Perhaps no one understands the value of water better than a farmer. Most people regard water as a limitless resource, but farmers are all too familiar with its limits. So it's fitting, then, that one of the most innovative technologies to recently enter the world of water conservation was invented not by a highly trained engineer but by a farmer with a knack for ingenuity.
In 2007, Greg Ryan, a farmer and cattle rancher for most of his life, founded the San Leandro, California–based Pasteurization Technology Group with his son Greg Ryan Jr., PTG’s current CEO. The company's patented technology enables wastewater treatment plants to disinfect water without the use of chlorine or other chemicals, while creating enough renewable energy to power the entire facility in the process. In the water industry, which has experienced 15% revenue growth since 2007, this so-called water-energy nexus is arguably the most important and lucrative subsector. According to Scott Bryan, COO of the water start-up incubator ImagineH20, "There's a willingness to pay for innovations that will help you conserve water and create energy."
The Les Paul custom guitar was designed by Aqua-Tech for avid guitar collector Garry McBurney. In 2011, Aqua-Tech created this creative project, which was originally intended to be a hot tub. McBurney asked Aqua-Tech specifically for a Les Paul Custom guitar that no one else would have. The owner of Aqua-Tech Glen McGillivray used a 3D computer software called Pool Studio to create the design to resemble McBurney's favorite guitar.
A new initiative dubbed the “New Generic Top-Level Domains” and organized by ICANN-the nonprofit that has managed Internet names and addresses since 1998-could add more than 1,000 extensions to the roughly two dozen familiar extensions in use now. New extensions are likely to be established in myriad categories: industry terms such as .bank or .hotel; existing brands such as .apple or .bmw; geographic monikors such as .nyc and .london; and new general terms such as .web. The expansion could mean that the owner of a smoothie shop in Miami who couldn’t obtain or afford the domain name “miamismoothieshop.com” could register a different name, for example, “smoothieshop.miami” for less.
The expansion is prompting a swarm of activity by individuals and businesses applying to operate registries for top-level domain names and make money wholesaling them. Theo Hnarakis, chief executive officer of Melbourne IT, calls it the biggest change to the Internet since .com was released 27 years ago. His Digital Brand Services division, based in Santa Clara, Calif., has applied for 146 domain extensions for clients, including large pharmaceutical and media brands. “The Internet’s about to expand in a tenfold way and whether you’re a small business or a big business, you need to start preparing yourself,” he says.
Matt Horton wants to solve a problem that makes alternative-fuel vehicles unappealing to would-be buyers: lack of convenient places to refuel. Last month, the chief executive officer of Propel Fuels opened the country's first station where drivers can pump gasoline, ethanol, and biodiesel, cyclists can get tune-ups, and commuters can find public transit schedules. Backed by more than $19 million in venture capital and nearly $12 million in grants from the U.S. Department of Energy and the California Energy Commission, the 23-person Redwood City (Calif.) startup received yesterday an additional, $10.1 million grant from the commission to help build 100 stations around the state in the next four years.
Contestants frequently make the same mistake which annoys me every time. The sharks commonly ask the contestants whether they have a patent on their invention. The contestant frequently replies with, “I have a provisional patent.” To my surprise, the sharks (who are generally very business savvy) typically accept this answer and move on. However, if I were a shark on the show I would immediately respond with “I’m out.” All inventors should know that there is no such thing as a provisional patent.
There is such a thing as a provisional patent application. However, a provisional patent application is never examined and basically serves a “placeholder” for a forthcoming non-provisional application. Anyone can file a provisional application on anything they want and state they have a provisional application. For example, someone can go out and file a provisional application on the same light bulb that Edison invented in 1879 and claim they have a “provisional patent application” on the light bulb. But of course, any forthcoming non-provisional application would be rejected by the United States Patent and Trademark Office and hence the provisional application in this case is completely worthless.
During a regular fishing season, most lobstermen can afford to check and rebait their traps only every three or four days. Each run to the traps can cost as much as $600 for fuel and take 18 hours of work. But three or four days can be more than enough time for lobsters to eat the chunks of herring or mackerel that serve as bait. With no bait left, lobsters don't enter the trap and fishermen are left with a smaller catch. Thus, the millions of traps that dot the Atlantic from Newfoundland to North Carolina remain empty about half the time.
Vince Stuart, the owner of a Nova Scotia company that makes winches, gantries and other fishing-boat rigging, first heard about the lobstermen's problem from his clients on the docks in 2003. He soon began building the Bait Savour, a device that would release an extra supply of lobster bait a few days after a trap was laid. It allows the lobstermen to check their traps less frequently (about once every five days instead of every three or four), saving time, labor and fuel.
