Fresh Takes on Innovation

We are opening an Idea Shop in Germany! As of November 23rd you will find us in Frankfurt, in the lively part of Bockenheim at Leipziger Strasse 37, in a weird and wonderful courtyard location.

For the opening day on Friday we will be producing ideas with the citizens of Frankfurt for the city of Frankfurt on various squares & underground stations throughout the day. We shall tackle the challenging question “How will the Konstablerwache renew its charm?” – I don’t know if you know the square – it’s rather in need of a revamp and we’ll have some real work to do there.
In the evening, we will select the top ideas and will celebrate our first branch office in Germany in true Swiss style: our fondue experts will give Frankfurters a “cook your own fondue” crash course – we have sufficient backup supplies of Swiss cheese and wine to keep us going through the night!

Look out for news from BrainStore Germany!

So this is the second list of 2007 innovations. The Popular Science magazine titles it best of what’s new. Their innovation of the year is a nanosolar powersheet, letting you bake your toast with solar energy from the rooftop. The other categories feature a sunscreen-soap (personal health), a beautiful tower to be built in Chicago by architect Santiago Calatrava (engineering) and a stylish flat phone with a fatfingered screen (gadgets). Forgot it’s name, sorry.

It’s only November, but TIME and CNN are already featuring the best innovations of the year 2007. The winner is: the iPhone. Take a look at the 14 categories and find some cool new devices, vehicles and technologies.

We’ll keep you updated, when other media publish their best-of-lists. We’ll ignore rip-offs, though.

The effect of brain games is not as clear as one might think. Canadian tech site Digital Home recently questioned if they really work, stating that there is more “anecdotal evidence” than scientific proof, up to now.

Providers of brain fitness software like Luminosity or Nintendo with their bestselling ‘Brain Age’ game, insist on the effect of their “scientifically designed” products.

I played Brain Age myself and found it pretty entertaining and motivating. Still I think, that brain fitness is mainly about using your grey matter in every day life. Try not to use a calculator every time bigger figures come your way. Don’t write everything down, memorize dates, names and figures that surround you. Keep your body in shape, then your brain will be fit, too. Eat healthy, get enough sleep and socialize.

Need more tips? There are tons of brain improvement lists on the net: Try e.g. these 70 tips or these 22 ways to overclock your brain.

We are thinking about equipping our female IdeaDirectors with this beautiful BrainBag by Jun Takashi. But then again it would be too small for a laptop. Hmm…

Found on BoingBoing

Everybody knows: Training your brain will help you staying flexible and creative for a lifetime! On this gamesforthebrain.com you will find a variety of games that will help you stimulate your brain in no time!

For example:

Drag

Mahjongg Solitaire

Find Alice’s mistakes

Try it out and make those neurons grow!