Propellers have owned propulsion in the seas since roughly 1775. Their reign might soon be ended by what we have learned from Cuttle Fish and other marine animals–none of which have a propeller. Animals with fins and flippers silently and quickly move through the water with an incredible agility to swim forwards, backwards but also…
Category: Blog
How clams are the defenders of our water supply
It turns out that one of our favorite mollusks is incredibly good at detecting pollution in water. In Poland, close to the city of Warsaw and under the Vistula river, there are eight clams hooked up to computers. They are monitoring the drinking water for the city on a continual basis. When the clams encounter…
Wasted artificial light gets new life as electricity
In an office, or your home, what ever light does not pass through your eye gets wasted. A new photovoltaic technology based on Perovskite, better know as calcium titanium oxide, have been developed into PV that can capture artificial, indoor lighting, found inside buildings. The amount of energy in artificial lighting is much less than…
Curing what ails Concrete
A cure for our Canadian crumbling concrete
Two ways that Google Keeps Its Operations Carbon-Neutral
Google searches the Circular Economy for carbon neutrality
Purpose drives brand
Below is a link to an emerging story on the Boeing 737. Before profit, before before meeting delivery schedules–getting people home safely is the sole Boeing purpose and their painful brand promise. It drives the engineering, materials, testing, and of course certification teams–though it appears it did not drive everyone on the Boeing team. Eventually…
Smart glasses find a very smart application in airports
The Port of Seattle recently announced a new pilot programme for Smart Glassses to help people who are blind or visually impaired access a new assistive technology to safely and independently use Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. The glasses connects people who are blind and low vision to certified, live agents via the smart glasses and a…
Signs the textile industry is the next innovation frontier
Last week my family gathered all of the clothing that was too small, too worn or too embarrassing to let me wear out and took it for recycling. It struck me as such a waste in money and energy, for good reason. The production of textiles, from the pesticides we use on cotton fields to…
Vancouver’s Prosthesis wins Popular Mechanics best of CES 2017
The impressive bionic structure is controlled by a human pilot sitting in the center of the bot. The ‘driver’ moves their own body and the machine amplifies their motions.
If only they would use their genius for Good not Evil–Maxwell Smart
Age-related eye disease affect over 100 million people worldwide, a number which is expected to double by 2050! Of the diseases, Diabetes is the leading cause of blindness in the working age population. Early detection and treatment can prevent 98% of severe visual loss resulting from diabetes. DeepMind, an artificial intelligence company owned…
Iceland– a leader in football and climate change solutions!
Tiny Iceland is poised to give the world a huge solution for climate change
Making eye care more accessible
Globally, 246 million people have low vision and 39 million are blind. Incredibly, 80% of ALL visual impairment can be avoided or cured with regular exams and treatment. Sounds easy, but challenges such as access to early eye care, its cost and education are hurdles that many people can not overcome. Ophthalight Digital Solutions’…
Green Field Opportunities
Originally published on the Annex Consulting website. http://www.annexgroup.com/articles/2011q3/advice5-0911/ As an IT consultant I am always looking for technology that can help my clients be more competitive. In my field ‘more competitive’ translates directly to ‘can I help them make more money, save more money, or build a stronger brand?` Green IT is one of the…
How digitally mature is your organization and should you care?
The answer is you should care — digital maturity matters. In general, according to a recent Cap Gemini Consulting study, digitally mature organizations with a strong digital strategy have at least twice the profitability of their peers who lagged behind. Unfortunately, there is a lot of confusion as to what a Digital Strategy is. A…
Gyroscopes and a glove hold new promises for Parkinson’s patients
Parkinson’s, a disease that affects one in 500 people, has typically been managed through medication, and more recently deep brain stimulation (implantable medical device)–both having not so nice drawbacks. The use of wearable gyroscopes is a new approach being taken by a group of students from Imperial College London. Like the spinning tops…
There is power in using your voice
The California Institute of Technology’s Dr. Choo has developed a generator that runs off the vocal cords to improve the efficacy of implanted medical devices. This is not insignificant to the millions of people who have Cochlear Implants, Pacemakers, Implanted Cardiac Defibrillators and other devices that every 5-1o years need to undergo an operation to…
NASA’s Cassini spacecraft skims 48 KMs above the south pole of Saturn’s moon at 30,600 KPH
Talk about high speed maneuvers, today, Cassini will storm through a jet of water vapour and frozen particles erupting from the south pole of Enceladus, one of Saturn’s many moons. A global liquid ocean is believed to exist beneath the frozen crust of 480-kilo metre-wide Enceladus. This dive will be the deepest one yet through…
Five steps to surviving a panic attack
We have all been there—in the middle of a normal day a thought or an event triggers a panic attack. Sharon Dinur, a Vancouver based Registered Clinical Counselor, suggests five easy steps to moving past the darkness. Talk about it: Contrary to logic, the best thing to do is talk about it with people you trust. You will be amazed how…
When senior managers in professional services won’t share
Professional service firms, in response to an increasingly complex world, have created internal groups that are very narrowly focused. Based on my unscientific research, it has driven employees to be highly protective of their client contacts. Unfortunately it also leaves a lot of money on the client’s table! One tactic that professional service firms are starting to…
Tapping into the power of new ideas
For many years immigrants have been coming to Canada and starting their own businesses. For some, it is the only way to earn a living and for others a way to make their entrepreneurial vision a reality. Either way, between no network in this country, poor english language skills and the Canadian business environment, many…
Braziller and Associates 