Credit crisis visualized – great video

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

Filed under: Information , Credit crisis, Video

Maps as the new OS

From NYT

The cellphone is the world’s most ubiquitous computer. The four billion cellphones in use around the globe carry personal information, provide access to the Web and are being used more and more to navigate the real world. And as cellphones change how we live, computer scientists say, they are also changing how we think about information.

It has been 25 years since the desktop, with its files and folders, was introduced as a way to think about what went on inside a personal computer. The World Wide Web brought other ways of imagining the flow of data. With the dominance of the cellphone, a new metaphor is emerging for how we organize, find and use information. New in one sense, that is. It is also as ancient as humanity itself. That metaphor is the map.

“The map underlies man’s ability to perceive,” said Richard Saul Wurman, a graphic designer who was a pioneer in the use of maps as a generalized way to search for information of all kinds before the emergence of the online world.

Filed under: Information, Innovation, Marketing, Networks, Science , Cell, Innovation, Maps, Mobile

Solar walls reduce heating required

From Green Inc.

Amidst the general gloom in the renewable energy sector, one Toronto-based energy company is discovering a renewed appetite for a low-cost, low-tech solar air heating system based on one of the immutable laws of physics: hot air rises.

Conserval Engineering is responsible for SolarWall panels, made from corrugated and perforated galvanized steel. The cladding is affixed to south-facing walls of industrial and commercial buildings, creating a cavity in which sun-warmed air is vented up and into heating ducts.

Such systems reduce heating costs by cutting natural gas or electricity consumption – an important consideration for financially-strapped firms such as a Ford Motor Co. stamping plant near Buffalo, N.Y., that figures it’s saving $300,000 a year thanks to a 50,000 sq..-ft solarwall.

Filed under: Innovation, Science , Innovation, Renewable energy, Science, Technology

Intelligent transportation

From WSJ:

It’s time the U.S. got a lot smarter.

Federal, state and local governments are about to pour tens of billions of dollars into the nation’s infrastructure. The big question: Will we simply spend the money the way we’ve been doing for decades — on more concrete and steel? Or will we use it to make our roads, bridges and other assets much more intelligent?

Imagine highways that alert motorists of a traffic jam before it forms. Or bridges that report when they’re at risk of collapse. Or an electric grid that fixes itself when blackouts hit.

This vision — known as “smart” infrastructure — promises to make the nation more productive and competitive, while helping the environment and saving lives. Not to mention saving money by making what we’ve got work better and break down less often. But fail to upgrade, advocates warn, and the country may be locked into the old way of building for decades to come.

“The goal is not just funding projects for short-term job gains,” says Paul Feenstra, vice president of government affairs at the Intelligent Transportation Society of America, a group that promotes smart-road technologies. “It should be to create systems that are intelligent and improve productivity in the long run.

Full article

Filed under: Automotive, Innovation, Science , Innovation, Intelligence, Transportation

Getting it right

An incident over a wrong entry in Wikipedia spurred a lot of heated debates. As a proof of this frenzied controversy, Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia’s founder, proposed a move which is called “Flagged Revisions”.

What exactly was the wrong entry about? A couple of weeks ago, there was an erroneous entry under the name of two US senators. According to that particular entry, these senators had died. The two senators were Senator Robert Byrd and Senator Ted Kennedy. Although Senator Ted Kennedy has brain cancer and collapsed at a luncheon after President Barack Obama’s inauguration, there is no truth to the entry.

Wikipedia, one of the world’s highly visited online encyclopedias, is known for giving its visitors freedom to edit or add any information anonymously. However, in this particular case, this resulted to the unwanted incident that virtually made two US Senators dead. Fortunately, this entry was promptly changed and corrected within minutes. What exactly does this “Flagged Revisions” provision do?

Flagged Revisions would still allow anyone who visits the site to edit or add any information in any given entry. However, before it published, it would first be reviewed by a group of experts and trusted users. Wikipedia initiated an online poll regarding this proposition. 60% of the voting population agreed for the site to execute the proposition.

This however enraged other users. Wales admitted that this process might delay the editing process but he deemed it necessary to avoid irresponsible users. Those in opposition are given two weeks to cook up an alternative proposal that would present a possible solution for erroneous entries and irresponsible users.

Presently, Wikipedia has 2,717,040 articles in English and more than 75,000 active contributors working on more than 10,000,000 articles in more than 260 languages.

Filed under: Information, Innovation , Information, UGC, Wiki

In-home care market continues to grow

Whether consumers are looking for babysitters or home health care, they are increasingly turning to online vendors for service and venture capital firms are taking notice.

Some of these organizations operate as subscription-based membership organizations. Seven-year-old Sittercity initially started as a matching service for parents seeking babysitters, but it has evolved into an organization that also helps consumers seeking pet care, home care and senior care services. And to grow the business, Sittercity has begun to form partnerships with corporations who want to provide assistance to help employees balance work-family demands.

Earlier this year, private-equity investors poured $7.5 million into this business concept indicating that additional growth in this market is expected.

Filed under: Marketing , Care, Private equity, Seniors

A5 – not the Audi coupe – this one can fly

Ever want to fly an aircraft without having to go through the whole training that aspiring pilots need to endure? Introduce yourself to ICON Aircraft. This California based start up has successfully completed Phase 1 of flight testing of their light sport aircraft, dubbed the A5, whose first delivery is slated for late 2010.

The 2 seater aircraft will wow flight enthusiasts with the sleek design from both the outside and the inside. In addition to foldable wings which allows the owner to store it their garage, its interior is designed to have the look and feel of a sports car.

Those worried about safety can rest assure that in case of any emergency, a parachute can be deployed which will allow the plane to float to the ground.

With the FAA creating a new category of aircraft known as the Light Sport Aircraft and a new pilot license category known as Sport Pilot, the stage has been set for consumer recreational flyers. The estimated training cost to become a sports pilot ranges from $2,800-$3,500.

Selling for approximately $139,000, the A5 already has an order list that exceeds 350. Information regarding annual maintenance cost is not available. However, if one can afford the A5, we doubt that the annual maintenance cost will not be an issue, even in light of the current economic environment.

Filed under: Innovation , Flying, Icon, Luxury, Piloting

Men spend more in a recession

From BMRB:

Women are more likely to take a prudent approach to their finances while men are more bullish, according to latest findings from the British Market Research Bureau (BMRB) Consumer Confidence Survey.

Only 1 in 10 adults say they definitely feel financially secure in the current economic climate, but women (6%) are less than half as likely to feel financially secure as men (14%).

More women are likely to have cut back on purchases recently (75%) than men (67%). Indeed men seem to have a much more gung ho attitude with 29% spending “exactly as I did before” compared with 22% women.

In terms of what people are reducing expenditure on, men are more likely to cut back on eating out (36%) than women (30%), while women (14%) are nearly twice as likely to cut back on clothes (8% men)

A third of all adults are likely to spend £3000 or more on a single item of expenditure in the next 12 months. Again, this is more likely among men (38%) than women (27%).

In their general attitude to money, BMRB’s latest TGI data shows that more women (58%) believe they are very good at managing money than men (53%) and that they have a higher propensity (68%) to spend money more carefully than they used to, than men (63%).

Filed under: Market Research , Consumer, Market Research, Spending

P&G will wash your car

From wsj.com

The giant manufacturer of household staples including Pampers diapers, Crest toothpaste and Gillette razors is forging a new business model: franchising car washes.

To jump-start plans for a nationwide chain of Mr. Clean Car Wash franchises, P&G in December acquired the franchise assets of Atlanta-based Carnett’s Car Wash, which has 14 locations.

“We need to look for new opportunities to allow us to grow,” says Bruce Brown, P&G’s chief technology officer. “That isn’t limited to things within our current business model.”

P&G is under mounting pressure to find new sources of revenue growth, particularly as more cash-strapped shoppers think twice about buying its premium-priced products. Wall Street is increasingly skeptical that the mammoth company can garner meaningful gains in its slow-growing product categories and a tough economy.

Known for exhaustively testing new ideas, Procter & Gamble has been quietly experimenting with service businesses in recent years. Since 2007, it has operated two Mr. Clean Car Washes near its Cincinnati headquarters. Last year, it unveiled three Tide dry-cleaning shops in Kansas City, Kan., area. Also in 2007, P&G said it bought a minority stake in membership-based medical services firm MDVIP, based in Boca Raton, Fla.

Full article

Filed under: Automotive, Innovation, Marketing , Consumer, Innovation, P&G

Gunning for google

From AdWeek

It may seem like Google always has been the search engine of choice. There was a time, though, when AltaVista, Lycos and Yahoo ruled the roost in the late-1990s, only to see Google blow past them. A new survey by Forrester Research concludes that such a turnabout could happen again, despite the solid and growing lead Google maintains in the search market. It found that brand loyalty to search engines is quite low. That coupled with the lowest of switching costs makes the still nascent search market an open playing field, the researcher concludes.
 
Over half of respondents said they search using multiple engines. Just 20 percent use Google exclusively. Yahoo is the exclusive engine for 8 percent, AOL by 3 percent and MSN a piddling 1 percent. Forrester surveyed more than 4,800 U.S. online adults about their search habits. Their activity was self-reported, not observed.
 
Google has built a sizable lead in attracting searchers, which has in turn made it into an Internet advertising powerhouse. Microsoft last year tried to close the gap with a deal to acquire Yahoo, only to have it fall apart after Yahoo resisted.
 
According to comScore, Google sites generated 85 billion searches in 2008, accounting for 90 percent of the growth in queries last year. Forrester’s self-reported data tracks Google’s share of searchers at 59 percent, up from 41 percent three years ago.

Full article

Filed under: Information, Market Research, Networks , Google, Search