that person is single, sane, straight or
solvent. For all you know, he or she doesn't speak your language, is heading
at this moment to a new life overseas or has just dumped someone who looks
exactly like you.

Bluetooth, a new (and real) technology that wirelessly connects gadgets
within 30 feet of each other, could eliminate this kind of agony. Like the
Japanese Lovegety toy for teenagers, the Blind Data would be a tiny
transmitter, worn on a key ring or pendant. But instead of beeping when just
anyone of the opposite sex came nearby, the Blind Data would be a far more
discerning gizmo. You would program it with the vital statistics of both you
and the kind of soul mate you're seeking. When your transmitter vibrates, it
means that somebody else's is vibrating, too. Somebody less than 30 feet
away is looking for someone just like you.

At the very least, you'll sit up straight and quit picking your teeth.
You'll look around you to see who else is sitting up straight and looking
around. If you don't like what you see, you just move on. And if you do
decide to smile and introduce yourself, you've got one heck of a great
conversation starter.

TIVOCORDER
A TiVo (news/quote) (a real product) can do a lot of things, from recording
your favorite shows automatically to pausing live TV. Furthermore, it's
always recording whatever is on the current channel, even if the TV itself
is turned off. At any time, you can turn on the TV and rewind up to 45
minutes into the past to see what you've just missed.

It's a tantalizing idea. Now suppose TiVo came out with a tiny, pen-shaped
digital audio recorder. Once in your shirt pocket, it would continuously
record the sound around you. At any time, while continuing to record, you
could play back the last 20 minutes of whatever you've just heard: a
co-worker's brilliant utterance, something you didn't quite catch on the car
radio, or driving directions somebody rattled off too fast. (As on the real
TiVo, it would continue recording even as it played back.)

Because it would always be on, you would never worry about missing something
important. And no family argument would ever again devolve into, "But you
said . . . " and, "No, that's not what I said!"

MP-TEETHBRUSH
 In the 90's, the hot new-product formula was to tack an MP3 music player
onto some existing gizmo. We had MP3 cameras, MP3 phones, even MP3 watches.

But they missed the MP3-playing toothbrush. At what other time would a
little music be so welcome as during that boring hygiene moment?

INTERCOM-PUTER
Every year, more people buy second and even third computers, which they
often connect as a network. How odd, then, that when husband and wife are
both at their machines, they still communicate by yelling from one end of
the house to the other.

The Intercom-Puter would be an inexpensive U.S.B. intercom that connects to
each computer and exploits your network wiring. Just push a button to talk
("Phone for you," "Have you seen my glasses?"). It would be quick,
convenient and simpler than software-based intercom systems, which require
microphone and speakers for each PC.

FLUMAPPER.COM
Young children are walking cotton swabs, and schools are the world's biggest
Petri dishes. Your kindergartner comes home, feverish and miserable, and you
have to listen to the doctor on the phone say: "Oh, yeah, that's going
around. He'll have high fever for 24 hours, then two days of vomiting, with
a little rash for another week."

If the bugs are this identifiable, a little notice might be nice - perhaps
in the form of a Web site that tracks the various flu strains that float
across the country. It would look like a national weather map. But it
wouldn't just show you which states had flu cases, period, like the
simplistic maps at Fluwatch.com and elsewhere. Instead, color-coded clouds
would show you exactly which types of mini-epidemics are sweeping through.
You'd know at a glance what's "going around," what symptoms you're in for
and which kinds of places to avoid.

This site wouldn't need banner ads. Subscriptions from wary, weary parents
would be quite enough support.

SNAPFLAT SCREEN
Flat-panel screens are glorious but still expensive. As time goes on, we
wind up having to buy more and more of them - in palmtops, laptops, digital
cameras, camcorders, PC's, and lately, car dashboards and television sets.

Clearly, the world is waiting for the SnapFlat Screen: a detachable,
interchangeable flat panel that you can move from gadget to gadget. After
all, you use only one of these expensive machines at a time. At the end of
the day, you can snap the screen onto your Web appliance to see how much
money you've saved by buying one universal screen instead of six proprietary
ones.

THE I-PODULE
The built-in hard drive of the iPod, Apple's tiny white-and-chrome music
player, holds 10 gigabytes. That's enough for about 2,500 songs. When
connected to a Macintosh, the iPod also acts as a standard hard drive, ideal
for moving files between machines. But why stop there? "Tiny" and
"capacious" are two words that don't come together very often. The iPod
could be the heart of a new generation of storage-hungry gadgets.

Imagine a digital camera with an iPod slot: you could take thousands of
pictures without running out of film and slip the iPod into your computer to
transfer them. Then you'd snap the iPod into a camcorder for capturing
video, from there to your cellphone to send files or photos to a friend, and
maybe even into a cash machine for a quick download of your statement.

Just don't lose the thing.

Hope you found it interesting
Bill Lawhorn