In this issue: GPS CLOTHING UNDERWATER EATING REVERSE MENTORING ROBOT SURGERY LTD EDITION PUBLISHING PHONE PARANOIA And much much more... ------------------------------------------------------------ ____ ____ ___ _____ ____ ______ ______ * / __ )/ __ \/ | / _/ | / / |/ / | / _/ / / __ / /_/ / /| | / // |/ / /|_/ / /| | / // / / /_/ / _, _/ ___ |_/ // /| / / / / ___ |_/ // /___ /_____/_/ |_/_/ |_/___/_/ |_/_/ /_/_/ |_/___/_____/ *Keeping brains healthy since 2004 ------------------------------------------------------------ Brainmail email issue 006 - July 2005 ------------------------------------------------------------ Brainmail is a free monthly newsletter about new ideas, innovations and trends. If you'd like to receive regular copies simply click on subscribe. If you'd like to be removed from future mailings just click on remove. Subscribe: mailto:subscribe-brainmail@nowandnext.com Remove: mailto:unsubscribe-brainmail@nowandnext.com Tell the world about brainmail - forward this to a friend. ------------------------------------------------------------ > Paranoid parents Schoolchildren in Japan will soon have the option of wearing school blazers embedded with GPS satellite tracking technology, so their paranoid parents can track them - or at least their blazers - from their laptops. Meanwhile a school in Wales (UK) is thinking of tagging pupils to keep them on the school premises. Ref: New Scientist (UK) / The Times (UK) > Big numbers eBay now has 135.5 million registered members. Not bad for an idea that started off as a way to trade Pez dispensers. Meanwhile, eBay owned PayPal has 67 million accounts, which makes it larger than American Express. Ref: Economist (UK) > Bigger than Hollywood Self-storage (i.e. paying someone money to hoard your rubbish) is now worth US $17 billion in the US - that's twice the size of the US film industry. Ref: Wired (US) > Coyote ugly Research conducted by scientists at the University of Alabama (US) has found that parents with more than one child protect the best-looking child more than any ugly ones. In theory, the findings are consistent with Darwinian selection in that parents are looking after their best genetic progeny. Ref: Times (UK) > If walls could breathe Walls may yet to have ears, but they could have lungs in the future according to the University of Aberdeen (UK). Making walls of porous materials may allow panels to continually suck in clean air from the outside, thus removing any internally produced impurities. Ref: New Scientist (UK) > They don't make them like they used to According to the American Society for Quality, product quality is slipping. Quality reached a peak in the early 1990s but has been falling ever since, largely due to the reliance on outsourcing from low-cost countries such as China. Ref: Strategy + Business (US) > Everyone's got the blues The most popular colour in the world is blue according to a recent study. The least popular colour is white, except in China, Mexico and Brazil. Meanwhile a study by the University of Auckland (NZ) says that silver cars have the fewest crashes. The most dangerous car colours are brown, black and green. Ref: Netscape (US) > Acronym of the month Special Weapons Observation Reconnaissance Detection Systems (SWORDS) are one metre high assault rifle carrying robotic soldiers that are being developed by the Pentagon in conjunction with a company called Foster-Miller. We are not making this up. Ref: The Australian (AUS) > Weeding out the smokers A US company has created a product called the Smokerlyzer to help parents breath test their kids for signs of dope smoking. Ref: The Times (UK) > Reverse mentoring In the US, Procter & Gamble is using reverse mentoring to help senior staff (especially men) understand the problems facing newly recruited women. Ref: Fortune (US) > A tiny tipple A campaign to swap traditional pint and half-pint sized beer glasses with female friendly 'thirds' has been launched in the UK. The idea is to shed negative images of macho beer drinkers. Ref: Daily Telegraph (UK) > Non-stick arteries Coating the inside of arteries with a non-stick substance may reduce the incidence of blood clots according to researchers at Brunel University (UK). A non-stick coating is already used on metal stents used to keep blood vessels open. Ref: New Scientist (UK) > Is salt the new fat? A group in the US is suing the American government because, it says, government health agencies are killing thousands of people every year by not controlling the amount of salt companies are allowed to put into food. Ref: Sydney Morning Herald (AUS) > Limited edition Cashing in on the trend for limited edition products and collectibles, publishers in the UK are producing special deluxe limited editions of mainstream novels. Print runs are typically 1,000 units and the books are sold through normal channels. Ref: Daily Telegraph (UK) > We've got, fish, fish or fish The world's first all-glass undersea restaurant has been opened 5-metres under water at the Hilton Maldives Resort in the Indian Ocean. Ref: Real World Marketing (AUS) > Further evidence of mobiles replacing wallets Nokia has teamed up with VISA to create a phone equipped with an RFID chip. Simply waving the phone in front of a reader at point of sale will allow users to pay for anything from groceries to petrol. Ref: New Scientist (UK) > Mary, Mary, quite contrary A government survey in the UK says that two thirds of people who own mobile phones think that the risks of owning a phone outweigh the benefits. It rather begs the question - why do they own one then? Ref: Daily Telegraph (UK) > My name is Dave and I like grid computing nTag is an interactive name badge that allows conference delegates to broadcast their whereabouts to other like-minded people. Ref: Fast Company (US) > Argument mapping A company called Austhink in Australia is developing software that allows organisations and individuals to map arguments graphically. Ref: Conference on thinking (AUS) > The truth is out there When you lie you use a different part of your brain than when you tell the truth. Moreover, such brain changes can be detected by functional MRI scanning. This opens up the possibility of a new generation of lie detector machines. Ref: Science Daily (US) > Trust me, I'm a robot A study in the UK has found that surgery conducted by robots is more effective than surgery performed by human hands. Meanwhile, fridge robots are being used by the Cincinnati Children's Hospital (US) to automatically prep syringes Ref: The Times (UK) > Stuck in the middle A survey by Accenture says that morale amongst middle managers in Europe is at an all time low. In the UK the situation is especially bad because middle managers fail to get any respect from those above or below them. Ref: AFR/Boss (AUS) ------------------------------------------------------------ : PREVIEW OF NEXT ISSUE Research conducted by Southampton University (UK) says that future income for males is related to size at birth. ------------------------------------------------------------ : STATSHOTS 92% of teenage girls in the UK are unhappy with their bodies and teenagers living in urban areas are the least happy according to a study by University College London. In London only 6% of teenage girls are happy with their body compared with 14% in Yorkshire. Ref: Bliss (UK) 26% of companies in the Fortune 500 list of the largest companies in the US in 1980 weren't there in 2001. Ref: Harvard Business Review (US) The number of Russian billionaires has increased from 25 in 2003 to 39 last year. This may explain why sales of private jets have grown by 50% in Russia while sales of US$1m+ boats have doubled in the past 12 months. Ref: The Times (UK) 36% of US high-school students believe that the US government should approve news stories prior to publication or broadcast. Ref: Harpers (US) In China and India 40% of tertiary students would like to take engineering degrees. In the US the figure is 4%. Ref: World Economic Forum/The Australian (Aus) A study by Cornell University (US) has found that typing mistakes increase by 74% and productivity decreases by 46% if office temperature is reduced from 77 to 68 degrees F Ref: Fast Company (US) In 1985 women bought 70% of male products. By 2004 this figure had fallen to 25%. Ref: Sense Bulletin/Senseworldwide (UK) A study says that 94% of Japanese women in their twenties own a Louis Vuitton product. Ref: Saison Research Institute (JAP) ------------------------------------------------------------ : SUBSCRIBE TO BRAINMAIL Subscribe: mailto:subscribe-brainmail@nowandnext.com Remove: mailto:unsubscribe-brainmail@nowandnext.com ------------------------------------------------------------ : QUOTE OF THE MONTH "The empires of the future are the empires of the mind" Winston Churchill, 1943. ------------------------------------------------------------ Copyright © 2005 What's Next. All rights reserved. Neither this newsletter nor any part of it may be reproduced or used for commercial purposes without the prior written permission of the publisher.