Innovation Blog
Friday, June 04, 2010 | Posted by: Brian Maguire
Categories:
Environment,
Technology
| Tags: research,
eco,
Bill Gates,
Microsoft,
Clouds,
Greenhouse,
Engineering
In the marvelous playground that is the mind of Microsoft billionaire, Bill Gates, the world must look like a Mario Kart video game. Gates is funding research into machines to suck up ten tonnes of seawater every second and spray it upwards, seed vast banks of white clouds to reflect the Sun’s rays away from Earth.
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Friday, March 26, 2010 | Posted by: Grant Thornton
Categories:
Environment,
Technology
| Tags: technology,
innovators,
economist,
eco,
Bill Gates,
nuclear,
travelling-wave reactor,
TerraPower,
Nathan Myhrvold
The Economist online runs a profile of formidable innovators involved in a phenomenal project.
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Monday, March 08, 2010 | Posted by: Brian Maguire
Categories:
Environment
| Tags: Bloom, Energy, Wired, California, Domestic, Carbon, Market, Patents, Acacia Research, Design, Leaders, Jawbone, Headset, Audio Innovation, Vogue, Stylist, Streaming, Horizonal Innovation, Bill Gates,
This is the market-making story of the month. Bloom Energy unveiled an energy server which can provide 100 kilowatts of power by converting natural gas or other hydrocarbons into electricity, pretty much on demand.
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Friday, February 12, 2010 | Posted by: Grant Thornton
Categories:
Business,
Environment,
Technology
| Tags: links,
renewable energy,
energy,
science,
car,
economist,
engineering,
eco,
euronews
This is the year for green energy. All the main players have put there money where their mouths have been for years. We will see more and more serious, competitive, ambitious lifestyle products focused on green values. Electric cars have been a persisting favourite of this column, and finally our television screens are selling us real, cool, cheaper electric cars we can be smug to be seen in.
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Thursday, January 14, 2010 | Posted by: Fiona Cullinan
Categories:
Business,
Environment,
Healthcare,
Technology
| Tags: innovation,
links,
recession,
patents,
patent,
teamwork,
NHS,
solar power
Ingenious solar-powered designs, successful products from recessions past, radical innovation in the NHS, innovation events around the UK, and more – the Grant Thornton Innovation team aims to bring you the most popular business stories and useful links each month. Here’s what we’ve been reading…
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Wednesday, December 09, 2009 | Posted by: Grant Thornton
Categories:
Environment
| Tags: innovation,
links,
europe,
Brazil,
construction,
Brasilia,
Climate Change Summit,
Al Gore,
Los Angeles
Brasilia was an ambitious new beginning in 1956, emerging from two intersecting lines in the red dust of Brazil’s interior. Given the opportunity, most politicians would role up a handful of their nation’s cities and sling them in the nearest bin - it would be a yellow recycling bin, obviously, with toxic signs and syringe sharps warnings.
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Tuesday, October 27, 2009 | Posted by: Fiona Cullinan
Categories:
Business,
Environment,
Media,
Technology
| Tags: links,
Twitter,
robots,
TED,
climate change,
photography
This month, the Grant Thornton team has been reading about robots with smiling faces, documenting climate change using time-lapse photography and ‘tweeting’ for a taxi home…
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Wednesday, September 16, 2009 | Posted by: Fiona Cullinan
Categories:
Business,
Environment,
Media,
Technology
| Tags: entrepreneurs,
links,
Cirque du Soleil,
music,
Innovation
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…
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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?
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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.”
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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.
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Monday, July 20, 2009 | Posted by: Grant Thornton
Categories:
Environment
| Tags: innovation,
technology,
government,
renewable energy,
energy,
science,
car,
eco,
desalination,
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?
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Monday, June 08, 2009 | Posted by: Brian Maguire
Categories:
Environment,
Technology
| Tags: innovation,
technology,
energy,
science,
innovators,
india,
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”.
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Friday, May 29, 2009 | Posted by: Brian Maguire
Categories:
Business,
Environment
| Tags: innovation,
government,
entrepreneurs,
renewable energy,
energy,
science,
europe
OPEC has delayed 35 of 150 scheduled oil production projects. Oil prices have swirled between $147 a barrel last July, to $32 per barrel in February. China has announced investment of $400bn in solar energy production.
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Thursday, May 28, 2009 | Posted by: Grant Thornton
Categories:
Business,
Environment
| Tags: innovation,
government,
renewable energy,
national grid,
biogas
National Grid’s Head of Sustainable Gas Group, Janine Freeman, discusses their approach to innovation, including the opportunities and hurdles surrounding their quest to meet sustainable energy targets. In particular, she offers insight into the potential for injecting Biogas – the innovative renewable energy source – into National Grid pipelines. Compiled of the UK’s various waste streams, Biogas has the potential to simultaneously cut methane and carbon emissions, boost renewable energy capacity and provide a domestic replacement to waning North Sea gas reserves.
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Wednesday, May 13, 2009 | Posted by: Grant Thornton
Categories:
Environment
| Tags: innovation
In the Times today Rob Killick at cScape talks about why we should be encouraging the “spirit of innovation” in the UK today
“...we want post-recession Britain to mean something on the world stage. We do not want to end up as losers in a world of opportunity. And to do that we need politicians who inspire us to achieve things “not because they are easy but because they are hard”.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article6275948.ece
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Monday, April 06, 2009 | Posted by: Grant Thornton
Categories:
Environment
This demo, from Pattie Maes’ lab at MIT, spearheaded by Pranav Mistry, was the buzz of TED. It’s a wearable device with a projector that paves the way for profound interaction with our environment. Imagine ‘Minority Report’ and then some:
http://www.ted.com/talks/pattie_maes_demos_the_sixth_sense.html
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