PicturePhoning: ClassifEye has developed fingerprint authentication technology which is compatible with most camera phones, to prevent identity theft.

The solution does not require any additional hardware such as fingerprint sensors, USB keys and code generators, making it cost-effective and easy to deploy. A camera phone user simply downloads the ClassifEye software directly to the device. The user then takes a picture of his finger with the phone’s camera. The software authenticates the user’s fingerprint and authorises immediate access to the phone.

ClassifEye technology guards camera phone identity [PicturePhoning]

The Red Ferret Journal: Automatic Refill Dog Water Bowl. Dang, that’s cool, Marge. Now if we can only find something that does the same thing for dog food, we’ll never have to see that mangy mutt again.

This 1.8 gallon automatic stainless waterer attaches to any garden hose and provides consistent fresh water for your pet at all times. The bowl is fabricated from heavy duty hygienic stainless steel with a durable cover (removes for easier cleaning) made from high density polypropylene, which protects the mechanical float valve providing safety and reliability. Ideal for your cat, dog, sheep, goat, or other animal hydration needs.

Automatic Refill Dog Water Bowl [The Red Ferret Journal]

Gadget4Girls: Do you already have a personal strategy of saving or spending money? Well, if not get a personal assistant! Namely a product that promised to solve the portable-storage problem once and for all. Let me introduce you the Handheld Digital Wallet by Veronica Vail.

Call it a planner, an organizer, a manager – what ever you want. This handheld digital wallet is actually an efficient aid in financial planning.

It is able to track your earning and spending which makes it possible to manage the very strategy of saving or spending. Besides, you can monitor your account(s), track your investments and make payments right from the device. The Digital Handheld Wallet houses a universal payment card. So you are the one enabled to easily make payments anywhere. The device is equipped with a security system that requires finger print identification in case you want to access financial information and make any payments or investments.

Veronica Vail's Handheld Digital Wallet [Gadget4Girls]

Good business networking websites are hard to come by, and the ones that do exist generally stick to narrowly-defined strictures. GlobalBusinessNetworking.com aims to blow away that way of thinking by providing a total business networking service in one site.

The site is split up into several areas each of which is devoted to a specific facet of business networking. The main core of GlobalBusinessNetworking.com is its Contact management and Networking features. The networking feature especially is considered to be at the heart of the site. It allows you to create specific groups, invite members in and discuss topics which are relevant to both you and the group. It also includes a nifty anti-spam feature to stop the occasional naughty posts.

When you see a positive post, or if you've had a great customer experience, you can let other people know by using the Share your experiences feature. Perhaps one of your sales guys just sealed a great deal? Give him a 5 star recommendation! Speaking of sales you can also put up details of your products and services in the Buyers and Sellers area. The last posts are shown in a prominent area on the site, so you're going to get instant exposure.

Most companies have important news or events they would like to let the world know about. www.GlobalBusinessNetworking.com caters to this requirement with its News & Events area. Not only can you post up your own news and events for other members to see, but you can also browse through 6 live RSS feeds from international news sources. Saves time having to go to several sites to catch up on what's happening.

There are two other sections of the site we'd like to mention - the Recruitment area and your Profile page. Recruitment does exactly what is says on the tin, you can post up details of open positions if you're looking to hire, and also post up your own CV if you're looking to be recruited. The Profile area takes care of your own info, and has a rather nice feature - video profiles. You can upload either a short video of yourself, or paste in a link to a longer YouTube video. If you don't have a video, then you can either upload your own picture or simply leave the default picture in there. This is a great feature of the site and something we really enjoyed.

www.GlobalBusinessNetworking.com provides a great place to do all your business networking. If you're not already a member, give it a try!

This post is a sponsored blog post.

Great Low-Cost PR Tactics

Public relations can be an effective way to generate awareness and name recognition for your business. PR is also considered to be a low-cost alternative to other marketing tactics such as traditional advertising...

Continued in BIZNESS! Newsletter Issue 57 >>>

- Drink Up, Get A Toy
- Smart Closet
- Exploding Piggy Bank!
- Ccube: New Age Communication
- Specialize, Specialize, Specialize
- Smart Car
- Highly Priced Credit Cards

Continue reading these top stories in the BIZNESS! Newsletter >>>

- Ten Questions You Need to Answer in Your Business Plan
- How to Buy A Franchise - Step 1
- Train Your Sales Team Using an Effective Sale Process
- Get a Home-Based Job Without Getting Scammed
- Why Utilize an HR Attorney as a Consultant
- The Conference Commando
- Are You One of The Monkeys?

Continue reading these top stories in the BIZNESS! Newsletter >>>

Can't stand your demanding boss anymore? Start your own business! Before that, be sure to subscribe to our free informative newsletter. BIZNESS! is jointly published by CoolBusinessIdeas.com and GetEntrepreneurial.com What you get in BIZNESS! - the latest new business ideas, small business advice, business tips and info and entrepreneur resources. Everything you need for your brand new business!

Free 145-pages PDF report (worth $75) - "2006's Best Business Ideas" - included with your subscription. Learn more here.

There are a lot of businesses out there that are competing for the customers. You are looking for a way to attract a loyal few customers for your small retirement business. You are also trying to attract them with some unique feature of your business instead of doing a large amount of advertising and the billing that comes from advertising. This approach of specializing will keep your business small, which is one of our goals, but will differentiate you from the pack.

An example is auto repairs. There are hundreds of shops in your area that will work on almost any type of car. They stock some frequently used parts and work with auto parts dealers to get immediate delivery of common parts for commonly owned vehicles. But it is not so easy if you have a 1960’s Porsche or Corvette. People taking these cars in for repairs may have to wait a long while to get some parts shipped in and some of the young mechanics may have never seen the insides of these vehicles.

Specialize in repairs of one of these vehicles and you can gain a loyal clientele if you perform good work, have many of the common parts that they use on hand or at lease on overnight delivery from a specialty auto parts dealer, and you have experience in problems with these older cars. You may also have an inexpensive advertising media in a fan club for one of these vehicles since you will only be paying for exposure to people who own the vehicles. Each of these specialty cars has web sites devoted to them where you can do advertising.

Think of your hobby. Look on-line or in catalogues for tools of that hobby. Everyone is carrying the low cost, mass produced tools. But there is always some specialty hand made tools that are available if you know where to look for them. You can specialize in selling these or produce your own like of tools that are more specific to your hobby.

The secret is specializing your business to keep it small and to grow your business through word-of-mouth advertising.

This new weekly column, 101 New Business Ideas for Retirees, is compiled specially for CoolBusinessIdeas.com readers by Stan Spector. See all articles in this column by Stan Spector.

Stan Spector is the author of “Baby Boomers’ Official Guide to Retirement Income - Over 100 Part-time or Seasonal Businesses for the New Retiree”. The book website is at StanSpector.com.

Springwise: While there are plenty of reminder services online that help people remember anniversaries and birthdays, few connect to the physical world. Which is where Boston-based Jack Cards comes in: a company that delivers pre-scheduled, ready-to-go greeting cards to the card sender, just in time for them to add a personal message and drop the card in the mailbox.

Customers register on jackcards.com, enter important dates for their family and friends and select cards for each person/date. Jack Cards offers a range of cards created by over 40 independent designers. Members schedule when they'd like the cards delivered—1, 2 or 4 weeks in advance—and select whether they would like the envelopes to be pre-stamped, pre-addressed, or both. Jack Cards takes care of the rest and even sends an email reminder to make sure customers don't forget to post the cards they've ordered and received.

Never forget to send a birthday card [Springwise]

Sense: Y Water’s new bottled drink is aimed at children and highlights many of the factors impacting on the industry. The LA start up’s new product tackles sustainability concerns by packing its drink in a bottle with a second life as a toy. Once the contents of the bottle has been consumed multiple bottles can be collected and joined together in a modular structure. With many US schools banning soft drinks outright and water seeming like a boring option Y Water fills a gap in the market, addressing the concerns of health conscious parents whilst appealing to kids through the sheer wow factor of its packaging. The health benefits of the drink are explained to kids through witty and engaging cartoon style labeling.

Beverage Industry Tailors Drinks To Niche Consumers [Sense]

TrendBlog: The LucidTouch device does not look much different from the PlayStationPortable. It can be held comfortably in two and has a large touch-sensitive LCD screen, similar to that used in the iPhone. The big difference of this prototype, developed by MERL and Microsoft Research, is, that it can also be controlled using a touch-sensitive interface on its rear surface. When using the rear touch interface, the user’s fingers appear as shadows on the screen, giving the illusion they are holding a transparent device. Just highlighting the active point of each finger with a small green dot, LucidTouch is removing the problem of covering to much screen area with “fat fingers”.

LucidTouch [TrendBlog]

Business Edge: If you've ever stood in front of your closet trying to figure out what to wear for an important meeting, a new high-tech wardrobe invention might be just the thing for you.

The "smart wardrobe" keeps track of when you wore an item, where you wore it, and can even tell you when your clothes need to be dry-cleaned. Developed by Australian researchers, the garment gizmo is being touted as a dress-for-success solution that could give busy people the edge to get ahead.

"The wardrobe can tell you that you have a meeting this morning with Joe Bloggs, that you have worn the same shirt the last three times you met him and that maybe you should wear something else or he will think you only have one shirt," says Prof. Bruce Thomas, director of the wearable computer laboratory at the University of South Australia.

If you're not sure what tie matches your suit, if your skirt is too tame for your new animal print pumps, or whether you should go business casual or dressy for a weekend dinner with the boss, researchers say the smart wardrobe can tell you that, too. "This technology can help people make the most of accessorizing and mixing their wardrobe," explains PhD student Aaron Toney, who developed an alert function that notifies smart-wardrobe users when garments need to be dry-cleaned and even tracks cleaner pickups and deliveries.

'Smart closet' can suit you up for success [Business Edge]

Cart-Away Supply is the first franchised concrete, rental and landscape supply store. Cart-Away Supply sells construction materials that people walk on every day, like concrete, soil, rock and bark. The franchise also rents equipment and stocks merchandise that is used to install the concrete, soil and rock. Cart-Away Supply is a construction supply business that provides delivery trailers to take the materials to the job site. Customer’s cart-away their supplies to their projects. This trailer-based concrete delivery system has been proven for over 40-years in yards across the country.

Cart-Away Supply is a one-stop supplier for concrete, rental and landscape materials and is based upon the operations found in many of the most successful Cart-Away customers. Today the Cart-Away brand is a part of Cart-Away Supply for the exclusive benefit of franchise operators.

Cart-Away Supply

Attivo is a totally new concept in boating. Lightweight and compact, at only 3.5 metres long Attivo has sportsboat looks and can carry up to four adults in cruise mode. Pull a lever and lift the canopy and is instantly converts a larger living area to accommodate a further two adults and even converts into a full sized double bed.

Below the fitted cushions you will find plenty of locker space for all of your short break needs. Forward is the large locker, ideal for bedding, clothes, and all the little bits you want out of your way in the daytime – the centre lockers accommodate a powerful 12 volt battery, each side, to run the outboard, and all of the low voltage lighting and pumps built in. Plenty of room for other things too – the 240 volt unit and charging system is fitted here to supply power to sockets so you could, if you wanted to, run all of your luxuries and make Attivo a 'home from home', as well as to boost the batteries for more cruising.

Attivo is environmentally-friendly - it's propelled by an electric outboard motor and powered by internal batteries and charging system. The amazing style was created by car designer Keith Helfet whose previous works include Jaguar's XJ220 supercar and F-Type concept.

Attivo

Most people think that working at your hobby would make the best retirement business that they can think about. While I concur with this thinking there are a few warnings that come with this option.

Think about your hobby. Are there supplies that you regularly have to buy? Are these supplies easy to find locally? Can they be cheaply shipped by parcel, which would allow you to sell the items on line and not require you to open a storefront with the associated rents, utilities and staff? This will also allow you to run your business during different time of day at your convenience. If you need storage space, you could rent inexpensive storage areas. If there is a lot of competition for selling supplies, look at carrying specialty items that local stores do not carry. Are there customer made products available for you to sell. The large chain hobby shops, do not like to carry a lot of these specialty items. They go after the mass produced items and the items that sell the most.

Is the product you make from your hobby a sellable product? Everyone thinks they are but I recommend that you buy a booth at a festival and try to sell some of your product. This will give you a change to meet and talk with some of your potential customers. You’d be surprised on how frank they can be to you about your quality, pricing and design. If you are able to sell large amounts at a festival, you have a chance of having a good supplemental business. But don’t go too far until you have proven you can sell enough to make a business from this.

Now for the warnings.

The market frequently is not prepared to spend the cost of your product if there is a (lower quality but functional) product made in a low cost production company that is less than half of the price of yours. If the market is there they will probably demand the highest level of quality and may not consider your work of that level. Remember you are competing against others who have probably been doing this full time for many years.

Don’t even think of renting large amounts of space with all the costs involved, unless you know you will have the sales. This is the quickest way to taking a very big risk with your money.

Don’t think that your hobby equipment will hold up under high demand put on it by you using it for a business. It is probably fine to test the market with it but you will have to buy heavy duty commercial equipment for it to last long and to turn out the highest quality work.

And remember that you have started a business. You are no longer doing this for just fun.

But good luck, this can be the happiest way to make supplemental income during your retirement.

This new weekly column, 101 New Business Ideas for Retirees, is compiled specially for CoolBusinessIdeas.com readers by Stan Spector. See all articles in this column by Stan Spector.

Stan Spector is the author of “Baby Boomers’ Official Guide to Retirement Income - Over 100 Part-time or Seasonal Businesses for the New Retiree”. The book website is at StanSpector.com.

Smart Car of America: Whether they’re squeezing easily into the teeniest of parking spaces on the cobblestones of Rome, whizzing about the narrow, crowded streets of Tokyo or on a highway near you! It offers you an utterly unique vehicle – one that’s exhilarating to drive, with luxurious appointments, and as responsive in its handling as it is responsible to the environment.

Smart offers you one utterly unique vehicle – one that’s exhilarating to drive, with luxurious appointments, and as responsive in its handling as it is responsible to the environment.

The Smart is truly innovative in the sense that it is the most contemporary automotive interpretation of current social trends in big cities, where many people's lifestyle mean they don't need more than two seats, and they prefer something that's small, stylish and fun.

Metropolitan drivers will love this car for its nimble driving features, its fuel savings and its knockout design appeal. Now, you can turn our love of driving into a love of driving Smart.

Completely redesigned and suited for you, the discerning driver, this new Smart Fortwo accomplishes in styling and design what no other subcompact has. The Smart ForTwo is smaller than the Mini Cooper and, at 46.3 mpg, has better fuel efficiency than the Mini Cooper, the Honda Fit or the Toyota Yaris.

Smart Car [Smart Car of America]

Japan Today: Toy maker Takara Tomy Co on Thursday unveiled its "Savings Bomb," a piggy bank which "explodes" and scatters coins if users fail to save for a long time.

The battery-powered toy — designed as a cartoon-style, ball-shaped black bomb with a skull and crossbones logo — lights up, makes a noise, shakes violently and scatters coins if it is not topped up for a long time.

"Users must pick up and collect the scattered coins and reflect on their laziness," Takara Tomy said.

Tomy unveils exploding piggy bank [Japan Today]

Springwise: Visitors to Sydney who want the scoop on where all of the best boutiques, cafes and galleries are need only point their browsers to Urban Walkabout to download attractive, pocket-sized walking maps in PDF form, complete with a detailed listing of shops and other attractions—for free. Maps are clean and concise and include information on buses, trains and other public transit. What's more, customers can take advantage of special offers, such as discounts at certain establishments, just by showing their guides.

The Urban Walkabout Sydney Shopping Guides are published twice a year. Versions are currently available for five areas—Bondi, Double Bay + Potts Point, Paddington + Woollahra, Surry Hills + Darlinghurst, and the Sydney Central Business District. In addition to downloading them from the web, customers can pick up copies from every retail establishment listed on the website and in hotel lobbies, tourist information booths and visitor centres. In addition to the guides, there also is a wealth of information on the Urban Walkabout website, including a listing of special offers and events.

Downloadable Shopping Map [Springwise]

Born Rich: Gold and diamond covered business card is a cool way to show off your riches. Earlier, we saw the Hello Kitty gold business card and the Mitsubishi Materials Fine gold card and now, GK Power, a Seoul-based smart card maker and online game provider, has made a new high-concept card for the VVIP customers. GK Power has developed technologies that enabled cold film coating and diamond embedding on plastic cards. Some of the GK Power’s high-concept cards include BC’s ‘Diamond Card,’ Hyundai Card’s `The Black’ and Woori Bank’s corporate cards. In the words of company’s president and CEO, these glittering cards are one of the ways to beat the market competition to lure the biggest spenders. These custom designed credit cards carry high price tags.

Show off your riches with diamond studded credit cards [Born Rich]

Ccube: Inspired by Thomas L. Friedman’s best‐selling book, “The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty‐first Century”, Ccube was born to provide a solution to today’s #1 Web concern: privacy.

In 2006, founder Mahesh Lalwani leveraged his 15 years of high‐tech architecture experience to develop a social utility to extend opportunities for human interaction and provide a valuable communication tool to keep flattening the boundaries between people.

In October 2007 Ccube launched Communicator Toolbox, a total call solution for every Web user. The complete Toolbox includes four distinct calling tools to serve diverse communication needs, with added benefits. Communicator Toolbox includes: Web Communicator, Call Me Widget, My Keypad, and Virtual Calling Card. The complete Instant Calling (IC) service solution is available in its entirety, free with membership.

Web Communicator - Members find and connect free and privately over the phone to other members in all 50 U.S. states, Canada, the Caribbean Islands, and any number located in a three-digit area code. Calls are free to both members, and both contact numbers always remain hidden. Web Communicator lets members control their voice profile, invitation settings and time-zone sensitive Call Windows™ for controlled and personal connecting on the phone. It’s your own customized phone network!

Call Me Widget - Instead of posting a phone number online, members place a few lines of generated HTML code, (or a link) on any classified, social networking page, blog or business Web site, and enjoy the freedom of guarding their personal phone numbers on the Web. Members are accessible when, where and how they choose, by controlling privacy settings in Web Communicator. There’s never dialing or hidden costs for either person on the call. Owning an (IC) Call Me Widget is like having a free VIP 800 # straight to you, without ever revealing your real phone number!

My Keypad - My Keypad was developed to add additional layers of membership benefits - convenience & cost savings, when you know the phone number you want to call. Used from a member Toolbox, or placed on a widget dashboard, My Keypad does the dialing so members don’t have to. No more wasting cash on expensive plastic cards at the store. My Keypad saves costly mobile minutes & long distance charges by giving you your own free outbound 800 # from any phone!

Virtual Calling Cards - VCC’S are e‐mailed from Toolbox to friends, family or clients when a member wants to share Ccube minutes with anyone who is not a member (and give them the “WOW Factor!”). The card recipient types in their number, and any number they want to call with a three-digit area code. Ccube connects them both on any phone, free of charge. VCC’s serve as promotional tools, online gifts and Web site traffic generators when placed on a homepage. Virtual Calling Cards are like loaning a friend a free cell phone to use how, and when they want!

Ccube

Differentiation: Smart Marketing Strategies for the Solo Entrepreneur

In business terms, to differentiate means to create a benefit that customers perceive as being of greater value to them than what they can get elsewhere. It's not enough for you to be different--a potential customer has to take note of the difference and must feel that the difference somehow fits their need better. Other words that mean virtually the same thing: Competitive Advantage; Unique Selling Proposition; or Value Proposition....

Continued in BIZNESS! Newsletter Issue 56 >>>

- Stationery Art Form
- Mobile Specs Fitting
- Programmable Pet Dish
- GumDrop Boots
- Face The Music
- Transportable Hair Salon
- No More Scratches

Continue reading these top stories in the BIZNESS! Newsletter >>>

- Things To Consider When Writing A Business Plan
- Top Ways to Get a Business Idea Off the Ground
- Accepting Credit Cards Online
- The Art Of Networking
- What are Human Resources and Why Should it Matter
- Future Work
- Passion Is The Key To Success

Continue reading these top stories in the BIZNESS! Newsletter >>>

Can't stand your demanding boss anymore? Start your own business! Before that, be sure to subscribe to our free informative newsletter. BIZNESS! is jointly published by CoolBusinessIdeas.com and GetEntrepreneurial.com What you get in BIZNESS! - the latest new business ideas, small business advice, business tips and info and entrepreneur resources. Everything you need for your brand new business!

Free 145-pages PDF report (worth $75) - "2006's Best Business Ideas" - included with your subscription. Learn more here.

USA Today: Wyndham Hotels' new "Smart Chair" aims to do for in-room lounging and working what Westin's Heavenly Bed did for sleeping.
The Westin pillowtop-mattress bed, introduced in 1999, was an instant hit and is credited with starting a revolution in hotel bedding.

The Smart Chair, designed by Michael Graves & Associates, is currently ensconced at select Wyndams (the Dallas-Fort Worth airport, downtown Atlanta, and Princeton, N.J., to name a few). It is due chainwide by the end of 2008.

"We felt the 'bed wars' were over and turned our focus to signature products that would appeal to a new generation of travelers, namely the Gen Xers," says Evy Apostolatos, a Wyndham spokeswoman.

The Smart Chair is just one of the cool new furnishings on the hotel landscape, aimed at travelers who expect rooms with more bells and whistles.

Hotel furnishings go high-tech, eco-friendly [USA Today]

easier Motoring: The irritation of nuts and bolts jammed in place by rust can be a thing of the past, thanks to car care specialist, Comma, and a new product which simply freezes components apart.

The new product, named Frost Bite, has been developed by Comma’s scientists and uses a -30°C treatment to penetrate corrosion and release jammed components so they can be unscrewed within minutes. Once the parts are separated, Frost Bite provides ongoing protection so that the problem should not reoccur.

The product works by using an aerosol to reduce the temperature of metallic nuts, bolts and screws, causing them to contract. As they do so, any rust fixing them together will crack apart, so that the components can be easily released without damage.

“Products such as this are a great example of how technology is rapidly developing,” said Comma’s Mike Bewsey. “Whether working on cars, boats or in other industries, people can now release bolts without having to wait for release oils to work.”

Stay cool under the bonnet with Comma’s new Frost Bite [easier Motoring]

The Cool Hunter: For the executive who has grown bored with his Blackberry, and sick of his stapler, comes this rather over the top stationary revolution. These elaborately detailed, all metal staplers from Jac Zagoory. Designs come in Gorilla, bear, dragon, Lion and more. These excessive must haves are brilliantly made, and have turned desk accessories into an art form.

Desk Art [The Cool Hunter]

Digital World Tokyo: Glasses and contact lenses are noticeably big business all over Asia, so it’s no surprise to see a Japanese optician combining sales of spectacles with the venerable mobile phone.

Glasses superstore Megane Top (literally, ‘Top Glasses’) has just started a handy service where browsers of the frame selection on their mobile website can go one step further and try them on virtually.

As you might have guessed, this involves the would-be customers taking photos of themselves on the phone and combining them with shots of glasses downloaded from the Megane Top server. Once that’s done, the ‘Mobile Fitting’ service can cycle through frames and slap them over the photo until the cows come home.

Try on new specs from the comfort of your cellphone [Digital World Tokyo]

Cool Hunting: Imagine an online social network that provides free, on-demand online music but without the legal anxiety of peer-to-peer networks. More interactive than conventional internet radio, though not as gratifying as Napster was in its glory days, Jango is a New York City-based music site with a large database of songs and artists and is instantly addictive.

Now in its beta launch, there's a waiting list for new members though the first 100 readers to click this link can join. If you don't make the cut, not to worry. The site maintains a waiting list and it should only take a couple of days for an account to get activated. Once you're in, you can invite three of your friends.

The interface couldn't be more simple. Simply type in a musical artist you like and the site will play their songs. You can also specify how broad your tastes are by setting it to play only the artists you have identified or you can opt to hear artists it considers to be in the same genre. This isn't risk free. After adding a few classic rock bands the site began playing The Eagle's "Hotel California." Luckily by clicking on the frowning face icon, I was able to banish that song from ever playing again. Conversely, you can tag songs you like and the site will make sure to keep them in the mix.

Jango: Social Internet Radio [Cool Hunting]

IT seems like the accolades just can’t stop rolling in for these young, enterprising students from Hwa Chong Institution. After bagging the top prize of $5,000 in the Youth Category of Start-Up@Singapore 2007, Agrotech has gone on to clinch the Best New Markets Award at the Global Talentrepreneur Competition 2007 held in Taipei. Their product, which revolves around plant care and pigment enhancement in the cut-flower industry, impressed the judges and edged out those by more experienced competitors from the United States of America, Panama, Thailand, Jordan, Mexico, Taiwan, Brazil and Japan.

The Global Talentrepreneur Competition is an international contest for talented, young entrepreneurs who have won regional- and national-level entrepreneurship competitions.

This year’s contest saw a wide spectrum of participating teams from 14 countries across the Americas, Europe and Asia Pacific. Each team was required to write a comprehensive business plan and pitch their idea to an international panel of 15 judges comprising venture capitalists, academics and government officials. On the back of all this success, Agrotech has been invited to present their idea at Keio University in Japan next year.

Article contributed by Start-Up@Singapore

Coolbuzz: If you own a cute pet and fears about regularity of his routine meals in your absence, then you need something like ‘Intelligent Programmable Pet Dish’ on which you can ensure timely meals by programming up to four time’s meal on a digital programmable timer and self-opening food tray that will automatically serve the pet. On scheduled time it will use your recorded voice for alert.

With four different trays, it can hold four separate dry or moist foods, which automatically opens to expose the material. Water compartment will take care of thirst and moistening of food. It has a digital display for easy programming. It can record a 20 minutes voice file and originate in durable ABS plastic with removable dishwasher safe lids.

Programmable Pet Dish to serve your Pet when you can’t [Coolbuzz]

Engadget: It's not often that we see a USB-powered gizmo claiming to "relieve tiredness, muscle strain or even pain," and considering that we can't leave our posts even for a moment to see an actual doctor (a non-robotic one, at least), we couldn't be happier about this development. The USB Far Infra-Red Pad gets all the power it needs from a spare USB port, and apparently emits infrared light onto your weary arms, back or biceps in order to leave you feeling completely revitalized. Interestingly, the manufacturer warns that leaving it on one spot for over 15 minutes can cause all sorts of problems, so yeah, there's that. Anyways, those who spend the majority of their time slaving over a keyboard can snap this (likely worthless) thing up for $21.99, but don't expect any miracles, alright?

USB-powered infrared pad heals road warrior's aches [Engadget]

The Vancouver Sun: The name may be a beautiful maelstrom of cultures, but the newly opened GumDrops store is all about the Rainy City.

For Australian Shanda Jerrett -- originally born in Victoria, although her family emigrated Down Under soon afterwards --the name is a combination of gumboots (their word for rubber boots) and rain drops (and you thought it was just a reference to the old-fashioned candy?).

It stands for a lighthearted approach to the weather, Jerrett explains: "Putting rainy-day frowns upside down."

Well, if anything helps to bring you up in this downpour, it's a store that evokes candy nostalgia through a kaleidoscope of vibrant colours and designs. Choose boots adorned with rock-inspired skulls, guitars and roses, for example, or plain smiling skulls, or daisies or cupcakes -- and that's just for the adults.

Children's footwear includes ones with cows, dogs, bears, frogs, and the rest of the store has everything else you need for wet weather (jackets, toy dog coats, bags and laptop cases -- and umbrellas, of course).

These boots were made for Splashing [The Vancouver Sun]

Springwise: Hair salons on wheels aren't particularly novel anymore (to wit: Onsite HairCuts, which we covered last year), and most often they cater to office workers who spend their days in large industrial parks. Now UK-based HairPOD is picking up on that basic idea but bringing it out to the masses—wherever they happen to be—with quick, inexpensive haircuts on the go.

HairPODs are transportable, free-standing styling booths that look like futuristic space capsules. Featuring extendable floor and side panels, they can be closed up and locked for the night, then unlocked and opened up again the next day. The compact design features tucked-away storage space for supplies, and a suction unit at the base of the pod even makes hair clippings disappear. Best of all, they can be strategically placed in locations such as airports or downtown crossings—and relocated, if necessary—without the high rents most salons must pay. HairPODs take 3 to 4 hours to put together, and require just an electricity supply--no shop fitting or site alteration are necessary.

Pop-up hair salons in pods [Springwise]

Iconoculture: Tailgaters might tell you that the real main event is out in the parking lot, with Gameday Customs' Ultimate Tailgate totally tricked-out tailgate trailer.

The 5-by-8-ft. trailer holds a 26-in. LCD TV, satellite dish, generator, CD/DVD player, 10-gal. fresh water system, complete draft beer system, electrical outlets, a battery charger, a toilet, a spare tire and even — we're not kidding — a kitchen sink.

Tailgating goes long — and luxe [Iconoculture]