Good Thinking
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Wire in Composite technology provides improved protection and packaging for harsh environment wiring installations
June 30, 2006 A new solution for the protection of vehicular wiring assemblies from damage, vibration and environmental impact was launched this week at the Defence Vehicle Dynamics Show in the U.K. Wire in Composite (WiC) completely encloses wiring looms in a bespoke composite sleeve, protecting them from damage and permitting designers to improve packaging by laying wires securely side-by-side as opposed to a traditional bundle. Conceived by BERU F1 Systems for motorsport applications in which wiring harnesses must be mounted as low and flat on a vehicle chassis as possible, WiC is equally suitable to aerospace, marine and other ground vehicle applications. WiC looms can be built to virtually any shape or form offering the ability to incorporate sharp bend radii without the risk of strain or chafing found in a conventional harness. (read more...)
Personal Biometric Device offers access to multiple facilities
Now this is an interesting key-fob-sized device designed to eliminate the need for employees to use multiple access cards and passwords. The plusID authenticates a user's identity with their fingerprint and enables secure access to buildings and other physical facilities, local and remote computers and networks, and online or onsite financial transactions. The plusID works with existing, installed security infrastructure, making deployment quick and affordable with just one secure wireless device. (read more...)
TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) Conference Free PodCasts available
June 28, 2006 Once a year, 1000 people are invited to the TED Conference in Monterey, California, to exchange something of incalculable value: their ideas. What happens there has never been shared until now. TED and BMW today announced they will team up to provide a free video and audio podcast series of the best talks delivered at the TED. Starting today, the public can download the talks of former US Vice President Al Gore, Macarthur Award recipient Majora Carter, motivational speaker Tony Robbins, New York Times technology columnist David Pogue, education visionary Ken Robinson, and founder of the non-profit Gapminder Hans Rosling. Additional talks will be released weekly and will feature rock star Peter Gabriel on his work with human-rights group Witness, evolutionary anthropologist Helen Fisher exploring the future of love, X-Prize founder Peter Diamandis making the case for space tourism and photographer Gregory Colbert unveiling the idea of an Animal Copyright Foundation, among others … and it’s all free. The talks are all 18 minutes and are being distributed across multiple formats to reach the greatest audience possible (Flash Video, QuickTime, MPEG-4 video, MP3 audio, VideoEgg, GoogleVideo, iTunes music store). Anyone with a web browser can watch TEDTalks online here or here. The audio and video podcasts can also be downloaded for playback on an iPod or other MP3 player. In the spirit of a free exchange, the podcasts are being released under a creative commons license, allowing them to be redistributed freely for non-commercial use. (read more...)
Advertising veterans to pioneer New Media Model for advertisers in Europe
June 23, 2006 Now here’s a concept that just might work. Using the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival as the backdrop, Holland’s Spotzer Media Group announced a ready-to-air concept for video commercials. Spotzer intends to pioneer this radical new approach to video advertising that will enable clients to rent and run a professionally designed and produced advertisement for as little as Euro 500. Videos can be personalised for the client by Spotzer, create a media plan online and actually purchase and book air or media time on-line or have the video commercials prepared for use with websites, narrow casting networks, cell phones and other mobile devices such as mp3 players. It's not an entirely new concept, as our colleague the Red Ferret points out, with SpotRunner having launched in the US earlier this year. (read more...)
Internet for all - EU ministers commit to an inclusive and barrier-free information society
June 16, 2006 A pan-European drive to use information and communication technologies to help people to overcome economic, social, educational, territorial or disability-related disadvantages was endorsed by ministers of 34 European countries in Riga (Latvia) this week. "e-Inclusion" targets include halving the gap in internet usage by groups at risk of exclusion, boosting broadband coverage in Europe to at least 90%, and making all public web sites accessible by 2010. Welcoming the ministers' undertaking, Information Society and Media Minister Viviane Reding (pictured) said: "Many Europeans still get too little benefit from information and communication technologies, and millions are at risk of being left behind. Enabling all Europeans to participate on equal terms in the information society is not only a social necessity – it is a huge economic opportunity for industry. By implementing their Riga undertakings, European countries will take a big step towards making e-inclusion a reality.” (read more...)
High performance web search
June 13, 2006 Search is the name of the game on the web these days because it’s where decisions get made about where to spend money – if you can control the space where the best informed (and hence most lucrative) decisions get made, then you win the game. Not surprisingly, as the amount of available relevant information (reports, research, emails, blogs, news stories, documents ad infinitum) continues to increase at a bewildering rate, our ability to make informed decisions is in danger of being overwhelmed (hands up all those who feel like that – see!!!!). Faced with this exponential expansion of information and information sources, how can anyone know with certainty that they have reviewed all available relevant information? Or uncovered the facts and relationships critical to sound decision-making? Insightful Corporation was this week issued a U.S. patent for the "Inverse Inference Engine for High Performance Web Search." The invention is designed to provide a faster and more scalable alternative for intelligent keyword search techniques. With this invention, Insightful claims users will realize a richer and more relevant search experience than traditional statistical keyword techniques. The invention is designed to enhance the end user's search experience by providing related and recommended options based on the user's query found within unstructured text such as web sites. (read more...)
The PayPal Plus Credit Card
June 12, 2006 The points of contact where the real world meets the virtual world are somewhat akin to the fabled end of the rainbow and eBay’s grand plan for ownership of a sizeable slab of the pot-of-gold became a little clearer last week when subsidiary PayPal introduced the PayPal Plus Credit Card - a MasterCard that can be used both online and anywhere that MasterCard is accepted offline. It seems like the eBay global garage sale has truly assembled a dream team of online properties on the back of its growth to become the world’s largest online marketplace. Last quarter, eBay traded US$10 billion worth of goods and Paypal was already the most preferred electronic payment method among eBay users before it was acquired in October, 2002. PayPal now has 100 million account holders and eBay has 200 million users (up from 147 million a year ago) and the recently acquired Skype VOIP communications company has 100 million users, so we forsee a healthy future for PayPal Plus. Not surprisingly, there’s a generous rewards program that applies to all online or offline purchases and just to ensure things get going with some immediate impetus, cardholders can take advantage of a special introductory offer – 0% APR on purchases and balance transfers until 2007. This limited-time offer is good through August 31, 2006, and will automatically appear on eBay items over US$50 as long as sellers accept PayPal and have not opted out of displaying PayPal Buyer Credit messages on their listings. (read more...)
How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger
June 12, 2006 Last month was the fiftieth anniversary of the birth of one of the most important inventions of our time - the shipping container. That first step, where a refitted oil tanker carried fifty-eight shipping containers from Newark to Houston in April, 1956, heralded a better way of transporting goods that has supercharged global trade. A new book tells the story of the container's creation and the sweeping economic consequences of the sharp fall in transportation costs that containerization brought about. By making shipping so cheap that industry could locate factories far from its customers, the container paved the way for Asia to become the world's workshop and brought consumers a previously unimaginable variety of low-cost products from around the globe. (read more...)
Strawjet - making buildings out of straw
May 30, 2006 Every now and again, a technology comes along that is so momentous that it changes the way we do things from that point forth. Last year we saw the LifeStraw and this year, Strawjet. Strawjet just took out the History Channel’s Modern Marvels Invent Now Challenge and we suspect the sudden attention from this respected global medium will help to garner universal support for an ingenious idea. Strawjet is being developed by the Ashland School of Environmental Technology in Oregon. The School is a collaborative learning community dedicated to life-enhancing, technological innovations that serve ecological and humanitarian values worldwide and with the Strawjet project it has done itself proud. Strawjet manufactures straw into a low cost, fully recyclable, structural and insulating building material. Straw is harvested during the grain harvest and converted directly into entire finished wall sections for the construction of homes of any design, from standard homes to rapid assembly shelters for the developing world and disaster relief. Other building materials such as, cement, steel, wood, and glass, are associated with significant environmental costs through to their extraction, manufacture or harvest while straw is often considered a waste product and is continuously renewable and universally available. As a by-product of harvesting food crops it does not place any additional burden on the environment. It offers better insulation than typical brick and mortar construction and is better able to withstand the stresses of an earthquake. It saves resources for building, and provides the farmer with another source of income or the ability to create his own building materials as required. The process harvests straw, orients the stems so they are all parallel, then compresses and binds it into a continuous length of two inch diameter rigid cable which can be combined into a construction material in several ways. Labor costs at the building site are greatly reduced as the company has developed a system to combine the cables into standard panels and hence into completed wall systems in the field. Main diagram explanation: (1) modified combine grain harvester makes cables and harvests grain simultaneously. (2) truck collects cables, cuts them to eight foot lengths, weaves them into a mat and rolls the mat for ease of handling. (3) mat ready for use and a stack of mats. (4) Each pass of laminator adds a layer to composite wall. Layers are pinned and bonded ingeniously. (5) undulating wall section being made. (6) section of wall with the mobile cutter ready to cut it into finished wall sections complete with door and windows (7) which are delivered by truck and assembled. (8 &9). It’s ingenious and the full story is succinctly told here with an image library here. (read more...)
Winning ideas of the ECOnomics Environmental Business Plan Challenge Award
May 29, 2006 The ECOnomics Environmental Business Plan Challenge provides a US$50,000 award for the business plan that best combines environmental innovation and profitability. Created by General Electric and The Wall Street Journal, the four finalists and winner of the award were recently announced and the quality of the ideas validated the exercise, with Robert Wright taking the gong for his Heated Air Spray Evaporation (HASE) Watervap technology (top of main pic) that will help solve the most universal human need: potable water. Another of the finalists, LiquidPiston, (bottom of main pic) was also a finalist of the prestigious MIT $50K Entrepreneurship competition. LiquidPiston is a novel internal combustion engine architecture, which is claimed to offer double the fuel efficiency of existing engines while drastically reducing pollutant emissions. The engine is based on a patent-pending "High Efficiency Hybrid Cycle" (HEHC) thermodynamic cycle, borrowing elements from Otto, Diesel, Atkinson, and Rankine cycles. The finalists of the competition can be found here. (read more...)
Reclosable Aluminum Beverage Bottles
May 25, 2006 Astonishingly, glass has been with us for 5000 years. It was one of the first luxuries, is incorporated into 99% of all buildings and cameras and phones and has been a mainstay of global beverage packaging for more than a century. Not long ago, most drink containers were glass. With cardboards, plastics and now aluminium offering some advantages, the glass bottle is under threat. Aluminium drink containers were developed and commercialised and are peculiar to Japan, but this week Universal Can Company (UCC) of Tokyo entered into a licensing agreement for its proven, commercial technology with the American Ball Corporation which will manufacture and sell Alumi-Tek aluminum beverage bottles in the United States, Canada and Mexico. The Alumi-Tek offers the added convenience of reclosability to other aluminium bottle attributes, such as long shelf life, tamper-resistance, the ability to chill quickly and recyclability. Looks cool too! (read more...)
Desktop device prints six colours on cylindrical objects
May 18, 2006 With desktop colour printers now under US$100, we constantly marvel at what we'll be able to do a few years from now. In recent times we've enthused about desktop cutters, and we regularly write about printers that can print three dimensional objects (here, here and here), and one that can even print metal parts. Well now there's a printer that can print on any cylindrical object. Croatian desktop printer company Azon specializes in printers that print on unconventional objects and materials, such as fabrics and textiles, and fingernails. Unbelievably, the company now offers several models that print on 3D objects such as pens, mobile phones, metal products, acrylic, fomax ad infinitum. Now the company has released a 10,000 Euro desktop printer that will print on any cylindrical object up to 17 cm long and with a a diameter of 2-14 cm for the cylinder. Like a coffee cup, f';rinstance - cool heh! The AZON MICRO CYLINDER uses Piezo inkjet technology with a two-level ink filter system to ensures the printhead doesn’t get clogged and anti-scratch technology ensures an extended life life for the printhead, reducing the cost of printing. (read more...)
First commercial use of new glass wine closure
May 11, 2006 Wine has been amongst man’s greatest pleasures for at least 10,000 years, having played a prominent role in the Phoenicean, Greek, Egyptian and Roman civilisations. Initially, the bitterness of wine spoilage was masked by flavouring the wines, and many different methods have been used to prevent spoilage, such as topping wine containers with olive oil, leather tied with vine, clay stoppers, oily rag closures and most successfully, cork. But cork is inconsistent and still has an unacceptable spoilage factor and ever since French microbiologist Louis Pasteur discovered wine spoilage was caused by microorganisms, the search has been on for the ideal closure system. We recently wrote about the Zork wine closure system, and now there’s another. Vino-Seal is a new glass closure developed by Alcoa as an alternative to traditional corks and synthetic stoppers for wine. With a design similar to a decorative decanter stopper, Vino-Seal uses an inert o-ring to provide a sterile seal, preventing contamination or oxidation. Whitehall Lane Winery of Napa Valley will be the first to use the new glass closure commercially. (read more...)
The ingenious Keyholding Company
May 9, 2006 Time is a commodity where supply is limited to a democratic 24 hours per person per day, regardless of income, so it makes sense that with working hours increasing, highly-paid people will be seeking to optimize their time usage. One recent report cites British consumers losing 60 million working days a year waiting for delivery drivers and workmen. UK-based Keyholding Company believes this market for time will become increasingly valuable in the future and is offering a range of services so people no longer need to use up valuable free time to take care of emergency or mundane tasks at home. The company has a database of fully-vetted tradespeople and keeps a set of your keys. This means that as well as sourcing a reliable trade's person, they can wait for them to arrive and ensure the works are completed satisfactorily. They can also deliver goods into your home and leave the property secure. (read more...)
RFID tag implant for humans DIY kit
May 5, 2006 While RFID hasn’t exactly got a great name in some circles thanks to the technology’s capabilities becoming a threat to privacy, there are some people on the planet who just can’t wait for the technology to develop. Like Amal Graafstra f’rinstance. Graafstra heard about RFID being used to tag cats and dogs and decided he wanted to explore what was possible. He now has two RFID implants - a 3mm by 13mm EM4102 glass RFID tag in his left hand and a 2mm by 12mm Philips HITAG 2048 S implant with crypto-security features and 255 bytes of read/write memory storage space in his right hand. Getting implants meant there was no need to carry an RFID access card around and he could implement his own RFID access control systems instead of buying expensive off-the-shelf products. Amal has now built systems that enable him to access his front door, car door, and log into his computer using his implants, and has written a book called RFID Toys ($US$16.50 here) which details how to build these and other RFID enabled projects and produced a kit of the parts you’ll need (book and kit US$96.85 here). (read more...)
The PanelPod - turns a panel into a display
May 5, 2006 With sound and high resolution graphics, computers can now be used to display anything. You just need a convenient place to put the screen. Which makes the Panel Pod kinda handy. It’s not rocket science – just a convenient way to mount an LCD monitor or LCD TV to a tripod. It has widespread application at trade shows, store merchandising, as an adjunct to any vehicle for “tailgating”, backyard barbecues, home entertainment flexibility and experimanetation and corporate meeting rooms. It’ll handle a 20 inch screen with ease, can be set up and taken down in seconds and will handle up to 18 pounds - US$249 gets you the mount and tripod. (read more...)
Personal Dashboard from Ambient Devices
May 3, 2006 Ambient Devices is a company which specialises in producing glanceable information displays which allow any customer to have a constant awareness of their important information, without the anxiety of 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. (read more...)
Flying Billboard with wireless interactive marketing system
May 3, 2006 As the world of advertising continues to embrace new technologies, we will see some wonderous and compelling new ways to meet people who are selling what we need when we need it. Last week at the National Association of Broadcasters convention in Las Vegas American Blimp Corporation’s Lightship/Lightsign subsidiary unveiled a new advertising platform of sheer genius. We’ve seen a few media concepts of great foresight of recent times, but this promises the hamburger with the lot to advertisers. The A-170 Video Lightsign airship marks a new era of outdoor advertising, one that has been long heralded by scifi writers – flying electronic billboards. It has a high quality colour LED screen measuring 30' X 70' that can be used to broadcast live TV, Internet sites, stock tickers, slide shows or any other media. Indeed, the Lightsign has been designed with such an array of technologies in mind, that it’s really more an integrated marketing medium than an outdoor medium utilizing GPS tracking (changing the message to suit the audience below and the time of day), two-way communication with customers, text messaging and phone tie-ins. Modern materials and technologies now offer what was previously an almost cost prohibitive promotional platform into a very cost-effective, completely portable arsenal of sticky and very effective marketing technologies to target a mass audience or select demographic or any captive audience! Mark our words – this is big! (read more...)
The Beerbelly – stealth beverage container
April 28, 2006 The Beerbelly enables you to take up to 80oz. (2.4 litres) of your favorite beverage wherever you wish ... disguised as a beer belly. Primarily designed to avoid the high price of drinks at sporting events, movies etcetera, and to enable the consumption of alcohol where it’s not allowed, the device is still legally applicable to a wide range of leisure pursuits. The Beerbelly uses an insulated neoprene “sling” and a polyurethane “bladder” worn under your clothing for concealment, masquerades perfectly as a genuine beerbelly, and stays cold for hours! The Beerbelly is not exactly a socially or legally responsible and things could get ugly if you are apprehended, but the Beerbelly web site has thought of all this, offering helpful advice should you be challenged with the device in situ. In such situations the web site has a range of helpful and in some cases quite humourous strategies. (read more...)
The Doffing Headphone
April 24, 2006 Etiquette is the code that governs the expectations of social behavior, the conventional norm. It is an unwritten code, and as per the famous quotation, means behaving yourself a little better than is absolutely essential. The rapid introduction of new technologies such as portable computers, cell phones and portable music players has created a technologically induced disconnect in how we act - they came upon us so suddenly that people have begun to act inappropriately and in many cases, downright rudely. Fortunately, new social protocols are evolving and we laud designer Synnove Fredericks for recognising this and creating a wonderful new social prop - the Doffing Headphone. It was all sparked off by a gentleman's protest against the decline of manners and etiquette in a mens magazine. Synnove read the article and soon after attended a Mobile Clubbing event in Liverpool Street Station in London. A Mobile Clubbing event is where a group of say 200 or so people gather with their personal stereos to listen to their preferred choice of music, while dancing with their friends. Watching the masses, Synnove noticed that social protocols had evolved so people could signify if they wished to remain inside their musical experience or wished to chat. “I noticed they would take one earpiece off if they were greeting someone but didn't want to stop, and both if they were stopping for conversation. This is similar to the tradition of hat doffing where a gentleman raises his hat is raised off the head in acknowledging someone in the street, or taken off and placed under the arm when stopping for conversation, particularly with a lady. So Synnove hatched an idea to “show how accessories can be used to communicate with strangers in a similar way to historical props, walking sticks, umbrellas, glasses etc.” Ladies and gentlemen, The Doffing Headphone (read more...)
Cognitive Tutor 2006 Algebra I, Geometry, and Algebra II mathematics curricula
April 20, 2006 Mathematics underpins our understanding of the universe – it provides a lingua franca for everything we can measure and visualize. Which is why we think the new Cognitive Tutor 2006 software of the Algebra I, Geometry, and Algebra II mathematics curricula are so very important. Having an enthusiastic and knowledgeable teacher/mentor is something few people get to experience with mathematics. Having such attentive coaching and guidance available 24 hours a day during those structured learning years is a gift and it is now available in an extraordinarily advanced form. Carnegie Learning's curricula are based on more than two decades of cognitive science research at Carnegie Mellon University studying how students think, learn, and apply new knowledge in mathematics. The instructional format was developed around an artificial intelligence model that identifies weaknesses in each individual student's mastery of mathematical concepts, customizes prompts to focus on areas where the student is struggling, and prescribes new problems addressing those specific concepts. A Teacher's Toolkit provides the instructor with a report on each student's progress in each area on an ongoing basis and this works particularly well for gifted students – results with exceptional students are also exceptional. If you are a student or have a child who is a student, this is worth a look. (read more...)
Fully-automated DropOff and PickUp Station
April 19, 2006 Automated convenience is a growing market, and we’ve recently written about several interesting developments such as a fresh flowers vending machine, a fully-automated convenience store (no staff) and an intriguing temporary physical Virtual Store. Now the envelope is being pushed even further. Last year eAnytime began work on a medication dispensing system with biometric pre-authorisation to complement its virtual nurse biometric dose dispensing kiosks. Now it has announced an ingenious DropOff & PickUp station that opens up a plethora of new retail possibilities and partnerships. The kiosk (pictured) will enable dry cleaners to partner with supermarket and convenience store chains, large employers, office and apartment building management and hotels. The kiosks are being marketed as a cost effective alternative to staffed drop stores and home and office delivery and when installed in a processing store, can even act as a front-end to a racking system. In addition to dry cleaning, the stations can also address laundering, alterations and repairs, leather apparel, household goods and shoe repair and uniform distribution. (read more...)
Flowcasting the Retail Supply Chain - groundbreaking book
April 18, 2006 As product lifecycles grow impossibly short and the public remains as fickle as ever, one of the most vexing problems facing supply chain managers worldwide is persistent and pervasive out-of-stocks at the retail store shelf. Help may be at hand though, with the launch next month of a new book entitled “Flowcasting the Retail Supply Chain.” To be released on May 21, 2006 at the Retail Systems Conference in Chicago, the new book reveals how a single forecast conducted at the retail shelf level can drive the entire retail supply chain, eliminating forecasting at all other nodes. The book suggests by using "Flowcasting," instead of forecasting at each level of the supply chain, trading partners will be able to be able to remove US$600 Billion (USD) worth of costs out of the US$10.36 Trillion Global Consumers Goods Industry. Read on to see the praise the book has earned already from those who have seen advanced copies. The first five chapters of the book can also be downloaded free of charge … (read more...)
Completely remote PowerPoint presentation tool
April 17, 2006 The Powerpoint presentation remains a crucial corporate communication tool and the latest X-Pointer II Wireless presenters look to us to offer a significant advantage over most other presentation devices. Boasting a 50 metre, the US$180 X-Pointer II operating range allow users complete geographic freedom to walk amongst the audience to read the response, while controlling PowerPoint presentations remotely without the need to physically stand by their computers. The wireless mouse and laser pointer weighs in at just 60g but the ability to have 256 MB of built-in flash memory means you can have your presentation in the remote too – great for plug-and-play functionality after last minute adjustments. The built-in memory means users have the ultimate in mobility as they can save their presentations on the unit without the need for additional disks or drives. X-Pointer is seeking international distribution. (read more...)
Internet advertising growth
April 15, 2006 When the US sneezes, the world catches cold, and in no area is the US more a leader than in media technology and trends. Which augers well for the internet economy with the release of the full 2005 year Nielsen Monitor-Plus, the advertising intelligence service of Nielsen Media Research.. Advertising spending for 2005 rose 4.2% over 2004. Advertising spending increased in many reported media, led by Internet (23.3% gain), National Spanish-Language TV (16.9%) and Cable TV 11%). Local (10.1%) and National Consumer Magazine advertising (6.7%) continued to rebound with healthy gains in 2005 and outdoor media put on a healthy 7.3% gain. (read more...)
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