The WriteLight

The Pitch:

The WriteLight is the size of a ballpoint pen so it fits easily into your pocket and is ready to go just like your phone’s camera. It gives you a an easy to use secondary light source when taking photos with your camera phone.

The Idea:

I work with a few people that love photography, including myself. We’ll take pictures with anything. Now thanks to great cell phone cameras I never feel like I’m without something that will capture a pretty decent image. But I always feel the flash is lacking on these phone. Look I get it I’m expecting way too much from a phone camera flash.

One day we were playing around with our camera phones and trying out alternative lighting. Like pen lights and small LED lights. Then I realized what I wanted was a light that had a bunch of lights like the ones in cell phones, mainly because they are bright. Since I’m an artist I’m always carrying around pens. So I came up with the WriteLight.

You can vote on it at Quirky and if we’re lucky maybe they’ll make it!

I didn’t want a light that attached to the camera or supplements the camera light. I wanted a light that could be positioned any where around your subject work like a video light, add more visual drama and best of all fit in my pocket right next to all my favorite pens.

Key Features:

Size of a regular pen.
8 Super Bright LEDS
SWIPE your Light. Swipe across the length of the pen to turn on the lights one at a time.
The more lights the brighter it will be.
Color Knob so you can change the color of the light to add even more lighting effects.
Rechargeable by a USB cord or use the USB adapter power supply to recharge the light pen.
Has a clip to hang off a short. But could come with an accessory that acts like a tripod.
Different finishes to match peoples phones. Chrome, White, Black

Google Car, YES PLEASE

People say they have freedom in their cars. Well, you can’t text, read books, talk on your cell phone and now the latest study says even singing in the car is distracting enough that it makes it unsafe to drive. Maybe we were never really meant to drive. Sure people say they like their driving time to unwind, cool down or just relax. Honestly what the heck is relaxing about it anyway? Driving at 70 miles an hour just to keep up with everyone else and you hope everyone else is paying at least half as much attention as you are.

Yeah we can go anywhere we want. But is that freedom? Please Google save us! I’ve read more than a few blogs that people think this is taking away our freedom. If you live in an urban area and drive more than 30 minutes to work or to the store. You’ll realize what’s taking our freedom isn’t self driving cars it’s the traffic we have to sit in EVERY day.

I enjoy cars, fancy car, hot rods and custom jobs but driving is the biggest waste of time I can think of and it isn’t getting any better. Maybe you can work at home but you still have to get out and go place at some point.

So I thought I’d sit down and see if I could come up with list of how our lives will change when we really have Google self driving cars. Believe me I’m all in so sign me up NOW Google!

The LIST

Yes, Most people will have sex while riding in a Google Car theres no getting around that…
Senior Citizen never have to get a drivers license again and will no longer lose their independence and freedom again. Plus the car will always bring them home.
I can get a lot of extra sleep.
Spend more time writing dumb ideas down like this on my Google Drive while Google is Driving me around.
Watch movies.
If your car needs maintenance it can go get it on its own.
While you’re at work your car can run errands for you. ( Okay just think about the service industry that could rise out of something like this. My car sends a signals to a store and says it’s out front waiting for whatever it is you sent it for. )
You’ll always have rock star parking because your car will let you off at the door. ( guess we’ll get fatter)
If you’re sick your car can take you to the doctor.
You’ll never need to ask a friend to take you to the airport.
Or PAY for airport parking AGAIN.
You could leave on a trip right after work and sleep in the car and wake up in time for that longer family visit. I would love this for visiting family in Kansas City
Would we still even need road signs or waste money making them?
No more speeding tickets ever.
No more tailgaters.
No more parking violations. Does your car even need to park? See no. 14
The car always knows when you need to be picked up.
Never late for a meeting again. GPS+Car knows where it’s going. It starts honking.
Drop off and pick up the kids from school.
Maybe Stop Lights could go away too?
Less street lights. Less light pollution, more stars at night, more energy conserved.
Now you can really wait till the last minute to do your grooming for the day. Maybe your whole car can look like a make-up room.
You can finally finish reading that novel, newspaper, paperback, or magazine without killing yourself or other people.
Less big trucks in the city as smarter smaller trucks (sst) nimbly drive and deliver their contents to merchants. ( this could mean more people to maintain more agile fleets of cars and delivery vehicles. )
When you’re not using your car it can be loaned out to other people, maybe for a small fee.
Your car can get its own gas, unless it’s electric.
Your car can be the tour guide while you enjoy the view.
No more bad teenage drivers.
Insurance rates go down.
No need for large parking lots
No more Gapers BLOCK EVER, History, Nada!
Someday when I get my silent electric #Google car I’ll get to pick what the custom engine sound will be. I choose Sebulbas Podracer.
Cars can be road quality control inspectors. Every little bump, dip, rough patch, slick spot, tight turn can be mapped and analyzed back a home base for improvements the the next road update.
Autopilot Google cars will mean Street View could be REAL TIME!
Will we still need painted street lines.
The view will be much better. No rear view mirrors, or side mirrors. Just a more open view to enjoy.
Your car already knows where all the construction is going on and AVOIDS it. You don’t even have to think about it.
Since your car might have a better idea where it’s going to be when it gets there, it could reserve parking spaces. That is if you still need them.
If your car can even get stolen it can come back home on its own. It would be neat if it could report the perps too.
Cars will go much faster than they do today.
The elderly will never crash through storefront again.
Maybe really spend some time with your family.

A new kind of Personal Assistant

I see this as a major game changer and really allows us to take back that last little chunk of time that eats away our days and weeks just getting around. The other thing here is the about of other technologies, services and opportunities this will open up.

Automated harvesting.
Other uses for this technology. Normal, roadside farming of foods and renewable fuels. If the harvesters could be smaller and guided by GPS and Google navigation technology we could have smaller far more efficient harvesters that could cultivate and harvest the switchgrass in a simpler, faster more efficient manor? Maybe the cars could harvest their own raw materials for power?

Shipping and receiving.
I envision someday that big trucks will be a thing of the past. Well in fact they might even be more like trains. But trains would be the root of the the distribution then go to 18 wheelers ever smaller transportation devices as the deliverer get smaller and smaller. Our inner city roads and intersections are not designed for these giant 18 wheelers to to be going through town. And I certainly don’t think we need to tear up every street corner to accommodate those large trucks. But a new smaller, automated method might make things simpler and less congested.

Jobs.
The scary thing is this could impact a lot of jobs. Like Taxi drivers and truckers. But maybe that will mean they will become more entrepreneurial? Could they just buy the 5 or 10 cars themselves and find new ways to outsource the drudgery of driving? But it could also spring up a whole new service industry. The people that load and talk to your cars and trucks when they show up to pick up your groceries or run your errands. It might also make things more pleasant for people to take care of certain tasks in their life if all they have to do is click a checkbox off on their smartphone and their car takes care of the task. Maybe cars and trucks will have hands and arms in the future too…

Now we have the opportunity to have the second wave of mechanical personal assistance that can help make the most out of our ever increasingly cramped day. Is driving a skill we’ll even miss or need? True independence is on the way. I hope we can embrace it.

Print Roller

This is a print roller. You can choose from a full black ink or a CMYK cartridge. The inks come in two forms permanent and temporary for that graffiti that shouldn’t stick around. A larger paint size roller version is also available.

You can upload any digital image you want via WiFi or Bluetooth from your computer or phone. Pick a corner and start rolling, working your way around the picture. The roller feet on either end of the print head and the accelerometer keeps track of your position. Audio feedback lets you know if you’re going too fast but it can add to the effect if you are going for something weathered. There’s also a progress bar so you can monitor how much more of the image you have to roll out.

(NOTE:) This is just an idea, but wouldn’t it be kind of cool?

Think you can make this happen? Click here.

Panic Button

Look I made a USB Stick! Big Deal right? Well let me explain. I’ve been thinking about this device for a while and while it might look like a simple USB stick it’s not. It’s really a panic switch.

I think about this panic switch every time I hear about something bad happening to a child or a woman. This panic switch is on my mind a lot because of the 8 year old that was murdered while he was walking home by himself for the first time. My heart goes out to the family.

The idea here is this is a call for help. Sure you can give your kids a cell phone but I’m not sure they will always be able to use it plus it might be pretty obvious to anyone doing some harm to someone they are making a call for help. Think of it as that secret button the banker pushes when the bad bank robbers burst in.

This looks like a harmless USB stick. But once the switch is pulled this device would call all the programmed phone numbers, start broadcasting it’s location, sniffing for wifi, and listen in on it’s surroundings.

Features:

Built in Mic
GPS
WiFi Sniffer
Auto-dialer
Average looking USB Stick

The Cradle:
The Panic Switch is married to the Cradle via Bluetooth and only that device can reprogram or disable it. It’s not really a USB stick and can’t be connected to anything other than that cradle.

It’s a panic switch that you don’t even have to think about it’s just one action and you’ve let the world know you are in trouble. I’ve thought about this device for a long time and the idea of how cool it could look, or what the shape would be. The more I thought about it it the more I realized it shouldn’t be something that stands out. It shouldn’t give itself away as a safety device or a panic switch. If the bad guy knows you have it they might take it away from you. I wish cell phone companies would offer a device like this to parents at a low price point of about 59 bucks. Seems like something that could be done. What do you think?

UPDATE:
I’ve been contacted by several people that are looking for such a device. Simon is currently working on a similar product you can find out more about his idea at Pretty Panic. It’s a great idea, help support it.

Made in Eureka

This was fun. I thought I would turn it into a writing assignment. I enjoy creating new inventions and I wish I could have entered more than one a day. Sad thing is I found out about it about a week or so into the contest. Find out more about Made in Eureka at the Sci-Fi Channel.

But here’s what I would like to do now. I want to turn it into an open source video project like the old cartoons when I was a kid. “Welcome to the World of Tomorrow”

If you want to play just pick one item and make short out of it. 10 to 30 second video with the product in it. It’s like an ad or maybe a little snippet of what life would be like with these contraptions. Really whatever you want. There is no limits other than 60 words when writing these up. So why should there be making the videos? When they are all made we’ll put them together and make something cool! Claim which one you want and put it in the comments so no one else takes it.

Atom Packer: The size of a small camera, it’s back scatter emitter coils break down the atomic structure of any rooms contents and orders the molecular structure in to a nice digital stream that is stored in the device for easy moving or postal delivery.

PEP Personal Escape POD: Can be installed in any house or high-rise condo and takes up no more room than a coat closet. Once activated the occupant can be eject safely up to a 1/4 mile away from harms way. A low orbit models is also available. Disclaimer: Not to be used to evade Law Enforcement.

Space Saver: No need to worry about your parking space now. This small disk projects a 3D image of your car or transportation of your choice. New solid photo-tonic stabilizers will fool anyone and your space will be saved for when you return.

oneKEY: a polymorph standard key. Now all you need is one. Once oneKEY samples any key you have, car, boat, house, skeleton… It can instantly shift to the new target key enabling the user to only carry one key. Freeing up the users valuable pocket space.

B-BLOKS: These small disks really pack a punch. Once activated stand back! It turns the atomic structure of its surroundings into more useful materials. It comes preloaded with 10 outdoor structures or you can design your own on-line at our website. Warning: KEEP LIVING MATERIAL 10 METERS FROM REORDER ZONE.

SuperPOOPER: Have as many pets as you want! This cute little bot cruises all over your yard picking after them. But it’s also green! It doesn’t use solar or batteries. It’s powered by all the POOP it picks up. Any extra gets sent right to the house. Now you can have a clean yard and a clean conscience.

Memory Bank: WiFi neural data bank that interfaces through an ocular interface with the smartypants glasses or direct skin patch that enhances knowledge base of any know recorded fact or experience and enables expertise in any subject or skill. Great for those handy weekend science projects.

A-iPark: Door to Door service is now the norm. With state of the art GPS and the best AI navigation on Earth your car drops you off and finds it’s own place to nap and never in a TOW ZONE. You car knows when you are ready to leave so it meets you right at the door.

TalkBUD: This new ear-bud nano projector can beam a life size image of your counterpart across from you. To give the illusion to all the people around you are taking to a real person while on your cell phone. Conference mode allows up to 3 image buffers. Customize you look with your Second Life Residual self.

iQchat: It’s the new rage in like minds and crowd sourcing. This small devices enables a sable quantum wormhole to communicate to your other selves in other quantum dimensions. Now can work with hundreds of yourselves to solve the mysteries of the universe. CAUTION: DO NOT USE DURING LIGHTING STORMS RIFTS MIGHT OCCUR.

softSPACE: Hate where that window is? Want to move that door? Now the softSPACE Generator fixes all your home decor problems. This handy device makes matter soft you can move it around to new places in your house. Turn it off solid again… The possibilities are endless!

POWER PAC: This new nano carbon fiber weave comes in all size. Fits like a spandex suit it gives extra support and stability to enable a anyone to lift or manage objects many times their own weight. Available in Tops, Bottoms, Full Body and get the gloves to insure a firm grip!

PHATpower: You’ve heard of burning fat, with this belt you can! Wear this belt at night and your body fast is absorbed into it and stored. Once placed back on it’s docking station that fat is transformed in to new power cells to be transferred to you small electronics. So now your power is really in your hands.

nanoGRmER: These little guys really hang round. Once programmed with the electromagnetic burst illustrating where you want grooming to be maintained. The microscopic bots go to work. Keeping all your hair follicles to your desired length. No need to worry about charging them up either. They’re powered by what they groom.

MindsEye Projector: Having trouble visualizing your ideas on paper? Use this inconspicuous baseball cap looking device. It scans deep into your visual cortex and abstract mind center enabling you to visualize any type of dimensional objects on any video device. Hook up to a 3D printer and you can get a hard copy for everyone to play with.

iPlants: Now the phone gesture people make with their hand is real! This subdural technology means the latest communication tech can be placed just below the skin. No gear to carry around batteries to charge. These droplets contain millions of nanotech mechs that bond together to form communications devices. Now you can permanently install your phone.

FunBuilder: Now your kids can have fun making their own toys and help the environment at the same time. Just toss in your plastic bottles and metal and this simple machine will sort and break down materials so they can be reshaped right inside. Load up toy designs from our social network or design your own with our toy maker app.

eFreeze: This little device once attached to most objects halts molecular vibration by creating a damping field. Once stop the it’s frozen till disengaged. The patented HOLDwav stops everything. Can be used for suspended animation. It’s instant on instant off with hardly any side effects.

POOF: Yeah and it’s gone for real! Based on the eFreeze technology this upgrade pack lets you disable the HOLDwav and all the matter of the frozen object dissipates into its base molecules. Now the Universe can recycle the matter easier and safer. NOT TO BE USED ON HUMANS

GrooveSCAN: Convert you old Audio Records to a digital format instantly with this Topographic laser scanner. In an instant it scans the surface of the record turning all the groves into 3D geometry that is instantly translated into a digital audio file. Gone are the days of of real time digitizing.

Green Machines: These transformable robots take care of everything around house. When not in use they connect together to form a yard art. When activated they keep you grass groomed, trees pruned and gutters clean. With many add on modules just about anything can be taking care of and all yard waste gets stored and used for fuel.

Everlast-H2O: This is the last water bottle you’ll ever need. It’s micro collectors gather water right out of the air. Combining hydrogen and oxygen molecules to make the most pure water that can be found. Now your bottle is never empty and it’s backwash micro-scrubbers makes sure that very sip is as fresh as the first.

Flash Back: This device once placed into an undisturbed crime scene can map air currents and dust particles back to any moment with in the past 2 hours of an event. Once mapped a 3D image of the people can be extrapolated, which can be displayed or printed out. Giving the police a real view of who was there.

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