South Koreans and Counterfeits.

In a recent blog by Michael Arndt from the BusinessWeek Innovation Web Site, he speaks on how South Korea has a problem with fake goods. I find this to be really funny because it is so true! This may seem like a statement that would usually offend a South Korean, but I will have to say that Koreans love to find a bargain. Even though that Louis Vuitton looks more like a IY than a LV, as long as it looks like the real deal, Koreans will buy it. So in order to crack down on the fakes, South Korea has created a new innovative way by creating pretty nifty incentives. If someone reports anyone who is selling fake goods, they will be awarded with money.

"Like
nations elsewhere, South Korea has a problem with fake goods. It's trying an
innovative method to stop counterfeiting…It's enlisting everyday citizens to
tell on people selling knockoffs, and paying bounties for their detective
work. "
—Michael Arndt, NEXT: Innovation Tools & Trends

For More Information: http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/next/archives/2008/12/koreas_new_anti.html

-Nina

Is That a Fly or Wait a Camera?

What looks like an insect is actually a camera that is under study to be used in the United States military. The military is hoping that they could develop these cameras to spy on enemies and make attacks. It is used to conduct dangerous missions while saving people's lives. The hopes for this flying robots is to send them out in a swarm so it looks like it is just insects.

For more information: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27845644/

-Nina

Go Green While You Eat.

You may think, gee another post on Going Green?? I am going crazy! No, but this one will be useful, even though it might be something you already know. Going green while you eat, does not necessarily mean eating vegetables and organic food everyday. There are other ways you can care for the environment when you are shopping for groceries. First, make sure that you write EVERYTHING you need from the supermarket. This prevents you from making multiple trips because you forgot something, which ultimately helps you save gas. Also, make sure that you are bringing your reusable shopping bag, so the supermarket can cut back on all of those plastic and paper bags. Only one percent of plastic bags are recycled and surprisingly, only 20 percent of paper bags ever gets recycled. Also, try shopping at your local Farmer's Markets, so you can support local growers and a good way to get some fresh air. Lastly, you can buy recycled cups, paper towels and napkins for your meal.

For more information: http://www.latimes.com/features/lifestyle/green/sns-green-eco-meals,0,6329839.story

-Nina

New Drug Can Help You Sleep Easier.

Wouldn't it be nice if someone created a medication to minimize jet lag and bring sleep back to graveyard shift workers? Everyone needs the right amount of sleep to stay healthy and when someone does not have a steady sleep cycle, it can be unhealthy. About 450 people were conducted in a study by a team from Bringham and Women's Hospital in Boston, to test an experimental drug that can restore normal sleep. The group were subjected to stimulated jet lag in a sleep laboratory and found it to work the first night it was used! There were no aftereffects from the drug, minimal side effects and has no potential for addiction or abuse, unlike other sleeping aid drugs. The people who took it also performed normally the next day. The experimental medication, called tasimelteon, works like melatonin and restores normal sleep patterns.

For more information: http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-sci-sleep2-2008dec02,0,6896293.story

-Nina

Obama and Innovation.

Jeneanne Rae is a columnist for Business Week on the Web. In a recent piece entitled, "What Obama Needs to Know About Innovation," she basically describes what well, what the President-elect Obama needs to know about innovation. It is clear that the future President-elect will need to have a clear understanding of innovation, because we are currently in an age of transition. Transitioning with innovative ideas and products, that he will need to utilize and further advance for our society to advance as well. It is also clear that Americans want and need to change in our society today and for the future. In order for that to be successful, the government needs to make some changes of its own.

What Rae suggests that Obama learns from failure, analyze bureacracy and look globally to learn. There needs to be some improvement in health care, social security, education, aid of rescue and most importantly in our financial system.

For more information: http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/nov2008/id20081126_872242.htm

-Nina

Food vs. Fuel: Saltwater Crops May Be Key to Solving Earth's Land Crunch

Saltwater-loving plants could open up half a million square miles of previously unusable territory for energy crops, helping settle the heated food-versus-fuel debate, which nearly derailed biofuel progress last year.

If the world's irrigated acreage by 50 percent, saltwater crops could provide biomass for alt fuel makers. An article in wired.com said Saltwater plants could be put in over a million miles of previously unusable land. This the article said, will “tone down the rhetoric of U.N. officials worried about food prices, one of whom called the conversion of arable land to biofuel crops "a crime against humanity."

NASA scientists have taken new interest in the salt-water crops.

The article said, “that salt-loving crops could be used to produce 1.5 billion barrels of ethanol annually on a swath of new agricultural land almost five times the size of Texas.”
Because of the worlds need to feed 6.7 billion people its hard to find room for biofuels.
So the article said, “social and environmental groups agree that the best location for bioenergy crops would be on currently unusable land. That would ensure that land used to grow food crops in poor countries was not converted to growing energy crops to power cars in developed nations.”

So the one problem is where do you find all this land, solution is overly salty land could be used to grow a special set of salt-tolerant plants — halophytes. The article said, “calculated that this could produce 1.5 billion barrels of oil equivalent per year. That's 35 percent of the United States' liquid fuel needs.”

-Adam

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/12/saltwatercrops.html

Eye Spy: Filmmaker Plans to Install Camera in His Eye Socket

An article in Wired.com explains that Rob Spence’s hazel-green eyes will have a tiny wireless video camera in it that records your every move.

Rob Spence lost his right eye at 13 while playing with his grandfather's gun on a visit to Ireland. "I wanted to shoot a pile of cowshit," he says. "I wasn't holding the gun properly and it backfired, causing a lot of trauma to the eye."

Therefore, the eye he is considering replacing is not a working one and he has had prosthetic eye for many years.

The article said, “Spence, a 36-year-old Canadian filmmaker, is not content with having one blind eye.” He wants a wireless video camera inside his prosthetic; this will give him the ability to make movies wherever he is, all the time, just by looking around.
"If you lose your eye and have a hole in your head, then why not stick a camera in there?" he asks.

Spence, who calls himself the "eyeborg guy," will not be restoring his vision the article said. “The camera won't connect to his brain.” It is like having someone else with you recording and watching your every move.

"The eyes are like no other part of the body," says Spence. "It's what you look into when you fall in love with somebody and [influences] whether you trust someone or not. Now with a video camera in there, it will change how people see and perceive me."
The article said a wireless video camera into a prosthetic eye isn't easy. “The shape of the prosthetic is the biggest limitation: In Spence's case, it's 9-mm thick, 30-mm long and 28-mm high.”

Spence will be the first of his kind having a camera physically put in his body. The article said, “Getting a completely self-contained camera module to fit into the tiny hollow of a prosthetic eye is a significant engineering challenge.”

http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/12/eye-spy-filmmak.html

-Adam