Technology
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Background: It is common for people to be glued to their cell phones for nearly 100% of their waking hours. This is especially true now that phone batteries last for hours even under heavy use and fast video-capable cellular data is available in most populated areas. The issue: It is commonly suggested that people should…
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Background: Yoga is often thought of as an activity that requires focus, and is thus incompatible with meaninglessly scrolling through random Internet content. And it’s true that most yoga positions do not leave the yoga practitioner’s hands free to casually browse a cell phone while yoga-ing. The issue: Unfortunately, the result of this is that…
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Background: Cell phone interfaces seem to inexorably become more complicated as time goes on. The issue: The 2010-era smartphone relied on a small number of obviously-interactable elements, but 2020’s smartphones are quite sophisticated (and complicated) from a UI standpoint, with finger-sliding gestures, multiple screens of icons, and even the possibility of splitting the screen to…
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Background: It is generally understood that a person who finishes the last amount of something (e.g. milk, soy sauce, driving a shared car until the tank is empty) is also responsible for refilling the substance. The issue: This system is frequently gamed by the lazy, who will leave a tiny amount remaining so as to…
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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: Recently, there has been discussion around the futuristic concept of “vertical farming”: growing crops in skyscraper-style greenhouses in city centers. The issue: Although there are many conceptual advantages to such a farm, there is at least one major difficulty: light. Obviously, only the topmost layer of a vertical farm would be practical to light…



