Wednesday, May 30, 2007

An Idea - Paperless Receipts

Here's an idea that I thought of a couple of months back, a couple of months back in 2006 to be less than precise... :-)

To everyone who carries a wallet, have you ever notice that after every few weeks, your wallet seems to be growing in thickness and in size? When you opened it up to inspect, you find yourself sorting out the credit card receipts, car park receipts, and all sort of other shopping receipts.

If you are anal enough, you can probably sort the receipts out chronologically and neatly arranged in piles according to your personal categories such as car petrol receipts, dining receipts, parking receipts, gadgets receipts, repair receipts, etc.

So why do we keep receipts? Why are we slave to these little pieces of thermal papers that does nothing but add dead weight to our wallets?

The answer is simple. Security. Yes, we need the security it gives us.

Each time we put a credit card receipt in our wallet we are thinking, "Phew... I am safe from credit card fraud now." Or that gadget receipt, "Now I have complete warranty!"

Personally, I seem to be emotionally attached to credit card receipts. I would keep them in my wallet for months. Then when my wallet gets too thick, I would sort and go through them one at a time and then remark to myself, "Hey, did I have a drink here? Who was there with me? Oh yeah, it was with so and so for blah blah blah..."

AIIYAH!!! I am side tracking.... I seem to have gotten lost in what I wanted to write about... LOL.

Getting back to topic, won't it be nice to have a device that is able to capture receipts paperless-ly? Example, after you purchase a book, you hand a "receipt device" to the cashier, whom via a virtual connection, download the receipt into the device.

Each time you make a purchase at any shop, you will be storing receipts (only if and when you want) in the "receipt device". And if you so desire it, you will be able to print any of the stored receipts at your own leisure, whether for tax purposes or for some verification purposes.

Further imagine that this "receipt device" happens to be your smart mobile phone. Great! No more thick and bulky wallets.

Now all I need to do is to get the cash register manufacturer to incorporate virtual receipts beaming device in their machines. A piece of cake!

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

The First Post in Blogger.com

Well, this is going to be the beginning of a blog migration. Decided that this would be the best place to start this new blog. Hope I will stay and keep at it.

So many things to do, so many things to explore. Never thought that I would not have time to play my PS2 games. So many movies and TV series to watch... damn ASTRO just added so many happening channels... getting a case of INFORMATION OVERLOAD... liao!

Currently fooling around with video streaming.... been testing and finding my way around VLC and Windows Media Encoder streaming out to my PPC. Keep getting the fragging irritating error, "The parameter is incorrect" when I tried to open a stream on my PPC Media Player. FINALLY solve that fragging problem.... all you need is to add a trailing space after the slash!!! WTF!!!!

Also, while getting Windows Media Encoder to encode my video files, I keep getting some frag shit audio encoding error!!! When I encode just the video... no problemo... but the moment I added audio to the encoding... BANG... the application terminated. Still cannot solve this fragging shitty problem!!!

Stressed nya!!!! So much for the first post... LOL...

An Idea - Inflatable Cast and Splint

Over the weekend, while watching one of the Battlestar Galactica episodes, where one of the soldier had a broken leg, it came across to me that it would be a good idea to use inflated plastic/fabric/related materials as a cast or splint for broken legs or arm.

So I did some research on the Internet and found that no one has had this idea of making an inflatable cast or splint yet, which could mean a few things. Either, this is a stupid idea or that googling around and considering it research is not enough... LOL. Almost all the articles I found were about plaster or fiber glass cast. There were a few companies that manufacture casting tapes, pretty cool but tedious to apply.

Anyways, just to take the idea further on inflatable cast. I think that an inflatable cast would be easy to apply and very portable. Depending on the materials and internal lining, the inflatable cast can be very rigid and sturdy.

They would be re-usable. They are light and does not hinder a patient's movement as compared to a plaster cast or a fibre glass cast. The doctor could easily remove the cast to examine how the patient's bone is healing.

I would imagine that a lot of prototyping and research need to be done in order for inflatable casting to be viable and later to go into production.

I cannot think of any problem that cannot be solved by good and innovative design.

Can some one tell me the "con" of an inflatable cast? If not would you like to invest in this venture? LOL...

Originally posted - 26 Apr · Thu 2007



An Idea - Bike Cover

Yup... same trip back from Ipoh but different idea.... how about a motorbike cover? A retractable one at that? Why?

Hmm... there are a number of uses I can think of.

  1. To protect the bike from the Sun, the moon and the rain? Hahaha...
  2. An advertisement medium?
  3. A premium gift item from Shell?

Building on the same idea, how about a bike seat cover? Why?

  1. Fashion statement?
  2. Setting a new trend?
  3. Advertisement opportunity?
  4. Gift Premium from Shell? Or some loyalty crap?
Grasping straws now leh.... perhaps I am. Again, all I need is a prototype... patentable? Of not course lah!!!

Originally posted - 23 Jan · Tue 2007

An Idea - Biker's Rain Coat

Another best idea yet.... while driving back from Ipoh over the weekend, it was raining sporadically with motor bikes zipping in and out of the highway underpass... poor fellows.

They stopped at the underpass, pulled up their seats, grab the raincoats to wear them.

Now why can't someone invent a raincoat that is easy to deploy for these bikers!!! I guess I have to keh-poh and think of a quick and easy way to deploy a raincoat.

Why not have a "raincoat dispenser" installed beneath the front part of the motor bike seat. When the biker detects rain, he stops, reach down in front of his seat, open the dispenser, and "rolled" out the raincoat which is essentially a piece of waterproof plastic with two sleeves for the arms. Then he enable a "catch" to hold the spring tension mechanism to lock the raincoat in place.He dons the raincoat and off he goes.

When the rain has stopped, he takes off the "wind dried" raincoat and release a "catch" to "roll" the coat back into the dispenser for storage via a spring tension mechanism.

Pretty cool I think!!! Now just need to build a prototype... LOL.

Originally posted - 22 Jan · Mon 2007



An Idea - Message in a Panel

What? Another idea so soon... LOL... as usual imagine this.... pain leh... :-)

While you are in your car, whether in a jam or on the highway, have you ever wanted to communicate with another driver, whom you do not know, who is driving next to you, behind or in front of you?

You can't SMS or call him/her. The best you can do is to sign them with your hands and/or other creative expressions.

Well, now you can, imagine you have this LED panel installed in your car where you can type in a message through a keyboard and the message is displayed on the LED panel. You can also insert clipart images in the display as well, to enhance your message... :-P

Of course, the LED panel is portable to allow you to place it anywhere you want.

If your car ever breaks down, you can also use the LED panel to display a warning sign to warn other motorist.

This LED panel technology is not new and has been around for umpteen years... and mostly used for advertisements, information, etc. So if you were to analyse it using the Porter's Model, in terms of entry barrier, it is very week... :-)

Originally posted - 9 Jan · Tue 2007



An Idea - Mobile bandwidth sharing

I think this is a cool idea.... think about this (I dun care if it hurts :-), the sharing of GPRS, EDGE or 3G connections!!!!

Scenario:

5 people:

  • 1 has 3G
  • 1 has EDGE
  • 1 has GPRS
  • 2 do not subscribe to any
But all gets to connect to the Internet!!!

Same 5 people installed a client on their mobile phone each that allows them to "bridge" or "tap" into each other's connections and share connections. Something like peer to peer bandwidth connection-sharing through a mobile client!!!

Hmmm... ? Interesting?

Originally posted - 8 Jan · Mon 2007

An Idea - Interactive Mobile TV

I can already hear KC and Mike scream... "Oh no... not another crazy idea? What?? Not from Chris but from Jack??? WTF?" Well, its just too bad, cause here it is... LOL.

Again try to imagine, only if it does not hurt... :-P

This idea has something to do with Mobile Broadcasting. Recently, a lot of people have been talking about TV on the mobile phone and how movie and TV producers are invited to create content specific for the mobile subscribers.

Some of the proposed content are 20 episodes drama serials or documentaries of 5 minutes per episode length to be downloaded and view on the mobile phone.

My idea is simple, why not extend and incorporate user interaction into these videos. Allow the user to choose the actors' actions or decisions. Each interaction will determine an outcome that is unique.

Bingo!! Yup... that's right... Interactive TV, its been around for many years and has failed miserably for many years. Why? Too many dependencies, thats why. E.g. set top boxes, setting up, additional cost to the free TV, not enough interactive content, content is too lengthy and boring before interaction, etc.

Now apply the Interactive TV concept to the mobile space, where the most personal device to a person is the phone. It goes where the user goes.

What is needed is media player client that is installed in the mobile phone. Any shows downloaded to the media player will have "queues" that will trigger the client to display an interactive panel., where the viewer is able to interact and make decisions, using the mobile phone keypad.

These viewer interactions are sent back to the server where they are stored and analysed.

So what is required, a mobile client, a server and an encoding tool that will allow the content provider to encode their shows into the new interactive format.

Cool or not!!!

Originally posted - 30 Dec · Sat 2006



An Idea - Rank It Lah!

The idea has something to do with Web Site Ranking.

A. Web Master has a choice!

It would be cool if we can offer a web component ranking API that will allow webmasters to get users to review and rank every component of their website!!! EVERY COMPONENT!!!

IMAGINE (only if it does not hurt you... :-)

Scenario

  1. Visitor comes to your web site.
  2. Visitor clicks on the menu to navigate.
  3. Visitor fucking hates the way the stooooopid menu behaves.
  4. Visitor clicks on a small tiny hyperlink next to the menu to call out a comment and rating form specific to the menu.
  5. Visitor immediately belts out in the form, "The navigation menu on your site SUCKS big time. If and when I come back tomorrow and still sees it like that, you will never ever fucking see me again... u DF."
  6. Visitor select ratings, then submitted the comment!

The idea behind this idea of an idea is for all visitors, to be given an opportunity to review and feedback on EVERY component of a website. All these data are then collected, averaged out and scored by the system... E.g. B+, etc.

B. Web Master has no fragging choice!

It would be EVEN cooler if we can offer all the features in the above, BUT the webmaster has no say or choice.

The system will crawl all web sites information and store them. Next, if and when a visitor wants to complain or compliment the site, they will come over to this rating system to rank and rate the website. All these visitor web site feedbacks, rankings and ratings are then published!!!

Hmmm... come to think of it... this sounds like a stoopid.... idea!!! LOL.

Originally posted - 13 Dec · Wed 2006



Beh tahan liao..

Wah... really beh tahan liao... finally decided to keep a blog for myself. Should be interesting to see how long this blogging will last. Anyway as the saying goes... the gloves are off....

Want to plan and do so many things for PDRD but restricted by this and that... Gotta to get others to plan so as not to affect my plan to carry out the plan!!!!

Originally post - 20 Oct · Fri 2006



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