Pedestrian footsteps, converted into energy

 

If the energy people expend dancing and working out can power cellphones, lights and other electrical appliances, why not apply the same notion to all the energy spent by millions of people every day simply walking along city sidewalks? That's precisely the idea behind Pavegen slabs, which can be inserted among regular sidewalk sections to capture the kinetic energy people spend just walking.

Each rubber slab from UK-based Pavegen Systems gets depressed by about 5 mm each time it gets stepped on. Using just that small movement, it can convert the kinetic energy used into electricity, which is then stored in the slab. Specifically, 5 percent of the energy harvested is used to make the slab's LED glow, making it clear to users that their energy has been captured. The rest can be used to power pedestrian lighting, information displays and many other applications. Pavegen's patent-protected technology has also been used to harvest energy from users' footsteps on stairs; custom branding is available.

Following recent tests in East London, Pavegen is now seeking both investors and additional testing sites for its eco-iconic innovation.

Source: www.springwise.com

Forex Trading Made Simple

With a turn over of over $3.2 trillion dollars a day, which is roughly 35 times that of the NYSE, the foriegn exchange market is the worlds biggest market place. Also known as a kerb side maket place because it is open 24 hours a day and only closes on the weekends.

With the financial crisis taking its toll on the stock markets, investors have swarm to the the forex markets. To make things simple for them, there is Etoro. Etoro's new trading platform makes trading simple. Their aim is to introduce the every day person to the world of forex trading.  Although the forex market is very volatile and changes very rapidly, investment decisions made on sound knowledge yields profitable results.

Apart from currenceis, Etoro also allows you to trade Gold and Silver. With Gold rallyng to new highs, Etoro is a great platform to start if you want to catch in on the profits.

Whether you are an experienced trader or a beginer, Etoro is definitly the platfrom to chose.

It's Thirst For Gold, Oil, And Risk That's Killing The Dollar

Dual-Screen going Portable

In today’s business world, being more productive is all about multitasking. Having all those applications running on your desktop all at once really becomes a hassle to manage. That’s why many hard-core PC users opt for multiple displays attached to a single CPU. Now, an Alaska based firm plans to bringing the same kind of functionality with mobility.

gScreen, a notebook designer and manufacturer has announced to launch a dual screen laptop in Q4 of 2009. A great tool for professional multitasking though comes with the added weight of extra batteries to power the two screens and off course the price tag (around $3000). But the specs are not all that bad:

gScreen Spacebook planned Specs:

- 2 LED backlit display screens

- Windows VISTA/ WIN XP PRO (optional)

- Intel Core 2 Duo P8400 2.26-GHz

- 4 GB of RAM (2GB DDR2 SO-DIMM x 2)

- 320GB 7200-rpm HD

- NVIDIA® GeForce® 9800M GT with 512MB dedicated memory (or)

- NVIDIA® Quadro FX 1700M Graphics with 512MB dedicated memory

- 9-cell battery

- IEEE 1394 1 Graphics Card Output (15-pin, D-Sub) X 1, HDMI X 1 Mic-in X 1, Line-in x 1, Headphone X 1 PCI Express Card X 1 AC Power Adaptor Output: 19V DC, 90W Input: 100~240V AC, 50/60Hz universal Battery Pack Li-ion 9 cells

To conclude, it’s a productivity tool that many professionals won’t mind as a Christmas present.

Job Hunting Ends Here

Analysts are saying that the economy is on the road to recovery. The house prices have risen, the stock market is going up and with Goldman Sachs and Barclays reporting profits for the second quarter, things are slowly but steadily get back to normal.

These are truly great signs for job seekers as unemployment rates have touched record levels and are beginning to come down. Keeping this in mind, Business Bowl decided to share this unique resource with our visitors: the Job Market Access Center

The interesting thing about the JMAC is that it gives job seekers access to jobs before they are published and to those jobs which are not published at all. With employers trying to save money, it’s all but natural for employers to save money on publishing jobs in the main stream media. Also, JMAC provides a quick an easy way to register with no long forms to fill. Instead, after filling out a form of basic contact information, all one needs to do is copy and paste the resume in a text area and its all done. The JMAC team then analyses the resume free of charge and gets back to you with recommendations for making it better.

So if you’re looking for work or looking to switch jobs, Job Market Access Center has answers for you.

Business Idea: Your very own Online Store

From time to time, people have tried to make easy money off the internet. Some claim to have done so and claim to have made riches. The truth of the matter is, there is NO such thing as making easy money off the internet. Although there are ways to earn a passive income online and if enough time and dedication is put into online efforts, it can yield huge rewards.

Imagine running an online store which portrays your creativity with out the hassle of keeping an inventory, processing orders, taking payments, shipping, customer service and the list goes on and on.......Say hello to Spread Shirt!!!

Spreadshirt.com offers individuals to open t-shirt shops for free where the t-shirts can be custom designed by the shop owner. Every t-shirt has a base price which goes to Spread shirt and then the shop owner decides his or her cut. Lets say the base price of a t-shirt is $10 and you decide your commission to be $5 then the final price of the t-shirt will be $15. When the t-shirts is sold, you earn $5!

Since its inception, Spread Shirt has added a host of new items which can be customized. From T-shirts to dog shirts; from hoodies to neck ties, they have it all. And the list keeps on growing.

The key to selling your items on SpreadShirt is originality. Either you can pick the graphics available on Spread Shirt or choose to add your own. The graphics need to be in vector form which is format in which the graphics don’t loose their sharpness when resized, to put in simple terms. There are a lot of sites that offer royalty free vector graphics which means they are free for commercial use. You would also need a vector graphics editor which you can use to edit your designs before uploading them on to your store. Inkscape is just one free editor. You would need some time to get comfortable using it. Just think of it as an upgraded version of MS paint.

Another important aspect to the success of your store would be its promotion. There are many ways you can do that. Create a facebook page for your store and ask all your friends to join. Submit your store URL to social bookmarking sites such as Digg and Stumble upon. They are a great source for getting people to a page. Posting comments on blogs and forums is also effective as long as you don’t spam.

Overall, Spread shirt is a great way to start earning that extra income that you always wanted. Again, it requires time and effort with a little bit of creativity.

Free Business Education: Ivy League Style

The internet has made information accessible to all and now MIT has joined the cause by offering its courses to the masses for free.

This is part of the initiative by the OpenCourseWare consortium which is a growing group of universities from around the world, aiming to bring high quality university education to every one and any one who has access to the internet. Materials include lecture notes, exam questions and videos.

A valuable resource for any one who wants to learn and not just business students or managers who in particular can greatly benefit from MIT’s offering of Sloan School of Management courses.

Indeed it is a constructive initiative which is bound to change how knowledge is spread.