We’ve completed almost a full decade of the new millennium, so why does it feel like I’m still living a late 20th century existence? Here are a few inventions I would like to (realistically) see in the next year. All of them could be done with existing technology relatively simply. If you decide to make one of these and make a million dollars, all I ask for is a brief mention when you write your memoirs.

• More and more people are listening to music on their phones. How about a cell phone app that allows us to subscribe to podcasts on our phones? It seems so blatantly obvious I couldn’t believe that it didn’t already exist. (Hey mac zealots – does this exist for the iPhone? If not it seems like an obvious istore app.)
• I spend way too much time in grocery store check out lines. Embed each product with an RFID chip (you know, instead of a bar code). When I get to the checkout, I push my cart through an RFID transponder, similar to the EZ-Pass system employed on many highways. I swipe my credit card and walk out to my car. The initial hardware investment could be more than offset in the long term by the savings from not having to employ check out clerks and baggers.
• People like to be constantly connected with their cell phones, PDAs, blackberrys, etc. These are all fine devices except for one time – when you’re driving a car. Many states have already made using a cell phone while driving a misdemeanor or fineable offense, and more are likely to do so. What people do in their cars though is usually listen to the radio. Radios meanwhile, are going through a very quiet revolution. HD radio is better than traditional radio in every conceivable way, and prices are falling, but there is no killer app yet which has pushed people to convert. The killer app is actually HD Radio tagging which allows for individual identification of a specific receiver. All you really need to do is assign a serial number to an HD radio, sort of like a MAC address on an ethernet network, and then have a service (which people would have to pay for I suppose), where the broadcasters will simply broadcast out data on secondary channels. From here you can do pretty much anything you want. First up: a text to speech program which will read you your email in the car.
• More public domain work, especially that of a historic nature, being made freely available on the internet. There seemed to be a huge for for this a few years ago but it seems to have stalled, and I can’t figure out why.
• Flying cars and colonies on mars. Seriously people, we’re like, 9 years late for this already.