Network Archives

Detroit’s Amazing Pop-Up Anarchy

"Detroit pop-ups are not your conventional, temporary businesses such as those unsightly suburban fireworks stores, or the usual Christmas or Halloween retailers. Instead, the city has attracted art galleries, food and beverage cafes, coffee shops, clothing boutiques, tea houses, vegan restaurants, yoga workshops, antique stores, bike stores, and mercantile-type retailers. Pop-ups are a temporary arrangement, often with a defined start and end time for business operations. Detroit is the perfect place for these temporary pop-up businesses." Continue reading →

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Shares in Incorporated Co-op Cities Might Be the Next Big Thing

"Those who own property in a city—houses and businesses, say—probably come the closest to qualifying as its shareholders, but they do not own undivided interests in the city as a whole. Perhaps then we should not be surprised that, like unowned property everywhere, many cities suffer looting, abuse, and neglect. How can we improve this state of affairs? Here, as elsewhere, the public sector can learn from the private sector about how to tap the power of shared equity. Two lessons, in particular, bear our attention: Workplaces resemble cities and worker-owned businesses thrive." Continue reading →

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Fordlandia: Henry Ford’s Amazon Dystopia

"In 1927, the American industrialist Henry Ford began building a private city—Fordlandia—in the depths of the Brazilian Amazon forest. His company had won title to nearly 2.5 million acres of land—over 3,800 square miles—for a planned rubber plantation and company town. Ford spent over $20 million (about $300 million in today’s dollars) putting in roads, water and power systems, rail lines, factories, offices, medical facilities, homes, schools, and stores. Thousands of workers and their families flocked to Fordlandia. Soon, however, waves of rioting, looting, and burning roiled the city. Ford abandoned his namesake in 1945, leaving it to rot in the jungle." Continue reading →

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Brewer says his just-add-water beer mix tastes ‘just as good’ as the original

"Enjoying the great outdoors has spawned an entire market catering for campers who want to enjoy a hearty meal without overloading their rucksack. Camping shops now sell a whole range of dried, lightweight foods - from all day breakfasts to chicken tikka masalas. But now a new - and some might say revolutionary - addition to their food shelf has been added: Dried beer. A U.S. brewer has managed to create a concentrate that simply requires water being added and carbonated shortly before it is drunk. Pat's Backcountry Beverages has managed to create a near waterless formulation that claims to offer all the taste, aroma and alcohol of the traditional beverage." Continue reading →

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Virgin Galactic “gearing up” for second powered SpaceShipTwo flight

"After a hiatus of more than three and a half months that has raised questions by some industry observers, Virgin Galactic is making preparations for a second powered test flight of its SpaceShipTwo suborbital vehicle, the company’s CEO said Friday. He said the company had now signed up about 625 people for suborbital flights, accounting for $125 million in business. That works out to $200,000 per customer, but Whitesides did note that Virgin Galactic had raised its ticket price to $250,000. Those customers come from 54 countries, and range from 'teenagers to 88 years old,' he said. 'We think we can make a really good business out of that.'" Continue reading →

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Grasshopper reusable rocket demonstrates its lateral moves

"While everyone chats about Elon Musk’s 'hyperloop' concept, one of his companies, SpaceX, has been showing off some actual hardware. On Tuesday, SpaceX flew Grasshopper to an altitude of 250 meters, this time including a 100 meter lateral maneuver in the process, before returning the reusable launch vehicle demonstrator back to the center of the pad. 'The test demonstrated the vehicle’s ability to perform more aggressive steering maneuvers than have been attempted in previous flights,' the company said in an emailed statement. 'Grasshopper is taller than a ten story building, which makes the control problem particularly challenging.'" Continue reading →

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Two Weeks Left to Apply for Mars Crew

"The prospect of joining the first team to colonize Mars has proven to be so wildly alluring that more than 100,000 people have applied for a spot – despite the fact they’ll only get a one-way ticket. The Dutch company Mars One plans to launch to the Red Planet in 2022. It’s taking applications through August 31 and will winnow those down to a group of 40, from which the final four will be selected. Applicants must pay $38, submit a resume, a letter outlining their motivation for applying and a video. It’s not clear what, if any, amenities the crew members will get, but PayPal should have its payment system for outer space up and running by then." Continue reading →

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The Long Tail, Revisited

"In 1988, a British mountain climber named Joe Simpson wrote a book called Touching the Void, a harrowing account of near death in the Peruvian Andes. It got good reviews but, only a modest success, it was soon forgotten. Then, a decade later, Touching the Void started to sell again. Random House rushed out a new edition to keep up with demand. Booksellers began to promote it next to their Into Thin Air displays. A revised paperback edition, which came out in January [2004], spent 14 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. IFC Films released a docudrama of the story to critical acclaim. What happened? In short, Amazon.com recommendations." Continue reading →

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Chris Anderson: New Revolution “Bigger Than The Web”

"Chris Anderson is CEO of 3DRobotics and author of 'Makers: The New Industrial Revolution.' He was also a keynote speaker at our 2013 Investment Symposium in Vancouver last month. For the last several years, Anderson has played the dual role of entrepreneur and evangelist for the burgeoning 'maker’s movement.' You can watch him discuss his theories about the new industrial revolution afoot in the movement with Tom Standage of The Economist. Anderson noted the maker movement might have profound implications for human innovation—it might even be 'bigger than the web.'" Continue reading →

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These 12 technologies will drive our economic future

"Most of the writing you see about the economy speaks to narrow questions: What will growth be this year? When will the unemployment rate get back to normal? And so on. But the things that will determine standards of living a generation from now have almost nothing to do with this month’s jobs report or the Federal Reserve’s latest policy meeting. Those determinants, instead, depend on companies’ innovations — in particular, whether those innovations turn out to have major economic consequences. Researchers at the McKinsey Global Institute have a new study in which they have taken their best shot at predicting exactly that." Continue reading →

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