Lest you be impressed with oil's potential energy, remember that it requires more and more coaxing to get it out of the ground and into power. Wood, on the other hand, is literally lying all over the place.
That's the economic conclusion arrived at by an Arizona entrepreneur whose new company is looking to use "green waste" like yard clippings and forest detritus to create energy for over a quarter of a million homes in the Southwest. If this could work, wouldn't someone have thought of it already? Is this man an idiot?
The answers to those questions: No, and... Maybe.
Robert Worsely's plan for his new company, called Renergy, is to combine Arizona's wildfire problem with humanity's energy problem. He's looking to capture the detritus culled from thinning forests for fire prevention and combine it with domestic green waste, as well as paper slop from an area newspaper factory, to make bio-fuel. He claims that all the particulate that we see as black smoke when we burn wood in, say, our fireplaces, will be removed, and that only carbon dioxide will be released in the burning process. That means no greenhouse gases, and no harmful byproducts. Very enviro-friendly sounding.
In concept, the idea seems like a clever reinvention of the waste-to-energy strategy that environmentalists have been pushing for years. The twist here is to purposely produce the waste (that is, by thinning forests) and combine it with some other stuff before burning it to create electricity. This seems cool -- less expensive and more reliable than solar, less deleterious to the earth than petroleum, and more realistic than nuclear power (which, if used exclusively worldwide, would eliminate the earth's supply of reactor fuel in a few generations). So what's the problem?
"Thinning forests" could quickly turn into a euphemism for logging, and as anyone who has watched a tree grow can tell you, logging can be very difficult to do sustainably. How often could any given forest possibly need to be "thinned" to be safe? Once a year? Twice a year? At what point does forest-thinning become forest destruction? Isn't the point to save the forest from a devastating fire -- or is that a cover for the actual agenda of saving suburban homes?
As it turns out, I am not the first person to think of this; the Chairman of the Grand Canyon trust comments: "There's a balancing act... It is critical that the tail of (industry) doesn't wag the forest-management dog. Finding the sweet spot is something we and others are working on." Frankly, the idea of a private sector energy company playing nice with environmentalists sounds dubious at best; if my Magic Eight Ball contained a prediction about big business bullying, it'd bubble up right about now.
Take a look at this paper written by a Professor of Agricultural Economics at Texas A&M University on the competitiveness of biofuel plants. Barring government subsidies, it states, the competitiveness of such plants depend "in a key way upon the success of research in developing improved production methods for short rotation woody crops." In other words, the whole concept is (environmentally) worthless if we can't figure out a way to make biomass a quickly-renewing resource. My concern is that forest detritus doesn't renew fast enough for the pace of business. What happens when the plant wants to scale up production? Does it start trucking in detritus from the other end of the state? Does it transport wood chips from Texas? California? At some point, the effort to scale up (i.e., the energy expended in transporting wood waste) inflicts the same environmental damage that the plant was initially intended to eschew, and Arizona is left with just another polluting power plant. And hey, if they need the power, then great -- get it from wood. But if they don't, this shouldn't be billed as an eco-improvement in electricity production, but rather, just another for-profit powerplant.
Speaking of for-profit: Worsely's track record is pretty good in that respect; he's the founder of SkyMall, the airline-based catalog ordering company that sells things you will never need (but might just buy for someone you don't know that well.) If he brings the same principles he demonstrated with SkyMall to Renergy, don't count on getting a good deal -- the man may not be an environmental genius, but he clearly has a knack for making a buck.
Let's say you run a web site, and it's so demanding that you run it at the cost of your marital well-being. Now you can say "thank you!" to your Main Squeeze for her patience by, you guessed it, fiddling with another web site.
This one is called Spouse 2.0, and it's a little one-pager set up by the co-founder of Particls, Ashley Angell (who, for your information, is a guy. If you don't believe men should be named "Ashley," consider the mighty Ashley river that traverses South Carolina, or eat some history.) Anyway, the ostensible purpose of Spouse 2.0 is to thank those tirelessly patient souls who are married to people married to web startups. The site advocates you do this (on "Spouse 2.0 day, which is December 7th -- mark your calendar) by following these four steps.
1. Buy your significant other a present in appreciation of all the the time you neglected them while running your start-up this year. They shouldn't have to wait for Christmas to get something special!
2. Post about your special gift, and the sacrifices your spouse has made on your blog, twitter or other self-publishing services.
3. Tag all photos and posts with "Spouse 2.0" as evidence.
4. Take a gun, put some bullets in it, and shoot yourself in the foot.
Okay, so I added that last step. I suppose it goes without saying.
I fully condone the good-hearted sentiment behind Spouse 2.0 day; of course, there's no bad excuse to thank your spouse or give them a present. The problem, however, is the whole concept that superintends the gesture: that you can apologize for doing something by doing it more. Yes, okay, you are a web geek. Yes, you love the internet. Which is exactly why you should crawl out of your comfort zone and make an appreciative gesture that is not half-meant to satisfy your own need to participate in all new things Web 2.0.
Think, for a moment, if entrepreneurs of other stripes adopted this vehicle of gratitude. A car mechanic expresses his love for his wife by engineering 100 more horsepower into her Malibu. A beautician promises her husband an artful cut-and-dye. Sure, those are nice gestures, but they are vaguely self-serving, in that they are not special or unique. Mechanics work on cars. Beauticians do hair and nails. Web entrepreneurs toy with the internet. None of these activities are made magnanimous just because you're applying them to a person you love, free of charge.
There is one cool element of Spouse 2.0, and that's the RSS feed. It's also, paradoxically, the saddest part of the project. How? Well, Step 1 is do something nice for your spouse. Steps 2 and 3 (which, note, outnumber Step 1) involve blogging and tagging descriptions and photos of that nice thing you did for your spouse. It's cool because: I can go on there and check out what other guys are doing for their lady friends, and glean some good ideas. It's sad because: I know I'm getting romantic ideas at the expense of others' quality time, which has clearly been spent with a computer instead of a significant other.
The solution, as selfish as it sounds, is to read the RSS feed but ignore Steps 2 and 3. If a one-step gesture of appreciation seems too feeble for your wonderful mate, then skip the posting and uploading, put on your Sunday best and take them out to dinner.
It also bears noting that this day already exists: it's called Valentine's Day. The site says they shouldn't have to wait for Christmas to get a nice gift. So... they should wait for every December 7th instead? Let me amend my suggestion: skip the blogging and tagging and take them out to dinner tonight.
Microsoft announced today that it will stop remotely disabling versions of Vista that its registration servers deem pirated. If you're not privy to this feature of Vista, here's the lowdown: when your register your shiny new copy of Vista, Microsoft's servers decide whether or not you are in fact registering a "genuine" copy, or a copy that has been hacked or modded for the purposes of illegal distribution. If it decides the latter, it limits some features of your machine quite severely, letting you login for only an hour at a time, disabling the OS's eye-candy skin, called Aero, and giving you periodic (and vaguely ominous) error messages. Neither the initial feature nor its repeal are surprising, coming from the piracy McCarthyists in Redmond. What is interesting, however, is the bizarre language the MS brass use to discuss the feature and its (dis)abilities.
First of all, let's talk about the term it uses for legitimate copies of Vista: genuine. It's a curious choice of term primarily because it's primarily a word you'd use to describe people, not software. The terms "legitimate" or "purchased" would have worked much better; "genuine," in this case, is almost a malapropism when what is really meant is "authentic." Taken in its duality, though (that is, to mean both "real" and "sincere,") it sounds like a judgment full of sanctimony. In deciding whether a user's copy of Vista is "genuine" or not, it sounds almost as if faraway servers are making a statement on the character and forthrightness of me, the flesh-and-blood PC owner. To decide whether a person is genuine is to appraise their general affect, demeanor, and patterns of behavior for trustworthiness -- not to size up their PC.
Equally loaded are the terms Microsoft uses for copies of Vista it deems pirated. If the company's servers decide you're using an altered version of Vista, it puts your machine into a limited-functionality mode called "out of grace" mode. Out of grace? That's a title reserved for the relationship between parent and errant teen; worker and judgmental boss; wife and dog-housed husband. Being rendered "out of grace" seems oddly passive-aggressive; the system refuses to assign blame or criminality, but is more than happy to frustrate your attempts to use your own computer, despite its apparent lack of surety that you are indeed a pirate. (If you think that Microsoft's servers are always correct in administering its limited-functionality punishment, it's not; in fact, it has screwed up big time in the past.)
Redmond's rhetorical acrobatics become even more telling as they require the invention of words that don't even exist. I'm talking about an even more severely reduced functionality mode that Microsoft can foist on your PC if it is really convinced you're pirating Vista. That mode is called "non-genuine" mode.
If that sounds funny to you, it's because "non-genuine" is very, very stupid phraseology. The word "genuine" already has an antonym: the word is "disingenuous." You have probably heard of this word, or even used it, in everyday life. It means: insincere, deceptive, deceitful, duplicitous, etc. Interestingly, the customer relations gurus at Microsoft must have decided that "disingenuous" sounded either 1) too bombastic for their dumb consumers or 2) too accusatory of its dumb consumers for use its anti-piracy verbiage. (n.b.: Even if "genuine" were to be used loosely as a synonym for "real," its antonym would then be "counterfeit," a title that doesn't really describe the status of copied or hacked software.) The substitute term that Microsoft has invented in order to weasel its way out of a linguistic corner sounds perhaps even more passive-aggressive than "out of grace" mode. That's because it levies even harsher restrictions against the user, with perhaps even less of a tone of certainty regarding the user's guilt. Not to mention that made-up phrases have a kind of Pee Wee's Funhouse feel to them, which would be funnier if the feature wasn't completely incapacitating your machine and subtly insulting you at the same time.
Industry folks (but not Microsoft reps themselves) call the reduced-functionality mode a "kill switch," a term that is reminiscent of motor vehicles; motorcycles, lawnmowers and wood chippers have "kill switches." It's a term meant to describe a machine without a key ignition, a vehicle that you pull-start with one of those long strings, and choke of fuel to extinguish. For as complex in coding and security encryption as Vista's "kill switch" is, it does make the operating system smack of the kind of simplicity that is also stupid and inconvenient. Sure, hand-pulling my Lawnboy to ignition means I'll never lose the keys, but it's also light-years behind the convenient way that I start up my Civic.
Killing the "kill switch" isn't just a smart customer-relations move on the behalf of Vista's makers, it's also a step forward in usability, and a tacit acknowledgment that someday, Windows might have to succumb to the greater wants of technology -- and become an open platform.
No, it's not enough that you can hack your iPhone to operate on the T-Mobile network, or launch third-party applications, or play games. No, someone had to go and demonstrate how you can -- quite easily, with some know-how -- turn an iPhone, or any smartphone, into a full-blown spy gadget. Go warm up your missile-laden Aston Martin, and then watch security expert Rik Farrow show you how it's done:
I have an iPhone. I've also owned BlackBerrys, Treos, and even an awesome little Palm-based thing called the Samsung i500 that never quite caught on. But never once did it occur to me that someone could use it to record the mundane details of my daily existence. And now that it does occur to me, courtesy of Rik Farrow, I have one thing to say. This is pretty awesome.
I know, I know -- the upstanding thing to do is abjure piracy and hacking. But to acknowledge that the device in my pocket is capable of spying on me is also a tacit acknowledgment that the device in my pocket is very, very close to being a full-blown personal computer. Watch as Rik penetrates the iPhone; when he first logs in, the Terminal shows him system information for the device. Just when you notice the screen describing the iPhone's kernel, Rik reminds us that the commands he's using are the same for any Unix, Linux, or Mac OS X-based computer. This thing, like the entire generation of smartphones it accompanies, are increasingly based on viable, robust platforms, rather than piddling, proprietary software.
Would it be better if they were ironclad? Sure, but nothing is. Just as the utility of the Internet overshadows the nuisance of viruses, the upward march of the smartphone is a worthy cause, despite its occasional vulnerabilities. The solution, of course, to the immutable personal computing device: awareness. If you know not to click on that suspicious e-mail attachment from a Zimbabwean Prince, the chances of your computer (and now, your iPhone) coming down with a flu are greatly reduced. I, for one, will put my idiocy to the test, eager to see what convenience -- and perhaps, scandal -- the next generation of phones can bring me.
Online daters live and die by interpreting profile photographs. Sure, interests and hobbies are great, but when it comes to that crucial moment (to contact, or not to contact?) it's the photo that matters. Is it recent? Is it full-body? Is it even real? This week's Startup of the Week award goes to a site that's adding a new dimension to online matchmaking by actually allowing users to search for matches that resemble their favorite celebrities. The best part is: they're using Match.com's database to do it.
Like so many barnacles, successful startups are increasingly piggybacking off behemoth destination sites to add functionality (or fun) that the sites themselves don't have. In this case, Eyealike's site searches Match.com's hundreds of thousands of users, based on the celebrity features you specify. Startups like Eyealike have a bare-bones business plan: create a proprietary technology, apply it to an existing platform, and wait for the buyout requests to roll in. In the world of entrepreneurship, it's all about marginal benefits -- and for web businesses, the start-and-sell model is often the perfect equilibrium between investment and profit. The "barnacle plan" cuts the fat out of the typical Silicon Valley model by eliminating most of the advertising, PR, big tech staffs and big servers required to launch sites that people like. The result is a slim, $1.5 million company that can focus on its concept, and not necessarily the logistics of implementation. Regarding face recognition software, which is Eyealike's core technology, the company boasts that:
"... it has an advantage because its software algorithm evaluates the complete geometry of the face rather than searching by descriptive tag words such as black hair, green eyes, or fair skin. Eyealike said it returns more accurate match results by analyzing individual features separately."
According to Eyealike President Greg Heuss, that technology is allowing his company to avoid the hassle of building a destination site; they opt instead to be “totally focused on licensing ability.”
Thankfully, that myopic concentration on technology over implementation bodes well for the world of online dating. That is to say, Heuss doesn't seem to really believe that people are vain enough to search out, contact, and pursue a mate just because they have Angelina's nose or Clooney's hair. Instead, the idea behind the site seems to be proof-of-concept, with the understanding that reliable web-based face recognition could have a plethora of more useful (and less sad) applications.
However, Heuss does note that his company is entertaining negotiations with Match.com and other singles sites interested in the functionality. Let's hope, for the sake of humanity, that celebrity-match online dating doesn't take off.
I don't consider myself a particularly "manly" man, but when I watch the ads for Campbell's Chunky soup, I can't help but feel beguiled by the sweat-reeking, ass-kicking aura of machismo that (apparently) defines Campbell's Chunky. Of course, they're not serious about all this, right? Eating Chunky doesn't make you more of a man.
Does it?
Actually, it seems a lot of people think it might. Since the campaign started in 1997, the Chunky brand has seen "double digit" growth -- and it's increasing each year, as Campbell's hires more NFL stars to grunt and sweat in their commercials (the total is now 8).
Apparently, consumers are buying the message, which might seem laughable if it didn't include the lovable humility implied by the presence of the players' real-life moms, serving them the steaming bowls. The conflation of meat-head and momma's boy apparently strikes a chord with male buyers, but there are some serious contradictions at work here.
The Senior Brand Manager at Campbell's thinks people relate to the professional athletes because they are representative of the consumer. Because they like lifting weights? Or enjoy football? No; because they love their moms.
"Our eight NFL players are incredibly talented, good-hearted guys, who truly exemplify the Chunky brand and our consumer ... and we can't forget about how they look out for mom, too."
Wait, I thought it was mom who did the looking out, bringing Donovan McNabb a heaping bowl of meat and noodles after a tough day pumping iron. And since when is being a macho athlete synonymous with being a big softee at heart? What if Powerade tried to sell its drinks with that message?
The beauty of the Chunky marketing campaign is two-fold: it is both a serious appeal to manliness, and a self-deprecating look at the absurdities of marketing. We're talking about soup here -- nothing that you eat with a spoon is ever in danger of seeming stereotypically macho, unless it's motor oil. The ads are aware of their own silliness, which leaves viewers that much more vulnerable to the real (and ridiculous) message that soup is a manly food.
The ads also cast a massive net of appeal by telling consumers that all you have to do is love your mom, and that makes you a Campbell's Chunky kind of guy. Is it silly? Yes. But is it also brilliant? Absolutely. I mean, I love my mom. Don't you? Let's celebrate by eating some Broccoli and Cheddar.
The Chunky campaign has worked flawlessly for nearly a decade, but it's being revamped to accommodate Campbell's new line of Chunky soups, called Chunky FULLY LOADED. These commercials have a decidedly harder, more macho tone, with less of the lovable silliness of the old. There's no telling if that adjustment to the formula will lure even more buyers -- or if, like manliness, there's only so much beef that's appetizing in one sitting.
When unfulfilled Apple rumors don't die, there's usually a good reason. Having moved on from the iPhone, the tech rumor mill is now churning up new whispers of a game-changing Apple product: an ultra-thin MacBook. Ultra-thin laptops are nothing new. So why should we care?
Apple traditionally makes quick changes in its product lines; even seminal product re-designs happen inside of 18 months or a year. But when it takes the Cupertino-based company more than a year and a half to launch a product, it's either dead in the water, or deadly to the competition. It took nearly a decade of development for Apple to launch the first OS X. The iPod was a multi-year endeavor, and the iPhone took so long to develop that it developed an almost mythical aura in the tech community. We've been hearing about ultra-thin MacBooks for close to three years now, which means that if and when it arrives at the MacWorld conference in January, it will be a device that leaves other laptop makers scrambling. With the dearth of solid information that accompanies these rumors, I'll put my tech-spertise on the line to predict what we'll see in the ultra-thin MacBook.
What We (Think We ) Know
The rumors I've read make some logical predictions based on trickle down technology from the MacBook Pros. Like the MacBook Pro, the ultra-thin machine will have an LED (or OLED) screen, instead of the traditionally-backlit screen, to save power. That's a no-brainer. It will also probably have a 13-inch screen, ala MacBook, because 13 inches is a good compromise between screen real estate and weight/footprint. Let's go from there.
What I (Think I) Know
Some rumors describe the ultra-thin MacBook as lacking an optical drive, while others consider that option an absurdity. I think the elimination of optical drives is as much an inevitability as was the elimination of floppies; with Internet and wireless technology improving as quickly as it has, tangible media are becoming quickly obsolete. However, the machine will have to come with an external SuperDrive, if only because it's currently impossible to do OS upgrades with anything but a DVD. Maybe OS 10.6 will arrive in USB flash-drive form, but until that (and all software) moves away from discs, the drive isn't dead -- yet.
I'm also predicting built in Wi-Fi as well as built in AT&T wireless broadband. The machine won't have a PCMCIA slot, as the MacBooks don't, so they won't be able to take advantage of wireless broadband cards. Since Apple already has a relationship with AT&T because of the iPhone, they'd be stupid not to include wireless broadband functionality in this machine -- especially since it's an ultra-mobile machine meant for people on the road.
How about the guts? It'll have the same 2.6 Ghz Core 2 Duo chips as the MacBook, but will also have all NAND flash memory. That's right: no hard drive, and no moving parts. This will limit the capacity of the machine; its total storage will probably max out at 40 or 50GB, simply because the inclusion of any more flash memory will be a cost-prohibitive (though possibly built-to-order) feature, but it will allow for near-instant boot times. This hardware profile will position the ultra-thin MacBook above the regular MacBook in Apple's price scale, but below the lowest-level MacBook Pro. It will be in an aluminum enclosure, like the MacBook Pro.
Now for the fun stuff: the groundless speculation. Since the machine is built to be mobile, I'll be expecting a redesigned AC power adaptor with an extra-light body and extra-long, airport-friendly cable. The machine will be only as big as the screen requires: .5" thick, 13.1" wide, and 7" deep, weighing in at about 2.5 pounds. It will include a portable DVD-R drive and possibly even a built-in iPod/iPhone dock to reduce the cable clutter in your computer bag. It might even sport a modified version of OS X that runs a basic-feature mode much like FrontRow provides a basic media mode: a simple, resource-light GUI that gives you immediate access to e-mail, Address Book, iCal, Dashboard and iWork. Look also for enhanced multitouch capabilities on the trackpad, which could allow for the quick and easy manipulation of files and desktop space.
While Apple certainly won't be the first to do a super-slick UMPC, they might just do it better than anyone has so far. And even if American buyers aren't clamoring for yet another small laptop, an ultra-thin MacBook has the potential to bolster Apple's weak presence in Japan, where tiny electronics are adored (if not fetishized). Whatever Apple's reason for introducing the new Mac, Apple devotees should put January 15 on their calendars, and be prepared for something very, very cool.
There are plenty of Web-based applications out there that are, frankly, of dubious utility to normal people. Sure, Twitter has proven itself a life-saver, but that leaves a lot of other stupid sites and software with something to prove. But they may never get the chance, thanks to a new crop of Web 2.0 apps that combine once-silly software into practical, usable products. Think of it: voice recognition software with a purpose; project management software that employees actually use; mobile phone-based social networking that actually facilitates a better social life. Impossible, you say? Read on, dear skeptic, read on.
First case in point: SpinVox, which converts your speech into text that can be sent via SMS, posted to a blog, or emailed. We've seen speech recognition before, in the form of word processing software that mistook "sorely" for "orgy" and required a stupid headset. It hasn't gotten a whole lot of traction amongst mobile phone users, either; one late-night voice-dial that mistakes "Pam" for "Mom" is enough to discourage anybody.
But SpinVox's technology actually works surprisingly well, nailing even proper nouns. All you have to do is call their 1-800 number and leave their system a voicemail, choose how you want it sent and to whom, and you're done. No more texting while driving, or texting while eating a burrito. Hallelujah.
Another great example: a software service called Clarizen, a project management software that is entirely Web-based. Before you start snoring, I'll admit: software services are somewhat of a novelty (and so is project management software, for that matter). But Clarizen's purpose is rather profound: make a PM software that employees will not hate. Sounds simple, right? It's not.
Getting employees to adopt new technology is one of the great hurdles to any business's initiative for improvement. In the past, it was probably easier for Joe Employee to just get up and talk to the dude down the hall, collaborate over email, or write himself a post-it note, than it was to try to learn the woefully clunky software his manager provided him with. But Clarizen approaches this problem smartly, incorporating a wiki-like feature that allows a community of workers to easily edit and advance the same project, with various levels of privileges, and observe their progress on a cool graphical timeline. You can even email the system to make changes, just like you'd email your intern to pawn off some work. It doesn't get any more economical than that.
Since we're talking about the difference between making a useful service and making a stupid service, I'd be remiss not to discuss Whrrl. Whrrl allows you to use your cell phone's GPS functionality to tag locations and mini-blog about them, allowing your friends to, say, see the painstaking course of your date the night before -- complete with gossip and coordinates. This makes good on the promise of one cell phone service that I personally love to hate: Dodgeball. Why do I need to track my friends like targets? Isn't it good enough that they text me the name of the bar they're at, instead of me sketchily mapping out their latitude and longitude like some pseudo-stalker or SWAT team? Did we learn nothing from any Harrison Ford movie ever made? That technology is for the bad guys.
What isn't for the bad guys is telling a human narrative with a little bit of backdrop thrown in. Where were my friends last night, when I was studying? What museums did my cousin see when she was visiting New York? Whrrl takes the oft-useless circumstantial descriptions of any experience ("we were at that place with the big swordfish on the wall...") and informs them, helping you get to know your metropolitan area (and your friends) a little better.
If I sound cynical about so-called "useless" Web apps, then allow me a disclaimer: useless sites and services can be a lot of fun. But not only that; they clearly provide the fodder for more useful projects and enhancements that might not otherwise have been possible. In short: I may not like rhubarb by itself, but I'm grateful that somebody figured out the recipe for strawberry-rhubarb pie.
Yeah, you read that right: curry, like what the British call a tasty stew you eat with rice. That's the advice of a Glasgow-based entrepreneur who styles himself the "King of Curry" in honor of his chain of popular Indian restaurants. "Like a good curry, becoming an entrepreneur is all about finding the right ingredients," says Charan Gill, 51. And that's why, apparently, he's starting an entrepreneurial competition with a cash prize. More on this nut, and his competition, after the jump.
According to Scotsman News, the Curry King has established a contest for the "best business idea," which will be rewarded with a top prize of 5,000 pounds sterling (about $10, 484) and free legal advice. Eleven other aspirants will receive lesser runner-up amounts of about $2,100, as well as legal advice.
"Applying for this competition won't take up much of your time and you never know, it could be the first step on the ladder to entrepreneurial success," says Gill, who sounds weirdly salesy, as if he thinks no one will apply. If that's indeed the case, it's not for strict regulations; you only have to be 16 to enter the contest, and the only real requirements are that you be 1) Scottish and 2) able to have the business up and running by March of 2008. The deadline is the 30th of this month. There are no restrictions as to what kind of business the "idea" would dictate. Which makes it, in the opinion of this writer, about the coolest funding contest out there.
Which begs the question: is this even a funding contest at all, or just a bit of a publicity stunt on the behalf of Scotland's most famous (and quirky) entrepreneur? The entry form itself (which consists of five short answer questions) reads like a very diplomatic college application -- with questions like, "Why do you want to start a business?" and "What are your future goals and vision for the business?" To call this application a softball would almost be understatement. But then again, it does sound eerily similar in tone to Y Combinator's Seed Funding application, if shorter by comparison.
"Real" seed funding contest or not, I hope that once this contest is decided the winning application is published. Will it be full of good-spirited motivation, with each question answered in philosophical terms -- "I want to enrich my community...")? Or will it be more pragmatic, with every response reading, "I want to make a lot of money," or "Because I want to buy a boat"? That's something to be pondered over a good curry.
If you've ever wanted to see what a neural network looks like inside your own brain, then the new Visuwords visual dictionary might be the closest you'll ever get.
When you enter a word into Visuwords, it creates a graphical abstract of all related terms, and ties them together in a web that you can manipulate. Mousing over a term defines it, and you can drag the terms around, into groups, or stretch the web apart to see how related terms relate to each other. It is, as the kids say, mad cool. You can see it in action here.
Visuwords uses an open-source platform called WordNet created by the brains at Princeton, and it just launched this week. Obviously it's not perfect; even though it worked fine in Firefox, it insisted on reading "XHTML Load Failed" behind the Web animation, and it didn't work at all in Safari.
That said, this could be the most useful pre-research tool that the Web has offered humanity to date. Psychologists have long thought that our brains collect information in networks called "constructs" that behave a lot like webs. The more often our thoughts travel the pathways between terms (take for example the well-developed relationship between the terms "birthday" and "cake") the more likely we are to free associate the two terms together. Visuwords organizes related terms similarly; while the terms "punk" and "subculture" pop up as closely related, clicking on "subculture" releases another burst of associations, one of which is "skinheads and bootboys." Now, I have no idea what a "bootboy" is. I've never in my life heard that term. But if I were researching punk rock or countercultural movements, I'd definitely want to go find out.
While Wikipedia is great for quick research, and Lexis Nexis is great for looking deeper, there currently exists no real tool for finding out what one does not know. Visuwords is more than an Internet gimmick. It's an Internet gem.
