Fast Company Magazine

Google Instant promises to save you up to 5 seconds every time you search the web, but you'll only see those savings if you know how to take advantage of its new real-time mind-reading. Here are the must-know keyboard shortcuts for zipping your way around Google Instant predictions and results.

[Update: Lifehacker put 'em in a convenient video, below!]

Google Instant is rolling out to Google.com now, but it's not available in your browser's search box--yet. So, to get started using Instant, you must visit Google.com in Chrome, Firefox, Safari, or IE 8.  Begin typing your search term into the text box as usual, and then:  

Tab to auto-complete: As you type your search term, Google Instant fills in text predictions in grey following what you've entered. Press Tab to accept the next word and add it to your search automatically. For example, when you enter fast c, and Google Instant suggests fast company, press Tab to accept the second word. The Tab key in this example saves you 5 keystrokes. (Hit escape to pull back the drop-down.)

Press the Up/down arrow keys to "auto-scroll." As you type, a dropdown of suggested searches appears below the search box. Press the up and down arrow keys to move between these terms, and watch the results update instantaneously as you select each option.

 

If you're "feeling lucky," press the right arrow. When up or down-arrowing through the suggested search terms, if the result you want is at the top of the page, press the right arrow key. That will zip you right off to the top result, that is, it triggers the classic "I'm feeling lucky" search. (Hitting enter is still the same as hitting the search button.)

Google Instant is too flashy for you? Just turn it off in your Google preferences.

[youtube K5FbvC16mjk]

 

Gina Trapani co-hosts This Week in Google, a web show on Google and cloud computing which airs live online every Wednesday at 1pm Pacific/4pm Eastern.

It's no secret that China is crushing the U.S. in the race to produce clean energy. But Ernst & Young has made it official: China is the most attractive location to invest in renewable energy projects. The U.S. slipped to second place this year on the Renewable Energy Country Attractiveness Indices, which grades countries on a 100 point scale in national renewable energy markets, renewable energy infrastructure, and suitability for individual technology.

The U.S. lost its top spot thanks mostly to China's $11.5 billion in asset-financing for clean technology in the second quarter of this year. That cash injection for China, combined with Washington's failure to enact a Renewable Energy Standard this summer, caused investors to lose faith in the U.S.'s ability to support green projects.

Spain dropped a point due to the destruction of the country's famous solar subsidies. In a bid to save cash, the country slashed subsidies for photovoltaic solar power plants by 45%, for big rooftop solar plants by 25%, and for small rooftop installations by 5%. And Germany dropped a point because of similar cuts to its solar PV tariffs.

But where Europe and the U.S. flounder, other countries continue to gain ground. Japan gained a point because a of a 2.6-fold growth in its solar cell market over the past year, and New Zealand scored a point thanks to a carbon emissions trading scheme.

This doesn't mean we should count the U.S. and Europe out of the renewable energy race. It does mean that no country can take for granted that it will stay in favor with clean technology investors.

Ariel Schwartz can be reached on Twitter or by email.

A shark man! Cash cannons! Mexican stereotypes! A dance-off! The New York Times and Wall Street Journal could both learn a few things from Next Media about sexing up a dull story.

Rupert Murdoch has a shark fin. He circles the Statue of Liberty and climbs onto land, flanked by a swarm of yellow helicopters. He’s come to take down the New York Times in an epic battle, complete with money-blasting canons, women in red dresses, and poorly dressed reporters.This is the latest CGI video released by Next Action Media, a Hong Kong-based media company that releases animated versions of the news. “Wall Street Journal takes on New York Times” was released earlier today and takes a look at the possible demise of the New York Times at the hands (or fin) of the Wall Street Journal.

The tale opens with a frazzled Arthur "Pinch" Sulzberger Jr., who, according to perky narration, cut local coverage to save money. He also pressed his “cut jobs” button, dropping the floor out from under his nervous reporters.

[youtube QF6U9EMkbN8]

Meanwhile, at the Wall Street Journal, Murdoch and a failed version of a sexy woman (his wife, Wendi Deng?) in a red dress parade out their canon and fire cash into a scene transition reminiscent of early PowerPoint. Enter the armies: Rupert Murdoch and his suit-wearing reporters face off in a West Side Story dance-fight against the jacketless New York Times writers and potential buyer Carlos Slim, topped with a sombrero (in this version of reality, not even billions of dollars worth of success can save Slim from Mexican stereotypes).The newspapers take their battle to cyberspace—though it’s already there, of course, in this lovely production—as they try to knock each other of the mysterious internet realm. “While the two newspapers duke it out,” the narrator tells us, “the media environment is rapidly changing.” The metaphor for that change, of course, is a caged bird pooping on a copy of the Wall Street Journal.“More and more New Yorkers are turning to the Internet for news rather than newspapers,” the narrator explains. (Not to mention CGI re-inactments!) We see a woman—and she must be a New Yorker, since the rest of the country doesn’t seem to have the Internet or newspapers—lounging with her iPad, whose screen reads, “The Daily Rehash, copy this paste that.”The moral of the story: Rupert Murdoch is a poorly disguised shark.

[video_twistage 1]

Welcome to another edition of Work Smart with Gina Trapani. This week, Daniel Beck, a technical writer for WebFaction in Philadelphia, PA, asks for advice on how to get and stay organized after traveling. Syncing desktop computers with a laptop and other devices can be complicated, but it doesn't have to be. Along with offering Daniel my tips, I called on David Allen, author of Getting Things Done--my favorite productivity book of all time--to offer his solutions as well.

Here is the Popplet mind map used in today's episode:

To print this mind map, click here (PDF file).

Special thanks to David Allen, and to Popplet for the mind map. You can download Popplet for the iPad.

Who needs to think when Google can do it for you? That seems to be the premise of Google Instant, a "search enhancement" rolled out by Google this morning. The feature, which will be available for all U.S. Google users by the end of the day, instantly shows search results as you type.

There's no need to press return or hit search; Google Instant knows what you're trying to say. Google Instant transcends the physical speed of thinking, creeping eerily close to psychic territory. To put it another way, the feature doesn't search as you type--it searches before you type."It's not quite psychic, but it is very clever," explained Othar Hansson, Software Engineer in Search Quality at Google. 

Typing "BP", for example, yields news on the Gulf oil disaster, Google ads touting BP's cleanup efforts, and the Wikipedia entry for the Deepwater Horizon disaster--all before pressing return. If we continue the query by typing "BPA", Google instantly offers up information on the chemical Bisphenol A.

One important distinction: Google Instant doesn't replace traditional search altogether. Searching for the first three letters of "Google" yields instant results about the search engine, but typing "Goo" and pressing return yields information about goo--not Google.

 

So why did Google do this? All in the name of efficiency. Google claims that the feature shaves 2 to 5 seconds off the approximately nine seconds it normally takes for someone to type a query. If everyone who uses Google were to start using Google Instant, it could save 3.5 billion seconds each day, or 11 hours every second.

Everyone in the world won't start using Google Instant immediately, of course. The product has yet to roll out internationally, and it won't be available on the browser-based Google search bar for a few months. But eventually, Google's new search feature could do more than just save time--it could lead to mass brain atrophy for a world that no longer has to think about what it's looking for.

Ariel Schwartz can be reached on Twitter or by email.

Apple patents come, and Apple patents go (and some get shelved for future legal battles). Yet occasionally one stands out: Like this one, for a cosmetically attractive composite material. It may point the way to future indestructible iDevices. 

If trawling through Apple's extensive and expanding patent library teaches you anything, it's patience. You never know if a particular idea--no matter how neat--will ever see the light of day. But we really hope the "composite laminate having an improved cosmetic surface and method of making same" is a sign of things to come. When the iPhone 4 was revealed by Steve Jobs earlier this year, complete with toughened glass on both front and rear faces, our FastCompany.com editor's chatroom was full of comments that varied from complimenting its beauty, to worrying about how easily the shiny high-tech bugger would shatter if you dropped it.

The new material, unearthed by the tireless guys at PatentlyApple, would seem to promise a nice-looking and yet super-strong alternative. Here's how Apple introduces it:

A composite laminate includes a plurality of sheets of prepreg stacked one over another, and a scrim layer provided on an exterior surface of the sheets of prepreg. Each prepreg sheet is formed of fibers preimpregnated with resin. The scrim layer and the sheets of prepreg form a composite laminate whereby the scrim layer constitutes an outer, exposed surface of the composite laminate. The scrim layer may be a nonwoven carbon or glass fiber scrim that has absorbed resin from the sheets of prepreg

Let's boil that down. Firstly, a composite material is one made by combining a number of different components in a way that typically maximizes the benefits of all of them: Fiber glass is a simple composite for example, benefitting from the flexibility and durability of the glass fibers, and the sealing properties of the resin matrix the fibers sit in. Because of their benefits over traditional materials like metal or wood, composites are finding homes in all sorts of places from airliners like the Boeing 777 to the newest armor on tanks. And Apple's composite is a layered structure, made of sheets of some stuff that're glued together using a resin, in a way that the final finished surface is immediately pleasing to the eye. The "stuff" could be carbon fibers or glass fibers, either woven or nonwoven, and they could be either pigmented, opaque or (presumably) translucent.

Apple's trick seems to be in a clever multiple-layering of the "prepreg" sheets so that even if they include carbon fiber (for strength, and electrical-shielding powers) they won't be unattractive to the eye. The patent notes that existing carbon materials are almost always black, and that while plastics are frequently used in portable devices, composites have many benefits. They've even come up with a clever--i.e. patentable--way to simply manufacture this stuff, even when formed around corners in the gadget's form.

We know Apple is interested in innovative materials, thanks to its glass-backed iPhone 4 and use of liquid metal, so here's what we hope this patent means: A drop-proof, shatter-proof and damn-near bullet-proof chassis for the iPhone 5, iPod Touch 2011, MacBook ... whatever. Apple, thanks to its reputation for high-quality design, high-prices and high product quality now has a vested interest in making your iDevices survivable--unlike many vendors which almost have a vested interest in having you break 'em frequently, so a composite iPhone would seem a perfect solution.

To keep up with this news follow me, Kit Eaton, on Twitter.

The days of getting caught talking in class are over--and so aren't the days of even getting caught.

According to a new survey by app developer textPlus, which surveyed more than 600 of its users aged 13 to 17, texting is more rampant than ever in the classroom. A whopping 42.5% of teens admit to texting during class, and more than half of those say they text sometimes or constantly. What's more, nearly 80% of students say they've never gotten in trouble for texting during class, suggesting the eyes-down, cell-under-the-desk method is slipping past even your most yard-stick taunting school teachers.

With more than 42% of teens admitting to bringing a cell phone or iPod Touch to class, isn't it time schools start cracking down? And if technology is to become more a part of education, how will teachers ever track students who are already able to pull off using these devices when they're not supposed to? As more and more gadgets enter the classroom, won't it just make it easier to find distractions?

For example, Houghton Mifflin, the world's largest provider of educational materials for K-12, today launched its first full-curriculum algebra app for the iPad. Called the FuseT, the publisher's aim is to find a new interactive platform to move "beyond the one-way experience of a print or digital textbook," according to a company statement.

And to gear up for the app, Houghton Mifflin is commencing a year-long pilot in several California school districts to see whether iPad-delivered content stacks up against regular, old boring textbooks. In total, 400 iPads will be piloted, and the app will provide "real-time student-specific performance feedback," and comprehensive student tracking tools.

Can you imagine how kids will game the classroom once they have the full-might of the iPad's app store? How will teachers ever keep up when they can't even keep up with cell phones?

Part of the problem is that kids don't feel guilty for their actions. Roughly 74% of students don't believe it's wrong to text during school time, a mindset which permeates not just learning but homework too: About one in three teens admit to using text lingo (e.g. "u" or "4" or "imho") in written school assignments. How do we change this? Perhaps we start with the parents: A shocking 66% of teens report that they've received texts from their parents, even when their parents know they're in class.

Monkey see, monkey do.

For teachers who spend hours and hours a day updating Excel spreadsheets with student data, Houghton Mifflin's app may be a blessing--for students, who yearn for even more distractions, this might be a godsend.

Of course, we're excited for the positive impact technology can have on education, but if textPlus's survey provides any indication of how well iPods and cell phones are monitored (T-Mobile's promotion announced this morning won't help), schools and teachers have a long way to go before getting their students to use iPads correctly in the classroom.

[Photo via Flickr/Andy Nguyen]

Sean Parker is already famous in today's Web-connected tech world, mythical perhaps. He was around at the start of Napster, Facebook, and more recently Chatroulette. But Parker's getting even more famous thanks to a profile in Vanity Fair, and the upcoming Facebook movie.

The movie is The Social Network, David Fincher's biopic about the birth of Facebook--already controversial because of its portrayal of CEO Mark Zuckerberg. But Sean Parker, a speaker at our Fast Company Innovation Uncensored conference, played an absolutely crucial role at several pivotal moments in Facebook's early history. One example: a huge argument in a branch of Silicon Valley Bank over whether or not his partner Zuckerberg should go back to finish studies at Harvard--Zuckerberg was unsure, Parker was convinced about Facebook's future (Mark stayed). So Parker gets a starring role in the movie too--played by Justin Timberlake.

Vanity Fair's David Kirkpatrick delves deeper into Parker's life, and reveals exactly how tricky a character he is. Parker was arrested aged 16 for hacking into Fortune 500 companies, thanks to a slip-up by his angry dad who pulled the plug on a late-night hacking session before Parker could cover his tracks. Then he co-founded Napster, with Shawn Fanning, which famously upset the entire recording industry and landed Parker back in court to defend the service against allegations of copyright theft. Mere moments later, it seems, he spotted Zuckerberg's fledgling TheFacebook.com college friending site and saw its potential. The rest is history--and Parker's now worth nearly a billion dollars (in Facebook shares).

The magazine profile paints him as "complex and [...] interesting," "Web-world savvy," and "undisciplined" with the "life of programmer-as-rock-star--often spent among real rock stars." The genius tendencies and eccentricities don't make him an easy character though. He was asked to step down from Facebook's board in 2005 after a kiteboarding trip to North Carolina resulted in his arrest "during a party at his rental house" on "suspicion of cocaine possession." Though he wasn't actually charged, "some of Facebook's investors and employees felt Parker could no longer effectively serve as company president."

So why do his colleagues and friends tolerate him? Jo Green, a former classmate of Zuckerberg at Harvard and now partner to Parker in a Facebook charity-giving app called Causes, sums it up neatly:

Why do we all put up with it? ... For two reasons. He adds a lot of value in the time he’s there. And he’s very loyal. When you really need him, he will be there. That builds up a reservoir of goodwill.

Given the roaring success of Facebook, the triumph of Napster in reinventing a whole industry (would we have had iPods if it weren't for Parker?) and so on, it would seem that the "value" Parker adds is definitely worth having him crash on your sofa, or disappear into the ether once he's contributed his ideas.

 

To keep up with this news, follow me, Kit Eaton, on Twitter.

The smoke has literally cleared from BP's Deepwater Horizon disaster. Now comes the dirty work of figuring out who to blame. According to a nearly 200-page report released this week by BP, the disaster was caused by multiple companies and "work teams" that contributed to "a complex and interlinked series of mechanical failures, human judgments, engineering design, operational implementation and team interfaces." 

BP's report blames a handful of key players for the accident: Transocean (owner of the ill-fated rig), Halliburton (the company that cemented the well) and itself. The report identifies four critical factors that triggered the disaster, none of which should be too surprising to anyone who watched the oil spill unfold. BP notes that well integrity was not established, hydrocarbons entered the well undetected and well control was lost, hydrocarbons ignited on Deepwater Horizon, and the blowout preventer failed to seal the well.

Reading between the lines of the report shows that BP deflects much of the blame. BP's report claims, for example, that the well blowout occurred at the center of the pipe and not outside of the annulus (the shoddy well casing chosen by BP). That would mean that BP's choice of a cheap well casing didn't play a part in the disaster.

The company does admit that it played a part in the disaster. The report notes that BP incorrectly interpreted the well's pressure test, and that BP employees missed out on the warning signs that indicated a well was about to blow out.

But BP isn't taking enough of the blame to satisfy Transocean, which said in a statement, "This is a self-serving report that attempts to conceal the critical factor that set the stage for the Macondo incident: BP's fatally flawed well design. In both its design and construction, BP made a series of cost-saving decisions that increased risk."

In any case, BP's report is more of a PR stunt than anything else. BP's report probably won't influence the Department of Justice's potential civil and criminal charges against the company, and Transocean is conducting a separate investigation. Still, it's worth a look--it isn't easy to fill up 200 pages with excuses and deflections.

[BP Internal Investigation]

Ariel Schwartz can be reached on Twitter or by email.

Tested only in Africa, the service will now be available in the Middle East and beyond.

South Africa's telecommunications giant, Vodacom, has announced that its popular mobile-only social network, The Grid, is expanding globally. Started in South Africa in 2008, the Grid was recently expanded to two developing nations, Tanzania and Nigeria. "The response to the product launching in Tanzania and Nigeria was very positive, and that was what supported our thinking in opening it up to the rest of the world," Vodacom Executive Phillip Boshielo tells Fast Company.

But how well will the product be received in completely different markets--such as in developed countries? "We will obviously take our learnings in marketing the product forward," says Boshielo.

"The Grid aims to make it easy for people to stay in touch with others and take part in the lives of their friends and acquaintances," says Boshielo. But the "global rollout" will be gradual and the product will adapt as the expansion moves forward. "We don’t want to restrict our users to only a few select countries. We want the Grid to be a truly open mobile service," but "even though the Grid is open to all countries, our focus initially will be on growing the user base to the youth in Africa and the Middle East," says Boshielo.

Unlike many of the early social networks coming out of developed countries, conceived initially as online, computer-based social networks, Boshielo says the Grid, which makes sharing photos, text, and other media easily shareable on mobiles, "was developed with mobile in mind. It has a chat/IM functionality with other-world integration, but in addition users can drop ‘blips’ linked to their profile. ‘Blips’ can contain photos, video or text–which means your profile can be compared to that of a mobile blog viewable to your friends in the Grid community. In South Africa, where the Grid was launched, this functionality is integrated with location–a feature that could be rolled out internationally if the demand exists."

Here's a measure of how far cell phones have permeated into our society: T-Mobile is launching a new promotion that means your kids can get free ones. It's to keep us all connected.

T-Mobile's new "Kids are Free" means anyone who signs up for a new contract between now and November 2nd (and also, impressively enough, existing customers) on a family plan can get free lines for up to three of their kids. Customers are liable for taxes, fees, and activation charges ... but the monthly service fee is waived until 2012.

T-Mobile's Ashley White notes the company is trying to make it "more affordable than ever for families to add their kids or other family members" to keep in touch using its services. The communications company cites a recent Pew survey that found 75% of children aged 12 to 17 already carry a cell phone as being motivation, and from this we can deduce two things.

First, T-Mobile has worked out that there's a lucrative new market out there, one that's worth giving up all that lost income from those free lines they're giving away: Kids. The company is probably hoping to get a little of that "hook 'em while they're young" thinking, hoping for income from long-term brand loyalty. And also it's aiming at those additional fees that families will undoubtedly rack-up when they go beyond the terms of their new contracts, now that having a cell phone so gosh darn convenient.

Second, with kids used to involving cell phones in their daily life from such an early age, and the smartphone revolution in-bound, all of those exciting patents and predictions about future phones (how we'll be using our cell phones as pocket devices to manage pretty much everything) look much more likely. Health concerns anyone?

Image via Flickr bobster855

 

To keep up with this news, follow me, Kit Eaton, on Twitter.

 

China keeps inching further ahead of the U.S. in the clean energy development race, first with a multi-billion dollar investment in electric cars and hybrids, and now with news that the country has completed its first offshore wind farm. The U.S. has yet to complete one.

The 102-megawatt Donghai Bridge Wind Farm, located 5 to 8 miles off the coast of the East China Sea, features 34 turbines with 3 megawatts of capacity each. The $337 million turbine project is attached to the soft seabed with legs installed on top of concrete piles, which are in turn covered by a concrete tack and the turbines.

As it stands, the wind farm produces just 1% of Shanghai's 18,200 MW total power production. But by 2020, China hopes to have 30 gigawatts of offshore wind power, according to the New York Times.

And the U.S.? It's still lagging far behind. The Cape Wind offshore turbine project, planned for Nantucket Sound in Massachusetts, has federal approval, but there is still regulatory opposition to deal with. For some perspective, the Cape Wind project is entering its 10th year of negotiations--China's offshore project was approved and completed in just four years. Which means that the U.S. won't catch up to China anytime soon.

Ariel Schwartz can be reached on Twitter or by email.

Get them while they last.

As New York Fashion Week kicks off tomorrow, here's the lowdown on a little, but very edgy, company and magazine, Love Contemporary, showcasing designer sex toys throughout fashion week. Love Contemporary is a progressive, artsy publication that debuted in January, focusing on the theme of love and modernity and with offices in Miami, New York, and Helsinki, the transnational team has not only been busy writing, they've also been busy marketing sex toys. Love Contemporary is thus not a magazine in isolation, but rather an entire brand, encompassing a particular philosophy of modern love and in that vein, they organize parties, in-your-face art installations, and sell pleasure products.

"NY artist Page Goss is creating a lightbox installation of 69 designer sex toys, which will travel around the hot spots of the Week, such as runway shows, Editor’s Dinner, and related evening parties," Love Contemporary Co-founder Ville Ailio tells Fast Company. If that's not enough, "We’ll have our Love Contemporary 'C-spot' staff following the installation, handing out our magazine and discussing themes of love and sexuality." This is modern proselytization at its best.

Love Contemporary's next issue is out in November and will surely get a boost from their involvement in this season's New York Fashion Week. If you're still hungry for more after catching them at the above, they'll also be at the Capsule trade show this month.

Google's mysterious press event is still hours away, but it seems the details are starting to leak. According to several sources, Google's rumored (and revealed) "streaming" or "real-time" search engine, which shows automatically updated results with each letter typed, has already hit the Web. Many searchers reportedly have access to the engine already, and at least a few videos are now online showing off the streaming service. Does this mark the end of the "Search" button?

[youtube 9yiBxR5s1C4]

In the above leaked clip, results are shown popping up with every key stroke, as expected. An X now appears in the search box, allowing users to cancel a search à la OS X Spotlight, and "I'm Feeling Lucky" now appears beside each drop-down result. The "Search" button remains, but it now sits next to an option for turning streaming search on or off.

If these leaks aren't enough to convince you of what Google has in store for its announcement, the search-giant also dropped a bit hint today on its homepage in the form of an interactive logo. With each key typed in the search box, the letters of a grayed-Google logo automatically begin to fill in with color--a cursor even hops along for extra effect. Sounds familiar, right?

And these rumors and hints fit in perfectly with a new Google Labs product called Google Scribe, which surfaced this morning. The application is essentially a text document that offers "autocomplete suggestions as you type." When users type a few letters, a numbered-list of suggestions pops up. It won't just help complete a word but whole phrases--as you type "streaming," suggestions offered include "streaming video," "streaming music," or "streaming quotes are available." All options can be sorted alphabetically, by "Scribe score," relevancy, or from one's search history.

All these leaks point to Google launching its streaming search engine today. But it's possible Marissa Mayer has something else in store for us as well. Google's press conference begins at 12:30 Eastern, and it will be streamed live.

Anyone have access to the real-time search service yet? Drop us a line with details or let us know in the comments.

[youtube 979kKeC3Q3o]

[youtube Ty71OxyQKKc]

When engineering and computer science grad students Akshay Kothari and Ankit Gupta were struggling to come up with a new software product for the iPad, they turned to the Institute of Design at Stanford for some direction. Six weeks later, they had set up a company, Alphonso Labs, and successfully launched their product—a popular news aggregator app for the iPad called Pulse.

Less than a month after it hit market, Pulse made headlines when Steve Jobs showed it off at an Apple keynote and was at one point the most popular iPad app in the iTunes store (even after it ran into a bit of controversy). "We're a great example of how truly analytical types got to explore our creative sides," Kothari says. "All we needed was some guidance."

Design-speak can be fluffy and conceptual, and practical-minded types can have problems soaking it in. But if you can get it past your left brain, Kothari and Gupta say, the basic blueprint that designers use to propose projects for clients can be useful in helping you think outside the box in a business setting. Here are the five steps they followed to apply design thinking to their business:

1. Empathize: Like any good design project, your business is about the people you're designing for. Choose one stakeholder in your business (end user, investor, distributor) that you need to empathize more with. What questions would you ask them? What situations would you want to observe them in? For Pulse, Kothari and Gupta spent hours interviewing random people at a nearby cafe and watching them browse the news on an iPad. Through that process, they were able to understand everything from how a luddite interacts with a touch interface to how a tech-savvy geek with 100+ sites on his RSS feed distributes his attention from one site to another.

2. Define: Are you focused and open to what your team needs in order to thrive? Define your personal point of view in pursuing your venture, and then think about what your end user, your team, and your business need. Even if your end goal is to reach all 6.7 billion inhabitants of the earth with your product or service, key in on a niche user to start and identify what works best for him. By observing and empathizing with the tech geek, for example, Kothari and Gupta were able to define his need: a better way to catch up with older news and other treasures that might get buried in linear feeds like Google Reader or NetNewsWire.

3. Ideate: It's time to brainstorm. "This is the most fun part of the process," Kothari says. "It's the stage where you don't block any ideas and embrace all your wildest ideas — there might be a small piece of it that could be integrated in the final product." Many business start with ideation, but if you've followed the design process through to this stage, you'll have a much deeper understanding of who you're designing for and what their needs are. Invite some people who aren't part of your business to come to a brainstorming session and tackle this with you. Draw pictures of the different possibilities.

4. Create a prototype: Can you physically build a prototype using Post-Its or popsicle sticks that can help you answer some questions? From 20-25 rough illustrations and Post-It diagrams, Kothari and Gupta created a series of slides that showed how users could interact with the news using Pulse. From there, they narrowed down three favorite prototypes and coded them.

5. Test your prototype: Take your prototypes out for a spin in the real world. Ask strangers what they think of it. Failure is okay—it can be built upon. Since Alphonso Labs didn't have an office yet, the guys spent up to 10 hours a day in a cafe near Stanford testing earlier versions of Pulse on customers. "We were meeting 7-10 people every day," Kothari says. "I would do user testing on the spot, and Ankit would sit there and change the code."

Airport security scanners that literally see through your clothes are contentious. Because ... well, think about shadowy TSA guys peeping at your bits. Hence some firms are now tweaking them to anonymize your "x-rays" to protect your decency.

The issues surrounding through-clothes airport security imagers are complex, and the matter has got stickier in the wake of several stories about abuse of the data by the TSA and its operatives. Many people don't like the idea on all sorts of grounds, even while some safeguards have already been implemented (on some systems) to automatically cover intimate regions in the image with a digital "figleaf."

Now L-3 and Rapiscan's machines, often used by the TSA, are implementing a software upgrade that takes the raw data from the scanner and displays it as a generic human-formed figure on the monitor of the TSA agent. As such when you stand in front of the viewing system, your own body parts aren't subject to ogling. The software merely highlights regions of "interest" on the body where its pattern recognition code has calculated you may be hiding something--ready for a more traditional pat-down.

L-3's already tested the system at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport, and presented its new software for consideration by the TSA. The agency for its part noted "TSA continues to explore additional privacy protections for imaging technology" via spokesman Greg Soule, and remarked that "testing is currently underway."

It's easy to argue that anything that's a positive score for privacy is a good thing, as long as it meets two important requirements: The protections put in place shouldn't compromise security, and they must actually work to protect individuals' sense of decency. This last piece is all the more tricky when you see optical tricks like this one, worked out by a young Mormon to trick his mind into thinking photos of bikini clad women (morally acceptable to his faith) are actually naked (unacceptable images).

To keep up with this news, follow me, Kit Eaton, on Twitter.

While you slept, Justin Bieber's fans supposedly used 3% of Twitter's server infrastructure. Twitter did not confirm the claim, it was an overheard utterance from "a guy who works at Twitter" that was picked up by dozens of news outlets after being posted on--where else?--Twitter.

1. Mark Hurd gets ousted from HP, then takes a job at Oracle, raising competitive concerns for his former board members. Now this HP versus Oracle business is getting messy: In a snappy press release, Oracle quotes its CEO Larry Ellison: "Oracle has long viewed HP as an important partner" he begins, citing the obvious as the two have conducted multi-million-dollar business for years. But then: "By filing this vindictive lawsuit against Oracle and Mark Hurd, the HP board is acting with utter disregard for that partnership, our joint customers, and their own shareholders and employees." This is a classic tactic--push things up a notch by involving a greater population in the dispute. And there's more: "The HP Board is making it virtually impossible for Oracle and HP to continue to cooperate and work together in the IT marketplace." See what Oracle did there? It planted the notion of a failed board in HP shareholder's minds, alleging that if Oracle and HP's relationship suffers--potentially hurting HP's bottom line, and thus shareholder income--it's all their fault. Touché. It also opens the door for Hurd to go on an acquisition spree for Oracle, mopping up players that will make it more competitive against HP.

2. Under what some see as draconian rules that sweep aside the notion of civil liberties, the TSA has been empowered for a couple of years to seize and deep-search your laptop if you cross into the U.S. They need no warrant, and in some cases they've taken weeks to return the hardware--without ever filing charges. Now the ACLU has decided to file a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security claiming personal data on computers means warrantless searching constitutes unreasonable search and seizure, a violation of the Fourth Amendment. Go ACLU! But also ... good luck with that. The DHS is already the U.S.'s third largest bureaucracy, and it's huge funding pool will pay for some mean lawyers.

3. NASA's warned that two large asteroids will pass by the Earth today, at a distance closer than the Moon. Is this worrying? No--50,000 to 100,000 miles away is still pretty far, unless you're talking about astronomical-style distances, in which case it's really freaking close indeed. You know that enormous, impact crater in Arizona? It was made by a ball of rock just a few tens of meters across. Like these are. 2010RX30 will zip above the North Pacific followed by a nearish pass over the Antarctic by 2010RF12. Luckily there's no third to split the difference and hit the ground or ocean--think "tsunamis," big ones. Not that there's much we could do if such a third rock did exist: Scientists only found these two on Sunday. Hey Congress? Grant more money to NASA, please?

4. Online morals are a tricky subject ... but Microsoft, and more specifically Xbox Live, has just had to embarrassingly apologize to one poor 26-year-old gamer from West Virginia. In the spirit of keeping Xbox Live "clean" they suspended him because he violated the terms and conditions. How? By declaring he's from a place called Fort Gay. Which he is, like about 800 other folk. Xbox Live's chief "enforcement officer" Stephen Toulouse noted that they slip up rarely, and keeping up with slang is tricky. We hesitate to point out to him how long "gay" has been acceptable, nor how long Fort Gay has been called Fort Gay.

5. Visit Google today to hunt for more news and you'll see something mysterious--the logo is grayscale, only colorizing when you type letters into the search box. It's not a tribute to Pleasantville (remember that movie?), it's more of a hint that later today Google will be announcing Live Search, a system that shows you updating search hits as you type in your query, like it's trying to predict what you're ultimately searching for. The new doodle is a follow-on to yesterday's, apparently, meaning we were wrong with our prediction. Hey ho. We should've used Google to predict the future. The press conference starts at 9:30 am pacific.

To keep up with this news, follow me, Kit Eaton, on Twitter.

Photograph by Chris Crisman

President, ZedX Bellefonte, Pennsylvania

Russo, 61, creates programs that help farmers better manage their water use.

"GPS-enabled yield monitors allow us to get site-specific field information for 1- to 5-meter areas. But when it comes to weather forecasting, the most specific we can get is about 1 square kilometer, where there can be a lot of variations in canopy heat and moisture. So there's a gap between weather data and field data, and that's what we're trying to bridge by combining modeling with physical observation. We use precipitation, effective precipitation -- how much water breaks through the canopy and reaches the soil -- and evaporation levels of the plant and soil to figure out how much water is actually present. Water is precious. Knowing exactly when to distribute it in an exact amount means huge savings."

We've been following Google TV very closely, and not just because Google is one of our Most Innovative Companies. Google TV is one of the riskier attempts to connect the living room we've ever seen--rather than adding a simple set-top box that plays back videos and music (like Apple TV or Boxee), Google TV is  a transparent upgrade to your existing system--a supplement, not a replacement. Your cable TV will still look like your cable TV, but with a Google search bar for added utility. Of course, it offers video from sources like Netflix, but it's still an unusual product.

That Google TV would be launching in the US this year was pretty much a foregone conclusion. It'll be packaged into some Sony TVs and Blu-ray decks, as well as made available in its own set-top box from Logitech. But at his keynote speech at this year's IFA technology conference in Berlin, Google CEO Eric Schmidt dropped a few more tantalizing hints about Google TV.

First, he confirmed that Google TV would be launching worldwide in 2011, in what the Wall Street Journal calls a "move to expand its reach outside its core US market." Google will also launch "support for applications" on the platform during that year. It's not specified what that means--we could be looking at an app store, or a set of pre-approved apps from content providers like the one offered by Boxee or Roku (Pandora, MLB, Hulu, that kind of thing--but nothing from independent developers).

Interestingly, Schmidt also confirmed that Google TV will support voice control. Google is one of the unsung pioneers of voice control--its implementation in Android is fantastic. Just imagine changing channels with your voice.

It's still not a sure thing that Google TV will be a hit, but these announcements certainly bode well, especially the app repository, in whatever form it ends up.

Dan Nosowitz, the author of this post, can be followed on Twitter, corresponded with via email, and stalked in Brooklyn (no link for that one--you'll have to do the legwork yourself).

 

Tech companies file patents for all sorts of reasons. Sometimes they're already discarded ideas that the company would rather other companies not use. Sometimes they're for a potentially valuable concept. Sometimes they're for crazy or impractical ideas that will never see the light of day. And then there's this odd little filing from RIM, the company behind BlackBerry smartphones.

RIM filed for a patent for this "adaptive roadside billboard system and related methods." Essentially, the patent is for a smart billboard that measures the speed of passersby and adjusts its content accordingly--but the only adjustment mentioned specifically is length.

Recklessly speed by one of these billboards at 95 miles per hour, and you'll see a particularly brusque message -- something like "Buy BlackBerry!". But if you're stuck in a traffic jam in front of said billboard, you'd get lots more information. Maybe you'd see a full spec sheet and pricing details for the new BlackBerry Torch, or a more detailed comparison with a competing handset.

RIM doesn't lay out one essential way to measure the speed of passing cars, mentioning several possible options. The most obvious, in terms of compatibility with RIM's core business, is the use of a smartphone's GPS. But it's not clear how much more effective that would be than a more traditional light sensor.

Also of note is that the billboard itself won't necessarily just be for RIM products. The sample artwork depicts a restaurant, which suggests that if RIM were to actually go ahead and create this billboard tech, it would license it out to other companies. But even if it's just an idea a RIM engineer thought up, it was one that RIM thought best to own outright -- even if it never achieves a BlackBerry-like ripeness.

Dan Nosowitz, the author of this post, can be followed on Twitter, corresponded with via email, and stalked in Brooklyn (no link for that one--you'll have to do the legwork yourself).