Product ideas

Hardware

Low Investment

• inexpensive receipt scanner (good for small photo prints too)
  • prototype could use old smartphone for imaging
  • hard part: feed mechanism
• foot-pedal for controlling kitchen sink faucet
  • Once you get the temperature right, you don't want to turn the faucet off because then you'll have to adjust it again.
  • Also, you might have soap on your hands, and you don't want to get that all over the handle(s).
  • This lets you set the temp the way you like it without having to leave it running the whole time.

Medium Investment

• remote-controlled tree-climbing chainsaw (may be impractical, but still seems possible)

High Investment

• Laser turntable, but start from scratch using modern tech:
  • CD/DVD/BluRay (whatever works best) laser (off the shelf)
  • reflections picked up by cellphone camera (off the shelf)
  • use images to reconstruct 3d map of groove surface (may need GPU, or slower-than-realtime capture)
  • 3d map should make it possible to distinguish dust from groove modulation
  • also experiment with dust-removal techniques: brush, air jet

Ideally, should be able to read all audio from fragments of a broken record; software can reassemble into a continuous track, interpolate any short missing bits.

Software

• Wikcess
• FinanceFerret -- apparently NuneCo is working on (or has created) an engine for this