Fast Company

Perk Up, USA: You've Still Got Your Innovation Mojo

Zachary Wilson — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 18:30:12 EST

According to a new survey on global innovation conducted by Newsweek and Intel, the United States is suffering from a serious self-esteem problem. The online questionnaire, conducted between Sept. 28 and Oct. 13 of this year, polled 4,800 adults in the U.S., China, Germany, and the U.K. about thoughts on the world's innovation leaders.

To start, the graph below shows that while more than 70% of Americans think the U.S. is a technologically innovative country, only 41% think that the United States is staying ahead of China on innovation. Meanwhile, more than 80% of the Chinese think that the U.S. is innovative and is staying ahead of China on innovation. It seems the world has gotten the recession blues--no one believes in themselves anymore.

One of the most interesting points the survey showed is where we think innovation comes from. Look at the differences in these results.

The most interesting difference is the polarization between math and science versus creative problem solving--the results are almost a mirror image of one another. While more than half of American parents think innovation comes from skills in math and science, only a tiny 9% of Chinese parents think so. Instead, the Chinese believe innovation is born from creative approaches to problem solving--45% versus the mere 18% of American parents surveyed.

Another graph shows that Americans who think the U.S. is lacking in innovation blame it on American schools lagging in math and science education. Forty-two percent blame the schools, while 11% blame a plain lack of skill. Ouch.

Finally, nearly 80% of the Chinese surveyed are convinced the next big innovation will come in energy or computers and electronics, but a mere 4% see anything big happening in health care. Across the Pacific, Americans believe equally in energy and computers and electronics, but have a little more hope for innovation in health care.

[Via Newsweek]

If the Delivery Guy Drops Your Package, Senseaware Updates You Online

Cliff Kuang — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 18:00:44 EST

FedEx unveils Senseaware, a drop-in sensor for packages that monitors everything from nasty falls to boxes being opened.

Speed isn't good enough when you're shipping something like transplant supplies for emergency surgery or human organs. You also need to be perfectly sure that what you're sending hasn't been compromised for even a second along the way. FedEx has come up with an answer: Senseaware, a drop-in sensor that pings the status of its contents to the Web, including temperature, exact location, and whether the shipment has been opened or exposed to light. There's even an accelerometer, for detecting drops. Having already completed a beta test, Senseaware will now be deployed with 50 FedEx medical clients this spring.

"Four years ago, we started thinking about the next-generation alternatives to RFID," says Mark Hamm, FedEx's VP of Innovation. What they came up with is a Web-platform, combined with a sensor the size of a Blackberry, loaded with temperature and light meters, as well as GPS and a cellular antennae. (During plane rides, the device automatically goes into sleep mode, monitoring data but temporarily silencing the data relays.) Thus, as a shipment goes out, its location can be tracked to within feet of where it is at any second, and the Web interface registers its condition in real-time--a device/platform ecosystem that Hamm likens to iPod/iTunes.

That's particularly useful in the medical industry. For example, one of the trial testers of Senseaware was a maker of one-off surgical kits, which the company sends to doctors and the doctors send back after using. Live monitoring means that doctors on the receiving end can known exactly when to begun surgical prep, thus saving them time and scheduling hassles. It gets even more complicated on the way back. The company refurbishes the kits, but they also contain sensitive materials such as bone samples. The drop-in sensor ensures the integrity, and allows the company to prepare all of its refurbishing equipment in advance, so that the kit can be refreshed and sent back out the door almost immediately after receipt--to another waiting doctor. "That's an anticipatory way of looking at shipping which has never been possible before," says FedEx spokesperson Matt Ceniceros.

But the main benefits might be economic. Where companies relying on precise logistics usually have to spend millions to install RFID monitoring systems and IT, the Senseaware currently costs just $120 a month. You just drop it into a box; the only thing you need is an Internet connection "This is pay as you go," says Hamm. "You don't need a big investment to have real-time information about your shipment."

After the trial run this spring, Hamm expects that FedEx will begin aggressively rolling out the product worldwide, and dropping the price rapidly as the project reaches scale. And once the price falls to somewhere around $10 a trip, the applications will start growing, from Christmas hams and Italian truffles, to art and irreplaceable keepsakes. FedEx is already developing new services around the device, including ways of intercepting and saving a package at risk.

Statkraft Opens World's First Osmotic Power Plant in Norway

Ariel Schwartz — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:30:12 EST

Amidst news of massive solar and wind power plants comes word of a small but significant achievement--the world's first osmotic power plant. Statkraft's $7 million plant, located in Tofte, Norway, only produces enough energy to run a coffee maker, but it's the first pilot plant to use the power produced when salt water and fresh water combine in a polymer membrane.

The power production process works with help from osmosis, which causes freshwater to be drawn towards seawater when placed in a membrane. Since the membrane only allows freshwater in, pressure is generated on the seawater side. The pressure is strong enough to drive a turbine.

Statkraft's osmotic power process has been around since the 1970s, but until now, membrane technology was too expensive and inefficient to be worth it. Now that the technology is beginning to mature, Statkraft believes it could be viable anywhere that a river meets or comes close to the ocean.

Eventually, the company believes osmotic power will have the potential to power half of the EU. But before that can happen, Statkraft has to build a full-scale plant. That project is expected to be completed in 2015, but only if osmotic membrane technology improves enough to make it economically viable. So for now, we might want to focus on those jumbo wind, solar, and geothermal plants.

[Via UK Daily Mail]

Rise and Sprawl: How Los Angeles Came to Be

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:00:00 EST

Volvo Opens Its CO2 Pedometer to Consumers

Kate Rockwood — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 16:30:14 EST

A personal CO2 calculator called Commute Greener! hit the app store day. Volvo Group, which developed the online site and smartphone app (downloadable for $3.99) had initially tested a prototype internally and showed that employees reduced their CO2 emissions from commuting by 30% on average. Commute Greener! entices with a one-two punch of personal-data diving and competition. After calculating your baseline commute, you can set weekly reduction targets, track your cumulative damage, and compare your data with other users.

It was that sharing--and the competition it naturally sparked--that really drives change, Volvo's business innovation manager Kerstin Hanson told us in September. "People feel a sense of accomplishment in reducing their CO2 emissions," she says. "It lets us use the carrot instead of the whip to help people change their behavior."

This morning I took Commute Greener! for a little test-drive but quickly realized that, well, my daily commute is pretty green. (Don't get me wrong: other apps will merrily tell me exactly how much I'm harming the planet with each minute I spend in the shower, but Volvo's app is centered on transportation.) Most weeks my commute is unwavering: five 3-mile round-trip subway rides as I schlep to and from work. On the weekends, I walk. Period. Commute Greener! tallies my weekly total at 1.68 kg of CO2 emissions.

But Commute Greener! isn't designed for urban dwellers with car phobias. When I mention the app to my mom, who haphazardly carpools with my dad or sister and regularly drives 3 hours a day, she's intrigued enough to have me crunch a slew of hypothetical combinations into the app.

And I will have one giant carbon binge this week: Thanksgiving. I punch in my two hypothetical trips to the airport. Even though a cab ride is fewer miles than the subway + bus option of public transportation (11.2 miles compared with 16.6 miles), Commute Greener! calculates the public option at just 957g of CO2 and the private cab at 3.2 kg. Yikes. Way to make the eco-impact of my possible splurge totally concrete, Volvo. And guess I'll see you on the bus.

Latest Hunch Report Says That Mac Users Are More Individualistic Than PC People

Ariel Schwartz — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 16:00:03 EST

Of course, the whole report should be taken with a grain of salt--Hunch notes that not perhaps not everyone who said they owned a Mac actually do, since "some of these may be 'aspirational' users who favorably relate to a perceived brand image even if they don't have a Mac themselves." And that's the power of branding at work.

[Hunch]

Celebrity Tools: Micro Video Captures the Tweets and Tribulations of B- and C-Listers

Zachary Wilson — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 15:30:39 EST

Micro-video site Vidly (formerly TwitVid.io) has launched its new video commenting feature Vidly Express with the help of a rapper Chamillionaire. As you can see on his Web site, the feature allows users to record a video reply instead of posting one in text. And as you can also see by the video comments left in the hours since the feature went live, it's mostly silly kids goofing around in the Apple Store, talking to Chamillionaire like they know him or not talking at all. What's next, a video reply of someone screaming, "FIRST!"?

Micro-video sites--TwitVid, TweetTube, and Twiddeo, to name a few--and even staple, Twit-friendly video sites like YouTube and Ustream are smack dab in the middle of their 15 minutes of fame. Last month rumors even circled (and were shut down) that Twitter itself was looking to develop a video posting feature. Helping the mini-site hotness is the mini-buzz from mini-celebrities, B- or C-list types flocking to Twitter-friendly video. None's more mini than Tila Tequila, whose recent breakdown-induced strip on Ustream almost broke the Internets ... and our spirits. Absent a popular reality show, gawkers watched as she mumbled and slurred about how she was a "grown ass woman" and took her clothes off for a live Web audience.

Previously, rapper 50 Cent held the premiere for his new film Before I Self Destruct on Ustream and attracted 255,000 viewers. The Foo Fighters brought in 150,000 fans for a recent Webcast. Disney starlet Demi Lovato premiered her most recent video on Twitter through TwitVid. After leaving Twitter in a huff, Miley Cyrus even made a YouTube rap video about leaving Twitter--which then spread quickly through Twitter, naturally. And of course U2 brought in a whopping 10 million viewers during its YouTube live stream.

Celebrities have found huge success and millions of fans on social media outlets like Twitter and Facebook, but there's a fine line. Some celebrities have used Twitter to go crazy in virtual public (read: Tila or Lindsay Lohan before her). Some have immense popularity but never actually say anything personal (read: Britney Spears). Some jumped on for a minute but have never committed (read: Oprah), and some spent a lot of time on it at first but eventually got fed up and left (read: Lily Allen). News organizations are cracking down, sports leagues are getting tough on tweeting, and movie studios are even adding no-tweet clauses to celebrity contracts.

As with any new medium, it's going to take both celebrities and the common folk a while to figure out exactly what's acceptable for social media. But until they do, we're happy to get boob-filled breakdowns and uncensored rants and raves, especially in short-attention-span-friendly video. After all, celebrities are just like us.

[Via DigitalBeat]

Got a comment? Why not make a video and embed it below?

Put Your Keyboard Down, and Back Away From the Rapid Prototyping Machine

Cliff Kuang — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 15:00:03 EST

Joshua DeMonte's jewelry mimics classical architecture. Pretty? Um, you decide.

When rapid prototyping becomes cheap and ubiquitous, everyone will get a chance to realize their craziest dreams for products. The results should be...interesting. And you can bet you'll see more projects like this jewelry by Joshua DeMonte.

DeMonte created these when he was a student at Philadelphia's Tyler School of Art--which is presumably when he had free, unlimited access to a rapid prototyping machine. He writes:

My jewelry objects mimic ancient architectural elements activating the space surrounding the body and altering the viewers perception of the wearer. My work has replaced the traditional embellishments of jewelry objects with the details of traditional architectural form. The objects have become jewelry that have defined architectural space around the body, altering our perception of the figure.

Heh--"Activating the space" and "altering our perception of the figure." That's design-speak for: My stuff is ginormous!

Meanwhile, one of the commenters over at Design Yearbook opines:

Looks like the dude got his head caught in the space shuttle toilet seat. The rest of the stuff looks like wedding cake decoration that was left in a hot car. WOOF!

Ouch.

[Architect's Journal via Design Milk]

Today's Vision of Tomorrow: Jeff Bezos and Virgin Galactic Flying You to Space

Kit Eaton — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 14:30:03 EST

Forget NASA's giant rockets, forget even the Russian Space Agency's vintage but reliable Soyuz vehicles: The future of space travel for you and me (assuming we're filthy rich) is in private hands. Jeff Bezos' and Richard Branson's, actually.

Jeff Bezos' Mystery Blue Origin Rocket

Jeff Bezos, better known as founder and CEO of Amazon.com has a sideline you might not have heard about. The fact you've not heard about it isn't perhaps a surprise--his Blue Origin spaceflight project has been largely shrouded in mystery, despite interest from NASA.

But just recently the Blue Origin project's timeline was publicized on the Web site, particularly highlighting the timing for human flight into space--2012. Unmanned launches of science experiments are expected in 2011, and three experiments have already been selected.

Not much is known about the actual vehicle itself, which is dubbed New Shepard, apart from its vertical launch and vertical landing status--somewhat similar to the experimental Delta Clipper X rocket system by McDonnell Douglas. That's not a bad comparison to draw in fact, since several engineers who worked on the DCX project then became Blue Origin employees.

LauncherOne

Another space project in the news is Burt Rutan's LauncherOne vehicle, a partnership project with Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic company. LauncherOne is designed to revolutionize the space cargo-launch business by offering a private, ultra-low cost system to get small satellites into the void. When complete, LauncherOne will get a piggyback lift up to altitude under the wing of launch aircraft Eve, and will take payloads between 1kg and 200kg up to a maximum 800km altitude for a $1 million to $2 million price bracket--significantly less than half the current fee of $5 million to $10 million.

Having failed to win any money towards the project from the U.K. Government recently--historically a body with a somewhat closed mind as far as space funding goes--LauncherOne is now an internal project inside Virgin Galactic.

SpaceShipTwo

You'll be hearing a lot about SpaceShipTwo in the coming weeks, since it's due to be officially unveiled on December 7th. SpaceShipTwo is the Scaled Composites-built space vehicle that'll be carrying Virgin Galactic's paying passengers on their six minute pop-gun rides into zero gravity 110km above the Earth's surface.

Captive test flights will begin early in 2010, and the limited timeline info made available suggests that the first manned flights into space will begin sometime in 2011--plenty of time to load up on astronaut ice cream and build your Bowie MP3 playlists.

[Via TechFlash, BBC News]

KiBiSi: A New Danish Product-Design Supergroup

Cliff Kuang — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 14:00:37 EST

Three of Denmark's best-known designers join forces, to tackle headphones and chairs (among other other things).

The three high-cheekboned lads above aren't in a Danish pop group. They're all big-name product designers, and they've joined to form the new firm KiBiSi.

In the picture, from left to right, are: Jens Martin Skibsted, founder of Biomega, which makes some of the most beautiful bikes in the world; Bjarke Ingels, founder of BIG architects, a firm that's had a meteoric rise in the last couple years; and finally, Lars Holme Larsen, founder of Kilo Design.

All three have known each other for years--the Danish design scene is still pretty small, after all. It makes sense that they'd form a joint venture: We've seen for some time that clients are eager to get a suite of services, surrounding a single project. For example, when Coke rolls out a new soda machine, it incorporates graphics, product design, and environmental design (kiosks, show booths, etc). Some design firms have begun offering services to suit those sprawling projects--but the results have usually been hackneyed. (Here's a free tip: DO NOT hire advertising agencies to do architecture--I'm looking at you, Microsoft and Coke.) Hopefully, these three genuine talents from disparate fields will be able to produce something better.

Naturally, the three of them have excellent Rolodexes, which they capitalized on for a series of products launching in 2010:

Headphones with leather-covered ear pieces:

Bespoke chairs for a new housing development in Copenhagen that BIG is designing, called 8 House:

Another set of headphones launching in 2010, and produced by AIAIAI:

A series of bikes, designed for Puma, and continuing on Biomega's brilliant early design for bike with an integrated cable lock (visible in the second row, on the left):

Chairs that will feature prominently in the Danish Pavilion that BIG designed for the Shanghai World Expo in 2010:

We look forward to the day when American product designers are treated like rock stars too. In the meantime, you can be a groupie over at the official KiBiSi site.

The Case Against Lowercase: Design Experts on Re-branded Aol. [VIDEO]

Alissa Walker — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 13:30:22 EST

Since we reported yesterday on AOL's new logo, vision and creative punctuation tactics, reactions to the new Aol. have flooded in. As did this video, a sneak peek of Aol.'s new campaign:

Today, some professional opinions from a few of our design experts:

Ken Carbone, CarboneSmolan: This new identity is stillborn. It's old before it is new and signals a desperate attempt to be hip and relevant, somewhat like the new Yahoo is "You" campaign. There are fundamental problems with "Aol." its service and perception that other Internet pioneers will face if they focus their branding and marketing on young audiences only. This group is slippery and building brand loyalty is challenging. Facebook? Here today, gone tomorrow? The "flexi brand" approach, while potentially fun, also signals that Aol. is still searching for a meaningful identity. Also, if the change from AOL to Aol. is to signal vitality, new thinking or a future promise, don't bother.

Joe Duffy, Duffy & Partners: I could be mistaken...but I'd swear that's the British pronunciation for A-hole! Sorry, that was too easy.

Debbie Millman, Sterling Brands: The new AOL identity is a disaster. They should put a garbage can behind the logo and call it a day.

A peek around the Internet reveals that other designers feel the same way. The Guardian rounded up the reactions of several designers, and our favorite has to be this gem from Om Malik of technology site GigaOM: "It is ambiguous at best, and as sexy as the obese, shapeless humans living on Axiom, the flagship of the BnL fleet in Pixar movie WALL-E."

Over at Brand New, Armin Vit took Aol.'s shape-shifting logo advice to heart. He didn't as much bash the logo as push their anything-goes-behind-us strategy to the very, very edge. "I am not trying to be immature but when you are a media giant, vulnerable to an endless array of criticism, you have to be careful what ammunition you give your haters," he wrote. Well-executed and well-said.

Letter from the Editor: Attitude Is Everything

Robert Safian — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 13:00:00 EST

DONT MAKE ME MAD What's worked in the ad biz since the days of Don Draper may not work anymore. | Photograph Courtesy of AMC

My father-in-law uses an expression, "Attitude is everything." It's his nonconfrontational way of saying, "Stop complaining." This expression has been on my mind lately when I talk to media and advertising executives about the disruption and uncertainty in their industries. I hear a lot of nostalgia, resistance, and barely contained anger as lucrative ways of doing business are undercut by shifts in technology, new spending patterns, and client enthusiasm for ideas that have never been tried before. It's no wonder that AMC's Mad Men has become such a cultural touchstone. As a throwback to another, perhaps simpler business era, there is something comforting about the series, despite its moral ambiguities.

Which brings me to Ashton Kutcher. There is something odd -- something uncomfortable for us -- about putting Kutcher on our cover. He is not Cisco's John Chambers or even Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, CEOs who have headlined previous issues. Kutcher is a celebrity with an adolescent persona who has insinuated himself into Web stardom via Twitter and now contends he is on his way to becoming a new kind of media mogul. It seems a bit hard to accept.

But, as senior writer Ellen McGirt's profile reveals ("Want a Piece of This?"), Kutcher's bid to break down the walls between Hollywood, Silicon Valley, and Madison Avenue offers a glimpse of where media are headed, even if his bid to be a titan of tomorrow proves ephemeral. What Kutcher has going for him most of all (aside from a rabid fan base and an instinctive sense of how to engage the Web generation) is a complete indifference to established structures. He sees excitement and opportunity everywhere -- which is exactly the outlook that competitors inside more-traditional organizations have such a hard time with.

When my father-in-law says, "Attitude is everything," it isn't just an admonition -- it's a prescription. Right now, we are experiencing a massive explosion of creativity in tech and media, an extraordinary flowering of content and collaboration. Businesses (and businesspeople) that can find the excitement in that have a fighting chance of surviving the transition and thriving. Those who choose to fight the future and pretend the old ways are coming back, well, you may be the subject of your own TV series one day. But it's likely to be on the History Channel.

Are Investors Hedging, Or Is Your Baby Ugly?

Dan Heath — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 12:30:19 EST

Q: About a year ago a colleague and I started putting together a business plan for a new kind of social-media tool. We still haven't closed any investment (though we've gotten close). The economic crisis didn't help, obviously. The puzzle is that every time we show an investor our concept and our prototype, they absolutely love it. How can we get the investors to get over their fear and pull the trigger? - Moneyhungry

Dear Moneyhungry,

I don't know enough about your situation to make any pronouncements, but let me share a story that may help. When I co-founded a company years ago, I had exactly the problem you're having. We'd developed a business plan that displayed unprecedented brilliance, or so we thought. Hell, it even looked good--colorful, well-designed, full of graphics. We felt sure that a million-dollar investment would drop in our laps any minute. But then we found ourselves in Entrepreneurial Groundhog Day. Every pitch meeting was the same: We'd present our idea, and the investors would ooh and aah about the concept. They'd express interest and promise to get back with us.

They never did.

And we'd wring our hands about it--They seemed so excited! What happened? Finally, one of our advisors gave us some advice that was difficult to hear: He said "No one is going to tell you that your baby is ugly. Why would they? Even if they hate your concept, they'd rather hedge their bets--because if you turn out to be Michael Dell, then they don't want to be the people who told you that you had an ugly baby." Bottom line: Don't trust nice talk in a meeting. The only authentic sign of approval you can get from an investor is an investment.

Needless to say, this wasn't what we wanted to hear. But it made us think. Instead of fretting about why the investors weren't calling, we started trying to empathize with them. What was it about our plan that spooked them? We started asking people to level with us about what was wrong. And once we got the answers, we were able to adapt. (We did attract investment eventually, once we'd prettied up the baby, but I'm sad to report, though, that we never became Michael Dell.)

So now let me ask you the hard question: You implied that the investors aren't buying because they're fearful, but is it possible they're clear-eyed? Is it possible you've got an ugly baby?

I don't know. Worse, though, you don't know. And you can't adapt until you know the truth. So I think the first thing you need to do is: Find out why investors aren't buying. The *real* answer. Beg, plead, cajole--do whatever you need to do to get some straight answers. Maybe investors think that your business model is flawed, or that your technology isn't distinct enough, or that there's not enough experience on your team. (By the way, if you're not already reading Guy Kawasaki's blog, start today. He's the ultimate coach for high-tech entrepreneurs.)

Maybe the problem will be fixable and maybe it won't. But either way, you'll get out of Groundhog Day.

Ask Dan is a weekly column. Read last week's entry: Can You Make Complex Things Simple?

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Best of TreeHugger: Landmine-Detecting Bacteria, a U.S.-China Electric Car Deal, and Solar Cells that Work Underground

Brian Merchant of TreeHugger — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 12:00:00 EST

This bizarre human powered vehicle is designed to make you move like a cheetah.

A new program modeled after 'Cash for Clunkers' is being carefully considered by Obama: 'Cash for Caulkers' would provide major incentives for weatherizing homes and increasing energy efficiency.

Scientists engineered bacteria to light up and glow green when placed near landmines.

During his trip to Asia, President Obama and Hu Jintao forged an intriguing China-US electric vehicle initiative.

These new cheap modern solar cells can be up to 6 times more effiicient--and they work underground.

A nutritionist in Nigeria uncovered a potential solution to Africa's malnutrition woes: a recipe for giant snail pies.

Is it really the end of the road for modern green prefab housing?

In the third chapter of a series looking at the growing trend of biking with cargo, Warren rounds up 22 of the best extended frame bicycles.

Unbeknownst to many, there are a slew of oil rigs scattered across downtown Los Angeles, pumping away while hidden in plain sight.

A new study found that a full 37% of the sewer systems in the US are polluting rivers and lakes with untreated waste and hazardous chemicals.

TreeHugger is the leading online destination for the news and ideas that are driving sustainability mainstream.

Solar-Powered Plane Prepping for Round-World Trip

Kit Eaton — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 11:30:23 EST

Someday soon Bertrand Piccard is going to throw the switches on his Solar Impulse Foundation aircraft, tug back on the stick and pull it into the air. Then he'll fly it right around the world. The impressive technology demonstrator's just about to take its maiden flight. Let's hope it's not cloudy.

The Solar Impulse Foundation, cofounded by Piccard, has some loft goals about promoting research and innovative exploitations of renewable energy use in the aeronautics industry, getting the information and news about inventions out to the public, and promoting sustainable development. One route to doing this is to tackle the tricky challenge of flying around the world in a solar-powered aircraft, and that's exactly what the SIF set out to do in 2003--with building starting in 2007.

Several weeks ago the impressive-looking vehicle, dotted with 12,000 individual photovoltaic solar cells underwent some initial engine power tests, and last week it rolled down the runway in Switzerland under its own power in some low- and high-speed taxi tests to test out controls, handling, and the delicate undercarriage. Under a test-pilots command, ground speed reached 10 miles an hour, and conditions were almost right for a first flight. Instead the team played it safe, and that flight should happen some time this week, if all goes well. Playing it safe sounds particularly sensible when you learn that the Solar Impulse is the size of an Airbus, but weighs about as much as a mid-sized car.

Of course solar-powered aircraft are nothing particularly new: NASA's Pathfinder aircraft has been in the news for several years, and QinetiQ's Zephyr aircraft broke some world records when it was demonstrated to the U.S. Air Force last year. But both of those aircraft are designed for specific tasks--mainly loitering around a specific location at very high altitude for defense or communications-node purposes--and they're unmanned, which frees up their design to be very, very light.

Piccard's vehicle is important because when it flies, it'll be a very potent demonstration of how far solar-power technology has come: It's efficient enough to fly a person into the air under power, and then fly that pilot around the world. Of course Piccard isn't envisioning a future where we all hop into our solar sail-planes for the journey to work, pseudo-Jetsons-style. Instead it's supposed to act as a symbol, "almost a provocation" as the Web site puts it, that solar technology could have a valuable role in aviation, an industry that many finger as being a serious eco-threat, with its almost exclusive reliance on fossil fuel. Fingers crossed then that the first flight--and more important the first landing--goes well this week, since Piccard's six-year effort as resulted in just a single fragile airframe.

[SIF via Cleantechnica]

Infographic of the Day: Black Friday Might Be Pretty Good (Fingers Crossed!)

Cliff Kuang — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 11:00:08 EST

Mint.com's data shows that American consumers are finally waking up from economic hibernation, just in time for the biggest shopping day of the year.

Bless the Web team over at Mint.com for this new infographic, detailing their shopping indices in the run-up to the coming Black Friday. Mint's users input their spending habits on the site, and the anonymized data has yielded lots of interesting results. The latest is about Black Friday sales, they're predicting that this year should be pretty strong.

The bottom two graphs show sales figures among mass-market and luxury retailers, gathered from Mint's own records of consumer spending. Both are well over the moribund stats they posted in 2008.

But maybe the most helpful of the three graphs is the first one. Mint looked at their users' spending at several major retailers, and used that to calculate an average spend per user. The dotted lines show the trend in 2008; the solid line shows the trend in 2009. In 2008, the average spend was flat or declining. In 2009, things are trending back up.

Now, economists have reached a broad consensus that consumer-spending is a pretty dicey way to rescue us from a recession--it's better to invest, and let innovation create more jobs. Nonetheless: American Consumer, to the rescue!

[MintLife Trends]

Google and TiVo Make a Deal: Your Commercials Are Going to Get a Lot More Personal

Kit Eaton — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 10:30:47 EST

TiVo, everyone's favorite DVR maker, has just signed an agreement with Google to hand over tons of data on its users habits for analysis. The upshot: Advertisements are going to be even more targeted and personal. It's how Internet TV ads will work in the future.

What TiVo gets is raw revenue, courtesy of Google's TV Ads service. In exchange, Google gets accurate second-by-second data on which TiVo users of which types are watching which content at which times. That's going to be absolutely invaluable to Google, since it constitutes an incredibly rich data pile to help understand what shows people are viewing. And if you're worried about privacy, you needn't--Google's only getting anonymized information.

The real trick inside this deal, of course, is that Google will most certainly not be concentrating on which shows TiVo users are watching. Instead it'll be examining in great detail which ads people are watching, and how long they watch them before skipping through or changing the channel. This information can let advertisers design more personalized adverts and ones that keep user attention for longer. It will also help them to place ad breaks in a more targeted manner. Once Google works out precisely how much attention users pay to which commercials, they can determine pricing structures in a far more accurate way than Nielsen's ratings, which concentrate mainly on which shows people are viewing.

Like it or not, this is a demonstration of how TV advertising will work in the future, when online streamed TV begins to snap up significant market share from the networks and cable. The data much being handed to Google by TiVo will enable advertisers to adjust which adverts are included almost on the fly--bringing the benefits of reaching their target audience far more precisely than ever before. As a viewer you'll benefit from ads that are more likely to be of interest to you--if you're a glass-half-full optimist anyway. If you're already concerned about ads permeating your life, then this is probably not good news.

[Via Variety]

Plumen Twists Your Ideas of a Low-Impact Light Bulb

Alissa Walker — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 10:00:00 EST

A few years back, Hulger gained gadget geek stardom with their line of phone accessories that turned wireless calls or Skyping into a classy, contemporary twist on the traditional telephone experience. After gaining worldwide attention for their sly cultural commentary on our relationships with our mobile phones, founder Nicolas Roope wanted to turn the firm's attention to something more universal that could make a wider impact. You could say a lightbulb went off in his head: The Plumen Project was born.

BRIGHT IDEAThe phone project had taught Roope a few things about getting consumers buzzing about products in the marketplace. Initially, they had set out to make a kind of tongue-in-cheek critique around the supposedly futuristic nature of mobile phones. "The intention was never to set up a phone company, it was just to make sense of the excitement," remembers Roope. Still, they had grown that excitement into a profitable business, and learned that the best way to find that sweet spot was to ignore the cues of fashion and trends and dig deeper into consumer behavior.

"Designers always look in the same places," says Roope. "They overlook the small things time and time again." They decided to look the one place no one was looking. "The lightbulb is completely barren, so '90s," says Roope. "It's an incredible source of ubiquity. If you can change the form even slightly you can change the whole game." Hulger conceived of a design-driven CFL bulb that would entice consumers with its looks and performance, yet also deliver the best possible sustainability features.

A NEW TWISTThe design process started with a question: "What if we weren't trying to fall in line and could do whatever we wanted with a tube of pure light that we could bend into any shape we fancied?" Redefining the lightbulb meant they had to jerk it completely out of the form that it had inherited over a century ago: a bulb that resembled a candle. While technology had proved the incandescent bulb was no longer environmentally viable, the compact fluorescent bulb, which was easily the most energy efficient, just mimicked the traditional candle-bulb form, molded into poorly-conceived shapes they nicknamed "The Radiator, The Ice Cream Whip and the Tungsten-esque style."

Using sketches and abstract shapes that were more conversational than symbolic, the designers created four different bulb designs that changed the language of the CFL into a striking centerpiece. "There's no way to emulate the way its form and luminosity works with a LED or incandescent systems so the effect is very specific to it being a CFL" says Roope. Turning the lightbulb into a design or art piece transformed the role that a light source can have in a room. "We forget how defining lighting is in most spaces so when you add a dramatic twist, it really grabs your attention."

PIGGYBACK MANUFACTURINGCFL bulbs use very basic materials, constructed in glass, plastic and electronic components. The main toxic hazard in CFLs is the mercury content, but even that has been greatly reduced with modern techniques which make disposal much less problematic. Many communities now have take-back or recycling programs for CFLs at the end of their lives, but their energy efficiency compared to incandescents mean that most consumers don't need to replace them for a very long time.

But to make sure that Plumen could be made in the most efficient way possible, the designers found a manufacturing partner who made traditional CFL bulbs. Partnering with a larger manufacturer will enable them to make the Plumen more effectively and affordably. "The more seamlessly our design can integrate with existing production lines, the lower the entry costs and of course also therefore also the unit costs, up to a certain volume at least," says Roope. It's also a symbiotic marketing relationship: When Plumen gains attention, it will raise the profile of the manufacturer's core brand.

WARMING UPThe Plumen is still attracting investors and is expected to be on shelves in 2010. Yet within a few months of the prototype's release, the Plumen was tapped to be included in MoMA's "Design and the Elastic Mind"exhibition. After that, the product was included in an exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. To Roope, that was proof of the game-changing nature of the concept--and the changing role of designers. "The product is also consciously an example of how design can contribute to the process of behavioral change in the marketplace, something designers should have a key role in driving."

In fact, it's more important that the concept gains popularity--the idea that consumers will choose a beautiful object which also happens to be a better choice. "We won't be measuring the design's success on whether it picks up prestigious awards or not, or whether the glossies fall head over heals in love with it," says Roope. "This is about design fixing a problem. Finding beauty in something otherwise boring to inspire adoption on a massive scale."

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Airlines Charge Less for More Suffering

Ben Paynter — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 09:30:08 EST

Something to keep in mind as you head home on the busiest travel day of the year:

The more hellish the flight, the more it may actually be worth paying for. That's because airlines with fewer flights and packed cabins are actually slashing rates to stay competitive.

(As we've already pointed out, less selection with deeper discounts seems to be tactic du jour for big company price wars.)

According to a new study by farecompare.com there are 80,000 fewer seats available for booking out of the 50 busiest cities this November, a 3.4 percent drop in overall surplus. But commuter cities like New York and DC and vacation hot spots like Las Vegas have had rate decreases equal to or nearly double their capacity loss. And even major hubs like San Francisco, which were likely flying nearly full planes to begin with, seem to have cut prices to retain the disgruntled customers they do have. After all, they could always go to Oakland.

Of course, some connection nightmares like Atlanta have been slow to follow suit, perhaps because they are sardined already and there isn't another nearby competing airport. The bottom line: That the beefy guy squeezed into the seat next to you is probably saving you some money--even if he's stealing the armrest.

To figure out if you would have saved more by visiting your parents instead of your in-laws, check out the interactive map here.

Image: Via ma1974, Flickr, CC BY 2.0