Inventions that are needed

A Catalog of Inventions that are Needed

Great ideas for inventions that are needed are often thought up by people who do not have the resources to develop them themselves. Some of these are listed below. Further details about them can be obtained from the originators, if named, or from OzIdeas. If anyone makes a fortune through developing any of these ideas for inventions, please remember the originator.

Often the same invention has many originators. Valerie Yule's design for an electronic 'pocket typewriter' was laughed at by electronics experts in the early 1980s because although the technology had already been invented, it was believed that 'people could not handle the small buttons,' except when there were a minimal number as on a pocket calculator. Now we have 'electronic note-books' everywhere, with small buttons.

Ed Oberg was a prizewinner in an Australian Social Inventions competition for an idea about Punter-Power, an easy way to use the gambling instinct to back innovatory enterprise. Now the idea is discussed on ABC Science Show, coming from someone else.

ACSION was advocating making cars with modules so that someone just going down the street did not drive tons of metal more suitable for traversing the Great Desert with a tribe on board. Now the Australian organisation for scientific and industrial research is developing just that.

Think up some more inventions that are needed.

A starter list of Problems needing innovative solutions

Let us know if some of them are already solved.

  • Alphanumeric design to prevent confusions of letters and numbers such as pdbq
  • Appliances that are durable, mendable, multi-use, with updatable modules.
  • Peace Toys to replace guns, killing and militarism
  • Clothes - Australian Fashions that are different, beautiful, multicultural, durable.
  • Fashions for the elderly and infirm that are comfortable, good-looking and durable
  • Space Clothing replacing wasteful Space Heating. Everyone can control thetemperature of their immediate personal space, regardless of the climate around them.
  • Conservation Clothes designed so that only the parts needing washing need be thoroughly washed.
  • More Computer Games where knowledge and thinking, not violence, win the games e.g Youth to Age Computer Game - you grow older as you play
  • Conflict Simulators to use instead of resorting to wars, strikes or marital uproar
  • Conservation. Full use of sewage - as a major resource, not a pollution problem
  • Culture. More fun, beauty, diversity, for everyone to join in, and less wasteful.
  • ¥ Electronic tagging for people's strayable belongings, eg. glasses, has already begin.
  • Food-chain bypassing, so that food can be manufactured directly from desert rocks.
  • Homes - All new homes designed for energy-saving and protection against local risks e.g bushfires, floods, droughts, with space for salvage/storage, modifiable, renovatable.
  • Paper, Erasable - can be wiped down with a scanner to reprint or rewrite again
  • Paper Recycling that can easily be done on the spot
  • Pocket typewriter that you can operate by touch in your pocket anywhere, even in he dark or if you cannot see. A further advance on electronic notebooks
  • Poker machines that do something useful when operated by people addicted to noise&jingle
  • Remote Control Gun Exploder that explodes or disables any other loaded weapon
  • Souvenirs that are more fun, diverse,more beautiful, cheaper and easily transportable
  • Personal space-heating to avoid wasteful All-Space-Heating .(See Clothes)
  • Transport. Car modules that can shunt on, to expand cars. Cars that are easily mendable, modifiable and last well for 15-years.
  • Public Transport. Linking main routes with flexible taxi-buses.
  • Waiting areas & shelters comfortable not just cleanable/ vandalproof
  • Truth-Print that prints or converts print to show the truth in black, fiction in blue and what cannot be determined as either true or false in purple. What a boon for news readers, if not for the newspapers themselves
  • Window heat-savers that are transparent, that can be pulled down or attached in winter-time, with Window-heat-shields that can be pulled down or attached in summertime.

 

A

Adult Initiation Ceremony for teenagers

Agism - how to prevent agist segregation of old, young and teenagers

Alphanumeric improvement to prevent confusions of letters and numbers,such as pdbq

Appliances - mendable and modules so they are easiily repaired and updated

Architecture - Awards for the Ugliest

B

Beauty for Melbourne to make it good to live in,good to visit - like Florence or Bali.

Benchmarks and Stopmarks. Quizzes to test present limits and future tolerance

Boredom. Education from infancy to avoid being bored.

Born to Live - help to prevent suicide by better alternatives when staying alive

C

Catalogue of Inventions that are needed

Censorship Alternatives. How to promote the best, rather than censor the worst.

Charities - preventing waste in promotions

Child Abuse - TV shows that help to prevent this

Children's Peace Toys to replace guns, killing and militarism.

Clothes.Medical Clothing -to improve health/ comfort, especially for elderly/ infirm.

- Australian Fashions that are different, beautiful,cheap, durable,multicultural

-Fashions for the elderly that are comfortable, good-looking and durable.

- Space Clothing can reduce the costs and wastes of Space Heating

- Conservation-designed to reduce washing of clean parts,and so prevent waste. Washable, not dispossable 'Patches' that can be pasted on underclothes and peeled off, to minimise washing the whole garment.

Collecting - things for collectors to collect

Common Wealth. How to keep its real meaning alive.

Computer Games - where knowledge and thinking, not violence, win the games

- Youth to Age Game - you grow older as you play.

Conflict simulator instead of wars & strikes.

Conservation.Full use of sewage - a presently wasted resource

Cracked people - making the most of ratbags, so they can be community assets

D

Defence - constance civil uses for standing defence forces, for emergencies etc.

Disaimiabilia - reducing dislikability and public attitudes to 'dislikable' people

Drinking behaviour - a better Oz drinking culture -singing not hooning or violence.

Drugs. Alternatives to drugs to make life more enjoyable/bearable

E

Economic concepts for the 21st century

Eldercare - ideas to improve it

Elections. Making them more democratic and valid.

Electronic tagging for absent-minded people's strayable belongings, eg. glasses.

G

Games. Invent some new games!

Gardens - Conservation in the Suburbs so that gardens waste less & produce timber

Gambling . Constructive redirections for the gambling instinct

Green Offices conservation measures

Guns -Alternatives for sports shooters - e.g. musical instruments,as beautiful as guns and also make noises.

H

Health - preventing old age problems and continuing usefulness.

Health. Hospitals - Ways to ensure sick and elderly are treated as adult humans

Heroes. Real Heroes for children and teenagers

History - Lessons of History (with counterviews included)

History of Freedom Book

Homes - Designs for energy-saving

- Designs to protect against bushfires

- Designs to protect against floods

-The Sustainable Household as important as Marketplace in economic thinking

I

Ideas. Register of Australian Ideas that got nowhere in OZ but succeeded elsewhere

Index of Oppression to be published with GNP and economic indexes.

Intellectual property and social inventions. Rewards without lawyers.

'Inventions Needed' - a list to get everyone's minds working.

J

Jobs that are needed. Long lists. The issue is only how to pay for them.

K

Kitchen design for 21C with recycling/salvage space e.g.a cupboard with pallets

L

Language, non-sexist

Land Speculation. Preventing speculators getting unearned income from land.

M

Manhood Test boys can go in for if they want to. A 'Womanhood Test' is actually the same, but the men do not know this.

Manners Book. Manners to oil the wheels of everyday living together, not 'etiquette'.

Medical Litigation - some suggestions for this growing problem

Meetings - ways to reduce time-wasting

Money - ways to use money as a means of exchange for goods and services without it flowing off into sinks - overseas or accumulated by the hyper-wealthy.

N

Novel - the Future of the Novel in 21C. How it could be different

P

Paper, Erasable - can be wiped down to reprint or rewrite again.

Paper Recycling on the spot

People They Laughed At Book to teach that it may be premature to laugh at ratbags.

Perishing Publications - idea to help the academic problem of 'publish or perish'

Pleasures that are Non-Consumptive

Pocket typewriter that you can operate by touch in your pocket anywhere.

Plastic bags. Re-uses for.

Plastic newspaper wraps. Re-uses for.

Pokies that do something useful when operated by people addicted to noise&jingle machines

Political Psychology Manual for all citizens and school leavers.

Polly-Save-A-Bird - Collectible artificial birds instead of collecting live rare birds.

Prophecies for 2000

Psychology. Pre-Trauma Prevention, so people can be resistant when emergencies happen.

Public Transport. Making waiting areas and shelters comfortable not just cleanable.

R

Remote Control Gun Exploder explodes or disables any other loaded weapon.

S

Safety. 'Automatic Pilot' practices behavior for emergencies when you may not be able to think

Schooling - Learning How to Fail is something we all need to know

Schools - Techniques to help children with Attention-Deficit problems

Sexist Language Solutions

Sexual Harassment Solutions

Shower-Clock. A steam-proof clock on the shower-wall to show how time goes.

The Silly Catalog. Listing what is silly in our society makes new ideas seem sensible.

Social Education - What adults should know and no-one leaves school till they do.

Stroke Language everyone learns,for emergency communication with the incapacitated, using eye-blinks.

T

Transport Car modules that can shunt on to expand cars.(I fiind CSIRO is working on this idea now.)

Transport.Cars - easily mendable and 15-year durability

TV Ideas: Contrasts within shows- to learn about good and evil and the grey between.

TV Cartoons telling old legends with animation based on famous paintings

V

Violence - Alternatives

Violent Blokes - Solutions

W

Waste of people - Preventing.

Window heat-savers

Words as Swords. People live by myths and clichés. New concepts are needed

Water How to get salt out of water by a more water-conservative and simpler process than evaporation

Lighting Night-lighting that goes on sensors of human activity or movement so it is only on as people need it or burglars are around. Including street lighting, but in the cities brighter than the country cats'eyes, and llight for empty premises like shops - responds to any movement inside including rats

Packaging Edible packaging - possibly sprayed on some things. That can be washed and eaten cooked or fresh. Rice-paper bags

Heating Space heating - personal

Clothes bordeom, velcro accessories

Some Stupid Things could be changed:

  • Standing lists of inventions are needed, to exercise creative minds.
  • Adequate financial and status rewards for inventors are needed. When do they come on Honours lists with sportsfolk, entertainers and other public figures, as models to encourage the young?
  • Co-operative progress is hampered by commercial confidentiality and Intellectual Property
  • New ideas and innovators get knee-jerk responses of ridicule or worse, are just ignored.

Yet even a zany new idea can have the germ of something great.

Business

There is a long list of products that are needed and that are not being produced (or if produced, cannot reach their markets)

There is a long list of inventions that are needed, yet there is poor support of research and innovators who could supply these needs.

We are not using our multicultural resources as we could.

Anyone travelling to Asia can see the life-force there, similar to Victorian England, bubbling with innovation and development, that we in Australia are not matching for many reasons that could be identified and tackled. (eg. schooling, the way business management is taught in universities, the discouragement of saving, disaffection of the workforce, and possible repercussions when problems are aired.

Perhaps business magazines need a regular feature on Solving Australia's Business Problems, that goes into these issues that are beyond the immediate coalface but on which all further mining will depend. With lively discussion fostered, and a corner on the cover to say where this is. It could be a permanent link on their Web site.