Ideas and Writings

Wouldn’t it be car if my car could sync with my cell phone and remind me about upcoming maintenance? Okay, I know it’s impossible right now with my current car, but I could imagine a cell phone app that still reminds me about the scheduled maintenance. Of course it would be cooler if my car could blue tooth info to my phone for additional updates.

My vision – a cell phone app, it syncs with my outlook, and it reminds me that I need an oil change next week. It reminds me that I should be getting new tires soon. This could be as basic as estimated the miles I drive based upon a few things, and syncing with the manual for my Toyota Solara. The big issues like timing belt replacement and stuff like that happen should all be all included.

htc-mobile apps needed

I don’t think about these things, usually until it is too late. I would love to have cell phone reminders so I would get it done before it’s a bigger problem. I would love to know in advance so I can budget these things before it needs to be done. I would love to know my manufacturers recommended maintenance before I am in the jiffy lube or other shop and they are suggesting I get all this extra work done.

I would pay a dollar for this in a minute. Here is another one of my cell phone /  iphone app / mobile app ideas that I am giving out to the world for free – someone please develop this. (And note my creative commons license for this info!) – If you can make some money from it, perhaps you can send me some cash to upgrade my car to bluetooth – then maybe I could know what that check engine light is really about without having to go to the auto parts store.

Most of my cell phone app ideas I am keeping a secret until we get a non-disclosure agreement and funding, but this one I am posting on the internet. Please note the creative commons license associated with this information (and all content here at ideas and writings).

We need a made in the USA cell phone app. If we could take a picture with our camera phone of the bar code of things we buy to learn about how much of the product is made in the US, if any, people could make better informed purchasing decisions.

Maybe we should also be able to text the bare code and get info texted back, similar to google’s text information service. Maybe it should also work with a mobile browser. I’d like to get info about products when I purchase them to see if they are made in the USA, or if portions of the product are. I think there is a lot of confusion about what products are actually American made and from American owned companies for that matter.

I am not sure if our “American” car companies are even owned my Americans, or how much of them are. I am not sure how much of a given car is made in the USA and how much of it is imported. There are many brands that were once American made that are now being outsourced to Mexico and other places around the world, and people need to know. For years fluidmaster was a trusted brand name that had American owners and American workers created these important parts for toilets, but recently I learned (when a good friend was laid off) – that the new owners have outsourced most(?) of the parts making to Mexico and have moved shipping to cheaper places as well.

In this economy and with jobs being so important to our American economy, I believe people are genuinely interested in knowing more about the product and services they buy, and where the money is going when we buy them. I think a lot of us would be surprised to learn this information, but we really need a better way to find it! A cell phone app is perfect for this.

I would love to see QR codes being used along with bar codes to learn about a product, and it’s company. Who owns that company, where is the product made?

I imagine this could be funded with links to “find this item you are inquiring about on Ebay and Amazon”, etc.

It would be awesome to have a one click – tweet about the info you found out about this product – share with your friends that the fluidmaster part your plumber is replacing with another fluidmaster part is not made in the USA, etc.

Links to company info, and have people able to add additional information about products would be great to.

This idea is still in it’s development phase, I’m sure it can be made better, but I just thought of it today – it will take some time refine it. If you’d like to help, feel free to add comments, or send me an email – perhaps we can develop and market it together.

There is a web site I read about that let’s you type in information to get info about what is made in the USA – not sure if there is a mobile version, or if it would work on a cell phone browser. I am also not sure how complete their database is. Either, but if someone finds this post looking for the info – you may want to check there:

The cellphone application may need to be a wiki so people can add information, (moderated of course) – so we can all develop this info together.

Isn’t there some kind of certification, like ASO something or another for products that are 100% made in America? I can’t think of it right now with all this other code and ideas floating through my head.

Please note / disclaimer – information here about Fluidmaster, and any other company please realize I am not 100% sure of. I have just heard these things, and am using some company names to post examples. If I am wrong, please comment here and I will update.

I have been thinking about going to Google ventures with one of my ideas ever since I saw the blog post on TechCrunch talking about the new venture capital program that Google has launched. I think it’s a good idea, and the fact that we may be able to get some google geeks to work with us in the development of this one idea, well it would be perfect.

I am nervous about approaching anyone with this tech idea though. It costs money to patent and copyright, and even then we are not guaranteed to have protection for our idea or inventions. I would like to think that Google of all people can be trusted, but who is to say that someone there doesn’t forward the info to someone else who runs off with it. I just don’t know.

It’s the one question I did not get answered when I was at the last barcamp seminar about angel investors, how do we protect our idea from theft when we pitch it? Of course I am sure that a big part of that equation is knowing who you are pitching it to, and at least Google ventures lists the people who are most involved in it, so we can do some research.

Unfortunately there is nothing in the FAQ page about protecting an idea or how the process works. I guess they assume most people looking for seed money or venture capitol know all this by the time they seek it. Should I run to the library first and read some books on the venture capitol process? What if my idea really needs to get to market ASAP, before someone else tries to launch something similar? I can’t afford to pay the money for patents and patent attorneys and do all that waiting. I’m nervous, but really considering just doing – just writing them to see.

This is a test.
This is not only a test, but a reminder to myself that this is a great web project for bringing together ideas and inventions from around the world.

Now that wordpress has been upgraded, look for us to add more to the site that so that potential investors will have a better understanding of the business plans, inventions and ideas that we have been developing.

We plan to offer more information publicly and privately with password protected posts by the end of 2008 and it is our goal to go public with a few of these ventures in 2009. Partnerships are currently being considered, contact or comment for details.

Steve

In an article found on Crunchgear:

Angle foresees that robots will soon become omnipresent and amazingly useful in aging populations.

His main point, that robots will soon do the jobs we don’t want to or can’t do, is a quite cleary coming to pass. I asked him if there was a cave mouth epiphany in the home robotics industry and he shook his head. We’ve sold 2.5 million robots, but that’s 1 to 2% of market penetration. The digerati love robots, but our real audience is middle American homemakers.

I can see this as a future goal, but I still believe that the main focus of the robotics industry needs to be better funded segments of the the population for a while. The robotic ideas that I have been working on do focus on machines doing the jobs that humans don’t want to do, or would prefer not to do. Jobs that would be healthier if a machine could do them. I have two robot ideas that would sell well because they will make jobs faster and easier. These ideas should sell well to industries that have the funding to purchase them, and the speed issue alone will give them a great return on investment. Focusing here first will get the whole “robots among us” thing started. People will be talking about how they use a robot in their job, and after a few years it won’t be an unusual thing to want a robot or two at home. This would be the easier transformation of taking robots from the digerati and into the mainstream American households, which is where iRobot and many other companies want to go.

In a recent article from Reuters, one group that is taking advantage of the recent writers strike to make in impact on the web. I was surprised to see that there are similar issues with writers and musicians in relation to rights and ownerships / royalties and such. It seems like as much as musicians have been complaining about these issues that hollywood writers have been given a much tougher deal over the years. I hope this all changes soon, there are several shows I would like to get pilots made for and production started so we can start shopping them around to the various networks myself. With articles like this one from Tech Crunch and the following, perhaps a webisode would be the best first start to get investors serious about development.

Article found via yahoo news / Reuters

“Quarterlife” highlights Web role in writer strike

By Bob Tourtellotte 1 hour, 11 minutes ago

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – As a strike by Hollywood screenwriters throws dozens of television shows into production turmoil, a new series aimed at TV’s target audience of young adults is headed for launch on the Web — not television.

On Sunday, Emmy-winning TV show creators Marshall Herskovitz and Ed Zwick (”thirtysomething,” “My So-Called Life”) begin Webcasts of “Quarterlife,” a weekly saga of six young artists carving out careers in a big city.

The debut of “Quarterlife,” the first original “Webisode” from A-list TV creators, comes as the Writers Guild of America presses studios for a bigger share of revenues generated from movies and TV shows delivered over the Internet.

“Quarterlife” differs from network shows like ABC’s “Desperate Housewives,” which can be downloaded from Apple’s iTunes. It is an original series made exclusively for the Internet, presented initially on MySpaceTV and a day later at quarterlife.com.

The Web-based drama points to the Internet’s growing prominence as an outlet for mainstream entertainment, and highlights the importance of the Web to screenwriters and the broadcast networks.

Herskovitz and Zwick developed “Quarterlife” outside the TV networks and studios, investing their own money in the venture to maintain creative and financial control over it.

“That is the whole reason we’ve done this,” Herskovitz told Reuters on a recent visit to the set of the Web series before the WGA’s 12,000 members went on strike on Monday.

“(Studios and networks) own the whole product and exert way more creative control than they did in the past,” Herskovitz said. “They took away our ability to be entrepreneurial.”

The major networks and studios are getting into the digital game themselves. The producers behind the ABC hit drama “Lost” are creating a spinoff of that show tailored especially for mobile phones, with the first “mobisode” due to show up on Verizon Wireless in the next couple of weeks.

WHAT TV NETWORK?

“Quarterlife” cast members, who are in their 20s, do not view the Web as substandard to TV, and like many of their peers, are excited by the possibilities of Web video.

“We’re reaching an audience that is not necessarily watching on a TV network,” said Bitsie Tulloch, who plays the lead role of Dylan on the show, and worked on the Web sensation “lonelyGirl15″ as well as on such TV series as “Lost.”

Herskovitz and Zwick have tailored “Quarterlife” for the Web, blending the personal relationship stories they did best in programs like the high-school drama “My So-Called Life” with a saga centered on Dylan, a blogger, and her best friends.

Other key characters in the 36, eight-minute “Quarterlife” episodes include filmmakers Danny and Jed, actress/bartender Lisa, geeky Andy, and Debra, who still lives with her parents.

Herskovitz said “Quarterlife” will be free of constraints on language and other risky content TV networks often censor. On quarterlife.com, characters and fans will interact with the goal of building a tight-knit social networking community.

“The response from advertisers has been way beyond what I thought. We’ve already made deals to cover production costs,” Herskovitz said. “They believe it is going to take off.”

He declined to offer details, but Dina Kaplan, chief operating officer of Web video site, blip.TV, said Webisode ad revenues range widely from hundreds or thousands of dollars to tens of thousands depending on the type of ad.

In the first half of 2007, online ad spending overall surged 27 percent to almost $10 billion, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau. Industry analysts expect it to grow at 25 percent to 30 percent for the whole year.

“It’s the wild, wild West,” Kaplan said. And everybody wants in on the action, especially Hollywood’s writers.

(editing by Steve Gorman)

Today’s idea is to have a chain of better rehab places across the US. I envisions several smaller, less institutional rehab facilities having a strong market for many years to come. A recent newspaper article talked about the millions that were recently spent on a new rehab facility that will be run similar to a hospital, in the Franklin TN area. This is fine for some people, but most people that don’t make it through a rehab program, or a lot of those that do not go voluntarily in the first place is because of this “institutional feel” for one thing, and there are other reasons that can be addressed and fixed with smaller niche drug and alcohol rehabilitation facilities.

I believe for around 2 million a small facility could be created that would be more like a resort vacation than a hospital visit. Why not have a few deltec style homes on a property with rooms like a hotel, a pool, a waterfall, organic foods and more? I could see there being facilities for yoga, tai chi and other alternative methods of exercise and understanding.

If you took an ad for Hilton hotels and just changed the word hotel into rehab, wouldn’t that make people want to go? Having various alternative forms of therapy and group support would also help more people. This could all be done on a budget that is very similar to what is already being spent on rehab clinics, and it could be done better. It will most likely be so popular that several would need to be built in each city.

Drug and alcohol problems are going to be around for some time. This is a market that will need to be served for along time, and there are lots of customers out there just waiting for a good place to enjoy. One of the rehab facilities in my area charges an average of $600 per day. If we could build a hotel resort and get half that for each room and stay as booked as these places are, we’d be rich, and helping people at the same time.

I know people in several different areas of these fields, and would love to put together some investors to get this ball rolling. More on ths later.

Some envision the next generation of sniper to not be much of a rifle sniper at all but rather a target painter with a laser that paints a enemy target for air strikes, possibly unmanned predators. With a miniature cube that can be placed and camouflaged if needed, the cube could be placed at several targets anywhere in the world for later strikes. in fact an unmanned system could land the Cube in the area or even have it delivered via space and dropped in the atmosphere.

So what is the the Cube it would be a device in cube like shape that once landed would have the ability to be mobile no matter what side it landed on. A laser target painter could be sized and thus the size of the cube would differ depending on the range needed to acquire a target.

This idea is one of my favorites to have been working on. This combines several proven teachnologies into one making a awsome trashcan slash robot slash RC.  Todau i missed taking out the trash as a result  i have tons of flies and more trash than I can put into the can. Now I am stuck with either going to the dump or waiting another week for the teash man to come and pick up the trash, with this idea that will never happen again. intorducing the curbee a trashcan that takes itself to teh curb. It does with with an RC motor installed in the bottom the the can. Once a user starts the curbee and walks it to the curb once it will remember the path taken and always take itself out on trashday via this path. The outter shell of the curbee could be a solar collecter so know charging would be required. We are still working on a few bugs but we should have this thing launched by years end.

Woiuld it not be cool, if we could rewind a website back a few hour, days, months, or even years? Alot of time on the front page of Yahoo a news story is there and while I am reading something else or doing a search I come back to Yahoos front page and the article is gone. Well with this idea anyone would be able to rewind any website they favorited. I would like to purpose a bot that once a user has favorited a website that bot starts to record thatfwebsited so at anytime that user could rewind that websitee. Should anyone out there in the computer world want to help witht this videobot let me know becasue advertisers would love it since there ads may be seen twice.