No Vampire Cellphone Charger

Ok, this one's too easy, so I suspect it's already being done; or else there is some market impediment that I'm overlooking. Please discuss in the comments if you are more savvy than me.

Cell phones chargers, like most chargers that draw from a 120-Volt wall plug, require a boxy-looking transformer to step the voltage down to a digestible level before feeding it to the device. Unfortunately, these transformers induce current and use power even if the device is not attached to the charger! So when you leave your phone charger or laptop charger in the wall, it draws a steady 1 or 2 Watts ALL THE TIME! Popular names for this are vampire power, standby power, or phantom power.

The idea here is to put a simple, mechanical switch where the phone plugs onto the charger. When the phone is attached, it closes the switch. Power from the wall can reach the transformer, be stepped down, and then charge the phone. When the phone is removed, the "secondary" coil is of course opened, but now the switch opens the "primary" coil as well; meaning that the wall can no longer feed the transformer and waste power.

A single cellphone charger could save around 10 kWh per year this way. With millions of users, this is a high potential for energy efficiency. Added manufacturing costs would be the added switch and length of wire. The same function could also be accomplished with a smart charging chip to sense active vs. vampire power levels. One would have to analyze which is more cost effective: a mechanical or electronic shutoff.

CATEGORY: Energy / Technology
IDEATION: February 16, 2009.

PublicTransit.com

This would be like Google Maps or MapQuest, but it would find directions using Public Transportation routes instead of automobile routes. It would have electronic links to the routes and schedules of buses, trains, and cabs all over the country.

The merits of using public transportation are many: less congestion on roadways, lower carbon emissions and fuel consumption, energy independence, etc; but navigating the various systems can be very challenging - especially for newbies and out-of-towners. A universal, nationwide interface to tie it together would certainly be a boon. Such a web service could be programmed into a mobile/iphone application for greater convenience. The web service could generate revenue by linking to advertisements and listings for local restaurants and establishments along the routes on which people are finding directions.



This is an idea that Brent Robbins and I created a mini business case for and presented in the St. Louis University "Idea 2 Product" competition in 2007.

There are now similar services, like the Trip Planner on the Portland public transit website, or HopStop for select cities.

CATEGORY: Transportation / Socioeconomic / Business Idea
IDEATION: November 28, 2006.

Pinpoint Radiation Treatment with Constructive Interference

Radiation can be used to attack cancerous tumors non-invasively from outside the body. One large problem with this method, however, is that the radiation destroys healthy tissue in the process.

If one were to synchronize and focus multiple radiation beams that are relatively weak and innocuous, they could intersect inside the body at the tumor, and their waveforms could constructively interfere to deliver a powerful dose of radiation with pinpoint accuracy.

See Wave Interference.

This may already be practiced in oncology...not sure. Let me know in the comments if you know!

CATEGORY: Medicine / Technology

IDEATION: 2001.

Prismatic Solar Cells

Different photovoltaic materials have varying efficiencies when converting certain colors/wavelengths of light into electricity. If you split the sunlight apart with a prism, you could direct the optimal color of light to a series of different photovoltaic surfaces. Simultaneously, these surfaces could be arranged in a stairstep fashion to collect the light perpendicularly, fitting more photovoltaic surface area into troughs than would be available on a flat surface.

CATEGORY: Energy
IDEATION: 2007.