I think this feature is amazing, it literally provides you cash back on a majority of purchases you make online with little hassle to the consumer. Microsoft is basically subsidizing your purchases to encourage use of their search engine.

In short, all one needs to do is create a Bing.com Cash Back account here. Then when planning to make a purchase online, make sure you navigate to the store you want to purchase from through a Bing.com search first. You will receive a refund for the purchase (I’ve seen up to 25%) which can be seen in your account online. The money is deposited directly into your bank account after 60 days (to protect against consumers returning items). For a more detailed explanation of how this all works, go here.

The amount of stores where the cash back program is eligible is pretty extensive; a complete list can be found here. It even works on eBay.com if you purchase an item with the BuyItNow feature! While some might argue that the additional cost of shipping negates the savings, I strongly disagree. With a little effort in searching for deals, store coupon codes, or using site-to-store shipping options, shipping costs can almost always be avoided – especially during the holiday shopping season. So if you are planning on making the purchases anyways, get yourself an extra discount… you can earn up to $2,500 back a year and you might as well get it if you were already planning on spending the money.

Food Inc., which I recommend everyone see’s – it received a 97% on RT, essentially blames the entire degradation of the food industry on a 50 year evolution to its now industrialized state – all to meet the demands of the worlds largest buyer: McDonald’s. Considering McDonald’s was a majority shareholder in Chipotle until the end of 2006, I found this level of digression in their relationship to ironic not to mention here.

Another scary fact that I took away from this film, which I might add I had no idea was an issue prior to seeing it, is the legal implications of genetically modified organisms (GMO’s). GMO’s are genetically engineered foods. Since the FDA doesn’t require that a food be labeled if it contains GMO’s, the presence of them in the food we eat has exploded. This explosion has come from the ability of large food corporations to push their product into the market through the power they have gained from patent rights on GMO’s. The presence of GMO’s in today’s food supply is so abundant that I can almost guarantee you eat some type of genetically engineered food everyday.

The power these companies now have is just astounding. The fact that this is all happening under the radar is equally shocking as well. Some of the examples provided in Food Inc. and another documentary (on Hulu for free that has a 84% on RT) called The Future of Food are unbelievable. These companies exercise an absurd amount of power by making examples out of innocent farmers to scare the rest of the industry into using their product (power gained from their ability to patent their GMO’s). Food Inc. compares their presence to the likes of the top companies in the Tobacco industry during their hay day.

Overall, Food Inc. and The Future of Food are two great documentaries that everyone should see. Regardless of if you change your eating habits because of them, everyone should still be in the “know” of the reckless nature of today’s food companies, poor oversight from our government, and the potential deadly conditions people are exposing themselves to by blindly eating anything.

Here is worth while movement to check out if the words here sparked your interest… Say No To GMO’s.

Today I want to share an idea that I cannot believe doesn’t exist through a practical application. “Green” has become big and I know it isn’t a trend. It’s simple, economics has brought awareness to a problem everyone knew existed but chose to deny. However, I don’t believe the critics who claim that once energy costs subside people will return to their previous behaviors of over consumption and wasteful habits. The issue is to mainstream now and is here to stay. Energy will only get more costly in the future as demand increases exponentially, making conservation and sustainability that much more important.

Now for the idea… The Magnet Car. In a former job I worked with the construction of generators. Specifically, the unit called an “exciter” which supplies electricity to a generator. Here is a simple physics lesson: If a magnetic field is in motion around a conductor, an electrical current is created. Here is an illustration and link:

An example of electromagnetic induction

This concept works in reverse as well: if you supply an electrical current through a conductor, a magnetic field can be created. This principal is a very, very rough explanation of how generators work. An electrical current is supplied making an enormous spinning electro-magnet (rotor) that is inside a huge conductor (stator) creating a very large amount of electricity. But how does the electricity get supplied to a rotor spinning at 3000 rpm or 3600 rpm in the first place? You can’t simply hook wires up to it, the answer is the exciter…

An exciter is basically a mini-generator. It creates electricity virtually out of thin air by use of permanent magnets. The permanent magnets are assembled on a diameter (PMG) that a stator (circular conductor) spins inside of, creating a small amount of electricity. This electricity is then delivered to the generator so a large amount of electricity can be created. This is a very crude and basic explanation of how the system works.

Now that you get the basics, the reality of a magnet powered vehicle comes from the PMG. The permanent magnets, whose charge can last for as much as 1,000 years, are stationary in the unit with a conductor spinning inside them.

Why not reverse this and have a PMG on a car with the drive shaft containing the magnets while the conductor (stator) is around it? A battery could maintain the electricity needed for low speed driving and turning on the car while the electricity created from the PMG could charge the battery. This is similar to current electric cars that need to be plugged in, except The Magnet Car wouldn’t require external charging… the magnets would provide the service. The current created would be AC, but this can easily be converted to the necessary DC current through diodes.

This is an idea that has been around for a while, specifically 1996 as this patent suggests. With the current mass attention to renewable energy, electric cars like the Chevy Volt, and an electric high performance car like the Tesla Roadster… why hasn’t the magnet powered car been given its fair shake? It is by far the most environmentally friendly option.

I used the site this morning and I really think Microsoft has made a step in the right direction. They learned a valuable lesson from Google: with the information overload the internet offers, simplicity is key. I believe that by just providing the bare essentials on the “bing” homepage, Microsoft will find a much higher degree of success than their former search engine attempt – Microsoft Live. Additional features like an image based background may prove to be quite interesting given the fact that Microsoft has proposed user submittal contests to determine the background image for particular days.

Former MIT Media Lab graphic designer and current president of RISD John Maeda is someone I admire and have followed for about a year. He is a clear advocate for the advantages the simplicity school of thought has to offer in all facets of life. He has written books and spoken at symposiums about how to simply your life, work, and designs to enjoy a happier life. This is an idea Google prescribed to long ago and it is obvious where it has taken them: the top (having about 60% of all internet search traffic and establishing their brand as a verb in everyday life).

Check out Maeda’s blog on simplicity, he doesn’t maintain it as actively after joining RISD but it still has some very interesting information.

http://lawsofsimplicity.com/

Microsoft may have risen to success by developing innovative software but they are clearly in a mature stage of their business cycle. While it’s inevitable that the name “Microsoft” will have a negative stigma no matter what (thanks to years of creative advertising by Apple), I think they have finally seen the light. Bing has not been an attempt to reinvent the search engine wheel but rather uses proven aesthetics in combination with an enhanced search algorithm to offer a competitive product.

http://www.target.com/Livescribe-Pulse-1GB-Smartpen/dp/B001AAOZHI/sr=1-12/qid=1243529343/ref=sr_1_12/188-5113196-9535242?ie=UTF8&frombrowse=0&index=target&field-browse=1038598&rh=k%3Apen&page=1

The functionality and ease of use of this piece of technology is what shocked me the most. One simply writes down whatever they want and all sounds are recorded. The amazing part is, to replay the sounds you just touch the pen on any word and the sounds from that point in time are played. The supplied “dot” paper – paper with unique patterns of finely meshed (very unnoticeable) dots – serve as the digital timestamp for the pen to recognize when in play-back mode. This “dot” paper can be purchased in pad format for not much more than ordinary paper or printed out for free!

My immediate reaction to seeing this technology was regret; regret I did not possess something like this while in college! For a student taking notes for six years of college, it is very tough to organize all of your work for later reference amongst yearly moves and constant life changes. However, with this pen, a student can just dock it their computer after class and load all their notes in jpeg format onto their computer. Don’t forget that they can hear exactly what the teacher was saying when each word was written as well. Dismissing all catastrophic computer crashes, I can’t think of an easier way to archive all the expensive knowledge transmitted during class hours. I believe this the next best gift to a digital camera, if not better, for any new college student.

I am speaking from an engineering perspective where notes often include drawings and are not structured like other disciplines where typing notes is much simpler. However, disregarding the obvious health benefits to hand writing (http://drbenkim.com/nervous-system-healthy.html), I think there is a clear advantage to handwritten notes for the purpose of knowledge retention; which makes this pen a necessity for everyone. So regardless of who you are, check this amazing invention out. The applications for the Livescribe Pulse pen go far beyond college students (therapists also immediately come to mind).

It’s a shame the marketing efforts for this product have been non-existent. In an age when colleges are giving all incoming students iPhones to integrate with classes (http://www.acu.edu/news/2008/080225_iphone.html) the enormous academic market only serves as a small example for the immense potential of this invention.

From what I have read and learned, the reckless loans during the housing boom and subsequent collapse of the housing market were not the cause for the current economic state. Rather, the poor regulation of derivatives and push for an increasingly more free market for the 10-15 years preceding the housing bubble was the cause.  Multiple times throughout the 90’s calls for regulation were discouraged by influential people in Washington, among them Alan Greenspan. A couple examples:

1. 1994 report identifying derivative market as having “significant gaps and weaknesses” also forecasting the exact doom that has occurred

• In his testimony at the time, Mr. Greenspan was reassuring. “Risks in financial markets, including derivatives markets, are being regulated by private parties,” he said. “There is nothing involved in federal regulation per se which makes it superior to market regulation.”
• Bill created later that year to provide more regulation to derivative market never passed

2. 1997, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission investigated derivates and called for disclosures of trades and reserves

• Greenspan fiercely opposed and told regulators head Brooksley E. Born didn’t know what she was doing and could incite a financial crisis
• Quarreling went on and in November 1999, senior regulators — including Mr. Greenspan— recommended that Congress permanently strip the C.F.T.C. of regulatory authority over derivatives.

There is no doubt in my mind that Greenspan’s well respected opinions had a huge effect on regulator’s decisions. The outcome of this pure capitalism belief was a derivatives market that blossomed from $106 trillion in 02’ to $531 trillion in 08’ (or 07’). Further, the decreased regulation in the 00’s allowed for CDO’s and CDS’s to be the fuel for the systemic risk fire that put the world in a recession.

I want to make it clear that I am not an advocate for heavy regulation but I do believe a completely free capitalist market is a utopian idea that is not realistic. Human nature is to be greedy and the events of the past two years are perfect evidence that the presence of oversight is a necessity. Specifically in markets that can link so many industries and economies together (the definition of systemic risk), like the derivatives market.

I truly believe the housing market bubble would have been an isolated incident, respective to that industry, and would have had a much less dramatic effect on the overall economy if the proper regulation had been in place. Nevertheless, this regulation will be sure to come out of the current mess but I’m not so confident the underlying lesson will be learned. These situations need to be prevented rather than fixed. Assuming this recession ends and economic growth resumes, time will heal all wounds and the severity of what happened in the past two years will be dulled in memories. I fear the feeling of need and desire for oversight now will fade resulting in future financial creations, currently nonexistent, exposing all to the poor decisions and risks of a respective few again.

Realistically, the current financial crisis is a product of many, many things. However, my opinion is that outcomes of a belief in pure capitalism were the driving force to what has resulted today.

It’s only appropriate to begin with my background so that some frame of reference can be provided for my opinions. My education consists of a BSME and MBA and I have been working for about 2 years in the design of power generation equipment. My interests are in living healthy, outdoor activities, finance, and anything tech related – to start. I have had a unique post high school life, living in Philadelphia (twice), Gainesville, and Orlando – all while in undergrad. After that, I have been in Charlotte and Orlando, and soon to be Austin. I obviously enjoy change and I am grateful to have had the option available to me to be so fluid in my education and limited working experiences. That’s enough for now…