BI-GOODNESS is a bi-monthly column dedicated to the quirky, generally funny and often dangerously impractical inventions and business concepts that occasionally come our way. It is a tribute to the one-eyed entrepreneur, the nutty professor and dot-com jockey in each of us.
If you’re like me, there’s a reasonably good chance you haven’t worn a watch since the day you began hauling a mobile phone around. After all, isn’t a watch just a mobile device that carries the time? So why carry two?
But what if you could enjoy all the benefits of having the time right there on your wrist minus the inconvenience of carrying a sweaty chunk of metal on your limb like a millstone?
Enter Californian inventors Andrew Singer and Sean White, creators of US patent 5,638,832 (1995), the “Programmable Subcutaneous Visible Implant”.
Sure you have the time on your phone, but that’s hardly going to impress the man or woman in the street. What you really want to do when someone stops you and asks, “Do you have the time?” is nonchalantly slide back your sleeve to consult the watch embedded in your wrist.
Just think of the possibilities. In addition to telling the time, it could also serve as an alarm clock, set to your body clock. It could easily monitor your heart rate and blood pressure. Excavate a little more flesh from further up the arm and suddenly you have room for a widescreen LCD, speakers and a hard drive, redefining the meaning of “home theatre experience”.
In fact, two fully functioning human arms seems a tad profligate when everything below one shoulder could be transformed into your own personal control centre, complete with microwave, wi-fi and ray gun.
Yet another idea ahead of its time.
