Our landfills are littered with the broken dreams of many a failed tech startup. But instead of lamenting another failed bright idea, let’s figure out how to make them better so these misfit products can sidestep the landfill and actually make it into your hot little hands.
Nothing says narcissistic self-indulgence quite like lugging around a bulky selfie stick so you can take pictures of, well, yourself. Is your puss really that special? No fair asking your mother to answer.Okay, so the new pastime of taking selfies ain’t going anywhere anytime soon, or at least it seems that way. But c’mon, carrying around a stick can’t be the best we can come up with.The twist: what if they invented a selfie stick that functioned like an old school retractable pointer? You know, like the one your High School science teacher would carry in their pocket protector.Basically, it would just look like another ballpoint pen in your purse or pocket, but goes to full selfie stick length when extended.How it works: The camera could be on the tip with a pivoting head that accommodates any shooting angle. The Stick Cam could connect to our phones via WiFi or Bluetooth and would keep your phone safely within your grasp, as opposed to precariously dangling high up in the air, just begging to be the next epic fail.
Want to kill your battery pronto? Turn on Bluetooth and watch your battery meter plummet faster than the gas gauge of a Lamborghini on the autobahn.Sure, you can connect speakers, keyboards and a nifty watch, but the party’s gonna end abruptly when your battery’s been sucked dry.The twist: How about WiFi connected devices instead? There must be a good reason why manufacturers pick Bluetooth over WiFi, but most of us are already using WiFi constantly throughout the day, while Bluetooth is reserved for especially demanding devices.How it works: It would work the same as any Bluetooth device, for instance, instead of having a Bluetooth speaker, we’d have WiFi speakers instead.We’re already able to stream music with a WiFi connection, so surely a WiFi speaker can handle the same bandwidth. The same idea could hold true for WiFi headsets as well.
Clearly Sony had an axe to grind with Blu-ray, and was still feeling the burn from the old VHS vs. Betamax rivalry they lost in the 80’s.Years later, the same war was unfolding between Blu-ray and HD-DVD, and despite the latter making more sense phonetically, it went the way of the dodo in favor of Blu-ray. But was it all much ado about nothing?The twist: Ditch the disk and go for Video-on-Demand instead. Okay, so this isn’t so much a new invention as it is identifying a shift in thinking. Why load up your shelves with cumbersome disks when your favorite movie is just a click away?How it works: Buy your digital content from your favorite retailer, be it Google Play, iTunes, Amazon, Netflix or any other merchant that seems like they’ll be around a good while.Since all of your digital content will be stored on their servers, you should buy from a store you like to frequent. Then on movie night, just click the flick you want to watch and spare yourself the staph infection of handling those grimy rental disks.
The power of innovation
It’s easy to shoot ideas out of the sky like skeet shooting clay, but each pull of the trigger must feel like a dagger to the heart for the inventor.It takes guts to put an idea out into the world, even if it’s a bad one. Let’s celebrate the innovators and offer some ideas instead of our scorn. Here’s a few products that could use a facelift.#1: Selfie sticks? We don’t need no stinking selfie sticks
Nothing says narcissistic self-indulgence quite like lugging around a bulky selfie stick so you can take pictures of, well, yourself. Is your puss really that special? No fair asking your mother to answer.Okay, so the new pastime of taking selfies ain’t going anywhere anytime soon, or at least it seems that way. But c’mon, carrying around a stick can’t be the best we can come up with.The twist: what if they invented a selfie stick that functioned like an old school retractable pointer? You know, like the one your High School science teacher would carry in their pocket protector.Basically, it would just look like another ballpoint pen in your purse or pocket, but goes to full selfie stick length when extended.How it works: The camera could be on the tip with a pivoting head that accommodates any shooting angle. The Stick Cam could connect to our phones via WiFi or Bluetooth and would keep your phone safely within your grasp, as opposed to precariously dangling high up in the air, just begging to be the next epic fail.2) Bluetooth, that battery sucking leech
Want to kill your battery pronto? Turn on Bluetooth and watch your battery meter plummet faster than the gas gauge of a Lamborghini on the autobahn.Sure, you can connect speakers, keyboards and a nifty watch, but the party’s gonna end abruptly when your battery’s been sucked dry.The twist: How about WiFi connected devices instead? There must be a good reason why manufacturers pick Bluetooth over WiFi, but most of us are already using WiFi constantly throughout the day, while Bluetooth is reserved for especially demanding devices.How it works: It would work the same as any Bluetooth device, for instance, instead of having a Bluetooth speaker, we’d have WiFi speakers instead.We’re already able to stream music with a WiFi connection, so surely a WiFi speaker can handle the same bandwidth. The same idea could hold true for WiFi headsets as well.3) Blu-Ray disks, Sony’s dead pariah
Clearly Sony had an axe to grind with Blu-ray, and was still feeling the burn from the old VHS vs. Betamax rivalry they lost in the 80’s.Years later, the same war was unfolding between Blu-ray and HD-DVD, and despite the latter making more sense phonetically, it went the way of the dodo in favor of Blu-ray. But was it all much ado about nothing?The twist: Ditch the disk and go for Video-on-Demand instead. Okay, so this isn’t so much a new invention as it is identifying a shift in thinking. Why load up your shelves with cumbersome disks when your favorite movie is just a click away?How it works: Buy your digital content from your favorite retailer, be it Google Play, iTunes, Amazon, Netflix or any other merchant that seems like they’ll be around a good while.Since all of your digital content will be stored on their servers, you should buy from a store you like to frequent. Then on movie night, just click the flick you want to watch and spare yourself the staph infection of handling those grimy rental disks.