Preventing Cheque Fraud
Telephone queues - making them cheaper
Device to stop dogs pulling on lead Lightening protector and appliance expander for telephones Virtual Travel Preventing freezer lids from getting jammed by condensation Head up speech for deaf people
A device placed in a dog's lead emits a sound if the dogs pulls, and if it continues to pull it gives the dog an electric shock..
John de Rivaz . Website: Longevity Report, 1 February 1996
This device consists of an optical sender connected to the exchange line, a length of optical fibre connected to an optical/electrical convertor for the subscriber to connect telephone appliances. If the line from the exchange is struck by lightening, the lightening cannot travel down the optical fibre and damage the subscribers' equipment. Also, the optical/electrical convertor can be powerful enough to connect devices with an REN greater than the 4 available from the exchange.
John de Rivaz . Website: Longevity Report, 1 February 1996
Use virtual reality headsets to visit your friends via the Internet. With a suitable set-up it could seem to your friends that you are there and to you that you are there.
John de Rivaz . Website: Longevity Report, 1 February 1996
A step in this direction is VREarth This is a links page that links to other people's web sites around the world. To be included a site must be a visual walkaround a town or area using image mapping. (ie click on part of a picture to get another picture). As an example I have done Porthtowan, a village in Cornwall, UK. This system is still far removed from my original vision, but eventually when VR headsets become commonplace and Internet bandwidth increases the same links will give you the true VR experience as originally suggested.
John de Rivaz . Website: Longevity Report, 7 February 2000
A recent television item (Feb 1996) suggested that criminals were stealing post from the Royal Mail and were fradulently converting cheques to pay sums to accounts designated by them.
Some ideas are suggested below.
1. Use a spark gap type pen that etches the payee's name into the cheque so it cannot be erased.
2. Print the background pattern on the cheque with a material that is easily defaced by attempts to erase any writning on it.
3. (the most drastic) everytime someone write a cheque they also mail
a copy thereof to their bank. Only when the bank gets both cheques
do they transfer the money. The inconvenience caused by this method
suggests that it could be restricted to cheques over a certain sum of
money.
(Feb 2000 addendum) Cheque writing applications such as Quicken could be programmed to email the bank with details of cheques written. Discrepancies could then be easily spotted and suitable enquiries made.
John de Rivaz . Website: Longevity Report, 1 February 1996
Computer companies are infamous for putting callers, even potential customers, in a queue when they listen to music, often paid for at peak rates in business hours, for fifteen minutes or more
One answer to the inevitable lost business may be for a computer driven telephone system to take people's numbers, and call them back in rotation. That way customers can get on with their work whilst waiting for the call and also save the telephone bill.
John de Rivaz . Website: Longevity Report, 1 February 1996
If you go to a freezer twice in quick sucession condensation of water vapour in the air inside creates a partial vacuum and the lid is difficult or impossible to open. Why not make a valve to let air in that is opened by a trigger when you grip the handle to lift it.
Chrissie Loveday . Website of romantic and humourous fiction.12 February 1996For the hearing impaired, Glasses that converts speech into writing and projects the writing closed caption style in front of the viewer.
William See, Wed Jul 31 07:50:55 1996
Email your idea and I will put it here.
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