Thoughts, Here and There…

Sometimes in my everyday life, as I go through certain daily experiences, I get these ideas on how they could be enhanced to make our lives a lot easier and better. Some are good ones, some not so good, but well, here are some…

– Road Bumps: You know those shitty road bumps they put in the middle of the street to force you to slow your car down? Well now they have these signs that they either put in unviewable places, too close to the bump or just forget to put in the first place. A thought I had is that they could embed some sort of RFID transmittor in them so that coming cars could receive the signal and tell the driver to slow down before he gets to it.

– Shopping: I hate shopping and most men do too, but in the end of the day we sometimes have to go out with our wives when they’re shopping. We end up just hanging around the shop, walking all over the place, bored like hell, while our wives try half the clothes in the store. I think shops should try and make shopping a better experience for us too by providing places to sit, magazines, maybe even drinks. That way it’s not such a boring experience for us and we’d be more open to another shopping spree in the near future.

– On Demand TV: Your TV shows, when you want them. I think eventually we’ll be getting there, but why not speed things up a bit. I guess the main problem for TV networks is how do they make money? where do the ads go? what happens to their peak hours?
I guess the peak hours stay the same, it’s just that people choose what to watch in them. So advertisers can still buy ads in peak hours or they can buy ads with certain shows and the viewer sees them accordingly.

– eBooks: I’m not into ebooks. I’ve downloaded hundreds of ebooks online, and I’ve only read one. Why? The experience sucks, my eyes start burning, I have to carry a hot laptop around wherever I go, …etc.
The only thing ebooks are good for now is to search for something and find it directly, which is easier than in a printed book.
Anyway, the only way ebooks will become practical as an everyday reading medium is when good, high-res, ebook handheld reading devices become available at accessible prices.
So, if they’re able to create a $100 laptop, I think some sort of pda, customized for reading ebooks, could go for quite less. That could be interesting.