Kent Corbell

Idealog: Vari-View Nanotech Screen Surface

I saw the band Broken Social Scene play in Portland last week.  The show was at The Crystal Ballroom, an old hall with hand-painted murals, detailed wood trim on the walls and 20’ high soffited ceilings, and a floating/sprung wood floor for ballroom dancing (or for crowd bouncing during highly dancable rock shows).  It was cool outside, and the DIY Portland crowd was sporting a good mix of hand-made and vintage autumn threads.

So I was a little dismayed when the sudden glare of a nearby cell phone intruded on the ambience of this authentic space.

We hear about privacy concerns all the time.  I could clearly see the woman whose device disrupted my vibe reading and extending a text stream on her iPhone.  But what about the effect of digital interruption into other people’s proximate experiences?

Surely there are times when we want privacy.  Yet, we should also want to minimize injecting our uninvited digital life into each other’s analog spaces.  Not in everyday life, where everybody walks and drives while on phones.  But in nice restaurants, libraries, museums, spiritual spaces, and performances - that’s a worthy goal.

For years, banks have used a 3M film on their computer screens to keep we plebians from peering around the edge to see what nefarious notes they’re keeping in our files.  I’m sure there’s a version of this for mobile devices.  But we often do want people to see what we’re displaying on our PDA.  So this film on your Android or Blackberry might not be ideal.

What I want to see, and think will be available in the future, is an adaptable screen surface that can dynamically change it’s optics at a pixel by pixel level.  It will change the angle of refraction of light at the surface of the screen to either create a super-tight narrow focus, or a wide screen field of view.  And it will be self-healing and protecting, erasing fingerprints and smudges and smoothing out scratches in the process.  This is almost certainly a nanotech innovation, and will be the norm within a decade I predict.

Who do you know working in this realm?  Let’s create this technology together.

Multi Memory Cruise Control

Originally in my personal journal, June 2003:

My wife knits.  It’s the thing that keeps her sane on road trips, which she doesn’t naturally enjoy.  I love a good road trip - the longer and more obscure the route, the better.  So we take road trips.  I drive.  She knits.  It works.

I use the cruise control a lot when I drive.  It helps prevent tickets, which I’ve had my share of.  It’s not something I set once and forget, though.  I adjust and tweak, narrowing in on the sweet spot that maintains my speed and optimizes the engines performance.  So I’m always a little dismayed when the speed limit changes and I need to reset the cruise.

I want a cruise control with 2, maybe 3 memory settings I can change between while driving.  And while I’m at it, I want the memory to remain intact when I turn the car off.  It doesn’t need to reset every time I start the car.

It’s the small things, the details of the experience that I return to again and again.  Something this small would bring me subtle smiles and tactile joy for years.

Color-coded Zippers & Pulls for Conversational Joy

Originally in my personal journal, September 2003:

This is a Black Diamond Switchback L20 backpack.  It has 7 distinct pockets.  I’ve had it for over 7 years.  As you can see, it’s well used and loved.  It’s the best bag I’ve ever had, and I love me some bags.

My wife and I have been married for 5 years and this bag has been with us the entire time.  We’ve carried it to coffeeshops, hiking, to the grocery store, to Africa, Asia, and Central America, to friend’s houses, biking - everywhere.  And still, after 5 years, when we speak to each other about finding something in the bag, our language is inelegant, inexact, and fumbling.

Me, wearing the bag:  “Will you get my sunglasses out, please?  They’re in the small pocket.”
Tara, behind me looking at the bag:  “Which small pocket?”
Me:  “The tiny one with the zipper, not the flap pocket or the one inside”.
Tara:  “The one on top or the one on the side?”
etc...

What we could be saying to each other is:

“My sunglasses are in the blue pocket.”
“Got em.”

Or red pocket, or yellow pocket, etc... 

Writing this, I’m struck that I haven’t modified this bag to add the color-coding myself.  (Note to self - do that this week.)  Instead, we’ve suffered through 5 years of repeatedly describing the bag’s construction to each other.  And we understand each other well.  When it’s somebody unfamiliar with this bag, the process is exponentially conversationally messier.

As a lover and user of bags, I’ve got a whole list of design ideas for backpacks and other bags.  This is priority numero uno.  Make the zippers and pulls on different colors for conversational joy.  One step closer to world peace.

Built-in Worklights in Hatchback Doors

Originally in my personal journal, Aug 2003:

I grew up with station wagons.  My parents bought an armada of consecutive green and blue Chevrolet wagons - some with wood paneling, some with custom green & white checked curtains made by Mom, even one with a rear-facing back seat during the brief spell in the early 80s when that seemed like a good idea.

As an adult, I drove a pickup and a sedan for a short time, but migrated back towards the key feature of the wagon - the hatchback.  I’m not a big fan of trunks.  I’d rather see the back of my car, keep it clean, let the dogs play there, stow my snowboard over the back seat head rest.  And I developed the habit of keeping a headlamp and flashlight in my cars.

While the dome lights are OK for getting in and out, and grabbing a bag at night, they always fall short of providing really useful work light.  And I don’t mean power-tool wood-shop work lights, just sufficient light to pack and unpack, setup camp, cook a dinner on the side of the road, or transfer your load of Costco crap in clear view.

How about multi-purpose LED lighting built right into the hatchback door?
- Rotatable floodlights to see inside and outside clearly. 
- Adjustable gooseneck spotlights for focused rucksack rummaging
- Removable flashlights with legs and/or gorilla-pod to setup on demand nearby

 
All LED, long-lasting, and recharged continuously by the car’s electric system.

One-touch Presets for Car Power Windows

Originally in my personal journal, June 2003:

While auto makers have provided one-touch up or down switches for individual windows in some higher-end models, they haven’t gone far enough.  How many times have you fiddled with your windows to get them all cracked just enough to allow some air flow on a hot day? 

4 buttons on the driver’s door:  UP, DOWN, HALF, & GAP.  One-touch takes all your windows exactly where you want them, everytime, no fiddling.

There are some minor challenges, whose cost of solving should be easily borne in the premium model and luxury edition cars where this feature would appear.  Current power windows don’t sense their position.  The motor just runs up or down and uses the physical limits of the window to stop motion.  Programming the windows ALL UP and ALL DOWN is easy.  Programming for the HALF and GAP positions is slightly trickier, but doable with encoder/potentiometer movement tracking, position sensors, and/or motion timing profiles.

Kitchen Faucet that Measures and Controls Water Flow

Originally in my personal journal, 2002:

Need 3 cups of water for that recipe?  Press ‘C’ three times, turn on the water, and the ‘InfoFlow’ faucet stops the water at exactly 3 cups.  With simple controls for the most common units of kitchen water measurement, Cups, Liters (in mL), and fluid Ounces.

Clean feminine styling - like Eve from Wall-E.  Display and indicator lights behind the facia.  Minimal simple controls.

Possibly an add-on product usable with any preexisting faucet.  More viable/valuable integrated into upscale faucets.  Best combined with other features like stream/spray, retracting built-in extension hose, and water filters.  Ideally, combined with something like this awesome foot pedal (my personal favorite kitchen enhancement).

Other possible features:
- track and show daily total flow to build awareness of how much water a family uses in the kitchen
- display water temperature

Some possible names:  InfoFlow, LiquiVu, H2Show