New Florence. New Renaissance.

Square Watermelons!

Well, not high-tech, but certainly innovative - read the genesis of the idea here.

I read it courtesy of Guy Kawasaki.

Using the web to track teen habits

"Nearly 59,000 captive teens might seem like every parent's worst nightmare. But for Helsinki (Finland)-based Sulake, such a group provided a pain-free way to gain valuable insight into what "kids these days" really care about"

"Pain-free because Sulake runs Habbo, the nine-year-old virtual world that as of early June had some 100 million avatars, 9.5 million of them active on the site each month. And because Sulake could use the world as a platform to question the teens—virtually. Habbo's second Global Youth Survey features the results of a two-month-long poll conducted at the end of last year, which surveyed 58,486 teens in 31 countries. The findings were recently published in a 255-page report targeted at companies looking to market to the lucrative demographic."

BusinessWeek

Law enforcement and digital recordings

BBC on continued use of audio tapes in UK police system

"Currently police have to post tapes to a typist to be transcribed before it can be submitted to the CPS (Crown Prosecution Service) which can be very time-consuming and risks data breaches.

Having higher quality audio is also important if the audio evidence is used in court."

Innovation - in cheating in exams

Ok, so many of these would probably fail basic math and science and history and geography - but when it comes to ingenuity and teamwork you have to admire them..

read about these high-tech school cheaters

From the Miami Boat Show

GPS (with navigation through water "highways"), Bluetooth and more were on display at the recent annual mecca for boating enthusiasts.

Couple that caught my attention from Cruising World

a) Standard Horizon's floating radios: "The HX750S floats faceup, and when it hits the water, a strobe light mounted on its face starts blinking. Once recovered, the 750S even tells you the water temperature.
Next in the lineup is the HX760S, which has all the features of the HX750S but includes a wireless headset that communicates with the HX760S via Bluetooth 2, a wireless radio frequency. The company's third floater is the HX850S; in addition to being encased in rubber armor, it has a GPS receiver. The combination of GPS and VHF is ideal for taking advantage of digital selective calling, which is useful in distress situations."

b) Garmin's Colorado 400c: "Preloaded with BlueChart® g2 coastal charts, Colorado is made with the saltwater mariner in mind. Packed with features, it includes a high-sensitivity receiver, barometric altimeter, electronic compass, SD™ card slot, color display, picture viewer and more."

"A business of one"

 "A lot of new venture flowers are about to bloom and Google and Amazon are liberally applying the watering can. No government initiative or five-year strategic plan could have hoped to have achieved anything so profound - Google and Amazon are literally pushing the frontiers of global capitalism right down to the teenager’s bedroom. Forget cutting lawns or waiting tables to earn some money, the next generation of college kids are more likely to pay for tuition by showing the world how to play the riff in Weezer’s Sweater song by Rivers Cuomo..."

via Larry Dignan at ZDNet

"The future of the Web"

MIT Technology Review

The Good, the Bad and the Scary future of the web..

..perspectives from Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Vint Cerf at Google, Richard Stallman of the Free Software Movement, Bjarne Stroustrup at Texas A&M, Mena Trott of Six Apart (which hosts my blogs), Leah Culver of Pownce and Jonathan Zittrain at Harvard Law School

Structure '08

GigaOm has put together a great set of speakers/topics at their conference - lots in streaming video. Plenty of exciting stuff in the data center, cloud computing, IT infrastructure areas.

Your next personal vehicle

"It’s one of the first civilian flyers to feature automated folding wings, which slim down the mini seaplane so it can fit on a custom trailer. (An amphibious version offsets the extra weight of landing gear by trading the motorized wings for a manually folding set.)"

Popular Science

Hypermilers

"He's a hypermiler, part of a loose-knit legion of commuters who've made racking up seemingly unattainable mpg (many times 100 mpg) an art. And a sport. Hypermilers practice such unorthodox techniques as coasting for blocks with their car's engine turned off, driving far below speed limits on the freeway, pumping up tire pressure far beyond car and tire makers' recommendations and carefully manipulating the gas pedal to avoid fuel-burning excess." - USA Today

Photo Credit - calcars.org