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Web magazine with coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics

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--
Justin

"If you can imagine it you can create it. If you can dream it, you can become it."
William Arthur Ward

"If you don't know where you're going, chances are you will end up somewhere else"
Yogi Berra

Compost service for businesses sells the soil it creates

Instead of focusing on end consumer, this eco-friendly venture targets businesses...

Compost service for businesses sells the soil it creates

via Springwise by Springwise on 6/18/10

Where most of the composting initiatives we've seen have focused on helping consumers get the dirty job done on their own household waste, Utah-based Eco Scraps collects leftover food from grocery stores and restaurants and turns it into valuable organic soil conditioner for sale at local nurseries.

Americans throw out nearly 30 million tons of food every year, and 27 million of those come from supermarkets, restaurants and convenience stores. Hoping to put that waste to good use, Eco Scraps collects leftover food and coffee grounds from five grocery stores and six coffee shops in Utah Valley, according to a report in the Standard-Examiner. A delivery vehicle makes rounds to pick up some 2,000 pounds of local waste each day; it then brings them to Eco Scraps' Provo workshop, where they are ground up, mixed and turned daily until the resulting compost is ready to be bagged and sold. Roughly 60,000 pounds of compost are reportedly produced each month and sell out quickly at local garden retailers and wholesalers.

Launched by a Brigham Young University student, Eco Scraps took second place recently at the BYU Social Venture Competition and is also a Sparkseed innovator. The company hopes to expand to five additional markets in California, Arizona, Colorado and Oregon by early 2011, with further expansion after that. Time to make trash part of your next treasure...? (Related: Compost service for urbanites, with soil in return — Garbage into gold, via worm poop.)

Website: www.ecoscraps.net
Contact: contact@ecoscraps.net

Spotted by: Garett Gee

Flow

Happiness is not something that happens. It is a condition that must be prepared for, cultivated, and defended privately by each person. People who learn to control inner experience will be able to determine the quality of their lives, which is as close as any of us can come to being happy.

Optimal experience - sense of exhileration, deep sense of enjoyment that is long cherished and that becomes a landmark in memory for what life should be like. It is something we MAKE happen since these moments usually occur when a person's body or mind is stretched to its
limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.

Theory of optimal experience based on concept of FLOW - state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience itself is so enjoyable that people will do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it.

Milhaly Csikszentmihaly

Sent from my iPhone

Mobile real estate sites

Sites to check out:
http://www.txt2look.com/
http://www.mobile-marketing-strategies.com/
http://www.homesonmobilephones.com/
http://www.propertybyphone.com/

Audio tours, txt messages, virtual tours; many are free for buyers, but cost $7-20 for sellers

Courtesty of Cdn Real Estate Mag, July 2010

Waiting-room service lets patients pass the time elsewhere

It's about time! The concept goes a bit further than the ones seen in restaurants (who provide customers with pagers to alert them when their table is ready). This would make visiting my doctor a hell of a lot better.

Waiting-room service lets patients pass the time elsewhere

via Springwise by Springwise on 6/9/10

Patients the world over who are sick of long wait times at doctor's offices and emergency rooms are increasingly getting respite through services such as InQuickER and Queue Watch. Lending further proof that the concept is a good one, Quebec-based TechnowaiT has now come up with something similar.

TechnowaiT's 1-2-3-Go! service is designed to allow patients to leave the waiting room and go somewhere else to pass the time until it's their turn to be seen. Patients begin by registering at the doctor's office and taking a number. They can then go anywhere they're reachable by phone; by calling in regularly to an interactive system, they can find out via an automated message how many people are still ahead of them, and how much waiting time still remains. As their turn approaches, they can then return to the clinic in a just-in-time fashion. Eventually, TechnowaiT aims to add phone alerts so that patients can get notified half an hour before it's their turn, according to a report on Montreal's CTV. Currently free, the service will ultimately be priced at CAD 3.

After a pilot project in Laval, Que., TechnowaiT now aims to implement the technology in myriad hospitals and walk-in clinics.

Spotted by: CTV Montreal via RP

Website: rendezvous.technowait.com
Contact: info@technowait.com

Eco-minded restaurant lists carbon footprint for each menu item

Eco-minded restaurant lists carbon footprint for each menu item

via Springwise by Springwise on 6/9/10

Much the way French Europcar shows customers the carbon emissions associated with each of its rental cars, so a new restaurant chain includes such information for every item on its vegetarian menu.

With two restaurants in each of New York and London, Australia-based Otarian bills itself as "the first ever low-carbon restaurant chain, using a cradle-to-grave analysis in the carbon footprinting of every menu item." Almost everything in Otarian's restaurants—from the floor to the tables and chairs—is made from recycled materials. They use the most energy-efficient equipment available, and all the electricity powering them comes from wind, water or sun. Water use is minimised, and local supplies are selected whenever possible. Targeting the heavy emissions associated with the livestock industry, meanwhile, the restaurant offers no meat on its menu. Most interesting of all, however, is that Otarian uses international standards like BSI PAS 2050 to carbon footprint its entire menu; it has also been selected to road test the new Greenhouse Gas Protocol product standard. Its "Eco2tarian Labelling" shows the difference in greenhouse gas emissions between its veggie meals and similar dishes containing meat, fish or egg. Otarian even goes so far as to reward consumers for the carbon they save by eating at its restaurants. Specifically, every purchase earns them "Carbon Karma" credits, which are tracked by way of the restaurant's Carbon Karma cards; consumers can track both their credits and their carbon savings online. After 100 credits, they are treated to a free Choco Treat off the menu.

As legions of eco-minded consumers begin tracking their impact on the environment, there's no shortage of opportunities for companies to stand out by offering the eco intel they need to do that. Eventually, we suspect, that will become hygiene. (Related: Consumers get paid to reduce their emissions.)

Website: www.otarian.com
Contact: info@otarian.com

Spotted by: Branwen Santos

Preparing for the unexpected: seeing each minute as new

From the 60 second innovator:

Basketball, like golf, is a game in which you can do a tremendous
amount of self-abuse over errors and ruin a nice day, and in the
process, probably cause your team to lose. No one plays this or any
game perfectly. It's the guy who recovers from his mistakes who wins.
(Phil Jackson)

Mistakes

"An average man learns from his own mistakes, the wise man learns from
the mistakes of others, and the fool never learns"

Justin

Sent from my iPhone

Time to Stop Waiting For Others to Teach Our Kids Eco Literacy

Business idea: sustainability curriculum for kids?

Sent to you via Google Reader

Time to Stop Waiting For Others to Teach Our Kids Eco Literacy

It seems not a day goes by when you hear about school budgets being radically cut, or even closed, and as a result the educational future of our next generation in uncertainty, lacking in depth & breadth. Theater, music, even the always preserved sports are being left to the side, in favor of focusing on how to train good test takers, to better secure funding....Read the full story on TreeHugger