Sometimes, however, we’ll have stepped out of the room for a minute, gone for a quick bite in the cafeteria or in the lounge, and neglected to take our phones with us.

Wearable cell phones that we wear like a watch, haven’t made it to mainstream yet.

So my invention idea for today is quite basic: a cell phone or mobile device that ‘knows’ that you’re not near it. And you don’t have to actually ‘tell’ it that you’re away (like changing it to an ‘away’ or ‘not available’ profile - although that may be the first step),  it will be able to ’sniff or ’sense’ that you’re not near it.

The way this invention would need to work is a combination of sophisticated gadgetry and processing power. The simplest way it might work is using heat sensors to determine if a human body is near it. A more sophisticated (and ’smelly’) and wacky way would be to determine your distinctive body odour and use that to determine if you are near it.

And what happens when it senses that you’re away? Well based on settings you can choose, it could either have a busy signal, take a message, or simply ring silently so as not to waste battery power and annoy other people in the vicinity.

Wacky idea but it may have merit.

I mean brushing your teeth certainly isn’t fun.

However, chewing gum and is fun.

Imagine chewing some nice-tasting gum for 1-2 minutes as a substitute to brushing your teeth. The chewing gum has gum and tooth cleaning properties to remove plaque, tartar, and forms of bacteria.

The advantages to such a gum are obvious. The disadvantages, such as the gum not being able to ‘brush’ off bits of food in your teeth, can be overcome with time. For instance the gum could contain a property that attracts minature foodstuffs and causes them to dissolve or be broken down.

Personally I would prefer chewing gum twice a day than brushing my teeth. And imagine what a great seller it would be to children, who also hate the bi-daily brush.

Please remember that ideas and inventions in this blog are more of the ‘what’ than the ‘how’. I’m no expert in the hows to make cleaning chewing gum happen. I’m just giving some ideas to enable you to think more broadly and to hopefully get some of these in tangible form.

Yet our noses, our enhanced touch and our taste buds are still not able to perceive the web.

My idea for today is a device that changes this. A device that is able to turn computerized code into something sensible to our noses and taste buds.

Every smell has what could be thought of as a genetic code, in other words a set with a bunch of finite properties that is able to describe mathematically what something smells or tastes like. That’s the first bit, the ability mathematically to record this ’sense code’.

The second bit is the ability to take this code and recreate it in sensible form, in other words to bring that code of properties back to life.

And it’s not limited to the web, imagine watching television or going to the movies where you can actually smell and taste what your eyes are seeing. Or playing a game with all the sense elements included.

For the web this could be used in multiple ways. For instance, imagine going to a perfume store online and being able to smell every single product in the catalog. Or going to an online deli and being able to taste all their offerings for the day without actually having to  get off your chair.  That would really bring this experience to life.

They are now casting in several spots around the country. Visit the Everyday Edisons website for more information.

Shows like these are a great way to inspire you to work at your ideas, and to come up with new ones.

People are often afraid of telling people of their ideas, or showing their ideas in public like this. Let me tell you, however, that hoarding your ideas prevents that circulation of innovation that happens when you are confident about your own inventing ability to tell others your ideas.

Guess what, if you know you have the ability to come up with great ideas, then there’ll certainly be more where that idea came from. Also, it’s unlikely that the people you tell your idea to are going to steal it.

Disclaimer: If you take this advice, I am in no way to be held responsible if someone does copy, change, or steal your idea.  

Good luck to all those readers going for the casting!

You can even buy those electric fly swatters these days that pulse a spark of electricity into the life of the fly.

Sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t. But it’s time to move beyond a device like a fly swatter that, let’s face it, was probably used in the middle ages.

This is where nanotechnology comes in. My fly killing invention suggestion is to develop a robot that is as small as, and looks just like, a fly. However it differs in that instead of sitting on your food or your dog’s ears, it actually does something useful: kills flies.

The device would basically be like a self-guided missile in that it would be able to track down and target flies in any area. It would be able to fly as fast, probably faster, than any fly, and when it gets to the fly it stings it like a bee.

It may sound vaguely cruel, but a robotic fly catcher would save you enormous hassles in the household. And, who knows, maybe it could be extended to catching mosquitoes too!

1. It could store possibly the entire classical (i.e. royalty free) collection for a particular instrument
2. It would be able to access and download any digitally available manuscript via WiFi (for instance, Amazon’s new Kindle device can do just this)
3. With machine listening technology, it would even be able to know when to change the page without the instrumentalist having to do this manually (that would probably be is biggest selling point)
4. You or your music teacher would be able to make scribblings or marks on the actual scores, and you’d be able to clear these marks if necessary (look at any aspiring pianist’s manuscripts and they’re practically drenched and unreadable with the teacher’s notes)
5. It would be able to play the piece for you in order for you to learn it without having to figure out the note-times and such (i.e. it would allow you to cheat)
6. If you were playing a piano, violent, etc concerto, it would be able to play the orchestral part whilst you play the piano (or other) part

In other words this invention would be a big success amongst musicians around the world.

My invention idea for today is an exercise book that solves both these problems.

Firstly,  the book is slightly bigger than A4. This means that you don’t have to cut off the top, bottom, left, and right sides of the A4 page to get it to fit. It will just fit by itself. And the difference in size won’t make any difference to it fitting into your bag because the size difference will be negligible.

Secondly, you’ll be able to pull off small bits of white plastic imposed into the top and bottom, left and right of each page which will reveal a sticky surface. This will allow you to stick the page down without needing glue. A more advanced solution may be to create static charges on the paper surface, and somehow create the opposite charges on the paper surface, thus producing an attraction.

There are potential short-term issues with such an invention, as schoolkids may soon be using cheaper, more advanced and more marketable versions of the now defunct Apple Newton or the still on the market Palm, thus reducing the need for paper. However things like these don’t often move as fast as we think. I read somewhere that someone predicted in 1997 that by 2007 we’d use half the amount of paper. Well I think the opposite is true (I’ve been trying to find statistics on this but alas). Therefore I think this idea still has some life potential. At least another 5-10 years.

It’s also possible that the glue part of this idea won’t be liked by many stationers (and stationary companies), as it would theoretically mean a reduction in the purchase of glue. As is sometimes the case with inventions, industry sometimes prevents them from coming into being.

But let’s be hopeful.