Oops I dropped my iPod…
 Staff at a design and marketing company in Newcastle spent a day working together naked after being told it would improve their morale. David Taylor, a business psychologist, told workers at design and marketing onebestway, in Newcastle upon Tyne, that a Naked Friday idea would boost their team spirit.

The emergence of empires of one, business colonies and seed capitalists
The importance of stimulating entrepreneurship has not been lost on Asian nations. Communist Youth League of China will set up a fund to help young people establish their own businesses, as part of efforts to ease employment pressures, particularly among graduates, China.com reported in February.

Sardines may be more comfortable…

A private airline in China is submitting plans for journeys where passengers can opt to stand to save money. Spring Airlines first initiated the standing ticket idea earlier this year.
It is now considering officially submitting it to the aviation regulator before the year is out. The airline has been trying to [...]

Businesses will be launched by former auto workers, mortgage processors and others 
Traditionally it could be predicted that for every 100 people who join the ranks of the jobless, seven will attempt to start a business. Some find business niches, others invent and still others find a better way to do something markets are craving. Ingenuity [...]

 
Steve Brill’s Clear Card closes operations
The company which aimed to help registered users pass through airport security more quickly and with less hassle, will fold operations as of 2 a.m. on Tuesday.  The New York-based Verified Identity Pass, Inc. is the company which operates Registered Traveler programs under the brand name Clear.

A 4.5-meter-wide, 23-meter-long nuclear reactor designed to fit on a railcar for shipping to the site of a power plant. 
A new type of nuclear reactor that is designed to be manufactured in a factory rather than built at a power plant could cut construction times for nuclear power plants almost in half and make them cheaper [...]

 
This conceptual image shows how Spaceport America is expected to look at completion in 2010
The tantalising prospect of escaping the Earth’s atmosphere and experiencing weightlessness has been in the pipeline for two years. And now it’s officially arrived.

YourSpace is shrinking.
In May 2009, Facebook became the most popular US social networking site.
But it was close.
According to comScore, Facebook totaled 70,278,000 unique visitors, up 97% from May 2008 to May 2009. MySpace hits shrank 5% over the same timeframe, fading to 70,255,000 unique visitors.

Mega yacht ”Eclipse” 
Roman Abramovich’s most-awaited mega yacht “Eclipse,” touted as the world’s biggest yacht, has finally made a preliminary launch at the Blohm & Voss shipyard in Hamburg, Germany where it was built secretly for more than two years. The 170-meter yacht (557.6 feet) will feature 2 heli-pads, 20 water jets, a pool with large Havana [...]

GOOD magazine’s infographic reveals that recent bankruptcies dwarf Enron’s collapse. I dunno if that fact is supposed to make us laugh, cry or look for another country to migrate to….

Online advertising revenues have fallen
Asked about a possible recession early in 2008, IDC analyst Karsten Weide said, “We think there will be some effect on advertising spending overall, but online ad spending will almost be unaffected-even if there’s a depression.”
What a difference a year makes.

The overbearing sickness industry gets scrutinized.

An article in the latest issue of The American Journal of Medicine makes chilling reading, and presents compelling evidence that the US health care system is broken. In 2007, before the current economic downturn even began, an American family filed for bankruptcy in the aftermath of illness every 90 seconds; [...]

 
The Other Way Around Would be More Impressive…
We’re not too sure what to think about this 1,300 lbs piece of machinery by Tokyo-based Nakabayashi. It takes paper waste from an office and turns it into toilet paper: “The toilet paper machine is able to produce two rolls per hour from around 1,800 sheets (or 7.2kg) of [...]

Does lack of cash flow produce bad breath?

As if looming unemployment were not enough to cause sleepless nights for legions of the country’s businessmen, they are now falling victim to an unfortunate side effect of work-related stress.
Ichiro Saito, a professor of dentistry at Tsurumi University, said that he has witnessed a dramatic increase in the [...]

 
Webcast surgeries promoted with infomercials and advertisements
The point of Shila Renee Mullins’s brain surgery was to remove a malignant tumor threatening to paralyze her left side. But Methodist University Hospital in Memphis also saw an opportunity to promote the hospital to prospective patients.

Products bucking the recession
It’s not all doom and gloom in the U.S. economy. Some products are bucking the recession and flying off store shelves.
Sales of chocolate and running shoes are up. Wine drinkers haven’t stopped sipping; they just seem to be choosing cheaper vintages.
Gold coins are selling like hot cakes. So are gardening seeds. Tanning [...]

This Land of Love will not be seen or enjoyed.

China’s first sex theme park, aimed at improving both the sex education and the sex life of its visitors, has been torn down before it even opened. The owners were “interested only in profiting from sensationalism,” one official said.
Due to open in Chongqing in October, Love [...]

Fiber optic handbag 
Barbara Sears Nelson was first entranced by the potential of fiber optics in fashion in the late 1980s while she worked as a ski instructor in Aspen. But her idea sat on the shelf for 20 years.

The green movement has always had its share of both winners and losers. Today, we look at a few of the top losers for 2009. Hopefully with such a shameful honor to be bestowed upon them, they will clean-up their act for next year’s round of awards. We can always hope anyway. Let the shaming [...]

Newspapers struggle to preserve their legacy
Raymond Alvarez:  The White House says there will be no bailout for newspapers.
The media has languished in the grips of depression for 15 years, shedding jobs, and losing ad dollars and subscribers. Indeed, print publishers lately are showing themselves to be yet another example of an old line business that won’t [...]

MySpace has let go of as many as 45 employees in the last week, we’ve confirmed. Sources close to the company say that the exact figure may be smaller, but that MySpace has definitely laid off a significant number of people. MySpace has refused to comment on the matter, so it isn’t clear if this [...]

 
Women bully other women at work
YELLING, scheming and sabotaging: all are tell-tale signs that a bully is at work, laying traps for employees at every pass.

How much oil have we extracted from the planet? 
Estimates of how much crude oil we have extracted from the planet vary wildly. Now, UK researchers have published a new estimate in the International Journal of Oil, Gas and Coal Technology that suggests we may have used more than we think.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos with the new Kindle DX 
Amazon unveiled the Kindle DX this morning, an e-reader with a 9.7 inch screen that is 2.5 times larger than the Kindle 2, which debuted earlier this year. (Pics)

Social networking has become the new frontier for public relations 
The sign of the times that was the late February shutdown of the Rocky Mountain News is the result of a long-brewing sea change in the public’s media-consumption habits. It follows that it also represents a sea change in public relations. Less newsprint and fewer newsrooms [...]