New cooling idea

As we wrote in a 2008 post, we can innovate over a new technology to deliver comfort and cooling capacity using "new ideas" for this. Please read the next article.

Your refrigerator’s humming, electricity-guzzling cooling system could soon be a lot smaller, quieter and more economical thanks to an exotic metal alloy discovered by an international collaboration working at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)’s Center for Neutron Research (NCNR).

The alloy may prove to be a long-sought material that will permit magnetic cooling instead of the gas-compression systems used for home refrigeration and air conditioning. The magnetic cooling technique, though used for decades in science and industry, has yet to find application in the home because of technical and environmental hurdles—but the NIST collaboration may have overcome them.

Magnetic cooling relies on materials called magnetocalorics, which heat up when exposed to a powerful magnetic field. After they cool off by radiating this heat away, the magnetic field is removed, and their temperature drops again, this time dramatically. The effect can be used in a classic refrigeration cycle, and scientists have attained temperatures of nearly absolute zero this way. Two factors have kept magnetic cooling out of the consumer market: most magnetocalorics that function at close to room temperature require both the prohibitively expensive rare metal gadolinium and arsenic, a deadly toxin.

But conventional gas-compression refrigerators have their own drawbacks. They commonly use hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), greenhouse gases that can contribute to climate change if they escape into the atmosphere. In addition, it is becoming increasingly difficult to improve traditional refrigeration. “The efficiency of the gas cycle has pretty much maxed out,” said Jeff Lynn of NCNR. “The idea is to replace that cycle with something else.”

The alloy the team has found—a mixture of manganese, iron, phosphorus and germanium—is not merely the first near-room-temperature magnetocaloric to contain neither gadolinium nor arsenic—rendering it both safer and cheaper—but also it has such strong magnetocaloric properties that a system based on it could rival gas compression in efficiency.

Working alongside (and inspired by) visiting scientists from the Beijing University of Technology, the team used NIST’s neutron diffraction equipment to analyze the novel alloy. They found that when exposed to a magnetic field, the newfound material’s crystal structure completely changes, which explains its exceptional performance.“Understanding how to fine-tune this change in crystal structure may allow us to get our alloy’s efficiency even higher,” says NIST crystallographer Qing Huang. “We are still playing with the composition, and if we can get it to magnetize uniformly, we may be able to further improve the efficiency.”

Members of the collaboration include scientists from NIST, Beijing University of Technology, Princeton University and McGill University. Funding for the project was provided by NIST.

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!

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.”

This article was extracted form the NY Times.

Turn your PC into a money-making machine

Just keeping my pc online for almost 1 month I´ve earned U$ 1,85. Is not enugh, but for having my pc turned on and online... is not a bad idea to have some incomes for nothing.

The Gomez software is completely private and secure and has no noticeable impact on how your computer runs or how much bandwidth you consume.

To be eligible, you must meet certain program requirements, then download and install the Gomez PEER. It's as simple as that.

New PEERs Needed Immediately

Gomez is now seeking PEER participants from all over the world to become part of this growing community. No matter whether you're on a dial-up, DSL, Cable, Satellite or ISDN connection, you can take advantage of this opportunity.

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)

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!!!

Marketing on the Beach... Stamping the Sand??

Stamping the sand.

It is a marketing art, innovativa, high impact and unique (almost in Chile).
Daily when the sun rise, any beach that you chose, will wake up with ads in the sand. It is impossible avoid to see it! There are more than 2.500 impresions for every 300 meters of sand beach. There will no space in the sand without your ad!

These pictures where taken in La Serena city (Chile), and they are a real test.

The Chilean company who offer this kind of ads is ANEPCO.

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.

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.

Here's our countdown of what rocked our world in 2008 — and what will change yours in 2009 and beyond.

Minerals Flotation Process Optimization

Building PCA Models for Fault Detection in an Industrial

Rougher Flotation Circuit.

Luis G. Bergh and Felipe Niada.

Automation and Supervision Center for Mineral Industry, CASIM.

Chemical Engineering Department, Santa Maria University, Valparaiso, Chile.

ABSTRACT

On line fault detection, for instrumentation and process operation, has become important part of industrial programs leading to improve process operation and therefore product quality over time. Today, great amount of process variables are routinely collected at high frequency by Distributed Control Systems (DCS). Also, many variables, mainly related to the quality of a product, such as the concentrate grade and process recovery in the flotation processes are infrequently available. High problem dimensionality, highly correlated process input variables, rather low signal/noise ratios and missing data are some of the main difficulties found in modeling the process for monitoring and diagnosis purposes. Multivariate statistical projection methods, such as Principal Component Analysis (PCA), have been proposed to effectively deal with these situations. In this work, an industrial rougher flotation circuit is operated under distributed control of froth depth, and chemical reactive dosages, to experimentally collect operation data at steady state, to build a PCA model. The rougher circuit is formed by 5 banks with an array of 2-3-3-3-3 cells of 3000 ft3. Each bank has a froth depth measurement and control and a Metso camera to send froth surface images to be processed. Feed, final concentrate and final tailings are obtained by on stream analysis, using Courier system from Outokumpu. Feed flow rate and its characteristics are also measured. The dosage of chemical reactive are measured and controlled as a ratiowith feed tonnage. The image processing system from Metso produces almost 30 variables characterizing the flotation froth. Some years ago, several studies were conducted to correlate these froth characteristics with concentrate grade. The results were most of the time inconsistent and no industrial application using the full set of information provided by cameras is known until today. Froth velocity is commonly used to modify the set point of froth depth controllers. The hypothesis that froth characteristics captured by image analysis correspond to the so called top of froth, and that the grade on the froth is not homogeneous, but distributed along the depth, will lead to the conclusion that better models can be found only if feed characteristics, chemical reagent dosages and cell operating conditions (froth depth and sometimes air flow rate) are included in the data. However, in one bank more than fifty variables are involved now, posing difficulties to obtain representative models. Therefore, the use of multivariate statistical projection methods is the appropriate tool to model the correlation existing in the data. In this work, the first part of building alternative PCA models is discussed.

CONCLUSIONS.

Flotation control quality is strongly depending on the accuracy of measurements and estimations. The flotation process is complex and it is a real challenge to decide which variables are to be changed in order to drive back the process to a normal operation. The application of multivariate statistical methods, and particularly PCA, is a powerful tool to build linear models containing the essential of the process phenomena with the minimum number of latent variables. The application of PCA models to monitoring flotation cells, based on the combination of froth characteristics and operating variables has been demonstrated.

These PCA models can be effectively used as part of a supervisory control strategy, especially when control decisions are infrequently made.

Cloth Wrinkle Release

Days ago I was angry of the wrinkles of my shirt, so then… there must exist or I have to develop some product that avoids the wrinkles of the cloth.

It is very interesting the way that wrinkles are formed in the cloth, specifically they are “made” with Hydrogen bonds. In other words, the water and the detergent “activate” the surface of cotton and other materials in the fabrics, and then the activated surface (ion charged) start their interactions.

In this way the product must “destroy” these interactions!

Heat and weight (ironing) has the same effect.

Unfortunately Procter and Gamble have a product for that… Downy Wrinkle Releaser. It was a great idea, but already developed.

So folks, keep on thinking. In the ordinary things or simple problems there are great business ideas and solutions.

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. The theory of the chaos says that in certain natural systems, small changes in the initial conditions lead to enormous discrepancies in the results.


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 Alice to teach computer animations to students in a entertained and didactic way. Alice has been a full success, which is being implemented in several computer science centers at global level.


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.

Innovative Christmas Tree

Merry Christmas Folks!!!

We wish you the best for all of you. I we want to present to you some great idea for an innovative Christmas tree, which can be used as a marketing innovative idea for a beer brand.

As you can see, the tree was made with beer bottles and the star with bottle covers. It looks great!

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 USA and Chinese companies that have this product. So we were near to have a nice product, but if we had thought it before we would had a nice invention.

So my friends, don´t fall if your idea exists. Just keep on going.

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!