Category: Bumper Stickers

Idea:  


Easy to destroy a community,
Harder to build one


Care Starts at Home


Don’t Let Go
of your Good Dreams


TURN OFF Main-stream news
RECONNECT with your community


From Use comes Ability


----------------------
T-shirt

front- That which separates the moral individual from the immoral individual is...
back-                                    NONE OF US ARE PERFECT (written obnoxiously)
----------------------


True Happiness Takes Work


“There is always some beauty left.”
(-Quote of Anne Frank)


From Difficulty comes Brilliance

Category: Business, Product, Food

Description:  A simple prepared food for local sale and for use as a smoothie or a  
                           desert topping.


Idea:  


“Apple Pie Smoothie” / “Apple Pie Desert Topping”

                Apples - Crispen (Amount unknown)
                Vanilla extract - 1 Tsp
                Cinnamon -        1 Tsp
                Nutmeg -             approximately 2 tsp
                Rum -                   1 tsp (though most may cook off through
                                                                                        cooking)

Add to this -                          Roux - White flour - a little over ½ cup
                                                             Butter -           ½ cup
                                                 - Blonde Roux


For sale at local markets or local stores.


Needs proper packaging.  Light brown labeling.


Price reduction for consumers that bring back used containers (for subsequent re-use).


Confidence:  Unknown


From a purely business perspective, I don’t know if this would float per cost of packaging, labeling, supplies and cooking vs market-viable price-of-product.  Might work well as a piece in a line of products (i.e., this along side vegetables in a farmer’s market stall).

Category: Business, Computer Program, Medical

Description:  A speech-therapy computer program to assist deaf / near-deaf people to
                           speak well.



Idea:  

A computer program that makes a precise visual representation of spoken word, and uses this representation as the foundation for a training program that assists in allowing deaf / near-deaf individuals to speak well, or helps them hone their speaking ability.

User is given a word to say.  They attempt to say the word and a visual representation is given in near-real-time of the quality of what they say, overlaid on the precise representation of what they are shooting for (proper pronunciation and enunciation).  

-Program gives feedback to help show progress/regression.

The visual display is three dimensional, made up of a continuous (fluid) series of slices of the progression of saying the word (i.e., the display is proper pronunciation and enunciation traveling through time).  The closest descriptive is a cylinder, or a rectangular cuboid- a square cylinder.

The main display is from above and to the side, and towards the front of the “cylinder”. The “cylinder” is transparent- the inside can be seen.

Each slice has areas corresponding to the different pieces of what makes the entirety of human audio.  Each area to have its range displayed through color and/or texture.


The slices, and groups of slices can be isolated for the user to help learn certain areas, or work on areas he/she is having difficulty with.



Example(s):  

Proper, clear pronunciation and enunciation of Dog is displayed as a visual representation by the computer program.  D-Do-o-og-g   is displayed.  User says Jw-Jwo-o-og-g   and the program gives a precise representation of what user said.  User crops D-Do from the proper annun/enun representation and works on just that part.  Using what he says overlaid on the precise D-Do, users slowly moves to proper annun/enun, and towards proper annun/enun of the word Dog.

Future Additions(s):  


Program goes beyond singular words, and can display sentences, and the tonal range as applied to speech (e.g., the raise in pitch at the end of a question).

- a simple written display of  the sentence; when sentence is vocalized, a % rating on
  the accuracy of pronun/enun for each word of a sentence, along with a 2-d graph
  of needed volume, and pitch(if applicable).  User can click on words he/she wishes
  to improve upon which brings up the 3-d representation and vocalization program.


With some alteration and upgrading, program can be extended into other areas, including general security (e.g., accurate voice recognition and identification).



Confidence:  7 (Provisional)


Provided there is nothing that is similar to this, I think it would do well.  The computer program and business would have to start small for proof-of-concept work.



Additional Comment(s):


If there is a computer program similar to this, utilize and edit/upgrade it to make it work for this need.

Category: Art, Video

Description:  A visual and audio representation of the affect of busyness on
                           enjoying life.


Idea:  

Commentary:

“There’s a tune playing, and it’s called enjoyment of Life.  Busyness turns up the static.  Turn it up enough and we can’t hear the tune..”

The “tune” is actual music, and is visually represented by an audio wave.  Busyness is represented by the static, and is visually represented by vibrating dots in the display of the audio wave.  As the static is increased, the amount of dots, and their vibrating energy is increased.  Eventually the static totally floods the music.

Additional Comment(s):  

Added understanding of the affect of busyness in our lives.

Category: Art

Description:  The sound of war versus the sound of peace


Idea:  

Record the sounds of war, and peace (nature maybe, perhaps a bustling town), then give a realistic audio depiction of what it is like to be in a room, particularly in a house, in a place that is experiencing the war, peace.

Two rooms- one representing war, the other peace.

Sounds- Tanks, gun shots, bombs; maybe some human suffering. (1)


Future Additions(s):  

The sound of a high-traffic, high-noise residency versus the sound of a residence surrounded by nature.  A graspable presentation of the effect of noise in our daily lives. (2)


Additional Comment(s):

1.  A better understanding of war for societies that do not experience war.

2.  A clearer appreciation of noise in our everyday lives.

Category: Social Business

Description:  Consumer-centric Radio Frequency (RF) tagging on shopping items;     
                          a RF tag reader in the consumer’s house.



Idea:  



A system to assist consumers in gaining more knowledge about what they buy, how much it is, etc..


With RF tags people track everything they buy on their computer.  When they enter their home, their products’ RF tags are read by the home’s/computer’s sensor(s) and automatically put into the computer.  The tag has the exact product along with additional information.


After entering into the computer, a simple statistics program can yield conceptual data on what is being bought, from individual days to buying trends over periods of time.


Each store voluntarily creates RF tagging (with attached information) per product. Advantage to store is the added draw for customers who want this service.  Might be advantage(s) to a more-assured anonymous tracking of what leaves the store.


Product information can be extensive and can work synergistically with other product-information systems.



Begin at a pilot store in a very “green-minded”, higher income area (e.g., a silicon valley suburb)- provide discounted USB scanners, with free computer program included, to consumers.



Example(s):  

Jill goes to two stores- a clothing and grocery store.  She buys her products.  When she comes home her scanning system automatically reads what she bought and enters what she bought into her home’s computer.  At the end of the day she reviews the statistics on what she bought for that day.  She sees that 5% of the groceries she bought were organic, and 10% of the clothes she bought were made in the U.S.A..  She reviews her year’s buying statistics and sees she has gradually bought less and less organic and more and more U.S.A.-manufactured clothing.  She makes a mental note to buy more organic groceries.

Ned shops at the local grocery store; his items are scanned in at his home.  Later he reviews the statistics of his purchasing over the last 2 years and sees that pears have inflated in price substantially and apples have gotten progressively cheaper.  He makes a note to start buying more apples and less pears.

Deborah uses the program to affirm how she has been buying healthier and healthier food, and has been managing to cut back on her clothing expenses.

Future Additions(s):  

Additional information attached to tags- e.g., environmental practices-rating of company manufacturing product, labor environment quality rating (pay, benefits, ratio of C.E.O. pay to laborer pay, etc), human rights rating of countries where business is located.

Home computer can create a core shopping information list.  List can be sent to store; store can gather items for pickup at the store.


Simple scanners for users to read, at the store, all the information contained in the RF tags.  Individually owned or supplied by the store (idea- attached to carts).



Confidence:  2

Relatively high start-up investment per infrastructure, with a relatively low yield in extra profit;  However, once consumers have their side of the infrastructure, infra. creation at-the-store would be a medium to low investment (given a minimum consumer density).

In certain demographic areas, if this was relatively successful in individual stores, there would be great pressure for competing stores to adopt the system.  

Home RF scanners need to be relatively powerful to make RF tag reading realistically efficient.  A situation where the user has to scan each product individually wouldn’t be viable.

Home computers would have to stay on to automatically read the RF tags. Otherwise, the computers would have to be turned on- not realistic for system to work given human element.

Privacy security risk, and public concern over a privacy security risk - Non-store scanners outside of the store could potentially read what a person has in their vehicle, or in their house.

Additional Comment(s):  


Creates a stronger, more knowledgeable consumer.