Ideas within topic services: (click suns to rate or comment on ideas)

1		A device on your television that, when you are watching a television program and you channel surf during the commercial break, will alert you once the commercial break is over so that you can go back to your show without missing any of it.	E-mail
2		For children to wash their hands, one sink in every public restroom should be placed low, with the faucet closer to the front edge. Now I always need to pick up my child awkwardly, as if giving him an "airplane ride", to let him wash his hands.	E-mail
3		Divert carbon dioxide from power plants or other sources to greenhouses or fields to increase crop yields. Legumes may benefit most.	E-mail
4		Simple classroom app for smart phones and computers. Teachers are given an application that allows them to quickly access, edit, and scramble the roll of their class. Also allows for automated emails to be sent on command to principals & parents.	E-mail
5		Website wish list: Website emergency kit. A site which allows me to rapidly construct a website for lost child, natural disaster, explosion, etc. Information on site contents, who to contact, how to get info to public, etc.	E-mail
6		To protect against loss of power to a nuclear power plant, use a water tower. Gravity can force cool water through the reactor until power is restored.	E-mail
7		Develop a sport using an atlatl (spear-throwing lever) to throw a ball. The distances achieved would be impressive.	E-mail
8		Put soluble orange dye in the alcohol hand gel used in hospitals by staff and visitors. Then anyone not using it would be identified. It would wash off easily on leaving hospital.	E-mail
9		IPO auctions: companies lose money when their stock prices rise just after their initial public offerings. Companies should auction their shares to the highest bidders instead of the current practice of fixing a price and choosing buyers by lottery.	E-mail
10		Pet rental: service to rent dogs, cats, and other pets to people for an hour, a day, a week, or longer. This would let people decide whether they like and can handle pet care and would reduce abandonment.	E-mail
11		Vending machine manufacturers should program their vending machine dispensers to rotate past 360 degrees, like 380 degrees, then go back 20 degrees to a neutral position so that your chips or candy will fall down every time.	E-mail
12		Stores should have a small strip of one-way mirrors around the inside, where an armed guard could hide, even if a robber knew he was there, somewhere. A thief couldn't take hostages since he wouldn't know where the guard was (he might be behind him).	E-mail
13		In countries like India, income tax & sales tax are difficult to collect. To track all transactions, government could give debit cards to all people and card readers to all shops. No more need to print money, also saving government expense.	E-mail
14		Send tsunami and other disaster warnings by SMS (short message service) so that people who don't happen to be watching TV or listening to radio at the moment can be alerted and can evacuate. (tornado, typhoon, cyclone, hurricane)	E-mail
15		Air inside city buses can be more polluted than outside. Buses should completely flush their air when at clean portions of their routes, or should store clean air in a tank to release it gradually into the interior during the day.	E-mail
16		To increase lending, better guarantees are needed. Personal guarantees can be dictated as videoclips, perhaps notarised. Personal guarantees address the problem of no title books. In traditional societies, guarantors' assets are well known.	E-mail
17		Olds: a service to report news on old events. News often ignores items after a crisis ends. But people may still wonder what happened weeks, months, years, or decades later. Olds would follow up items that were in the news but now are ignored.	E-mail
18		Hunger Helper. Alerts to avoid foods in shortage. When a crisis (drought or war) spikes the price of a food like rice that poor people need, issue alert to avoid that food. Volunteers avoiding that food reduce demand and price, helping poor avoid hunger.	E-mail
19		Internet dating sites tend toward either many people but no help in selecting compatibility, or the opposite. Solve the problem with a hybrid, letting users change between few, some, or many criteria to either widen or focus their search.	E-mail
20		Nanophone: a microphone to hear sounds at a microscopic scale, including cells moving and organelles moving. Maybe it could detect things that microscopes can't see.	E-mail
21		Office cleaner's duties could extend to turning off non-critical electrical appliances (computer monitors, lights), thereby reducing that office's green footprint.	E-mail
22		Establish an institution that is a combination of old people's home, destitute women's home, and orphanage. This will create an institution with three generations of people requiring help or support under one roof, and these people can help each other.	E-mail
23		Hand Me Downs: a service pairing rich families with poor families so that instead of discarding used stuff, the rich can give it to the poor, like many extended families and close friends do with their old cell phones, toys, clothes, etc.	E-mail
24		Use more retired and elderly people in daycare centers. Background checks could be used if necessary. A lot like the adopt-a-grandparent program a few years ago.	E-mail
25		'Porta Potties' should contain wall mounted vending machine for dispensing handi wipes (wet naps).	E-mail
26		Just as group violence is reported in the news, a place on the front page of the newspaper should be for news of young people who are making a positive difference. Maybe more people would do things to get in this article than those doing violent things.	E-mail
27		As part of their professional development, doctors could spend one week each year in a free medical clinic in a poor part of their country or in a third world country. Imagine how much better a person each doctor would be from that experience.	E-mail
28		Credit card companies should stop printing card and personal info on receipts / bills. This info can be gathered and used fraudulently. All that is needed on receipts is a unique transaction number linked in the company's database to your details.	E-mail
29		A website where people can type in their zip code and find out the location of the nearest recycling facility for metal, glass, paper, plastic, etc.	E-mail
30		In big cranes, a series of telescopic, concentric, cylindrical buckets filled with water or sand from site can compensate for 20% - 40% of the counter weights. Thus the purchase & transportation cost of the big cranes can be reduced.	E-mail
31		Many tolled highways are avoided because of the cost. Instead, promote carpooling by exempting cars filled with three or more occupants. Prevents traffic jams and pollution.	E-mail
32		What about a computer program that uses voice recognition to control the mouse pointer, perform common computer functions, and surf the web, for people who cannot use their hands or have carpal tunnel syndrome?	E-mail
33		Fast food automated drive thru station that allows you to touch keys to place your order. When order is placed, it is sent directly to the food prep person, and gives you an order #. Cashier matches order numbers and gives the customer proper order.	E-mail
34		Browsing channels in TV using thumbnails. If we can have a channel devoted to capturing thumbnails of what is happening in other channels it will help us in avoiding browsing all the channels.	E-mail
35		Make a website with list of charities that now have matching donation programs, enabling you to give to a worthy cause and have your gift doubled by another donor, increasing the effect of your money.	E-mail
36		To make text files smaller, file compression utilities could include a pre-stored database of English words mapped to two-byte codes. Therefore, every word in this sentence could be swapped with a two-character code like "&@". Much smaller!	E-mail
37		Put a missing persons picture on the welcome page to the internet. A different one every few days. Please let me know if you try this on your own website.	E-mail
38		To help stop or prevent abuse in nursing homes, hidden cameras should be placed in each room with the manager monitoring the activity daily.	E-mail
39		Why are school buildings reminiscent of Gothic, Medieval, and Prison architecture? If you want kids to be bright and creative, let them learn and develop in unique and colorful buildings that combine technology with nature. Hire some new architects.	E-mail
40		Yahoo and similar public e-mail systems should provide a way to detach the file attachments and keep the mails. It can have the filename and path of where the file has been stored. This will be useful to conserve storage space and mail history.	E-mail
41		Since Chinese restaurants keep fishtanks to let diners select live fish for their meal, why not keep a garden next to a restaurant where diners could select their own live vegetables, fruits, and herbs? You couldn't get more fresh.	E-mail
42		A chain of drive-thru healthy food restaurants that provide a menu including nutritional info and compatibility with popular diets (Atkins, Weight Watchers, etc.). Also serves bagged lunches.	E-mail
43		A World Phone Directory Site: A website where every person & company can register own phone & mobile no.& addresses (res., off. & email) free of cost. There can be a categorised business section with chargeable entry (like yellow pages). Free accessing.	E-mail
44		Make public transit more convenient: replace coins with cash card accepted on buses and subways by swiping near a machine. Refill card at machines in subway stations. Hong Kong uses one.	E-mail
45		In most cities, there are many trash bins, but almost no recycling bins. To decrease the amount of waste, have recycling bins right beside garbage bins.	E-mail
46		To advertise a small business, give a free t-shirt with a big purchase. It will display the business slogan and location. To encourage customers to wear it in your area, give a 5% discount each time they wear it during a purchase. Tell me if you try it.	E-mail
47		Warning flashers that actuate automatically when a vehicle slows down in an abrupt manner, when airbags deploy, or when the vehicle skids sideways. This device will caution the drivers who only watch the red tail lights in dense fog & heavy rain. (cars)	E-mail
48		Non-air-conditioned public transport buses in hot countries like India should have exhaust fans. When the buses are crowded, exhaust fan would bring some comfort to the passengers.	E-mail
49		LostBug: a microchip to put in one's luggage so that if it gets lost the airline can scan it and post it online. So long as the owner has his number, he can go online and then give his address and verification as the owner of the item to locate it.	E-mail
50		To make assembling flat pack furniture easier, put correctly placed, colour/shape coded, low-tack stickers directly on the pieces during manufacture. Putting the furniture together would be made easier by matching the shapes/colours of the stickers.	E-mail