Computers
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Background: Most standard “utility” programs (word processors, spreadsheets, photo editors…) haven’t been substantially improved since approximately 2005. The Issue: Unfortunately, in order for the companies that sell these programs to survive, they need to somehow get paid. But this is a difficult argument to make when the 1997 version of a spreadsheet program is essentially…
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Background: Sometimes, office workers who are retired (or unemployed, or even on vacation) miss certain elements of the office environment. Much of this is probably rose-tinted nostalgia, but maybe we can capitalize on it anyway in order to create a valuable service. Proposal: There are three elements to this system, which we will call the…
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Background: Extremely large TVs have now become cheap enough to use as gigantic computer monitors. It’s possible to find a 55+” television with high enough resolution and low enough latency to work as an external monitor for even the most discerning computer-ologist. The issue: Most desks are not set up to accommodate a 55″ television…
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Background: With the 2020 COVID plague, work-related video chats have become increasingly full of a large number of participants (Figure 1). The issue: Video chats have a problem that in-person office work does not: there is no convenient way for participants of an unreasonably-large video chat group to split off into subgroups. Instead, every discussion…
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Background: It seems that nearly every electronic device with a camera or microphone is now Internet-enabled and can wirelessly send video and audio to the world. The issue: Due to the preponderance of electronic hardware in a modern household, it can be difficult which (if any) device is spying on you at that exact moment…
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Background: Occasionally, people get a gift or memento from a company after working there for a certain period of time, or, sometimes, when their jobs are outsourced to a much cheaper country and everyone is fired. Proposal: For programmers, what better way to commemorate their contributions to a company than a log of all their…
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Background: In programming, there is the notion of “code smell”—a subtle indication that something is terribly wrong in a piece of source code, but without any (obvious) actual mistake. For example, if you saw the following: print(“E”); print(“RR”); print(“OR”); print(“!”); instead of print(“ERROR!”); that would be a good indication that something extremely bizarre was going…
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Background: Laptop privacy screens (or “monitor filters”) reduce the viewing angle of a laptop screen in order to prevent evildoers from snooping on sensitive information on your laptop (Figure 1). The issue: Unfortunately, these privacy screens have a few downsides: They are inelegant to attach. Often, the attachment points block a small amount of screen…
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