Nederland startup Solar Greens nears launch of My Terrace Farmer compact greenhouses | Boulderopolis

February 26, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

NEDERLAND — Startup Solar Greens Co. in Nederland is working on fulfilling the first 16 orders of its balcony-size greenhouses, with plans for an official launch in the fall once pre-production and external field-testing are complete.

The hope is that the My Terrace Farmer greenhouses will appeal to a variety of gardeners and would-be gardeners who might have limited outdoor space or live in a harsh climate with a short growing season like the mountains.

The company wrapped up a Kickstarter.com crowdfunding campaign earlier this month, raising nearly $21,000. Since then, another $6,000 in orders has come in. Solar Greens owner Greg Ching said he’s hoping to have the Kickstarter and other pre-orders filled by April.

This Card Game Just Raised More Money Than Veronica Mars | WIRED

February 20, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Two weeks ago, Elan Lee got a call that made him feel like he was living in the movie Jaws. It was about two weeks into the highly successful Kickstarter campaign for his new card game Exploding Kittens, and one of his potential suppliers called “to see if you were still interested in that order for 500 decks of cards.” By that point he already knew he was going to need about 500 thousand.

“I had flashes,” Lee says, “to that scene where Roy Scheider (Brody) sees the immense great white for the first time and says in a stupor “you’re gonna need a bigger boat.”

When Exploding Kittens—a tabletop card game that’s essentially Russian Roulette with cats—ended its Kickstarter run tonight, it had raised more than $8.7 million. (They’d initially asked for $10,000.) For context, that’s about $3 million more than Rob Thomas scared up to make a friggin’ Veronica Mars movie. It got more than 200,000 backers—more than any other Kickstarter project, by a longshot—and is the most funded game in the site’s history. “Until Exploding Kittens came along, we hadn’t seen the Internet at large descend on a project and embrace it at this crazy scale,” says Luke Crane, Kickstarter’s lead for games projects.

15-year-old steps down from startup because … high school | Money.Cnn

February 19, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Like any minor, Mintz has had to lean on her parents for some help. Her father — who runs a private equity firm — is the registered owner of her business. He’s helped front money for legal fees but says he fully expects a “return on investment” as with any business venture.

But Nannies by Noa is all her brainchild. The idea came about as a result of a challenge, made in jest by her mother: Find a better babysitter for their family. (Mintz was critical of their own.)

She did just that — and then she starting helping her mother’s friends find nannies.

“I found it fun to get to know a family and their needs — and find a babysitter who matched that,” she said. It was the summer of 2012, before she entered 7th grade.

Could cricket flour bring bug eating to the mainstream? | Inhabitat

February 12, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

While it might sound like something out of the Survivor reality show, two University of Oregon students have found a way to increase the world’s intake of protein without clearing another acre of forest. Cricket Flour is not a trendy name; it’s an actual description of what Charles Wilson and Omar Ellis are bringing to market—and it’s tastier than you might think.

“My first thought was that this would not work in a Western culture,” said Ellis, an MBA student. But Wilson, a law student, had come armed with a 2013 UN report named “Edible Insects: Future prospects for food and feed security,” which detailed the importance of insects as a food source, according to The Oregonian. Wilson and Ellis recognized two things: First, that the world needs protein, but second, that we cannot continue to feed protein to the world at our current rate of farmland consumption. Conventional protein sources consume a vast amount of resources.

Intensive fishing is destroying a primary source of protein for some of the population and putting it financially out of reach for others. “Governments around the world,” according to The Oregonian, “are scrambling to prevent overfishing and fish farms are criticized as polluting the water.”

Form Matters: Wearable Concrete Jewelry | Design Milk

January 29, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Concrete is a pretty amazing material. Form Matters explores the dual nature of concrete — of how it can be used to create architectural masterpieces meant to last hundreds of years to wearable, everyday accessories. It examines the overlapping nature of architecture, art, and fashion.

Sun Protection App Works, If People Use It | Live Science

January 28, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Want to keep your skin wrinkle free and reduce your risk of skin cancer? A smartphone app can help, according to a pair of new studies. The trick is getting people to actually use the tool.

In two new clinical trials, researchers found that the app, called Solar Cell, encourages people to spend more time in the shade and less time in the midday sun, while also nudging them toward wearing protective, wide-brim hats. But getting people to download and use the app was tough, as it is with many health-related apps, said study leader David Buller, a research director at Klein Buendel, a health communication research organization based in Golden, Colorado.

Self-service beer taps coming your way | Money Cnn

January 28, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

How much do you hate waiting for another beer in a crowded bar?

It irked Josh Goodman enough to invent a pretty obvious solution — self-service beer taps.

Goodman, 36, recalled the exact moment in late 2008 when his frustration boiled over.

“I was hanging out with my friends at a Baltimore sports bar before an Orioles game,” he said. “We just couldn’t get another beer served to us quickly.”

Even more than being annoyed, Goodman was struck by how much money the bar must be losing. Almost immediately, he got to work on a self-service beer concept.

Within a few months, Goodman had launched PourMyBeer in Chicago (where he’d relocated to be with his wife).

Airline startup offers one price, all you can fly | UTSanDiego.com

January 23, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

From the passenger’s perspective, what passes for innovation in the airline industry these days are narrower seats and more consumer choice in the form of yet another new fee.

So I was impressed to learn recently about Surf Air, an “all-you-can-fly” startup for frequent fliers that is disrupting the market for intercity air travel in California, offering private jet travel at near-commercial pricing.