Good Thinking
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The AddMirror - highly effective ambient media
December 19, 2006 The world of ambient media seems to grow more crowded by the day, as advertisers seek an opportunity to cut through the clutter of the myriad adverts which have dulled our awareness to them. In terms of attention, there are few more effective mediums than the mirror where everyone becomes the centre of their own attention. So we’re pleased to report that the most effective medium in history now takes advertising. Addirect was founded in 2003 with the idea of bringing together advertising and technical innovation to create highly-targeted ambient media and they have certainly achieved that with the AddMirror. Working exactly like a regular mirror, The AddMirror reveals up to six A4-sized “hidden” advertisements using pre-set lighting sequences. The rationale behind The AddMirror is that it’s a dynamic medium for advertisers that compels audiences to engage with their creative work. Simply put, people looking in washroom mirrors cannot fail to see their adverts. Moreover, AddMirrors are strategically located in sites that guarantee high visitor traffic. (read more...)
Custom Gift Card Kiosks
December 15, 2006 Since the first Christmas card was sent in the year 1843 by Sir Henry Cole, the traditional has caught on and the Christian Festival is now the largest card-sending occasion in most European countries, the United States, Australia and a bunch of others. As far as we’re aware, George W Bush sends the most Christmas cards each year (approx. 1.4 million Christmas cards), America sends 1.9 billion Christmas cards and we warrant there’d be a few more sent across the rest of the world too. So it’s interesting to see the development of the Christmas card via personalised gift kiosks and on-line services such as Cardways. The Macy's Custom Gift Card Kiosk by Cardways is being tested in select locations in San Francisco and San Jose to give customers a more personal gift card experience. You can personalize your cards with photos and the message you want for that person, and ordered online or at the kiosk, the company prints, addresses and mails your cards for you. (read more...)
Lab-grown diamonds now an alternative
December 14, 2006 Diamonds may well be the world’s most beautiful gem, though we suspect there are many factors contributing to why they remain a “girl’s best friend.” The association with love may soon be tested as technological advances have finally enabled laboratory-created diamonds which have a distinct advantage over their naturally occurring identical twins - they are 100% conflict-free and have not paid the wages of a child soldier, been exchanged for armaments, financed a brutal civil war or have been smuggled at least part of the way to landing on that engagement ring. The New York Times writes ,“Across vast stretches of Africa, diamonds fuel war. Diamonds are so lucrative for predatory governments and marauding rebels that war has become a useful cover for hugely profitable smuggling enterprises. But for millions of Africans who happen to get in the way, diamonds are agents of terror.” In addition to their humane aspects, lab-diamonds also have virtually no environmental impact and they are physically, chemically and optically identical to mined diamonds yet a fraction of the cost. Of course, there are those not even convinced in the worth of diamonds in the first place. For example, “the diamond engagement ring is a 63-year-old invention of N.W.Ayer advertising agency. The De Beers diamond cartel contracted N.W.Ayer to create a demand for what are, essentially, useless hunks of rock.” (read more...)
New technology tells whether there's a gun in your pocket
December 14, 2006 Just the thing for checking whether that’s a gun in their pocket or they’re just pleased to see you. Sago’s full body imager, iPat, recently completed and passed rigorous location and identification testing on a variety of explosive threats. The tests took place in cooperation with a leading security equipment provider. iPat was unveiled in September during the ASIS security show in San Diego. The aPat handheld personnel screening tool and iPat do not radiate X-rays or microwaves at any level. Both products are designed to provide primary or secondary screening in high security applications such as airline passenger screening or access control. They passive millimeter-wave/thermal imaging products image a person’s natural body heat to detect the presence of hidden threats such as explosives, liquids, guns, and knives. (read more...)
How the world's wealth is distributed - the top two percent own half
December 7, 2006 A new study on The World Distribution of Household Wealth by the Helsinki-based World Institute for Development Economics Research of the United Nations University was launched earlier this week. The study shows the richest 2% of adults in the world own more than half of global household wealth. The most comprehensive study of personal wealth ever undertaken also reports that the richest 1% of adults alone owned 40% of global assets in the year 2000, and that the richest 10% of adults accounted for 85% of the world total. In contrast, the bottom half of the world adult population owned barely 1% of global wealth. The research finds that assets of US$2,200 per adult placed a household in the top half of the world wealth distribution in the year 2000. To be among the richest 10% of adults in the world required US$61,000 in assets, and more than US$500,000 was needed to belong to the richest 1%, a group which — with 37 million members worldwide — is far from an exclusive club. (read more...)
Research shows the message in advertising is irrelevant
December 5, 2006 Now here’s a story that is certain to fuel debate – new research undertaken by the University of Bath’s School of Management shows that creativity and emotion are what makes advertising successful, not the message it is trying to get over. University of Bath’s Dr Robert Heath (pictured) found that advertisements with high levels of emotional content enhanced how people felt about brands, even when there was no real message. However, advertisements which were low on emotional content had no effect on how favourable the public were towards brands, even if the ad was high in news and information. (read more...)
ITER, the Fusion Device and the Remote Operation and Virtual Reality Centre
November 29, 2006 Every country should have one – it’s the US$10 Billion ITER Fusion Test Reactor currently being constructed in the South of France to provide the know-how to subsequently build the first electricity-generating power station based on magnetic confinement of high temperature plasma - in other words, to capture and use the power of the sun on earth for peaceful purposes. ITER is something to be proud of – it is a joint international research and development project that aims to demonstrate the scientific and technical feasibility of fusion as a source of power for mankind – ample power would significantly lessen the chance of war. The partners in the project are the European Union (represented by EURATOM), Japan, China, India, South Korea, the Russian Federation and America. On earth, the aim is to harness this energy source to produce electricity in a safe and environmentally benign way, with abundant fuel resources, to meet the needs of a growing world population. Ministers from the ITER parties came together recently to sign the agreement to establish the organization and it’s very likely these pictures will be in school text books a thousand years from now . The signature ceremony took place at the Elysée Palace in Paris and was hosted by the President Jacques Chirac and by the President of the European Commission, M. Jose Manuel Durao Barroso. ITER Director General Nominee Kaname Ikeda said the meeting, the ITER Organization would now embark on “its mission, as a worldwide international cooperation, to help create a new source of energy for humankind”. We’re not sure if we’re more excited about the FUSION device or the Remote Operation and Virtual Reality Centre (ROViR) development centre where the test equipment is located. ROViR develops industrial design and control systems, tapping the expertise of VTT and TUT's hydraulics and automation department. Remote operation and virtual technologies play a central role in the maintenance of the ITER reactor, but they also possess huge application potential for industry. (read more...)
US$100 Loc8tor finds of your keys, personal electronics, pets, children and your business assets
November 21, 2006 There are few things more disarming than losing your keys, your convergent mobile device, your pet, your child or your Personal Media Player – with the possible exception of the last on that list, they are all stop-what-you-are-doing occurrences that require immediate attention elsewise life might go pear shaped for an indefinite period. Similarly, there are few things as frustrating as driving several miles down the road before remembering you’ve left one of them behind. Similarly, being advised immediately one of these items is leaving your vicinity in the wrong hands would be wonderful thing. Last but now least, if you could apply said functionality to any physical asset be it at home or at work, would it be worthwhile? Would you be prepared to pay a few hundred dollars to ensure you knew your loved ones and things were within safe distance, forever? The Loc8tor (UK site - US site) does all that - it helps find important possessions and can even stop them from getting lost in the first place. A blend of old and new technology, Loc8tor provides the first affordable personal homing device of its kind. On the business front, Loc8tor Plus is an affordable business tool for asset or stock auditing and a solution to the problem of theft from offices and warehouses. It's available now to buy, distribute or license. (read more...)
Boeing begins using Moving Assembly Line for 777 Jetliners
November 14, 2006 The moving production line concept was around for more than a century before Henry Ford famously used it to speed output and cut costs and hence transform the automotive industry a century ago. So do we now know all there is to know about manufacturing efficiency? Not by a long shot! The Boeing Company has just started using a moving assembly line for the first time to build its market-leading 777 jetliner. Earlier this year, Boeing began work to transform its 777 assembly line into a leaner and more efficient production system. This initial use of a moving line during final assembly represents substantial progress with that transformation effort. Assembled one-by-one, it takes 26 days to assemble the 777’s three million constituent parts, but with a moving production line, the aim is to cut that time to just eight days. For now, the moving assembly line is used only during final assembly positions for the airplane, moving it at a steady pace of 1.6 inches per minute during production. (read more...)
The internet cloud, the Petabyte Age and Bell’s Law
November 12, 2006 Wired Magazine was there at the origin of the internet magazine species. Seed-funded by MIT Media Lab co-founder Nicholas Negroponte, it gave us the world’s first banner advert and continues to give and give. One of its primary drawcards is George Gilder whose columns are always worth reading, and if you’re looking towards the future from the point of view of an investor, the Gilder Technology Report is even more worthwhile. This month he writes a particularly insightful piece about “the dawning of the petabyte age”, and the coming of “the Internet cloud, where massive facilities across the globe will store all the data.” An excerpt: “Moore's law has a corollary that bears the name of Gordon Bell, the legendary engineer behind Digital Equipment's VAX line of advanced computers and now a principal researcher at Microsoft. According to Bell's law, every decade a new class of computer emerges from a hundredfold drop in the price of processing power. As we approach a billionth of a cent per byte of storage, and pennies per gigabit per second of bandwidth, what kind of machine labors to be born? How will we feed it? How will it be tamed? And how soon will it, in its inevitable turn, become a dinosaur?” Via Slashdot (read more...)
Reinventing the Clock
November 8, 2006 This is huge we tell ya – huge! We’ve written about Ambient Devices before – it’s a very clever company that produces “glanceable” information displays to provide people with constant awareness of important information, but without increasing anxiety due to information overload. Ambient's vision is to embed information representation into everyday objects such as lamps, pens, watches, walls, and wearables so the physical environment becomes an interface to digital information rendered in subtle changes in form, movement sound, colour or light. Now the company is working on a tabletop clock that integrates and displays your daily calendar schedule and the equally innovative design process is garnering input directly from Google Calendar users. This population consists largely of "Lead Users," defined by Dr. Eric von Hippel from the MIT Sloan School of Management as customers at the "leading edge" that are currently experiencing needs that will later be experienced by the majority (you!). You can setup and test your own online version of the clock here and integrate it into your Google Homepage or Google Desktop and there are alternate designs available for viewing and comment. Like we said ... HUGE! (read more...)
Aeros to develop peacetime Walrus that will will do to the cargo industry what Internet did for information exchange
November 6, 2006 The DARPA Walrus program, one of the most ambitious projects ever scoped, may have been officially wound up due to budgetary constraints, but in achieving the program objectives, chief contractor Aeros Aeronautical Systems believes that the technological concepts successfully demonstrated by the program provides a basis of confidence on which to launch a new commercial effort to build a full scale demonstration vehicle. Aeros President Igor Pasternak believes that "Aeroscraft will do to the cargo industry what Internet did for information exchange. With continuous development of this technology we move a step closer to the next breakthrough in aerospace innovation." The Walrus is a massive blimp that can transport 500 military units in their entirety but could equally offer myriad peacetime solutions, opening land-locked countries to trade, enabling heavy construction materials to be delivered into urban centres with minimum disruption and facilitating a more robust and agile air transportation network. Indeed, business logistics could be completely rethought because many physical transportation limits would no longer apply once a fleet of commercial Walruses (Aeroscraft) became available. The Aeroscraft does not require an airstrip and can land on water or on open ground. (read more...)
The Wallet Pen
October 30, 2006 People often write to us to ask what the criteria are for a story on Gizmag.com and we respond that a great concept is the key and there are no rules beyond that because if we applied strict criteria, we might discourage or exclude something. The Wallet Pen is a perfect example – it’s simply a three inch sterling silver pen that’s small enough to fit in your wallet and still allow the wallet to be slipped into a pocket without endangering your private parts. It fits that empty space at the fold of every wallet and it ensures that when we need a pen, we’ve got one. To add to the illusion we’re classy folk, the Wallet Pen is an ideal prop, being handcrafted from solid Sterling Silver and clearly quality stuff – indeed, it’s guaranteed forever. How many times have you had to borrow a pen? (read more...)
Palm Vein-based Biometric ID system for schools
October 26, 2006 When we first saw Fujitsu Europe’s plans to develop a palm vein biometric identification system for schools, we thought that perhaps it was a case of overkill, but the more we looked, the more it made sense. The initial system installation in a Scottish primary school addresses the need for a secure non-token or cashless system to provide Electronic Point of Sale (EPOS) for their catering facilities. The system uses pre-registered palm vein patterns from the pupils and staff to manage individual accounts thereby creating a cashless catering solution. The flexibility of the PalmReader design means that the technology can be expanded to provide biometric access control applications to monitor truancy levels, facilitate accurate attendance at classes and overall better time management for teachers. The installation provides a glimpse of the coming cashless society and also the school of the future. (read more...)
Grancrete – could a new concrete solve many of the world’s most pressing problems?
October 20, 2006 The United Nations estimates there are almost a billion poor people in the world, 750 million of whom live in urban areas without adequate shelter and basic services. An ingenious new building technology from scientists at Argonne National Laboratory and Casa Grande LLC could help alleviate and perhaps even solve that major humanitarian problem by providing affordable housing for the world's poorest. A tough new ceramic material that is almost twice as strong as concrete may be the key to providing high-quality, low-cost housing throughout developing nations. The ceramic is called Grancrete, which, when sprayed onto a rudimentary Styrofoam frame, dries to form a lightweight but durable surface. The resulting house is a major upgrade to the fragile structures in which millions of the world's poorest currently live. Using conventional techniques, it takes 20 men two weeks to build a house. A five person crew can construct two grancrete homes in one day. There’s also plenty of commercial upside in developed nations, making low-cost buildings viable for a variety of purposes – we can see inflatable technology marrying with Grancrete construction to evolve an entirely new way of building lavishly complex structures that would be impossible any other way. (read more...)
A glimpse at the future of the Human-Computer Interface
October 20, 2006 With applications in just about every forseeable field of personal and business computing, we're expecting the Upravlator keyboard (the latest concept from Art Lebedev, and the cousin of the Optimus keyboard) to do very well when it hits the market. It's a 10.8 inch, 640x480 LCD with twelve square buttons occupying it's surface. The twelve buttons each have five contacts - one in the center, top, bottom, left and right, which are freely assignable to UI elements in the software of your choice. (read more...)
The ruggedized wireless Rapid Deployment Kits for response to Chemical, Weapons of Mass Destruction or Radiation incidents
October 19, 2006 This is the latest ruggedized, wireless, AreaRAE Rapid Deployment Kits for response to Chemical, Weapons of Mass Destruction or Radiation incidents. Made by RAE Systems, it’s one of a number of new rapidly deployable sensor networks that enable first responders to identify safety and security threats in real time. One of the first to order the new system was the United States National Guard which has already taken delivery of 55 custom configured AreaRAE RDKs to equip all 55 Civil Support Teams (CSTs) with portable toxic gas and radiation detection equipment. Key to the selection process was the ability for the CST deployed systems to interoperate, provide mutual aid, as well as interface to existing AreaRAE systems already in use by civilian first responders. The AreaRAE RDK is designed to be quickly configured and deployed in any response scenario and can integrate a wide range of detection equipment including RAE Systems’ portable monitors and third-party devices, all operating wirelessly and instantly providing data for incident commanders through a single real-time interface. (read more...)
The LCD flat panel display (FPD) machine
October 18, 2006 Ever wondered what a machine that produces flat panels looks like – well wonder no more – this little baby is a new breed of highly-efficient machine that enables the production of six 55inch LCD TV screens from Gen 8.5 (2.2m x ~2.5m) glass substrates at a time. Applied Materials provides Nanomanufacturing Technology solutions for the electronics industry and has produced it as the first of several suites designed to reduce the total cost of flat panel manufacturing. The new Gen 8.5 panels are expected to contribute to TFT-LCD TV market growth, which is forecast by market researcher Display Search to exceed 40 million units in 2006. (read more...)
RFID Technology for Tracking Data Center Assets
October 17, 2006 HP Labs scientist Cyril Brignone shows how a new radio frequency identification (RFID) technology created by the company's central research facility can track IT assets in data centers, even identifying when a component is moved from one location to another. Keeping track of assets could enable better accuracy of inventory, increase security and reduce data center operational and auditing costs. The HP Labs technology was tested at Meijer, a retailer with more than 170 grocery and specialty stores in the midwestern United States. The solution could automatically monitor data center assets, providing real-time tracking and auditing of servers, networking equipment, server and storage enclosures and other technology using RFID. (read more...)
The Intelligent ScareCrow
October 17, 2006 Though it was designed to assist in keeping London’s fox population away from residents’ gardens, the Intelligent ScareCrow is equally applicable to protecting plants and ponds from cats, possums, raccoons, deer and heron. The ScareCrow detects animals as they approach and deters them with a spray of water. London’s urban fox population, estimated at more than 10,000, provided the necessity that became the mother of this invention as it was causing problems for homeowners and businesses wishing to keep their premises fox free. A product of the city’s post-war expansion into the rural suburbs in the 1930s, urbanized red foxes have adapted to life on the outskirts, and as their rural habitat continues to shrink, have spread into the centre of London to take up residence throughout the city, including the grounds at Buckingham Palace, City Hall, Downing Street, and St. Paul’s Cathedral. (read more...)
The world's most expensive bottled water - US$40 a bottle
October 15, 2006 Just how do you differentiate a product like bottled water? It’s an important question when you realise that Americans drink more than 25 billion litres of bottled water a year at prices greater than gasoline. Bottled water sales have risen 50% per person in less than a decade, which isn’t bad for a core product that varies little, and is at least a thousand times more expensive than tap water which is readily available as an alternative. In Europe, water is even bigger business – Western Europeans drink more than half the world’s bottled water. The winning answer to the differentiation question in 2006 was to add a magazine to the bottle, but there are thousands of brands out there and some of them are very clever. For all those people for whom only an ostentatious display of wealth will do is Bling H2O. Available in US$40 750ml and US$24 350ml versions, the frosted, corked bottles are emblazoned with hand-applied, Swarovski crystals. Not surprisingly, the newspapers are reporting that the Goddess of conspicuous consumption Paris Hilton “has tasted the water” as has her dog Tinkerbell. (she sure gets a lot of press for a gal that don’t do much). The drink has also shown up at the Grammy's, Emmy's and MTV Video Music Awards in the hands of celebrities such as Jamie Foxx, Mariah Carey and Shaquille O'Neal. Bling H2O is the creation of Hollywood writer-producer Kevin G. Boyd who knows the importance of image and what your choice in bottled water conveys to the public. In Hollywood it seems the bottled water one carries has become an important prop and it has become the land of the upmarket waters - bottles are becoming statements of coolness and Bling H2O was fashioned to make a defining statement. The mission was to offer a product with an exquisite face to match exquisite taste. The product is strategically positioned to target the expanding super-luxury consumer market. Bling H2O has been featured at many recent celebrity events including the MTV Video Music Awards and television’s biggest event, The Emmys. Our favourite quote on the subject was Adjab, which said that it proved the old adage that it's really easy to get rich people to fork over cash for stupid reasons. (read more...)
TWELV - a new way to display time
October 12, 2006 There’s always a better way, but sometimes the scale of the change required to do it differently is several orders of magnitude too big. We suspect that was why Professor Richard Conn Henry’s proposal of an unquestionably better calendar and time system was never seriously considered. Fortunately, Inventerprise’s new way to display time can co-exist with current time systems. The newly patented TWELV system breaks from centuries-old tradition, dispensing altogether with the use of any hour hand or hour digit. Instead, each individual hour of the day is represented solely by one of twelve unique colors. There are some undeniable benefits for the new system though, as it requires a footprint less than half that of standard time format, the colors can be recognized correctly at great distances. It means that one clock beacon could be used as a clock in a city environment. Similarly, ambient lighting or a water fountain or a fishtank can become a clock … and the killer-app is that the footprint for the time display is MUCH smaller than conventional time displays either digital or analog, making it ideal for mobile phones, wearable audio players, and other mobile devices where display space is always at a premium. As for memorizing the colors, just start using the clock and it happens naturally; that's just how the human brain works. The system is patented in the United States, but it’s public domain everywhere else. (read more...)
Initiatives to harness the power of collective intelligence
October 12, 2006 Friday the thirteenth is a date not often associated with glorious new beginnings but tomorrow sees the launch (webcast live here at 12:55 PM EST on October 13th, 2006) of a significant new institution that might have far reaching consequences for the way human beings go about their business, organise and run their communities and indeed, run the planet. It’s the official start date for the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence (CCI) which has the ambitious goal of understanding how to harness the power of large numbers of people—connected together through Internet and other technologies —to better solve a range of business, scientific, and societal problems. Though its agenda is broad and grand, one of the announcements tomorrow will be more focussed - an experiment to create a Wikipedia-style book about how to use communities in business. We Are Smarter Than Me is a business community formed by business professionals to research and discuss the impact of social networks on traditional business functions. Everyone is invited to participate in a revolutionary publishing project - a "network book" to be published in 2007. Each contributing member of this beta community will be listed as an author of the book, and each will receive an equal vote on the distribution of book royalties to charity. The We Are Smarter Than Me community is seeking real examples of companies who are trying to harness the power of community. Just think - this could be the start of a whole new way of doing things - contribute if you can. (read more...)
Magazine on a Bottle wins international awards
October 7, 2006 One of our favourite ideas, the Magazine on a Bottle, has landed the Best Label and Best Overall Concept awards at the 2006 Bottled Water World Design Awards. The awards recognize the design innovation of the On Product Publishing concept and its contribution to the bottled water industry, though we see the potential for the concept in everything from iced coffee, caffeinated softdrink and soda, through to franchise chains, (such as Starbucks, McDonalds and even oil companies) developing their own product/communication platform combination. The company has already developed iLove, the first magazine to appear on a bottle of water and opened the beverage industry to the concept of On Product Publishing (OPP). The company’s On Product Publishing label technology opens up new marketing and revenue channels by combining publishing with consumer goods and OPP has recently signed licensing agreements in Europe and Australia. The winners of the 2006 Bottled Water World Design Awards were announced at a gala dinner at San Pellegrino Casino, as part of the Zenith International Global Bottled Water Congress in Bergamo, Italy. (read more...)
Unbelievable – a hand-drier that actually works
October 4, 2006 James Dyson has done it again and this time he’s invented a hand drier that uses just 15-25% of the electricity of common hand driers, costs around 20-25% of the annual running costs of the current crop and it’s significantly more hygienic into the bargain. Most significantly, it’ll get your hands dry before you die of old age – the Dyson airblade dries hands in about ten seconds which is at least twice as fast as most common hand driers. Hallelujah brothers and sisters – this is one of those inventions that’s been obviously required for a long time. The airblade produces a stream of unheated air flowing at 400mph to do the job. (read more...)
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