Something to heat or boil water rapidly on the stove, so I don’t have to stand around so long waiting for the water to boil every time I want to cook pasta. It could be a heating element that dips into a pot of water, and takes the maximum current that a house can draw. Or it could store energy ahead of time using a flywheel or something. I want at least 15 kilowatts.
Also, I want every audio product to come with a dynamic compressor so that they can stop compressing the hell out of CDs and end the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war. You get a CD with a good dynamic range, then if you want to listen to it in a car the car stereo compresses it so you can hear the quiet parts. There could be an extra data channel that would allow the producers to add data on how it should be compressed.
Wireless power transfer for charging batteries in gadgets, that works like Wi-Fi. Then we could have charge points in public places like with wireless internet today. Seriously, why don’t we have this already? I’ve just packed my laptop, digital camera, iPod and cellphone for my holiday, and their splendid compactness and portability is pretty much nullified by the metric buttload of chargers and cables I have to drag along. :smack:
EDIT: Yeah, I know I’m not exactly the first one to think of this. I just *really *want it.
That is indeed a great idea, and I believe it is already being implemented in DVDs with the so-called “night mode”.
The Dolby Digital or DTS stream can indeed contain data on dynamic range reduction, so you can watch movies at night without the gunfights waking up your neighbors.
The problem with this is just massive inefficiency. Most of the power is lost in the transfer.
Something that could work, however, is sort of a charging mat, where you place the items and which works via induction.
Also, at least for cell phones, the proprietary systems of today might soon be but a distant memory.
They exist. Uniden makes one. They work, and they’re not very popular because they’re expensive (around AUD$150 or so) and don’t actually do anything that your existing chargers and a powerboard can’t.
This is sort-of available now. Our local supermarket has a rapid wine chiller that will cool bottles in 3-4 mins. Pop bottle in a slot, choose level of cooling, push button… pop back 4 mins later and it’s done.
It was designed for shoppers picking up wine on the way to a dinner party, but means you don’t have to keep loads of expensive chiller cabinets on the go at once.
We have these in the UK. They’re called (electric) kettles. They’re not 15Kw, more like 2. Will boil about 1/2 L of water in 2 minutes. There’s also a new model of kettle out that boils a glass of water in 30 seconds.
No, I want to boil a big pot of water quickly so I can make pasta. I want something that will glow white with the heat of a thousand suns and bring several gallons to boiling in 30 seconds.
A virtual monitor! Something to replace the physical screen on your smart phone or PDA. Along the lines of the heads-up displays used in aircraft and some automobiles, only much better. Holographic, magic, whatever.
Then we perfect the elimination of the keyboard and you now have your computer/phone/internet device small enough to wear as a ring or ear ring, or maybe a pair of glasses or even just a patch that you stick on.
The physical size limitations now are almost all screen and keyboard.
The solution to that is roll-up or folding OLED screens, and maybe folding keyboards too, or something else. Another idea would be to have a projector that can use any whitish surface as a screen.
You sound like an engineer! Engineers love things, but we are going to be limiting actual things in the future. Functionality without form is the goal.
So no roll-up or folding things, I want magic! Roll-up or folding things will just need to be replaced yet again with things that do not need to be rolled or folded.
Bring an outline of your proposed solution to Tuesday’s staff meeting. It is also your turn to bring donuts.
There already are roll-up keyboards, and virtual keyboards that can be projected onto any flat surface with projectors the size of cigarette lighters.
What we need is computer hats or scarves, that can interface directly with our brains through induction so no messy surgery is required.
I would also accept a computer in a pill that would lodge itself somewhere in your system until you swallow an upgrade, at which point to old version would deliver itself to you colon for expulsion. Oh, and while it’s there, it will give you a colonoscopy too, saving you at least one unpleasant medical procedure.
What I’ve wanted for a while is something that combines a light dimmer and a light timer. So that I can turn the knob to five minutes and then go into the shower with my eyes not yet awake. Over that time, the lights in the bathroom go from 0% to 100% very gradually so my eyes can adjust.
