Massachusetts company plans to market wireless electricity system – Los Angeles Times

Small Business Fast Fixes: How We…Avoid Corporate Culture – WSJ.com

Link: Inflation, a Visual Guide | SwiftEconomics.com

Nature inspires innovation. This inspiration is called biomimicry. But, nature’s designs are based on the “good enough” principle – while we may often want to optimize certain variables in our designs. So, we shouldn’t copy nature outright, but use nature for inspiration. Below Professor Full explains that we need to understand nature’s underlying principals and use those to inspire new design. Very entertaining video.

The video is a presentation by Berkley Professor Robert Full. It is
a very interesting, funny, and highly educational piece. He shares
some very interesting research and findings, and some advice on
how not to simply copy nature, but understand underlying
principals and use those to inspire new design.

Link: What I Learned: Biomimicry for Innovation (Must see Video Clip) | PLM and Profitability | Blog on Manufacturing Business Technology

Virtual reality as applied on mobile devices seems to be a concept area that is getting more attention lately. Here is a concept video of an idea for combining virtual reality, the mobile phone, and online identity.

With a mobile device and face recognition software this software enables you to discover selected information about people around you. All users control their own augmented appearance and the social network links they want show to others.

Online retailers have always had a few shortcomings when competing against physical retailing. People often like to check out the real physical object before purchasing. Online retailers have come up with several ways to deal with the issue – from long-term return policies to Amazon’s “search inside” feature. Zugara is giving a shot at using virtual reality to help people shop for clothes. The shopper stands in front of their home camera and can “try on” different clothes. The problem here is that while you may get an idea of what the clothes would look like on you, it would not tell you what you would actually look like with the item on – after it conforms to your particular fit. I can see this working a little better with eyeglass frames or other items that don’t change shape as much. On the other hand, this may be a good start and may increase sales because it may really give you a better idea of what the colors, etc would look like on you. Check it out for yourself.

Here is the video of their system in action:

Here is an idea… how about creating a virtual bike lane that moves along with the bike rider (using a laser). Would this make them more safe? Below is a video of a test run…

I just participated in startup weekend here in Memphis. Fun event and great participants. My project was MisterMenus.com. It will be a website for finding and sharing menu items from restaurants. There is no site exactly like it on the Internet. Unfortunately, due to other projects I am working on that will also be launched this year…. I was not able to stay the entire weekend.

Check out Mister Menus when it launches soon, especially if you live in the Memphis area.

Mister Menus

Link: MisterMenus.com

What are you doing this weekend? Anything exciting? How about staring a company? If you live in the Memphis area or can get here – Startup Weekend 2 is this weekend in Memphis.

Startup Weekend Memphis is an event where about 100 people get together in downtown Memphis to start a few companies. Usually this means a tech company like a website or application of some sort.

All are welcome – a mix of business skill sets are needed – from marketing to web design to software development.

Click here for more info.

Below are the top 10 biggest tech failures of the last decade according to Time.

I can understand most of these at first glance. Some simply failed to launch. Others failed to understand a shifting market.

I really liked Gateway about 15 years ago. I liked their desktop computers. What happened to them?

Gateway’s failure has been blamed on several things, primarily its reluctance to enter the laptop business. Its share of the desktop business was strong through the early part of the decade, but it did not shift to portable computers as fast as its major competitors did.

Here is the top 10 list:

Microsoft Vista
Gateway
HD DVD
Vonage
YouTube
Sirius XM
Microsoft Zune
Palm
Iridium
Segway

Link: Complete List – The 10 Biggest Tech Failures of the Last Decade – TIME

My guess is that the next shift is to mobile devices and tablet-computing devices. I wonder who is not gearing up for the next shift and will pay the price.