Saturday, February 23, 2008

Automatically breathable clothing

Pretty sure this is both possible and probably already exists, but I've not seen it yet. Kind of nano but really more micro idea. Electrical charges trigger the weave of your clothing to contract and tighten up to keep you warmer and then open up more with a flick to keep you cooled off. Electro Gore Tex.

LED lit guitar strings and frets

I want my guitar to light up where I touch it on the frets, and light up the string that I pluck as well. It could be a simple light, or it could be done cooler with a pulsing light that changes according to the frequency of the note. It would look awesome when you shred with your electric guitar, and you could see what notes you were playing if you were not yet skilled enough to shred.

Wacom Portable Art Pad and Journal

The Kindle from Amazon would be cool only if it was actually a Wacom art pad. I want a device that really only does reading and writing. It should let you store hundred of books, and it should let you write just as if you had a pad of paper with you. A cool pencil like stylus (or quill pen as you might wish) mandatory. It doesn't need to be a full computer, so the processor can focus on being pressure sensitive and capable of storing hundreds of hi-res drawings. I want a digital journal, damnit. It doesn't necessarily have to do OCR on my sloppy handwriting, but it could. It should look like a Moleskine journal. Heck, maybe they should do it instead of Amazon or Wacom. Somebody please make this for me. Please.

Current Mileage LED for cars

I want people to know it's possible to get 43 mpg in the city. My Jetta TDI can do it.
It would be cool to have the thing calculate my current mileage and put that number in real time on an LED readout across my back window. Good for the Prius as well methinks. It might sound smug, but it's really why we bought the car, to save the planet. I want people to know that they can do it as well.

Planetary Spirograph

I love that toy, and it's not really a toy. Spirograph lets you inscribe creative circles with an elegant weave with a gear-type set up. Hmm, bad explanation, but it's still a cool toy. Google it for heaven's sake.

While your search is running, ponder the idea of ellipses instead of circles for the Spirograph. Then the idea of each planet getting it's own elliptical gear, and you'll have a cool science project that doubles as an art project. Might just try this one myself...