Accent Neutralizer

This would be ideal for the nasty business known as the call center industry.

Martin Luther King may have tried to start the ball rolling, but it should be noted that discrimination still exists. For those who have worked in technical support, you will know that once an American hears your voice and detects the slightest non-American accent, you will be in for a treat. You will learn first-hand what racial discrimination means.

Technical support is not an easy business. There are really talented agents, those that know computers inside-out, and they would be able to troubleshoot any computer problem in fifteen minutes or less. But because of their accent, most Americans will refuse to be assisted by them, and will request for an onshore agent (meaning someone from the US mainland).

The Accent Neutralizer is an invention designed to help anyone without an American accent. It is basically a voice-changer, based on the Darth Vader toy helmet that contains the voice-changer device. Anyone who wears the mask and speaks through the mouthpiece will sound like Darth Vader. There is a more modern version of this voice changer, also used in a popular toy, and that is the Optimus Prime toy helmet, where the wearer sounds like---you guessed it---Optimus Prime.

Now the Accent Neutralizer will not require the agents to wear a bulky helmet. It just takes the voice-changer device and places it over the phone's mouthpiece. Anyone who speaks through it, whatever nationality, will sound like a homegrown American. Simple, and hopefully effective, the Accent Neutralizer will lessen auditory discrimination, and help those technically-savvy agents keep their jobs, which would otherwise be in danger because of some accent-based quality control.

Synthetic Pee

This is for all those potheads who are discriminated in the job market because of their drug use.

For those who've never experienced a drug test, this is how it goes: They give you a cup, you get into a cubicle, then you fill the cup with urine, then you give the cup back to them.

Sounds simple, but how about those who have THC in their urine?

Synthetic Pee is a product sympathetic to the plight of those potheads who are anything but menaces to society. It's a tablet. And it's pee.

All you have to do is fill the cup with warm water, drop the tablet into the cup, and watch the water turn into urine as the tablet disintegrates real quickly.

They shouldn't be able to tell the difference from real urine.

I don't know if they already invented something like this, but it sure would come in handy right now.

The ForgeMaster

The ForgeMaster is made up of three (3) parts: first, an ultra-high-resolution scanner; second, a computer that runs the ForgeMaster software; and third, a robotic arm.

Let’s say you want to forge someone’s signature, but you want to do it flawlessly. First, you must obtain a sample of that person’s signature. Then you have to run it through the scanner. The scanned data is then processed by the ForgeMaster software.

The ForgeMaster software takes a very close look at the signature, and it identifies first which type of pen was used to create that mark. It examines the characteristics of the pen stroke and the physical make-up of the ink used, and compares it to its database of known pens around the world, and selects the closest pen that could have produced such a mark. Then again, using the characteristics of the pen stroke, it determines whether the pen was held by the right or by the left hand, and at what angle the pen was held. And by also examining the microscopic indentations on the paper, it could calculate how heavy the hand that made the mark was.

Third, all this data is processed into commands, which the computer sends to the robotic arm. The arm will be the one to duplicate the signature. Once the software gives you the exact (or the closest) pen that wrote the signature, you have to obtain the same pen and place it on the arm. The arm will adjust the angle of the pen, and will simulate the weight of the hand as calculated by the software. Place a piece of paper under the pen, click on “Forge Now” and there you have it – instant forgery.

To add authenticity to the forgery, the ForgeMaster software includes the “variation feature”. Let’s say that you have three (3) sample signatures, and you run all of them through the scanner. The ForgeMaster software uses an algorithm that calculates the very slight overall differences among the signatures’ strokes, which are really natural variations of the same signature by the same hand. In creating a new signature, the robotic arm will make use of this natural variation and come up with a signature that is not exactly identical with the previous three signatures, but which resembles all three as a natural variant.

The ForgeMaster is so accurate that even John Hancock himself would not be able to tell his own signature apart from a forgery. Just be ready for six months and one day to six years of prison, plus a fine of not more than P5000, if you get caught (according to Art. 172 of the Revised Penal Code).

Title-Vision

Title-Vision is a type of eyewear, resembling sunglasses. These glasses are worn in the movie theater, in order to read the subtitles.

Have you ever experienced being in another country (some non-English speaking country, like Germany, for instance) and found out that even if you would want to watch a movie in their theaters, you wouldn't understand it because the dialogue is in German, which you don't understand? You wouldn't even be able to watch Hollywood movies showing there because they have also been dubbed in German. And there are no subtitles.

This will no longer happen once the celluloid film format retires, and the digital film format becomes the world standard.

When a film is shown in digital format, other encrypted layers can be embedded in the digital image. Thus, the subtitles can be hidden in a layer of text, and this layer would be invisible to the naked eye.

But, when you wear Title-Vision glasses, the lens on the glasses will be able to decode the subtitle layer. Thus, you would be able to read the subtitles only if you are wearing Title-Vision glasses. A person sitting next to you in the theater who is not wearing any Title-Vision glasses would not be able to read, much less see, the subtitles at all.

Title-Vision glasses are designed to decode subtitles in different languages. Different languages would have different encryption codes, and to view the subtitles in Mandarin, for example, one must have the Title-Vision glasses capable of decoding Mandarin. So let's say you are trying to watch a German film, and that German film has three subtitle layers encoded in it (for example, English, Spanish, and French), you would need the corresponding lenses to view the subtitles. And even if you have the Title-Vision Mandarin glasses, you still wouldn't be able to read anything, because there is no Mandarin subtitle layer embedded in the image.

Just as it is possible to have several languages embedded in a single picture, it is also possible to have a pair of glasses capable of decoding several subtitles.

This is for the people who love to read subtitles while retaining the original dialogue, as against those who prefer the "dubbed and un-subtitled" variety.