Beyond the iPad to the hPad

[Editor’s note: We asked a group of Xconomists to answer the following question: “If you could patent one thing, what would it be?”]

Two patents:

a. A low-cost holographic pad: an “hPad,” which would sit on your desk and project three-dimensional fixed and moving images. It would include a touchscreen-like functionality. This would not only have extraordinary commercial potential, but would provide very high utility for medical diagnoses, building and infrastructure visualization, energy management, and many other individual and societal benefits.

b. A low-cost photovoltaic coating material and application process for virtually any exposed surface, including road surfaces, which when combined with simple conductor fabric could provide low cost, low maintenance, embedded renewable energy generation infrastructure everywhere energy is used.

Author: Robert Noble

Robert Noble is an architect, environmental designer, industrial designer and environmental technology entrepreneur, which he calls an "ecopreneur." He has received numerous regional and national awards for his industrial and architectural designs, and green technology innovations. Over his 29-year career, he and/or his work has been awarded Entrepreneur Magazine's Environmental Innovator of the Year, the Edison Award for Environmental Achievement and "Best of What's New," Popular Science 100 Best of 1993, and awards from the American Institute of Architects, and the Urban Land Institute. Noble is the founding CEO of Envision Solar, a San Diego architectural firm that is a worldwide leader in integrating solar photovoltaic technologies with the conventional building, real estate and transportation industries. Envision Solar designs, engineers and installs photovoltaic solar parking arrays and other commercial and residential solar-integrated building systems. As CEO of San Diego's Tucker Sadler Architects, he led a turn-around of the 50-year-old firm into the leading sustainable design firm in the region. He is Past Chair of the US Green Building Council of San Diego, Past President of the American Institute of Architects of San Diego, Chairman of the Board of the California Center for Sustainable Energy, past Chair of the California American Institute of Architects Committee on the Environment, and Member of the San Diego Regional Sustainability Partnership. He has written over 40 articles regarding sustainable design, USBGC LEED Certification, emergency shelter for disaster relief, renewable energy and other subjects. He has been a highly committed and vocal local, regional and national advocate of environmentally responsible manufacturing, design and planning, and low-cost, emergency and affordable housing for over 20 years. He attended UC San Diego, UC Berkeley, Harvard Graduate School of Design and Harvard Business School, and Cambridge University Graduate Department of Architecture.