Titan

If you’ve ever come back to your car after a long and busy day and found a vacant hole where your driver side window should have been, fragments of glass on your seat beside a brick and that the only thing missing is your $500 stereo system, then Titan is for you. This is my contribution to the anti car theft and abuse cause. Titan is car window armor in the form of a rollable steel mesh screen that would roll down on rails connected to the car’s frame, on parallel sides of all the car’s windows. The mesh screen could be rolled up and down manually or automatically by a small standard motor and would need to lock when in either rolled or unrolled position. In order to prevent driving hazards arising from Titan blocking your view of the road when driving, Titan’s motor would need to be disengaged when the car is running. I don’t like products that create more work for people, and with that in mind, the Titan motor should be wired up to your car alarm system just like the central locking system so that when you exit your car and activate the alarm, the doors lock and Titan descends, completely covering the most vulnerable parts of your car and giving new meaning to the term armored car.

Steel mesh, like chainmail, is extremely durable, easily strong enough to prevent someone gaining access to your car by smashing something against your window. Although your window will need repair, at least your car will still be where you left it with its contents intact. Titan would complement your car’s theft determent systems perfectly. It wouldn’t replace your car alarm or immobilizer, but it would save you the hassle of having to disconnect and remove your GPS, stereo system, or other valuables whenever you leave your car. Titan could also be available with an attached sun-proof fabric that could also protect your car from harmful UV rays as well as prying eyes.

Titan relies on existing materials and products for its manufacture. The innovation is in their combination and application. I am not sure if Titan could be patented or not, but it could definitely be produced and manufactured at very affordable rates. Since Titan would require professional installation to ensure its durability and safety, it could easily be marketed through the vast infrastructure of car appliance installation specialists. Not to mention, if Titan was to be adopted by a car manufacturing company, the addition of such an innovative new product could be a major marketing advantage for that company.

RFID Shopping

Why can't I walk into a supermarket, fill up my shopping cart, swipe my credit card at the door and leave? And I'm not referring to smart shopping carts which cost heaps and offer little or RFID enabled mobile phones or credit cards. RFID Shopping is simple, safe, and much more fun – more like a filling up at a self-service gas station. I guess this is more of a service based on existing products than a product in itself, but here goes anyway. RFID Shopping is a system that includes RFID tags instead of barcodes on all the items in a supermarket, a fixed RFID reader located anywhere in the supermarket and connected to a user-operated pay station, and a second fixed RFID reader located near the exit and connected to an alarm.

With RFID Shopping, you would enter the supermarket, fill up your cart or shopping bags, proceed to the pay station where a list of all your items would appear onscreen, swipe your credit card, and leave. When you approach the exit, if the additional fixed RFID reader detects that the content in your shopping cart mysteriously doesn't match the content you paid for at the pay station, it would sound an alarm notifying security personnel, or not open the door for you. Such a supermarket would still employ one or two conventional check-out personnel for dealing with problems that could arise or for people who prefer to pay cash.

RFID Shopping is a relatively cheap way for supermarkets to evolve, without necessitating enormous initial costs, as do some of the other RFID related ideas out there. With RFID Shopping, most of the supermarket infrastructure remains the same as new smart shopping carts or expensive computer systems do not have to be purchased or developed. RFID Shopping has many advantages for a supermarket, including reduced supermarket personnel expenses due to the reduced amount of check-out personnel required; increased floor size obtained by reducing the amount of check-out counters and lanes, which in turn enables displaying and selling more products; a more positive and less time consuming shopping experience for customers.