| Tennis for the Blind Posted: 05 Jun 2012 02:41 PM PDT 
NY Times: Dan Guilbeault was 3 when doctors discovered a tumor called an optic glioma pressed against his optic nerves. He continued to play the sports he loved — basketball, baseball and football — until he lost most of his sight at 11.
Multimedia Now he is 19 and almost completely blind, and his favorite sport is tennis. When he first heard about tennis for the visually impaired, his reaction was "No way!" he said. "I was skeptical." So were faculty members at the Perkins School for the Blind here, when a sighted student from nearby Newton proposed it nearly two years ago. But Perkins, known for athletic innovations like adapted fencing, decided to offer what are believed to be the first blind tennis classes in the country. Photo by Mike Flippo/ShutterStock. 
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| An American Taco Truck in Paris Posted: 05 Jun 2012 11:58 AM PDT 
NY Times: An artisanal taco truck has come to Paris. The Cantine California started parking here in April, the latest in a recent American culinary invasion that includes chefs at top restaurants; trendy menu items like cheesecake, bagels and bloody Marys; and notions like chalking the names of farmers on the walls of restaurants. Its owner, Jordan Feilders, left, grew up in France but also spent time in the United States. In France, there is still a widespread belief that the daily diet in the United States consists of grossly large servings of fast food. But in Paris, American food is suddenly being seen as more than just restauration rapide. Among young Parisians, there is currently no greater praise for cuisine than "très Brooklyn," a term that signifies a particularly cool combination of informality, creativity and quality. Photo by Cantine California. 
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| A Desk Held Up With Balloons Posted: 05 Jun 2012 11:54 AM PDT 
How do you build a desk suspended by balloons? A company called Twisted Image finally started production in February. Their job was to fabricate permanent hot air balloons strong enough to carry the weight of the desk. A new type of rubber composite was used to make balloons that were genuinely air-tight and would never degrade, and Caltech were called upon to supply a Heluim/Hydrogen hybrid gas with an atomic weight 150 times lighter than Helium alone. Ribbons reinforced with Carbo-Titanium (and in pretty colours) were used to secure the table top to the balloons, tied off on an aerospace grade titanium cleat. 
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| The Rise of Limos.com Posted: 05 Jun 2012 11:49 AM PDT 
Entrepreneur: In the fall of 2007, T.J. Clark sat down with three former colleagues from Hotwire.com to assess business opportunities in the travel industry. One jumped out at him. “Those last few miles of the trip were way behind the times,” he says. “We couldn’t figure out why nobody had modernized the experience in the town-car category.” Deep into the internet era, town-car and limo services still worked pretty much the same way they had in the age of Donkey Kong. If you were a regular business customer, you probably had a service to go to the airport and back, and you knew the driver like you did your barber or dentist. But establishing a relationship beyond your home base was an ad hoc process. It involved scoring leads from friends or colleagues, dealing with scraps of paper with phone numbers and scrawled first names, then getting a suspicious voice at the other end of your cold call. It felt more like finding a bookie than planning business logistics. Continue reading. 
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| Lawyer Turned Children’s Book Publishers Posted: 05 Jun 2012 10:48 AM PDT 
Yahoo Finance: While reviewing a thick legal document in her office one night at 2:00 a.m., corporate attorney YiShaun Yang had an epiphany – she realized the desire to be her own boss and the need to contribute to society in her own way. At that moment, a metamorphosis occurred and a new entrepreneur was born. Always interested in the well-being of children, YiShaun launched AdoraPet, a book company for kids between the ages of 2 and 6. The company’s mantra is: “Inspiring Kids to Read, Play, Dream & Discover.” Yang spent time creating and shaping the characters – boy and girl puppies, Pico and Pima, who love going on adventures and sharing their discoveries with young readers. Pico and Pima continually pique children’s natural curiosity, imagination and sense of adventure. The series of eight adventure books received recognition from Creative Child Magazine as Best Picture Book Series for 2011. “My goal is two-fold: to promote literacy and to show kids of all types of backgrounds discovering and learning together,” said Yang. 
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| Today in Entrepreneurial History: June 5 Posted: 05 Jun 2012 10:29 AM PDT |
| Biz Ideas: Allergen-Free Dining Posted: 05 Jun 2012 05:30 AM PDT 
Springwise: Placing allergies at the forefront of their business, however, is French restaurant Mon Histoire dans l'assiette, whose menu is entirely free of 11 of the most common allergens, ensuring that most people with a food intolerance of some kind can still have their pick of the restaurant's selection. Located in Lyon, the eatery runs a menu focused on organically grown and reared produce that is free from gluten, eggs, lactose, peanuts, tree nuts, soy, mustard, shellfish, celery, sesame and lupine. The restaurant's offerings change throughout the seasons to make certain that allergy sufferers have access to as wide a range of seasonal produce as possible. Data sheets are provided for everything that is cooked to ensure transparency and the staff are well-trained in the nutrition and allergy fields. Mon Histoire dans l'assiette (which translates as 'My Story on a plate') aims to make eating out with friends a more pleasurable experience, priding itself on "creative cuisine" that is healthy, "full of flavor" and designed to be enjoyed by everybody, not just those with allergies. The pricing is also affordable, with the average dish costing EUR 13.50.
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| Weird: Salt Made From Tears Posted: 05 Jun 2012 05:00 AM PDT 
The next time you feel down, just think of all the money you could make from selling your tears! Hoxton Street Monster Supplies offers a variety of salt, for every kind of tear. Salt Made From Tears combines centuries-old craft with the freshest human tears which are gently boiled, released into shallow crystallisation tanks, then harvested by hand and finally rinsed in brine. Experience the full range of these flavours in this exclusive collection. ~ Salt Made From Tears of Anger ~ Salt Made From Tears Shed While Chopping Onions ~ Salt Made From Tears Shed While Sneezing ~ Salt Made From Tears of Laughter ~ Salt Made From Tears of Sorrow
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