Electric Drag Racer Sets Records

April 13, 2011 · Posted in innovation · Comment 


Plugin electric car beats gasoline muscle cars at drag racing. White Zombie set records with simple lead acid batteries.

The fact this car was setting speed records using simple, reliable, cheap, lead acid batteries is the major innovation. The definition of innovation is:

Profitably satisfy unmet desires

Profitably doesn’t necessarily mean money, it means all the desires are better satisfied for everyone involved in delivering the innovation. So far plugin electric cars fail to innovate as normal passenger cars because the range is less than gasoline, diesel, or natural gas cars. Driving very fast for short distances is a way for plugin electrics to innovate. Electric cars have more torque from the start than internal combustion engines, this makes them very fast off the line.

Finding a special use for a new technology is part of the evolution to a new paradigm. In the beginning internal combustion engines had severe limitations but eventually outperformed the previous technology in every way and even made new things possible. Airplanes became possible because of internal combustion engines.

Electric vehicles have a large amount of torque, are quiet, and don’t any toxic exhaust fumes while operating. This makes electric vehicles ideal for use indoors especially hi-lo to move heavy items in a warehouse. Electric vehicles work well indoors because they don’t need to travel far and can be recharged in between uses. This has been how plugin electric vehicles have been used for decades. The other use is for golf carts. Again, a golf cart has limited range and is quiet which is perfect for a golf course.

Mapping the steps from current technology and uses to the replacement and new possibilities reveals the lowest risk, highest profit innovations.

Prediction: Meaningful Image Resize, Key Technology

January 28, 2011 · Posted in abundance, innovation, prediction · Comment 


Meaningful image resize has larger importance than just intelligently resizing images to maintain the essential object. This is key innovation technology.

Removing or adding non-essential portions of an image to decrease or increase the size while maintaining the objects in the image keeps the informational value. This is a form of data compression. This technology will be crucial for hyper-customized video but it also has much bigger applications.

Being able to identify key portions of any data that provides useful information is essential to science and decision making. This focuses attention on the parts of high value and significance to the overall picture. This is exactly how the Predictive Innovation® works.

Quickly finding and storing the important information creates abundance. This why this technology is so important.

Robot Strawberry Picker, Abundance Report

January 25, 2011 · Posted in abundance, economics, innovation · Comment 


In the USA picking strawberries is hard low paid work for migrant, often illegal alien, workers. Japan’s robot strawberry picker comes from a different mindset.

Most post-industrialized nations complain about cheap foreign labor taking their jobs. Similarly people living in high income nations complain that automation is eliminating jobs, even jobs no one really wants to do. Standing in the hot sun bending over picking strawberries for 12 hours per day is not desirable work for any person.

Japan values their national cultural identity much more than other post-industrialized nations. Being a small island nation they are very concerned about depending on foreigners for materials. Japan understands and values self-sufficiency. Additionally, Japan is an aging society. The ratio of young people who are able to do manual labor is declining. If Japan is going to remain self-sufficient it must find ways to do more with less human labor.

Japan’s obsession with automation stems from their need to do more with less. Proper design and automation is how Japanese companies increase productivity and quality while reducing costs.

Even though Japan is a small nation it produces a great deal of food, particularly for local use. Rather than using the mass production approach of the nations with large amounts of land such as the USA, Canada, and Russia, Japan produces food in super efficient small scale farms. These types of farms are particularly well suited to automation. A small family owned farm using automation can produce much more food per acre and at much higher quality than the large scale industrial farming approach. Rather than viewing automation as stealing jobs, the Japanese are spreading real wealth by allowing more people to directly own and operate the means of production.

Japan is moving forward into Abundance both technologically and socially. Other nations and people could learn a lot from the Japanese.

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