Nerd Fever

Or, random stuff posted for the delight and information of my fellow nerds.

Archive for category Business ideas

CreepAway

Nov 6

Posted by Dave in Business ideas, Sad, Software | 3 Comments

Back in 1996 I had an idea I called the “CreepAway”.

It was a device that would screen your phone calls – it would auto-answer (blocking the local ring), and then ask the caller to “Enter Extension Number” (really a password).

If the caller entered the correct password, it would ring the phone so you can answer.

If they didn’t, the caller would be sent to voicemail.

The idea is that you give both your phone number and your “extension” to your friends – they dial your number, enter your “extension”, and the phone rings.

Telemarketers and others calling at random only get to leave a voicemail.

I think this would be easy to do today with an Android app.

I’m sick and tired of getting robocalls offering me legal help with my (non-existent) IRS debt.

Somebody please build this.

Update, 2013-12:

I recently realized that not only would this be easy to do in an Android or iOS app (intercept the incoming call at the API level, assuming those APIs are exposed), but there’s an even simpler way.

Do it as a service.

Your phone company (Vonage, Google Voice, the PTT, whatever) would provide you with two numbers – a public one (to be given out) and a private one (known only to the phone company).

When people call the public number, the service provider (phone company) would prompt for the extension (or password, whatever). If the caller gives the correct one, the call is forwarded to your private number. If not, to voicemail.

That’s it. It would be trivial to implement in a modern SIP or H.323 based phone system. And they could charge for the service.

Hey – somebody – DO THIS.

Idea: Waterproof RV roofs with air pressure

Jul 29

Posted by Dave in Business ideas, Sad | No Comments

Here’s another idea I don’t want to bother patenting.

I’ve owned 2 motorhomes so far, and the roofs always leak. There are lots of holes in the roof for vents, wires, etc., and with all the jostling a motorhome gets on the road, after a while lots of invisibly small cracks open up (despite sealant) and the roof leaks – even if you apply more sealant every year.

Make the roof a hollow structure with air pressure inside. It could be a flexible inflatable structure, or rigid but with a hollow air-tight space inside.

Then pressurize the inside of the roof with air from a pump or tank.

When tiny gaps appear in the roof, the air will escape outward (being replaced by the pump or tank) and will push away water, instead of letting it in. So the interior will stay dry.

The pressure doesn’t have to be high – a few PSI (tens of kPA) should be enough to prevent water from coming inside.

How often the pump runs (or the tank empties) is a measure of how many leaks there are in the roof – when there are enough to bother with, you go and apply sealant. When the leak stops, you’ve found the spot.

You could even pump in colored smoke to help find leaks.

This would be a cheap solution – a molded (or inflatable) roof doesn’t cost much and a $20 electric air pump are all you need.

Idea: Intelligent heating tape/sleeve

Jan 7

Posted by Dave in Business ideas, Electronics | 3 Comments

Edit 2014-11: Nevermind.

Another idea I don’t want to bother thinking about patenting-

How about an intelligent heating tape/sleeve that can be used to keep something (for example, water pipes) permanently above some pre-set temperature?

I imagine a sleeve (possibly surrounded by insulation) that can be put around a water pipe, that contains:

  • A resistive heater
  • A temperature sensor
  • A FET to turn the heater on when the temp falls below the set value (a thermostat)

This would be great to prevent pipes from freezing in the winter in unused rooms (with minimum expenditure of energy). Of course, one can imagine lots of other uses.

I’d power the thing from 12v or so, so nobody gets electrocuted if they cut into it, and to simplify conformance with building codes. You’d probably want the power supply to have a battery backup so it’ll keep working if the power goes out for a while.

If it’s used on a copper pipe, the pipe itself could form the return path, leaving only a single wire to power the thing.

It would have to be segmented so that the stuff can be cut or torn to the desired length. Each segment should have its own thermostat so only the part that needs heat consumes power. And it should be removable without too much trouble, to allow for repair access to the pipe.

Does this thing already exist? Anybody know? (Bill, you reading this?)

Things the iPhone could learn from the Treo

Jul 11

Posted by Dave in Business ideas, iPhone, Sad, Software | No Comments

As per the topic of my last post, I recently switched from a Palm Treo 650 to an iPhone 3GS.

In most ways the iPhone is far more advanced, but as a PDA the iPhone still falls short of the 7 year old Treo design.

1 – Getting to most-used apps fast

Edit 2014: The Android app “Cover” does a lot of this, altho it’s half-baked. Unfortunately they got bought by Twitter, who seem to have ended development on it.

The iPhone’s UI is beautiful, but it is needlessly slow to get at often-used apps like Phone and Contacts.

On the Treo, a single button press gets you to the phone keypad.  A different single button gets you to Contacts, or any of 2 apps of your choice.  Admittedly, the Treo has many more buttons, but the iPhone could do far better.

On the iPhone, you:

  1. Press Home
  2. “slide to unlock”
  3. Press Home again (if you were previously in an app)
  4. Slide the app menu left or right a few times (if the app you want isn’t on the first menu page or the dock)
  5. Press the app you want

In the best case it’s 3 steps to your app, in the worst 5 steps.  That’s a lot of work just to start your favorite app.

But this is completely unnecessary.  Apple could easily do something like this:

iPhoneMockup2

Apple, you can do better!

(forgive the crude Photoshop work; but you get the idea).

This way you get to your favorite apps much quicker – just Home and one swipe.

Apple, if you want to do this, you have my permission – I won’t sue you.  Just ask if you want it in writing (see “About me“).

2 – Named app pages

The Treo let you name each page of apps, so you could categorize them.  And you could walk thru each page with the Home button.  I don’t see why Apple can’t do that.

3 – Contact searching

The Treo was much quicker at searching for contact entries.  It had a clever system where if you entered “db” it would search not just for names containing “db” but also for names with the initials “D.B.”.  This worked really well – just 2 or 3 letters was usually enough to identify a contact this way.

The only reasons I can think of why Apple doesn’t do this are (1) they didn’t know about it, or (2) patent issues.  But I’d think Apple and Palm are both infringing on enough of each others patents to make that moot – they’re already well into the realm of mutually-assured destruction.

4 – Telephone number selection

Again, Treo wins.

On the Treo all the phone numbers for each contact (office, home, fax, mobile, etc.) are visible on the screen.  You can directly click any one of them and dial it.

On the iPhone, you first find your contact, then select it, and only then can you choose a number to dial.  Three steps vs. one on the Treo.

5 – No casual notes in phone numbers

The Treo would happily ignore everything after the first alphabetic character in a stored phone number, so you could include casual notes like this:

+1 800 555 1212 (lake house)

+1 800 555 1213 (girlfriend’s place)

That’s a no-no on the iPhone – it will simply refuse to dial numbers that contain “invalid” characters.

There is no good substitute way to store this kind of info, which I find pretty important.

I’m very impressed with the iPhone’s capabilities, but I’m surprised how little Apple learned from what was already in the market.

In retrospect, I think I might have been better off buying the Palm Pre.  But I did want to try the “Apple experience”, and having spent two weeks getting the iPhone setup, I think I’ll let the Concorde Effect do it’s dirty work and stick with the iPhone for a while.

At least until my contract with AT&T is up.