CoolBusinessIdeas Newsletter Issue 8: 23/12/04 – 02/01/05 New Business Ideas/Opportunities Featured In This Issue: HEALTH The Thinhaler The Thinhaler is a new invention that could make asthmatics’ lives a lot easier. Easy Climb Easy Climb is an incline anti-rollback system for wheelchairs, developed to fill a need for manually-operated wheelchairs to negotiate inclines without roll-back. Multisensory Relief With Snoezelen From […]
CoolBusinessIdeas Newsletter Issue 8
Coca Cola’s New Clothes
PSFK: We love watching Coca-Cola grapple with what it considers a ‘health’ trend, one they reckon they missed the first time around. After we found out that C2 was dropped from launch in the UK we were surprised to find out about “Wellness from Coca-Cola” – a new line of “healthy drinks” popular in Japan. They’re stylish and feature exotic […]
These Jeans Cost $1,000 A Pair
The Seattle Times: Designer jeans costing $150 can hardly be called expensive now that Calvin Stewart has entered the fray. The New York-based designer ratcheted up the stakes with the introduction of A.P.O. Jeans, offering fully customized denim embellished with diamond, gold and platinum details — starting at $1,000 a pair. “We wanted to be the Mercedes-Benz, the Maybach of […]
Smart Elevators
RFID in Japan: Mitsubishi Electric Corporation developed a technology that combines RFID tags and cameras for controlling elevators. With their technology, elevators don’t make people wait for them. Instead, they wait for people. By combining RFID and image processing, they claim that their system could tell if a person wanted to use an elevator or was just waking near an […]
The Thinhaler
CNN.com: A 22-year-old design graduate has invented a gadget that could make asthmatics’ lives a lot easier. Frustrated after seeing his asthmatic friend struggle to breathe in smoky bars, Adam Bates decided to design a wallet-sized salbutamol easi breathe inhaler. Bates, who suffers from mild asthma himself, said inspiration for the 6mm-thick Thinhaler came from an asthmatic friend, who would […]
Roadside Message Board
Market Launcher: The Roadside Message Board is the latest in road safety and protection. Although it was invented to aid motorists when a vehicle needs to be left unattended, it has a thousand other uses. One of the reasons that people need the Roadside Message Board is that many cell phones don’t work in remote or rural areas because of […]
Art
Trendsetters: If you need more evidence that art is hot, you need look no further than last week’s Art Basel Miami Beach show, which attracted an eclectic mix of collectors, artists and glitterati from all over the world to the already sizzling surroundings of South Beach. While the visceral appeal of art is always high, it has reached even greater […]
Easy Climb
Market Launcher: Easy Climb incline anti-rollback system for wheelchairs was developed to fill a need for manually-operated wheelchairs to negotiate inclines without roll-back. Normal operation of a wheelchair results in roll-back on an incline as the operator releases his/her grip on propulsion ring to prepare for a new grip to maintain forward motion. Easy Climb will allow extra freedom to […]
The Rush to Mobile Advertising
BusinessWeek: At a hip singles bar in Las Vegas earlier this year, attractive urbanites were busy typing messages into their cell phones. But messages like, “Who’s the hottie at the end of the bar?” weren’t just going to friends — they were being posted on a giant video screen as part of a promotion at several events organized by Anheuser-Busch […]
Inspiring Quotes, on Starbucks Cups
Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Soon, that Starbucks latte in your hand won’t just be a cup of coffee. It will be a talking point, the latest Starbucks idea coming to a corner near you. Starbucks will begin printing quotes from various contributors — be they actors, economists, philosophers or kings — on all of its coffee cups in North America, beginning early […]