Open up your mind and say, ahh...

With gas prices rising well over $3.00, scientists are looking to other ways to fuel our cars. A promising choice for alternative fuel is ethanol.

In terms of fueling vehicles, using ethanol has equal amounts of pros and cons to it. It burns pretty cleanly, and reduces greenhouse emissions and gas consumption. However, with every great thing there is always a catch; ethanol doesn’t produce as much energy as fuel and requires more land to produce.

Hopefully scientists can find a way to reduce the cons because I don’t know how much more my wallet can take. Gas prices have caused me to reduce my outings and to make running errands an all day, once a week event. Regardless of what gets used, an alternative is needed to fuel our ever growing, fast paced America. [via]

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It may look like the classiest toilet brush set you’ve ever seen, but it’s actually one of the most sophisticated room humidifiers you’ll ever encounter. Modeled on its namesake, a chimney, it emits puffs of cool mist out of its slender smokestack.

Designed by the Tokyo-based designer Takeshi Ishiguro (an IDEO alum), the taller-than-most device houses an ultrasonic system, which silently increases the moisture content of the room, rather than just dampening the floor. It can run continuously for 18 hours and automatically shuts off when tipped over or the water supply is low. In a stroke of genius, the Chimney’s fan continues working for two minutes after shut-off to help prevent mildew.

Now, you may think, Two hundred bucks for a humidifier? Sure, you can get a run-of-the-mill, blobby one for a quarter of that price, but you won’t find one that approaches the sculptural beauty of this machine for less.

Buy it here.

The time is nigh for foot-powered washing machines. Though the concept has been explored before, two recent projects are garnering attention for their real-world feasibility in alleviating the struggles associated with laundry in regions without easy access to electricity or running water. GiraDora, created by a pair of Art Center College of Design students, is receiving accolades, and Philadelphia University industrial design students Eliot Coven and Aaron Stathum have concurrently developed a similar product with a different approach; Up-Stream is an analog appliance built around the ubiquity of five-gallon buckets, allowing users to adapt the piece with materials from their region.

The way it works is quite simple: leg strength agitates loads within the vessel, then that same motion–on the same unit–is used to spin the excess moisture out. Coven and Stathum worked with a goal of making Up-Stream as accessible as possible, and as a result, the framework can be customized with indigenous, recycled, or found component parts. “We see the bucket as the common object. But the metal pipes could be replaced with bamboo shoots, for instance. By making it so DIY-centric, people everywhere can use their available resources, but also use their own personal ingenuity and creativity,” they tell Co.Design. “We hope to lay the groundwork for washing and that people will continue to design this object to fit their needs.”

Each durable five gallon bucket can hold about five articles of clothing, and needs only a touch of powdered detergent, or even a bar of soap; a single load takes about 20 minutes from start to finish (not counting drying time). In lieu of a traditional scrub board, which breaks down textile fibers quickly and causes premature wear-and-tear, Coven and Stathum conceived a neoprene sleeve that provides means for spot cleaning. Location was also a consideration. “Many people clean directly in the rivers, contaminating the water for everyone downstream; we isolated this problem by moving Up-Stream on to land,” they say. The duo are looking into a Kickstarter campaign to fund targeted testing and further development, and hope to see the backbreaking task of laundry become a thing of the past.

(H/T Inhabitat)

Crowdtilt is a platform anyone can use to raise money for anything.

Sound familiar? Kickstarter shares the same crowdfunding focus. But what sets Crowdtilt apart from its better-known competitor is something that one of its cofounders, James Beshara, picked up as a microloans collection officer in South Africa: peer pressure.

Instead of advertising a fundraising objective to the world, Crowdtilt encourages users to share them within their social networks. The objectives can be more diverse than Kickstarter would allow: renting a vacation house with a group of friends, buying a birthday present for a coworker or collecting money for a self-financed production. Crowdtilt makes public who chips in and, implicitly, who doesn’t. Want to avoid being known as that guy who went on vacation with the group but never paid for the hotel? Pay up.

Microfinance is built on the same type of social collateral. Here, Beshara explains how leveraging social pressure door-to-door helped him build Crowdtilt, which powered $1 million in transactions within its first six weeks of business and was recently named Reddit’s official fundraising platform.

FAST COMPANY: What was working as a microloans collection officer in South Africa like?

JAMES BESHARA: I didn’t have any guidebook or guidelines. My orientation for being a loans collector was literally, they told me, “you’re big, you’re pale, you’ll be somewhat intimidating … so you’ll make a good loans collector.”

To give some color to what that means, it’s where you go regularly house-to-house or shanty-to-shanty in the townships right outside of Cape Town, and you are telling delinquent borrowers that they owe “X” amount back to the organization. I went to South Africa for “on the ground” experience, and that’s about as on the ground as it can get.

What did you learn there that factored into Crowdtilt?

Instead of putting up collateral, in microfinance you put up your social collateral. You put up your reputation among your family and friends. That guarantees higher repayment rates. I was fascinated by social reputational collateral surrounding groups and money. That’s where the fascination started.

How is social collateral built into Crowdtilt?

The whole model hinges on that you and your friends can see who has, and implicitly, who hasn’t paid. It creates some pure motivation to pay up quickly, and that has been pretty remarkable to see.

Kickstarter you hope that as many people as possible sees your project, and their success rate is about 40%. Our success rate is 91%. I think the biggest reason for that is that with Crowdtilt, you generally know the network that you’re funding your objective with. And since everyone knows each other, there is an amount of peer pressure to pay your amount and make something happen.

I understand the idea of social pressure helping you get a trip to Tahoe paid for, but what made you feel that was what made microfinancing successful?

My academic background has been economic development with a focus on microfinance and microinsurance. And that element of reputational collateral has been widely studied.

Have you seen it, though?

As a loans collector, in all my bag of artillery, that was my biggest motivation in getting them to pay their loans back. I would say, “the rest of your group has paid their part of the loans,” and I would list off the names: “Tibe, Simon, they’ve all paid back their part of the loan.” If one person in a group that takes out a microloan does not pay his or her portion, the whole group is banned from taking out further loans.

The groups are completely voluntary, so it’s similar to a Crowdtilt campaign and the social dynamic that it’s not random strangers that are lumped together as a group. That group comes as a unit to the bank for a loan. They organize themselves and the bank just provides the financial side of it.

With Crowdtilt, you already know the group. You bring the group to crowdtilt, and our site just facilitates financial aggregation.

I’ve heard that when you started Crowdtilt, you intended it to be a platform for charities to raise money. What happened to that?

Studying economic development, I knew the non-profit world really well. But the realization was that in the most consequential and impactful events in the last few years, socially, have taken place on Twitter and Facebook. In the Arab spring, people didn’t use social networks built for social change. They didn’t use social networks built around revolutions or social activism. They used the too their friends were already comfortable using.

If you can build a platform that they’re used to using with their network and their group for trivial things, then you can basically onboard people, get them used to this system on a bigger scale and they’ll know it exists for them to use it for socially conscious objectives as well.

We’ve already started to see it actually. Our biggest use case in terms of number of campaigns are the fun thins like a party buses, like birthdays, tailgates, fantasy football, but he largest campaigns to date have been things like raising $100,000 in five days for a private school in Florida that was going to lose their charter.

So do you feel as good about helping people raise money for the party bus as you do helping people raising money for the school?

Well, I can say that we as a company, we believe the heights of our existence are the things we do as groups. So I would say in that respect, yea, it actually is as important for us to be able to go out and have the best birthday of all time because your friends all pitch in for a party bus for your birthday. I do think actually that it’s just as important.

I know most of the world might not think that’s as important, but we kind of see all of our campaigns as collective demand for something to happen. It’s hard to say which is more important than another.

You also own a fly-fishing store?

I own a fly-fishing company with one of my best friends from high-school. We started it in college.

Every product we sell provides fresh, clean drinking water to someone in the developing world for a full year. There’s a social bent to everything I’ve done so far. The one that’s been most successful to date, Crowdtilt, doesn’t have an explicit social bent to it. It’s kind of ironic.

Image: Flickr user Bolandrotor

Vringo’s patent shopping spree continues. First the Mark Cuban-backed mobile tech company went after Google for patent infringement. Now Vringo has acquired 507 patents and applications from Nokia for $31 million in what we’ll call the Underdog strategy. More on that shortly.

Take a moment to follow the bouncing patents. Vringo’s first foray into intellectual property acquisition was the recent merger with I/P Engine, or Innovate/Protect. That company had acquired 1990s patents, which cover “relevance filtering technology” used to rank search-engine results, from Lycos last year and promptly filed suit against Google and a handful of name-brand companies claiming infringement. Vringo’s stock soared last spring when news of the merger broke, particularly when Mark Cuban invested, becoming Vringo’s biggest shareholder. On Monday, AOL settled a portion of the suit for an undisclosed amount. As a sign of the interest in Vringo, the company raised the $31 million in 48 hours, without a bank, 90 percent of it coming from three investors.

Vringo’s unlikely source of inspiration is, believe it or not, the rhyming, at times clumsy, 1960s cartoon superhero who’d announce his presence, “There’s no need to fear. Underdog is here!” Vringo CEO Andrew Perlman used to work as senior vice president of digital media at Classic Media, which acquired the intellectual property to old TV characters (Underdog, Rocky and Bullwinkle, Casper the Friendly Ghost, and others) and helped develop new movies based on them. “Our strategy at Vringo mirrors that approach,” Perlman says. “That’s where we’re taking this thing.”

Instead of making movies based on old cartoon characters, though, Vringo plans to build new products off the old Nokia patents, most likely related to cellular infrastructure, and to generate revenue through licensing fees; 31 of the patents are “declared essential by Nokia to wireless communication standards” according to Vringo.

The IP strategy worked for Classic Media. Just last month, DreamWorks bought the company for $155 million. Underdog was true to his word.

Image: Flickr user dno1967b

Even among haters of postmodernism, it’s tough to find someone who doesn’t possess a soft spot for Ettore Sottsass. That’s in part because the Italian maestro left behind such a varied legacy that includes something suited to everyone’s taste. He was responsible for Olivetti’s Valentine portable typewriter, now a bona fide classic, but he also was one of the founders of the experimental Memphis Group, churning out quirky, sculptural pieces of art-furniture throughout the ‘80s. He at once changed with and defined the eras in which he lived, producing work for six decades up until his death in 2008.

A show at New York’s Friedman Benda gallery, Ettore Sottsass: A Survey, 1992–2007, celebrates the last 15-year leg of his career, which was marked by an enduring appreciation of bold color, traditional craft, and totem-like stacks. Few designers enjoyed exploring materials more than Sottsass, mixing and matching them with artistic vision and artisanal know-how.

Check out slide show for a selection from the show; see them in person here before August 10.

All photos courtesy of Friedman Benda

Miles Fisher may not be a household name, but chances are, you may have already seen his work. Perhaps you’ve seen his Tom Cruise spoof in Superhero movie or the clip that’s still making the rounds on the Web. Or maybe you’ve seen his clever rendition of “This Must be the Place” by the Talking Heads shots as a video homage to American Psycho.

While many hopeful souls move to Hollywood with dreams of getting discovered and becoming the next “it” person, Miles Fisher had another idea. His plan was simple, but far more complex. His goal was to make Hollywood come to him. Viral hit after Viral hit, Fisher earned the attention of TV executives, movie producers while also build a loyal community along the way.

In just the past few years alone, Fisher has appeared on Gossip Girl, Mad Men and also earned roles in J. Edgar and Final Destination 5. It was Final Destination 5 where Fisher was given a unique opportunity to create one of his trademark videos as a social marketing vehicle for the movie. He recorded “New Romance” as a parody to the movie but set in a perfect recreation of the popular late 80s early 90s television series Saved By The Bell.

I’ve followed Miles work over the years and while in Los Angeles, I invited him to the Revolution set to share his vision for the future of social production and how it differs from traditional media development. More importantly, we review how to bring the two together to inspire a new genre of engaging and shareable content production and marketing.

Great content = engaging + discoverable
Great social content = engaging + discoverable + shareable

I have a lot to say about the future of publishing. Having published 4 books (so far) with mainstream publishing, I’ve also done my share of self-publishing, alternative publishing, and more. I believe the landscape of publishing and media making is as fascinating as it’s ever been, and that there are so many new ways to make publishing work for both authors and readers.

I’m really excited to be partnering with NetMinds in an advisory role. With bright stars like Tim Sanders (pictured here at left) and Alan Baker behind it, I know that this company has a real shot at taking on the challenges and opportunities of a whole new model for getting a book made.

The concept takes a bit of unpacking, but I’ll let you check out NetMinds for details. The press release that went out today says, “Net Minds leverages a digital networking and publishing platform to build invested teams around book projects. The company is solving the quality/autonomy problem present in book publishing. There are currently over a dozen Net Minds Select book projects in production, including works by Nolan Bushnell (Atari) and Robert Tercek (MTV and Oprah Digital).”

I forgot to ask Tim if I can talk about my other project with them, so I won’t just yet.

But What About Traditional Publishing?

I must be really clear: I don’t intend to trash traditional publishing. One of my friends is the head of business publishing at Wiley. I have a new edition of a book coming out from Que (once I get my head around a million changes), and I love my editor there. I have a new book coming out with Penguin Portfolio in a month, and I’ve appreciated working with our editor there. I’m not going to trash them. I think there’s a spot for mainstream publishing and that disruptive models like the one we’re pursuing at NetMinds will somewhat be grafted onto the traditional players at some point (if all goes well).

Group Publishing, which is the NetMinds model, is fascinating because it works on the concept that everyone has a stake in the book’s success. At NetMinds, you get a ton more of your royalties, which you then share with the team you bring together to build your book. Thus, if you have an editor, you might give her 10% of your royalties on the book. Ditto the designer, etc. So, you start with 70 or 80% of the royalties, and you dispense them as you see fit. Co-author? No problem. I think that’s part of what makes it cool. The other part is distribution.

Traditional publishers have built very long and meaningful relationships with distributors. But we all know that the landscape for book distribution has changed a great deal. Borders is gone. Barnes is still reworking their model. Books-a-Million is working on growing into some of the gaps. Hudson has a near lock on the US Airports. But there’s so much more going on. Digital publishing is huge. Bundled SKUs is huge. There’s a lot to look at. But I’m sure I’m losing some of you at this point, so I’ll shut up about the guts of it all.

Part of the Plan

In my post, Where I’m Headed, I talked about working on human business. What’s more human than group publishing? I talked about bravery. You’ll see that reflected in what I do with NetMinds. I talked about storytellers. Well, that’s self-explanatory.

Again, I’m an advisor here. They’re letting me play with the toys. But this isn’t a full time job. It’s a passion that fits well with what Human Business Works is out to promote: sustainable, relationship-minded business.

And that, as they say, is all he wrote. I’m in. Check out NetMinds

Forget London. Much of the 2012 Summer Olympics action is happening on Twitter. Athletes have used the social network to share photos and status updates that take their followers inside the Games. Fans have used it to revel in Olympic drama and — in the U.S. — tweet result spoilers for viewers stuck waiting for NBC’s tape-delayed primetime coverage.

How did all the Twitter chatter stack up over the event’s first 10 days? Mass Relevance, Twitter’s official social curation and integration partner, tracked the tweets to produce the infographic below, which shows just that.

Through 10 days, there were more than 28.4 million Olympic-themed tweets, according to Mass Relevance, and users worldwide sent an average of 2,000 tweets per minute. Swimming led the charge as the most talked-about sport, followed by gymnastics, basketball, soccer and volleyball.

American swimmer Michael Phelps was the most-discussed athlete, with 574,000 mentions. He was followed by American basketball star LeBron James, British diver Tom Daley, Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt and American hooper Kevin Durant. But look for Bolt and other runners to surge up the rankings over the second half of the Games, when much of the Olympic attention turns from swimming and gymnastics to track and field.

Interesting to note is that Daley was at the center of one of the Olympics’ biggest Twitter-centered stories so far. After a disappointing medal-less performance in the men’s synchronized diving championships, he used Twitter to out a troll who sent a hateful message referencing his late father. The interaction gained widespread attention and the troll was later arrested on suspicion of malicious communications.

Check out the following infographic for the full picture of how tweeters followed the Olympics’s first 10 days, then let us know in the comments — who do you think will dominate the social buzz for the remainder of the Games?