Latest Inventions

posted by admin on Jul 2

Imagine lighting your rural home all night without the cost - and danger - of kerosene fuel and fumes!

Millions of homes in rural Africa are now all proud owners of the new eco lamp called The Kiran.  It is a simple solar powered lamp that is free to power and could save the lives of over 1.5 million people a year based on current statistics!

Now, that is a good enough advocate for this new lamp as it is - but it is also very eco friendly as well - and infact that is what it has recently won the Ashden Award 2010 for Sustainable Energy.  

The Lamp:
Basically, it is just a simple hand held lamp that harnesses the sunlight during the day, and releases it when needed during the evening.

However, it has been specially designed to be not only durable and cheap to produce and sell - but made to offer the same if not better lighting than the existing alternative: kerosene.

Over 75% of households in Africa have no access to electricity - and for those that do, the supply is not always 24 hour!  Therefore they have no alternative than to light with other means, and this is usually kerosene gas.  A gas that is known to gives of unpleasant and dangerous fumes when used internally or in badly ventilated areas.

Infact it is estimated that over 1.5 million people a year in Africa alone die from bad ventilation in combination with kerosene fumes.  Not to mention the cost of buying and storing the fuel in the first place - and the risks of house fires and personal injury.

Needless to say, D Lights small solar lamp eliminates all of that worry for the consumers!

It has 2 light settings depending on your use requirements and also has various positions for the handle so you can carry it, suspend it or fix it to a wall.  It’s fat base allows it to stand freely on a table of the floor as well. 

The Result:
This just goes to show you that the simplest things are still some of the best inventions!

Just the right design at the right time in the right place - and the invention is a winner.  I mean you have been able to get a chain of little solar lights for your garden for years now; but they didn’t win any awards!

They didn’t need to be so practical and so durable - and were infact made to be priced as profitably as possible rather than as affordable as possible!  Ironically it is the cost effective version here that is winning awards and selling millions of products.

So maybe you budding inventors need to think of something else simple and everyday that could be tweaked to make another great invention!

Get designing!

posted by admin on Jun 12

Your searches may go up into space - but your local services and community can get the benefits.

I have used directory enquiries and service and product listings before on the Internet - but why not start using these to promote and recruit your local workers, friends and businesses - and maybe even yourself!

It’s all ‘eco’ this and ‘emissions’ that these days - so why not take advantage of the online services and websites that are trying to cater for these new lifestyles and get your business promoted closer to home - or find a great builder/plumber/handyman that you can trust!

Imagine if you could find a local builder down the road that everyone loves - or a babysitter around the corner that everyone trusts?  When you are new to an area, you can’t normally get your hands on this kind of information for months or even years.

Just Moved To Edinburgh?
I mean - say you just moved to a new city and needed a good car mechanic - you normally have 2 choices: 1) pick one at random that you live close to and hope for the best, or 2) trust a local you bump into in town to give you good advice!

However these days - you can check a website that has got years and years of recommendations on it - so you aren’t just down to guess work and good luck.  You can actually use a trusted source that has been regularly updated and improved over the years: so type in Edinburgh MOT into a website like TouchLocal.com (a local business online directory) for example, and it will come up with all the recommendations from past customers.

And of course you can have your say too.  Why not let everyone know that you received great service in a out-of-town restaurant?  Or that you got some great advice from a local shop owner in town.  Have your say and make sure other new residents get a fair deal too!

Is It All Listing After Listing?
No.  These days you can get information from all sorts of mobile sources - like the Twitter directory enquiry service that Touch Local also offer - to save you thumbing through giant yellow pages and the like. 

For example, you can just tweet something like Caterer In Chiswick or Edinburgh Accountant to their given Twitter account and instantly receive a contact name and number for what you want that second! No more searching for ages for 1 then finding 3!

Local doesn’t have to mean slow and old-fashioned these days.  Local means community spirit and loyalty.  And these great community supported sites are the way forward in today’s eco climate.

They also offer other services on their site to hold this all together like an ‘expert’ Q & A section where you can ask any questions to local ‘experts’ - or apply to become and expert yourself!  Also there is a messaging service and a sort of social networking area where you can stay in contact with other people in your community for advice or just chatting between friends and colleagues.

These types of sites could be great way to add eco credentials to your business as well as getting your services recommended to a wider audience of supporting and life long clients!

Think Business - Think Local

posted by admin on May 27

Every Olympic Games host seems to think it’s a great idea to have one - so why not the UK?

Infact - they haven’t stopped at just the one - they have created a pair of the little things: Wenlock and Mandeville! 

The story goes (and yes, they have a story) that they were drops of molten metal that fell during a welding activity of one of the stadiums, were welded into ‘toys’ for an appropriately happy family - and then ran off on rainbows to cheer up the whole world!

Apparently, the whole event can’t be televised and promoted by just using the Olympic Games logo or wording - we need these very shiny cycloptic aliens with taxicab lights on their heads to do it instead!

So after nearly 2 years of artistic collaboration and (apparently) 40 focus groups worth of discussion - all in top secret - they were revealed to the nation on a rather slapdash early evening chat show!

As always, the celebrity who has been put in charge of promoting them has plenty to say about the meaning behind this tiny part of one mascot and that tiny part of the other - but to everyone else - they are just 2 cartoon characters!  Whether the bracelets mean so-and-so on the left wrist (heaven forbid they were on the right wrist), or the shape of their feet represent something-or-other, the public probably don’t really mind.

All they care about is the money spent on such a trivial thing when the country is in financial strife as it is.  And they are still reeling after the disastrous and unwelcome original 2012 logo was unveiled - and estimated to have cost around £400,000!

So, the Mascots: Are they fun?  Are they worth the money?  Will they make more people visit the UK and it’s events?

Apparently their main aim is at children - to help the younger generations to relate better to the Games, rather than it being viewed as a more ‘adult’ event - and seeing as millions of kids in the UK will be affected by the Games, the events and the influx of thousands upon thousands of tourists into their towns - I suppose we have got to soften the blow a little bit!

And I suppose as there are 2 of them - you can have a ‘favourite’ one, or just make your parents buy 2 toys instead of just the one!  Great for a pair of novelty slippers!

Well, we need to make some money to pay for the Games, so this wasn’t a bad marketing ploy!

posted by admin on May 21

There are always situations where time rules your life - so here are 5 ways to keep on top of it!

Whether it’s self control when working from home, getting your kids in order or to stop your busy schedule affecting others - these are the gadgets for you!

Lets start with time in the morning and work through your day with you…..

1) Alarm Call For Just You:
Why wake up the entire house when you need to get an early start for that all important meeting?  Whether it’s an annoying bleeping, or soft music - your partner or young baby do not need to hear your alarm at 05.30am.  So keep it to yourself!

That’s where the Shake-N-Wake would be perfect!  It does exactly what it sounds like - it’s a vibrating alarm that makes no sound at all - it just shakes about a bit until it wakes you up and you turn it off like a normal alarm.

You can either strap it to your wrist for maximum effect, or set it under your pillow (as long as you don’t usually rollover onto the other side during the night!

2) Clocking In First Thing:
Whether you get paid by the hour, or whether you are a boss running a tight ship - you need a clocking in system that works.  But the old ‘punch cards’ style can be tricked by friends using each others cards through the day to make it look like they were ‘on time’ or didn’t leave early all the time.

Well, the Ethernet Time Clock is almost 100% fail-proof.  It uses biometrics to check individual finger prints for the time stamp - eliminating wasted money and time in the workplace.

3) Wasting Time In Meetings:
Now you can prove to your boss that their weekly meetings really are costing them too much money by using a new gadget called TIM.  Basically - with a bit of programming - can work out how much your time is worth - and then he will clock up how much money you waste in generic meetings week after week.

Time is money these days, so this can also be used to calculate how much time/money you are worth when you are surfing the net for business research, or when running your own business - you can find out how much it actually costs you in time to drive to meetings or clients houses!

4) Better Planning Can Save Time:
We all know that sitting in traffic is a waste of your time and therefore your money - so why not plan ahead to avoid busy routes, avoid roadworks and everything else in life that wastes your time.

Plan better with a (not in existence at the moment) Apple iWatch!  There have been a few articles recently on the internet that refer to an idea of having a fantastic typically ‘Apple-looking’ giant wrist watch!  Obviously it would like up wireless to all your other gadgets - and you could even talk into it like a spy!

Some of the articles say that there might even be the chance that it can play movies - just like IN the movies!  Cool!!!!

5) And Even For The Kids:
Don’t save all the great gadgets for yourself!  Get you kids in the mood for some time-scheduling too.

Whether it’s learning an new language, music lessons or playing on the computer or games station - get the kids to control their own time from an early age.  By setting the timer on the Time Tracker, you can get repeated alarms, nice melodies or you can even put it on a pause.

No more ‘…. just another 10 minutes, Dad!’ You can set this in stone now - set their own clock to prove it!

Now, Come along - spit spot!

posted by admin on Apr 20

Your Basketball or Football can now be made with eco friendly materials at no extra cost to you!

It does seem that some advances in manufacturing could have taken place years ago, but it was all down to laziness that things stayed the same.

What I’m talking about is a sport equipment supplier that are now making all their sports balls (and more) out of ethically sourced materials.  This hasn’t really been done before as people we always happy (or at least not bothered) to change from the cheap and sometimes environmentally damaging alternatives.

All through history, people have found the easiest way to make something, and no-one ever complained.  If someone did offer up an alternative it may well have been a bit more expensive or a bit difficult to get hold of and as no-one really saw the point of changing - everything remained the same.

However now, things ARE changing.  People have found that previous products were damaging the very planet we live on, and even though the manufacturers were making a huge profit - we; the consumers, were only getting their products a little bit cheaper than the more ethical alternatives.  And so we brought the alternative.

The Brand of Ethletic are one such manufacturer, and have found that they can make sports products from sustainable and eco friendly materials, and sell them for virtually the same cost as ‘normal’ sports products.

So that is what they have done.

Their Products:
Ranging from basketballs, footballs, childrens sneakers, sporting accessories, brightly-colored baseball boots and even personalised balloons - all their products have an ethical claim and certification.

Whether it is FSC certified forestry for their 100% compostable latex, Fair Trade certification for their rubber and cotton networks, recyclable or biodegradable packaging or their use of only organic cotton - their products are certainly in a niche of their own.

And you can bulk buy products for your school, college or sports group so you get a fair deal too!  And you can choose the color, logo and other wording on them too!

Now there is no need to NOT buy the Fair Trade version of anything really, as these products are becoming more and more available thanks to new manufacturing and retail developments.