Springwise | Our selection of new business ideas for 2009 and beyond
http://springwise.com/top10/09/
Innovid - In-video Spaces
http://www.innovid.com/

Interactive Video. Check it out.

cool use of flash and video

advertising integrated into videocontent. interactivity with the user.

this is so cute: a virtual bike lane (using lasers) that displays on the ground around the cyclist, providing drivers with a recognizable boundary they can easily avoid. The idea is to allow riders to take safety into their own hands, rather than leaving it to the city. I want to see one for pedestrians too : )

Awesome. Illuminate your own bike lane with Light lane.

The system projects a virtual bike lane (using lasers!) on the ground around the cyclists, providing drivers with a recognizable boundary they can easily avoid. The idea is to allow riders to take safety into their own hands, rather than leaving it to the city. And just in case you need to be convinced about the need for better cycle saftey, watch this video about the stupidest bike lane in America.

Bike light that creates a virtual bike lane

1. Outcomes, not income. Dumb growth is about incomes - are we richer today than we were yesterday? Smart growth is about people, and how much better or worse off they are - not merely how much junk an economy can churn out. Smart growth measures people's outcomes - not just their incomes. Are people healthier, fitter, smarter, happier?

Outcomes, not income. Connections, not transactions. People, not product. Creativity, not productivity.

Interesting presentation at SXSW from Michael Lopp, senior engineering manager at Apple, who tried to assess how Apple can ‘get’ design when so many other companies try and fail. After describing Apple’s process of delivering consumers with a succession of presents (“really good ideas wrapped up in other really good ideas” — in other words, great software in fabulous hardware in beautiful packaging), he asked the question many have asked in their time: “How the f*ck do you do that?”

In the tactile world, we use our five senses to take in information about our environment and respond to it, Maes explained. But a lot of the information that helps us understand and respond to the world doesn't come from these senses. Instead, it comes from computers and the internet. Maes' goal is to harness computers to feed us information in an organic fashion, like our existing senses. The prototype was built from an ordinary webcam and a battery-powered 3M projector, with an attached mirror -- all connected to an internet-enabled mobile phone. The setup, which costs less than $350, allows the user to project information from the phone onto any surface -- walls, the body of another person or even your hand.

Holy crap.

dude honestly insane

The web has repeatedly demonstrated its ability to evolve and leave embedded franchises struggling or in the dirt. Prodigy, AOL were early candidates. Today Yahoo and Ebay are struggling, and I think Google is tipping down the same path. This cycle of creative destruction — more recently framed as the innovators dilemma — is both fascinating and hugely dislocating for businesses. To see this immense franchises melt before your very eyes — is hard to say the least.

7:09

share

23andMe, I know just three things about her: she's pregnant, she's married to Google's Sergey Brin, and she went to Yale. But after an hour chatting with her in the small office she shares with co-founder Linda Avey at 23andMe's headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., I know some things no Internet search could reveal: coffee makes her giddy, she has a fondness for sequined shoes and fresh-baked

save

$399 saliva test that estimates your predisposition for more than 90 traits and conditions ranging from baldness to blindness. The 600,000 genetic markers that 23andMe identifies and interprets for each customer are "the digital manifestation of you Now personal genotyping is available to anyone who orders the service online and mails in a spit sample.

TIME

web to world!!

ideas innovation tech

diseñador de braun en los 60s

Genius: "The aesthetic quality of a product – and the fascination it inspires – is an integral part of the its utility."

Back in the early 1980s, Dieter Rams was becoming increasingly concerned by the state of the world around him – “an impenetrable confusion of forms, colours and noises.” Aware that he was a significant contributor to that world, he asked himself an important question: is my design good design? As good design cannot be measured in a finite way he set about expressing the ten most important criteria for what he considered was good design. Subsequently they have become known as the ‘Ten commandments’. Here they are.

schönes graues design

design of various objects

These are great principles of design. What a design should be.

Good design is…

Innovation at Honda is fueled by a focus on engineering and problem solving and the proper levels of insight to enable spending and experimentation

Google首席经济学家：I keep saying the sexy job in the next ten years will be statisticians. ... The ability to take data—to be able to understand it, to process it, to extract value from it, to visualize it, to communicate it—that’s going to be a hugely important skill in the next decades, not only at the professional level but even at the educational level for elementary school kids, for high school kids, for college kids. I think statisticians are part of it, but it’s just a part. You also want to be able to visualize the data, communicate the data, and utilize it effectively.

The McKinsey Quarterly - Hal Varian web challenge managers - Strategy - Innovation

Hal Varian, professor of information sciences, business, and economics at the University of California at Berkeley, says it’s imperative for managers to gain a keener understanding of the potential for technology to reconfigure their industries. Varian, currently serving as Google's chief economist, compares the current period to previous times of industrialization when new technologies combined to create ever more complex and valuable systems—and thus reshaped the economy.

By this, I really mean two things: always be a beginner at something, and always be in love with what you are beginning.

a salient reminder: All of those

How to Keep Innovating - BusinessWeek

Always be bad at something you are passionate about.

Keeping innovative.

h was an Olympian. But on the other hand, some of my most valuable lessons were learned from a 14-year-old girl who, w

Must-read Wired article about the new Chief Software Architect of Microsoft - Ray Ozzie. Bill Gates him one of the top 5 programmers in the universe. That's a compliment!

This makes me want to dig up that "Ozzie is trying to build that thing he's been trying to build for the last 25 years; nobody cares, still" article.

Get Wired's take on technology business news and the Silicon Valley scene including IT, media, mobility, broadband, video, design, security, software, networking and internet startups on Wired.com

Really interesting article about the issues facing Microsoft, Cloud Computing and other problems and possibilities for Microsoft.

http://www.fastcompany.com/node/54763/print fastcompany fastcompanyfastcompany NotoWal-Mart

""As I look at the three years Snapper has been with you," he told the vice president, "every year the price has come down. Every year the content of the product has gone up. We're at a position where, first, it's still priced where it doesn't meet the needs of your clientele. For Wal-Mart, it's still too high-priced. I think you'd agree with that. Now, at the price I'm selling to you today, I'm not making any money on it. And if we do what you want next year, I'll lose money. I could do that and not go out of business. But we have this independent-dealer channel. And 80% of our business is over here with them. And I can't put them at a competitive disadvantage. If I do that, I lose everything. So this just isn't a compatible fit."" A repost of an article doing the rounds a few months ago. Not saying nothing about Kindle.

There are a lot of parallels to Web design here.

"Wier traveled to Bentonville with a firm grasp of the values of Snapper, the dynamics of the lawn-mower business, the needs of the dealers, the needs of the Snapper customer, and the needs of the Wal-Mart customer. He was not dazzled by the tens of millions of dollars' worth of lawn mowers Wal-Mart was already selling for Snapper; he was not deluded about his ability to beat Wal-Mart at its own game, to somehow resist the price pressure. He was not imagining that he could take the sales now and figure out the profits later."

Jim Wier, the CEO of Snapper Mowers, flies to Wal-mart headquarters to tell them he no longer wants to offer Snapper mowers in their stores.

Marc Andreessen discusses his new venture fund with Charlie Rose, as well as talking about why Twitter is a good thing

Facebook's redesign, and why customer feedback shouldn't be the only driver of a product's development....

My former boss, Jim Fawcette, used to say that if you asked a group of Porsche owners what they wanted they’d tell you things like “smoother ride, more trunk space, more leg room, etc.” He’d then say “well, they just designed a Volvo.

usage of crowdsourcing wiki

"a search of "what's happening -- right now," and in Twitter's small but growing world, it is. While being a searchable database of what is being said at a particular time is unique, it doesn't take Twitter too far afield from Google, which is a catalog of the world's recorded knowledge. Google looks back at what documents have been produced and can be surfaced, while Twitter looks back at what was said on a given topic. "

"While being a searchable database of what is being said at a particular time is unique, it doesn't take Twitter too far afield from Google, which is a catalog of the world's recorded knowledge. Google looks back at what documents have been produced and can be surfaced, while Twitter looks back at what was said on a given topic. "Certainly there's an AdWords-like business there, but, as Mr. Chaffee told us, Twitter has another "wild card." "In the future, searches won't only query what's being said at the moment, but will go out to the Twitter audience in the form of a question, like a faster and less-filtered Yahoo Answers or Wiki Answers. Users would be able to tap the collective knowledge of the 6 million or so members of the Twitterverse."

from BF

Twitter sees lucrative opportunities in search, albeit a different kind of search than what Google offers, and, as co-founder Biz Stone told Ad Age recently, "we'll certainly be exploring those."

"We take bridges for granted now, but back in the 1800s, bridges were in beta. They fell. One out of every four bridges… fell""We Are Defined By What We Build The Brooklyn Bridge was built from 1870 until 1883."

Rands posts a nice optimistic counter to current economic gloom, citing the Brooklyn Bridge and other 19th century NYC architecture.

History of the Brooklyn Bridge

Truly inspiring

We need a new version of ourselves and that’s going to involve bright, unexpected ideas from those we least expect them from, and they’re going to strike you as impossible. All you need to do to understand these terrifyingly ambitious ideas is to look back at what we’ve already done to understand what we can do.

Shows cities on a innovation scale from McKinsey. The dynamic graphic is particulary good in making a comparion between Europe and the rest of the world.

What Matters, a blog about topics of global importance, curated by McKinsey & Company and featuring essays by respected experts in a variety of disciplines, including biotechnology, climate change, credit crisis, energy, geopolitics, globalization, health care, innovation, the Internet and organization.

Hacking Education article part 2

Last fall I wrote a post on this blog titled Hacking Education. In it, I outlined my thoughts on why the education system (broadly speaking) is failing our society and why hacking it seems like both an important and profitable endeavor.

Big takeaways on changing education

talked about hacking education for six hours.

How education is changing. Annotated link http://www.diigo.com/bookmark/http%3A%2F%2Fwww.avc.com%2Fa_vc%2F2009%2F03%2Fhacking-education-continued.html

What will education be like in the (near) future?

Small, good intentions can bring about great leaps.

Sort of quest/points/prestige based site for encouraging and coordinating social activism. Seems to have no ethos except facilitating action (and making a profit).

From David @armano's Logic+Emotion

ner at Dachis Corp. This my

google labs experimentals

The global economy is being remade before our eyes. Here's what's on the horizon...

The global economy is being remade before our eyes. Here's what's on the horizon

Revista Time lista 10 idéias que estão mudando o mundo tipo agora.

In addition to helping you climb the decision tree, Hunch asks you a bunch of questions about yourself to find out more about what you're like and what you like. Hunch creates a kind of "taste profile" of you and people like you, which combine with topic-specific questions to deliver a hunch just for you.

Caterina.net: Hunch!

A site that makes decisions for you.

Look. Decision-making is difficult, and decisions have to be made constantly. What should I be for Halloween? Do I need a Porsche? Does my hipster facial hair make me look stupid? Is Phoenix a good place to retire? Whom should I vote for? What toe ring should I buy?

Another query with a very sophisticated result was "uncle's uncle's brother's son." Now if you type that into Google, the result will be a useless list of sites that don't even answer this specific question, but Alpha actually returns an interactive genealogic tree with additional information, including data about the 'blood relationship fraction,' for example (3.125% in this case).

The hype around Wolfram|Alpha, the next "Google killer" from the makers of Mathematica, has been building over the last few weeks. Today, we were lucky enough to attend a one-hour web demo with Stephen Wolfram, and from what we've seen, it definitely looks like it can live up to the hype - though, because it is so different from traditional search engines, it will definitely not be a "Google killer."

More impressions on Wolfram Alpha question answering engine

wow.

What would you have printed?

The Espresso Book Machine can print any of 500,000 titles while you wait in 5 minutes

It's not elegant and it's not sexy – it looks like a large photocopier – but the Espresso Book Machine is being billed as the biggest change for the literary world since Gutenberg invented the printing press more than 500 years ago and made the mass production of books possible. Launching today at Blackwell's Charing Cross Road branch in London, the machine prints and binds books on demand in five minutes, while customers wait. Signalling the end, says Blackwell, to the frustration of being told by a bookseller that a title is out of print, or not in stock, the Espresso offers access to almost half a million books, from a facsimile of Lewis Carroll's original manuscript for Alice in Wonderland to Mrs Beeton's Book of Needlework. Blackwell hopes to increase this to over a million titles by the end of the summer – the equivalent of 23.6 miles of shelf space, or over 50 bookshops rolled into one.

Ekachai and Menck see it as their responsibility to teach students about Twitter because social media knowledge is becoming essential to their future fields - communications, advertising, public relations and marketing.

Professors experiment with Twitter as teaching tool

Tim O'Reilly on the future of books.

new web books be ...

But simply putting books onto electronic devices is only the beginning. As I've said for years, that's a lot like pointing a camera at a stage play, and calling it a movie. Yes, that's pretty much what they did in many early movies, but eventually, the tools of production and consumption actually changed the format of what was produced and consumed. ... (+ own "TwitterBook":) The web has changed the nature of how we read and learn. Most books still use the old model of a sustained narrative as their organizational principle. Here, we've used a web-like model of standalone pages, each of which can be read alone (or at most in a group of two or three), to impart key points, highlight interesting techniques or the best applications for a given task.

O'Reilly Radar post from Tim on the #twitterbook

Tim O'Reilly and his O'Reilly media empire are reimagining the way they look at publishing books, and providing some insight into their thought process.

There's a lot of excitement about ebooks these days, and rightly so. While Amazon doesn't release sales figures for the Kindle, there's no question that it represents a turning point in the public perception of ebook devices. And of course, there's Stanza, an open ebook platform for the iPhone, which has been downloaded more than a million times (and now has been bought by Amazon.) But simply putting books onto electronic devices is only the beginning.

Wolfram Alpha,

Forget business models. Focus on ideals. Reconceiving value creation depends on new ideals. Ideals shape what we wish to achieve in the first place: freedom, peace, fairness, justice — all are ideals vastly more powerful than mere business models. That's because they are what ensure the value we are creating is authentic, deep, meaningful value — not just the shabby, threadbare illusion of value.

RT @timoreilly: New post from @umairh on why ideals are the new business models http://tinyurl.com/aeqewz [from http://twitter.com/NicMcPhee/statuses/1325558744]

Take your pick: newspapers, autos, mobile, solar — across the zombieconomy, boardrooms are sweaty-browed with the task of business model redesign. It's the worst downturn for the better part of a century: business model redesign — lower costs, greater efficiency, choosing the most profitable customers and revenue streams — should be every boardroom's first priority, right?

"Forget business models. Focus on ideals. Reconceiving value creation depends on new ideals. Ideals shape what we wish to achieve in the first place: freedom, peace, fairness, justice — all are ideals vastly more powerful than mere business models. That's because they are what ensure the value we are creating is authentic, deep, meaningful value — not just the shabby, threadbare illusion of value."

It isn’t surprising that the tournament directors found Eurisko’s strategies beyond the pale. It’s wrong to sink your own ships, they believed. And they were right. But let’s remember who made that rule: Goliath. And let’s remember why Goliath made that rule: when the world has to play on Goliath’s terms, Goliath wins.

"Insurgents, though, operate in real time. Lawrence hit the Turks, in that stretch in the spring of 1917, nearly every day, because he knew that the more he accelerated the pace of combat the more the war became a battle of endurance—and endurance battles favor the insurgent."

coolness

at ReadWriteWeb — all I can say is <i>thank frickin' goodness "Twitter" was not on the list</i>

It's time for the Web to get smarter, O'Reilly said. Having just become a grandfather, he drew a parallel between the evolution of the web and human development. The early days of search engines were like a child just putting things in its mouth, wondering what they are. Now the web is starting to use all of its senses together to do do something with the information it has access too. Here's where he's seeing that happen.

12 year old girls become basketball heroes by defying convention. SWEET!

"David" can beat "Goliath" by playing by his rules, not the established ones.

When underdogs choose not to play by Goliath’s rules, they win, Arreguín-Toft concluded, “even when everything we think we know about power says they shouldn’t.”

The next generation of local (news) won’t be about news organizations but about their communities. News is just one of the community’s needs. It also needs elegant organization. News companies and networks can help provide that. The bigger goal is to provide platforms that enable communities to do what they want to do, share what they want to share, know what they need to know together.

'...Some people will freely contribute to the news network’s efforts, recording school-board meetings for podcasts, say. Some will be former staff journalists now on their own'

no one believes that 35-person staff can cover Philadelphia as the 300-person newsroom did

how it might work on the net

The latest research suggests a more prosaic, democratic, even puritanical view of the world. The key factor separating geniuses from the merely accomplished is not a divine spark. It’s not I.Q., a generally bad predictor of success, even in realms like chess. Instead, it’s deliberate practice. Top performers spend more hours (many more hours) rigorously practicing their craft.

Genius - The Modern View

IQ persistence and success

"The key factor separating geniuses from the merely accomplished is not a divine spark. It’s not I.Q., a generally bad predictor of success, even in realms like chess. Instead, it’s deliberate practice. Top performers spend more hours (many more hours) rigorously practicing their craft."

What if you used this for reports and you could comment on them in the wave?

Google's Wave may be the future of email, but looks like it will stump Grandpa and Grandma, who are barely grasping webmail. I wonder how well it can be miniaturized to fit on smartphones.

New technologies in store for us over the next 10 years that will make our social (media) lives easier

rate products; be a focus group;get paid (not much)

Google Squared takes a category and creates a starter 'square' of information, automatically fetching and organizing facts from across the web.

Good list.

So, if concepts from books are easy, what’s hard? Doing it. Picking up the phone, making the plan, signing the deal. Pushing ‘publish.’ Announcing. Shipping. We spent a lot of time on this area. Every morning, each person came in prepared to push someone in the group to overcome the next hurdle. This is what growth looks like, and it was energizing to be part of. We didn’t do this at all at when I was at Stanford. We spent a lot of time reading irrelevant case studies and even more time building complex financial models. The thing is, you can now hire someone to build a complex financial model for you for $60 an hour. And a week’s worth of that is just about all the typical entrepreneur is going to need. The rest of the time, it’s about shipping, motivating, leading, connecting, envisioning and engaging. So that’s what we worked on. It amazes me that MBA students around the world aren’t up in arms. How can schools justify taking $100,000 in cash and teaching exactly the wrong stuff?

must

Hal Varian on how the Web challenges managers

I keep saying the sexy job in the next ten years will be statisticians. People think I’m joking, but who would’ve guessed that computer engineers would’ve been the sexy job of the 1990s? The ability to take data—to be able to understand it, to process it, to extract value from it, to visualize it, to communicate it—that’s going to be a hugely important skill in the next decades, not only at the professional level but even at the educational level for elementary school kids, for high school kids, for college kids. Because now we really do have essentially free and ubiquitous data. So the complimentary scarce factor is the ability to understand that data and extract value from it.

"Nice content - awesome presentation! What did you use to make it?!" That's what everyone who sees my BRITE presentation asks me. It's a new service called Prezi. And it's insanely great — the minute I saw it I had to have it, no questions asked. So, for the first time in half a decade, I found myself doing the unthinkable: paying for software.

"Yet, the best business model in the world is also the simplest: make stuff that's insanely great. Stuff that's insanely great does what Prezi does — amazes, enriches, and inspires. That kind of stuff doesn't need a hard sell, a new market, or a convoluted product range. It just needs to be."

Novel search engine that depicts search results as blocks of text and images.

enter your search term ...get a page of quotes and photos and links...visually appealing

A new visual search engine is making the rounds...

When too cool becomes useless. Results are returned in the form of a collage. The cool factor gets in the way of trying to review the results.

The Inside Scoop on Design: Ten Questions with Hartmut Esslinger

Nice design interview.

If a young person wants to be a great designer, what should he or she do? “Design” isn’t a clear-cut talent profession, but one of coordination and catalyst between human needs, science and technology, business and economy, as well as sociology and ecology. The artistic talent required is more of an enabler at the end of rational and emotional analysis as well as strategic conceptualization. Therefore, it is vital to learn and study as much as possible about business, technology and human nature. In the end, there are flavors in design which are more esthetic—see New York Times “Style Magazine”—but design is only relevant when it improves human lives by appealing both to the mind and the heart. Finally, a young person with the right talents needs to have infinite desire and never give up. I apply a simple test with young students: smash a teapot into pieces and then hand out the glue. Those who rebuild the teapot won’t make it, those who create phantasy animals will.

Guy Kawasaki interviews Hartmut Esslinger, the founder of Frog Design on his new book "A Fine Line: How Design Strategies Are Shaping the Future of Business."

Seth's Blog: What kind of open are you looking for? http://bit.ly/5uFRE [from http://twitter.com/dcouturepdx/statuses/2254080263]

Publishing

When incremental change doesn't cut it. "It’s true that stupidity and malevolence do sometimes play a role in the disruption of industries. But in the first part of this essay I’ll argue that even smart and good organizations can fail in the face of disruptive change, and that there are common underlying structural reasons why that’s the case. That’s a much scarier story.""The problem is that your newspaper has an organizational architecture which is, to use the physicists’ phrase, a local optimum. Relatively small changes to that architecture - like firing your photographers - don’t make your situation better, they make it worse.""The only way to get from one organizational architecture to the other is to make drastic, painful changes."An early sign of impending disruption is when there’s a sudden flourishing of startup organizations serving an overlapping customer need...organizational architecture is radically different..."

about scientific publishing disruption, and disruption in general

Scientific publishers should be terrified that some of the world’s best scientists, people at or near their research peak, people whose time is at a premium, are spending hundreds of hours each year creating original research content for their blogs, content that in many cases would be difficult or impossible to publish in a conventional journal. What we’re seeing here is a spectacular expansion in the range of the blog medium. By comparison, the journals are standing still.

The answer is "Yes".

"I was selling in the idea that social media is free, until the community manager headcount came in."

Social media involvement means having live people who actively participate in your initiatives. It requires people - therefore it's not free.

seeding, feeding, and weeding.

This week we saw the release of Chris Anderson's book Free and reviews from the New Yorker (Malcolm Gladwell) and the Financial Times. I'd like to talk a bit about the firestorm that freeconomics (fed by Chris' book) has unleashed...

"Earlier this week, we spoke to several sources who each have some insight into Facebook's financials (none of them know precisely). Taking the sources' input together, we'd estimate the company's expected 2009 revenue this way: * $125 million from brand ads * $150 million from Facebook's ad deal with Microsoft * $75 million from virtual goods * $200 million from self-service ads. "

O SHIT

RT @parislemon: Yeah. So this just happened: Google Drops A Nuclear Bomb On Microsoft. And It’s Made of Chrome. http://bit.ly/MILxF [from http://twitter.com/vitaminjeff/statuses/2528591770]

Wow. So you know all those whispers about a Google desktop operating system that never seem to go away? You thought they might ...

Mitte nächsten Jahres wird Google ein auf Chrome besierendes Betriebssystem auf dem Markt bringen. Spezialisiert auf Netbooks aber insgesamt, wie Techcrunch es formuliert, ist es der Frontalangriff auf Microsoft. Steht uns eine Revolution bevor??? Mehr bei Techcrunch.

for Karl?

Welcome to the Awesome Foundation for Arts and Sciences We support people doing awesome things in the world. Every month we give out a grant. Information on how to submit follows. What is Awesome? Awesomeness is often overlooked by mainstream culture, which tends to rehash the same broadly appealing but mediocre creations. Thankfully, there is the web. Awesomeness is more the product of a creator’s passion than the prospect of audience or profit. Awesome creations are novel and non-obvious, evoking surprise and delight. Invariably, something about them perfectly reflects the essence of the medium, moment, or method of creation. Awesomeness challenges and inspires.

boston cambridge grants awesome idea foundation

Submit an awesome idea. If we pick it, we'll give you $1,000 in cash. Yup, $1,000. Cash. Maybe even in a brown paper bag. You'll also get access to coworking space at BetaHouse for the month of your grant. The only condition is that you be willing to tell us (and some of our friends) about what you did a month later. If we don't pick it, don't stress, we'll pick a new awesome idea next month.

Mowing with goats

Mowing with goats http://ff.im/-2vho7 [from http://twitter.com/chrisbechtel/statuses/1671172628]

Googleが空き地の雑草を200頭のヤギに食べさせて、草刈りをし、山火事を防ぐとともに環境フレンドリーをアピールという話。 このヤギだか羊たちって、僕が5年前にYahoo!のSunnyvaleに滞在していたときも裏の丘にいたんだよね。 実はこれはそういう業者に依頼するのだ。 http://www.californiagrazing.com/ 現地の人間に聞くと、州法だか消防法みたいのがあって、ある規模の企業は定期的に敷地の下草だとか雑草を刈らないとダメみたいだとか言っていた。それを広報に利用するというのは、さすが抜け目のないGoogleだな。

Google mows their lawn with goats http://twurl.nl/5yqfth #green [from http://twitter.com/telesaur/statuses/1698040940]

Estas cabras son explotadas como cortahierbas, pero aunque utilitarismo, no se puede decir de buenas a primeras que las maltraten, pues ellas disfrutan comiendo, a sus anchas. Pero la idea de que no son libres puede atormentar a bastantes. Se comen la hierba seca de Google durante una semana. Decidieron cambiar por cabras a los cortahierbas humanos y contaminantes con sus máquinas de tubo de escape. Son 200 y las dirige Jen, que es un perro, border collie para más señas.

Crowdfunding, or getting many people to donate small amounts of cash to fund a project, startup, or service, is nothing new. Think public radio or television pledge drives. Think political campaigns.

Moore's Law is one of the few Moira threads we've teased out in our short history in the technium. There must be others. Most of the technium's predetermined developments remain hidden, not yet uncovered, by tools not yet invented. But we've learned to look for them. Searching, we can see similar laws peeking out now. These "laws" are reflexes of the technium that kick in regardless of the social climate. They too will spawn progress, and inspire new powers and new desires as they unroll in ordered sequence. Perhaps these self-governing dynamics will appear in genetics, or in pharmaceuticals, or in cognition. Once a dynamic like Moore's Law is launched and made visible, the fuels of finance, competition, and markets will push the law to its limits and keep it riding along that curve until it has consumed its physical potential.

beschreibung, wie innovation bei apple funktioniert

When what you teach and develop every day has the title “Innovation” attached to it, you reach a point where you tire of hearing about Apple. Without question, nearly everyone believes the equation Apple = Innovation is a fundamental truth. Discover what makes them different. By Alain Breillatt

Out of sight in Carol Stream, 42 people move 60,000 discs daily with quiet efficiency. But don't drop off your flicks there.

"And a weekend-scale implementation on a personal site usually translates roughly into a 90-day implementation cycle in a business context, which is a reasonably approachable project size."

Google Wave is an impressive set of technologies, the kind of stunningly slick application that literally makes developers stand up and cheer. I've played with the Google Wave test sandbox a bit, and while it's definitely too complex to live up to the "this will replace email!" hype that greeted its launch, it certainly has some cool features. So the big question is whether Wave will succeed as overall in becoming a popular standard for communications on the web, because Google has made an admirable investment in documenting the underlying platform and making it open enough for others to build on and extend. I think the answer is no, and the reason is because the Wave way is not compatible with the Web way.

Anil thinks Google Wave is too big a step to catch on with developers. What about with users?

The big question is whether Google Wave will succeed as overall in becoming a popular standard for communications on the web, because Google has made an admirable investment in documenting the underlying platform and making it open enough for others to build on and extend. I think the answer is no, and the reason is because the Wave way is not compatible with the Web way.

Google has made an admirable investment in documenting the underlying platform and making it open enough for others to build on and extend. I think the answer is no, and the reason is because the Wave way is not compatible with the Web way.

What Works: The Web Way vs. The Wave Way from @anildash: http://bit.ly/2aid8Y My first impressions: http://bit.ly/31xDt [from http://twitter.com/dhinchcliffe/statuses/3196328125]

Simple forum that uses twitter. Small, simple, and kind of brilliant.

Twitter with threading.

finally here: threads for twitter

Social Web Design by Joshua Porter

Make the very best products. Business will follow.

googlevoice

Kathy forwarded it to me.

Innovative use of numbers, voice and data

Series: The New York Times R&D Lab The New York Times envisions version 2.0 of the newspaper By Zachary M. Seward / May 11 / 9 a.m. The New York Times Co.’s research and development group has some of the best views in their midtown skyscraper — 24 floors above the newsrooms, higher even than the executives’ suites. Developers in the core R&D group — with titles like “lead creative technologist” and, my favorite, “futurist-in-residence” — are charged by the brass 14 floors below them with anticipating how news will next be consumed.

One of the most revolutionary (and simple) inventions EVER in our history. He launched this only a few months ago, but you can be SURE that this will change the world dramatically.

Sistema que permite filtrar agua, eliminando bacterias y virus. Filtro de 20 nanometros.

I plan to use this video to inspire my students to be problem solvers. Prelude to the "We Can Change the World Challenge," maybe?

Education at the crossroads

here are three choices that anyone offering higher education is going to have to make. MIT and Stanford are starting to make classes available for free online. The marginal cost of this is pretty close to zero, so it's easy for them to share. Abundant education is easy to access and offers motivated individuals a chance to learn. Scarcity comes from things like accreditation, admissions policies or small classrooms. Should this be free or expensive? Should this be about school or about learning? If I were going to wager, I'd say that the free, abundant learning combination is the one that's going to change the world.

Actually, there isn't one, there are three choices that anyone offering higher education is going to have to make.

t

What will journalism look like?

Feed your mind: This highly contextual network can provide real-time information from countless feeds and filters. A far cry from today's mobile RSS feeds, the network lets you blog live, trace a history, find a clue, follow a trail, or even uncover a mystery. Screen capture: Your video-enabled mobile device will become an enhanced lens on the world, thanks to a combination of high bandwidth, location-specific information, tremendous processing power, and ultrasmart image processing.whatsoldisnew What's old is new: Depending on your interests, you'll be able to browse through various histories of wherever you find yourself. How did this street look on VJ Day? When was the last time Radiohead played down the road?

With newspapers’ traditional business model in free fall, the top media minds at global design firm IDEO (designer of the Apple mouse, consultant to Fortune 500 companies) were asked to imagine: How will we get our news after the traditional model falls apart? Here's their answer.

wow

Thought you'd be interested in this photo. Fred Page

Great (intelligent) rant on the future of news (via @foraggio)

Among the good points made in this (long) post: "As more journalists are laid-off, the more potential expert bloggers there are..." (originally observed by @JustinNXT).

Top 10 lies Newspaper Execs are Telling Themselves from @Judy_Sims:

Muy completo

The heaviest users of Web 2.0 applications are also enjoying benefits such as increased knowledge sharing and more effective marketing. These benefits often have a measurable effect on the business.

"The heaviest users of Web 2.0 applications are also enjoying benefits such as increased knowledge sharing and more effective marketing. These benefits often have a measurable effect on the business."

heaviest users of Web 2.0 applications are also enjoying benefits such as increased knowledge sharing and more effective marketing. These benefits often have a measurable effect on the business.

Innovation-works company

创新工场是一个全方位的创业平台，旨在培育创新人才和新一代高科技企业。

So with that caveat, here is my list of ten traits I see in great companies. This is aimed at web/tech companies but I believe it can and should be applicable to all companies.

Interesting take on what makes a great company

Yesterday I got to do one of my favorite things. Our portfolio company Etsy invited me out to their new offices in Dumbo to talk to the entire team. Since they didn't ask me to talk about anything in specific,...

Seriously - the most AWESOME SHIT EVER! Wireless Power Motha Fucker!

Eric Giler wants to untangle our wired lives with cable-free electric power. Here, he covers what this sci-fi tech offers, and demos MIT's breakthrough version, WiTricity -- a near-to-market invention that may soon recharge your cell phone, car, pacemaker.

Examples of open government in USA

USA initiatives in eGov and eP

In the Innovations Gallery, the public can browse examples of new ways in which agencies across the Executive branch are using transparency, participation, and collaboration to achieve their mission.

"The Innovations Gallery celebrates the innovators and innovations who are championing the President’s vision of more effective and open government."

The Innovations Gallery celebrates the innovators and innovations who are championing the President’s vision of more effective and open government. In the Innovations Gallery, the public can browse examples of new ways in which agencies across the Executive branch are using transparency, participation, and collaboration to achieve their mission.

EXAMPLES listed on WhiteHouse.gov

list of innovations by the White House that are open to participation

Übersicht der Gov Web Innovationen des White House

WhiteHouse.gov is the official web site for the White House and President Barack Obama, the 44th President of the United States. This site is a source for information about the President, White House news and policies, White House history, and the federal government.

Innovation: it's the ultimate source of advantage, the undisputed heavyweight champion of the economic ring. Innovation is what every organization should be ruthlessly pursuing, right? Wrong. I'd like to advance a hypothesis: awesomeness is the new innovation.

"Let's summarize. What is awesomeness? Awesomeness happens when thick — real, meaningful — value is created by people who love what they do, added to insanely great stuff, and multiplied by communities who are delighted and inspired because they are authentically better off. That's a better kind of innovation, built for 21st century economics. I've talked to many boardrooms about awesomeness. Beancounters feel challenged and threatened by it, because it feels fuzzy and imprecise. Yet, it's anything but. Gen M knows "awesomeness" when we see it — that's why its part of our vernacular. It's a precise concept, with meaning, depth, and resonance."

Let's face it. "Innovation" feels like a relic of the industrial era. And it just might be the case that instead of chasing innovation, we should be innovating innovation — that innovation needs innovation. Why? When we examine the economics of innovation, three reasons emerge.

Noticias de última generación.

news from research universities

For this year's list, we walked right past the usual suspects and went looking for trouble. We wanted radicals, heretics, agitators—big thinkers with controversial, game-changing propositions. We found a prison reformer who wants to empty jails, an economist who thinks foreign aid hurts more than it helps, and a military theorist who believes the US should launch preemptive cyberattacks, right now.

But sometimes, it makes sense to think of the real world as an interface. To design user interactions that make use of how people actually see the world -to take advantage of first person user interfaces.

First Details of Microsoft's Secret Tablet

Esittelyvideon perusteella tuo virtuaalimoleskin vaikuttaa lupaavalta. Erittäin lupaavalta.

Courier -Microsoft's Tablet

To watch the video, you'll first need to install the flash player.

It feels like the whole world is holding its breath for the Apple tablet. But maybe we&#039;ve all been dreaming about the wrong device. This is Courier, Microsoft&#039;s astonishing take on the tablet.

Leaders retire with $, but then get bored, then have to do something else. Should have stuck with it

As a MINT user, the only real question I had was whether I trust my data in the hands of Intuit. I have decided to take that chance until I learn something differently.

"As more great new companies are absorbed into big old companies, a whole new generation of change is lost. They can issue press releases saying how excited they are to be able to bring their product to a whole new world of customers, and how their new suitor will bring enormous resources to bear, but we know that’s usually not really what happens. Development slows, products stall, the staff that built the great stuff leaves, and mediocrity creeps in. Not always, but usually."

Leave it beh

"I've been having great success with a hybrid of the yellow legal pad and a printed presentation from Keynote (or Powerpoint). I use it during small meetings where more interactivity is useful, and where the group is too small for a laptop to be the best way to present slides (I think running a presentation says, "I talk, you listen...")"

Thinking of my almost unused Muji Chronotebook..

I love how Seth's brain works... while so many people are thinking of how complicated and hi tech they need to become in order to make points and get through to people, Seth works in the opposite direction in order to simplify things and challenge the status quo. I never would have thought of this had he not posted it.

That's a good idea! A new way to do presentations

Talks and keynotes

out being sustained by people who cared about experimentation and exploration. Sometimes these people were relatives, but sometimes they were neighbors, teachers or other influential adults. A number of the innovative entrepreneurs also went to Montessori schools, where they learned to follow their curiosity. To paraphrase the famous Apple ad campaign, innovators not only learned early on to think different, they act different (and even talk different).

How Do Innovators Think? 5:21 PM Monday September 28, 2009 by Bronwyn Fryer Tags:Creativity, Innovation, Leadership What makes visionary entrepreneurs such as Apple's Steve Jobs, Amazon's Jeff Bezos, Ebay's Pierre Omidyar and Meg Whitman, and P&G's A.G. Lafley tick? In a question-and-answer session with HBR contributing editor Bronwyn Fryer, Professors Jeff Dyer of Brigham Young University and Hal Gregersen of Insead explain how the "Innovators' DNA" works.This post is part of HarvardBusiness.org's Creativity at Work special package. Fryer: You conducted a six-year study surveying 3,000 creative executives and conducting an additional 500 individual interviews. During this study you found five "discovery skills" that distinguish them. What are these skills? Dyer: The first skill is what we call "associating." It's a cognitive skill that allows creative people to make connections across seemingly unrelated questions, problems, or ideas. The second skill is questioning - an abilit

"What really happens in crowdsourcing as it is practiced in wide variety of contexts, from Wikipedia to open source to scientific research, is that a problem is broadcast to a large number of people with varying forms of expertise. Then individuals motivated by obsession, competition, money or all three apply their individual talent to creating a solution."

Does crowdsourcing exist as it is popularly conceived? Yes, it does, but it doesn't have anything to do with innovation. Jigsaw, the community-created database of 16 million business contacts, is crowdsourcing. Tens of thousands of people have added business contacts to Jigsaw's database so they can earn points and get access to business contacts entered by others. Jigsaw sells this data to companies, generating millions in revenue. Jigsaw is the only true crowdsourced business I know of. The other businesses mentioned in the crowdsourcing category, Innocentive, Threadless, Spreadshirt, iStockPhoto, are really versions of Wikipedia, that is, aggregations of the inventions of individual virtuosos. Other large projects, like Linux, Apache ( APA - news - people ) and GIMP, are virtuoso creations around which consortiums of experts have gathered.

What really happens in crowdsourcing as it is practiced in wide variety of contexts, from Wikipedia to open source to scientific research, is that a problem is broadcast to a large number of people with varying forms of expertise. Then individuals motivated by obsession, competition, money or all three apply their individual talent to creating a solution.

great article that most crowdsourcing is about broadcasting to people with training. however, this is challenged by pitting 100 semitrained folk against individual virtuosos. the 100 semitrained folk win.

"... in the popular press, and in the minds of millions of people, the word crowdsourcing has created an illusion that there is a crowd that solves problems better than individuals. ... There is no crowd in crowdsourcing. There are only virtuosos, usually uniquely talented, highly trained people who have worked for decades in a field. Frequently, these innovators have been funded through failure after failure. From their fervent brains spring new ideas. The crowd has nothing to do with it. The crowd solves nothing, creates nothing. What really happens in crowdsourcing ... is that a problem is broadcast to a large number of people with varying forms of expertise. Then individuals motivated by obsession, competition, money or all three apply their individual talent to creating a solution." Author: Dan Woods, Forbes.com, Sept. 29, 2009.

Interesting way to collect user feedback

Vote for new features to Google products

You decide what's important for Google products: Tell us what you think about your favorite Google products. Big ideas or small thoughts, we want to know! # Everyone's voice is heard The voting box at the top of page focuses attention on submissions recently added and on the rise, making it simple and easy to participate. # See what others are saying Look at the "What's Hot" and "Recent Ideas" at the top of each topic to see what other users are saying and voting on right now. Agree with these ideas? Vote them up. Disagree? Vote them down.

Tú decides como evolucionan los productos de Google "Google Product Ideas" http://j.mp/17hGx0

Dê sugestões de novos produtos, e vote no seu favorito.

Earlier this year at the TED conference, Pattie Maes from the MIT Media Lab's Fluid Interfaces Group showcased a wearable computing system that allows users to display and interact with the Web on any surface - including the human body. The video shows the system's main developer, Pranav Mistry, taking photographs with his hand, summoning up Amazon review data onto the cover of a physical book, displaying information about a person he's just met on their tee-shirt, and calling someone by inputting a phone number onto the palm of his hand.

10 years off... Look out mobile phones, because in a decade's time wearable systems may be the primary means of accessing the Web "The current system, albeit relatively clunky, could be purchased for as little as $350. Essentially it is made up of a webcam, a battery-powered 3M projector, mirror, phone and colored finger caps. But in 10 years - according to Maes, the period of time when this type of system might be fully developed - it could be one device and as small as a watch. Or indeed maybe even a brain implant."

Ten Teen Entrepreneurs To Watch

A great idea for human computer interaction using a large multitouch surface

remind you of anything? iphone functionality

Meh.

"The purpose of the 10/GUI concept video is to inform, inspire, and start discussions. An ocean of experimentation, iteration, investment, and adoption lies between these early ideas and whatever the future of HCI will hold. Will the principles of 10/GUI prove viable? To test these waters is the only way to find out"

It's almost a truism in the tech world that copyright owners reflexively oppose new inventions that do (or might) disrupt existing business models. But how many techies actually know what rightsholders have said and written for the last hundred years on the subject?

GOOD is a collaboration of individuals, businesses, and nonprofits pushing the world forward.

Creative Search is a search engine that gives you sorted results. Results for: D&AD

The Dyson Air Multiplier™ fan works very differently to conventional fans. It uses Air Multiplier™ technology to draw in air and amplify it 15 times, producing an uninterrupted stream of smooth air. With no blades or grill, it’s safe, easy to clean and doesn’t cause unpleasant buffeting.

nuts

ventilador sem abas!

This is the power of collaborative news networks. By forming a network, newsrooms can discover not just a greater volume of news, but a greater volume of relevant, high-quality news than one person, one newsroom, or one wire service could alone.

innowacja w dziennikarstwie polegająca na kolaboracji i użyciu twittera...

Bon pour le mémoire

To discover great hacks, we must always be searching for the true nature of our reality

An interesting perspective on hacking and systems, particularly relevant to the Saving Game

Interesting gadget but I don't want to buy it by $800.

powerful tool in combination with social networking

The ViconRevue was originally developed as the SenseCam by Microsoft Research Cambridge, UK, for researchers studying Alzheimer's and other dementias. Studies showed that reviewing the events of the day using SenseCam photos could help some people improve long-term recall.

This article talks about enabling "lifeloggers" who attempt to electronically record as much of their life as possible. This reminds me a lot about Chris Pirillo and the camera he has setup, but also the lightening round we just had about 3D google mapping using cameras.

"Worn on a cord around the neck, the camera takes pictures automatically as often as once every 30 seconds. It also uses an accelerometer and light sensors to snap an image when a person enters a new environment, and an infrared sensor to take one when it detects the body heat of a person in front of the wearer. It can fit 30,000 images onto its 1-gigabyte memory."

A camera you can wear as a pendant to record every moment of your life will soon be launched by a UK-based firm.

Capture it all automatically

A camera you can wear as a pendant to record every moment of your life will soon be launched by a UK-based firm. Originally invented to help jog the memories of people with Alzheimer's disease, it might one day be used by consumers to create "lifelogs" that archive their entire lives. Worn on a cord around the neck, the camera takes pictures automatically as often as once every 30 seconds. It also uses an accelerometer and light sensors to snap an image when a person enters a new environment, and an infrared sensor to take one when it detects the body heat of a person in front of the wearer. It can fit 30,000 images onto its 1-gigabyte memory.

Christian Muoz-Donoso is going to make this job pay, he's got to move quickly. He has a list of 10 videos to shoot on this warm June morning, for

The result is a factory stamping out moneymaking content. “I call them the Henry Ford of online video,” says Jordan Hoffner, director of content partnerships at YouTube. Media companies like The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, AOL, and USA Today have either hired Demand or studied its innovations. This year, the privately held Demand is expected to bring in about $200 million in revenue; its most recent round of financing by blue-chip investors valued the company at $1 billion. In this industrial model of content creation, Muñoz-Donoso is working the conveyor belt — being paid very little for cranking out an endless supply of material. He admits that the results are not particularly rewarding, but work is work, and Demand’s is steady and pays on time. Plus, he says, “this is the future.” He has shot more than 40,000 videos for Demand, filming yo-yo whizzes, pole dancers, and fly fishermen. But ask him to pick a favorite and he’s stumped. “I can’t really remember most of them,” he says.

First, to find out what terms users are searching for, it parses bulk data purchased from search engines, ISPs, and Internet marketing firms (as well as Demands own traffic logs). Then the algorithm crunches keyword rates to calculate how much advertisers will pay to appear on pages that include those terms. (A portion of Demands revenue comes from Google, which allows businesses to bid on phrases that they would like to advertise against.)

Demand Media has created a virtual factory that pumps out 4,000 videoclips and articles a day. It starts with an algorithm. The algorithm is fed inputs from three sources: Search terms (popular terms from more than 100 sources comprising 2 billion searches a day), the ad market (a snapshot of which keywords are sought after and how much they are fetching), and the competition (whats online already and where a term ranks in search results).

the future is mechanical, cheap, shallow

With just one coat, IdeaPaint turns any surface into a dry-erase board.

One fantastic product.

Nice.

Good article of collaboration

by James Manyika, Kara Sprague and Lareina Yee: Knowledge workers fuel innovation and growth, yet the nature of knowledge work remains poorly understood—as do the ways to improve its effectiveness. The heart of what knowledge workers do on the job is collaborate, which in the broadest terms means they interact to solve problems, serve customers, engage with partners, and nurture new ideas. Technology and workflow processes support knowledge worker success and are increasingly sources of comparative differentiation. Those able to use new technologies to reshape how they work are finding significant productivity gains. This article shares our research on how technology can improve the quality and output of knowledge workers.

Using technology to improve workforce collaboration

If you're worthy of entry, they'll give you an intro to someone else they deem cool.

Introductory service for geeks

Stunning directory of NY Times visualisations

HOLY VISUALISATION BATMAN!

Oooh shiny

every NYT interactive project

William Kamkwamba educated himself in his local library

RT @GREENTOWNREV: One of the best examples of the spirit of the #ENTREPRENEUR. What an inspiration! http://bit.ly/3wkHzV [from http://twitter.com/GoodMillwork/statuses/4740150119]

top post exploring the implications of 'social-ness' on interaction design - must read for anyone designing sites for participation & collaboration

Listening to Jeff Bezos, founder and chief executive officer of Amazon, is like going to startup school where you learn that failure is part of entrepreneurial growth. Whenever I have talked to Bezos in the past, the things that have stuck in my head have been his willingness to be wrong and his unflinching abhorrence of the status quo. At the Wired Business Conference in New York City, Bezos reiterated some of those points in a conversation with writer Steven Levy.

Innovation is hard for large companies because you need to be long-term oriented. And since the innovative projects are such a tiny part of a large company, there is tendency to be dismissive of the innovation. “You need a culture that high-fives small and innovative ideas and senior executives [that] encourage ideas,” he said. In order for innovative ideas to bear fruit, companies need to be willing to “wait for 5-7 years, and most companies don’t take that time horizon.”

digital

"What the innovators have in common is that they can put together ideas and information in unique combinations that nobody else has quite put together before."

After a six-year study, researchers say they've found the five traits shared by all great innovators. Brilliant blue-sky thinking, they say, springs from acute observation and the active pursuit of new experiences -- and that's something anyone can learn to do. "Studies have shown that creativity is close to 80% learned and acquired," says one researcher. "We found that it's like exercising your muscles -- if you engage in the actions you build the skills."

"In an article published in December's Harvard Business Review the researchers identified five skills that separate the blue-sky innovators from the rest -- skills they labeled associating, questioning, observing, experimenting and discovering."

"The way they act is to observe actively, like an anthropologist, and they talk to incredibly diverse people with different world views, who can challenge their assumptions,"

Summary on a HBR December 2009 Article- 5 Keys to innovation, based on research HBS & Bringham Young 6 year study of 3K executives and 500 entrepreneurs: 1) Associating: The ability to connect seemingly unrelated questions, problems or ideas from different fields; 2) Questioning: Innovators constantly ask questions that challenge the common wisdom. They ask "why?", "why not?" and "what if?"; 3) Observing: Discovery-driven executives scrutinize common phenomena, particularly the behavior of potential customers; 4) Experimenting: Innovative entrepreneurs actively try out new ideas by creating prototypes and launching pilots; 5) Networking: innovators go out of their way to meet people with different ideas and perspectives

to read

A recession-induced need for cash, and an ever-growing infrastructure enabling individuals to act as (part-time) entrepreneurs, are fueling concepts that help ordinary consumers make money instead of just spending it.

Ads | While Google AdWords still brings in the money for bloggers, Magpie now inserts adverts into SELLSUMERS' Twitter feeds.

No one knows how the microblogging site and similar online social networks will make money, but investors see a new Web revolution

The uncertainty is keeping some investors on the sidelines. Jeffrey M. Crowe, general partner at Norwest Venture Partners, says his firm has looked at several real-time companies but hasn't pulled the trigger on funding. "The jury is still out on how much value gets delivered beyond Twitter itself," he says.

But there's a method behind the mania. In just the past couple of years, several developments have come together to make the Web more of a real-time experience: ubiquitous high-speed Internet connections; a growing number of mobile devices such as the iPhone with full Web browsers; and new Web technologies that enable instant transmission of messages and data. That mix has made always-on, real-time communications easy and addictive. The iconic example, Twitter, attracted 44.5 million people to its Web site in June, plus perhaps an equivalent number who gain access to its services via other sites and software. Facebook's 250 million active users, whose instant status updates are a key part of its appeal, share more than 1 billion videos, photos, and other content each week. "Real-time" is actually a bit of a misnomer. Most of this activity doesn't truly occur in real time,

But there's a method behind the mania. In just the past couple of years, several developments have come together to make the Web more of a real-time experience: ubiquitous high-speed Internet connections; a growing number of mobile devices such as the iPhone with full Web browsers; and new Web technologies that enable instant transmission of messages and data. That mix has made always-on, real-time communications easy and addictive. The iconic example, Twitter, attracted 44.5 million people to its Web site in June, plus perhaps an equivalent number who gain access to its services via other sites and software. Facebook's 250 million active users, whose instant status updates are a key part of its appeal, share more than 1 billion videos, photos, and other content each week. "Real-time" is actually a bit of a misnomer. Most of this activity doesn't truly occur in real time,

A new folding plug design plus an adaptor that is a big improvement. A great example of how people take the ordinary for granted

Improving the UK 3-pin plug, so it isn't such a big cumbersome thing.

A touch of genius...

A picture is worth a thousand words.No need to type your search anymore. Just take a picture. Find out what businesses are nearby.Just point your phone at a store. This is just the beginning - it's not quite perfect yet.Works well for some things, but not for all. Your pictures, your control.Turn on 'visual search history' to view or share your pictures at any time. Turn it off to discard them once the search is done.

"Use pictures to search the web."

nice simple, minimalist design. innovate product design showcase. very nice.

Relogik.com was created in 2009 as a showcase of Damjan Stanković, designer specialized in industrial, identity, interface and concept design. Damjan is currently based in Belgrade, Serbia.

Igy kell kutatást csinálni a mai világban.

your arm. Together, the sling and the shot could save millions of lives. That's why he spent $50 million of his own money developing the

Once again, The Times Magazine looks back on the past year from our favored perch: ideas. Like a magpie building its nest, we have hunted eclectically, though not without discrimination, for noteworthy notions of 2009 — the twigs and sticks and shiny paper scraps of human ingenuity, which, when collected and woven together, form a sort of cognitive shelter, in which the curious mind can incubate, hatch and feather. Unlike birds, we can also alphabetize. And so we hereby present, from A to Z, the most clever, important, silly and just plain weird innovations we carried back from all corners of the thinking world. To offer a nonalphabetical option for navigating the entries, this year we have attached tags to each item indicating subject matter. We hope you enjoy.

Die Ideen des Jahres 2009 aus den Bereichen, Kunst, Business, Kultur, Design, Gesundheit, Wissenschaft, Politik, Sport und Technologie, ausgesucht von der New York Times

Really nice summary of where we're headed.

This time last year, I wrote about the 10 ways social media will change 2009, and while all predictions have materialized or are on their way, it has ...

december 2009

Alan was co-founder of Fast Company magazine and former editorial director of the Harvard Business Review. More specifically related to this post, Alan developed a very interesting habit more than 20 years ago, when he began to carry a supply of 3 x 5 index cards wherever life took him. He wrote down and collected the lessons and insights he gleaned from his experiences travelling the world and in his interactions with people ranging from CEOs and spiritual leaders to basketball coaches, novelists, and stars from dozens of other worlds… His new book, Rules of Thumb, is a collection of 52 truths he’s culled from these notes specifically related to winning in business. I asked him if I could have an exclusive excerpt, and he graciously agreed.

Think outside the box. Do it different than its being done.

Start-up Strategy

RULE #24 – If you want to change the game, change the economics of how the game is played.

"You, Randall Stephenson, and your lazy stupid company — you are the problem. You are what’s wrong with this country."

Brilliant take on AT

Fake Steve Jobs has a fake conversation with AT&T's CEO, hitting close to home in a real way.

A glorious FSJ rant: "And now here we are. Right here in your own backyard, an American company creates a brilliant phone, and that company hands it to you, and gives you an exclusive deal to carry it — and all you guys can do is complain about how much people want to use it. You, Randall Stephenson, and your lazy stupid company — you are the problem. You are what’s wrong with this country." (via @gruber)

Worth reading from A-Z.

Once again, The Times Magazine looks back on the past year from our favored perch: ideas.

las mejores ideas de '09 ordenadas alfabéticamente por NYTimes

Here you can see a demo of design software called ARToolWorks which was posted on Gizmodo earlier this week. ARToolWorks is a mobile phone application that allows you to design 3D objects that pop up out of scenes you view through your mobile's camera. So instead of a map over the city of Amsterdam, you might see giant robots trashing it or psychedelic flowers growing out of a hash bar.

Augmented reality is a technology futurists and scifi authors like Vernor Vinge have been talking about for decades. Now the tech has matured and is entering the market. Two videos of new products show you the near future.

Now our technology can actually do this, using smart phones as a crude mobile interface. In these demo videos below, we're getting a first glimpse of what happens when the internet comes out of the box and into the real world.

iphone+andriod+AR

TechCrunch blogs about "life recorders". I want one ASAP and have since Wired wrote up Microsoft's SenseCam research. http://bit.ly/2lJ2rZ [from http://twitter.com/JMaultasch/statuses/3823778835]

In fact I’ve already spoken with one startup that has been working on a device like this for over a year now, and may go to market with it in 2010.

Creativity, Innovation, Team Building, Leadership, Brainstorming, Idea Champions

Good Ideas to create a atmosphere for innovation

My partner Ben Horowitz and I are delighted to announce the formation of our new venture capital firm, Andreessen Horowitz, and our first fund -- $300 million in size -- aimed purely at investing in the best new entrepreneurs, products,...

Marc Andreessen's blog

My partner Ben Horowitz and I are delighted to announce the formation of our new venture capital firm, Andreessen Horowitz, and our first fund -- $300 million in size -- aimed purely at investing in the best new entrepreneurs, products, and companies in the technology industry.

The climate in Belgium will support free cooling almost year-round, according to Google engineers, with temperatures rising above the acceptable range for free cooling about seven days per year on average. The average temperature in Brussels during summer reaches 66 to 71 degrees, while Google maintains its data centers at temperatures above 80 degrees.

Google’s Chiller-less Data Center

最新のデータセンターは冷却設備を持たない

"Google (GOOG) has begun operating a data center in Belgium that has no chillers to support its cooling systems, a strategy that will improve its energy efficiency while making local weather forecasting a larger factor in its data center management. [..]So what happens if the weather gets hot? On those days, Google says it will turn off equipment as needed in Belgium and shift computing load to other data centers. This approach is made possible by the scope of the company’s global network of data centers, which provide the ability to shift an entire data center’s workload to other facilities. [..]The ability to seamlessly shift workloads between data centers also creates intriguing long-term energy management possibilities, including a “follow the moon” strategy which takes advantage of lower costs for power and cooling during overnight hours. In this scenario, virtualized workloads are shifted across data centers in different time zones to capture savings from off-peak utility rates."

マトリックスみたいだ！

Offline classroom compared to an online classroom

Screw ups, disasters, misfires, flops. Why losing big can be a winning strategy.

"There are advantages to thinking on the margin. When we look at a problem from the outside, we’re more likely to notice what doesn’t work. Instead of suppressing the unexpected, shunting it aside with our 'Oh shit!' circuit and Delete key, we can take the mistake seriously. A new theory emerges from the ashes of our surprise."

"This is why other people are so helpful: They shock us out of our cognitive box."

Over the past few decades, psychologists have dismantled the myth of objectivity. The fact is, we carefully edit our reality, searching for evidence that confirms what we already believe. Although we pretend we’re empiricists — our views dictated by nothing but the facts — we’re actually blinkered, especially when it comes to information that contradicts our theories. The problem with science, then, isn’t that most experiments fail — it’s that most failures are ignored.

Article about the messiness of science, its failures and how an “in vivo” investigation that attempted to learn from the messiness of real experiments -

Aggression and innovation wins. Period.

Why Yahoo gave up the ship and how Microsoft values different product lines

"The lesson for all startups–and BDC’s (big dumb companies)–is that innovation is all you have. Once you stop innovating you lose your talent and you lose the race. Never. Stop. Innovating. Never. Never. Never."

What matters now - commentary from thought leaders on the key challenges ahead

Big thoughts and small actions make a difference. Things to think about (and do) this year

A new MacGyver-esque cellphone hack could bring cheap, on-the-spot disease detection to even the most remote villages on the planet. Using only an LED, plastic light filter and some wires, scientists at UCLA have modded a cellphone into a portable blood tester capable of detecting HIV, malaria and other illnesses.

UCLA scientists combine hacked cell phone and machine vision to do on the spot blood-disease testing - http://bit.ly/dhvZ [from http://twitter.com/nealrichter/statuses/1362446459]

Mobile phone modified with lens and coherent light source to detect diseases e.g. HIV in blood

Scientists Hack Cellphone to Analyze Blood, Detect Disease, Help Developing Nations

Penenberg, Adam (Fast Company, Julio 2009)

Amazon aims to disintermediate publishers by working directly w/ authors

01/27/10 iPad Announcement video

ipad

Watch Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveil the revolutionary new iPad. See the video-on-demand event right here, exclusively in QuickTime and MPEG-4.

Desde Yerba Buena Center

Hardware is becoming much more like software.

The door of a dry-cleaner-size storefront in an industrial park in Wareham, Massachusetts, an hour south of Boston, might not look like a portal to the future of American manufacturing, but it is. This is the headquarters of Local Motors, the first open source car company to reach production. Step inside and the office reveals itself as a mind-blowing example of the power of micro-factories.

“In the age of democratized industry, every garage is a potential micro-factory, every citizen a potential micro-entrepreneur 1) INVENT dream up your own. Pro tip: Check the PTO first 2) DESIGN Use free tools like Blender or Google’s SketchUp to create a 3-D digital model of your invention. Or download someone else’s design and incorporate your groundbreaking tweaks. 3) PROTOTYPE desktop 3-D printers like MakerBot are available for under $1,000. Just upload a file and watch the machine render your vision in layered ABS plastic. 4) MANUFACTURE The garage is fine for limited production, to go big, global — outsource. Factories in China are standing by; sites like Alibaba.com can help you find the right partner. 5) SELL Market your product directly to customers via an online store like SparkFun — or set up your own ecommerce outfit through a company like Yahoo or Web Studio. Then haul your golden goose to Maker Faire and become the poster child for the DIY industrial revolution.”

Chris Andersen's latest book outline http://bit.ly/6ty5BX [from http://twitter.com/jamescrabtree/statuses/8357654578]

It’s tough enough for a small business. What if you’re #2 on Business Week’s best global brands list, with nearly 400,000 employees across 170 countries? At IBM, it’s about losing control.

Good post on LOSING CONTROL in #socmedia "How IBM Uses Social Media to Spur Employee Innovation | Social Media Examiner" http://j.mp/bqP38E

A case study on IBM's decentralized social media program which relies on crowd-sourcing and is driving unprecedented collaboration and innovation.

Seth Godin's Pearls of Wisdom. We love lists and Seth's list is impossibly insightful. It must be read and spread.

A great, short list of useful thoughts and tips for anyone who wants to grow a business or gain momentum for their new idea.

Random rules for ideas worth spreading

Don't plan on appearing on a reality show as the best way to launch your idea

SixthSense technology | Video on TED.com

via http://slashdot.org/story/10/02/04/210238/How-Infighting-Hampers-Innovation-At-Microsoft + http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/ay7zf/microsofts_creative_destruction_by_former_vp_dick/

"Some people take joy in Microsoft’s struggles, as the popular view in recent years paints the company as an unrepentant intentional monopolist. Good riddance if it fails. But those of us who worked there know it differently. At worst, you can say it’s a highly repentant, largely accidental monopolist. It employs thousands of the smartest, most capable engineers in the world. More than any other firm, it made using computers both ubiquitous and affordable. Microsoft’s Windows operating system and Office applications suite still utterly rule their markets."

AS they marvel at Apple’s new iPad tablet computer, the technorati seem to be focusing on where this leaves Amazon’s popular e-book business. But the much more important question is why Microsoft, America’s most famous and prosperous technology company, no longer brings us the future, whether it’s tablet computers like the iPad, e-books like Amazon’s Kindle, smartphones like the BlackBerry and iPhone, search engines like Google, digital music systems like iPod and iTunes or popular Web services like Facebook and Twitter.

Microsoft never developed a true system for innovation.

Microsoft no longer brings us the future.

By DICK BRASS Published: February 4, 2010 Why Microsoft, America’s most famous and prosperous technology company, has failed to bring us the future.

Oxo

How to make a useful measuring cup

alex lee of smart design (oxo's external design firm) on their work. highlights: recognizing pet peeves and making obvious solutions for unnoticed problems. helping people without the stigma of letting them know they're being helped. simply needing keen observation to solve some types of problems.

Oxo measuring cup

A conversation on the design of OXO's measuring cups, plus a link to GEL conference.

whoa

Bloom Energy is changing the way the world generates and consumes energy. Our unique on-site power generation systems utilize an innovative new fuel cell technology with roots in NASA's Mars program. Derived from a common sand-like powder, and leveraging breakthrough advances in materials science, our technology is able to produce clean, reliable, affordable power,... practically anywhere,... from a wide range of renewable or traditional fuels. Our Energy Servers™ are among the most efficient energy generators on the planet; providing for significantly reduced electricity costs and dramatically lower greenhouse gas emissions. By generating power on-site, where it is consumed, Bloom Energy offers increased electrical reliability and improved energy security, providing a clear path to energy independence.

Bloom Box!!!

Localized energy "servers" for your home.

OPEN Forum by American Express OPEN | |

Something is elegant if it is two things at once: unusually simple and surprisingly powerful. One without the other leaves you short of elegant. And sometimes the “unusual simplicity” isn’t about what’s there, it’s about what isn’t. At first glance, elegant things seem to be missing something.

I believe this "more features = better" mindset is at the root of the misjudgment, and is also the reason why so many otherwise smart people are bad at product design (e.g. most open source projects).

Pick three key attributes or features, get those things very, very right, and then forget about everything else.

What's the right approach to new products? Pick three key attributes or features, get those things very, very right, and then forget about everything else. Those three attributes define the fundamental essence and value of the product -- the rest is noise. For example, the original iPod was: 1) small enough to fit in your pocket, 2) had enough storage to hold many hours of music and 3) easy to sync with your Mac (most hardware companies can't make software, so I bet the others got this wrong). That's it -- no wireless, no ability to edit playlists on the device, no support for Ogg -- nothing but the essentials, well executed. ...By focusing on only a few core features in the first version, you are forced to find the true essence and value of the product.

Even in these tough times, surprising and extraordinary efforts are under way in businesses across the globe. From politics to technology, energy, and transportation; from marketing to retail, health care, and design, each company on the following pages illustrates the power and potential of innovative ideas and creative execution.

the inner planner in me gets such a rush from this

RT @javiercelaya: Primeras imágenes de la tableta de MS http://ping.fm/O4CDH

We've been dying to know more about Microsoft's Courier tablet / e-book device ever since we first caught wind of it last September, and while our entreaties to Mr. Ballmer went unanswered, we just learned some very interesting information from an extremely trusted source. We're told Courier will function as a "digital journal," and it's designed to be seriously portable: it's under an inch thick, weighs a little over a pound, and isn't much bigger than a 5x7 photo when closed. That's a lot smaller than we expected -- this new picture really puts it into perspective -- and the internals apparently reflect that emphasis on mobility: rather than Windows 7, we're told the Courier is built on Tegra 2 and runs on the same OS as the Zune HD, Pink, and Windows Mobile 7 Series, which we're taking to mean Windows CE 6.

Exclusive pictures and details (update: video!)

We've been dying to know more about Microsoft's Courier tablet / e-book device ever since we first caught wind of it last September, and while our entreaties to Mr. Ballmer went unanswered, we just learned some very interesting information from an extremely trusted source. We're told Courier will function as a "digital journal," and it's designed to be seriously portable: it's under an inch thick, weighs a little over a pound, and isn't much bigger than a 5x7 photo when closed.

Tegra 2

RT @TomL Fancy Social Media experiment by Procter & Gamble - http://tinyurl.com/djmf67 [from http://twitter.com/theholodeck/statuses/1317128065]

now what?

social media PPT

BATAVIA, Ohio (AdAge.com) -- ­Procter & Gamble Co. paired 40 digital media and agency executives with 100 of its North American marketing directors in a contest to sell Tide T-shirts for charity last night as its much-awaited "Digital Hack Night" became a four-hour reality show aired largely in social media.

please visit his profile page at Monitor Talent

Received this link a week ago, and still I'm sending it to ppl... it's an AWESOME read. http://is.gd/n4MY [from http://twitter.com/dc0de/statuses/1434156624]

http://www.torstensson.com/weblog/2009/08/overnight-successes-rarely-are.html

title says it all

Il fondatore di Friendfeed parla delle prospettive del suo prodotto e della ricetta per un'applicazione di successo.

My expectation is that big success takes years, and there aren't many counter-examples (other than YouTube, and they didn't actually get to the point of making piles of money just yet). Facebook grew very fast, but it's almost 5 years old at this point. Larry and Sergey started working on Google in 1996 -- when I started there in 1999, few people had heard of it yet.

recombined brilliance

What else can you say to this but "It cannot be helped, it is as it should be, that the law is behind the times."

Oooh @merlinMann muchly likes ThruYou as well. Happy, happy. http://snipr.com/e5ovy [from http://twitter.com/NicMcPhee/statuses/1356134982]

So amazing, so illegal. What are we going to do with you, future? That&#8217;s my pal, Jonathan Coulton, remarking on the disruptively talented Kutiman, who has made an astounding series of YouTube video remixes that&#8217;s lighting up the web

The problem with this line of questioning is that technology predated our humanness. Many other animals used tools millions of years before humans. Chimpanzees made (and of course still make) hunting tools from thin sticks to extract termites from mounds, or slam rocks to break nuts. Even termites themselves construct vast towering shells of mud for their homes. Ants herd aphids and farm fungi in gardens. Birds weave elaborate twiggy fabrics for their nests. The strategy of bending the environment to use as if it were part of your body is a billion year old trick at least.

Kevin Kelly on technology-and-humanity's coevolution. "Our genes have co-evolved with our inventions. In the past 10,000 years alone, in fact, our genes have evolved 100 times faster than the average rate for the previous 6 million years. This should not be a surprise. In the same period we domesticated the dog (all those breeds) from wolves, and cows and corn and more from their unrecognizable ancestors. We, too, have been domesticated. We have domesticated ourselves. Our teeth continue to shrink, our muscles thin out, our hair disappear, our molecular digestion adjust to new foods. Technology has domesticated us. As fast as we remake our tools, we remake ourselves. We are co-evolving with our technology, so that we have become deeply co-dependent on it. Sapiens can no longer survive biologically without some kind of tools. Nor can our humanity continue without the technium. In a world without technology, we would not be living, and we would not be human."

the evolution of humans is the evolution of our abilities to analyze and abstract patterns. Languagem, the ultimate pattern abstraction, was crucial to this. (math is just rigorously formal language)

Life before language and before technology

We are co-evolving with our technology, so that we have become deeply co-dependent on it. Sapiens can no longer survive biologically without some kind of tools. Nor can our humanity continue without the technium. In a world without technology, we would not be living, and we would not be human

The former CEO of Sun Microsystems writes about S/W patent trolling. This blog, entitled "What I couldn't say..." has appeared since the Sun/Oracle merger and is shaping up to be quite interesting

This is the world's biggest configurator database, featuring over 500 web-based configurators.

This site is home to the world's biggest configurator database. Scan over 500 web-based configurators now and follow the up-to-date discussion of these configurators in our blog.

Google shows Microsoft how to connect the dots « counternotions

Some business advice for Ballmer.

Quoting Marissa Mayer, Google's VP of Search Products & User Experience: "You may have heard about our [directory assistance] 1-800-GOOG-411 service. Whether or not free-411 is a profitable business unto itself is yet to be seen. I myself am somewhat skeptical. The reason we really did it is because we need to build a great speech-to-text model … that we can use for all kinds of different things, including video search."

Interesting article about how Google is just playing a different game than the rest of us.

Old professions

Norbert Eisenreich, a senior researcher and deputy of directors at the Fraunhofer Institute for Chemical Technology (ICT) in Pfinztal, Germany, said his team of scientists have come up with a substance that could replace plastic: Arboform -- basically, liquid wood.

Unnatural experiments in web design | http://cli.gs/2gyJ5Z **Must see for every #ux designer [from http://twitter.com/MikevHoenselaar/statuses/2109009831]

Paul Annet, from Clear Left

Knowledge management and competitive research community for user experience design on the web.

Teaching as a marketing strategy

Interesting talk on some of the lessons that 37signals have learned from chefs. Specifically, how to market through teaching. I thought it was funny that I ended up watching this while making a balsamic reduction.

An aha moment for higher ed marketing professionals.

Jason Fried Founder and CEO, 37signals Fried is the founder and CEO of 37signals. Fried is a passionate leader in the field of simple, clear, and elegant web-based user interface design. He spearheaded the concept, design, and development of Basecamp, 37signal's web-based project management tool for designers, freelancers, and creative services firms. Fried is also the co-author of Defensive Design for the Web.

When industry norms start to die, people panic. It's difficult to change when you think that you must change everything in order to succeed. Changing everything is too difficult. * Keep the machines in your factory, but change what they make. * Keep your customers, but change what you sell to them. * Keep your providers, but change the profit structure. * Keep your industry but change where the money comes from. * Keep your staff, but change what you do. * Keep your mission, but change your scale. * Keep your products, but change the way you market them. * Keep your customers, but change how much you sell each one. * Keep your technology, but use it to do something else. * Keep your reputation, but apply it to a different industry or problem.

Pivotal points for change - one thing at a time.

When industry norms start to die, people panic. It's difficult to change when you think that you must change everything in order to succeed. Changing everything is too difficult.

Pivots for change /Seth's Blog/ - When industry norms start to die, people panic. It's difficult to change ... http://tinyurl.com/bu4tdr [from http://twitter.com/jorgefsb/statuses/1315341354]

It's difficult to change when you think that you must change everything in order to succeed. Changing everything is too difficult.

Simple... use points from this Seth Godin blog to think about what to keep and what to change.

Complex societies collapse because, when some stress comes, those societies have become too inflexible to respond. In retrospect, this can seem mystifying. Why didn’t these societies just re-tool in less complex ways? The answer Tainter gives is the simplest one: When societies fail to respond to reduced circumstances through orderly downsizing, it isn’t because they don’t want to, it’s because they can’t. In such systems, there is no way to make things a little bit simpler – the whole edifice becomes a huge, interlocking system not readily amenable to change. Tainter doesn’t regard the sudden decoherence of these societies as either a tragedy or a mistake—”[U]nder a situation of declining marginal returns collapse may be the most appropriate response”, to use his pitiless phrase. Furthermore, even when moderate adjustments could be made, they tend to be resisted, because any simplification discomfits elites.

"When societies fail to respond to reduced circumstances through orderly downsizing, it isn’t because they don’t want to, it’s because they can’t."

Charlie Bit My Finger

A few good ideas sprinkled in this article.

The key is closing the gap between theory and practice. Words are cheap. It's easy to wax poetic about "culture change." It's quite another thing to make it happen. Still, the effort is worth it.

I hear a lot of talk these days about how important it is for organizations to establish a culture of innovation. Yup. True. So what else is new? The key is closing the gap between theory and practice. Words are cheap. It's easy to wax poetic about "culture change." It's quite another thing to make it happen.

I hear a lot of talk these days about how important it is for organizations to establish a culture of innovation. Yup. True. So what else is new? The key is closing the gap between theory and practice. Words are cheap. It's easy to wax poetic about "culture change." It's quite another thing to make it happen. Still, the effort is worth it. And so, to help you on your way, here's Idea Champions' list of 50 things you can do to foster a culture of innovation.

'타블렛이 어떻게 세상을 바꿀 것인가'(Wired) http://bit.ly/9Kl5mU 잡지 사놓고 우물쭈물하고 있는 사이 그 기사가 온라인에 올라와버렸다. 뭐하러 책을 돈주고 샀는지 ㅠ.ㅠ; – Jungwook Lim (estima7) http://twitter.com/estima7/statuses/10942583345

iPad - Wired article on (proposed) future of computing.

expanding your biz model --- vertical & horizontal integration

"Think hard about what you do. Look closely at everything you do. There are probably by-product opportunities everywhere. Hell, even your office space could be a by-product. You rent it to work, but what about after hours? Could you rent it out for events? Maybe you could hold stand-up comedy shows like Maryʼs Futons in San Rafael, California does. Sometimes customers return to buy the futon they were sitting on during the show. That’s extra sweet."

Special insert

Guardian UK's service design insert from March 2010

Ten Things to Demand From Design Thinkers

Design thinking starts with empathy and perception around what people actually need and do, as opposed to what they say they want. This, in turn, mandates new processes for evaluation and new metrics for measurement. It may even require the courage to make decisions that run counter to metrics. That's the decision Herman Miller designers faced when focus groups told them that people thought the first Aeron chair would be a failure.

v komentářích

more on luxury or dearth of its necessity

Allison Arieff

Addressing other nations at the G-20 last Wednesday, President Obama suggested that the United States was unlikely to return to its role as a “voracious consumer market.” If Obama’s right — and the experience of Japan, post-recession, suggests he may well be — what might that mean for design?

Google's worst-case scenarios.

The notion that you’re trying to control the process and prevent error screws things up. We all know the saying it’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission. And everyone knows that, but I Think there is a corollary: if everyone is trying to prevent error, it screws things up. It’s better to fix problems than to prevent them. And the natural tendency for managers is to try and prevent error and over plan things.

Must read! RT@amcafee: Cannot recommend highly enough this interview with Pixar's Ed Catmull: http://bit.ly/cYGtLY - (via @jmcaddell)

mindblowing interview with the CEO of pixar. all on leading a top-creative company and managing creavity.

Awesome insights. "The notion that you’re trying to control the process and prevent error screws things up. We all know the saying it’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission. And everyone knows that, but I Think there is a corollary: if everyone is trying to prevent error, it screws things up. It’s better to fix problems than to prevent them. And the natural tendency for managers is to try and prevent error and over plan things." "That fundamentally successful companies are unstable. And where we have to operate is in that unstable place. And the forces of conservatism which are very strong and they want to go to a safe place. I want to go to the same place for money, I want to go and be wild and creative, or I want to have enough time for this, and each one of those guys are pulling, and if any one of them wins, we lose. And i just want to stay right there in the middle."

2009

Patent and copyright law are stifling innovation and threatening the global economy according to two economists at Washington University in St. Louis in a new book, Against Intellectual Monopoly. Professors Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine call for abolishing the current patent and copyright system in order to unleash innovations necessary to reverse the current recession and rescue the economy. The professors discuss their stand against intellectual property protections in a video and news release linked here.

According to two economists at Washington University in St. Louis in a new book, Against Intellectual Monopoly. But that's the opposite of what they were designed for...

My approach now is simple: take a look at the rules of the new ecosystem. Do they make sense? Is it possible they'll come to pass? If they do, what happens to you?

And that's where we get stuck. We get stuck because we believe that the rules of our ecosystem are permanent and transferable. In fact, they are almost always temporary and rarely transferable. My approach now is simple: take a look at the rules of the new ecosystem. Do they make sense? Is it possible they'll come to pass? If they do, what happens to you?

Un VC et son explication : être un orchestrateur pour les utilisateurs avec une interface bien pensée et l'apport régulier d'innovations (et non toutes à la fois.

Union Square Ventures is an early stage venture capital firm based in New York City. The partners invest in young companies that use information technology in innovative ways to create high growth business opportunities in the Media, Marketing, Financial Services, Telecommunications, and Healthcare industries.

From the consumer to the enterpise... This is spot on assesment of where change is occuring. We used to hold not only the data, but the only workable tool to parse the data. that simply isnt the case now. Our current market and the end user market are simply TWO DIFFERENT CHURCHES and in waiting for our current users to get to grip with things, our actual users are leaving us behind. End users aren't smarter, more adept or engaged in info discovery (quite the opposite) it's the that the tools that are out there flatter their abilities to an ubelievable extent. Social engineering solutions (eg Google) are hated by librarians for one simple reason - a succesful soc eng solution removes them from the equation. In going for the end users, do we have to leave the libraians behind?

Today, no one tells you to use Facebook. There are no employer sponsored training sessions on the use of del.icio.us. The burden is on the designer of the system to meet a need, entertain, or inform their users. They also have to seduce those users, hiding complexity, revealing one layer at time, always enticing, never intimidating, until the user one day finds they are intimately familiar with power and the pleasures of the service.

Designing a system that does that is not an electrical engineering problem. It is a social engineering problem. The best social engineers are working today on consumer facing web services. They understand that there is enormous potential leverage in those services. The creators of these services recognize that services like theirs will ultimately disrupt the economics of many, if not most, parts of the global economy in much the same way that Craigslist collapsed the multi-billion dollar classified industry into a fabulously profitable multi-million dollar web service.

かなり劇的な変化が起きそう。

via @lmalita

RT @chrisguillebeau: Wired: Army Orders Bases to Stop Blocking Twitter, Facebook, and other social networking sites - http://bit.ly/y9kle [from http://twitter.com/gvillearchitect/statuses/2112505130]

Army unblocks social media tools

"...a click in the right direction for the armed service which seems to be making a slow but steady recovery from its lingering hostility towards social media."

The Army has ordered its network managers to give soldiers access to social media sites like Facebook, Flickr, and Twitter, Danger Room has learned. That move reverses a years-long trend of blocking the web 2.0 locales on military networks. Army public affairs managers have worked hard to share the service’s stories through social sites like Flickr, Delicious and Vimeo. Links to those sites featured prominently on the Army.mil homepage. The Army carefully nurtured a Facebook group tens of thousands strong, and posted more than 4,100 photos to a Flickr account. Yet the people presumably most interested in these sites — the troops — were prevented from seeing the material. Many Army bases banned access to the social networks.

't stop there. We thought,

10:19AM "Now here's a class that we think will be really interesting -- medical devices." Scott's showing off a blood pressure reader that interfaces with the iPhone -- wild.

Great live reporting of iPhone3, coming to consumers in June; avail to Devs now

How we can reshape the math curriculum for critical thinking.

Today's math curriculum is teaching students to expect -- and excel at -- paint-by-numbers classwork, robbing kids of a skill more important than solving problems: formulating them. At TEDxNYED, Dan Meyer shows classroom-tested math exercises that prompt students to stop and think.

"The first follower converts a lone nut into a leader" - Derek Sivers: How to start a movement (3 min TED video) http://bit.ly/9hglNx

In dit artikel beschrijf ik het nut van persona’s en user stories en waarom ze onmisbaar zijn in een ontwerptraject. Ook geef ik praktische tips in hoe je ze zelf kunt opstellen en toepassen.

Persona’s, MBTI, user stories. Allemaal tools om tijdens het ontwerpen van een website de gebruiker centraal te stellen. Er zijn veel vragen rond het gebruik van deze tools. In dit artikel beschrijf ik het nut van persona’s en user stories en waarom ze onmisbaar zijn in een ontwerptraject. Ook geef ik praktische tips in hoe je ze zelf kunt opstellen en toepassen. Have fun! En pssst, je kunt vandaag beginnen!

Artikel over hoe persona’s en user stories bijdragen aan een succesvol designproces

This is the third part in a multi-part series about integrating the internet with the real world through barcode scanning technology. -=- Written by Sarah Perez / September 26, 2008 6:43 AM

blog post on readwriteweb blog about integrating real world with internet

new way to collaborate on the Internet

Google Wave info: check this out later

Jailbreaking an iPhone constitutes copyright infringement and a DMCA violation, says Apple in comments filed with the Copyright Office as part of the 2009 DMCA triennial rulemaking. This marks the first formal public statement by Apple about its lega...

Fud!

On Engineering and Design: An Open Letter Microsoft Research Principal Scientist Bill Buxton calls for engineers and user-experience designers to learn to appreciate one another

Looks pretty responsive and very fun.

multi touch table met echte physics werking

Almost immediately following Twitter coming back from a planned downtime this afternoon, co-founder and current Chairman Jack Dorsey sent out a tweet letting ...

May 8, 2009 | TechCrunch | by MG Siegler

What's Next: Twitter Inventor Launching His Next Project, Squirrel. http://bit.ly/d7DxX [from http://twitter.com/shawnroos/statuses/1761502136]

It’s a service that allows anyone with an iPhone to become a merchant. Just like the wireless credit card swipers you see at certain shops and restaurants, you can carry around your iPhone and take payments. Apparently, the idea is that this will allow any individual to take credit card payments on a mobile device, kind of like what PayPal does for the web.

Transaction function tied to iPhone - gets power from the swipe!

RT @TLW3: Nuts: Twitter Inventor About To Launch His Next Project, Code ... http://tinyurl.com/qnkfgs [from http://twitter.com/KeithDriscoll/statuses/1743053678]

Africa is undergoing a connectivity revolution unlike anything it has ever seen. Mobile phones in particular are propagating at an incredible rate, with penetration ranging from 30% to 100%. The average is 30.4% and there are 280 million subscribers in total, making Africa the fastest growing mobile market in the world. This series is to highlight African contributions to social media and, in turn, reveal how social media is changing Africa.

Drei Teile. Sehr gute Artikel. 1. Web 2.0 in Africa. Mit Links zu Afrigator, Zoopy, Ushahidi. 2. Handytechnolgie. Bezahldienste wie MPESA, Wizzit. Oder mpedigree, questionbox. 3. Einfluss auf Demokratie/Cencorship

2008/10 ReadWriteWeb - The point of this series is to highlight African contributions to social media and, in turn, reveal how social media is changing Africa.

TED program guide

futuriffic

An aspiring entrepreneur recently asked, “I want to start a startup, but have no ideas. What should I do?” Here are 12 suggestions based on my interviews with entrepreneurs here on Mixergy. What are your suggestions?

We've co-evolved with our tools for thousands of years," he says, explaining how ease of Kindle buying changes behavior. "Reading is an important enough activity that it deserves a purpose-built device....It's a myth that multi-purpose devices are always better.... I like my phone... I like my swiss army knife too, but I'm also happy to have a set of steak knives." "I get grumpy now when I have to read a physical book....The physical book has had a great 500 year run, but it's time to change." "If you're an incumbent in any industry, and rapid change is underway, you're uncomfortable, even if long term it's going to be good." "We've made many errors. People over-focus on errors of commission. Companies over-emphasize how expensive failure's going to be. Failure's not that expensive....The big cost that most companies incur are much harder to notice, and those are errors of Omission."

"At the end of the day, you don't end your strategy because other people don't understand it. Not if you have conviction." This and other quotes from Jeff Bezos, collected by Tim O'Reilly at Wired's 2009 Disruptive by Design conference.

Business wisdom from Jeff Bezos.

Jeff Bezos is very quotable. Listeing to Steve Levy interview him at the Wired Disruptive by Design event in New York, I was furiously taking notes. Here are the quotes I managed to capture.

"There are a few prerequisites to inventing.... You have to be willing to fail. You have to be willing to think long term. You have to be willing to be misunderstood for long periods of time. If you can't do those three things, you need to limit yourself to sustaining innovation.... You typically don't get misunderstood for sustaining innovation."

notes on innovation and entrpreneurs

"There are a few prerequisites to inventing.... You have to be willing to fail. You have to be willing to think long term. You have to be willing to be misunderstood for long periods of time. If you can't do those three things, you need to limit yourself to sustaining innovation.... You typically don't get misunderstood for sustaining innovation." "At the end of the day, you don't end your strategy because other people don't understand it. Not if you have conviction." [via: http://snarkmarket.com/blog/snarkives/briefly_noted/how_to_invent/]

Bezos: "One of the differences between founder/entrepreneurs and financial managers is that founder/entrepreneurs are stubborn about the vision of the business, and keep working the details. The trick to being an entrepreneur is to know when to be stubborn and when to be flexible. The trick for me is to be stubborn about the big things."

The open-source education software developed for the "$100 laptop" can now be loaded onto a $5 USB stick to run aging PCs and Macs with a new interface and custom educational software.

"What we are doing is taking a bunch of old machines that barely run Windows 2000, and turning them into something interesting and useful for essentially zero cost," says Walter Bender, former president of the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) project. "It becomes a whole new computer running off the USB key; we can breathe new life into millions of decrepit old machines."

$100 Laptop Becomes a $5 PC

The open-source education software developed for the "$100 laptop" can now be loaded onto a $5 USB stick to run aging PCs and Macs with a new interface and custom educational software. "What we are doing is taking a bunch of old machines that barely run Windows 2000, and turning them into something interesting and useful for essentially zero cost," says Walter Bender, former president of the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) project. "It becomes a whole new computer running off the USB key; we can breathe new life into millions of decrepit old machines."

Marissa Mayer on the future of Google | TechRadar UK

Maye [...] believes that personalisation – "What can we understand about the user and how can we tailor the results to them?" – will be an important part of search. Search engines will be better because they'll understand more about the user. "Maybe the search engine of the future will know where you're located," Mayer suggests. "Maybe they'll know what you know already, or what you learned earlier today. Or maybe they'll fully understand your preferences because you've chosen to share that information with us. We aren't sure which personal signals will be most valuable, but we're investing in research and experimentation on personalised search now because we think this will be very important later."

As the self-proclaimed search addict points out, there's still a lot of opportunity for innovation, change and progress in search. Although typically tight-lipped about future products, she does hint at the direction Google is going to take. "We think it's really important to move beyond just keywords and allow people to ask questions, and maybe access things more easily from their mobile phone," she says. "We're also looking at how to weave new media into it and how we can bring books, videos and news right into the search experience. And then there are various pieces of personalisation."

Pretty much every product that Google works on has to go through gatekeeper Marissa Mayer, who decides whether it's ready to be released or needs more work. She even approves every single Google Doodle that adorns the search giant's homepages around the world. From being hired as the first female engineer nine and a half years ago to becoming one of the key decision makers at Google, she's come a long way.

3-1-2009

"I look for the insight and innovation that's baked into the idea," Mayer explains. "I also look at the overall energy and strength of the team that's presenting it. Then I develop an overall sense of confidence that it's both a good product idea and that we have a good team who are interested in moving it forward. If those two things come into alignment, it's going to be a successful product."

It's really important to move beyond just keywords"

"She's absolutely devoted to the needs of the 'end user' and often uses her mom as a reference point to check whether an idea is simple enough. But what other criteria does she take into account when she decides whether a product is a goer? "I look for the insight and innovation that's baked into the idea," Mayer explains. "I also look at the overall energy and strength of the team that's presenting it. Then I develop an overall sense of confidence that it's both a good product idea and that we have a good team who are interested in moving it forward. If those two things come into alignment, it's going to be a successful product."

[TechRadar]

We talk about play around here a lot. Remember that play was one of the six aptitudes needed to be successful in today's world featured in Dan Pink's A Whole New Mind. I often associate at least one aspect of play and playfulness with the old Buddhist idea of the beginner's mind (or child's mind). That is, in the child's mind there are infinite possibilities, but in our adult mind (one filled with habits and routines) there often seems to be few. One of TED's newest talks online is by Tim Brown the CEO of Ideo. In this wonderful short presentation Tim makes many salient points about the role of play, playfulness, and creativity and why they matter in our professional or academic lives. You may be a designer of consumer goods, or a medical doctor, or a researcher, or a teacher — every situation is different. But listen to what Tim Brown says and ask yourself how the idea of play might be introduced into your organization in a way that would benefit workers, patients, and students, not o

Play is good for you (and it's good for business)

5 sites qui réinventent l'info aux States (local inside) http://bit.ly/dtDdJ4 (mashable) – rosselin (rosselin) http://twitter.com/rosselin/statuses/16075752452

RT @RoyHP: 5 Innovative Websites That Could Reshape the News http://bit.ly/dfPeE1 RT @alicanth – Arnaud@Thurudev (arnaud_thurudev) http://twitter.com/arnaud_thurudev/statuses/15685339421

RT @alicanth: 5 Innovative Websites That Could Reshape the News http://bit.ly/dfPeE1

Few industries are experiencing greater upheaval at the hands of technological progress than the news media. New ideas are popping up every day, so we’ve collected five of the most interesting ones for your consideration. The previous generation of sites that redefined the news birthed several household names — Twitter (Twitter), YouTube (YouTube) and Digg (Digg), to name a few. It’s no secret that newspapers have struggled as blogs and social networking sites have grown in prominence, but in the rapidly changing worlds of mobile and web technology, the distribution methods for news information are once again shifting. It’s difficult to predict whether or not these newly noticed innovators will become as popular as their predecessors, but they are introducing new approaches to the consumption of information that few have tried or thought of before.

So maybe it isn't as fast as a LaserJet, but still probably one of the coolest printers out there.

Impressora feita com peças de Lego

Suggested Language (we have set your preference to this): English (UK)

Impressora de Lego com cenário embutido. Via @rodrigoscama

Working printer made from Legos and felt-tip markers. I love the little Lego men. YouTube video. http://ow.ly/1VCjH

Now this is how a dot matrix printer should be!

Cool plotter made entirely from Lego, but without using Mindstorms.

A printer made from Lego

Lego Printer... SO GOOD (from Adam)

すごい

Check the Online advertising section starting at slide 25

Internet Trends 2010 by Morgan Stanley Research

checking out: '10 Laws of Productivity' http://bit.ly/aExvGW (via @the99percent) #productivity

2) Writing a plan makes you feel in control of things you don’t actually control.

product

Earlier this year, I had a chance to attend SxSW. One of the highlights of my trip was a startup dinner which included Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson, the founders of 37signals. At the time, they had just come out with their new book "Rework". I had downloaded a copy to my Kindle, but hadn't had a chance to read it yet. Now I have. Twice. It's a great book. Lots of practical advice for entrepreneurs. I highly recommend it. My second time through, I decided to pull out some of my favorite parts. onstartups rework You're encouraged to share your favorite insight by using the convenient "tweet" links next to each one. 37 "Signals" From 37 Signals

Very, very smart way to get retweets back to a particular page. He excerpted chunks from "Rework" and added pre-made "Tweet" links next to it. Need to add some CTA on the page and you have a winner

In #HigherEd No Grading Might Mean More Learning: http://bit.ly/bVtRFk (Lots of applications to K-12) – Steven W. Anderson (web20classroom) http://twitter.com/web20classroom/statuses/15706374092

Duke

No grading meant students inspired to do work

"Davidson, the Ruth F. Devarney Professor of English, said that of the 16 students in the course, 15 already have earned an A and she expects the remaining student to soon finish an assignment that will earn an A as well."

This is a Wiki of student examples from all over the United States. Great ideas!

Student Innovation exemplar wiki

RT @gcouros: Share great work of your students! Examples of Student Innovation - home: http://studentinnovation.wikispaces.com/

As educators focusing on 21st Century Learning, it is important that we are able to share examples of powerful student work that we can share with educators around the world. It is important that we have this opportunity to not only talk about how we can empower students, but as examples of how this has ALREADY affected student learning. The Motivation? This wiki was inspired (as many things are) by a student that did a phenomenal job on discussing her PLN that was shared numerous times on Twitter

This goes directly to our CIDC goal of improving writing. Many of these student blogs in the first section are great, easy examples of what a blog can be used for.

Ideas to move from tech to teach

I like @fastcompany's Top 100 Creative People in Business list http://bit.ly/9pVauN, though I wish it was easier to navigate

business

The scaling process is no longer happening in the U.S. And as long as that’s the case, plowing capital into young companies that build their factories elsewhere will continue to yield a bad return in terms of American jobs.

Andy Grove writes interesting/controversial piece arguing for protectionism and other techniques to generate American jobs.

Fantastic piece from the former CEO of Intel on the problems with focusing on profit-margins over jobs. The possible decline of Silicon Valley looks rather similar to the collapse of manufacturing that the UK went through in the late-70s and 80s. The challenge for us is to work out how to recover from that problem.

How it works nowadays: successful companies rarely make what they create.

Startups are a wonderful thing, but they cannot by themselves increase tech employment. Equally important is what comes after that mythical moment of creation in the garage, as technology goes from prototype to mass production. This is the phase where companies scale up. They work out design details, figure out how to make things affordably, build factories, and hire people by the thousands. Scaling is hard work but necessary to make innovation matter. The scaling process is no longer happening in the U.S. And as long as that’s the case, plowing capital into young companies that build their factories elsewhere will continue to yield a bad return in terms of American jobs.

Today, manufacturing employment in the U.S. computer industry is about 166,000 -- lower than it was before the first personal computer, the MITS Altair 2800, was assembled in 1975. Meanwhile, a very effective computer-manufacturing industry has emerged in Asia, employing about 1.5 million workers -- factory employees, engineers and managers. The largest of these companies is Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., also known as Foxconn. The company has grown at an astounding rate, first in Taiwan and later in China. Its revenue last year was $62 billion, larger than Apple Inc., Microsoft Corp., Dell Inc. or Intel. Foxconn employs more than 800,000 people, more than the combined worldwide head count of Apple, Dell, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard Co., Intel and Sony Corp.

Die langweiligen Industrie-Jobs sind doch gar nicht so doof.

As 50 piores invenções pela revista Time.

...

It’s January 2012 and you’ve just gotten your new Android 3.0-based phone. You’re going on a road trip so you start up the newly-released Foursquare. Gone are the checkins of 2010. Now you tell it where you’re going. This time we’re headed to Harrah’s at Stateline, Nevada. But this is no Foursquare you’ve ever seen before. They’ve finally integrated Waze, Tungle.me, and Yelp information into it. So, let’s discover more of what happens on our trip.

Scoble's imagined trip to Reno

Nice piece from Scoble on what a truly connected mobile life could be like in 2 years.

It’s January 2012 and you’ve just gotten your new Android 3.0-based phone. You’re going on a road trip so you start up the newly-released Foursquare. Gone are the checkins of 2010. Now you tell it where you’re going. This time we’re headed to Harrah’s at Stateline, Nevada. But this is no Foursquare you’ve ever seen before. They’ve finally integrated Waze, Tungle.me, and Yelp information into it. So, let’s discover more of what happens on our trip.

Scoble's imagined trip to Reno

Nice piece from Scoble on what a truly connected mobile life could be like in 2 years.

It’s January 2012 and you’ve just gotten your new Android 3.0-based phone. You’re going on a road trip so you start up the newly-released Foursquare. Gone are the checkins of 2010. Now you tell it where you’re going. This time we’re headed to Harrah’s at Stateline, Nevada. But this is no Foursquare you’ve ever seen before. They’ve finally integrated Waze, Tungle.me, and Yelp information into it. So, let’s discover more of what happens on our trip.

Scoble's imagined trip to Reno

Nice piece from Scoble on what a truly connected mobile life could be like in 2 years.

Awesome IDEO ATM redesign documentary. Lot's of good thinking in here. Via Pablo.

RT @HashemBajwa: IDEO redesigns the ATM. Interesting video on the design process. http://futureselfservicebanking.com/

"virtual to real transitions" – quite amazing work around the future of self-service banking http://j.mp/9A75lj #ideo

Proyecto de IDEO para rediseño de cajeros automáticos del BBVA en España.