Patents on the soles of your shoes...: January 2013

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Diamonds on the soles of her shoes.... P. Simon

Dear Students, Since you are all no doubt in the midst of your first patent translation all about soles.... I thought of this beautiful song from Paul Simon's album Graceland to cheer you on!

Friday, January 25, 2013

Anyone read the February 2013 issue of Wired Magazine? Google, Inc. CEO, Larry Page was interviewed for this issue. Embedded in this interview there are 7 small sidebar articles presenting 7 projects dubbed: "7 massive ideas that could change the world", and perhaps, one may suspect as powered by Google Inc's "moonshot" mentality.

For our own purposes, perhaps that a paraphrase, depending on your bent, could run: "7 eminently (or opportunistically) patentable ideas". In any event, consider idea Number 4 (my favorite): Turn deserts into power plants, that is transforming places such as the Sahara into near-infinite sources of clean energy! Here are the numbers: "In six daylight hours, the Earth's deserts soak up more energy than humanity uses in a year".... Now, imagine hooking up southern California deserts to PGE with solar and wind Desertec.... Would it be a new idea, demonstrating inventive steps?

There are 6 more of these really cool, and seriously existing ideas... (under consideration by Consortiums of concentrated grey and political mattter). What is your favorite?

Curry, A (Feb. 2013) Big Idea 4 turn deserts into power plants. In Wired, Feb. 2013, p. 073.

Levy, S. (Feb. 2013) Interview with Google CEO, Larry Page. In Wired, Feb. 2013, pp. 066-074

Thursday, January 24, 2013

Can we find a mutually convenient synchronous meeting time?

When it is 7:54 am in Hawaii, it is 1:22 pm in Caracas, 5:52 pm in London, 9:52 pm in Dubai and 1:52 am the next day in Indonesia.... With such differences across time zones, can we find a mutually convenient time for synchronous classroom meetings? This is going to be the first test of our collaborative potential! What are your suggestions, and how complicated is our situation?