Category Archives: Idea dump

Idea dump #3

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11

From time to time I come up with ideas which, for whatever reason, I can’t work on right now.

Rather than jealously guarding these ideas, I’m going to post them here in regular bursts, in case someone out there wants to run with them.

Most importantly, sharing your ideas triggers something unexpected: it forces you to come up with new ones.

 

 

Social Sync

A web service that you sign up to, then add and remove social accounts for any compatible (API-enabled) service. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.

Then, the application will silently and automatically keep your networks in sync – whichever you post to. Rules and knowledge of the content compatibility will ensure photos on Facebook are added to Twitpic and Tweeted, that links shared on Twitter are copied to LinkedIn and so on.

Think: ‘clever sync for social media’.

Or: ‘Rsync for social’.

 

Haptic Gas Pedal

Haptic feedback works with a user’s sense of touch by applying forces, and vibrations through the control surface. It’s an extra way to give the user a ‘feel’ of what’s happening on a device.

Car manufacturers could implement a series of distinct haptic tones which can be felt through the foot when accelerating – designed to teach the driver to drive more economically.

A ‘reward’ vibration could be felt after a period of economical driving, while an ‘angry’ buzz would be felt if there was hard driving or braking.

 

Proximity Password

If you’re at home, using the web through your own encrypted wireless connection, then you’re ‘safe’. Assuming this, a browser or OS could automatically authenticate you on websites you visit.

Effectively, a master password for your keychain linked to your WiFi credentials. If you’re out and about, then you’d still need to enter passwords – but while at home, it’s fine to auto-authenticate with sites.

If an attacker is using your computer, on your wireless: you’ve got bigger problems to worry about first.

 

 

Discussion on HN.

Idea dump #2

Posted on by
4

From time to time I come up with ideas which, for whatever reason, I can’t work on right now.

Rather than jealously guarding these ideas, I’m going to post them here in regular bursts, in case someone out there wants to run with them.

Most importantly, sharing your ideas triggers something unexpected: it forces you to come up with new ones.

 

 

Wavetees

Order a t-shirt bearing a waveform (or some nice-looking spectral analysis) of a favourite song – as well as the track title and maybe a QR code.

Now that digital music has all but killed the physical music release – people no longer carry CD cases (and definitely not vinyl LPs), and nobody ever says ‘Hey – I like that album too!’. Everyone’s iPod looks the same, regardless of what it’s playing.

This kind of ‘music wear’ could be a nice conversation starter.

 

Coffee Shop Genius

Most coffee shops feature WiFi. This system would use bonjour (or some other network service discovery protocol) to connect and examine any shared iTunes library.

The in-store music system (which is probably a computer playing MP3s in any case) plays their most played song in the shop – or starts a ’round robin’ between customers’ songs.

As visitors come and go during the day, the tone and mood of the music would subtly match the clientele.

This could be extended to a mini ‘control panel’ on the WiFi login web page to allow visitors to queue up a jukebox of in-shop music – or ‘upvote’ favourites.

 

IP-Post

A community-driven real-world postal service based on the principles of the internet.

You only pay your ISP for your internet line to cover the distance from your house to the network. Traffic that moves across the internet beyond there is zero-cost (to you).

This idea would model a postal service for real-world items around these principles, plus a bit of community volunteering.

1. Participating towns and cities would have a ‘node’ in a public place like a community centre
2. Each day, locked boxes are addressed from and to a node and moved
3. Inter-node transport is carried out free – by volunteers who are heading that way anyway on their normal commute – even if they can only take a box part of the way to its destination
4. Post can be collected from the node whenever you’re ready, or by community volunteers

Free to use, community-spirited, more honest and more reliable. But, a lot slower.

 

Idea dump

Posted on by
7

From time to time I come up with ideas which, for whatever reason, I can’t work on right now.

Rather than jealously guarding these ideas, I’m going to post them here in regular bursts, in case someone out there wants to run with them.

Most importantly, sharing your ideas triggers something unexpected: it forces you to come up with new ones.

 

 

Twitbook

Sign in with your twitter ID and this app lets you organise and print a nicely-bound, printed book of all your tweets (or any user’s) – complete with dates and locations.

The right-hand-side pages can show extracts from shared links, photos, etc – all programatically generated by the site. A nice analog version of your 140-character memories for the hipsters.

Update: This does exist, although there doesn’t seem to be any content integration other than tweets. http://www.tweetbookz.com/

 

CycleCam

Helmet-mounted flash disk video camera – like the (now defunct) Flip Mino, but a totally “sealed unit” needing only a battery and nothing more.

The camera would be activated by a mercury tilt-switch or an accelerometer and would begin and end recordings automatically.

In the event of an incident on the road, the owner could plug the camera into their computer and view video files ordered into time-stamped folders of every journey. Bonus points for adding a GPS to add location data to each trip.

 

CarWiki

A wiki-powered site where vehicle registration plates are the subdomains, for example:

HY10AGV.carwiki.whatever

Like a Wikipedia article, the site could record a definitive outline of the vehicle the registration is attached to, and swaps between owners (for personal plates) could be supported too.

Other data which could be stored would include; comments about driving, offers and requests for lift-sharing, and generally building a community around road users. The wiki-powered nature of the site would create a traceable history of every registration, publicly available and editable.

 

I’m going to (try to) update regularly, so: more ideas next week.