I marvel at the gizmos and gadgets that are constantly being introduced to the world. Not only am I amazed by the technology itself, but by the people who develop it. There are two questions that come to mind: “Where do they come up with these ideas” and “Why didn’t I think of that.”
Actually there was an instance when I did “think of that”, but having feet of clay and lacking serious venture capital someone beat me to it. The idea was the “Bunny Sac”. It was meat and cheese baked into a bread pouch. You know it better as the “Hot Pocket”. Don’t ask me where I got the name “Bunny Sac”. I think it was during my commute from work years ago. I thought of the product and Gunny Sack popped in my head. I envisioned the pocket looking like a rabbit’s ear and “Gunny” became “Bunny”. I thought the cute factor would help sell it. Seeing it written here makes me want to gag. “Here Cindy, have a Bunny Sac.” “Daddy killed the Easter Bunny! Arrrgh!!!” What was I thinking?
Now there’s Smart Underwear. It’s underwear that tracks your heartrate, temperature, and hydration level, among other things. It syncs with your smart phone, computer, tablet, and smart watch. All of which are of course attached to the internet. Honestly, do we want that sort of information on the ‘net? They say it can even talk to your home’s thermostat to tell it if you are hot or cold. I’m not the biggest brain around, but I don’t need my underwear to tell me when it’s time to adjust the thermostat. I can sense that on my own. Besides I don’t want my shorts Tweeting that it’s 99 degrees down there.
Yes I know there are great medical applications for this sort of thing. It is a useful tool for monitoring the health of the elderly and can be a training tool for athletes. But do for the rest of us it might be a bit much.
All this sets me to thinking: what about gizmos we could really use? I’ve come up with a couple and I offer them freely. That is unless you take them to market and make a bazillion dollars. Then I give them for ten percent of profits.
Let’s start with something that could benefit all mankind: socks that mate for life. You could place chips in each sock. Once the socks are thrown into the washer, the water and motion of the machine activates the chips. They will then geo-locate and swim to each other. Once they make contact, the chips magnetize latching onto each other. Once dry, you simply put them in the drawer. This reminds me of my Uncle George and Aunt Carolyn’s housekeeper, Carrie. They had six children and both worked in the business they owned. Carrie had a pile of unmatched socks that did nothing but get bigger prompting her to say on one occasion, “these socks just keep creatin’ and creatin’.” She probably wouldn’t have minded it quite so much if occasionally gave birth to twins.
Up next it’s the Smart Cart. Using your Alexa you create a shopping list which ends up being sent to your phone. Once you arrive at your favorite grocery store, you dock your phone into the handle of the Smart Cart. This allows the phone to tap into the store’s database. It studies the list and the store’s layout rapidly determining where all your items are located. Your cart the drives itself through the store with you following closely behind. It will stop and “bing” when it reaches each item on the list. You select the item, run it by the on-board scanner and place it the cart. Your items are totaled up before you reach the check out. A store attendant bags your groceries and rings you out.
It’s perfect for people like me who can never find where they hide capers or constantly pick up the wrong brand of paper towel. Plus you could set the speed of the cart. This would be perfect for all those folks I see in the store in athletic garb. You know the ones with their carts loaded with frozen pizza and beer? Set the cart to 5K mode and you could get a workout while you shop. Set it to “friend” mode and it could locate any folks in your social media group that happen to be shopping at the same time. It would make sure you intersect with them so you could have a real conversation, although without emojis it might not be as satisfying.
One more thing on the Smart Underwear you might find interesting. They’re working on wireless charging also called Near Field Charging (NFC). This allows you to charge your Smart Underwear wirelessly using radio waves when you’re close enough to the charger. Talk about hot pants!
