Idea: If I were to make a virtual globe

Earth globe:

        ideally, Full google earth integration

        realtime weather display with forecasts on touch

        “pinch” zoom, with display centered at touch point

        flick rotate

                tap drag -> rotate with friction

                tap tap drag -> continuous rotate

        begin rotate after timeout

        realtime/selected night/day display

rotating information banner

        rotates, flick support

        stock ticker

        forecast

        date/time

rotating notification banner

        alerts (news, voicemail, email triggers, etc)

bluetooth phone integration

        caller id display

        from iphone/android contacts sync

        speaker phone

        contact selector and dialer

        music control

touch screen

        probably ftir, meaning transparent dome, projection screen separate (how do you get it in there, heat form?)

Python Tip: Properties with a parameter

This is probably”unpython” and whatever, but I do a lot of automation, and being able to access properties based on some index (like a port number) is pretty important. This is especially true since getting a property isn’t reading a variable, it’s actually reading the value from some piece of equipment.

And, in case pastebin dissapears:

# This was created based on a response from Alex Martelli at:
# http://bytes.com/topic/python/answers/35919-property-parameter#post133951
# There’s probably a way to do this with an object (without the .property)

class ParameterProperty(object):
    # Allows using a property with a parameter, such as
    #   portSpeed[3] = 1000
    #   print portSpeed[3]
   
    def __init__(self,getparam,setparam):
        # Initialize by specifying the getter and setter functions.
        self.getparam = getparam
        self.setparam = setparam
       
    def getPropertyAccessor(self):
        # create a class with get and set
       
        class PropertyArrayAccessor: pass           # class to return
       
        def getter(__, parameter):                  # create getter function
            return self.getparam(parameter)         # return the value from the function specified during init
           
        def setter(__, parameter, value):           # create setter function
            self.setparam(parameter,value)          # call the function specified during init

        # property will use these get and set functions
        PropertyArrayAccessor.__getitem__ = getter
        PropertyArrayAccessor.__setitem__ = setter
           
        return PropertyArrayAccessor()                # return the class object
   
    property

Silly Idea: Clockless Watch

Using a metal brush, a low pass filter, and a schmit trigger as digital clock source for the calculation circuit, you could make a horribly inefficient electronic watch that used the position of the sun (by a low res ccd or even photodiodes) and a compass to calculate the time. Can’t use a crystal or rc, because that would be cheating! Might as well just have it keep the time!

Idea: Cracked wafers?

Relating to the bandwidth segregated data transmission…

I picture chips 

1. |=======| - photoelectric layer
2. |=======| - charge storage
3. |=======| - adjacent storage distribution
4. |=======| - logic
5. |=======| - diode and transistor junctions (photo).

1. photoelectric layer to supply power, probably wouldn’t have to be too efficient
2. store and filter the power
3. some sort of low voltage drop rectifier to allow adjacent, power hungry, cells to continue being power hungry
4. logic - maybe a mix of fixed functional blocks and programmable logic
5. diode and transistor junctions to act as silicon pn junction leds and photodiodes 

When the wafer cracks, the diode and transistor junctions would act as data paths between the cracks. Since the power is supplied locally, each section of the crack would only need light, some surviving logic blocks to handle addressing each cracked section for handling communication (select best diode/transistor junctions, handle programming, handle data network addressing of the cracked piece, dead space identification, etc).

Maybe the bandwidth segregated communication could help quickly program the devices in the different tiers of bandwidth capability. Some bandwidth related identification could be used as well. Send some pseudo-random signal, take incremental time averages and apply a threshold to end up with a code that would help identify the sections parameters (bandwidth capabilities, addressing blocks, task assignment, etc).

For the programmable logic, I suppose it would be something like an FPGA, with functional blocks that acted as programmable logic, or more analog like a neural network.

I picture window sized pieces, with all of their flaws and cracks, computing away, covering the face of every building.

In the dream that I saw these buildings in, they were powering some AI that was governing the world…but I suppose society would probably use it for some futuristic version of Angry Birds. :)

Scrambled for distribution?

Is it possible to scramble data so that the signal can be broken into channels based on an average over time? Usually in communication, the average is kept to zero using a known and syncronized psuedo-random sequence (a scrambler). Could the sequence be modified (by observation and modification or sub-channel) to allow distribution of data based on bandwidth capability? This would allow a bus with fast and bandwidth limited devices to receive and automatically segregate data based on bandwidth, on a shared line. This could also work for chained, bandwidth limiting, series connections, like analog repeaters.

Maybe for transmission, slower devices could disrupt the signal for faster devices, causing the faster devices to modify the sequence to correct.

The goal wouldn’t be signal speed, but signal distribution based on bandwidth.

Idea: Wireless turn signal

Fancy mirror turn signals LED strip activated by wireless transmitter attached and powered to the actual turn signal light. The LED strip would be powered with 12v accessories.

Idea: Tire wear measurement

A low power, inductor powered, cheap microcontroller embedded in a tire could be used to detect and warn of tire wear. The microcontroller could measure the change in resistance of thin wire molded into the tires surface. When these filaments broke, from being exposed to the roads surface, a tire wear indication could be sent to the driver. When deeper filaments break, a warning indicator could be displayed.

The filaments could be arranged many ways:
  Resistance measurement of bundles,
  individual strands at multple depths,
  bundles at multiple depths.

In all cases, resistance or open/closed type measurements could be made. As filaments broke in the bundles, the resistance would increase. The depth, spread, and number of the bundles or individual filaments could be chosen to give smoother or coarse steps in depth detection.

I assume this was patented a looong time ago.

Idea: Automated map generation for driving video games using Google Maps

Pretty obvious idea. Using the aerial and street view of Google Maps, and some simple texture/feature recognition and “design rules”, maps for driving video games could be made. Actual road data would be pretty reliable. Stop lights and signs could either be found using street view at each intersection, or randomly assigned since players will  fly through them anyways. Buildings, trees, and general terrain could be extracted from the satellite views. Accuracy isn’t all that important, but some fairly realistic level structures could be made.

Useless Idea: Diffraction pattern on linear CCD for position sensing?

For a cheap, high precision position sensor, could use a linear ccd from a scanner, project a laser through a diffraction grating (or pinhole) with a known diffraction pattern, then do some simple curve fitting/energy minimization of the visible pattern to find the position. Curve fitting rather than point tracking would be used to get sub pixel resolution. Since the light is directly from the laser (bright), short “shutter” times could be used. By knowing a 2d diffraction pattern, x and y position could be calculated (and rotation if the pattern isn’t polar).

The higher precision would come from the averaging of the noise across the sensor width. Using a wire shadow, slit, or “knife edge”, you can only use the intensity information from the pixels at the edge(s) of the feature casting the shadow. Although, with the diffraction pattern, there would be a slight reduction of usable area caused by any fringes out of the dynamic range of the sensor. This could be helped by using a pattern with a limited intensity range (translate sensor so main lobe isn’t visible).

Something like this might provide an extended range compared to a capacitive or mirrored method, and might be more robust! The pin hole/grating movement could be pretty extreme compared to the active sensing area and not cause damage, like a capacitive sensor. 

Expense would be in the microcontroller. DSP type features might be needed to process complicated patterns at reasonable speeds.

Of course, using a more standard system with a time average would most likey be just as good, but much more boring.

Idea: Cell phone traffic lights

Sniff cell phone control channel data to find ESN. Calculate CRC32 or something similar for privacy, track movement by watching where the number pops up. Do this to all “visible” cellphones to create traffic flow pattern in town for light timing.

???

Edit: I suppose the cell companies could probably sell the data.

Idea: Baby temperature monitor

Just a simple temperature monitor that you put in your babies blanket that starts beeping if the temperature gets too high or low.

Idea: Cloud redirect service

To post a link to an image or a document, the link, rather than pointing directly to the document resource, would point to the redirect service. This would check to see if the cloud resource was available and, if not, change the redirect to an available/redundant resource….maybe even hosted by a different provider. It could even perform load balancing by randomly choosing the redundant sources or always choosing those with the lowest response time.

Since cloud resources will always go down, might as well have a live backup.

Speckle interferemotry for blood glucose level detection

Maybe use speckle interferometry to measure blood glucose level by looking at the index of refraction of the aqueous humor of the eye (the clear bulge part in front of the iris).

Using a single laser

<to be continued>

Using absorption: http://iopscience.iop.org/1742-6596/277/1/012053/pdf/1742-6596_277_1_012053.pdf

Patent using interferometry to measure index of refraction: http://www.patentgenius.com/patent/6836337.html

2004 :(

Kids Toy: Squeaky Feet

Kids toy!

For a fancy version, using pressure sensors in or under the shoe, for a cheap version, using an accelerometer or spring mass switch. Controller could be leg or belt mounted.

When you walk, the controller would play back different sounds. Stomping, squeaky floor, etc. For the two sensor version, the sounds could be multi part or just segments played back as you moved forward. That way, using the squeaky floor example, the squeak could be gradual when moving slow, or faster when walking fast.

Ideally, pressure sensors/switches would be used. Multiple or even a accelerometer could be used, but then, outside the shoe.

I would have loved it when I was a kid (and now).

Temperature Sensor Array

Use the top metal layer of a CMOS process to build structures that resonate at a specific frequency. Use the layer below to excite the resonance. Use the layer below that to build a similar structure and use as a reference. By measuring the difference in frequency between the two, small changes/differences in the structure (like length) could be detected. If possible, coat the top layer to a dark color. Stick a lens in front of it and maybe you have an un-cooled thermal imaging system with decent sensitivity and probably pretty good response time?

The response time for heating would be a function of the thermal mass, the absorbed/long energy, and conduction through the vias. Maybe by holding the lower metal that the via is attached to at a temperature lower than the ambient or observed, better response times would be seen (by Newtonian cooling, greater temperature difference, greater rate of heat transfer).

The reference would just act as a way to make a differential measurement and, possibly, reduce the speed of the logic required since beat frequencies could be detected using mixing rather than using the fundamental of each. Localized heating (heating that warmed the whole structure, reference and detector) would most likely be somewhat widespread and slow allowing diode temperature sensors, spread all over the chip on the silicon layer, to be used to compensate.

If this ran at hundreds of MHz or GHz, this would probably be pretty sensitive.

The sensor resonant frequency would be measured capacitively, maybe by looking at the time between voltage peaks (changing the plate separation in a capacitor with a fixed charge changes the voltage) or be looking at a sweeping excitation frequency and the maximum sensor displacement (by measuring the capacitance directly.

Maybe having the excitation “plate” be a similar structure, and then looking at the beat frequency in the impedance between the two would be easier.

Some fancy deconvolution could probably be used to help get rid of the motion blur cause by the slow response time of the sensors, especially since the heating and cooling response would probably be non linear (from Newtonian cooling).

For densities…using a 0.18um CMOS process…and using a 2um minimum top metal trace width (double that to include spacing) and an aspect ratio of 5, and a 20mm by 15mm sensor, that would be something like 277 by 370 pixels (assuming square pixels). Or, for 35mm frame (34mm by 24mm), 629 by 533 pixels. This could be made greater by rearranging the sensors, using non-square pixels, or having smaller aspect ratios (which would lower sensitivity).

I assume someone is already doing this.

Edit: Here is a paper on making structures using the metal layer and etching away the silicon to free them: Experiments on the Release of CMOS-Micromachined Metal Layers. This might mean that it’s not possible to have a hanging structure in the upper metal layer…only on the lowest layer.