Iw Newsletter 8.23 - November 7, 2009

Innovation Watch Newsletter - Issue 8.23 - November 7, 2009

ISSN: 1712-9834

In the news this week...

David Forrest advises businesses, governments, and other organizations on emerging trends, and helps to develop strategies for a radically different future

science shows brains work differently... students build new biological parts... Esquire combines print and augmented reality... augmented reality comes to smart phones... Google gears up for acquisitions... Wal-Mart faces growing global competition... Whole Earth thinking still relevant today... schools switch from textbooks to electronic teaching tools... China scours the world for energy acquisitions... Brazil power outages traced to cyber attacks... blue energy a promising new source of power... key participants divided going to Copenhagen... expert warns food prices will soar due to global warming... space hotel planned for 2012... We also feature... a new book by Warren Berger, Glimmer: How Design Can Transform Your Life, Your Business, and Maybe Even the World... a link to the Slow Money Alliance, a new nonprofit organizing an international movement to bring money back down to earth... a video on growing pressures on water supply in California... a blog post on innovation in collaborative networks... David Forrest

Top Stories: What Does a Smart Brain Look Like?: Inner Views Show How We Think - [Scientific American] A new neuroscience of intelligence is revealing that not all brains work in the same way. A Genetically Engineered Rainbow of Bacteria - [Technology Review] By combining snippets of DNA, dubbed biological

"parts," students build microbes designed to perform useful functions, such as producing medicines or detecting toxins. Each year "parts" built for the competition are entered into a biological library, so that next year's teams can use them to build even more sophisticated machines.

Top Stories:  Esquire Looks to Energize Print with 3-D Animation - [Boston Globe] Hold Esquire's December issue in front of a webcam, and an on-screen image of the magazine pops to life, letters flying off the cover. Shift and tilt the magazine, and the animation on the screen moves accordingly. Augmented Reality to Alter How We See the World - [San Francisco Chronicle] Imagine for a moment seeing the world through the eyes of a Terminator cyborg. Information on objects, locations and people automatically pop up in real time as you encounter them.

Top Stories:  Targets for Google's Merger Machine - [Business Week] Google's dealmakers are moving fast. Flush with $22 billion in cash and emboldened by signs of recovery in the core Websearch market, Google plans to snap up companies at a pace of about one a month. Auchan: Wal-Mart's Tough New Global Rival - [Business Week] Privately held French big-box chain Auchan is growing fast in China, Russia, and elsewhere as it challenges WalMart, Carrefour, and Tesco.

Top Stories: Thinking Differently in the Recession: Today's Whole Earth Catalog - [Harvard Business] Overall, the Whole Earth message encouraged green awareness, self-sufficiency, healthy behaviors, and communal living. Back then, millions of young people liked this message and went back to the land. But the changes did not stick. In 2009, however, those four Whole Earth-type ideas are among the biggest opportunities to think differently.

Publisher Enters New Chapter in Textbooks - [Boston Globe] Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, one of the oldest publishers in the United States, plans to unveil today the biggest deal in its history: a $40 million, multiyear contract with Detroit public schools. But this is not the typical agreement to sell a textbook to every student. Instead, Houghton will be providing a computer-based teaching system it developed with Microsoft Corp. that will connect teachers, students, and administrators.

Top Stories: China's Rising Foreign Energy Acquisitions - [UPI] China's role in the global energy market is on the rise, with its purchase of oil and gas supplies worldwide totaling an estimated $15 billion so far this year, double the amount of 2008, National Public Radio reported. Brazil Blackouts Result of Cyber Hacking: Report - [PhysOrg] Massive power outages in Brazil in 2005 and 2007 that impacted millions were caused by cyber hackers attacking control systems, the US television network CBS said.

Top Stories:  'Blue Energy' Seems feasible and offers Considerable Benefits - [PhysOrg] Generating energy on a large scale by mixing salt and fresh water is both technically possible and practical. The worldwide potential for this clean form of energy - 'blue energy' or 'blue electricity' - is enormous. Where Countries Stand on Copenhagen - [BBC] There are just over four weeks to go before the Copenhagen conference intended to agree a new international framework for controlling greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The final round of preparatory talks in Barcelona has revealed deep divisions between some of the key participants.

Top Stories: 'Climate Change will Send Food Prices Soaring' - [Farmers Weekly Interactive] Food prices will more than quadruple in real terms within 20 years unless urgent action is taken to combat climate change, an expert has warned. The cost of

bread will spiral as wheat yields fall, said Ray Hammond, a leading expert in forecasting social and economic trends and visiting lecturer at Oxford University's Institute for the Future of Humanity. First Space Hotel Will Launch in 2012, Claim Architects [Daily Mail] The first ever space hotel will be launched in 2012, say architects - and will cost £2.7million for a threenight stay.

Glimmer: How Design Can Transform Your Life, Your Business, and Maybe Even the World by Warren Berger Read more...

Featured Link: Slow Money Alliance - A grassroots, non-profit seed fund enhancing food security, food safety and food access; improving nutrition and health; promoting cultural, ecological and economic diversity; and accelerating the transition from an economy based on extraction and consumption to an economy based on preservation and restoration.

Video Clip - State of Thirst: California's Water Future - [KQED Quest] Are we in danger of running out of water? California’s population is growing by 600,000 people a year, but much of the state receives as much annual rainfall as Morocco. With fish populations crashing, global warming, and the demands of the country’s largest agricultural industry, the pressures on the water supply are increasing. (26m 55s)

Blog - Collaborative Networks Produce Better Ideas - [Spigit Blog] A key aspect of what one might term 'Innovation 2.0' is the ability to share ideas among a community, and have that community help identify and refine top ideas. It turns out that a University of Chicago professor studied this dynamic in 2003, and found it to be true.

ActiveEarth 3.0 is a world time clock and global weather tool with up-todate time zone information for every country, and current conditions and forecasts for the entire United States and more than 40,000 international locations. Find out more - Try it FREE - Receive a Special Discount when purchased through Innovation Watch

  your feedback is appreciated... email me at [email protected]