Wednesday, September 16, 2009 | Posted by: Fiona Cullinan
Categories:
Business,
Environment,
Media,
Technology
| Tags: entrepreneurs,
links,
Cirque du Soleil,
Innovation,
music
From the reef-like nature of innovation and new ideas, to innovation lessons from the Cirque du Soleil, here’s what the Grant Thornton Innovation team has been reading about this week…
Monday, September 14, 2009 | Posted by: Brian Maguire
Categories:
Media,
Technology
| Tags: technology,
FT,
Twitter,
fashion,
IFA,
Dell,
Ralph Lauren,
pay-per-click,
Samsung,
Netbook,
Sascha Pallenberg,
3-D home cinema,
consumer technology,
Berlin,
The Times,
Scott Schuman,
The Sartorialist,
Gap, Blogging
Berlin’s brand ‘n’ blog gateway opened to a flood of technology innovation last week. The annual IFA, one of the world’s largest tech exhibitions, served as the launch pad for streams of new consumer devices, not least of which is the 3-D home cinema experience. At the hotdog stands, the buzz was all about Samsung’s giant exhibition space, the heart of which was a thirty metre tall entertainment dome. It was all very sci-fi, and I’m still not sure if there was a point to it, other than to elicit hundreds of thousands of “Wow” sounds from visitors, and to create a buzz, around the hotdog stands.
Tuesday, September 08, 2009 | Posted by: Fiona Cullinan
Categories:
Business,
Environment,
Media,
Technology
| Tags: government,
iawards,
James Caan,
innovation awards,
BIS
Is your organisation British and inventive? Does its innovative products, practices and projects deserve wider recognition? Then the iawards might present an interesting opportunity. They’re the first innovation awards to be backed by the British government, in conjunction with entrepreneur and BBC2 Dragon James Caan. You can nominate your own UK-registered company but you’ll have to be quick as the deadline is 16 September 2009. So, how to enter?
Friday, September 04, 2009 | Posted by: Brian Maguire
Categories:
Healthcare,
Technology
| Tags: Nano-science, Robots, science, innovation, medical, technology, healthcare
Evolution and progress, they’re not always on the same page. This week, cute little simian features announced the arrival of the mammal with two mums. This is not smart science. Some years from now, teenage Cheetah will be confronting three biological parents. Married Cheetah will bring two mother-in-laws to the wedding. Researchers are considering this genetic modification for humans – they think it’s a good idea, but have they really thought it through? Spare a thought for the Yiddish kid from Brooklyn whose two mothers are disappointed he’s not a doctor or a pilot; life should not be this cruel or unusual.
Thursday, September 03, 2009 | Posted by: Grant Thornton
Categories:
Business
| Tags: R&D, Tax, innovation, investment, government, funding
The Grant Thornton team is aware of revised HMRC thinking in the following areas:
Production costs
Perhaps the most significant of changes relates to HMRC’s stance on costs which relate to the production of products and services for supply to customers. HMRC’s new approach appears to prohibit claims for any production costs where there is the prospect of producing goods or services to customers, even if as part of that production the company is seeking technological advancement through the resolution of technological uncertainty. This is understood to exclude claims in respect of prototypes and ‘first of classes’ that are subsequently sold for use rather than scrapped.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009 | Posted by: Fiona Cullinan
Categories:
Technology
| Tags: innovation,
chart,
Twitter,
investors,
conversation,
inventors,
real-time,
StreamGraph,
graph,
Neoformix,
invention
Innovators, investors and inventors – and, no doubt, lots of other types beginning with ‘I’ – need to keep their ear to the ground. How can you do that in a fun way? With this new Twitter infographic, you can tune into real-time conversation just by typing in a keyword.
Monday, August 17, 2009 | Posted by: Fiona Cullinan
Categories:
Business,
Technology
| Tags: innovation,
infographic,
global,
statistics,
chart,
World Patent Report,
patents
Who is leading the world in innovation right now? Using the latest data from the ‘World Patent Report: A Statistical Review’ (2008), Grant Thornton has charted the new world powers in innovation. The infographic shows which countries have filed the most patents for each dollar of research budget – and which ones have had the most patents granted. The results may surprise you…
Thursday, August 13, 2009 | Posted by: Brian Maguire
Categories:
Environment,
Technology
| Tags: innovation,
technology,
renewable energy,
energy,
science,
car,
engineering,
eco,
car industry,
fuel,
General Motors,
heathrow,
airport,
hydrogen
“Wanted: silent taxi driver - no jip, no ranting, no dodgy fare charges; must run on hydrogen.” Coming to a terminal near you, this sci-fi reality of urban transport is no false dawn.
For a generation, General Motors and Volkswagen have been focused on manufacturing autonomous vehicles for everyday public use. An initiative which began as a defence sector project to provide self-guided battle craft, has become a marketable public transport solution. If the auto-cabs we see on our streets within five years have a voice, they will smoothly declare: “This isn’t just innovation, this is marvellously spectacular innovation.”
Friday, August 07, 2009 | Posted by: Brian Maguire
Summer in Paris, it’s no picnic this year. Last month’s Paris Air Show was as exciting as yesterday’s croissant; and EasyJet have flattened aeronautic soufflés, scaling down new aircraft acquisition. As President Sarkozy likes to say: “I feel… little… faint…”
Carla arrived at L’Hospital on a motorcycle; it was certainly more chic than an entree with a police car. But what if Mrs Bruni-Sarkozy had a ‘Skycar’?
Thursday, August 06, 2009 | Posted by: Grant Thornton
Categories:
Environment
| Tags: innovation,
statistics,
numbers
Are you a fan of numbers? Or do you prefer to leave all that to your accountant?
Well, today’s number crunching might interest you. Internet buzz has been building around a certain sequential moment that occurs this week.
Monday, July 27, 2009 | Posted by: Grant Thornton
Categories:
Technology
| Tags: innovation,
technology,
research,
global,
intellectual property,
university,
science,
europe,
engineering,
robots,
defence
http://www.wordle.net/
21st Century Western defence systems are based on Sun Tzu’s assertion: “The art of using troops is this…when ten to the enemy’s one, surround him.”
Monday, July 20, 2009 | Posted by: Grant Thornton
Categories:
Environment
| Tags: innovation,
government,
technology,
renewable energy,
energy,
science,
car,
desalination,
eco,
bio fuel,
gas
When Big Oil claims its going green, seasoned market watchers sigh deeply and trade a few million barrels before lunch. More generous observers will consider Big Oil’s alternative energy ventures part R&D, part PR. But, what if the numbers really do stack up and the technology really can get beyond drilling holes in the ground?
Wednesday, July 15, 2009 | Posted by: Grant Thornton
Categories:
Business
Graham Kennedy of Alexoria discusses how our risk-averse culture and refusal to ‘fail successfully’ prevents the UK from leading on the innovation stage. Alexoria is an independent consultancy specialising in revenue generation for professional service firms and technology organisations, and improving IT in the public sector, in particular managing the IT implications of the Government’s Shared Services agenda.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009 | Posted by: Grant Thornton
Categories:
Business
| Tags: innovation,
technology,
emerging markets,
asia
Robert Atkinson, founder of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, and Iqbal Quadir, founder of MIT’s Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship, debate where innovation is moving in the 21st century in this week’s Mckinsey ‘Debate zone’.
Friday, July 10, 2009 | Posted by: Brian Maguire
Categories:
Education
| Tags: innovation,
financial,
media,
government,
entrepreneur,
university,
india,
car,
talent
Neutron Jack is back. Jack Welch, General Electric’s supercharged former CEO, is putting formidable wealth right next to his informative mouth, launching a new online MBA which he claims will compete with bricks and mortar programmes.
Wednesday, July 01, 2009 | Posted by: Grant Thornton
Categories:
Healthcare
| Tags: government,
healthcare,
google,
medicine
Each year, hospital errors kill five times as many Americans as AIDS. Scared? There’s more. According to the Institute of Medicine, hospital errors kill more people than car accidents or breast cancer. So, pop quiz. Do you think society in general is more or less trusting of medical institutions?
Thursday, June 25, 2009 | Posted by: Grant Thornton
Categories:
Business,
Healthcare
| Tags: health,
john wilden,
global healthcare
“Global Healthcare Futures (GHF) is a UK company that is the brain child of John Wilden, a former specialist and consultant neurosurgeon. GHF is developing and promoting software products for “Time to Cure” and “Cost to Cure” Common Diseases based on the advances of molecular biology and other technologies which will underpin the fast looming world of curative global healthcare, thereby ushering in a new age of diminishing healthcare costs across the developed and developing world”.
Dr Tim Evans, Chairman of Global Health Futures
Wednesday, June 24, 2009 | Posted by: Grant Thornton
Categories:
Business
| Tags: investment,
bonds
Will King, founder of grooming product firm, King of Shaves, is asking his customers to buy £5m in bonds to finance expansion of the brand. It’s a move believed to be the first instance of a company turning directly to its customers to raise investment funds.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009 | Posted by: Brian Maguire
Categories:
Business,
Technology
| Tags: innovation,
financial,
government,
technology,
research,
energy,
university,
science,
innovators,
car
One per cent of the energy we burn driving a car is used to move the driver. In one hundred years of automotive innovation, mankind has fought financial and military battles over oil reserves; only to announce that 99% of our effort was to shift a hunk of metal. Maybe we should have kept the horses.
Monday, June 08, 2009 | Posted by: Brian Maguire
Categories:
Environment,
Technology
| Tags: innovation,
technology,
energy,
science,
india,
innovators,
economist
Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, Chairman of food giant Nestlé, told the Economist’s ‘The World in 2009’: “under present conditions… we will run out of water long before we run out of fuel”.
We commissioned The Economist Intelligence Unit to survey UK executives on how assumptions on business models have changed, and how companies are planning to adapt over the next 18 months.
