Have you ever come up with an idea for a product that everyone needs?

I haven’t, but a couple friends of mine have. They had the idea, found someone to make it, and have gone on QVC, etc, to sell it. They were great believers in it, and my wife actually bought two—one for her, and one for my son, who wanted it as a toy. I don’t know how it’s going, because they don’t really talk about it much, and neither seems to have quit their day jobs.

I have had four, when I researched them, one had been invented by a guy in Australia, one by Dow Chemical, and one by Ford Motor Co. and one that no one was interested in.

I had one, but every woman who’s been pregnant told me it’d be impossible. Except one, who said she’d buy one in an instant. So… who knows?

Sure.
A holographic avatar that I can send to meetings.
A universal nano-assembler in my garage, to make all the objects I need and want.
Microscopic robots to clean out my arteries and fix my nearsightedness.
A mind upload so that I can play guitar like Jimi Hendrix.
3D TV that really works – without the glasses.

Seriously,
You know the little Roomba robots, the ones that scurry around your floor, learn where all the corners are, where the furniture sits, and suck up crumbs? I want a massager that will do that on my back.

And a sort of Roomba that will scurry around my yard and pull (or just zap) the weeds.

This question comes with some history, as my uncle invented a rear tine garden tiller, but didn’t patent it, and lost it to a company whose name starts with T.

@DrBill I’d be interested in hearing about the one no one was interested in.

@steelmarket
I think they’ve already invented that. I saw a video a while back, where they created an upside down clear pyramid, filled it with some kind of gas, and were able to create 3d images inside it.

How about a computer mouse. When its inactive for a set period of time it would act like a roomba and suck up all the crumbs from your keyboard and any receipts you have lying around. I only thought that this was a good idea, I have no real idea of its origin.

This idea I did come up with, a macbook has an accelerometer in it so when you tilt it or it falls the laptop knows, if it falls hard enough the hard drive will lock up to minimize damage. The readings from this accelerometer are available to any program that runs. So how about a desktop wallpaper that would respond to motion of the laptop. Say you have a custom avatar that when you tilt the computer to one side, the avatar would slide down as if gravity was acting on it. Then you could do things like set your cell phone down next to your laptop and tilt it until your avatar falls out of your laptop and onto your cell phone. Then with that avatar goes contact info, important files, and say your music collection. So the avatar becomes more then just a fun toy but a representation of your virtual identity. So when people say “My life is on here” they can have a 3d avatar to define “My life” also it makes moving files from one device to another very simple. And it would be open for developers to add features and plug in’s of all kinds. Tell me what you think of that.

@tehrani625 I like it, sounds like an awesome idea!

@tehrani625 I know that most IBM laptops have the hard drive lock to protect from errors when the computer is dropped

@LocoLuke well yes, but this sensor is now standard kit for most smart phones and all mac laptops. It is optional on other brand note books (Dell, Ibm, etc…). It would be mixing the experience of gaming and socializing and getting work done.

I see what you mean. It would be cool if they actaully included fun apps like that with the computers themselves.

They sometimes do but they are usually among all the bloat ware. Its much better to just scrap it all and figure out what works for you. I think the eye candy revolution will continue until things like this become common. Look at Vista and OSX, or even Disco a disk burning app.