It´s interesting to follow the recent post that I wrote, and to know that there are new interesting ways to "up date" or renovate our air conditioning and cooling systems. As the previous post we were talking about new materials for "Creating" Cooling, at this link we can take a look to other way to do this. It is similar to how photovoltaic cells work,
Showing posts with label invention. Show all posts
Showing posts with label invention. Show all posts
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Invisibility it´s a real reality?
Numerous Sci-Fi movies we can watch people turning invisible like a magik trick.By now, cientists have discovered some materials which molecular structure make them possible to "turn" the light to pass bording an spheric object and it will not can be seen.These fibers are called "MetaMaterials", and they are capable to virtually make objects invisible to someone looking infront of them
This video is from a latin TV program (the video is in spanish), just take a look folks!
This video is from a latin TV program (the video is in spanish), just take a look folks!
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
For Innovators, There Is Brainpower in Numbers
Despitethe enduring myth of the lone genius, innovation does not take place in isolation. Truly productive invention requires the meeting of minds from myriad perspectives, even if the innovators themselves don’t always realize it.
Keith Sawyer, a researcher at Washington University in St. Louis, calls this “group genius,” and in his book of the same name he introduces a scientific method called interaction analysis to the study of creativity. Through studying verbal cues, body language and incremental adjustments during team innovation efforts, Mr. Sawyer shows that what we experience as a flash of insight has actually percolated in social interaction for quite some time.
“Innovation today isn’t a sudden break with the past, a brilliant insight that one lone outsider pushes through to save the company,” he says. “Just the opposite: innovation today is a continuous process of small and constant change, and it’s built into the culture of successful companies.”
It’s a perspective shared broadly in corporate America. Ed Catmull, president of Pixar Animation Studios and Disney Animation Studios, describes what he calls “collective creativity” in a cover article in the September issue of Harvard Business Review. “Creativity involves a large number of people from different disciplines working together to solve a great many problems,” he writes. “Creativity must be present at every level of every artistic and technical part of the organization.”
So, we all should brainstorm our way through the day, right? Wrong. That classic tool introduced by Alex Osborn in 1948 has been proved in a number of studies over the last 20 years to be far less effective than generally believed. “He had it right in terms of group process,” says Drew Boyd, a businessman based in Cincinnati who blogs and speaks often about innovation. “But he had it wrong in terms of the method.”
Brainstorming, Mr. Boyd says, is the most overused and underperforming tool in business today. Traditionally, brainstorming revolves around the false premise that to get good ideas, a group must generate a large list from which to cherry-pick. But researchers have shown repeatedly that individuals working alone generate more ideas than groups acting in concert. Among the problems are these: Throwing in an idea for public consideration generates fear of failure, and workers looking to advance their own interests often keep their best ideas to themselves until a more opportune time.
Instead of identifying a problem and then seeking solutions, Mr. Boyd suggests turning the process around: break down successful products and processes into separate components, then study those parts to find other potential uses. This process of “systematic inventive thinking,” which evolved from the work of the Russian engineer and scientist Genrich Altschuller, creates “pre-inventive” ideas that then can be expanded into innovations.
Kapro Tools, working with an Israeli company called Systematic Inventive Thinking, used the method to create a new type of bubble level calibrated to help build gentle slopes to improve drainage. Previously, construction workers approximated the slope they wanted by placing a nail or other object under the edge of a standard level.
“Innovation is a team sport,” Mr. Boyd says. “There’s a dynamic that happens between people that produces results I just don’t see with an individual.”
Even Albert Einstein, society’s most common mental picture of genius, needed group input to hone his insights. According to “Einstein’s Mistakes” by Hans Ohanian, the great physicist’s derivation of the famous equation E=mc2 contained several errors; it wasn’t until 1911 that another scientist, Max von Laue, developed a full and correct proof.
“The best innovations occur when you have networks of people with diverse backgrounds gathering around a problem,” says Robert Fishkin, president and chief executive of Reframeit Inc., a Web 2.0 company that creates virtual space in a Web browser where users can share comments and highlights on any site. “We need to get better at collaborating in noncompetitive ways across company and organizational lines.”
THAT’S exactly what innovators at a dozen health care systems throughout the country had in mind nearly four years ago when they formed the Innovation Learning Network, says its director, Chris McCarthy. The problem, he says, is that there are so few health care innovators within each organization that introducing technologies and processes can be painstakingly slow. “We thought if we could get all these experienced folks together to push each other’s thinking continually, we’d all be better off,” he says.
What started as a grant-financed, one-year trial is now a member-financed permanent network, he says. The members bring in new technologies and experiment with them in a faux clinical setting in San Leandro, Calif.,. One of the first large-scale initiatives to arise from the network is KP MedRite, an effort at Kaiser Permanente’s 32 hospitals to ensure that nurses are not interrupted while dispensing medications. Other member health care systems have already begun to introduce the program at their sites.
By using the group’s knowledge and experience, Kaiser Permanente accomplished in less than a year what would have required roughly two years to do without the network, Mr. McCarthy says. “It was a huge jump-start for us,” he says. “The group effort allows us to move much more quickly and become successful much faster.”
“Innovation today isn’t a sudden break with the past, a brilliant insight that one lone outsider pushes through to save the company,” he says. “Just the opposite: innovation today is a continuous process of small and constant change, and it’s built into the culture of successful companies.”
It’s a perspective shared broadly in corporate America. Ed Catmull, president of Pixar Animation Studios and Disney Animation Studios, describes what he calls “collective creativity” in a cover article in the September issue of Harvard Business Review. “Creativity involves a large number of people from different disciplines working together to solve a great many problems,” he writes. “Creativity must be present at every level of every artistic and technical part of the organization.”
So, we all should brainstorm our way through the day, right? Wrong. That classic tool introduced by Alex Osborn in 1948 has been proved in a number of studies over the last 20 years to be far less effective than generally believed. “He had it right in terms of group process,” says Drew Boyd, a businessman based in Cincinnati who blogs and speaks often about innovation. “But he had it wrong in terms of the method.”
Brainstorming, Mr. Boyd says, is the most overused and underperforming tool in business today. Traditionally, brainstorming revolves around the false premise that to get good ideas, a group must generate a large list from which to cherry-pick. But researchers have shown repeatedly that individuals working alone generate more ideas than groups acting in concert. Among the problems are these: Throwing in an idea for public consideration generates fear of failure, and workers looking to advance their own interests often keep their best ideas to themselves until a more opportune time.
Instead of identifying a problem and then seeking solutions, Mr. Boyd suggests turning the process around: break down successful products and processes into separate components, then study those parts to find other potential uses. This process of “systematic inventive thinking,” which evolved from the work of the Russian engineer and scientist Genrich Altschuller, creates “pre-inventive” ideas that then can be expanded into innovations.
Kapro Tools, working with an Israeli company called Systematic Inventive Thinking, used the method to create a new type of bubble level calibrated to help build gentle slopes to improve drainage. Previously, construction workers approximated the slope they wanted by placing a nail or other object under the edge of a standard level.
“Innovation is a team sport,” Mr. Boyd says. “There’s a dynamic that happens between people that produces results I just don’t see with an individual.”
Even Albert Einstein, society’s most common mental picture of genius, needed group input to hone his insights. According to “Einstein’s Mistakes” by Hans Ohanian, the great physicist’s derivation of the famous equation E=mc2 contained several errors; it wasn’t until 1911 that another scientist, Max von Laue, developed a full and correct proof.
“The best innovations occur when you have networks of people with diverse backgrounds gathering around a problem,” says Robert Fishkin, president and chief executive of Reframeit Inc., a Web 2.0 company that creates virtual space in a Web browser where users can share comments and highlights on any site. “We need to get better at collaborating in noncompetitive ways across company and organizational lines.”
THAT’S exactly what innovators at a dozen health care systems throughout the country had in mind nearly four years ago when they formed the Innovation Learning Network, says its director, Chris McCarthy. The problem, he says, is that there are so few health care innovators within each organization that introducing technologies and processes can be painstakingly slow. “We thought if we could get all these experienced folks together to push each other’s thinking continually, we’d all be better off,” he says.
What started as a grant-financed, one-year trial is now a member-financed permanent network, he says. The members bring in new technologies and experiment with them in a faux clinical setting in San Leandro, Calif.,. One of the first large-scale initiatives to arise from the network is KP MedRite, an effort at Kaiser Permanente’s 32 hospitals to ensure that nurses are not interrupted while dispensing medications. Other member health care systems have already begun to introduce the program at their sites.
By using the group’s knowledge and experience, Kaiser Permanente accomplished in less than a year what would have required roughly two years to do without the network, Mr. McCarthy says. “It was a huge jump-start for us,” he says. “The group effort allows us to move much more quickly and become successful much faster.”
This article was extracted form the NY Times.
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Invention & Innovation in Crisis Time
We do not try that the thingsthey change if always we dothe same”. The crisis is the best oneblessing that can happen to him to peopleand countries because the crisis brings progresses.The creativity is born from the anguishas the day is born at night dark.It is in the crisis that is born the inventiveness,discoveries and high strategy.Who surpasses the crisis is surpassed to ifsame without being “surpassed”. Who it attributes to the crisis their failures and shortages do violence to their own talent and respect more to the problems than to the solutions. The true crisis is the crisis of incompetence. The problem of the people and the countries are the laziness to find the exits and solutions.Without crisis there are no challenges, without challenges the life is a routine, a slow agony. Without crisis there are no merits. It is in the crisis where the best thing of each arises, because without crisis all wind is caress.To speak of crisis is to promote it, and to be silent in the crisis is to raise the conformism. Instead of this we work hard.We in one go end the unique threatening crisis that is the tragedy of not wanting to fight to surpass it.
Albert Einstein
Monday, January 5, 2009
Mind Mapping: Your Thoughts On Paper
If you’re a “thought leader” or an “idea generator,” you are probably familiar with the problems surrounding the generation and control of ideas.
Ideas generation can’t be effectively organized with Post-it notes or legal pads. Sure, you can write all of your brain sparks on Post-its but it’s hard to share them or get input from others to help you organize and prioritize things. Most flowcharting software requires 6 hours of computer science just to understand the menus. Aside from the learning curve, they also are not cheap.
Fortunately, there are some affordable (even free) tools you can install on your computer that can help you think the way you like to think and still organize and share those ideas. These are called mind mappers. Mind maps let you arrange things intuitively based on your individual classification method, which, with “idea generators,” often is non-linear in nature. Some ideas don’t make sense on their own so here’s a chance to organize things based on the way you think rather than the way some software thinks is best for you. These can usually be either concept-based or structure hierarchically.
Mind mappers to try out:
FreeMind
Pimki
Buzan’s Mind Map
OpenMind (integrates with MS Office)
SmartDraw
WikkaWiki (a wiki with a native mind mapper)
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Laser Beam & Cigarrete Smoke
Few months ago, we were thinking about laser light and smoke. Effectively we can see the laser beam crossing the smoke!
So, what happen if we mix a mirror, smoke and laser?
Simply, we can see a lot of laser beam crossing the smoke, but just with one laser. Then, what happen if we arrange various mirrors, we can create some image or sign which can only be seen at night and in presence of smoke… it´s a great idea to make innovative marketing in a pub, bar or discotheque!
Unfortunately it´s quite complex to get an interesting arrange to show some logo or letters.
Just think guys!!!
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Fabric Protection From Sun!
Another idea we were thinking in our "labs" was a product to protect our curtain and back yard furniture from sunlight and the weather conditions. Unfortunately SunArmor already has developed it.
Fabrics fade in both direct and indirect sunlight, from sunlight passing through windows and onto interior surfaces. Scientists agree that long term exposure to solar radiation should be limited in order to prevent damaging fabrics, upholstery and other surfaces both inside and outside the home.
After redecorating your home its time to protect your fabric and upholstery investment from harmful sun rays. SunArmor Ultra Violet Protection a unique product sprayed directly onto your fabric can stop the damaging ultra violet rays from fading your fabrics and causing them to lose their original colors.
Current architectural trends and improvements in energy conserving glass have lead to homes with larger windows, high number of windows, clearer glass, and open interior spaces inundated with natural light. While beautiful and relaxing, ordinary clear window glass allows 80-90% of the sun’s UV radiation, the most damaging type of sun radiation, to enter. For many years, collectors of high end artwork have used expensive ‘conservation glass’ to block UV rays from damaging their art.
This is a pricey and in Damage caused to Fabrics Clearly the most evident and visible damaged caused to interior fabrics is the fading of the colors seen over time. The color changes are often dramatic especially when brighter, and more ‘eco friendly’ fabrics are used, as the reduction in color saturation due to bleaching is more harmful to brighter colors and the non-solvent based nature of the dyes used in eco-friendly fabrics. In addition to the quickly fading colors on couches, carpets, pillows, and other upholstery, additional material damage including cracking and tensile strength reduction causing fabric to be brittle and break or tear easily. By using a spray open product such as SunArmor Ultra Violet Protection, both the structural fabric damage and the color fading can be prevented on various types of fabrics.
Direct Sunlight and Ultraviolet Damage– Indoors Extensive research prepared by the US Library of Congress to protect the original copies of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence showed that while blocking all the ultraviolet radiation portion of the solar spectrum does not eliminate damage caused by fading, it does slow down the rate of the fading and other damage by about three.
Current methods of protection include: Methods of protection - Physical blocking of light o Heavy curtains to prevent ultra violet and visible light from entering a room o Sheets or other light colored fabrics draped over furniture - Window glass treatment o Conservation glass o UV films to stop UV rays from entering the room - Fabric treatment o Spray on treatment such as SunArmor Ultra Violet Protection (www.gogonco.com) SunArmor Ultra Violet Protection is a unique coating sprayed directly onto fabrics and uses advanced technology to fight Sun Damage and Fading on fabrics such as upholstery, area rugs, carpet, drapes, covered outdoor furniture, auto upholstery, boat upholstery, and any fabric-like surface receiving harmful sun exposure. Works to dissipate both UVA and UVB rays by absorbing the UV radiation and dissipate the energy as low level heat. A simple application will prevent sun damage for 4-6 months in direct sunlight indoors, 3-4 months in direct sunlight outdoors, and 6-8 weeks for extreme desert conditions.
SunArmor Ultra Violet Protection will not change the color, texture, or feel of your fabrics. The product offers a cost effective method to prevent high quality and delicate fabric from sun damage and fading. To provide additional water and stain damage, SunArmor UV Protection must be sealed with SunArmor™ Water & Stain Protection.
Fabrics fade in both direct and indirect sunlight, from sunlight passing through windows and onto interior surfaces. Scientists agree that long term exposure to solar radiation should be limited in order to prevent damaging fabrics, upholstery and other surfaces both inside and outside the home.
After redecorating your home its time to protect your fabric and upholstery investment from harmful sun rays. SunArmor Ultra Violet Protection a unique product sprayed directly onto your fabric can stop the damaging ultra violet rays from fading your fabrics and causing them to lose their original colors.
Current architectural trends and improvements in energy conserving glass have lead to homes with larger windows, high number of windows, clearer glass, and open interior spaces inundated with natural light. While beautiful and relaxing, ordinary clear window glass allows 80-90% of the sun’s UV radiation, the most damaging type of sun radiation, to enter. For many years, collectors of high end artwork have used expensive ‘conservation glass’ to block UV rays from damaging their art.
This is a pricey and in Damage caused to Fabrics Clearly the most evident and visible damaged caused to interior fabrics is the fading of the colors seen over time. The color changes are often dramatic especially when brighter, and more ‘eco friendly’ fabrics are used, as the reduction in color saturation due to bleaching is more harmful to brighter colors and the non-solvent based nature of the dyes used in eco-friendly fabrics. In addition to the quickly fading colors on couches, carpets, pillows, and other upholstery, additional material damage including cracking and tensile strength reduction causing fabric to be brittle and break or tear easily. By using a spray open product such as SunArmor Ultra Violet Protection, both the structural fabric damage and the color fading can be prevented on various types of fabrics.
Direct Sunlight and Ultraviolet Damage– Indoors Extensive research prepared by the US Library of Congress to protect the original copies of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence showed that while blocking all the ultraviolet radiation portion of the solar spectrum does not eliminate damage caused by fading, it does slow down the rate of the fading and other damage by about three.
Current methods of protection include: Methods of protection - Physical blocking of light o Heavy curtains to prevent ultra violet and visible light from entering a room o Sheets or other light colored fabrics draped over furniture - Window glass treatment o Conservation glass o UV films to stop UV rays from entering the room - Fabric treatment o Spray on treatment such as SunArmor Ultra Violet Protection (www.gogonco.com) SunArmor Ultra Violet Protection is a unique coating sprayed directly onto fabrics and uses advanced technology to fight Sun Damage and Fading on fabrics such as upholstery, area rugs, carpet, drapes, covered outdoor furniture, auto upholstery, boat upholstery, and any fabric-like surface receiving harmful sun exposure. Works to dissipate both UVA and UVB rays by absorbing the UV radiation and dissipate the energy as low level heat. A simple application will prevent sun damage for 4-6 months in direct sunlight indoors, 3-4 months in direct sunlight outdoors, and 6-8 weeks for extreme desert conditions.
SunArmor Ultra Violet Protection will not change the color, texture, or feel of your fabrics. The product offers a cost effective method to prevent high quality and delicate fabric from sun damage and fading. To provide additional water and stain damage, SunArmor UV Protection must be sealed with SunArmor™ Water & Stain Protection.
Friday, December 26, 2008
Wired Magazine: Top Technology Breakthroughs of 2008
The economy may be tanking, but innovation is alive and well.
When it came to products, incremental improvements were the name of the game this year. Phones got faster (iPhone 3G anyone?), notebooks turned into netbooks and pocket cameras went from recording standard-definition video to HD.
But the world's corporate and academic R&D labs were busy laying the foundations of some amazing future technologies in 2008. They produced concepts such as silicon chips you can swallow for personalized medicine from the inside out and a fourth fundamental element in electronic circuitry. And engineers cranked out a few less groundbreaking — but no less important — inventions, like a space-age swimsuit to help Michael Phelps slice through the water faster than a river otter on a jet ski.
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Details That Mark
Edward Lorenz, meteorologist and founding mathematician of the theory of the chaos, based part of his thought on the “butterfly effect”, originating of an old Chinese proverb: “the fluttering of the wings of a butterfly can be felt to the other side of the world”. Edward got to say that the fluttering of a butterfly in Brazil could bring a storm in Taiwan
Steve Jobs, president of Mac, in the speech to the graduate students at Stanford comments facts of its life that at some time were only details that did not seem to be important for their life. But these details deeply marked the differences that made of Mac a computer of graph and design of cult. That detail: handwriting classes when he was university student in Stanford.
On the other hand is Randy Pausch, ex- professor of computer science of Carnegie Mellon, his dream always was to work in Disney like Imagineer. When fulfilling its dream, that was during one sabbatical year, developed system calledAlice Alice
However, if we extrapolated those small details that mark differences in the organizations, we would create excellence organizations. Following this approach we would try to locate our company more near our clients, with this many companies have created systems of points, surveys, e-mails, contests or other systems to maintain near its clients. What directly falls to the communication between the company and the client. The problem is when the personnel (own or outsourcing) represent the company between this delicate and important communicational relation. If we own a call center or direct attention to the client, the people who are in this “face to face”, reflects the situation or the spirit of the company. Of this grapnel anchor great companies as McDonald´s owns a training of attention to the client, in who the personnel must be in favor always tidy, smiling, kind and amiable with the client, on the other hand if we observed restaurant and the young delay in arriving or does not take care of the client amiably, which happens in the major of the cases, generates in the client a terrible experience and probably it does not return to go to that premises. This type of details really marks to the difference between the success and the failure of a company.
Soon for all the clients and consumers, who always we are in some minute, everything is transformed in the experience of purchase and the importance of this experience expanding it to the post-sales one or to the experience even opening the packing of iPhone, similar to open a collection article. In other words, more than an exceptional product or a fabulous packing, we must focus our post-sales organization, products and in the details focused to the experience of our clients. From this form we will be able to obtain happy clients, with which we will be able to interact like organization approaching us the success based on the effect of the small details that mark differences.
Steve Jobs, president of Mac, in the speech to the graduate students at Stanford comments facts of its life that at some time were only details that did not seem to be important for their life. But these details deeply marked the differences that made of Mac a computer of graph and design of cult. That detail: handwriting classes when he was university student in Stanford.
On the other hand is Randy Pausch, ex- professor of computer science of Carnegie Mellon, his dream always was to work in Disney like Imagineer. When fulfilling its dream, that was during one sabbatical year, developed system called
However, if we extrapolated those small details that mark differences in the organizations, we would create excellence organizations. Following this approach we would try to locate our company more near our clients, with this many companies have created systems of points, surveys, e-mails, contests or other systems to maintain near its clients. What directly falls to the communication between the company and the client. The problem is when the personnel (own or outsourcing) represent the company between this delicate and important communicational relation. If we own a call center or direct attention to the client, the people who are in this “face to face”, reflects the situation or the spirit of the company. Of this grapnel anchor great companies as McDonald´s owns a training of attention to the client, in who the personnel must be in favor always tidy, smiling, kind and amiable with the client, on the other hand if we observed restaurant and the young delay in arriving or does not take care of the client amiably, which happens in the major of the cases, generates in the client a terrible experience and probably it does not return to go to that premises. This type of details really marks to the difference between the success and the failure of a company.
Soon for all the clients and consumers, who always we are in some minute, everything is transformed in the experience of purchase and the importance of this experience expanding it to the post-sales one or to the experience even opening the packing of iPhone, similar to open a collection article. In other words, more than an exceptional product or a fabulous packing, we must focus our post-sales organization, products and in the details focused to the experience of our clients. From this form we will be able to obtain happy clients, with which we will be able to interact like organization approaching us the success based on the effect of the small details that mark differences.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Colored Flame Candles.
Few years ago we thought to have nice candles in our favorite restaurant, but the difference was to have colored flame candles.
It was thought because we want to have a special “date”, and typical candles would not bring that sensation.
After months of development we get some red/purple colored flame, using as “fuel” lithium hydroxide and isopropyl alcohol. The result was great, but the problem were the lithium combustion in the candle… so our candles would not be able to work in closed areas. We keep on thinking how to do it, but there are some
So my friends, don´t fall if your idea exists. Just keep on going.
Monday, December 22, 2008
Fast Coke Cooler
Once we thought about one machine that could cool my coke can in a few seconds. Is the opposite of a microwave oven.
It could be with a charge of CO2 at high pressure flux, but the problem is the amount of gas needed to cold all the fluid in the can (the price of that charge of CO2 make it economically unavailable). Another way is to force the natural convection in the liquid, heating one side and cooling the other… the problem is the time and the amount of heat extraction needed in a short time.
Obviously traditional heat transfer can not do this, by my opinion, so it is needed to use another kind of technology to do so.
We are still thinking who to do it, so if you have some idea it would be great!
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