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Twitter and Facebook make us more productive? - Many argue that social media tools -- such as Twitter and Facebook -- are resulting in a fiscal toll for businesses. What they don't acknowledge, however, is that for people engaged in transforming ideas into products, sometimes stepping away from a project can help stoke the creative mind and result in a better end result. [more] |
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Rendering the world squeaky clean - A German company (Nanopool) has developed a "liquid glass" product that can be used on virtually any surface to protect it against water, dirt, bacteria, heat and UV radiation. [more] |
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How many apps do you have? - With over 100,000 downloadable apps for the iPhone and iPod Touch, the temptation to load up can be pretty strong. But how many apps do you really need, or regularly use? If you're anything like Caroline Cua, the answer is a modest five. Is she missing out? [more] |
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To the moon - Despite the cancellation of NASA's back-to-the-moon program, steps will likely be taken on the moon within the next decade...by robots. Among the robotic initiatives suggested to replace the canceled Constellation program is a mission to send out a lunar robot that "can be tele-operated from Earth and can transmit near-live video." [more] |
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 Shootin'
fish in a barrel - We've written previously about killing mosquitoes with
lasers, but this time there's a video showing proof of concept! The idea was
born from a 2008 brainstorming session held on strategies for killing
malaria-bearing mosquitoes.
[more]
[video] |
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| How will you find your next hire? - Many companies are just taking their first tentative steps into the world of social media. Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn are common sites where a company might choose to establish a presence, even if they don't necessarily know why they're doing it. Here's one good reason: potential hires are looking in these places for jobs. "[Social media is] a modern method of talking to candidates," says David Smith. "Either active candidates or passive candidates who may be considering a job move. The reality is that consumers spend several hours a day on their social media sites online and that is a good time to target people as far as offering them job prospects - they're more likely to respond to an approach over a social media network than they are to take an unsolicited phone call or unsolicited email." [more] |
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| Brains on this bus are definitely going round and round - How can cash-strapped schools provide high-tech science programs? One option is The Cell Motion BioBus, a high-tech, carbon-neutral laboratory housed in a retrofitted transit bus. It brings science education to these schools, and provide a hands-on lab experience for the students. Ben Dubin-Thaler established the BioBus in 2007 with money from his savings as well as donations from friends and family a few weeks after receiving his PhD in biology from Columbia University. [more] |
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A Little About Menlo Innovations |
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You absolutely need your next software or web product to succeed. What does success look like?
Is this possible? If so, what are the necessary ingredients? It’s not about smarter programmers and it’s not about cooler widgets. It’s about a better process. The process must energize the team and engage the sponsors while maintaining a focus on the users. Menlo Innovations has built that process and has applied it every day since 2001. Menlo is so confident in its approach that it regularly exchanges a large portion of its cash compensation for a share in the client’s marketplace success. At the heart of Menlo’s own success are the processes and practices that set the company apart from other firms. Menlo blends techniques from across the technical and managerial spectrum: the Project Management Institute, Alan Cooper’s user-centered design, Kent Beck’s extreme programming and test-driven development, W. Edwards Deming’s quality teaching, and much more. These practices are so compelling that Menlo now conducts almost a tour a day of their workspace and they consistently earn 5 to 10 percent of their annual revenues teaching others how their process works. The transparency found at Menlo is a benefit enjoyed by its clients. This clarity, including the power of “seeing” the proposed designs allows clients to focus on aligning their decisions with their business goals. If there’s any doubt that Menlo is truly different, those doubts disappear upon setting foot inside their unique downtown Ann Arbor workspace. Modeled after the open and collaborative environment of Thomas Edison’s Menlo Park, New Jersey “Invention Factory,” Menlo has dispensed with walls, offices, cubes, and doors to create a fun, energized, and innovative environment. Often the first word visitors say is “Wow!” Upon opening the front door, people immediately hear the noisy conversations of team members working on client projects. Visitors see teams of people clustered around tables pushed together. Up close they notice two people working side by side at a single workstation, even sharing a keyboard and mouse. The walls are covered with lots of index cards pinned to the wall. These cards hold the tasks and work assignments critical to advancing each project. In the spirit of Menlo’s open and collaborative workspace, all of this information is posted for the entire team and clients to see. Project identities are protected by fun and unique code names such as “Houlihan” and “Lancelot.” Despite what might appear to be chaos at first glance, there is a disciplined set of practices that drive all roles across the team, including software developers, High-Tech Anthropologists®, quality advocates, and project managers. Using these practices Menlo has helped its clients design new products and services across a wide range of domains including scientific instrumentation, consumer health care devices, fashion e-commerce, automotive and truck diagnostics, electronic travel aids, cancer research, municipal services, and organ transplant information systems. If you absolutely need your next software or web product to succeed, contact Menlo’s CEO Richard Sheridan at rsheridan@menloinnovations.com or (734) 665-1847. Interested in learning more? Follow @menloprez and @menloinnovation on Twitter, and visit Menlo's website at http://www.menloinnovations.com. Menlo Innovations LLC Our mission: To end human suffering in the world as it relates to technology.™ Coding, format, and on-site content copyright © 2010
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Does the wi-fi on the bus go round and round? - What if you could turn
the travel time on a school bus into productive study time for the students? One
district in Tucson, Arizona is doing just that. They've mounted a mobile
Internet router to bus number 92, enabling students to surf the web.
Innovate or die - In the Age of Innovation, great design gives you the competitive edge to succeed. Many of our favorite clients are winning big in their market and the software we designed and developed for them is a big part of that success. What approach did we take, and can this approach be applied to your product? Join me for Menlo's free monthly 
CORRECTION: 10 inventions by Edison (that you've never heard of) - Last
issue I messed up the link for this story -- sorry!
All the cool kids are reading it - No, I'm not talking about 
Think Green! Don't print this email unless you need to.
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