My idea is to create an application for smartphones which will use phone's GPS and accelerometers to sense and pinpoint the location of potholes. The great challenge there will be how to teach the phone to tell the difference between a pothole and a speed bump or sewer grate.

My idea is to create a sleeping mask which not only blocks out the light but also wakes the wearer with a programmable sunrise. Sounds really cool :) An LED substrate sewn into the inside of the mask will make the magic happen. It will begin its glow about a half hour before the user chosen waking time.

A reusable and inexpensive baby wrap incubator could help save the lives of premature babies born in impoverished nations. The warmer is consists of a wax filled pouch equipped with a heating unit. The heated pouch is placed in the wrap, where it can keep the infant warm for at least 4 hours.

The idea is to develop carbon-negative bricks made from coal and sewage waste, materials that normally end up in landfills. To make the bricks, the recovered waste material will be mixed with vegetable oil containing glyceride and triglyceride molecules. The bricks will then be heated to break up the glycerides and attach them to the triglycerides, which will form chains of carbon atoms that will surround the particles and bond them to the brick. The manufacturing of the new...

My idea is to create a service which will provide elderly people with extra conveniences for living in their houses, i.e. suggest design changes to make their life easier. For example, kitchens could have contrasting worktops to improve visual orientation; mixer taps are recommended to have one handle; there could be extra handrails in a bathroom as well as a seat in a shower, etc. Highly skilled specialists will inspect the house and advice many design ideas for you to make your...

It is known that a basking shark feeds by swimming with its mouth open. The shape of the shark's body plays an important role in its efficiency as a feeder. A pressure differential is created as the shark swims, resulting in lower pressure along the shark's top and helping to draw water out of the shark's gills in a way that allows it to rely on the passive flow of water to feed. Why not design a turbine with the shark's design in mind? Water enters through the first turbine while...

The DNA of E.coli bacteria was found to be a great data storage. Data compressed into chunks can be placed in different cells and easily located later. This new method enables one gram of E. coli to store the same amount of data as 450 two-terabyte hard drives, and can even be used to store images, music, and videos.

Gossip Column business. Business Overview How do you get started as a gossip columnist? Easy. Write a few sample columns and send them to every print and online newspaper and magazine you can. Chances are, if the gossip column is interesting and well-written, someone will agree to start publishing it on a regular basis. The key to successfully competing in this highly competitive market is to get the dirt, so to speak. So be sure to build and establish as many contacts as...

The idea is to create a glucose sensor for diabetes sufferers which will use tear fluid instead of blood. This may soon eliminate the need for finger pricks. The device will be able to take a sample of tear fluid by a painless dab at the corner of the eye. The device's sensor will measure the amount of glucose in the tear sample which is supposed to be very similar to the amount of glucose in blood. Image: A - screen-printed electrical leads, B - an insulating layer, C - a...

Why not develop a new microscope lens that can capture three-dimensional images without the need for multiple lenses or a moving camera? The lens will be shaped a bit like a gemstone, with eight facets surrounding a central facet. Each facet on the lens will be slightly different from the others, which will enable each one to capture an image of the object from slightly different angles. A computer then will combine the nine images into one three-dimensional image. Hopes are...