Analysis, Business, government

Comparing the Senate and House crowdfunding proposals

apple and orange

The differences aren’t miles apart, but not inches either.

As the topic for our Monday’s Startup Junkie Underground, the House (H.R. 2930) and Senate (S.1791) have proposed competing Bills on the topic of crowdfunding. It’s important, however, to know the differences between the two, because the devil is in the details. And, when it comes to H.R. 2930 and S.1791, the differences are pretty crucial. Crowdfunding advocates need to pay attention.

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Analysis, Business, Economy, Latest Trend, Money Talk

8 debt options to finance your small business startup: part 1

credit-cards

Credit cards are the most common form of financing for small business startups.

There are eight solutions to financing your startup with debt.  When you are talking about debt options, think of loans and lines of credit that you pay back to a lender.  We are not looking at any equity solutions such as angel investors, venture capital, etc.  But nothing is easy these days and if you have damaged credit or you’re looking for several hundred thousand dollars it’s much less likely to happen purely with debt.

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Analysis, Business, Globalism, Latest Trend

Startup rates increased around the world in 2011

startups

The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor shows entrepreneurial activity revived in 2011 after years of decline

Early-stage entrepreneurial activity rates surged around the world in 2011, jumping nearly 60 percent in the U.S., according to a survey released this week by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor. More than 12 percent of U.S. adults reported starting a business or running new businesses last year, up from just below 8 percent in 2010.

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Analysis, Breakthrough Thinking, New Discoveries, New Viewpoints

Old electric car batteries to find second life on the power grid

nissan-leaf-batteryyyyy

The Nissan Leaf batteries have extended value beyond powering the car.


Reincarnation for Lithium-Ion

It’s not because a battery pack isn’t good enough for an electric or hybrid car anymore that it should go directly to a recycling plant. There are lots of potential secondary uses for batteries that can still hold more than half of their original charge. Articles have already been written about how they could be used to store wind power to reduce the intermittency problem, but a new partnership between Nissan North-America, ABB, 4R Energy, and Sumitomo Corporation of America believes that used electric car batteries (Nissan LEAF ones, in this case) could be used for residential and commercial energy storage, even acting as emergency back-up during natural disasters like last year’s earthquake and tsunami in Japan…

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Analysis, Breakthrough Thinking, Great New Product, Historical Perspectives

Retroficiency identifies building energy inefficiencies without ever stepping inside

retroficiencyyyyyyyyy

Energy efficiency is very important to overall U.S. energy consumption.

Buildings are blamed for as much as 40% of U.S. energy consumption, and while green construction is on the rise, identifying the best ways to make an older building more efficient can be a tedious manual endeavor. Retroficiency, whose aim is to disrupt the energy efficiency market, eases the process with the help of extensive data sets and predictive analytics.

Greening an old building traditionally involves a walk-through analysis or diagnostic hardware installation, but the Boston-based company’s newVirtual Energy Assessment (VEA) tool shows energy service providers which changes within the building will have the greatest impact on its efficiency. Retroficiency focuses on commercial real estate, which uses 18% of the country’s energy and spending close to $108 billion annually…

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Analysis, Breakthrough Thinking, Crazy Stuff, Culture, Health & Fitness, New Discoveries, New Viewpoints

Butt biometrics

getbuttttttttttt

There’s a bad moon rising?

Last year, we heard about a new technology to identify individuals based on the pressure signature of their feet on the ground. Now, Japanese scientists at the Advanced Institute of Industrial Technology built a system that can identify an individual by the pressure signature of his or her ass. They’re not, er, resting on their laurels though. There’s work to be done!

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Breakthrough Thinking, Education, Entertainment, Great New Product, New Viewpoints

Multitouch Domes are a great way to display maps

DISPLAX Multitouch Globe from DISPLAX™ Interactive Systems on Vimeo.

The demo kind of falls apart when they start poking around Windows, but Displax’s new 40-inch diameter Multitouch Globe looks like an absolute joy when it comes to navigating interactive maps. It’s just too bad it’s a bit impractical…

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Analysis, Business, Latest Trend

U.S. companies that will be the most profitable in 2012

apple

The market appears to anticipate rapid growth from Apple.

24/7 Wall St. forecasts the publicly traded U.S. companies that will have the highest profits in the year ahead every January.  For 2012, Apple is likely to pass Exxon Mobil as the most profitable corporation in the Fortune 500. It already passed the oil giant in market capitalization for a while last year. The market appears to anticipate rapid growth from Apple comparable to that of the past two years. The stock has reached several all-time highs recently and now trades around $425, up nearly 25 percent in the past year.

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