Indian Express:

Floppy oversized hats, top-notch SPF sunscreen, beach umbrellas — there are a million ways to protect your skin from the sun’s harmful rays, but we bet you’ve never heard of this one: the face-kini. All the rage on the beaches of China, the face-kini is a protective head mask that guards the skin from the sun. (They also protect against insects and jellyfish.) Face-kinis come in a variety of styles, cost less than $5, and are also often paired with full bodysuits.

While we feel strongly about protecting your skin, we have to admit the face-kini is kinda scary. It makes the wearer look like they’re staring in a horror movie, a la “Chainsaw Massacre.” And while we’re sure there are benefits to wearing these creepy masks, something tells us American women would rather slather on the sunscreen than put a face-kini on. We don’t see this trend catching on anytime soon … but then again, who ever thought neon would come back in style?

Mail Online:

Scientists still say they are desperate to learn the secret of ‘Starlite’ – and the inventor’s family may have it.

The material was the invented by the eccentric English inventor and former hairdresser Maurice Ward who had no formal scientific training and claimed he put it together on his kitchen table with a food processor.

It was unveiled to the world on the BBC TV show ‘Tomorrow’s World’ in 1991 during which he held a Starlite-coated egg up to a blowtorch.

Despite the extreme heat it was barely warm to the touch and was still runny inside.

Experts immediately realised its possibilities for things like aeroplanes, fire doors, spacecraft and dozens more possibilities.

Mr Ward, however, refused to play ball.

Over the following few decades his paranoia, capriciousness and need for absolute secrecy ruined all attempts to get it onto the market.

Photo by Emilian Robert Vicol

Ideas are a dime a dozen. The money is in the execution. Need proof?

For Seth Godin’s Alternative MBA program, nine innovators came up with 111 business ideas each. But ideas are only valuable when someone (like you) makes something happen.

What follows are our business ideas, free for the taking. Some good, some not so good.

1. Prepackaged school supplies based on the lists from the school districts.

2. Herbal Flavored Gum. MMM…rosemary.

3. Church issued credit card with automatic 10% for religious tithing.

4. Santa Delivery Service – A dressed Santa will come to your home during the holidays and deliver your gifts as Santa.

5. Local fresh restaurant that opens off-peak hours to hold cooking classes to locals.

6. Tattoo parlor for pets.

7. Clipping service for high school athletes parents.

8. Interview practice company – A company that will do mock interviews with you and give you feedback on your performance.

9. Be a sports team mascot for day.

10. Goldfish Burial Kit.

Editor Note: Some of these ideas are already available. For 989 more ideas, go here.

Photo by pukeycow.

A business card creates a physical connection and bond between you or your business and your customers.

Just like in a website, business cards can become great interactive elements, but with the added ability to have real textures, different materials and shapes.

We’ll take a look at 100 truly outstanding business card designs which show that there are truly no limits to the design of a business card.

Here‘s 96 more.

Dennis Anderson never expected to be homeless. After all, he had a college degree. (Sarcasm) Unfortunately, that plus the money he earned at his retail jobs in Massachusetts, barely paid the bills. So, on a whim, he packed up his car and drove across the country to the Oregon.

Where he found himself, without his low-paying retail job, with even less money.

But he did have ambition, and today he’s the owner of Anderson Soap Company, which manufactures flavored whipped soaps, lip balms and cosmetics.

You can read more of his story here.

Today, I learned that cremated ashes can be turned into crystalized beads if heated to high enough temperatures. The beads are usually blue-green but can also be pink, purple or black. In countries, like South Korea, that are rapidly transitioning from traditional burial to cremation (only 3 out of 10 South Koreans were buried last year, down from 6/10 a decade ago), ashes-to-beads companies are rapidly expanding.

One of these companies, Bonhyang, uses very high temperature to melt the ashes until they crystallize and can be shaped as beads, during a 90-minute process. This way the remains are clean, don’t smell bad, don’t mold (like Bae Jae-yul, the company’s owner, claims ashes do), and people can take them along anywhere.

According to Bae, the technology was first used in the 90s, by a meditation organization, but the process wasn’t perfect so it didn’t catch on. He saw its potential, bought the technology and spent years perfecting it before launching it on the market, once more. He claims Bonhyang has an edge over the competition because it only uses a person’t remains to create the beads, whereas its rivals add minerals. Turning ashes into beads costs around $900.

Ashes-to-beads businesses were also launched in the United States, Europe and Japan, but they weren’t very successful because most it was too weird, the article reported.

Photo by Nadja Antonova/ShutterStock.

WSJ:

Dingy teeth were once relatively common. But after a 1989 scientific article touted the use of low levels of hydrogen peroxide, pressed against teeth, to improve smiles, companies began producing whitening products and dentists began hawking them.

Entrepreneurs jumped in quickly. The Food and Drug Administration classifies teeth-whitening products as cosmetics, and drugstores were soon selling strips that consumers could paste on at night while watching TV. Promising a faster fix, dentists, salons and mall kiosks began offering on-site treatments. Those customers typically bite down on a tray of goopy whitening agent and sit in front of LED lights that are said to enhance the transformation process.

Dentists generally charge between $300 and $700 for a whitening session, which isn’t normally covered by insurance, while nondentists charge between $100 and $150, according to the Federal Trade Commission.

Photo by sheff/ShutterStock.

Is your clipboard bullet and stab proof? The Ballistic Clipboard from Impact Armor Technologies is. It was designed after a local law enforcement agency requested a way to protect their officers during traffic stops gone awry.

According to the company, the clipboard, which weighs less than two pounds, will stop multiple hits shots from 9mm, .357, .40 and .44 magnum rounds.

Video below.

According to Fast Company, David Rees may well be the world’s first and only artisanal pencil sharpener.

Yes, it’s real,” says David Rees of his budding pencil-sharpening business.

“It’s as real as artisanal cheese-making or artisanal honey production or artisanal anything else that’s part of this movement.” Unlike his electric counterparts, Rees promises the “care and attention” your No. 2s deserve.

For $15, he’ll whittle one to a fine point, and mail it back with a baggie of shavings and a certificate of authenticity. To date, roughly 80 lead-heads with a well-honed sense of irony have used the service.

“I’m hoping I get some repeat customers — people who need touch-ups or resharpening,” he adds, noting that, over time, one No. 2 could yield revenue north of $100.

Photo by David Rees.

At $20, it may not seem like a light bulb worth buying. However, when you consider its solar-powered abilities, it’s hard to believe no one thought of it before!

The solar-powered light bulb by Nokero holds roughly enough energy to power the bulb for 4 hours. According to The Washington Post, the bulb is perfect for emergencies, and for people in third world countries living without any electricity for light.

The significance of Katsaros’s invention is that it stands to provide light for the 1.4 billion people who live beyond the reach of a power grid, as well as for those who use kerosene lamps to light their homes and workplaces. The potential elimination of kerosene lamps was what inspired Katsaros to name his company Nokero — as in “no kerosene.” Kerosene is a relatively expensive fuel source that can be harmful to consumers’ health.

Katsaros, while considering how best to market the product, concluded that his largest market was in the developing world. But, rather than create a charitable organization, Katsaros made the choice to establish a company through which he could sell the bulbs for profit. Nokero has sold thousands of bulbs to nonprofits and NGOs that distribute them for free, but Katsaros says he believes in creating “smaller entrepreneurs around the globe” that can further foster local economic growth, according to an Aug. 14 CNN report.

Photo by Nokero

A reader wrote:

My wife is interested in starting a Bed & Breakfast. She think’s it’ll be all roses, but I’m not sure. Do you have any information about what it’s really like?

I do. In fact, in today’s Wall Street Journal, there’s an article that attempts to dissuade potential bed and breakfast owners from entering the biz. Here’s one horror story:

She realized that B&B management often required her to be more friendly than she felt: “There was an artificial instant intimacy to be affected when my paying guests arrived.”

Burned out by what she saw as guests’ demands for her company, Ms. Shelley-Grielen began to avoid them when possible. “I would retreat to the kitchen and close the door, with its sign that spelled out, ‘Private.’ “

But some guests just wouldn’t leave her alone, Ms. Shelley-Grielen says. Too often, she heard the invitation: “I hope you’ll be joining us.” She came to view such offers as “command performances” from which “I didn’t have the option to bow out.”

Beyond that, chores that she envisioned as routine proved more daunting. For instance, when laundering sheets and towels, she donned disposable gloves. “This is the part of the business I hated most,” she says. “I tried not to think about [it].”

Just as she saw the guests intruding on her privacy, she felt she was encroaching to clean bedrooms and baths. Worse, she felt demeaned. “No matter how many times I reminded myself that I owned the place, I still felt like a maid,” she says.

Photo by SFC/ShutterStock.

via Hammacher Schlemmer.

This inverted bumbershoot forms a waterproof cocoon around a small dog, enabling canine and master to maintain a walking regimen in inclement weather. The umbrella’s 29″ diameter canopy is made from 8-gauge clear polypropylene that sheds rain, sleet, and snow while allowing an unfettered view of your walking companion. Not only does the umbrella eliminate the excuse “it’s too wet for a walk” from a dog owner’s lexicon (to the delight of most canines and the amusement of most spouses), it prevents moisture from getting spread throughout the home, along with the unpleasant scent of a wet dog. The tip of the umbrella hooks to your pet’s leash to keep it from straying beyond its protective canopy. Sturdy stainless steel shaft and ribs with a white plastic crook handle.

Most people think of submarines as they are for military use. However, Hugh Fulton has brought them down to a personal size with his creation, the Q Sub, reports 3news.co.nz.

The Q Sub is named after an inventor – not Q from the James Bond movies, but Uncle Q – that’s what Mr Fulton’s nephews called him because they couldn’t say ‘Hugh’.

“It’s like a car,” he says. “You look out there, you see where you are going and you can see within a metre of the floor.”

The viewing windows are part of what sets Mr Fulton’s design apart from the dozens of other personal submarines on the market worldwide.

The Q Sub can also plane on the surface at a speed of almost 40km/h and dive to a depth of more than 120m.

The Q Sub will undergo sea trials in around two months. From there, the designers hope to take it offshore and put it on show to the super rich at boat shows in Monaco, Dubai and Miami.

Costing more than $1.2 million, it will be out of the price range of most.

Photo by Pascal

How long does it take the plastic jug in your fridge to break down? Green Bottle has produced an alternative option which can be recycled or added to a compost. Best of all, it only takes approximately 5 weeks to decompose, reports The Random Forest.

Martin Myerscough realized that he was sitting on an immense idea when his son brought a papier mache balloon from school. He stated that the price and the speed of production for making these paper bottles is comparable to plastic bottles.

Green Bottle was funded with £4.5 million from private investors and advertising agency Mother, and is attempting to raise £1 million more from new investors. Green Bottle will attempt to produce a billion bottles in three years.

Currently, the company has a deal to supply the milk bottle, starting with 15 Asda stores, which is just the starting point before their nationwide release in supermarket chains later on in the year.

According to the managing director of Green Bottle, Andy Brent, he was pleased to join the starting phase of the company since “it was probably the best consumer idea I’ve ever seen in my career.”

Screenshot from Green Bottle

The Week: “Breaking up is hard to do. And for Craig Dershowitz, it’s getting awfully expensive. The 34-year-old New Yorker’s ex-girlfriend, Sarah Brega, took their dog, Knuckles, when she moved to California after their split, and he’s suing to get the puggle — half pug, half beagle — back. So far, he has spent $60,000 on the cross-country legal fight.”

Photo by Rick’s Photography/ShutterStock.

The Huffington Post:

During World War II, wives of American military officers who lived at the Eagle Pass. Texas. base would often venture over the Rio Grande River to the nearby Mexican town of Piedras Negras. On one of these excursions, a group of women stopped at the Victory Club, a popular restaurant, for a bite to eat. And while happy to receive business, the maitre d’ who greeted the women, Ignacio Anaya, found himself in a bit of a predicament:

He couldn’t locate the cook. Not wanting to turn away the patrons, he put on his chef’s hat. He looked around the kitchen and threw together what he had, which according to “The Oxford Companion to American Food and Drink” consisted of neat canapes of tortilla chips, cheese, and jalapeno peppers.”

Ignacio was often called Nacho for short, and the dish was named after him. Nachos continued to gain popularity for the next 20 years, but really took off thanks to a man by the name of Frank Liberto, who began to sell them as stadium food at Arlington Stadium (home of baseball’s Texas Rangers at the time). Liberto made one major tweak to Anaya’s nachos:

…because real cheese didn’t have a great shelf life (and melting it would require an oven or broiler), Liberto devised a fast food form of Anaya’s masterpiece that was part cheese and part secret ingredients. The new sauce didn’t need to be heated and, when it came to shelf life, it could likely survive a nuclear blast.

And so the nacho was born, with a missing chef to thank for it.

Photo by Luca

On this day in 1843, the first major wagon train heading for the Pacific Northwest sets out on the Oregon Trail with one thousand pioneers from Elm Grove, Missouri.

The Oregon Trail is a 2,000-mile (3,200 km) historic east-west wagon route and emigrant trail that connected the Missouri River to valleys in Oregon and locations in between. The eastern part of the Oregon Trail spanned part of the future state of Kansas and nearly all of what are now the states of Nebraska and Wyoming. The western half of the trail spanned most of the future states of Idaho and Oregon.

The beginnings of the Oregon Trail were laid by fur trappers and traders from about 1811 to 1840 and were only passable on foot or by horseback. By 1836, when the first migrant wagon train was organized in Independence, Missouri, a wagon trail had been cleared to Fort Hall, Idaho. Wagon trails were cleared further and further west, eventually reaching all the way to the Willamette Valley in Oregon. What became called the Oregon Trail was complete even as improved roads, “cutouts”, ferries and bridges made the trip faster and safer almost every year. From various “jumping off points” in Missouri, Iowa or Nebraska Territory, the routes converged along the lower Platte River Valley near Fort Kearny, Nebraska Territory and led to rich farmlands west of the Rocky Mountains.

From the early to mid 1830s and particularly through the epoch years 1846–1869 the Oregon Trail and its many offshoots were used by about 400,000 settlers, ranchers, farmers, miners, and businessmen and their families.

To understand how federal technology grants can improve the bottom line of a small business, we need to revisit ancient times – those days when primitive technology still forced sleepy people to move one hand when brushing their teeth.

It was a barbaric era. The nation’s computer users were still oppressed by floppy disks. And the Internet had not yet eliminated our need for memory. It was also an era of rampant gingivitis and tooth decay.

Where people saw rotting teeth, the federal government saw a market to advance technology, make money and improve lives. When the company GemTech applied for a grant from the Small Business Innovation Research program, it received a $50,000 grant in 1990 and a $500,000 grant in 1992 for a “sonic toothbrush.” The result was the device that so many people use today – a stronger, cleaner toothbrush.

Thanks to an influx of federal research dollars, we entered an era of whiter teeth and happier dentists. Even happier were the company owners. The company changed its name to Optiva in 1995 and was later sold to Phillips. Sales have reached 1.5 million worldwide, while the company now has a $300 million value and more than 500 employees.

Collaboration and public-private partnerships are a current trend in business and government circles. Small companies that offer innovative technological solutions can seek federal grant funding under the Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer program. STTR in particular looks to support collaboration with government or university researchers to commercialize technological discoveries. Here are four reasons that an innovative small business should consider collaboration:

Uncle Sam Funds It – The federal government funds innovative technological companies through its SBIR program and business-academia collaborative research through its STTR program, run through the Small Business Administration. These programs issued $172.8 million in 2011 and have issued more than $2 billion in past years.

States Fund It – Following the lead of the federal government, some states have developed their own programs for business-academia collaboration. For instance in 2005, Texas developed the Emerging Technology Fund. The program makes state funding available to companies working with academic research institutions to develop technology that can be commercialized. Through 2011, ETF reported investing $163.9 million in 133 high-tech companies.

Loosening Rules – An October 2011 Presidential memorandum instructs federal departments to increase the pace of technology transfer of federal patents to the private sector. One result is the December 2011 decision by the U.S. Department of Energy to create a pilot program to give businesses and entrepreneurs greater access to its unlicensed patents, including the ones owned by its system of national laboratories.

Gold in Them There Hills – Companies have had success bringing cutting-edge products to market using federal funds. Products include a GPS system that helps position satellites. SBIR/STTR products include the sonic toothbrush, a GPS system that helps position satellites, and many high-tech projects.

These federal avenues might be unfamiliar to some small business owners. However, if you have the talent for technological innovation, the government is likely looking for you.

Kevin Bowen is a writer working with OppMetrix, based in Dallas, Texas. The OppMetrix smart software solution connects users to federal contracts, federal grants, private grants, federal agency procurement forecasts, and market intelligence and analytics. The system delivers the right federal opportunities to large enterprises, small businesses, non-profits, local and state governments, foundations, non-profits, universities, hospitals, medical facilities, research institutions, and other organizations.

If you’re a Barefoot Contessa fan like me, you know that she used to a work for the Gerald Ford White House. Ever wondered how she moved one from that to cookbooks and cooking shows?

But Garten eventually fled government work for the same reason so many have since: gridlock. “I was working on exciting projects,” she says, “but it was like Groundhog Day. One project was $20 billion, and we were trying to get it out of the budget”—that is, cancel the project due to its exorbitant expense. Yet “every time we’d send it back to the Hill, the senator from the affected district would but it back in the budget. I did this for four years. It may be $20 billion, and it may be going to the president—but nothing’s happening.”

One morning, at the height of her frustration, Garten was reading the New York Times when she came across a section she’d never even seen before called “Business Opportunities.” In it she saw an ad for a specialty food store in East Hampton called the Barefoot Contessa. Although she’d never visited the Hamptons, Garten had become a master of the Washington dinner party; she had also made some extra money buying, renovating, and reselling houses. Inspired, Ina told Jeffrey about the ad, and the two of them soon visited the store, making an offer on the spot. The owner accepted. Now, instead of analyzing multi-billion-dollar nuclear projects, she was managing a 400-square-foot food store.

“After the first weekend, I really thought this was the stupidest thing I ever did,” Garten says. “But Jeffrey told me, ‘Look, if you could do it in the first week, you’d be bored the second week.’ He was right. If I’m not scared to death, it’s not worth doing.”

The Barefoot Contessa was a huge success, allowing Garten to expand the franchise further into East and West Hampton. After overseeing the franchise for 20 years, Garten grew restless, sold her store, and searched for a new passion. The quest took a year. “I had nothing to do,” Garten admits, “which was scarier than anything else.” Finally, she put together a proposal for a recipe book, easily finding a publisher. The book, called The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook, which first appeared in 1999, was an unexpected hit, eventually selling over a million copies. A second book followed, then a third and a fourth; Garten is now working on book eight or nine—by her own admission, she can’t quite keep track of them all.

When you think of unmanned aerial vehicles, you probably think of the military uses, right? You might not be considering the true economic impact of the technology. The New Yorker has more:

According to a recent report from the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (A.U.V.S.I.), a trade group, over ninety per cent of the U.A.V. industry’s possible economic impact in 2015 (or about two billion dollars) will be agricultural. Drones can be used to more precisely spray crops, keep track of growth rates and hydration, and identify possible outbreaks of disease before they spoil a harvest.

The full report can be downloaded here.

Arstechnica reports that the campaign to rid our nation’s prisons of cell phones went to the next level, with a call from the Department of Commerce for intel on devices that can get the situation under control. The government is “seeking comment on technical approaches” to the problem, Commerce says.

The illicit use of cell phones by prisoners is a danger to public safety and must be addressed,” declared the DoC’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration boss Lawrence Strickling upon release of a Notice of Inquiry. “At the same time, we need to make sure that any technical solutions do not interfere with 911 calls, government or other legitimate cell phone use.”

Congress is all over the place on this issue. The Senate has passed the Safe Prisons Communications Act, which would allow prisons to jam cell phones. The Federal Communications Commission forbids this practice at present, and the wireless industry wants to keep it that way.

There’s also the Cell Phone Contraband Act, which would make illegal possession of a mobile wireless device by the resident of a Federal prison. The Senate has passed this proposed law, too, but neither bill has made it through the House of Representatives.

Photo by ticklethewire.

A reader asked:

How does your newsletter and weblog earn income? You do so much work… finding these interesting articles … etc.

Advertising mostly. Here’s how I accidentally fell into this.

Photo by Tattooed JJ.

• 1718 – James Puckle, a London lawyer, patents the world’s first machine gun.
• 1793 – Diego Marín Aguilera flies a glider for “about 360 meters”, at a height of 5-6 meters, during one of the first attempted manned flights.
• 1905 – Las Vegas, Nevada, is founded when 110 acres (0.45 km²), in what later would become downtown, are auctioned off.
• 1928 – Mickey Mouse premieres in his first cartoon, Plane Crazy
• 1940 – McDonald’s opens its first restaurant in San Bernardino, California.

Like Nathan Shields I like to make pancakes for my kids on Saturday mornings. While I can barely recreate my children’s first initials, my pancake design skills have nothing on this American math teacher in Saipan. Shields can make just about anything! Take a look at his website, Saipancakes, for more of his creations.

Although he’s not selling them, someone should open a pancake restaurant with his designs on their menu.

Author Seth Godin has listed his 21 rules for making money online.

The first two are golden:

1. The first step is to stop Googling things like, “how to make money online.” Not because you shouldn’t want to make money online, but because the stuff you’re going to find by doing that is going to help you lose money online. Sort of like asking a casino owner how to make money in Vegas…
2. Don’t pay anyone for simple and proven instructions on how to achieve this goal. In particular, don’t pay anyone to teach you how to write or sell manuals or ebooks about how to make money online.

Be sure to read the rest.