Do you know anyone with friends or relatives buried at Arlington? Now the cemetery will soon become the first to use geospatial mapping technology to replace old paper records. Visitors can log in and visit their loved ones and find complete information. Check out the story from NBC News:

It is solemn and reverent ground. And now a visit to Arlington National Cemetery is just a couple clicks away.

The cemetery is using new geospatial mapping technology to improve operations and provide a better experience for visitors.

Executive Director Kathryn Condon told a Congressional panel that people will soon be able to go online and explore individual gravesites. Visitors will be able to zoom in on that specific website and learn about who is buried there.

The technology is also part of an effort to replace old paper-based records. Poor record keeping led to a huge scandal for the cemetery when hundreds of mismarked graves and misplaced remains were uncovered.

Arlington, which oversees nearly 30 burials a day, is the first national cemetery to implement the mapping technology.

Related articles

• More than 400,000 buried at Arlington Cemetery (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Arlington Cemetery to issue report on grave checks (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Army Submits Gravesite Study of Arlington National Cemetery (thecommunicatorwv.wordpress.com)
• Arlington Cemetery to Issue Report on Grave Checks (abcnews.go.com)
• Soldier who died in fire to be buried at Arlington (seattletimes.nwsource.com)

Sure, we all know about Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter the newest craze, Pinterest, but just wait–more social sharing sites are on the horizon, and soon they will change the way you communicate, shop and work. It seems we can scarcely keep up with all of the new apps and technologies that seem to come at us at a rapid pace. That’s why I am so fortunate to have friends who track these social trends. My friend Michael Koploy is an ERP analyst and writes for SoftwareAdvice.com, and today I am sharing his expertise on six new startups sure to change the shopping scene:

It’s amazing how technology has impacted the act of shopping. Today, I can buy a deep-discounted deal through Groupon, “check-in” to the store via Foursquare, like the brand on Facebook, and shop online at my convenience. Facebook, the oldest of these companies, just turned eight years-old this month.

New start-ups are launching every day that change how consumers buy and how merchants sell. While most of us know Facebook, Foursquare and Groupon, I’ve put together a list of the six new companies that I’m most excited about. I’d also like your feedback. Which company do you feel has the greatest chance to impact retail? Please respond to THE POLL.

GoSpotCheck

What they do: GoSpotCheck provides mystery shopping data via crowdsourcing.

How it works: Shoppers download the app to their iPhones and find nearby tasks, such as answering questions or taking pictures at local stores. GoSpotCheck pays users cash to complete these tasks, and the market research data is compiled for brands to analyze.

What makes it exciting: Market research is expensive and takes time to collect via mystery shoppers. Considering Apple sold 37 million iPhones in the last quarter alone, a service like GoSpotCheck has the potential to collect data at a lower cost, and quickly.

Shopperception

What they do: Shopperception uses the Xbox Kinect motion-capture device to analyze consumer shopping behavior.

How it works: Retailers position the Kinect device to analyze how customers interact with products on shelves. The system can even analyze the conversion rate on the specific products customers approach.

What makes it exciting: Just check out the demo to understand how cool this in-aisle research technology is. Shopperception provides a trove of data that both national retailers and small businesses can use to improve the layout and item placement in stores.

Pushpins

What they do: Pushpins combines a smartphone grocery list with instant coupons.

How it works: Users create shopping lists, then scan barcodes in the grocery store to receive coupons. These coupons are preloaded onto customers’ store loyalty cards and redeemed at checkout. The app can also suggest items based on the current shopping list.

What makes it exciting: Grocery stores are an area where smartphones could easily disrupt the status quo. While we wait for something like near-field communication (NFC) to create a seamless smartphone shopping experience, Pushpins is an option readily available today that even integrates directly with loyalty cards of popular brands, such as ShopRite and Giant Eagle.

RNKD

What they do: RNKD offers rewards to users that upload purchased items to its social community.

How it works: From Nick Swinmurn, founder of Zappos.com, RNKD uses rewards to incentivize participation in its social platform. Users earn badges and gift cards for accomplishments, such as uploading the most items from a single brand.

What makes it exciting: Many loyalty programs end at the point of sale–if you don’t use your plastic card at checkout, you’re out of luck. The combination of retroactive rewards with gamification presents the opportunity to develop a large, diverse community of users–one that brands and retailers can leverage to better communicate with shoppers.

Fit of Passion

What they do: Fit of Passion provides shoppers assistance with online clothing shopping.

How it works: Online shoppers can use Fit of Passion to compare the fit of their favorite pair of jeans to another pair. Retailers can either list their products on the Fit of Passion website, or they can integrate the comparison engine into their own site.

What makes it exciting: Personally, the only brand of jeans I buy online are Levi’s 527 size 31/32–a pair I know fits me reliably. Being able to compare other jeans to this specific cut and size would increase my confidence in online shopping. This is a great example of a company addressing the needs of both merchants and consumers.

Signature

What they do: Signature is a “personal shopping assistant” application for the iPhone.

How it works: Retailers can customize the app to act as a mobile sales associate. Functionality includes notifying shoppers of sales in the store and setting up appointments with associates. Customers can also scan items to learn more about them.

What makes it exciting: This type of solution is a better alternative to users having an app for each store they frequent. In addition, retailers can customize the app to integrate the functionality into their current sales strategy.

Which of these excites you the most? Is there another up-and-comer you think others should know about? Be sure to leave a note in the comments with your favorite companies, and participate in the poll at the top!

Related articles

• Whole Foods experimenting with Kinect-powered shopping carts that are smarter than you (video) (engadget.com)
• Microsoft Ponders Future of Kinect, Tech (bits.blogs.nytimes.com)
• In retail stores, research tool uses Kinect to track shoppers’ behavior (springwise.com)
• Pushpins – Coupons, Lists, & Nutrition – Pushpins, Inc. (itunes.apple.com)
• Whole Foods prototype shopping cart uses Kinect (slashgear.com)
• Loyalty Cards (anobservantmind.wordpress.com)

The Dutch are bicycle fanatics. Almost half of daily travel in the Netherlands is by bicycle, while the country’s bike fleet comfortably outnumbers its 16 million people. Devotees of the national obsession have taken the next logical step by launching what is likely the first bicycle school bus.

Built by Tolkamp Metaalspecials, and sold by the De Cafe Racer company, the bicycle school bus (BCO in Dutch) is powered entirely by children and the one adult driver (although there is an electric motor for tough hills). Its simple design has eight sets of pedals for the kids (ages 4 to 12), a driver seat for the adult, and three bench seats for freeloaders. The top speed is about 10 miles per hour, and features a sound system and canvas awning to ward off rainy days.

Co.Exist spoke with Thomas Tolkamp who built the BCO about its origins and how the idea is catching on around the world for the sets of 11 lucky kids who get to arrive in school pedaling their own school bus.

Co.Exist: What was the inspiration for the bus?

Tolkamp: I had already made other big bikes (like the Beerbikes) and a few years ago someone mailed me with the question if I could develop a bike especially for transporting kids. So for that other company (a child care) I made the first bicycle. Some other companies were also interested, so I began to produce more bicycles and have improved the bike.

How many of these have been sold? How many are in use?

We’ve sold around 25 bikes. They are still all in use, except for the very first one, which was a prototype.
Does it only come in yellow?

No, we’ve sold bicycles in green, blue, purple, grey, red, yellow, but all [standard] colors are available.
How much does it cost?

Around $15,000, so less than a taxi or normal bus.
Can the kids alone make it go?

It’s possible to ride the bike without the motor when most seats are in use, but it wouldn’t be safe to ride without an adult.
Do you have plans to export it?

We have already exported some bikes to Belgium and Germany, but not this kind of bike. We have gotten frequent requests for information about the bike from all around the world (North America, South America, Europe) but we’ve never sold a bike outside of Europe.
Do you think it will work well in other countries, or is it something special about the Dutch culture?

I don’t know really, but what I do know is that people from all around the world like the idea. We have gotten interest from the press all over the world and all people are positive.

I hope I can sell the bike in the near future to a foreign country and see how people at other countries react on the bike. I think it will work well in other countries, because as more and more people [are] becoming fat and “green living” becomes more important, ideas like this get more popular.

Dutch Kids Pedal Their Own Bus To School | Co.Exist: World changing ideas and innovation

Related articles

• School Bus Bicycle (neatorama.com)
• Dutch School Bus is a Bicycle Built for Ten (yesmagazine.org)
• New ideas for a bicycle planet (working) (energybulletin.net)
• 4 New Ideas for a Bicycle Planet (yesmagazine.org)
• Pedal or peddle? (libroediting.com)
• Pedal Power: Save Cash on Your Commute (turbotax.intuit.com)
• How To Use A Recumbent Exercise Bike (answers.com)

Today, as many companies create their growth strategies and look for new opportunities for their products, services and even business models, they often require partnerships and alliances.

In their quest to change the basis of competition and deliver differentiated and meaningful innovation, companies have come to the realization that they need to leverage the capabilities and expertise of others.

Internally, companies have core competencies such as key technologies and skills, core brands and access to distribution channels. Partners can offer the complementary skills and capabilities that don’t exist internally in large part because they aren’t needed by the company on a regular basis.

Companies usually know what they need to execute their strategy. For example, they know they need to define the marketplace opportunities and gaps in unserved (or underserved) segments and expand into new geographies, markets, channels and categories. However, without the right partners to help, it often will not happen according to plan.

Successfully finding and engaging the right partners is not easy, but time and time again we see benefits from reaching out and creating outside relationships to deliver growth. If the relationships are appropriately structured and nurtured, they can often extend the capabilities of the company into new-to-the-company or new-to-the-world areas, increase speed to market with new technologies, products, services and business processes, and lower overall levels of risk.

Often when employees know that they have the flexibility to tap outside skills as necessary, a company that turns to open partnerships has the opportunity to create a more innovative culture — from the “outside in.” Good ideas may not be as easily discounted just because the internal knowledge or expertise doesn’t exist.

Companies just starting with this approach often need to enhance their capabilities to search and find business solutions defined in the context of their innovation efforts. It all begins with exploration. Exploration is the attempt to develop an initial, rough understanding of some phenomenon or some new opportunity areas where customers’ or consumers’ unmet or underserved needs may exist.

Outside explorers or scouts take a systematic approach to facilitate gathering information in the field. They may be either directed at a specific technological area or undirected, identifying relevant developments in technological “white spaces.”

Often, these explorers rely on formal and informal information sources, including the personal networks of the scouts themselves. They physically search for information, technologies, resources, etc. — looking for new opportunities and technologies to bring back to the organization.

Scouting is only one part of collaborative innovation, but it is an important first step to undertake. Leveraging the capabilities and expertise of others is very important opportunity today and a challenge that you will continue to hear more about in the future.

Sounds smart, right? But it gets even better. We’re now seeing an advanced metering infrastructure able to send data to the billing department at your utility company and then back home to you, the consumer.

As this article explains, it’s just one of many ways the new Smart Grid systems are evolving our electricity. Read on:

Image via Mashable.com

The “smart grid” is a rapidly growing set of technologies, processes, devices and applications that affect and enhance the traditional electric grid. These advances are partially driven by exponentially growing demands worldwide for energy as expressed in a commonly repeated statistic that “global electricity demand is expected to increase 75% by 2030.” What’s happening with the smart grid also reflects developments made in communications, from Internet to cellular to wireless, as well as higher expectations from consumers regarding energy availability, rising energy costs and access to their energy information. A smarter grid will also help integrate renewable energy including wind and solar into the energy mix.

To understand the smart grid, you first need to get familiar with the 125-year-old electric grid. Most people don’t think about where the electricity they’re using comes from or how it gets to their homes and offices. The electric grid consists of several main touchpoints in an overall system that gets electricity from creation to the end user:

William Gindlesperger is the founder and CEO of E-Lynxx. My source tells me he has over 25 years of experience in the printing industry, where found that the decision making process was antiquated and left companies vulnerable in many ways. He pursued business model innovation to come up with a system that could make the process transparent and more efficient. Under his business model, be provides software and services up front at not cost, getting paid only when the client saves real money from his work. Then he gets a cut of the savings. Low risk.

When a company turns to E-Lynxx, they receive software and training in how to use E-Lynxx’s open auction system. Bids are offered to a large array of qualified vendors who then bid on the deal. The vendors can see the competitive bids and so can the client. This transparency helps bring costs down substantially, often reducing print costs by 25-50%. E-Lynxx gets part of the savings. What’s not to like? Well, those who aren’t getting as much gravy might not like it, but if it’s your business, these kind of cost savings should be welcome news.

E-Lynxx has three granted US patents and another pending. The granted patents are US 6,397,197; 7,451,106; and 7,788,143; all by the CEO and founder himself. Business method patents are still alive and can play important roles in some companies. Whether they are needed or not for this company, I like the innovative approach that E-Lynxx is taking to bring the procurement process into the light where more efficient transactions can occur with large costs savings.

It’s that way in the business world. too. Companies can create tidy org charts and draft neat process maps to describe how they work, but the unseen reality outside the visible systems may be what really dominates operations. Increasingly, experts in knowledge management are learning that easily overlooked and often invisible intangibles can dominate corporate value and performance. Numerous intangible transactions may be essential to the success of a company, including casual information sharing between trusted friends, helpful exchanges of tips and best practices between employees or between external partners and internal employees, or loyalty that is gained when people are included in decision making. The invisible linkages and hard-to-observe exchanges in a company’s internal an external ecosystems may be the real engines of value creation, regardless of what is on a process map or workstream. By not understanding the value of such intangibles, corporations can easily break key linkages and crush subtle engines of value creation.

Many companies focus on their “value chains” – a term popularized by Michael Porter in his seminal 1985 work, Competitive Advantage. The value chain describes the linear chain of events as materials and products move from sourcing through manufacturing and out to the market. It is a highly useful paradigm for manufacturing and was highly applicable to much of the economy in the era when Porter was doing his research. But since that time, the explosion of the knowledge economy has changed the way we work and create value. One of my favorite authors, Verna Allee, a revolutionary expert in knowledge management, has detailed the move from the value chain to modern ecosystems and Value Networks in her book, The Future of Knowledge: Increasing Prosperity through Value Networks (Burlington, MA: Elsevier Science, 2003). Verna Allee and Associates have introduced a clever, methodical tool called Value Network Analysis for analyzing and visualizing the transactions of intangibles and tangibles that affect a business.

After my training in Value Network Analysis by Verna and her associate, Oliver Schwabe, an exciting new perspective on business and human behavior opened up. I have been highly impressed with the power of Value Network Analysis and the insights that it can rapidly deliver for a company. The Value Network Analysis work that Innovationedge has done as part of larger projects for some of our clients has been a very exciting part of my work since joining Cheryl Perkins’ exciting company. We value the tool enough that we had Verna Allee speak at the 2008 CoDev conference to introduce other business leaders to the basic concepts behind Value Network Analysis. I’m very pleased to see a community emerging of people using Value Network Analysis and developing exciting tools for it.

Here are some resources that you may find helpful in further exploring this area:

• Value-Networks.com
• Hosted Value Network Tools
• A Value Network Approach (PDF) – 2002 Whitepaper by Verna Allee
• ValueNet Works™ Analysis for the Discovery of Viagra (PDF)

Part of the initial output in Value Network Analysis are maps, called “holomaps,” showing human entities as nodes and transactions of tangible or intangible items between them. There is much that can be learned from such holomaps – a topic for later discussion. For now I’ll show you two sample holomaps I created to illustrate simple ecosystems. One shows several external nodes around a manufacturer and the other shows some structure within part of a corporation. For simplicity, the maps lack all the labels explaining the transactions. (Click to enlarge.)

One interesting approach is to use the “holomaps” you get in Value Network Analysis as tools for “what if” scenarios to explore what new partners might do for your business model, or what new business models might do for your ecosystem. Using holomaps to explore innovation ecosystems is a particularly fruitful approach for those doing open innovation and wondering who should be in their external ecosystem.

We have further information on this topic that we’d be happy to share with you. It’s certainly something you should look at to understand how business really works.

Henry J. Eyring kindly allowed me to interview him about this forthcoming book that is scheduled for release in August. He displayed great enthusiasm for taking the blessings of education to more people at lower cost, and applying new tools and business models that can make this possible without sacrificing quality. Henry is concerned that the cost of a 4-year college degree has increased by 2 to 3 times since the 1980s while starting salaries for graduate have remained essentially flat in real terms, leaving universities vulnerable to disruptive innovation in which a once easy-to-ignore “inferior,” low-cost alternative improves gradually to the point where it can become a serious threat.

Online course content, once viewed as inadequate, is now generally accepted by students and can result in better educational performance, especially when used in hybrid models with face-to-face elements and with adaptive tools that respond to what and how students learn. “Existing universities must view online learning as a sustaining innovation for their models,” Eyring says. Failure to embrace the potential of online learning will leave universities vulnerable to disruption, both from competitors and from budgetary pressures. “Even the best universities will be pressed to show better ROI.” They may need to become less universal, no longer offering the same graduate programs in all fields as they do in science and engineering. There is a need to change the very DNA of the university, the thrust of The Innovative University, a remarkable fruit of the collaboration between Henry Eyring, who began writing about the BYU-Idaho experience in 2008, and Clayton Christensen, who teamed up with Henry to add the framework of disruptive innovation and further insights from the Harvard perspective to complete this scholarly but highly readable work.

Like many of the best books about the future, this one is based upon a great deal of history. Much of the book explores the stages of development in education and business models for two very different schools, Harvard and Brigham Young University-Idaho (initially Bannock Stake Academy, then Ricks College and more recently BYU-Idaho). The scholarship is outstanding, the writing crisp and clear, and the stories told interesting and instructive. Some readers may not wish to grasp the historical foundations of these universities and the currents of change that have brought us to our present state. Fortunately, the book is organized to allow the impatient to turn to the latter portions of the book (say, Parts Four and Five) to access major conclusions and recommendations.

The authors chronicle the rise of BYU-Idaho from its humble rural Idaho roots to a bustling campus of over 22,000 students. Rather than ascend the traditional “Carnegie ladder” of adding ever more expensive programs and costly benefits, BYU-Idaho recently embarked on a path aimed at getting the most from the heavy investment in the physical campus and staff, while offering more students an enhanced education at lower cost. Much of this was driven by a Dr. Kim Clark, who came to BYU-Idaho after serving as a noted and respected Dean of the Harvard School of Business. Clark built on the foundation of major reforms already in progress under the previous president, David Bednar. The resulting innovations include:

• a new trimester schedule that keeps the campus in heavy use year round;
• dramatic revision in course offerings such as modular majors and carefully tailored GE courses making it easier and less costly for students to switch majors or to customize their education;
• strengthening of internship program to better prepare undergraduates for employment;
• elimination of expensive inter-collegiate sports programs;
• combining online content and face-to-face instruction to reach more students and improve education (with many innovations on the path to high-quality online content);
• augmentation of faculty teaching with peer-to-peer assistance in which students who understand the material efficiently help their peers;
• extension efforts in several cities where online content is coupled with face-to-face mentoring to reach more students;
• establishing a common “Learning Model” for education, with emphasis on learning experiences and case studies that can be enhanced with peer-to-peer interaction and supplemented with online content; and
• elevating faculty pay to above-average levels to compensate for the additional effort required of the faculty to make the more intense BYU-Idaho system succeed.

The importance of online content as an element of disruptive innovation is emphasized in the book, which offers numerous valuable insights into the business models and applications of the technology that have brought success to BYU-Idaho, as well as the foundations for Harvard’s success and leadership in education. Those interested in either school or in higher education in general should appreciate the historical development and insights. Many other innovative schools are also highlighted in case studies throughout the book.

The authors use the theme of DNA throughout the book, and argue that successful educational reform requires changing the DNA of a university. “Genetic reengineering” is needed to build new models and systems that will be sustained over time and grow. The book is aimed at identifying and spreading the new genes that will result in healthier, stronger education. For those that resist and cling to the old DNA, disruptive innovation could one day overtake the universities and leave them unable to compete and unable to serve, saddled with shrinking resources, higher costs, and fewer students willing to endure their increasingly less competitive programs.

The learnings from the journeys of BYU-Idaho and Harvard University are extended to the broader challenges faced by institutions of higher education worldwide. How can they adapt their programs to be more efficient, to better serve more students at lower cost? How can they provide education without requiring students to take on a mountain of debt? How can education be more personalized, more customized, to help students better prepare for the careers or graduate educational experiences they desire? How can universities better achieve the missions of teaching and research? What tasks do universities really need to focus on for the future? The authors offer valuable guidance, based on extensive research and insights.

Though higher education has remained relatively immune from the pressures of disruptive innovation for years, the power of new business models and technologies coupled with social and financial pressures will lead to change that may surprise and even pummel many universities now on the traditional path of making education more expensive and elite. Christen and Eyring offer a monumental guide to avoiding the pain of disruption and capitalizing on the promise of positive disruptive innovation for those institutions with the courage and vision to become an innovative university. For educators, policy makers, parents and students, I recommend The Innovative University for breakthrough thinking that can help transform education.

Effective IA management begins not with the processing of existing documents, but with the development and articulation of vision to guide the process of IA generation and acquisition. It begins with a roadmap of what the corporation needs to own and protect, and that roadmap can then be infused into a written IA strategy statement that guides the IA-generating community to know what they need to create, and also guides IA committees to know what they should be approving.

Written strategy statements can help innovators be more successful and decision makers more disciplined, though there must also be leeway for out-of-the-strategy-box inventions that could lead to unexpected opportunities. However, most IA generating work in a corporation can and should be targeted and focused on specific objectives.

Once a clear vision is communicated regarding the IA needs of the corporation, IA generating activities can be used to supplement normal new product development and R&D. These exercises can be driven by the IA management team to achieve low-cost IA estates in targeted areas for specific objectives, such as averting a disruptive threat, laying a foundation for future IP in a potentially disruptive area where R&D investment is not yet available, weakening the IP potential of a competitive merger or acquisition, etc. At least a portion of the IA generating efforts of a corporation should be driven from the top with a clear objective in mind, rather than waiting for random invention disclosures to trickle up during the course of normal R&D activities. IA strategy should lead innovation.

I think you’ll find this conference features the best-of-best elements and people, and we’ve designed it so you’ll be able to exchange ideas, forge new connections and fuel sustainable innovation within your organization that drives growth. Among the highlights is a how-to guide to build a co-creative enterprise from the co-author of leading business book “The Power of Co-creation.”

Social product development is key, and you’ll discover how communities can be used to solve some of your toughest innovation problems, as well as how to build your business around an existing crowd of passionate people. In other words–crowdsourcing for real results.

It all happens on June 27 & 28, and I hope you can join us as we bring together an unprecedented group of thinkers, makers and doers to help you understand and apply co-creative approaches  to your work. This event is for anyone who wants to drive breakthrough results in product development and innovation.

We’re featuring more than 20 keynote speakers across a variety of industries representing companies like LEGO Group, InnoCentive, Harvard Business School, Wired Magazine, American Express, Kimberly-Clark Corporation, Hallmark Cards, Intuit Labs and Microsoft 
Design Studio, plus many more.

Be sure to register by May 20th for a huge savings. See you in June!

Preparation has been the key for success. A big part of the preparation is ours as we dig into the literature, patents, and competitive intelligence. Sometimes we conduct pre-workshop interviews to get a landscape of what the client already knows so that we can better begin with that starting point as we help them create and document more.

The preparation by the client is also critical. One key part of their preparation is the selection of team members. Groups of about 5 to 25 people work well, with maybe 7 to 15 being the preferred range. The group works well if there is sufficient diversity in experience and background. For example, even in dealing with highly technical problems, I like to have at least one marketer in the team, someone with great hands-on experience dealing with consumer insights or other sources of marketing information. The perspective a good marketing person can bring is often vital for the success of an IP-generation project.

Teams also can be more effective when the prepare by reading the materials we provide on the prior art, competitive efforts, etc. We recognize, though, that many times team members won’t have had adequate time or motivation to prepare other than showing up. We can still squeeze good information from the unprepared, for much of what they have to contribute creatively is already in their heads. It just may take a little more effort to get it out and documented,

Courtesy: Vision Expo 2011

The International Vision Expo kicked off today in New York City, focusing on the most innovative eyewear technology of this year.

I’m among the nearly 150 million adults who wear glasses, and 50 million Americans carry multiple pairs – perhaps for reading, working, driving, or just watching TV. But soon you’ll need just one pair.Today attendees at the exhibit got an up-close look at a new all-in-one technology known as the “Superfocus” glasses, that can change the strength of their liquid lenses, enabling you to see different distances by moving a tiny, adjustable lever. The Superfocus allows you to customize your prescription for whatever you’re looking at. You can change the prescription at the push of a slider.

Another new development is in the weight of the glasses. PURE glasses by Legacie promise to be strong yet very light so that you hardly know they’re there. The innovation comes from a new alloy, Xandium, treaded through the glasses as a frame. The flexible frame has memory so it pops back into place if you bend them. The cost will be about $275.

Another trend we’re seeing is that people are hoping to be eco-friendly with their eyewear. You can donate used glasses to those in need when you update your style, or, you can purchase vintage specs. MODO Eco Glasses debuts an Eco line of glasses that are made out of recycled materials. MODO ships its glasses in sturdy, corrugated cardboard, and you can still mail your old pair in to get recycled into a new pair of glasses. For every pair of glasses they sell, they’re going to plant a tree. Prices range from $150 to $250 dollars.

There are more interesting glasses to see! Check out the big spectacle here.

Imagine if every one of the nation’s 1.3 million semi trucks in the U.S. could each save $5 billion in diesel fuel at the pump and cut CO2 emissions by 16 million tons. It’s an idea that’s catching on, thanks to a computer that is 100,000 times more powerful that your laptop.

The Department of Energy is using a unique open innovation model to potentially save billions of gallons of fuel on the highway. The DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory is working with BMI Corporation to use the department’s Jaguar supercomputer–known as the fastest supercomputer in the United States–to develop a technology that will revolutionize the fuel usage for semi trucks.

This supercomputer is more than 100,000 times more powerful than your laptop. The new design features a SmartTruck UnderTray System to improve the aerodynamics of 18-wheeler trucks.

FastCompany explains how the DOE was able to go from concept to manufacture-ready design in 18 months, a process that would normally take at least three years.  Check out the article here.

Imagine a wheelchair that can be directed by brain signals detected from a unique cap worn by the user. THis is the work of scientists at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in Switzerland (EPFL).

The developers are using this technology to help people control machines via brain signals, which they say will  revolutionize the way the paralysed and disabled maneuver.

I find this video demonstration fascinating:

The main focus of bionics to date has been on providing prosthetics for amputees. Prosthetic arms can now be controlled by nerve signals in the remaining arm, which can be picked up by electric sensors on the skin.

Developers say the next innovation may be bionic limbs which are able to “feel.”

Monday the NASA’s Stardust spacecraft will fire up its camera as it comes face-to-face with a crater that was created six years ago by a NASA space probe. In 2005 the Deep Impact probe crashed into the comet, “Tempel 1,” at 23,000 mph, sending a huge plume of debris. This will be the first time we’ve seen pictures of the damage to the comet made by the impact.

Check out this NASA video of the impact itself:

Comets are irregular bodies of ice and dust that orbit the sun, and these photos are expected to yield some new learnings about them.

The Stardust spacecraft launched in 1999 and has traveled 3 1/2 billion miles. For the past four years NASA has targeted Valentine’s Day 2011 for a rendezvous date with the comet. The Stardust will fly within 124 miles of the comet, and will snap 72 pictures as it passes by. The photos will be beamed back to Earth and then uploaded on NASA TV and on the NASA website.

Local Motor’s rapidly growing community (12,000 participants so far) contributes designs and feedback to help in the selection of potentially successful aesthetic concepts for automobiles that Local Motors will then build locally in a microfactory, with final customization of the appearance being achieved with an environmentally friendly and durable vinyl wrap that eliminates the need for paint and gives the owner freedom to have a unique look. The final assembly is done with hands-on help from the new owner, who becomes intimately familiar with the vehicle and with its maintenance.

After Jay spoke, that evening I drove down to Chandler, Arizona and attended an open house at Local Motors hosted by Jay himself. He allowed photography, so below you can see some views of Jay speaking and some shots of his vehicles in various stages of construction. The Rally Fighter, for example, is an incredible rugged, safe, and fun car that is legal on the road but a load of fun off road as well. It’s able to do very nice jumps.

These cars weigh much less than other cars their size, offering a huge bonus in mileage. Great engineering and innovation at many levels makes this possible.

The microfactory concept involves assembly of a small number of vehicles at a time in sustainable, efficient processes. Very cool.

John Rogers, CEO of Local Motors

Jay discusses the rugged chassis of an embryonic Rally Fighter

Legal on the street, but built for off-road excitement, too.

Jeff Lindsay and a Rally Figher at Local Motors

The Facebook Blog shows you how to tag using facial recognition technology.

As facial recognition technology becomes more user friendly for social media and other personal applications, we’re starting to see and hear reaction from those who have concerns and from people who think its great.

Facebook just launched a photo tagging application using the technology to help users tag photos faster. If you want to see how it works, pull up one of your Facebook albums that contain some group shots of friends you haven’t tagged yet and you will now see suggested tags.

I read an article about this last night on The Facebook Blog which says that Facebook has been working on the facial recognition platform since October.  First Facebook added group tagging, so users could type one name and apply it to multiple photos of the same person. This week Facebook announced new Tag Suggestions, making the chore of tagging multiple photos a single-click process.

Every day, people add more than 100 million tags to photos on Facebook. They do it because it’s an easy way to share photos and memories…Tags make photos one of the most popular features on Facebook.

While tags are an essential tool for sharing important moments, many of you have said tagging photos can be a chore. (Like that time you had to tag your cousin and her fiancé over and over and over again in 64 different pictures of their engagement party, and then go back and tag the guests.)

(Click the photo to read the full article)

That means that when your friends upload photos of this year’s holiday party, your face will automatically be recognized. According to The Facebook Blog, you can opt out of this by visiting your Privacy Settings, choose Custom, then change the setting for “Suggest photos of me to friends.”

The  Bureau of Labor Statistics says as our US labor force grows older, our percent of 55+ workers will be four times that of the overall labor force.

I see this happening in the corporations of many of our Innovationedge clients and certainly in many of our Fortune 500 companies. It’s projected to be the largest generational turnover we’ve ever seen in our job force.But hopefully those companies are heeding the statistics and making sure their retiring Baby boomers aren’t taking their years of knowledge and subject matter expertise with them.

What does this mean for companies continuing their focus on growth and innovation?  How is your company retaining knowledge and capturing best practices for future generations?

Photo courtesy NasaImages.org