Push-to-talk button for RFID
Basic RFID tags, like EPC Global tags, store a unique number that is broadcast whenever they come within reading range of an arbitrary reader. This poses some privacy threats because if you carry a tag with you all the time, the same serial number will show up at all the readers you pass. Today at the RFIDSec 2010 workshop I learnt that secret handshakes (See Czeskis et. al.) are an active area of research in RFID security. The aim is to provide some context to an RFID tag that will allow the tag to decide whether to talk or not.
Using a mobile phone number as an authentic identifier
This idea came up when I saw a guy in the train today, carrying a cardboard box with a number written on it.
I stared at the box, and it took a short while before I realised the number was a phone number. I wondered why that was, and then it occurred to me that maybe the guy carrying the box was the recipient of the box. Maybe the phone number on the box was used to call him up to say his parcel was waiting for him…
1d (One Id)
It actually surprised me that it took so long for a service like Google Voice to come along. No more arbitrary distinction between email, voicemail, sms and conversations: all use the same contact address (a ‘universal’ phone number). Sender and receiver decide independently how to send/receive the message.
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Improved iPhone calendar
The current iPhone calendar application doesn’t give a good overview of appointments, holidays, all day events, and so on in month view. That is really a pity because the resolution of the device is really large enough to give much more visual feedback.
The idea is the following:
Rubiks Office
Office buildings are soo boring to work in. Always the same room to work in. Same floor, same view, same… “Flexplek” you say? So you really want me to clean my desk every day!!??
What about
Rubik’s Office, or the Matrix Cubicles or… The office consists of square rooms, that can move relative to each other, along the same hall, or move up or down to different floors. A bit like the cubes in Rubik’s cube.
A bonus for someone for designs that have more fancy office room shapes!
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