Automotive Braking Energy Recovery Mechanism

Apparatus and method to recover breaking energy from a vehicle incorporating a flywheel on either the differential mechanism or a wheel or both with a method to reintroduce the recovered energy back into driving the vehicle.  The recovery of the energy can be accomplished without conversion to an intermediate medium like electricity.

By having an inefficient clutch mechanism on a flywheel, continuous motion will impart some energy into rotating this flywheel.  A connection made to the braking system would cause a complete disengaging of the clutch from the flywheel upon the application of the brake.  The use of a counter hydraulic or similar system with a purge valve would cause the engaging of the flywheel to the motion system on the release of the brake for a preset period of time.  This would cause the stored energy in the flywheel to assist in re-accelerating the vehicle.  On full purge which would be programmed to be within a few seconds, the clutch would revert back to the inefficient (partial application) mode.

MW

3D Data Presentation and Information Storage

There are some patterns that with a slight blurring of the optical field can be made to appear 3D to human vision.   The Windows desktop pattern, "Greenstone" is such a pattern.  If you tile this pattern then look at it with a slightly blurred focus, it becomes a very clear 3D background.  Now imagine if instead of a tiled stone pattern, this was actually a pattern of things: books, buildings, stones on the beach, etc.  Now put some data tags on each of these structures.  You could "file" a lot of data for very quick visual cataloging or retrieval using such a storage technique.  You could also hide some data in a field of noise.

Food Replicator

Ok, not really a Star Trek Food Replicator.  But close.

Step 1:  Package food: meat, vegetables,  in sous vide packaging with either refrigerator-readable 2d bar codes or RFID tags.  These would be sold frozen.  They can be purchased and loaded into specially configured freezers-cookers. Requirements: standard packaging; automation readable labeling; appliance for storage (more requirements on this to follow); supplier of said packaged foods
Step 2. Based on a selected recipe, the appliance would select the appropriate packages from the freezer section.  These would be cooked sous vide for the appropriate serving time.  Requirements: appliance that can catalog, select vacuum packaged food; requirement to sous-vide cook said packaged food; ability to cook several food packages potentially at different cooking times; ability to open and serve different food packages onto serving plate.

Differences from Star Trek:
* food takes a long time to cook -- you need to select in advance
* food does not get created from nothing -- you need good wholesome ingredients here
* food tastes really good :-)

Hidden High End Equipment Wi-Fi Security

A security module that could be incorporated into high value audio or camera, or automotive or other equipment.  The module would incorporate a Wi-Fi engine, such as Microchip MRF24WB0M radio and PIC microcontroller, and "when triggered" searches for an open Wi-Fi network and then sends information about itself such as gateway IP address, product code, etc.

Initialization (several ways):
1. none
2. connection to home network

Alarm trigger (several ways):
1. none -- always sends data to subscription driven cloud server run by alarm company
2. disconnection from default 'home' network

Alarm service:
* when the triggered unit reaches an open Wi-Fi network with internet access it can send information allowing police to trace location of the unit -- something like a LoJack, but lower cost, but time to recovery is dependant on time for unit to get to an open network

Solar Charger Car Cover

A car cover integrated with solar cells on the top, ideally flexible cells, such as from powerfilmsolar.com.  Such car cover will have an integrated power inverter that would allow connection to the regular mains input (110VAC or 220VAC, as applicable) of an electric car.  This wouldn't charge a car in a very short time, but is meant as a supplimental charge while the car is out and parked at the store or at work.
A premium version could integrate a Microchip MRF89XA (sub-GHz) or MRF24WB (802.11) radio that would allow wireless connection such that an alarm can be built in that monitors the connection to the car battery.  Should an unauthorized disconnect occur, an integrated alarm could go off, or the panic alarm of a built-in car alarm could be triggered.  In the case of use of the MRF24WB0 radio, control can be provided via an iphone or itouch application.

Optimum Wine Age Detector and Method

A system incorporating a control sensor with a white light and a combination of one or more other sensors with color filtered light sources that would be used to detect the peak drinking stage or optimum aged period of wine.  The system would be used first with a calibration step to measure the diffusion properties of the bottle without any liquid -- such as the top of a filled wine bottle.  This would normalize the impact of different glass and colored glass.  Actual measure would then occur at the mid point of the bottle.
The system could be modified with a mechanical apparatus such that a bottle may be placed into the apparatus and the calibration and subsequent actual measure could be done automatically.

Avalanche Safety Vest and Helmet

A special vest worn over a jacket and also a helmet can be rigged with pressurized air that could inflate during emergency conditions to create air pockets in avalanche burials.  The air pockets around the chest will prevent compression and the pocket around the head will provide room for breathing air.
The vest can also be incorporated into specialty ski jackets.
Possible sensors are MEMS accelerometers as well as multi-point pressure sensors.