Open up your mind and say, ahh...

After a hard day’s driving, a sauna is the ideal place to relax and take away the strain on the muscles – which is why one Russian decided to create a rolling hot box he can take with him wherever he goes.

Embedded in Russian tradition, saunas sit alongside vodka as the staple means of keeping warm in the sub-zero winters most typically experienced by the inhabitants of this giant nation.

The majority are permanent structures with giant fires feeding individual wooden cabins, but on a snowy lay-by next to the main road into Moscow we came across a rather more mobile one, built neatly into the back of a 1976 Zil army truck.

This is a very different type of truck stop.

Parked in a forested outcrop, the solid green metal machine sat atop the snow on large tundra tires, hiding its dark military history under a fresh new look with a giant side sticker depicting the wooden slats of a traditional sauna and a telltale rough steel opening that emitted a flickering glow.

Since the truck chugged its way out of Moscow, this onboard fire has been slowly building up the heat inside, puffing smoke from the twee little chimney in its roof.

Beckoned over by a man wearing a heavyweight winter jacket topped with a bizarre beige Tyrolean-style hat, we were ushered to a door where another gentleman with significantly fewer clothes and an altogether steamier look welcomed us in.

But while it may have seemed like we were in a bizarre slapstick comedy sketch, this was a very serious piece of physical conditioning, Russian style.

Inside, there was very strict protocol. First came the initial sweating to get the body acclimatized to the heat. Once boiled to within an inch of our lives, we then cooled down in the sauna-truck’s ‘chill out room’ before braving the heat once more.

Then came the oak branches. Bunched and brandished by Nikolai, the sauna’s owner, creator and operator, we were beaten with these to boost circulation. With the sauna’s coals repeatedly watered and bunched leaves wafting the fast-soaring heat through the tiny space by the fire, we were soon cooked to perfection.

We thought we were done, but Nikolai had other plans. With a yell of “Russia extreme!” he urged us to the sauna door and out into the frozen snow beyond, where he proceeded to cover us in snow.

And as we finally slipped back into our vehicles’ soft leather seats to continue our journey, the whip-lashed sores began to soften. They don’t do things by halves, these Russians.

Jeremy was travelling on Land Rover’s Journey of Discovery.

The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.

Name: Doodle.ly

Quick Pitch: Doodle.ly is a creative social platform for doodlers. Hand-drawn masterpieces created on Doodle.ly can be shared to social networks.

Genius Idea: Doodle.ly artists can draw straight on the website or sketch using the Doodle.ly iPad app.

For Doodle.ly co-creators Evan Vogel and Darren Paul, the social platform they dreamed up and launched in July 2011 — is the place for innovation, creativity and inspiration on the web.

The latest user-submitted drawings include doodles of bright flowers, dinosaurs and detailed sketches paying homage to Beastie Boys Rapper MCA, who died last Friday. The current number of doodles on the site stands at 32,000 — and counting.

Doodle.ly is a web application and iPad app that lets users draw whatever they want and effortlessly share creations to the web. It takes under a minute for someone with a Twitter and Facebook to sign into Doodle.ly as a new user. That’s when the magic happens. There are different pen tools and colors, all free to use, so the boundaries are endless.

Once the drawing, sketch or scribble is complete, doodles are shared on Twitter or Facebook automatically. The Doodle.ly team is working on building untethered account log-ins — to stop forced sharing. But for now, the world gets to experience all doodles created on Doodle.ly.

Vogel and Paul say they see most of the doodles that come through. These startup guys have high standards for their “highly skilled” userbase.

“We want to see the next Radiohead album or Time magazine cover created by doodlers,” Vogel told Mashable.

An application update released on Tuesday is intended to make the social platform more interactive. New features include a “like button” on every doodle. Plus, a resulting “popular section” for trending images.

These social features were inspired by Instagram’s internal system of “likes” and comments for the app’s filtered square images. There’s instant gratification in “likes,” Paul says.

“This is really meant to be fun,” Paul says. “The new features we are launching are socialization features. What the ‘like’ button does is take the app to the next level. You can like the doodle either by clicking the ‘like’ button or by double tapping the doodle. This allows the cream to rise to the top.”

The social platform is meant to be playful and positive. The hand-drawn aspect of this medium is special, says the creators.

“We can see people around the world using this as a way to share a love note to a loved one, wish someone condolences or just to doodle a creative idea,” Paul says.

Marketing teams are taking advantage of Doodle.ly’s simple drawing interface and sharing aspects. NHL team, the New Jersey Devils, recently used Doodle.ly on Fan Appreciation Night as a crowd-sourcing device. Hockey fans were asked to sketch a team-inspired doodle to feature on 17,000 Rally Rags for the first home game of the playoffs. After 10,000 votes were cast, the fan-submitted doodle was announced.

The Doodle.ly team says the social platform of doodles is opening up new avenues of marketing and reaching consumers.

The team, however, says they are currently not focused on monetization or partnerships. For now, the team is busy beefing up its product and working on releasing its API. Projects they have seen come out of their privately released API include a tool for collaborative doodles and a screen saver app.

“We really want this to be a worldwide platform that is ubiquitous and can live out potential we believe it has,” Paul said.

Are you a fan of web-based doodling? Tell us in the comments if this is a social platform you would use.

Images courtesy of Doodle.ly

Series Supported by Microsoft BizSpark

The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark, a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today.

The state of Nevada has issued a first license for one of Google’s self-driving cars — provided there are two people inside the car at all times, the Associated Press reports.

Nevada’s DMV has issued the license after conducting demonstrations that the car is safe for testing on public streets.

Google’s self-driving cars use a laser radar on the roof of the vehicle to detect obstacles, pedestrians and other cars. With the help of GPS and a bit of artificial intelligence, the car can drive itself with very little or no intervention from the human sitting inside.

That said, Nevada’s regulations require two people in the test cars: one in the driver’s seat, and other monitoring a computer screen that shows the car’s planned route as well as traffic lights and other potential hazards on the road.

As soon as the “driver” touches the brake or the wheel, he takes control of the vehicle.

We had a chance to test out one of Google’s self-driving cars in March 2011, and the results were good: no glitches, no unwanted close encounters with walls or other obstacles.

However, in August 2011 one of Google’s cars caused an accident on the road.

What are your thoughts on self-driving cars? Are they the future of transportation or an accident waiting to happen? Let us know in the comments.

Your wallet is likely filled with plastic of all stripes: debit and credit cards from Citi or Chase or Capital One. “But in the lower right-hand corner, hopefully you have a little mark for MasterCard,” says MasterCard SVP Ed Olebe. “So why don’t we bring that same approach to the digital space?”

Toward that end, the financial company today announced PayPass Wallet Services, an agnostic suite of tools designed to simplify the digital payments industry. The e-commerce space is fragmented, even at this early stage of development: digital wallets from Google and PayPal, payment solutions from Square and Barclays. Most every major bank and merchant is drooling for NFC-related technology. MasterCard aims to be the service that unifies these offerings into one network. “We realize that when it comes to payments, no single wallet will rule them all,” says Ed McLaughlin, chief emerging payments officer at MasterCard.

PayPass Wallet Services, which will launch later this year, offers banks and merchants several ways to integrate with MasterCard. First, it will give access to the PayPass Acceptance Network, designed to create a consistent experience across a wide range of services. The PayPass API enables partners to create their own digital wallets, and then tap into MasterCard’s network to make purchases acceptable anywhere MasterCard is accepted, either in store or online, via smartphones and tablets or the PayPass web checkout button. There’s also PayPass Wallet, which lets partners offer their own wallets on top of MasterCard’s solution, which is even open for consumers to use with American Express, Discover, and Visa cards.

“We’re not trying to say that we have the best wallet, and that everyone should switch to ours,” Olebe says. “You can have cards from all different banks, with their with their own name, look and feel, color, and rewards program, like say, frequent flier miles.”

At launch, American Airlines and Barnes & Noble will be MasterCard’s first merchant partners, implementing the PayPass Online checkout button on their sites, while Citi will be one of the first major banks to take advantage of PayPass Wallet.

The idea is to end growing fragmentation in the digital payments space. “Why do I have to learn yet another username and password to use online banking?” Olebe says. In that sense, the company almost aims to become the Facebook Connect of e-commerce, making it so you no longer need to remember accounts with merchants like Barnes & Noble or banks like Citi–but just have to remember one account to connect them all.

“I wouldn’t say we’re trying to become the Facebook Connect of our industry, but we’re trying to enable that same kind of experience,” Olebe says.

Image: Flickr user Mike Reys, Flickr user Greg McMullin