Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Invention Idea #1 - July 24, 2007

I’m not a programmer or a soldering gun wielding microchip engineer, but I do love following technological developments that change the world in which we live. Maybe it’s a robot receptionist or maybe it’s a make-your-own-sticker website, I love it all.

Sometimes I have these ideas for inventions that utilize technologies at hand, but since I have no idea how to do it, well, they just remain ideas. In the name of sharing and inspiration, I’ll reveal all ideas I think of that I can’t fathom actually figuring out how to do. Before I do, here are two sites that encourage people to do just that : http://www.whynot.net/ and http://www.shouldexist.org/ .Alright here’s my pitch. Someone out there needs to create Bluetooth “buttons” that a person can place on objects that an individual typically carries on oneself (such as a wallet or iPod). These Bluetooth buttons would be linked to a person’s phone, and would notify the person when one of the buttons was no longer transmitting waves back to the phone. The phone would then ring or do something to tell the person that one of the tagged items was missing.

Essentially, this type of product would prevent people from losing items they commonly carry on themselves. For instance, if I sat down on a bus and my car keys fell onto the seat when I stood up and started to walk away, my phone would start to ring and let me know item “a” had lost its signal. I could then turn around to find my keys sitting on the seat. Vice versa, if my phone falls onto the seat, then when I walk away it would ring, because all the items on me would be separated from the phone, and hence, the phone would ring and I would notice it was on the seat behind me. This type of technology could also be used as a theft deterrent of sorts, given you can spot the thief.

Can anyone make this happen?

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Hey Reid. This sort of system actually isn't that technically difficult. What you would want to do is attach attach an RFID tag to the items you don't want to lose and incorporate an RFID reader into something that's hard to lose (like a watch). RFID tags can be tiny, like the size of a sticker, so they could be unnoticeably attached to just about anything.

The second hardest part about this project would be shrinking down the size of the RFID reader and making it look cool enough for someone to wear. I'm sure all that would take is a little hard work.

The hardest part would just be marketing the darn thing and convincing people they need it.
I bet if you could think of a nifty way to integrate this system with the internet, you might have yourself a viable business.

Hmm. Now that I think about it, this sounds like a pretty good idea. Maybe I've said too much...

(cooter)