Month: August 2012

So I wrote a list of some online startup ideas I had. Part II includes a list of ideas that require tech but are not purely internet-based. As before, feel free to discuss – I am most intrigued by your comments.

1. iPads in Restaurants – First of all, having iPad for a menu is greatly superior – colorful, easy to navigate, update-able, exciting. iPads in a restaurant can be built-in the tables, or slide in-and-out of them. Then you could also not only look at what’s offered, but see pictures of the ingredients, how it’s prepared, watch video etc. Then you could of course order it. Orders go straight to the kitchen, no time wasted, where the chefs can mark the progress, so you could see if your food is in queue, being prepared or is ready and coming. You could also rate your food, write recommendations to friends right away, call the waiter, pay. Many many possibilities. Feels like this has to become the standard and yet I haven’t seen a place like that.
2. Gamification For Dominos Pizza – Those restaurants that deliver pizzas and other food have accounts of people – their phones and addresses. Dominos for example always gives some promotions and discounts to users. Every time I order pizza I give one coupon and receive a different one. But no one actually tracks and makes something out of what I order. They should create a gaming concept such as “Every meal you try for the first time is 30% off.” or “Every time you order 10times the same thing you get it for free” or “You are the mayor in radius of 5 blocks, you eat at 50% discount”.
3. Eye Helper – When you code 10h/day doctors say it is bad for your eyes, because they get lazy – they focus too long on the same short distance and the muscles weaken. You could in theory use 3d goggles (or Google’s project Glass) to simulate the same screen information to be far in the distance so that eyes can adjust and not lose their flexibility.
4. Online Receipts – I know that exists, but in my opinion this should be the standard. Anything you buy, you receive on your email or online account. You never have to keep receipts for your clothes, toys or anything. Can be done with RFID, Proximity chips etc. All this data then can be analyzed by YOU the owner of the system.
5. Layered Music – Most of the songs are recorded in a studio these days. What would be cool is to record each instrument, voice, sound on a different layer in a file format that supports this. Then, a tzunami of remixes and music experiments w/ music contents will be unleashed.
6. GPSed Luggage – Would it not be awesome to actually know where your luggage is at any point? Stick a GPS, track it on your phone. Bulletproof unlostability.
7. Electronic Party – I am a firm believer that people need to have more power and not concentrate power in the hands of a few. So I believe there needs to be a system that allows people to take active position and actions on various matters. The first steps of which is an e-party that does anything online. They promote themselves on the net, they display transparently their plans online, they create tools for communication between masses and organization towards actionable goals. Army of coders creating the tools to run a country more efficiently, more transparent, more power for the people.
8. Species Finder – You pick up an animal you look at it and you have no idea what it is, what it does, is it dangerous or not. I would love to have a site that guides you through a wizard and displays the results. “Insect? Color? Number of legs? etc. “You are holding a rare deadly spider…”
9. Journalism Wikiness – Every event should be objectified. Instead of having searchable texts, each event should have its own ID, so that all events and people and objects can be linked authentically to each other. Data and analysis can follow to reveal a totally different understanding of what essentially is going on.
10. Real-Size Pictures – I don’t know exactly how, but it would have been nice to have a standard that displays on screens objects in their real size. Just like the image of the iPhone on the box is the exact same size as the phone, there should be images online that show real sizes. I guess this can be calculated with a mix of screen resolution, pixel density, focus distance when image was taken etc etc.
11. Bike Locks – Bike locks are super heavy and expensive. Bike stands are a huge and complicated system that can’t be used always and everywhere. But lock stands would be nice.

Soon comes Part III, the Non-Tech ideas…

Yet more ideas…

1. house windows that change so that when light is coming from inside
   they are blocked and you cant see from outside. No curtains and manual
   moving. Guaranteed privacy without thinking about it
2. vitamin shots. You guy and buy from anywhere this little bottle of
   100ml water and vitamins. You twist it, it mixes and you drink it.
3. noise cancelling for building windows. If you can do it for the ears, you should be able to do it for the whole building, no?
4. Reader Job Position – Every company should have a job position “reader” This is a person that constantly reads books relevant to operations makes summaries and gives the knowledge to those who work and don’t have time to read.
5. Phone dating – meeting someone by swapping physically phones. You get the cell phone of
   someone for five minutes and try to smooch as much information as
   possible. Notes, emails etc….
6. Fun in Subway – Everyone with sad or beat up face in the subway should smile. There should be papers or devices or TV that display only good and fun things every morning. Jokes, fun stuff, comedies. As a social experiment we should see how much better their day is.
7. New currency – 1favor. Please repost this on your profile in exchange for 3favors. This item costs 5favors.
8. carpool goodness. People sign up, make accounts, have profiles.
   Drivers and hitchhickers define destinations. Gps matches them and
   brings them together. Each of them leaves comments, ratings etc.
   Account info can be confirmed. People wont be scared because if
   something happens system knows who is involved, where they were etc.
9. Material that holds 70 degrees C. Just like ice and water hold 0 degrees until all ice melts, there are materials with different melting points. If we have one that melts at 70 C, you could keep it under your cup of tea/coffee to keep it warm constantly. Recharges in Microwave?
10. Problem: production of meat takes a lot of land. We don’t think about that because someone else is doing it – we just pay. But if our consumption is tied to the production (ex every body “own” their batch of land) then we would be thinking a lot more…
11. Comparison magazine: instead of looking at prices of T-mobile, you should see all cellular providers: prices, quality, deals…
12. Mosquito locator – enhances mosquito sound. Just like your ears can locate the position of an object, microphones can locate a mosquito and possibly display it on a screen or lighten in up in the room.
13. spoiled food tester – a device with which you can objectively measure if the food is bad or not. Chemically or something like that.
14. A movement in which every shop or business or craft should have at least 1 free spot for people to learn. That would be advertisement and will bring pleasure to people to try new things they might like.
15. Rice bags – they sell rice in bags. You cook it by throwing it in the pan with the bag. I just don’t get why they don’t sell rice bags only, so you can put any rice that was purchased in bulk.
16. community cars. 1 car for 6 people and they sign up for it when
    they need it. This way there are so many cars that arent in use.
17. farm with cows and other animals for fun. Paid maybe. With lessons? How to take eggs, how to milk cows…
18. Center for starting businesses. Helping everybody that starts something.
19. Social Restaurant with “we want to be on our own” tables and “want to talk to other
    people” tables 🙂
20. Blood is basically a transporter of oxygen and nutrients. If you inject units that hold more and release more efficiently those two, you should be able to get superhumans. Farfetched, i know. Basically new and more efficient blood.
21. Problem center. It could research problems people come with. You come and some people try to help you out in resolving the issue. A lot of people don’t know at all how to approach issues and start solving them systematically.
22. Shower button – a button that starts and stops water, instead of a knob that turns for hot/cold.
23. Modular blocks that you can use to build houses. You design what you want in the internet and then it calculates what blocks and how many you build it yourself. Lego houses.
24. Ungarbaging – at the entrances of a park there should be garbage picking sticks. You walk in, you take one, and as you walk, you collect garbage and you leave at the other entrace. walking + doing something good.