Ken Jennings, the long running Jeopardy champion shared his wife’s invention idea today on his blog:
So here’s Mindy’s can’t-miss invention, which we commend to all you would-be innovators and garage tinkerers out there. (That was my killer teeth-clenched Rod Serling impression.) The idea is…drum roll!…a Goodyear blimp-style text crawl that goes on a 360-degree strip on the roof of your car.I think I’ve seen something like this on the roof of some New York cabs, scrolling the day’s sports scores and maybe stock quotes. Am I making this up, or do they actually have these?
But Mindy’s text crawl isn’t for advertising baseball scores. It’s for communication with other drivers. Mindy had this idea after she had the back windows in the station wagon tinted. Now other drivers couldn’t see her thanks-for-letting-me-in wave or sorry-I-cut-you-off shrug! Think how many road rage incidents could be avoided by a simple “OOPS…MY FAULT!? scrolling around the top of your vehicle (or directed, by you, to the side where it can be seen by the guy you just cut off).
The most helpful and frequently needed messages (?SORRY!?… “THANKS!?… “YOUR GAS CAP IS OPEN!?… “EMERGENCY! CALL 911!?) could be accessible by hot keys, so as to minimize the distracting typing done by the driver.
Photo by AceFrenzy.
Joel on September 7th, 2006 at 3:08 pm
Great Idea! Unfortunately it could be used for evil purposes.
Rich Whittle on September 7th, 2006 at 4:39 pm
I saw this LICENSE PLATE FLASH FRAME over at perpetual kid.com:
http://www.perpetualkid.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=1607
Create and enter up to 5 messages (up to 120 characters in length each) using the included wireless remote control. Then select from 3 different scroll speeds.
I thought about using this to advertise my web site. If you drive a lot, especially at nite, this would work and it only costs $50!
Peter Cooper on September 7th, 2006 at 4:42 pm
I think it’d work better if every car had a built in megaphone system so you could talk to other drivers.
Mike on September 8th, 2006 at 6:37 am
I saw this but is uses LED display on the inside of your rear window. Bright enough to show through tint. I think they are taking some slack because drivers programmed in “bad words” and some kids saw them.
Jeff on September 8th, 2006 at 9:54 am
http://www.au-my.com/english/Drivemocion.htm
This already exists