Ideas out loud

via electrolux.se

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Those craze Swedes are at it again, in a place far, far, away Electrolux has been testing the effects of music on your cleaning habits, specifically - vacuuming. What they found was that with music your the following happens:
- Hip movements.
- More calories burned.
- Hard rock got the job done faster.
- Jazz made people more thorough.

They even made a video of vacuuming to music just add an iPod! 

For all of us that dislike vacuuming our apartments, this would sure make it a lot more fun and enjoyable. This would be one iPod accessory that I would love to see in the apple store. One to try out...

A cool new app, born out of frustration, for accepting and processing credit card payments. For a lot of small companies or start-ups the challenge of going through the application process and fee payments with the traditional payment systems is too much. The answer....Square!

Square was devised by St. Louis glass artist Jim McKelvey, and allows small business owners and entrepreneurs to start accepting cards immediately, with no contracts, monthly fees, or hidden costs. Receipts can be sent by text or email to purchaser for both storage and authorization.

The reader, according to Trendbird, is free with the app costing approx. $1. However, the concept is still in beta but is said to be widely available early this year. Hopefully it will also be available in Europe as well. Tools like this can potentially open up huge markets for entrepreneurs of all shapes and sizes around the world, just think farmers markets, christmas stalls, fairs, exhibitions, students selling books, 2nd hand goods, trading posts, etc. etc. the list is endless.

The coolest street legal E-motorbike I have seen, Grace sets the bench mark for electric bikes at a new high. Manufactured in Germany and featuring 1300 watts of power with a top speed of 45 km/h, these bikes will hit the streets sometime mid 2010. Each bike contains parts from both Formula 1 and the Euro Fighter making this one high tech piece of green transport, which will give any rider significant bragging rights and cool factor. This is before we mention the fully customizable colors and hand made fabrication specifically made for each rider, no wonder a $8000+ USD price tag is attached. So get your orders in quickly as this will be the next must have personal transport device in 2010.

Here's a great product that allows you to transform your office or home into a giant whiteboard. Ideapaint is a DIY paint product that allows you to create dry-erase surfaces virtually anywhere, we made our own white board in our last office but if this had been around I guarantee you that our office space would have taken on a whole new look. Great for those of us that are visual and like to communicate through drawings, charts, diagrams and mindmaps. Anyone used this? Would love to hear some stories or pictures.

Driptech, a small startup started by a young guy in the US is now helping people on the other side of the planet create a new sustainable irrigation system. Traditionally, irrigation systems are extremely expensive and limited to industrial farms of the Western World, however Driptech has found a cheap and reliable way for farmers in India & China to grow crops with the benefits of drip irrigation at a price that is affordable to these farmers.

This system may not just be for farmers in the developing nations either as a lot of small farms in the US, Canada and Australia, for example, could do with some lost cost solutions to better watering practices and more sustainable agriculture. Drip irrigation is especially relevant to places like Australia that are primarily arid and very weather dependent.

Wish they had these when I was studying at University, the 'Rewrite' is the product of the Danish Design studio GamFratesi. The first of our Discover Denmark TED companies, this Design studio created the Rewrite with the idea of creating a working environment that isolates the user from outside noises and distractions. The cave like enclosure is made of a textile which futher increases the noise reducing capabilities and allows the user better concentrating and shielding options. With a box underneath that hides all the cables etc. it's quite a nice option for home study desk or office in a small Copenhagen apartment. I like.

Sanyo gives rechargeable batteries a design makeover. The snoopy look alike battery checker has a nose that changes color depending on the status of the battery to be charged. Unfortunately, this is only going to be produced in limited numbers and only in Japan. But on the plus it's great to see a product like the battery getting a little bit of design lovin. On another level, since the explosion in use of the ipod and other itoys when was the last time you actually used a pair of AA batteries?

Cool marketing events | Breakfast on the Sydney Harbour Bridge | an initiative run by the Tourism Board for New South Wales (Australia) was recently held on the Sydney Harbour Bridge, which showcased the Aussie outdoor lifestyle and some yummy produce. The event relied on similar viral elements to that of "The greatest job in the world" campaign by Tourism Queensland, held a lottery for 6,000 winners who could participate in this cool event, transforming the giant coathanger into a great big lawn to picnic on. Recently there have been some rather interesting campaigns of late that involve the rest of us i.e. T-Mobile recent Liverpool station ad Life's for sharing.

The interactive and engaging nature of these campaigns really help increase their viral nature with so many people taking photos, sending text messages, videos etc and telling others about it, it's hard not to have a viral impact and at the same time making people smile. :)

Anyone have any others?

We've all wanted to eat healthily, but rarely does good healthy food come in a convenient form when and where you want it, think office or school. Well it seems that's all about to change, a Spanish company (www.lofresco.es) has introduced a vending machine that supplies organic fruit, nuts, ready meals and a Spanish soup called gazpacho. Sounds good and hopefully will be expanding to other countries soon.

Seems that vending machines are far from dead and new products are constantly being delivered through them.

Has anyone else seen other products, who traditionally went through other channels, use vending machines?