That video wasn't too exciting, but one of the related videos seems to fit the bill for the OP's request: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3atmWmWCwlw

They may be optical, but if you grab one and look underneath you might still find a ball or two.

You've spent two years on this, and only now getting into the patent? You should be prepared for disappointment. The odds are very high that someone has already patented your exact idea, especially if it's something that you could figure out with no prior RF electronics experience. It's difficult to let go of something that you've put your heart into for so long, but you need to be prepared to do that if you run into problems. Otherwise it could drag you even further down.

Read through some of the tutorials at http://www.fpga4fun.com/ and then head over to the sister site http://www.knjn.com/ to find some FPGA boards. You can get a very good introduction to FPGA concepts for less than $50. The Pluto boards with Altera Cyclone FPGAs are perfect for getting your feet wet.

Maybe quantum computers will be really good at doing this.

There is no such thing as "lead fumes" while soldering. Temperatures are NOT high enough to vaporize lead at all. Granted, some of the flux materials used in solder are not so good for you to breathe, but you will not inhale any lead while soldering. Wash your hands after soldering and your lead intake is practically zero.

... aren't that standard. Look at the effort that it takes to get Java ported to somewhere. Kaffe is/has been ready for years. Classpath (your standard library) is only getting useful (it compiles Eclipse!) And how many "deprecated" components are there in Java? C++ has plenty of people working on less-than-set-in-stone projects, but those shouldn't be considered standard. Use gktmm by all means. Use Qt. Use ACE. None of them can be considered standard, but you can use them today and Get Shit Done (TM). Hell, even Boost isn't standard. The day anything turns standard in C++ is the day that niche is basically done (on the scale short of introsort pushing out quicksort). GUI programming is by no means a done deal yet; the Adobe people are working up some very interesting tools; Mozart is investigating along similar lines; there's also a smaller personal project that uses embedded DSL in C++ (Boost.Spirit style). Until the One-True-Abstraction blows everything else away, you get the choice of making your own bed and lying in it.

I wouldn't characterize them as editors, more like filters that simply allow or deny submissions.