Avian Flashmobs
(These have a long and storied history, of course.)
(Thanks, Tonx, for the photo and the idea.)
Organic Free Trade Cocaine
There's no reason that creepy, annoying drug users can't have the comfort of knowing that at least they're doing the right thing for the planet and for poor people.
Inflatable Bart Simpson Love Doll
It makes my brain hurt, but someone would buy it.
It's a bit hard to imagine his lips pursed like that, but I think you could work it out.
T-Shirt Slogan: “Cute is NOT a dirty word.”
Combine this with a too-cute-for-words picture of a kitten. Offer it on either a black or powder-pink background. And make sure to sell sizes for infants as well as adults.
SMS Autoresponder Interface for Cell Phones
It would be neat if there was a programmable interface whereby cell phones could automatically reply to SMS messages.
This might have practical applications --- a cell phone could give out information about its physical location in response to a properly-passworded query, to aid in figuring out where you left it or whether your kid is skipping school --- and expressive ones, the equivalent of custom auto-away messages in Instant Messenger programs: "I'm in class now, my phone is set to silent. I'll be checking messages at 2:30," or "Currently, I am listening to 'Swipe My Magstrip,' by Deloused." (The latter would of course be more useful in a world where people actually listen to music on their cell phones, but convergence is real and approaching.)
It's true that this might provide a vector for worms and other malware, in the same way that badly-written CGI scripts can compromise Web servers. But I wonder if the power isn't worth the risk.
The John Cage Portable Music Player
It's got two earbuds with holes in them, so that you can hear everything going on around you. I don't know if it needs to play any other music.
On The Road Coffee Set
In Seattle, we take our coffee seriously, if you didn't know. Unfortunately, not everyone outside of Seattle does. And so: us coffee connoisseurs would like it if someone sold a French Press sized for one drinker, packaged in a break-proof container of some sort, with a teensy coffee grinder that fits inside the pot for compact storage. It would be great if there was a small airtight storage box for coffee beans that also fit into the press.
Because of the plunger, it would make sense if the grinder and the bean storage were each semicircular, with divots for plunger-space between them.
A Better Shower Radio
I've had a number of shower radios over the years, and they've always had the same problem: poor reception. Due to whatever confluence of causes including construction materials, room locations, and what-have-you, the antennae of shower radios always seem inadequate. Reception tends to be poor or nonexistent.
Why not build a shower radio into a shower curtain, and weave an antenna through the shower curtain, so that a much larger antenna would be possible? That should dramatically improve reception, at least in showers with curtains instead of glass doors.
Musical Shredder
Just a novelty item, a musical shredder. Plays a tune as you shred your documents. If you were to build in songs, obvious choices include Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust" and Dick Dale's "Misirlou." Alternatively, you could drop in a little MP3 player with a CF slot or similar.
Not only would it add a little bit of fun to shredding documents, it would also help to cover the hideous whining noise that most shredders make.