Business, Money Talk

Ten simple ideas entrepreneurs turned into $100 million

life is good

Business is booming for Life is Good, with 2010 sales coming in at about $100 million.

There are a lot of people who have an idea for a business with the hopes that one day it will help them make millions. Ideas for businesses may be easy to come by but turning those ideas into huge successes is an entirely different story. There are many entrepreneurs with simple ideas and humble beginnings who have been able to effectively turn those ideas into booming businesses.  And here are ten ideas that did just that.

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Analysis, facebook, Internet, Latest Trend, Science & Technology News

55% of parents spy on their children on Facebook to see what they are up to

facebook

Many parents worried about what their children do online have taken matters into their own hands.

Fifty-five percent of parents log onto social networking sites like Facebook to spy on what their children are doing, a study has found.

 

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Analysis, Breakthrough Thinking, Crazy Stuff, Historical Perspectives, New Discoveries

Punching a hole in time

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Researchers are working on a ‘time cloak.’

Ocean’s Eleven has nothing on this. A robber breaks into a bank safe and returns home, where he activates a device that conceals his earlier burglary, making it look like he never entered the bank in the first place. Such a “time cloak” is still a long way from reality, but researchers have now made an important first step, demonstrating a cloaking device that can hide for a fraction of a second an event that occurs at a specific point in time…

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Culture, Education, Entertainment, Historical Perspectives

SF Bay Area’s Pacific Pinball Museum

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Pinball machines are a glimpse into our historic arcade past.

The Bay Area’s Alameda Island is home to the Pacific Pinball Museum, a decade-old non-profit “dedicated to teaching science, art and history through pinball, and to preserve and promote one of America’s great pastimes.” The Bay Citizen spoke with founder Michael Schiess. From the Bay Citizen:

Disappointed by other museums’ pinball offerings, Mr. Schiess started snapping up the machines in 2001, buying 36 all at once. He installed 14 of them in a room that he rented for $400 in Alameda and put out a donation jar. In 2004, Lucky Ju Ju, as the arcade was then called, expanded to become the Pacific Pinball Museum, a nonprofit, and instituted a $15 admission. It now features 90 machines; most are free to play, but a few are for display only…

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Analysis, Breakthrough Thinking, Culture, Food

Large Forks may curb eating

mega fork

A really, really large fork will not allow you to eat at all.

People who use big forks eat less compared with diners who use small forks – but only when eating from a plate loaded with food, according to a new study. Researchers from the University of Utah in Salt Lake City monitored customers at an Italian restaurant during two lunches and two dinners. With one of the study’s authors and two research assistants serving as waiters, the researchers assigned either large forks or small forks to certain tables…

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Analysis, Health & Fitness, Science & Technology News

Sleepy people blame others for everything and may even seek revenge: study

sleepy

Latin cultures seem to understand what Americans don’t: Getting enough sleep is vital for a quality life.

The next time  you are scolded at work by your boss for low production and claims that as the reason for not giving you a well-deserved raise, she may not be unfair. She may be sleepy.

 

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Analysis, Health & Fitness, Science & Technology News

Teenagers exposed to second-hand smoke could suffer hearing loss

second-hand smoke

Scientists think second-hand smoke affects the blood supply to the inner ear.

According to research, teenagers exposed to second-hand smoke are twice as likely to suffer hearing loss.  The research findings add to the list of health problems already attributed to second-hand smoke, including increased risks of asthma, heart disease and lung cancer.

 

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Education, Latest Trend, Science & Technology News

Students can now rent e-textbooks on Kindle

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Students can now rent e-textbooks for periods from 30 to 360 days.

E-book textbook rentals have just been introduced by Amazon just in time for the fall semester.  This will allow students to save up to 80 percent on some titles. E-textbook rentals can be viewed not just on Amazon’s e-reader (and rumored Amazon tablet) but also on any device that can download the Kindle app including PCs, iOS devices, and Android phones and tablets. The rental option isn’t available for general interest e-books, just e-book versions of textbooks.

 

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Analysis, Breakthrough Thinking, Great New Product, Green Friendly, New Inventions

The ultimate in Car-Sharing: tiny, electric ‘box’ mobiles

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A new mobility option.

Car-sharing is getting plenty of green-minded folks excited these days. The rise of ZipCar, carpooling apps, and so forth have been heralded as signs that people are beginning to see the merits of spending less time driving solo and more time sharing, cutting costs and pollution in the process. Well, the folks at the “progressive industrial design studio” Brooks & Bone have taken the concept of urban car-sharing to its logical conclusion: Tiny, boxy vehicles built specifically to be shared a la personal rapid transit…

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Analysis, Breakthrough Thinking, Crazy Stuff, Globalism, Health & Fitness

Better facial recognition algorithms through Caricatures

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How does a computer recognize a face?

Since 9/11, there’s been a renewed interest in facial recognition algorithm to catch terrorists trying to slip into the country but ten years later, the system ain’t anywhere close to perfect (yes, even including Facebook’s creepy facial recognition system)

Perhaps they’re going about it the wrong way, according to Ben Austen of Wired. Rather than taking biometric measurements of the size of a person’s nose or eyes, computers would do well to learn from caricaturists instead…

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