Here are the rules: All work must be done in blocks of at least 30 minutes. If I start editing a paper, for example, I have to spend at least 30 minutes editing. If I need to complete a small task, like handing in a form, I have to spend at least 30 minutes doing small tasks. Crucially, checking email and looking up information online count as small tasks. If I need to check my inbox or grab a quick stat from the web, I have to spend at least 30 minutes dedicated to similarly small diversions.

Read full article on 99% : http://the99percent.com/tips/7032/A-Day-Without-Distraction-Lessons-Learned-f...

Bill Gates talks about the Khan Academy on the Gates Notes

See more on: http://www.khanacademy.org/ 

You tube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/khanacademy

Audi Hydron is a 3-seats electric amphibious vehicle that has a narrow cockpit for a better water resistance, electric engine at each wheel and tapered doors for removing water from the front to the rear of the car. I would love to drive one!

Read more on: http://www.carztune.com/audi-hydron-amphibious-from-roads-to-water#234

Author: Katherine Ratkiewicz | Source: HCI

I, like billions of viewers around the world, was glued to the tv screen last week, watching the remarkable rescue of the 33 Chilean Miners, (also known as “Los 33”). After 69 days of being trapped under a half mile of rock in over 90 degree heat, the survival of these resilient miners was truly amazing.

As with any crisis, there was a clear need for strong leadership, true collaboration and teamwork. As the story unfolded, we learned that Luis Urzua, the mine foreman, stepped up and assumed full leadership for his 32 crew members. Even before any of them knew that a rescue was underway, he rationed the two-day supply of food to last 17 days. He created a structure and discipline for the team so that they would eat together at the same time; they had individual 12 hour work shifts to keep focused on the job at hand; and created a map of the miners’ topography to help the rescuers.

Read more on: http://www.hci.org/lib/leading-underground-amazing-survival-los-33

Like it or not, space tourism is coming soon. But while Virgin Galactic claims that sending tourists into space is environmentally sound, climate change researchers aren't so sure. That's because soot particles released by space tourism rockets could sit in the atmosphere for years, potentially absorbing sunlight that would otherwise touch down on Earth's surface.

Read more on: http://www.fastcompany.com/1697228/study-space-tourism-could-contribute-to-cl...

Disruption is all about risk-taking, trusting your intuition and rejecting the way things are supposed to be.

There is a huge amount we can do to unlock entrepreneurial potential; to help people take that first step towards doing something new.

The digital world opens up new opportunities and experiences for people from all types of backgrounds and we've launched Virgin Media Pioneers, a new online community to connect young entrepreneurial talent and some of the UK's best business brains.

Virgin Media Pioneers is with them every step of the way offering support, advice and guidance.

The new entrepreneur report from Virgin Media Pioneers, Disruptive Influence, combines new ideas and practical advice to help anyone interested in running their own business.

It celebrates that desire to be disruptive and do something different. Fellow entrepreneurs from Peter Jones to Lucy In Disguise, Lord Heseltine to The Black Farmer, also share their business know-how.

Starting up your own business is a big challenge but, with the right support and expert advice, young entrepreneurs can find their way.

Read more on: http://www.virgin.com/richard-branson/blog/

It's no secret that China is crushing the U.S. in the race to produce clean energy. But Ernst & Young has made it official: China is the most attractive location to invest in renewable energy projects. The U.S. slipped to second place this year on the Renewable Energy Country Attractiveness Indices, which grades countries on a 100 point scale in national renewable energy markets, renewable energy infrastructure, and suitability for individual technology.

The U.S. lost its top spot thanks mostly to China's $11.5 billion in asset-financing for clean technology in the second quarter of this year. That cash injection for China, combined with Washington's failure to enact a Renewable Energy Standard this summer, caused investors to lose faith in the U.S.'s ability to support green projects.

Read full article on: http://www.fastcompany.com/1687690/china-overtakes-us-in-ernst-young-renewabl...

 

In August, 1GOAL kicked off at Wembley Stadium with famous footballers...

In September, President Clinton backed 1GOAL...

In October, world leaders like Gordon Brown, Hillary Clinton, and Prime Minister Zapatero signed up...

In December, VEVO, the world’s largest online music site joined the 1GOAL team.

Footballers, politicians, music stars, fans of all stripes have signed their names to 1GOAL, and now, I hope, you can sign up, too.

Our goal?  1GOAL: to get 75 million children into school.

Today, in too many places, around the world, too many children are sentenced to a life of poverty and shackled to chains of hopelessness, through no fault of their own. Little boys washing cars for small change or shining shoes in exchange for food…little girls in search of water, hours from their home, or babysitting their brothers and sisters while their parents eke out meager livings…little people whose promise and potential waste away every day they’re not in school.

A lost generation. 

And the longer we let this continue, the longer the legacy of inter-generational despair continues: maternal deaths spiral, child mortality grows, poverty cripples, unemployment rises, and infectious diseases spread needlessly.

But if we can get children off the sidelines, and into school, we can reverse these trends, and turn around the fortunes of families, communities and countries. Investing in a child’s education can deliver society-wide development returns. For example, just one addition year of quality schooling increases wages by around 10%, and can raise a country’s average GDP growth by up to 1%. Seven million cases of HIV/AIDS could be prevented in the next decade if every child received an education.

If we target girls, the benefits ripple through society faster and further. When girls go to school, they gain confidence and self-respect; they get married and give birth later in life; they have families that are smarter and healthier; and they build communities that are safer and more prosperous.

So, if the economics add up, and the fieldwork provides irrefutable facts, then there should be no excuse for failure.

Except lack of willpower.

And that’s, sadly, what many global leaders are guilty of. In 2000, at the World Education Forum, and the Millennium Summit, they pledged to get all primary age children into school. And there has been some progress. Almost 50 million more children are now in primary school. But 72 million still aren’t.

1GOAL is a new campaign to raise support for Education for All, and hold world leaders accountable to their promises. 1GOAL brings together the experience and expertise of the Global Campaign for Education with the passion and power of football through FIFA.

Between now and the end of the World Cup in South Africa in 2010, we want every football fan in the world to sign up to 1GOAL. We just want your name -a signature that demands fair play and justice for children anywhere, from world leaders everywhere.

If we work together, we can find that lost generation of children, and we can leave a legacy of education in Africa and beyond. 

Please add your name to a team of champions: www.join1goal.org

Thank you.

 

 

 

We trust that means that the Silicon Valley electric-vehicle startup is working away feverishly on the designs, engineering, production plans, and manufacturing site for its Model S four-door sports sedan (pictured right), which it is still promising will arrive during 2012 (perhaps as a 2013 model).

Only one little piece of Tesla news has drifted our way lately, from our colleagues at Autoblog Green: The company is purchasing some of the equipment and fittings inside the shuttered Fremont, California, assembly plant it has already agreed to buy from Toyota for $42 million.

While Tesla provided a few details about how it will use the factory back in June, it hasn’t said much since then. Now we learn that Tesla has agreed to buy $15 million of factory equipment from Toyota and Motors Liquidation Co. That’s the company that holds assets from the bankrupt General Motors, the other half of the joint venture that ran the factory.

Read full article on: http://green.venturebeat.com/2010/08/26/tesla-scores-more-from-toyotas-big-fr...

Two gurus look at the perspiration side of innovation...

IN HIS new book, “Still Surprised: A Memoir of a Life in Leadership”, Warren Bennis, a management theorist, tells a story about Sigmund Freud’s flight from Vienna to London in 1938. On arriving in his new home Freud asked Stefan Zweig, a fellow Viennese intellectual, what it was like. “London? How can you even mention London and Vienna in the same breath?” Zweig thundered. “In Vienna there was sperm in the air!”

Today there is no hotter topic in management theory than “sperm in the air”. How do companies generate new ideas? And how do they turn those ideas into products? Hardly a week passes without someone publishing a book on the subject. Most are rubbish. But “The Other Side of Innovation: Solving the Execution Challenge” is rather good. Its authors are Vijay Govindarajan and Chris Trimble, two professors at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. Last year Mr Govindarajan and Mr Trimble (hereafter: G&T) published a seminal article, with Jeff Immelt, the head of General Electric, on frugal innovation. In their new book they address two subjects that are usually given short shrift: established companies rather than start-ups and the implementation of new ideas rather than their generation.

Read full article on: http://economist.com/node/16888745

A new generation of contact lenses built with very small circuits and LEDs promises bionic eyesight.
The human eye is a perceptual powerhouse. It can see millions of colors, adjust easily to shifting light conditions, and transmit information to the brain at a rate exceeding that of a high-speed Internet connection.

But why stop there?

In the Terminator movies, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s character sees the world with data superimposed on his visual field—virtual captions that enhance the cyborg’s scan of a scene. In stories by the science fiction author Vernor Vinge, characters rely on electronic contact lenses, rather than smartphones or brain implants, for seamless access to information that appears right before their eyes.

These visions (if I may) might seem far-fetched, but a contact lens with simple built-in electronics is already within reach; in fact, my students and I are already producing such devices in small numbers in my laboratory at the University of Washington, in Seattle [see sidebar, "A Twinkle in the Eye"]. These lenses don’t give us the vision of an eagle or the benefit of running subtitles on our surroundings yet. But we have built a lens with one LED, which we’ve powered wirelessly with RF. What we’ve done so far barely hints at what will soon be possible with this technology.

Read full article on: http://spectrum.ieee.org/biomedical/bionics/augmented-reality-in-a-contact-lens

PENN STATE (US)—Announcing a merger at the end of the week may not be the best idea, according to a new study that finds investor inattention usually results in lower trading reactions to Friday announcements.

“If people were not distracted on Fridays, we would not observe any difference in the trading volume between transactions announced on Fridays and those announced on other weekdays, but we do see a huge difference,” says Amy Sun, assistant professor of accounting at Penn State and co-author of a new study with Henock Louis, associate professor of accounting.

Details will be published in a forthcoming issue of Management Science.

Read full article on: http://www.futurity.org/society-culture/end-of-week-mergers-often-get-missed/

The world's population will grow to 9 billion over the next 50 years -- and only by raising the living standards of the poorest can we check population growth. This is the paradoxical answer that Hans Rosling unveils at TED@Cannes using colorful new data display technology (you'll see).