Not invented here

Like a lot of people, I'm writing a personal "idea book", which basically contains ideas for inventions I'd love to use (and maybe invent myself).

There are a lot of ideas which unfortunately will never see the light of the day, since either I lack the skills to invent them myself, I'm unsure if anyone besides me would ever like to use such inventions or I'm just too slow.

From time to time, I check the internet for clues on old ideas, to see if someone had the same ideas and is maybe already offering a product. Even if the main motivation for me is finding the "multi-million euro" idea, I'm happy to see a lot of ideas finally being implemented.

Here's one example: When using video conferencing, I always find it quite distracting when my opposite watches on his monitor. It feels wrong to talk to somebody who doesn't look into your direction. On the other hand: If you look into your camera, you can't see your video partner. So I thought it would be a nice idea to integrate the camera inside the monitor, which basically would allow people to communicate in a more natural way.

Today I finally noticed that Apple filed the following patent in 2004:

An integrated sensing display is disclosed. The sensing display includes display elements integrated with image sensing elements. As a result, the integrated sensing device can not only output images (e.g., as a display) but also input images (e.g., as a camera).

So let's hope Apple finally implements this to monitors. I'd really like to use such a device, even if it wasn't invented here.