Business Idea of the Day

Chad Vail might be young but he is no newcomer to the word of business. Now a successful entrepreneur, he has entered into a new line of work. Chad is training a new generation of entrepreneurs reports The Berkley Independent . Vail, who is president of Junior Achievement’s South Carolina Coastal Region, recently spent a few minutes with the Goose Creek Rotary talking about his organization’s mission and goals and how he got involved. Vail was still a senior at The Citadel when he opened his first business

Joke-telling robots, expensive walking tunnels, Blackberries for smokers, and training American prostitutes to drink responsibly. What do these things have in common? They’re all questionable government spending projects in a time when our economy is struggling and people can’t get jobs… or, maybe they just made them up. Find out.

Watching fellow college students working for $7.50 an hour after graduation, Tana Walther, a fashion-design major at Kent State University in Ohio, snapped up an alternative offered by her father—to run a Pita Pit restaurant franchise he would buy. “I guess I bought her a job,” says her father, Jan Walther, of North Canton, Ohio. According to The Wall Street Journal , parents often say they would do anything for their child. Setting a child up in business is surely one big test of that bond.

Wired : The Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio is calling for small businesses to build what it calls an Intelligent Robo-Pallet : mechanical platforms that can haul stuff onto its planes autonomously. It’s got to be able to move on its own, lift and stack as cargo masters instruct, possess a built-in navigation capability, fit and operate in tight quarters, and talk with all other tech that’s used to get things on and off planes. Basically, imagine a C-130 full of gear opening up and the pallets in the center raise up and roll out of the belly

Popular Science reports that lovers of cashew chicken can rejoice. A joint effort by students at Yangzhou University, Shanghai Jiaotong University, and a business in Shenzhen have created a fully-automated robot that can cook 600 classic Chinese dishes with a simple touchscreen selection. Although details of the invention process have yet to be released, sources report that one only needs to dispense the ingredients into the machine, program it, and await a delicious meal. There’s no demonstration video yet either, but in the meantime, an earlier version at 2009’s Chinese Industry Fair here whips up an order of kung pao chicken.

Flowtown has put together a graph about SPAM, how we deal with it and why we open it. Photo by Flowtown .

Inhabitat: The latest lighting design from LZF Lamps puts paper swans to shame. The Spanish design firm used origami figures to inspire its giant, geometric pendant lamps, which debuted at this week’s Milan Furniture Fair. Not only are the lights arrestingly beautiful, they’re crafted from eco-friendly materials

According to a story in The Boston Globe , it’s when Chad Barraford opens his front door and swipes a radio frequency identification tag through a scanner linked to his home computer that extraordinary things happen. Welcome home, Chad,’’ says a voice coming from a wall speaker. “You’ve been away for 1 hour and 15 minutes.’’ Time and temperature are announced. Bedroom lights blink on. Barraford’s dog, Miles, is greeted, too

We Are Handsome’s swimwear is not just your run-of-the-mill swimwear. Each piece is made by hand, with the highest quality polyester lycra, printed with high density inks using a placement sublimation process which is tedious to say the least. Each of the designs is limited edition. Some are sourced from 000’s of retro images and some designed by WAH’s in-house artist often using dozens of images to get the unique look and feel.

While many MIT students busily build break-dancing robots or websites that let your pets network better at doggie daycare, PhD candidate Danielle Zurovcik has designed a $3 pump to drastically speed up the healing of countless patients in the aftermath of Haiti’s recent earthquake. Popular Science magazine reports that the device simplifies and lightens a common piece of medical equipment called a negative-pressure pump. Used to accelerate wound healing and reduce the frequency that bandages need to be changed, even the most portable of these pumps costs $100 a day to rent, and weighs 10 pounds with batteries. The pump Zurovcik invented costs $3 total, weighs less than half a pound, uses only 14 microwatts of power, and can be charged with a hand pump. The pump works by sucking bacteria and fluids out of a wound, and by encouraging healing blood flow.