I had the idea in 1997 that you could use a scanning tunneling microscope as a hardrive needle. Have a perfectly flat surface in a vacuum and divide it up into a grid. If a square has an atom sitting on it then it counts as a one and if not its a zero. Having a single atom as a bit would be a major milestone for storage. Unfortunately I only have a highschool education and not much money so never had any means to really pursue the idea. Intel and others are doing research on it now, but as far as I know no one was working on the idea at the time I thought of it.

I also had said a number of times to my girlfriend that i want a robot that could fold laundry. She would always look at me funny. Then I felt vindicated when colin angle (iRobot) said in an interview that the next task he would like solved with robots is folding laundry.