Inspired by Matt Swanson's post "My Side Project Queue" I decided to write down my own.

I have been on parental leave for the last 10 months which has given me many opportunities to think and few opportunities to code. It gives an advantage when it comes to implementation as you frequently force yourself to throw away bad ideas even before you started working on them.

Never the less, I've come to collect more ideas than I have time to work on. Just for fun I thought I would share with you, reader of the Interwebs, and maybe someone would find it interesting / useful. If you believe in one of these ideas, feel free to take it and run with it. Also feel free to talk to me about it if you'd like to.

Working title: Cap5, a captive portal

Quick Pitch: Second Screen interaction should be web based because you shouldn't have to download an app. And why should you scan a QR code? Captive Portal makes it easier to get started: Just connect with your smartphone to the SSID and the web app opens by itself.

User: Anyone is a bypassing user who wants to interact with a public display or system that should have a web gui: TV:s, cars, train station monitors, public city guide screens.

Stack: OpenWRT, IPTables, NAT

Working title: Digital graffiti

Quick Pitch: A public Second Screen app for Collaborative Interactive Art. Projector is beaming on a big wall for instance in a mall. By-passers connect and draw and add photos using their smartphones.

Stack:

Server: Raspberry Pi, NodeJS, Socket.IO

WiFi Router: Runs Cap5

Projector: HTML5, canvas, JavaScript

Client: HTML5, canvas, JavaScript

Working title: Real Estate Broker Interactive Window

Quick Pitch: Real Estate brokers often have a display in their windows showing their latest objects. But if you don't read fast enough, it will scroll to the next object. Using a captive portal we can make them interactive, using smartphone as a remote. The user will have time to read everything and can also interact in other ways like leaving their phone number and saving the object to their phone.

Stack:

Server: Raspberry Pi, NodeJS, Socket.IO

WiFi Router: Runs Cap5

Store Window TV: HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript

Client: HTML5, CSS3, canvas, JavaScript, connects with WiFi

Working title: Devices help games

Quick Pitch: What if you could use your tablet and smartphones as external displays for your games? For instance, move the instruments of a flight simulator to external devices to free up space on the main display and make use of the devices you already have.

Server: NodeJS, Socket.IO, some way to interface with the games

WiFi Router: Runs Cap5

Client: HTML5, canvas, JavaScript, connects with WiFi

Game: Would need an API for external displays

Working title: Whiteboard IO

Quick Pitch: A digital whiteboard for meetings. Same whiteboard can be visible on several locations at once. Users connect and interface with the whiteboard with their smartphones. Add meeting notes, mind maps, photos, URLs. The result is e-mailed to the participants in a nice format.

Server: NodeJS, Socket.IO

WiFi Router: Runs Cap5

Client: HTML5, canvas, JavaScript, connects with WiFi

Working title: Wood IO

Quick Pitch: Internet of Things for kids: Hand-crafted wooden toys with cool circuitry inside. Equally or more immerse than other interactive toys for the kid. More fun for the geeky mom or dad. Healthier than plastics (which sometimes contain heavy metals).

Stack: Embedded platform like Spark! Core or Electric Imp. Backend would be Node.JS with Socket.IO.