Business Idea of the Day

Dust Cover For Dog Patent 3,150,641 Pneumatic Shoe Lacing Apparatus Patent No. 5,205,055 Apparatus For Facilitating Birth Of Child By Centrifugal Force Patent No. 3,216,423 Cheese-Filter Cigarette Patent 3,234,948 Photos by USPTO . From Business Opportunities Weblog

We’ve bought products from mom and pop stores. We’ve even purchased services from father and son businesses. But, The Augusta Chronicle wonders, when was the last time you ate at at a mother and son restaurant

Trendspotter Springwise reports that one of the keys to e-commerce success is to ensure that customers know exactly what they’re ordering. That has been an elusive goal for florists, thanks to fluctuations in flowers’ appearance and availability; the result is that customers must typically take it on faith that they’ll get something similar to what they saw online.

Trends via TrendHunter.com . From Business Opportunities Weblog .

Those of you who still use the penny as currency may soon notice America’s 1-cent coin has gotten a facelift, according to a story at MSN Money . The U.S. Mint has changed the design for the reverse — or “tails” — side of the 2010 Lincoln Cent, which entered circulation on Feb.

Before I moved to the mountains, I never thought much about propane. Sure, I occasionally had to go to Walmart to swap my barbecue’s empty propane tank for full one, but otherwise all of the gas we used in our home was natural gas and was delivered via pipes under the streets. Now that I live in a much more rural place, I’ve come to rely on propane. Even more important than the propane, though, is the company that delivers it

Keep your eye on the shelves of your local hardware store, where you may be able to find new tape from an unlikely source: the gecko, reports The New York Times. Geckos have millions of microscopic hairs on their toes, each with hundreds of tips that adhere to surfaces, with no residue left behind,” said Kellar Autumn, a biology professor at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Ore. “Their hairs can stay attached indefinitely.” Autumn and scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, were responsible for the research that enabled Mark Cutkosky, a professor of mechanical engineering at Stanford, to develop a prototype for a tape based on gecko adhesion. The tape, which is reusable, was so strong, Autumn said, that when they tested it, he was able to stick his 50-pound, 8-year-old daughter to a window with it.

A reader wrote: What exactly is a franchise? In its most simple definition, a franchise is a business opportunity that allows the franchisee (possibly you) to start your business by legally using someone else’s (the franchisor’s) expertise, ideas, and processes. In some cases, this means also having the right to use the franchisor’s established name and branding, as well as their already-tested business model.

Dine-in Delivery is a meal delivery service business opportunity. They deliver food from restaurants that don’t have their own delivery service.

Large corporations have been testing a new device that can generate power on the spot, without being connected to the electric grid. Will we have one in every home someday?