The (non-WTF) software ideas thread



  • Who knows, someone around here might turn around your idea and make some profit!


    Please, don't post about your idea for a new forum, CMS, DF or framework.



  • I'll go first since I started this thing:

    A video app which uses a similar approach used by movie subtitles (SRT) to present the viewer with trivia/quiz questions:

    [poll]

    • πŸ”₯
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      [/poll]

  • Banned

    You mean, interactive movie?



  • A forum-like web application, except optimized for threads like the Status thread, Game Deals thread, Good/bad ideas thread, etc. So some kind of a stream of thematic posts, and then people can branch off discussion threads off of that.

    This kinds of threads are all over the internet, yet they are actively combated by moderators and unsupported by pretty much any forum software out there that I know of. Since discourse team claims their goal is to reinvent forums, I was expecting them to realize this a while back. But no such luck so far.

    [poll]

    • πŸ”₯
    • 
    •  
    •   
    •    
    •     
      [/poll]


  • Didn't you read my disclaimer? "Forum-like" is a forum.



  • @Eldelshell said:

    Didn't you read my disclaimer? "Forum-like" is a forum.

    Damn! All these rules.

    Ooh! A new idea.

    Forum-like application without rules.



  • Hasn't that been done a million times?



  • Ok, I'll share my killer indie game idea, since I have no idea how to make it actually fun anyway:

    #The Riffing Game

    Think: a video game version of MST3K or RiffTrax. The application presents you with a video (public domain, failed low-budget indie movie, whatever I can get my hands on for free and cheap) and players watch the movie and pause it create their own riffs, which can be overlaid over the footage. (Think: MTV pop-up video.)

    Players can pick an avatar from a selection of cartoons to deliver their riffs, and films also will have encoded character names and positions (so your riff can be mocking a character's voice, like MST3K frequently did.) Completed riffs can be uploaded to a website, where the video can be viewed with just one person's riffs, a few selected people's riffs all at once, or with a "randomly selected" set of riffs. (Randomly selected in air quotes because it'll have to do some smartness to ensure people aren't talking over each other.)

    Individual riffs can be voted on. Highly voted riffs win(?) something.

    Problems with the idea:

    • Since creating riffs will require constant pausing, rewinding, and lengthy typing, it doesn't really work as a multiplayer endeavor which was my first idea.
    • Video selection is critical-- most bad movies are also boring. Most people aren't going to want to create riffs for a 2-hour movie in one sitting. It can be pre-loaded with public domain videos, but most of those are black-and-white which I know a lot of people don't like. (Ideas: early Felix the Cat cartoons are dialog-less, extremely surreal, only 1-reel in length, and possibly public domain.)
    • How to charge. Program and some videos free? Additional videos cost $$$ like DLC? Is it all web-based, or is it an application?
    • Vocal riffs make the watching experience a million times better, but how? Most people don't own mics. Is there cheap/good text-to-speech available somewhere?
    • If it's successful, what stops an open source goon from instantly cloning it? Nothing I guess.
    • Is it actually fun?

    [poll]

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      [/poll]


  • @blakeyrat said:

    * Vocal riffs make the watching experience a million times better, but how? Most people don't own mics. Is there cheap/good text-to-speech available somewhere?

    What? Where did you get that?

    I don't know anyone who has a computer, but not a mic. Every laptop comes with a mic. Console players all have mics, for multiplayer.

    If this can work at all, it'd be website based and voice only.



  • People may own mics, that doesn't mean:

    • the mics are quality, even slightly
    • they know how to record their own voice without their angry mom screaming in the background

    Believe me, I've played enough Xbox with the headset on to know that.

    Anyway it's a better idea than your stupid forum thing. So nyah.

    EDIT: also I'd like to see an actual explanation of Eldelshell's application. He says the "what" (puts up subtitles that can ask questions) but is neglecting the why (what's the business plan here?) the who (who's the target audience?)

    It's so vague I'm not sure I've dismissed it unfairly or not. Is it for a kiosk at a store? Is it an overlay you can put on top of DVD movies? I don't get the idea I guess.



  • Not sure it would work as a game... but as a social-kinda-thing, maybe?

    It kinda reminds me on how SoundCloud allows you to comment on a specific timestamp on a song, and then as you listen to it, it pops up comments to the part you're currently listening to:

    https://devumi.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/soundcloud-comments.png

    Something like this, except (potentially) voice-based? I don't know how many people would want to riff on the whole two-hour movie, but if you could just add a comment here or there and have other people do so too... maybe.



  • @Maciejasjmj said:

    Not sure it would work as a game... but as a social-kinda-thing, maybe?

    Well Minecraft doesn't work as a game, but it's still called a game and it's sold a kajillion copies, so.

    When you see "game" read "software-based amusement product" or whatever phrase you like.



  • Yeah, however you wanna call it.

    Bottom line is, you let people add voice comments here or there (I really wouldn't go with full riffs - most people would have a "I can't be funny for two hours, so I'm not even gonna try" reaction, and those who can will just put it up on YouTube), and I'd actually use this shit.

    Optional non-voice comments might be cool too - I personally don't like talking to the computer that much.


  • Java Dev

    I don't know, I can see it working on console. Possibly tablet? On a tablet you know you've got a mic available, and there may be touch-based features that make sense as well.


  • Java Dev

    Short videos will likely work better than long ones, both for the users, and for theoretically getting people to watch them.

    You'll want sharing functionality on this. Upload to youtube/facebook/twitter/whatever - people will want to share it with their friends if they think they made a good one.



  • I see it more like "watch a silly movie, and if you see something funny rewind a bit and add a comment on that scene". So length isn't that relevant since you're already there to watch a movie.

    Imagine you want to actually watch a stupid movie, something like Reefer Madness - you see a funny scene, you make a joke, and you can hear other people cracking their own as it goes.



  • @Maciejasjmj said:

    you see a funny scene, you make a joke, and you can hear other people cracking their own as it goes.

    Isn't this just having friends?

    Whose idea was this... oh, big surprise there.



  • @Bort said:

    Isn't this just having friends?

    Well, not everyone has those.



  • I have friends, but very few I've convinced that riffing on movies is a fun use of time. Alas.

    And at least one person I pissed off because I made a bunch of jokes during Braveheart that were "insulting his heritage". Yeah, right, your "Scottish" heritage, CΓ©sar.



  • @Bort said:

    @Maciejasjmj said:
    you see a funny scene, you make a joke, and you can hear other people cracking their own as it goes.

    Isn't this just having friends?

    "Friends"? Is that like when you talk to people without the computer? But who would do that?



  • @Maciejasjmj said:

    Is that like when you talk to people without the computer? But who would do that?

    People who text each other on their phones?



  • @blakeyrat said:

    I have friends

    *snort*



  • An Android app for people who are old or clueless or both, that lets their Family Technical Support Representative pre-set certain settings and then lock them:

    • Desktop wallpaper
    • Choice and positions of desktop and dock icons and widgets
    • Number of desktop screens
    • Ringer and phone volume
    • Speaker-phone mode
    • Auto-answer timeout for incoming calls
    • Screen lock timeout after answering incoming calls
    • Deletion prevention for
    • contacts
    • call log entries
    • text messages
    • Insertion of a clue-detection step before access to
    • the main Apps menu
    • anything behind the global Menu icon
    • Assorted other stuff that doesn't occur to me right now

    It would also be really neat if it were possible to lock in a setting that made every press, long press and < 3mm drag behave exactly like a single tap.

    All selected locking should apply from startup, without needing to be selected by the user. Tapping the app's launcher icon should bring up a config page allowing the FTSR to choose what's locked and what's not, as well as a global enable/disable for all locking.

    That config page should be protected by the same kind of Clue detector as is made available for screening the main Apps menu; if that fails, the app should simply exit silently.

    Suggested app name: Least Surprise. The overall aim is to make it possible for somebody who neither wants nor needs a smartphone to own one anyway without being driven completely insane by all the weird shit it does when you use it slightly wrong.

    If there's an iOS version as well, so much the better. The person prompting my desire for this thing has Android though.

    [poll]

    • πŸ”₯
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      [/poll]


  • My xperia has this thing called "Simple Home Screen".

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p05cX-X_HsI

    Seems to be aiming at the same problem.



  • Samsung calls it "Easy Mode".

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwzLxnrscO4



  • @flabdablet said:

    An Android app for people who are old or clueless

    That's easy, just port SSDS.


    Filed under: certain definitions of "easy"



  • I thought this was the non WTF software ideas thread?


  • Notification Spam Recipient

    @cartman82 said:

    Every laptop comes with a mic. Console players all have mics, for multiplayer.

    False assumptions!

    :hanzo:'d by Blakey. Now lets read the rest of the thread, k?


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    At work, I have about 40 different customers I connect to. Every single one has different ways of connecting. Direct RDP. Use Citrix to connect to an RDP. Use a VPN to connect to an RDP.

    Some of them have web portals that generate the Citrix connections on the fly.

    There are different versions of Citrix required for different clients.

    Some of them, once connected to the RDP, require further RDP connections.

    Every one of them is different-- different usernames, passwords, host OS, etc.

    What I want is a piece of software that will handle all this for me. I don't give a fuck how it does it. I want to click "Connect to client XYZ" and it'll handle all the connections and authentication for me. Launch the right programs, stuff the right clicks in the right GUIs, and just fucking work.



  • You might actually be able to achieve that relatively painlessly already, using a macro recorder for AutoHotKey or AutoIt.



  • @aliceif said:

    Samsung calls it "Easy Mode".

    Still looks way, way too reconfigurable for the user I have in mind.

    I want to be able to set up her phone in such a way that it does only that minimal set of things she understands, and make it impossible for her to alter that setup accidentally (she's sure as hell never going to want to alter it deliberately).



  • @flabdablet said:

    Still looks way, way too reconfigurable for the user I have in mind.

    I like the name - it's so silly.


  • Winner of the 2016 Presidential Election Banned

    @blakeyrat said:

    Vocal riffs make the watching experience a million times better, but how? Most people don't own mics. Is there cheap/good text-to-speech available somewhere?

    Yes, I know there's at least one available for Unity, either via Google or the Unity Asset Store, but I don't recall the name. It's one with over a dozen different preset voices, including several hilariously creepy singing voice presets. Some of the regular voices are actually pretty realistic, for TTS.



  • Or simply go the easy way.

    You have selected Microsoft Sam as the computer's default voooice.

  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @Maciejasjmj said:

    Or simply go the easy way.

    You have selected Microsoft Sam as the computer's default voooice.
    You have selected Discourse's Sam as the computer's default voooice

  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    You have selected Jeff as Sam's default thought process

  • Notification Spam Recipient

    @Maciejasjmj said:

    You have selected Microsoft Sam as the computer's default voooice.

    I'm able to replicate that particular SAPI engine with 87% accuracy. Unfortunately, I can't prevent breathing (Cannot kill core system process), so instead I place an arbitrary 180-character limit on TTS strings I can read.


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