Technology
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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: Sometimes, getting technical support from a company requires making an actual phone call. Like the audio / voice kind that people used to do in old movies! Typically, one ends up in an “on hold” scenario in which soothing music is intermittently interrupted by the message “representatives are busy, your call will be answered…
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Background: There are many phone apps that provide neighborhood-focused local news updates in real time (e.g. “Nextdoor” and “Citizen”). This can make a person aware of every single burglary, car accident, “suspicious dog,” and other strange happening that may occur in their general vicinity. The issue: While this information can be useful, it often leads…
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Background: When on a meeting with video chat, people generally like to look at least vaguely professional / presentable, even if they just rolled out of bed 5 minutes before the meeting. The issue: There are two main problems in video chat for people who want to project a corporate-approved professional image: The background should…
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Background: Most laptops include a built-in camera, typically located just above the top edge of the screen. This type of camera is generally marketed as a “video chat” or “conference call” camera. The issue: When a person is on a video call, they tend to look at the image on the screen instead of directly…
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Background: When an action is routine and uninteresting (e.g. locking a door, turning off a light, etc.), it’s sometimes hard to remember if you did it at all. The issue: Occasionally, people find themselves wondering “did I close the garage when I left the house?” or “did I remember to lock the car when I…
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Background: It is well known that washing hands for a surprisingly long time (30 seconds!) substantially reduces microbial contamination (Figure W1). The issue: Unfortunately, people generally feel, psychologically speaking, that their hands are clean immediately upon rinsing them with even the slightest hint of water. The challenge, therefore, is to encourage people to wash…
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Background: Modern submarines use a periscope-like electronic camera (a “photonics mast.”) to view the world above the waves. The issue: The problem is twofold: If an adversary spots a periscope, there isn’t much doubt as to what’s under the waves: it’s a submarine (Figure 1). Periscope designs are apparently specific to each nation, so just…
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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: In many cities, there are a large number of “almost-a-parking-spot” locations (for example, between two driveways) that can only fit an extremely small car. Additionally, most popular models of small cars have gotten substantially larger over time. For example, a 1959 Mini Cooper is 120 inches long, while a 2005 model is 143 inches…
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