Each month, I attempt to come up with 30 potential new inventions, one for each day of the month. Personal Tech devices are always amongst my favorites. Okay so, today, I was sitting in Starbucks peering out the window and noticed a gentleman trying to work on his computer out on the patio, but he had a brick wall between him and the coffee shop, normally he'd have been able to get the signal, but apparently, he wasn't able, so he moved to a different seat to get online.
The other day at another Starbucks, I had noted that someone in their car trying to perhaps get their emails from across the parking lot, they waited until a spot opened up and then drove into the first stall, and started computing on their laptop. Then recently, I noted a cool little picture in a popular business newspaper of a coffee cup with what looked like it had waves coming up, the article was about the creativity boost enabling writers to come up with better ideas in the ambiance of a coffee shop.
Still, that cartoonish picture made me think about my previous observations and challenges of folks getting Wi-Fi within close proximity but not inside the actual store. So, I thought to myself, well, that it would be an interesting idea to have an actual coffee mug which doubled as a Wi-Fi repeater. Okay so, how might I go about designing something like this you might ask? Well, how about some sort of a mesh made out of carbon nano-tubes and graphene coatings, forming antenna around the insulation wall of the coffee mug? That might work.
Perhaps the coffee mug might plug into a USB port, and it might also allow the coffee to stay hot with a small heating element. They do make coffee cup holders that can plug into the side of your computer to keep your coffee warm. Now then, how much would something like this sell for you ask? Well, most of these coffee cups which are pretty nice sell for about $15, it's a pretty big markup, it is significant profit item for a coffee shop.
Therefore, perhaps something like this might double in price and cost 30 bucks, or sell for $29.95 and perhaps you could buy them on the Starbucks website, or on Amazon? Do I think it would sell? I'm sure it would sell, I'm just not sure how many people would buy it right away. Perhaps someone needs to do a market study on this, and go file a patent. If you'd like to discuss this topic with me in greater detail, I have made a few sketches, but I think you get the idea. Please consider all this and think on it.
Lance Winslow has launched a new provocative series of eBooks on Future Concepts. Lance Winslow is a retired Founder of a Nationwide Franchise Chain, and now runs the Online Think Tank; http://www.worldthinktank.net/
No comments:
Post a Comment