Killer iPhone App

You see it all the time, you buy and iPad, your kid or spouse loves it and starts to hog it. Wouldn't it be nice if you could use your iPhone as a remote control to get it back? Your kid loves an iPad app, but she only likes the intro and that's what you now have to hear over and over. iPhone app now lets you remote into your iPad and disable that annoying intro. Nice? This is fundamental. Now, a properly designed iPad app has an interface that permits such customization. Get that Palin prize ready.

Without such an app, if frustration is the only option, it might eventually give new meaning to the word breakthrough.

Google MapMate

This is Facebook++ and LinkedIn++.

Imagine, you're doing your daily gmail and you're corresponding with someone new in your life - business acquaintance or otherwise. Now, wouldn't it be nice if gmail gave you the option of adding-to-map this person.

Then, you want to be able to look at the world map and see all your contacts. And, not just your contacts but your 2nd and 3rd degree connections. So, red dots are 1st degree connections, blue are 2nd degree, you get the idea.

Now, people should have the option of allowing themselves to be mapped - so that someone actually needs to give permission to show up on your map as a 2nd degree connection.

Then, when you want to take that vacation to HongKong and want to know who you might meet there that you know through a mutual friend - go to MapMate - courtesy of Google.

Nice?

Solar-Powered Autonomous Bouncing Ball

Had to log this somewhere. Was a draft on my old phone. You've seen companies hand out battery-powered gizmos at career-fairs. It would be cute to have a transparent (upto the solar cell) ball that bounces when it's bright enough.

Ultimate Android e-Reader App

Use the self-shot camera to look at the user's eyes and determine when he reaches the end of a line and use the flyback to scroll the page minimally. How about that for the ultimate user-friendly e-reader?

Apple Takes Aim .... at Cadence?

Having formally entered IC design, ostensibly to increase its gross margin by eliminating middlemen, Apple ought to have figured out by now that it makes little sense to give enormous sums of money to Cadence Design Systems for IC design software when it could design its own software inhouse. After all, Apple doesn't depend on any third-party software to build its products (except M$ Excel of course - which is not frightfully expensive).

What they do know is that an intuitive interface is the key to user experience. Why not improve on what Cadence has by adding gesture recognition, etc to boost the productivity of its IC designers?

Arduino Direct USB

That's what I want to see at next year's Maker Faire. Screw the FTDI chip that's outlived its purpose.

This is not just about hardware. The reason I want direct USB, is that I want people to start thinking their programs in direct USB, not some glacial emulated serial port. And then we can all be free from Apple - the evil Empire.

Gmail Goggles

Hokay, Google has this Android App called Google Goggles. Shoot a pic with your phone, they'll try to tell you about it. How about the same thing for gmail? Some kookie forwards you a kool picture. You'd like to know more about it. How about Chrome give you a right-click menu-item "Search with Google Goggles"?

Better Android

How about a self-destructing contact thing? Let me explain.

You're shopping for furtiture on craigslist, or stores. You call a bunch of numbers. Some of these people will call you back, or you yourself might follow up on some of those calls. So, why not be able to create a temporary contact, with a couple details ("coffee table belmont" or "92 Civic Oakland", you get the idea). These should be on your contact list for a user specified time. After that, they should be invisible, but available for maybe 30 days, then be deleted automatically. Nice? Get that Nobel Prize ready.

Better Droid Email App

When you're in the message inbox, why not define a two-finger touch on an email to be "Select" instead of opening it up and consuming network resources? Now, once selected, you can enable some actions like delete, forward, etc. Much more efficient than opening it up and the scrolling all the way down for Reply, Forward, etc.

Make sense GOOG?

Cadence Operating System

This would be good to have. Considering every interaction with Cadence can be captured as a command, I really wish Cadence would come out with an operating system for PCs. Then, I could automate everything.

Your Personal Organic Intelligent Agent

If a problem is well-defined, an intelligent person can solve it, not alone, but with help - which help will be part of the solution. Using natural-language processing, a computer can also do this. This will be the basis of Google's new consulting business.

So far, Google has only gone after established, mainstream, tangible businesses and products - online search and advertising, email, etc. They took their time getting into consumer electronics and will eventually be more than a force to reckon with.

What the guardians of capitalistic oligarchism, like Goldman Sachs and the other evils, need to understand is that the "don't be evil" motto will eventually lead Google into realms where overcompensation is the norm and confusion is the modus operandi. The public are being led to a shambles with each merger and acquisition with investment banks getting away with murderous fees and levies. This cannot, will not and should not go on any longer than the first of April.

Like a newborn is functionally useless, but grows to become very powerful, with the proper rearing, so, your organic intelligent agent will grow from within - using language skills to explore its boundaries, being nurtured always by a foster consultant. Eventually, the consultant is no longer a parent but a manager, concerned no more with the growth of the child, but with the results being generated.

You have been warned.

Unlocnch

Okay, you get access to your device by dragging your finger across the screen to enter your secret pattern. I've got a better idea. When you want to record a conversation, how about you enter another code into your locked phone that will unlock and launch the recorder app? Shouldn't be hard to do at all.

Better yet, launch the secret app in the background, but launch a text messenger app in the foreground as a decoy. People think your checking mail or texting, etc.

Sacrificial Exoskeleton

You sense there's going to be a harmless (to human occupants) collision - say from a gate of a shopping cart. Why not project out a minimal plastic frame that can absorb the impact? Hear that BMW?

Better Techonline

Oh Ye Dumb !@$!@#s :

Find out what subjects the user is interested in him.
Give him a way to find out where he is en route to his goals.
Give him a way to take the next step to get closer to his goal.

Don't flood his inbox with freaking upcoming webcasts that he hasn't a clue how to use.

Improving Camera Module Yield with Optical Image Enhancement. Jeez. Give me a break people. Sitting in front of my laptop, what can I do to apply what you have for me? I don't want to keep learning. I want to build. -- Anon

Swimming Pool Cleaning Bots? Check. Solar Panel Cleaners?

That's the new boom. You lose efficiency in the panels you install on your roof unless you clean them. Instead of hiring Jorge to do it and write you a bill, why not go Japanese on this one and do it yourself?

Goldratt Inspired Alarm Clock Earpiece

How small can we make an earbud - a headphone I mean? Read "The Goal" by Eliyahu Goldratt and one chapter starts with "... Julie on top of me. She isn't being amorous. She's reaching for the alarm clock." So, can we make an earpiece that will sound the alarm when commanded by the base-station? It's got to be so tiny that there's absolutely no discomfort at all. You stay in a super low-power mode for 5 hrs, then you wake up. Then, when you get and easy to check for code, you go into a higher-power mode and wait for the alarm signal and put out about 10 mW of audio energy. The battery can be recharged everyday - probably a supercap will work.

Start your day without waking your wife up. What exec wouldn't want that?

Broadcom ICs Power Smart Buyer-Protecting Products

You see a TV for sale cheap on Craigslist. How do you know if it has any latents issues or not? You can't. But, thanks to Broadcom's future efforts, we will be able to. You can bring your iPhone, get a code from the owner and get the TV to tell you its history - inexplicably rebooted twice in the last 2 months. Fuzzy picture experienced x times on a, b, c dates. You get the idea. This will make the economy more efficient.