Culture
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Background: There are a few cell phone games that use real-world GPS data to control your in-game character. The most well-known are probably the two games by Niantic, Pokemon Go and Ingress, in which you physically walk around in order to move your in-game character. However, no one has yet implemented a smaller-scale version of…
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Background: 3D glasses provide the ability to put two totally separate images on a screen at once. Normally, the technology this is used to provide a stereo-3D effect (Figure 1). But we could use this same technology to show subtly (or entirely!) different films to different groups of people in an audience. Fig. 1: Each…
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Background: Millions of laptops are destroyed every year by spilled drinks (Figure 1). Unfortunately, this is a difficult problem to address, because laptops and beverages are frequently in close proximity. Fig. 1a (top) and 1b (bottom): You have probably either experienced this situation first-hand or observed it happen to someone else. If only there had…
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Background: There are hundreds of famous and excellent movies, but almost no one has seen them all! It’s possible to laboriously go through the extensive backlog of classic movies, but with the current volume of media, this would be a major endeavor. Proposal: By splitting a screen into N segments (for this example, let’s say…
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The issue: Travel to exotic locales can be expensive, inconvenient, and perhaps even dangerous or impossible. Proposal: Using the same technology that companies like Google use to get street view images (now available in 40-lb backpack format as well: https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&sa=1&q=google+street+view+camera ), we can set up a scenario where you can conduct tourism by proxy using…
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The issue: Sometimes, it’s hard to keep in touch with your friends and family, especially if you live in different cities and time zones. Proposal: The solution is quite simple—an app that keeps track of when you last met up with, texted, called, or otherwise contacted your friends and family. In fact, it could even…
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Background: Here’s a problem we’ve all faced: you are a member of a noble family, and so is your spouse: clearly, your child must inherit both of your venerable royal surnames, but how? One solution is to combine both names into a new hyphenated name. But this really just kicks the problem down the road—it’s…
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Background: Museums are often large and weirdly laid out, and it’s frequently impossible to see the high points of culture without major hassle. In contrast, amusement park rides are laid out with extreme care to provide an engaging experience the whole way through. Specifically relevant to this proposal are “narrative” rides where a user gets…
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Background: You’re probably familiar with web sites that have very particular password requirements: “Your password must contain a number, capital letter, and special character.” “Your password must contain the name of a Triple Crown-winning horse.” “Your password cannot contain your username.” The purpose of these requirements is usually to either: Require that the password not…
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The issue: Sometimes, when you’re eating an ice cream out of a cone, you will suffer the indignity of having the ice cream drip onto yourself and/or the ground (see Fig. 1). This is especially likely to occur if you are less than five years old. This can be avoided by diligently rotating the cone…
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