New Florence. New Renaissance.

Music everywhere!

New York Times has a nice gallery of how you can have your music everywhere in and out of the home including:

• Sonos created a market for sending music wirelessly from PC to speakers throughout the home. Each unit can replicate every other room’s sounds, or each can play distinct music in its room.
• If you can’t be without your music when you’re swimming, consider Audio Unlimited’s $66 poolPOD, a waterproof, wireless speaker that floats and comes with a remote control; volume and mood lights can also be controlled from the speaker itself.
• If you know someone with a vinyl collection gathering dust, consider giving a USB-connected turntable that will copy the music onto a computer’s hard drive. If you want to maintain the mood, retro models from Crosley with wooden cases look like they’re fresh out of a thrift shop.

Unicode 5.2

We live in a complicated world when it comes to languages and scripts

Arabic goes from right to left. Japanese characters need “double byte” support. Russia, Yugoslavia, Ukraine and several other countries use the Cyrillic script which has 21 consonants and 10 vowels. Hindi, spoken in India, is written in the Devanagari script where if a vowel follows a consonant, it does not take two characters, it is merged into one.

And those are actually not the most difficult ones!

We need to thank the UNICODE standard for allowing so many scripts to be digitized. Amazing the progress in last 18 years since it was started.

When it was first adopted in October 1991 it supported 7,161 characters. In version 5.2 which came out in October, we were up to 107,361. That covers 90 scripts and the latest release, also covers support for 1071 Egyptian hieroglyphs.

The fact that any of us can go to the Google Translate page and specify one of 51 scripts from Afrikaans to Yiddish and point to a URL and have it translated (transliterate is probably a better term)  into English or any of the other 50 in seconds – for free – is progress you have to stop and admire!

Picture Credit

Your own personal satellite

 
"Kestrel Eye will be a network of 30 small satellites beaming images directly to troops on the ground to order. A mobile, backpack-ready ground receiver can link up with the satellites in real time, downloading two pictures a second covering five square miles in each shot. Those photos will then be stored on a central server so others operating in the area can take a look.

But perhaps Kestrel Eye’s biggest advantage is that each satellite costs only $1 million, a fire-sale price compared to larger spy satellites."

Popular Science

Jugaad

“A Hindi slang word, jugaad (pronounced "joo-gaardh") translates to an improvisational style of innovation that's driven by scarce resources and attention to a customer's immediate needs, not their lifestyle wants. It captures how Tata Group, Infosys Technologies, and other Indian corporations have gained international stature. The term seems likely to enter the lexicon of management consultants, mingling with Six Sigma, total quality, lean, and kaizen, the Japanese term for continuous improvement.”

BusinessWeek

Graphene: The wonder nano material

“First, it was the soccer-ball-shaped molecules dubbed buckyballs. Then it was the cylindrically shaped nanotubes. Now, the hottest new material in physics and nanotechnology is graphene: a remarkably flat molecule made of carbon atoms arranged in hexagonal rings much like molecular chicken wire.

Not only is this the thinnest material possible, but it also is 10 times stronger than steel and it conducts electricity better than any other known material at room temperature. These and graphene's other exotic properties have attracted the interest of physicists, who want to study them, and nanotechnologists, who want to exploit them to make novel electrical and mechanical devices.”

Nanotechnology Today

Green Tires

Yokohama, a Japanese tiremaker, is promoting a tire made with oil from orange peel, a waste product from the production of orange juice. The company says its tires are among the greenest produced, with 80% of their ingredients derived from sources other than petroleum. They are only slightly more expensive than normal tires, costing about $20 extra for a set of four. Yokohama is aiming its tires at hybrid cars and efficient city cars like the Mini Cooper.

The Economist

Techno-free Thanksgiving

Some great suggestions in this post to try and go back to basics this Turkey Day

• Play some board games and picnic games
• Make a poster to give to a local military family
• Get ready for Christmas with simple glass decorations
• On techno-free Thanksgiving, write a note to thank someone. Hey, the day is meant to say thanks

Of course their definition of “techno-free day” means no use of television, DVDs, computers, video games, cell phones and music/video players.

No football? No Macy’s Day Parade? No reruns of John Candy in Planes, Trains and Automobiles? No Skype or mobile calls to friends?

Oh, go ahead and cheat some. Along with some seconds. That’s what the day is for.

Have a great one, all!

Picture Credit

Creative Barcodes

From Japan. Courtesy of Sandy Kelmsley.

Aerial Photographer, Robert Cameron

So I am walking around downtown San Francisco and notice at the Metreon an exhibition of the aerial photographer Robert Cameron.

As I am admiring the art, I see a sign saying he died last week at age 98.

Quite a man - he made 15 of the "Above" series coffee table book series.

Popular Science 2009 Best of What’s New

 Popular Science lists its top innovations in the following categories

• Auto Tech
• Aviation & Space
• Computing
• Engineering
• Gadgets
• Green Tech
• Health
• Home Entertainment
• Home Tech
• Recreation
• Security

The top rank goes to a 3M stethoscope . It transmits heart sounds to a doctor’s PC by Bluetooth, and Cardioscan renders a near real-time graphical representation of the sounds onscreen. The software then analyzes the sound waves and highlights minute abnormalities that signal harmful murmurs. The doctor can play the sound back at half speed to diagnose a problem more confidently, save the file to the patient’s chart, and e-mail it all to a cardiologist to confirm the diagnosis. Early tests of the system suggest that it could eliminate more than eight million unnecessary echocardiograms and cardiologist visits a year, saving some $9.4 billion and, even better, catch more of the dangerous murmurs.

The first hybrid car - 1901

Jackie Bassett (see her guest column on the Deal Architect blog) told me about a book she just co-authored. It is a treasure trove of  lithographs - discarded by the US Patent Office then rescued from destruction by her and Randy Rabin.

Wright Bros., Heddy Lamar, Nikola Tesla, Thomas Edison, W.H. Carrier and 100's of others….what a gallery of innovators!

Order it here

An app so you’ll never forget

 “A language-learning application that's already big in Japan is coming to the U.S. in the form of a new iPhone app. Smart.fm, based in Tokyo, says that the adaptive-learning algorithms behind its software can help users memorize all kinds of information.

..(its) algorithms determine how often to present a piece of information to the user and in what context. For example, a completely new word and its translation are shown frequently, and a user is asked relatively easy questions about them, designed to jog the memory. But once the user has demonstrated the ability to recall that word and its meaning, this information will appear less often.”

MIT Technology Review

Droid vs. iPhone: A 10-round bout

Consumer Reports awards five rounds to the iPhone 3G S for touch screen, searches, choice of apps, camera and auto navigation, three to the Droid ( interface, keyboard and phone network), two rounds a tossup(display and speed)

“The bottom line? Neither phone scored a knockout, but the Droid may indeed be the most promising contender yet to Apple’s smart phone.”

Ink-saving font

 
"Now there's another option, one that combats excessive ink consumption at the font level: Ecofont, a free typeface that promises to reduce ink use by up to 20 percent.

Available for Windows, Mac, and Linux systems, Ecofont looks a lot like regular old Arial, but with one key difference: holes. Each letter has lots of little holes punched out of it, meaning it requires less ink to print.“

Washington Post

Pet-care technologies

$ 45 billion in pet-car a year leads to better lives for pets and some zany products as Fast Company lists

• PAW SpotLight GPS Pet Locator
• Vet-Stem therapy
• Palladia anticancer medication
• Wisdom Panel MX DNA test
• HomeoPet anti-anxiety potions
• Purina One Vibrant Maturity 7+ Senior Formula
• Dog Gone Smart's odor-repelling bed
• DogTread treadmill
• Pet Airways
• Pet Teek Pet Carrier
• Doggie Doo Drain
• EzyDog Backpack
• Portage Float Coat for helping pet swim

Tech for grandparents

“She was far from the only centenarian using technology for more than just medical monitoring and protection against falls. Contrary to stereotypes, computers, social networks, e-mail and even video games are becoming essential parts of older peoples’ lives.

Some of the highest growth rates in broadband use are happening among the elderly.”

New York Times which highlights products like PawPawMail, Big Screen Live, Presto (in photo which helps print email without requiring them to get on a PC) , Peek, Jitterbug and iChat which are helping the elderly.

See also a previous post on aging workforces

Komatsu’s Serendipity

"The (GPS and other sensor)technology, dubbed Komtrax, lets Komatsu track where its heavy machinery is anywhere in the world. It also records how much fuel every vehicle consumes and the amount of strain on the most heavily used weight-bearing parts.

Komatsu originally wanted to monitor its leased equipment and prevent theft, but the data proved useful in unexpected ways. These days the company relies on Komtrax to figure out how much wear and tear its machinery is getting and when it should dispatch staff to perform maintenance for customers. That record is good to have when calculating the resale value of vehicles that get traded in. But Komtrax's biggest benefit is the real-time snapshot it provides of construction activity in every country where Komatsu does business. “

BusinessWeek

Health IT's billion-dollar man

MIT Technology Review interviews National Co-ordinator for Health Information Technology, David Blumenthal

“With robust health-­information exchange, there can be improved quality of care and improved care co-ordination. Today, the average 65-year-old with five chronic conditions has 14 doctors and is on multiple medications.”

Happy 40th Birthday, Internet!

“We transmitted the ‘L’ … and the ‘O’ — and then the other computer crashed,” says UCLA's Leonard Kleinrock, who helped send that first message on the university's campus on Oct. 29, 1969. He was trying to type the word "login."

"We knew and we didn't know that it was going to be a big deal," he says..

USA Today

Image below of log file entered by the student/programmer Charley Kline (CSK) Leonard was supervising that evening

Best Places for a new Data center

From a study done by Tishman Technologies

1. Reykjavík, Iceland: Low-energy cost, free cooling
2. United States (North Carolina & Tennessee): Low-energy cost, favorable labor, and fiber optics
i. North Carolina
ii. Tennessee
3. China/Vietnam: Extraordinary demand and new/diverse fiber optic routes in place
i. Shanghai perimeter
ii. Ho Chi Minh City
iii. Hong Kong
iv. Shantou (submersible, fiber-optic landing point)
v. Beijing
4. Latvia: Low-cost hydro power, favorable labor
5. India: Extraordinary demand, favorable labor
i. Mumbai
ii. Bangalore
iii. Jakarta
6. Russia: Favorable telecom, free cooling, favorable labor
i. St. Petersburg perimeter
ii. Moscow
7. Canada: Favorable labor, free cooling, favorable telecom
i. Vancouver
ii. Toronto
8. Japan: Extraordinary demand, favorable telecom
i. Tokyo
ii. Kobe
9. New Zealand: Strategic location, green power, favorable labor
10. United Arab Emirates: Strategic location, favorable labor, telecom
i. Dubai
ii. Abu Dhabi

The multi-media bed

“Working with Auckland University of Technology's Business Innovation Centre, Govorko created the Somnus-Neu to be a media-rich oasis. A freestanding unit with motorized curtains and a retractable video screen, the bed has Wi-Fi, a docking station for electronics, a five-point audio system, and three zones of LED lighting -- reading, ambient, and floor -- all of which can be controlled by dual 17-inch touch-screen panels on either side of the bed….

…Govorko says he's in discussions with Yotel, the U.K.-based pod hotel chain, and expects the first beds will welcome weary travelers by the second half of 2010. Once production is under way, he also plans to target less conventional markets, such as hospitals. "Having been a patient, on and off, from silly motorcycle accidents over the years, I know that the hospital experience is lacking," he says. "Staring at the ceiling is not the greatest way to spend your time."

FastCompany

Rube Goldberg, move over!

Think of things you have never thought of using the following for (courtesy of TechNutters) and Tom Baynham and Ben Tyers who both went to Cambridge University found a use for them in this contraption.

• Golf ball putter
• Air puck table
• Hair drier
• Slinky
• Newton's Cradle
• Polo Stick
• Umbrella
• Self lighting lighter
• Chess Board
• Mobile Phones
• Darts

Just don’t try to calculate an ROI for it:)

 

The Wild World of Web TV

FastCompany has a detailed profile of Hulu and all the players vying with it for the 158 million on-line video audience

Color Trend Forecasting

“Long before orange made its debut as a hot hue, Leatrice Eiseman spotted it in several unlikely places: on fences and front doors in Italy and Germany, in Morocco's natural dyes, and on monks cloaked in saffron robes. At the time the color wasn't associated with spirituality or trendiness in America, thought Eiseman, but rather with discount stores like Big Lots.

As she began to notice it in multiple places and in different contexts around the world, Eiseman and her team at the Pantone Color Institute -- the forecasting and consulting division of Pantone Inc., which is part of the $261 million company X-Rite -- decided to put it at the top of their 2003 forecast.

Since then, orange has gone mainstream, blanketing such unlikely products as videocameras, KitchenAid blenders, and Ford's new F-150 SVT Raptor, now available in "molten orange."

Fortune

Intel Risks It All (Again)

“Otellini has been subtly remaking the company: aligning with Apple, in a step away from the company's PC-only heritage; pushing the Atom mobile chip, in a dogleg pivot from Moore's Law, the founding axiom behind Intel, that chips get exponentially faster; and embracing new territory, new markets, and new ways of playing with others. The goal is to better compete in a world in which computing is everywhere, from laptops to tractors.”

FastCompany

Photo Credit for Atom chip

Solar Decathlon

Team Germany won the US Dept of Energy’s contest among 20 sets of students to design, build and operate the most attractive and energy-efficient solar-powered house

The New Plants in Motown

“By any quantifiable standard, the city is on life support. Detroit's treasury is $300 million short of the funds needed to provide the barest municipal services…. Three years after Katrina devastated New Orleans, unemployment in that city hit a peak of 11%. In Detroit, the unemployment rate is 28.9%. That's worth spelling out: twenty-eight point nine percent.”

Time

The city which already has a Renaissance Center, needs a much bigger one to rejuvenate it  as the US auto industry goes through another round of problems.

So, it is good to see GE move into Visteon Village in Van Buren Township just south of the city

“The scientists and engineers at the Michigan site will develop next generation manufacturing technologies in areas such as renewable energy, jet engines, gas turbines and other high-technology products. …The site will also house GE experts in software development, data architecture, networking, business intelligence and program management. They’ll develop software to support GE’s business operations for several advanced technologies, like the smart grid. The site also will serve as a training hub for GE information technology professionals.” Jeff Immelt, CEO of GE makes announcement in video below

Just as interesting is a different kind of “plant” coming to Detroit – Urban Farming

“Driving around the city, you can see everything that will make up your dinner – chickens, goats, mushrooms, plum trees, honeybee hives. I passed a whole block growing shoulder-high corn. A horse grazes outside a barn behind a high school. Edith Floyd parks her tractor behind her house – 12 kilometers from city hall, where bureaucrats are scrambling to catch up with the collard greens sprouting on street corners.”

the star.com

The lost art of changing flat tires

 “It wasn't all that long ago when it seemed everyone knew that a jack and a tire iron were the tools you needed to change a flat. Not anymore. Experts say a growing number of drivers have no clue how to change a tire, instead relying on cell phones to call for help or high-tech tires that can run while flat.”

St. Petersburg Times

Look at the “jack and tire iron” we now have access to

• Run-Flat Tires
• Sensors that monitor tire pressure
• Nitrogen in tires
• Portable 12V Tire Pumps
• Tire sealants
• AAA Roadside app for iPhone

Picture Credit

OneTouch Ping Diabetes System

I recently had lunch with Roger Stewart of McGraw-Hill and he pulled out a device and I thought he was reading a text message. Turns out he is diabetic and it was a OneTouch Ping (from Animas, a Johnson and Johnson company) glucose meter transmitting data wirelessly to the insulin pump at belt level.  So very discreet - if he had not mentioned it I would not have known he had used it.

The system also works with the ezManager MAX Diabetes management software for logging of pump and meter data for review by healthcare professionals.

Photo credit

Best Buy as Art Gallery

“As an electronics mega-retailer, Best Buy isn't normally interested in anything but moving huge quantities of TVs, computers and appliances out of its gaping doors. But the Houston St. location in Manhattan did something unexpected last night: it approvingly looked the other way while video artist Borna Sammak took over every single HDTV in the store for to display his latest work.

Borna Sammak's video paintings are meant for high-def televisions; the work mixes original processed footage and heavily treated rips from HD films--Planet Earth being a frequent source--all layered into a quick barrage of color and abstraction. So what better place to show it than on every available TV in our country's largest HDTV supplier?”

Popular Science

Top Cleantech

New Scientist lists some of its favorite green projects including:

• "Virtually waterless" washing machine – Xeros, UK
• Quadruple-glazed window – Visionwall, Canada
• Feeding CO2 to algae – Petroalgae, US
• Methane Harvesting – Nawaro, Germany
• Superconducting Grid – American Superconductor, US
• Pleasant Light – Oxford Advanced Surfaces, UK
• Floating Wind Turbines – Hywind, Norway
• Power Monitor – Semitech Innovations, Australia
• Solar thermal Storage – Gemasolar, Spain

Your new data center location: Iceland

“Iceland has been busying itself laying fibre optic cables to connect the country with North America and Europe.

The cables coming in provide a capacity of more than five terabits/sec - all with server farms in mind.

Travelling down this pipe, data sited in Iceland is just 17 milliseconds from London. Sitting at home on YouTube you would never know, but even that is too slow for some. “

BBC

Optical fibers, charge-coupled devices, ribosomes and telomeres

The Economist on Nobel prizes for Physics and Chemistry.

First Clown in Space

“Circus entrepreneur and "first clown in space" Guy Laliberte has hosted a global artistic performance from the International Space Station (ISS).

Mr Laliberte introduced artists and speakers from 14 countries in a two-hour show aimed at drawing attention to global water shortages.

Al Gore, Bono and Salma Hayek were among those involved.”

BBC

The Wii as airport security tool

“The Wii balance board is part of a $20 million Homeland Security-funded project called Future Attribute Screening Technology (FAST). Researchers hope that using sensors to detect passenger heart rate, breathing, shifty eyes, body temperature and yes, fidgeting, could help security figure out who might have something to hide.

Some sensors take the temperature profile of people's faces for signs of stress. Others track eye movement, pupil size, and blinking.”

Popular Science

Mainstreaming tech for the disabled

Software developer Nuance Communications, for instance, invented voice command technology to help people who are unable to type on a computer. Today, the company's algorithms are used in products ranging from Amazon.com's latest Kindle e-reader to cars from Ford Motor . Meantime, Mattel is incorporating technology, initially intended to help paraplegics, into a soon-to-be-released game controlled by players' brainwaves.

BusinessWeek

Starbucks' new high-tech coffee

“Via is a combination of dried coffee and “micro-ground” coffee. According to Linnemann the dried part follows what is recognizable as industry procedure. Starbucks takes its beans and makes a liquid coffee extract, which gets reduced to dried form. But whereas your typical instant coffee maker is focused on yield and output, the Starbucks gang focused on taste, Linnemann says. Start with better beans, brew the coffee, and then break the coffee drying process down into smaller sub-steps to preserve the flavor. All with no chemicals. “We use the same equipment as the other guys, but how we use the equipment is much different,” Linnemann says. What that likely means is that the yield in the Starbucks process is much lower (the extraction level is lower). That is by far a more expensive way to go but one that preserves more of the flavor. It may also explain why Starbucks is charging around $1 per packet of the stuff.

So far so good. “But it is the micro-grinding technology where we really cracked the code,” Linnemann says. “

Fortune

Mouse 2.0

5 new mice From Microsoft for Win 7 and other multi-touch platforms - FTIR (Frustrated Total Internal Reflection) Mouse, Orb Mouse, Side Mouse, Arty Mouse

12 Really Maverick Ideas

Wired has 12 brilliant – or really kooky, depending on your POV – ideas

• John Arquilla - Go on the Cyberoffensive
• Thorkil Sonne - Recruit Autistics
• Gregg Easterbrook - Embrace Human Cloning
• Ralph Keeney - Cheat Death
• Dambisa Moyo - Cut Off Aid to Africa
• Nils Christie - Empty the Prisons
• Stewart Brand - Save the Slums
• Stefan Szymanski and Stephen Ross - Bust Up Big League Sports
• Ludwig Minelli - Legalize Assisted Suicide
• Jamie Heywood - Forget Medical Privacy
• William Gurstelle - Take Smart Risks
• Robert Gates - Overhaul the Pentagon

Marrying metallurgy and math

“Vextec's software predicts with scary accuracy how and when products will fail--even before they're made. The simulations, which took only three months to run and required the crunching power of a mere laptop computer, estimated where and when the cracking in the titanium would start--within a quarter of an inch (on a 3-foot-long by 6-inch-wide blade) and within 1% of the number of physical testing cycles. With Vextec's help, "maybe by the fourth [project], the FAA won't make [EB] run any physical tests at all," says Dominick DaCosta, chief operating officer of ders Group Services, an engineering consultancy that advises the FAA on parts testing.”

Forbes

Building-integrated photovoltaics.

Companies are creating solar tiles and shingles in colors and shapes that fit in, for example, with the terra cotta tile roofing popular in the Southwest, or with the gray shingles of coastal saltbox cottages.

New York Times

Photo Credit - Springwise

Astrophotography by night

Iranian photographer Babak Tafreshi has won the 2009 Lennart Nilsson scientific photography prize. According to the award panel, his images "reclaim a night sky that most modern people have lost"

NewScientist has a gallery including this of the Milky Way above the Sahara Desert.

Futuristic Alpine Hut

“The new refuge, at an altitude of 2,883 metres (9,349 feet) near Zermatt in the south-west, resembles a gigantic crystal, with metallic-looking cladding on the exterior, and an interior that is completely built with wood

…the shed, which can house up to 120 alpinists, is designed to obtain 90 percent of power needs from the sun. The remaining 10 percent would be mainly gas used for cooking and would be delivered by helicopter regularly.

Water will also be completely sourced from the surroundings. In the summer, water from melting glaciers will be collected and stored in a reservoir, and heated mainly by solar energy…

Built by 35 workers over two summers, the hut was constructed at a cost of 6.5 million Swiss francs (4.3 million euros, 6.3 million dollars) with some 3,000 helicopter trips required to ferry workers and materials up to the alpine location.”

Physorg

Electronic Connoisseurs

“One e-nose just came back from six months in space, where it sniffed the air on the International Space Station every few seconds. Various gases that provide lighting and help cool the station, like mercury, freon and ammonia, can be harmful to astronauts' health, so NASA wants to monitor for leaks. The shoebox-sized e-nose has 32 sensors that can detect a wide variety of chemicals; in the latest experiment, it sniffed for 10 contaminants, said Amy Ryan, the project's principal investigator at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

The e-nose consists of several polymers, which react differently to various substances. When exposed to a chemical, the polymers change size, which affects the resistance of an electrical current running through them. The changes become a pattern interpreted by a complex algorithm -- our brains use similar pattern-recognition to decipher smells. “

Popular Science

Below on electronic tongue from Washington Post

If Skype should fall

The Economist on alternatives if the legal wrangling over Skype persists

“For Macintosh users, iChat is everything you would expect of Apple—slick, simple and with stunning graphics. Its voice quality is even better than Skype’s. The video chat feature lets you set up multi-person conferences on the fly. And it is less of a bandwidth hog than Skype. All you need is an internet connection and a video camera, plus an account with one of the more popular instant-messaging services, such as AIM, Google Talk, Jabber or MobileMe—and, of course, a Macintosh computer running Mac OS X.

The choice for Windows users is wider, though few of the products are as polished as iChat. SightSpeed comes close. It is delightfully simple to set up and use, and provides excellent 30 frames-a-second video with crisp audio and little delay. You can also send video e-mail and text chat with its built in instant-messaging service. And it works on Macs as well as PCs.

If making “SkypeOut” calls to landline and mobile phones—as well as making free voice and video calls from computer to computer—is important to you, then look no further than Gizmo5. This is identical to Skype in most respects save one: it uses open standards for managing calls, though its compression algorithms and client software are as proprietary as Skype’s. However, by embracing the popular internet-signalling standard called Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), Gizmo5’s free software can work seamlessly with other SIP-based networks, including the phone companies’.”

Consumer Genetics Testing

“Two years ago, the commercialization of DNA by 23andme and others seemed to stun geneticists and the medical research community, despite years of scientists downloading genetic discoveries on public databases.

Leading geneticists called the information too preliminary to be relevant to individuals, while some worried that it might frighten patients who tested positive for a given disease and didn't understand that these tests provided risk factors, not a definitive yes or no. Ethicists and the American Civil Liberties Union fretted about the privacy questions inherent in companies holding this data.”

“Other major consumer genetics sites include deCODEme of Iceland; Navigenics of Foster City, Calif.; and newcomer Pathway Genomics in San Diego.”

Fortune

Breathable Buildings

“Beijing-based MAD Ltd. unveiled its solar eco-skin design for the Taichung Convention Center in Taiwan.

The landmark building design aims to meld future tech with natural shapes that evoke mountains dotted with crater-like openings.”

Check out the gallery at Popular Science

Oxo’s new markets

“Oxo’s kitchen and household products are winners with consumers, from its rubber-gripped potato peelers to its no-leak travel cups. The eye-catching designs have been featured in museum exhibitions and, despite premium prices, have continued selling well during the recession.

Having exhausted much of its original market, OXO is now branching out to office supplies, medical devices, and baby products.”

BusinessWeek

Rwanda’s “Mobile Web”

“A child carrying a heavy load of wood on his head down a dusty red road while behind him a luxury coach (an ICT Bus – see video below) packed with spanking new laptops draws up to give a taste of the internet to a village which doesn't even have electricity.

It's just 15 years since the genocide that left a million people dead and tore apart the fabric of Rwanda's society and economy. While the shadow of those terrible events still looms over this country, what's remarkable is how far it has come and how ambitious it is to go a lot further.”

BBC

Baidu’s Battles

Forbes analyzes growing battlegrounds between Baidu and Google – the Chinese broadband consumer, the next huge wave of mobile web customers, the Chinese diaspora around the world. And the growing transaction commerce battle with Alibaba. The stakes in one of the fastest growing markets are huge.