h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

...a small box which could be located in or near the fitting rooms in a shop, which has a small camera in it and some computer hardware. It uses the camera to examine the people who come into the fitting rooms, and what clothes they're taking in with them. The computer hardware, which is after all very, very clever and powerful (far beyond what we can do at the moment), would then inform the customer in an appropriate tone of voice of the suitability of their selection of clothing, with lines ranging from "That's lovely, dear" to "Put that back on the rail at once!" and "That really makes your bum look big."

Would be just the thing.

Isn't there a thing already like that? Called a 'mum'.

Hmm... good point. But what about the people who don't take their Mums shopping?

A mini-mum, to fit in your pocket.

Now there's something

I want to invent the space drive. I want to see a starrise before I die.

A BETTER SYSTEM THEN THE ONE LD
IS USING.THERE IS ONE,BUT THEY DONT HAVE THE TECHNICIANS TO UNDERSTAND HOW IT WORKS!
[email protected]

A cheap, fast, quiet, comfortable, reliable, easy to use flying machine.

I'm picturing something about the size of a Mini, with four seats facing inwards to a central console, where the controls for the air conditioning, the DVD players and Playstations, and the voice activated GPS linked autopilot are all located. Propulsion would be by some sort of reactionless Dean-drive type of thing (wibbly gyroscope type stuff, no noisy jets, rotors or ducted fans, thank you) and top speed would be something like 250 mph. You could fly it manually with a licence or just let the computer do it for you if you don't mind sticking to the "roads". It would need to cost no more than £20,000 to buy, to be as cheap to run as a car, to make no more noise than a car and to never, ever fall in a white hot ball of flame onto an unsuspecting bus queue.

I think I'd make a bob or two if I could come up with one of those.

H.

Everyone complains about the pollutants from cars (well, nobody likes finding black snot in their tissue) - I have a simple solution. A cheap, emmission-free car which runs on car emmissions! Soon everyone would have one, and the problem of smog would be solved, and the new cars would...

...erm, maybe you should forget that one. Back to the drawing board.

A machine that could instantly transfer knowladge into your brain, thus making school unnecisary.

PS
What in the heck is a "bob"?

I've dreamed of that since the Matrix was shown, shortly before my exams.

A 'bob' is a pound.. but don't ask me where it came from..

C.

Ur, castaway. A "bob" refers to a old British Shilling or one twentieth of a pound (5p in today's currency). Hence the phrase "10 bob bit" for a 50p coin.

Whatever you meant, it's nice to have a lot of them.

I'd like a cheap, powerful and reliable electric car - and a cold fusion reactor to put in the basement and power my house.

And a nice looking one. For some reason all the electrical cars they make seems to be very ugly.

Yes, they aren't very cool, are they? As if anyone who wants to drive an el-car must necessarily be a sensible and boring person...

I'd invent a Suggestion Cap to wear on the head, that would make you believe that you could fly, thus enabling you to actually fly - without all that machine stuff around you! It would also convince you that you wouldn't collide or crash or anything, so you wouldn't.

Not all electric cars are ugly. In Germany Ford built an e-Ka - an electric version of a Ka which has a range of about 150 miles (which is enough for *most* journeys I suppose.) And what's more it would only cost about £1.50 to recharge it!!!

BUT....

They won't produce it.

Perhaps they're too interested in perpetuating the oil industry !???

Who ever said a Ka isn't ugly? But of course, it is at least a normal car made into an electrical one.

If what you say about the oil is true however, they probably wouldn't have made it to begin with.

Conspiracy theorists have it that the oil companies have been deliberately withholding or not funding research into alternative fuels...

I wouldn't be surprised if some executive at Ford thinks that they shouldn't produce the Ka because nobody would buy it.

Electric cars have the disadvantage of being much more expensive than normal ones, as well as being more suited to short-distance travel in an urban enviroment. Maybe it'll take another oil crisis like the ne in the 70's to make them seem viable to people.

On the subject of inventions, how about a computer program that can detect and eliminate online ads, especially pop-up ones and those ultra annoying ones that follow you down the page. This wunder-program could also automatically delete spam email, cookies and consumer-tracking programs. The problem would be finding a company to manufacture the program.

If you look around at some place like Tucows you may find the software to do most of that.
WayneFrWpg