Category Archives: Entrepreneur

Opensourcing The Future of Travel

hyperloop

A train is leaving from Los Angeles to San Francisco traveling at 56 mph and takes 8 hours to arrive. This isn’t an algebra problem, this is an efficiency problem. In 2012, Elon Musk proposed an alternative to the slow and inefficient Amtrak “Coast Starlight” train line, called the Hyperloop. The Hyperloop is a high-speed transportation system that would propel passengers between the two cities in “pods” at up to 800 mph, approximately 200 miles faster than the average cruising speed of a 747. While the Hyperloop has remained a pipe-dream for many who frequently travel between the two cities, today, Musk announced a competition that might just get the ball rolling on its development.

Open to university students and independent engineering teams, Musk has asked participants to design the pods that will carry passengers between the two cities. By opening the pod design contest to only independent engineering teams and students, Musk is clearly leaning on innovative new thinking, but also making a statement that he’s looking for the best design, not just the design that gets funded first.

While there has not been mention of a prize for winning the competition, Musk promised to elaborate more on the contest in August. Until then, applicants can learn more about the guidelines and sign up to compete on the SpaceX website.

What Sparks Our Fire: Creatively shaping the future of transportation and design through an exciting open-source competition.

The Value of a Tweet

As social media continues to integrate more deeply into our lives, many of the outlets are finding ways to support their own profitability, but they aren’t the only ones turning a profit. Users are now learning how to leverage their personal brands to extract value of their own on these social media websites.

SPK Austin Patch

Earlier this week, Sour Patch Kids opened it’s second house dedicated to hosting traveling musicians. The “Austin Patch” is Sour Patch Kids’ attempt to generate buzz at this year’s South by Southwest festival. For just the cost of a tweet or Vine video, musicians are able to stay in Austin for free during one of the most important festivals of the year.

Klout

Klout is a tracking system that calculates a user’s influence across the internet by analyzing their social media accounts. Simply by being active and receiving engagement (favorites/retweets/etc.), users can increase their influence. Once users have a high enough score, Klout will offer them “perks” based on their interests. Books, beauty products, alcohol, and even electronics are just some of the free “perks” of tweeting in an amplified way.

Yuya

On YouTube, a handful of active beauty vloggers have turned their respective personal brands into lucrative careers. In preparation of the Digital Content NewFronts, Outrigger Media estimates that top beauty vlogger Yuya— with over 9 million subscribers– is able to make over $50,000 a month off of her YouTube videos.

What Sparks Our Fire: Brands recognizing the value of social media customer-ambassadors

3D Print Your Dinner

Foodini

As if 3D printing isn’t revolutionary enough, our world is now being introduced to 3D printers reinventing the way we cook and eat. The Foodini helps create savory or sweet cuisine. The food is real food, made from fresh ingredients prepared before printing. The device only prints the food, which must be cooked as usual after. The Foodini promotes cooking at home with fresh ingredients & healthy eating, which in today’s society is easily neglected.

Foodini is revolutionizing the way users interact with kitchen appliances. The front has a touchscreen that connects to a recipe site in the cloud, says Lynette Kucsma, co-founder of Natural Machines. She also claims users will be able to control the device using a smartphone and share their recipes with others. 

What Sparks our Fire:  An appliance that makes preparing healthy food easy, and interactive.

What are your thoughts about the way Foodini is revolutionizing the way we cook/prepare food? Would you use it in your kitchen?

How Smart Are Your Headphones?

The dash2Like the majority of our fellow New Yorkers, we’re constantly on-the-go, multi-tasking, and always on our devices. In our constant quest to find technologies and hacks that can help us streamline our lives we’ve found The Dash, the world’s first completely in-ear wireless smartphone.

The Dash is this year’s winner of the CES 2015 Innovation Award, and for good reason! The bluetooth component eliminates the need to carry your phone with you. The microphone picks up mechanical vibration generated by your voice from the ear bone. 

Did we mention these earbuds also serve as activity trackers? It tracks pace, steps, heart rate, oxygen saturation, energy spent, etc. all the while real time acoustic feedback is provided.  On the train, in your car, at the gym or running to your next meeting, these wireless buds keep  you tangle-free, connected and on target to meet your fitness goals.

What Sparks our Fire: a device that synchs music, phone calls, and fitness tracking… wirelessly.

Would you use these earbuds?

 

The Best Group Task Management App

macbook

There are many task manager apps out there but Wunderlist remains our favorite with its eye-catching design and a set of handy tools. The option to assign tasks to specific people and monitor all parts of your team’s projects alone makes Wunderlist arguably the best task management app out there.

Wunderlist is simple and comes with a minimalistic interface to help you create as many lists as you need that instantly sync between your phone, tablet and computer, making them accessible anywhere. In addition, the app makes it easy to start conversations about your to-dos with family, friends and colleagues. Also, you can attach photos, PDFs, presentations, and Dropbox files to share your work and delegate to-dos. Finally, Wunderlist is equipped with a reminder function to ensure you never forget important deadlines ever again.

Wunderlist is free to download and Wunderlist Pro is available for under $5 to help you experience even more: unlimited access to files, subtasks, etc. You can find the app for  iPhone, iPad, Android, Mac, Windows Phone, Windows, Chromebook, Kindle Fire and on the Web.

Last week, Wunderlist introduced Wunderlist for Chrome. With this new functionality, you can replace your new tab page with a lightweight version of Wunderlist that lets you quickly add new to-dos straight into your Inbox.

‘Ideas can strike like lightning. Now when they come to mind, you can instantly capture them just by opening a new tab’. -Google Chrome

What Sparks Our Fire: A simple tools for team collaboration and task management.

Have you ever tried Wunderlist? Share your experience.