Ideas within topic services,communication: (click suns to rate or comment on ideas)
| 1 |
| Send tsunami and other disaster warnings by SMS (short message service) so that people who don't happen to be watching TV or listening to radio at the moment can be alerted and can evacuate. (tornado, typhoon, cyclone, hurricane) | |
| 2 |
| Nanophone: a microphone to hear sounds at a microscopic scale, including cells moving and organelles moving. Maybe it could detect things that microscopes can't see. | |
| 3 |
| A device on your television that, when you are watching a television program and you channel surf during the commercial break, will alert you once the commercial break is over so that you can go back to your show without missing any of it. | |
| 4 |
| In countries like India, income tax & sales tax are difficult to collect. To track all transactions, government could give debit cards to all people and card readers to all shops. No more need to print money, also saving government expense. | |
| 5 |
| What about a computer program that uses voice recognition to control the mouse pointer, perform common computer functions, and surf the web, for people who cannot use their hands or have carpal tunnel syndrome? | |
| 6 |
| To make text files smaller, file compression utilities could include a pre-stored database of English words mapped to two-byte codes. Therefore, every word in this sentence could be swapped with a two-character code like "&@". Much smaller! | |
| 7 |
| Browsing channels in TV using thumbnails. If we can have a channel devoted to capturing thumbnails of what is happening in other channels it will help us in avoiding browsing all the channels. | |
| 8 |
| Put a missing persons picture on the welcome page to the internet. A different one every few days. Please let me know if you try this on your own website. | |
| 9 |
| To help stop or prevent abuse in nursing homes, hidden cameras should be placed in each room with the manager monitoring the activity daily. | |
| 10 |
| A World Phone Directory Site: A website where every person & company can register own phone & mobile no.& addresses (res., off. & email) free of cost. There can be a categorised business section with chargeable entry (like yellow pages). Free accessing. | |
| 11 |
| LostBug: a microchip to put in one's luggage so that if it gets lost the airline can scan it and post it online. So long as the owner has his number, he can go online and then give his address and verification as the owner of the item to locate it. | |
| 12 |
| One credit card (with photo) with different chips/magnetic strips for different accounts. Eliminates need to carry many cards. Better if cardholder's finger print(s) are used to activate. | |
| 13 |
| Put photo ID on credit cards like they do in Europe. | |
| 14 |
| For people with low vision, websites should provide alternate versions of their pages with fewer colors (too many are distracting) and with larger fonts. | |
| 15 |
| An idea to save time and money at the grocers would be to put a scanner on the baskets so you would know your spending amount. It would add taxes too, and you would just pay the cashier. | |
| 16 |
| For TV remote we can also use alphabetic characters (as we use for sending SMS) to go to the proper channel for viewing. Instead of remembering the channel numbers we can type the first three letters of the channel, making remembering easier. | |
| 17 |
| With increasing use of cell phones over the past few years, can we make cell phones as more entertainment channels by incorporating television with selected channels (news, songs, movies?), radio, and remote connection to servers? | |
| 18 |
| A phone directory on cd rom or other digital media, available directly from the phone. Gets rid of paper phone directories. | |
| 19 |
| Send emergency SMS (short message service) alerts to emergency workers. Use special trigger that makes cell phone: beep loudly, override silence option, not rollover to voicemail. (disaster, tsunami, tornado, typhoon, cyclone, hurricane, earthquake) | |
| 20 |
| In a warehouse environment, install tiny chips in items which will tell warehouse computer where each item has been stored without human intervention. It is usually impossible to store all of one item in same place. | |
| 21 |
| Smart cards could be refilled with "Digital Cash" from ATMs, helping their users to buy stuff from automatic vending machines or tickets from unmanned ticket counters. | |
| 22 |
| Why do we need to carry a credit card? Our fingerprints or iris scan can be validated in realtime and a payment can be confirmed by mastercard, visa, etc. for the registered customers! This would also prevent card theft. | |
| 23 |
| A smart card (a chip) could determine the telephone number in a wired telephone network (just like a mobile phone), making it possible for the user to remove that card and put it into another phone to retain his or her number when travelling. | |
| 24 |
| Mobile-Shredder is a van with different shredders installed on the back and with a deposit for paper. This could be a good service for companies who want to destroy and recycle old documents, forms, books, etc. | |
| 25 |
| Develop a program that is voice activated to use on the web. It would be used like a Franklin Planner. You record info all day on tape then down load using voice command to computer. This would include banking, calender, email, phone #, ext. | |
| 26 |
| In India with multiple telephone service providers now a unified Phone Book (Phone Directory) has now become essential. The major organization BSNL should take the lead. | |
| 27 |
| A website listing all pundits in an area so that it's easy to get puja (Hindu rituals) done in a correct manner and time. | |
| 28 |
| Large-scale deployment of cell phones, which contain self-locator technology, might permit police departments to track criminals. They could contact individuals in a target area to ask assistance in locating criminals, or report criminal behavior. | |
| 29 |
| While opening a bank account, the account holder's iris scan could be stored into the database. Thus, when the account holder goes to an ATM, just an iris scan (no cards!) could allow him to access his account. | |
| 30 |
| A mobile phone that can retrieve the number of another phone which is close to you or within a particular locality. | |
| 31 |
| A DTH (direct to home) satellite system could converge TV, radio, and phone services. A bundled service could cost less than the existing ones in the long run. Ideal for cities and remote places alike. | |
| 32 |
| Website/portal with links to all nessesary anti-virus/anti-spam/anti-whatsoever software you may need. | |
| 33 |
| LCD screens are now big enough to use in movie theaters, eliminating the projector and allowing seats to be arranged in a vertical grid in front of the screen. Everyone would have a front-row seat. | |
| 34 |
| Protect all things by using a thumbprint only, i.e., credit card, voting, paying bills. It would be easy to do. | |
| 35 |
| Put a black star in front of your commercial name in the yellow pages, to indicate that a live person will answer the phone. Customers may be attracted, knowing that they won't need to deal with an answering machine. | |
| 36 |
| Website wish list: World language translator. I enter my text. Translated text is displayed, and also retranslation to my language from that. This allows me to avoid idioms and other language difficulties. | |
| 37 |
| Supermarkets could provide radio ID tags on each of their items (with product & price info) so that you could just walk though a passage and your smart card with digital cash gets debited automatically, and the bill pops up from a slot for you to collect. | |
| 38 |
| There is now no directory, or directory entry, for cellular phones. There should be one, especially for people who only have cellular phone service. | |
| 39 |
| Phone company could offer a telephone answering service to answer when I am on computer/modem. I have to call to find out if I missed calls. Instead/in addition, have some kind of light on the phone indicating an incoming call. | |
| 40 |
| While forwarding e-mails, the program should automatically remove previous mailing address list and forward the innermost message or embedded attachment directly (however, keeping the entire message can be optional). | |
| 41 |
| Digital frames for digital photos: a website or the cd chip in a digital camera could provide frames for all seasons and special crazy things that people come up with in our world that catch our moments in life. (internet,computers) | |
| 42 |
| Insurance cover (against loss / theft, etc.) could be given for mobile phones by the service providers. This could be a very good incentive for heavy users. | |
| 43 |
| Set up a small Wireless Local Loop, take a broadband connectivity and share the bandwidth and the expense within a locality. No wires!!! No hassles!!! | |
| 44 |
| Burglar alarms now can also automatically notify police. Why not connect them so that they automatically dial our mobile phones (when someone breaks in) to play a pre-recorded message, declaring a security breach. | |
| 45 |
| A gadget connected to a landline phone to give an alert when a new email is received. A service provider has your email address and phone number, and the software dials your number and the gadget gives a ring when you receive an email. | |
| 46 |
| Same phone number (with a prefix eg. 04 for the cellular) for the existing home and cellular phones, with higher charges for calls made from cellular. Simplifies storing numbers and paying bills. | |
| 47 |
| Night Kite: Mount LEDs on a kite along with a button cell battery and use it for advertising in local areas in the most inexpensive way. (Very cheap and easy to work as compared to hot air ballons) | |
| 48 |
| In word processing software, the user should be able to "right-click" on a word and then, like with a thesaurus, they can select another word that means the same as the original. This would definitely be possible as thesaurus software already exists. | |
| 49 |
| Cost of cellular telephone calls can be supported by advertisements. That means when you dial a number you get to hear an advertisement, then the target phone rings. People who are willing to pay should have the option of not listening to the ad. | |
| 50 |
| We are flooded with sms on our mobiles. In India it costs a rupee for a sms. In a year a few million sms are sent around. Even 1 paisa from each sms can contribute to a large fund that can be used for education and healthcare of underpriviledged children. | |