EDITORS NOTE

CREATE THE FUTURE

THE IDEA VS. EXECUTION DEBATE: WHY
IDEAS ARE EVERYTHING
By AMY COSPER
the human brain imagines, but the ideas
that will take your company in a new di-
rection: product lines, marketing—what-
ever. New ideas are what make the world
of business much more than business.
They keep things dynamic, fluid and
interesting. They make for great stories.
They create legacies and lay the founda-
sibly, one of the earliest entrepreneurs).
He never stopped thinking, exploring
and challenging conventional wisdom. At
the time, some of his work was consid-
ered perverse and unnatural, but he kept
conceiving, and he kept documenting his
ideas. He broke down barriers.
Your new ideas and new approaches

I recently heard
the following
spoken with authority; “Ideas, my dear,
are a dime a dozen. Execution is not.
Execution is the thing—it is rare and it is
revered. The idea is not. There are many
ideas and far fewer successful execu-
tions.”  first great experimenters (and, quite pos-
So sayeth the wise and bloviating, some
would call seasoned CEO, speaking in a
tion for the next generation.
The Renaissance is flush with such les-
sons. Leonardo da Vinci was an inventor,
a writer, a mathematician, an architect, a
painter, a sculptor—the list goes on and
on. He was persecuted for his new ways
of thinking and seeing. He was one of the
are what make you part of a new cultural
and economic renaissance. That’s why
we are entusiastic to give you our Ideas
on Ideas. We hope it inspires you to be
more creative and allow you adopt the
systems and methods of thinking that
will create the future.

Photo credit: shutterstock

half-baked English accent one morning
over salty eggs and exceedingly strong
conference coffee. 
First things first: Do not call me “dear”
or “kiddo” or anything other than my
name—especially over salty eggs. It
makes me cranky.
And yet, this man annoyed me more with
his perceptions about ideas. Those kept
me up longer than the shitty coffee. Ideas
vs. execution. Is that really a debate?
We’ve always believed new ways of think-
ing will change the world. What is this
thought that ideas are trite? What about
disruptive thinking, new ways of seeing?
We hold these ideals dear.
This brief conversation had its roots
firmly anchored in the topic of M&A—
when to sell, when to buy and who the
management team should be. Beyond the
obvious talk of the role of lawyers and
brokers, the discussion rubbed me the
wrong way. The thinking that new ideas
Photo credit: shutterstock

are simply distractions that cost money

and can possibly be setbacks gave me
a stomach ache. And it did so because I
disagree. I would submit: New ideas are
not only important, they are golden.
Around our tiny entrepreneurial
bullpen, we celebrate ideas. We embrace
them. Not only the ideas for new busi-
nesses and startups and the wacky ways

1 http://www.inventmagazine.online
 CONTENTS
FEATURES
Are Outdated Rules
19 Killing Innovation in Your
Company?

How The Internet Is

6 Altering Your Mind

17 THE DARK WEB

1 EDITORS NOTE

12 21
WAYS TO
STAY CREATIVE
Column

2 http://www.inventmagazine.online
 CONTENTS
DEPARTMENTS
18
MPACT
20 EW GIZMOS
& GADGETS

9
ISION
EXPLORATION &
11


EMMERGANCE OF
IDEAS

14 EW INENTIONS

16
ECHNOLOGY
REVIEW

http://www.inventmagazine.online 3
 COVER STORY

-Image credit

4 http://www.inventmagazine.online
 HOW
THE
INTERNET
IS
ALTERING

YOUR
MIND
t: Getty Images

http://www.inventmagazine.online 5
 COVER STORY
How The Internet Is Altering Your Mind
A NEW BOOK CLAIMS THE AMOUNT OF TIME WE SPEND
ON THE INTERNET IS CHANGING THE VERY STRUCTURE OF
OUR BRAINS –DAMAGING OUR ABILITY TO THINK AND LEARN.
By JOHN HARRIS hat you are about to read was
W
revelatory – but at the lower end of the
written using a computer con-
Guardian Imaging
Photograph: Jonas Forman for
nected to the Internet. Obviously, this
had no end of benefits, mostly pertain-
ing to the relative ease of my research
and the simplicity of contacting the peo-
ple whose thoughts and opinions you are
Photo credit: nicholascarr.com
about to read. Modern communications
technology is now so familiar as to seem
utterly banal, but set against my clear
memories of a time before it arrived,
there is still something magical about,
say, optimistically sending an email to a
scientist in southern California, and then
talking to him within an hour.
But then there is the downside. The
tool I use to write not only serves as my
word processor and digital postbox, but
can also double as – among other things
– a radio, TV, news-wire portal and shop.
Thus, as I put together the following
2,000-ish words, I was entertained in
my more idle moments by no end of dis-
tractions. I watched YouTube videos of
Manic Street Preachers, Yoko Ono, and
the Labor leadership
The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing candidates. Via Amazon, I bought a
to Our Brains By Nicholas Carr teach-yourself-to-spell DVD-Rom for my
Hardcover, 276 pages W.W. Norton & Co.
son, which turned out to be rubbish. And
at downright stupid hours of the day –
Photo credit:Joanie Simon
6am, or almost midnight – I once again
checked my email on either my phone
or computer. Naturally, my inbox was
usually either exactly how I had left it,
or newly joined by something that could
easily have waited – though for some
reason, this never seems to register.
Obviously, I am not alone in this
affliction. Yesterday, scores of headlines
focused on a new report by the media
regulator Ofcom, which found that
Britons spend more than seven hours a
day watching TV, going online, sending
texts and reading newspapers, and that
Nicholas Carr is also the author of
web-capable smartphones are now a
The Big Switch: Rewiring the World,
from Edison to Google and Does IT Matter? fixed part of millions of people’s lives.
He blogs at Rough Type. Superficially, all this hardly seemed
6 http://www.inventmagazine.online
age range lurked evidence of the world to
come. Among 16-to-24-year-olds, televi-
sion was not nearly as dominant: half
their “media time” was devoted to mobile
phones and computers – and in turn,
two-thirds of that time was spent doing
two digital things at once. The younger
you are, it seems, the more your media
consumption finds you multitasking; I’m
a relatively ancient 40, but my habits are
increasingly similar.
“our online
habits are
altering the very
structure of our
brains.”
It often feels as if all this frantic activity
creates a constant state of twitchy anxie-
ty, as any addiction usually does. Moreo-
ver, having read a freshly published and
hotly controversial book about the effect
of digital media on the human mind, I
may have very good reason to feel scared.
Its thesis is simple enough: not only that
the modern world’s relentless informa-
tional overload is killing our capacity
for reflection, the very structure of our
brains.
The Shallows is a 276-page book by
American writer Nicholas Carr, just
published in the US, about to appear in
the UK, and already the focus of a noisy
debate. Two years ago, Carr wrote an
essay for the Atlantic magazine entitled
“Is Google making us stupid?” This is the
full-length version: an elegantly written
cry of anguish about what one admirer
calls “the uneducating of Homo sapiens”,
and a rewiring of neural pathways and
networks that may yet deprive the human
race of the talents that – ironically enough

Photo credit: shutterstock
– drove our journey from caves to PC
terminals.
In the book, Carr looks back on such
human inventions as the map, the clock
and the typewriter, and how much
they influenced our essential modes
of thought (among the people whose
writing was changed by the latter were
Friedrich Nietszche and TS Eliot). By the
same token, he argues that the Internet’s
“cacophony of stimuli” and “crazy quilt”
of information has given rise to “cursory
reading hurried and distracted thinking,
and superficial learning” – in contrast
to the age of the book, when intelligent
humans were encouraged to be contem-
plative and imaginative.
But here is the really important thing.
Carr claims that our burgeoning under-
standing of how experience rewires our
brain’s circuits throughout our lives – a
matter of what’s known as “neuro- plas-
ticity” – seems to point in one very wor-
rying direction. Among the most hair-
raising passages in the book is this one:
“If, knowing what we know today about
the brain’s plasticity, you were to set out
to invent a medium that would rewire
our mental circuits as quickly and thor-
oughly as possible, you would probably
end up designing something that looks
and works a lot like the internet.”
Surprisingly little research has looked
into the internet’s effects on the brain,
but the work that forms Carr’s holy
grail was carried out in 2008, by a trio
of psychiatrists at UCLA led by Dr Gary
Small, himself the co-author of a book
titled iBrain: surviving the technological
alteration of the modern mind. Under
their supervision, 12 experienced web
users and 12 digital newcomers used
Google, while their brains were scanned.
The results, published under the title
Your Brain On Google, pointed up a
key initial difference between the two
groups: in an area of the brain called the
dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, which
deals with short-term memory and deci-
sion-making, the rookies showed hardly
any activity, whereas the web veterans
were really firing.
Six days later, the novices having been
told to spend an hour a day online, the
two groups’ brains were scanned again –
and this time, things got even more inter-
esting: in images of both sets of brains,
the pattern of blobs representing mental
activity was virtually identical. As Small
put it: “After just five days of practice, the
exact same neural circuitry in the front
part of the brain became active in the
internet-naive subjects. Five hours on
the internet, and the naive subjects had
already rewired their brains.”
Small is the director of the Memory and
Ageing Research Centre at the University
of California, Los Angeles, a specialist
in the effects on the brain of the ageing
process, and the co-inventor of the first
brain-scanning technology to detect the
physical evidence of Alzheimer’s disease.
“Even an old brain can be quite mallea-
ble, and responsive to what’s going on
with technology,” he tells me.
He goes on: “It’s a basic principle that
the brain is very sensitive to any kind of
stimulation, and from moment to mo-
ment, there is a very complex cascade of
neurochemical electrical consequences
to every form of stimulation. If you have
repeated stimuli, your neural circuits will
be excited. But if you neglect other stim-
uli, other neural circuits will be weak-
ened.” This is the nub of Carr’s argument:
that the online world so taxes the parts
of the brain that deal with fleeting and
temporary stuff that deep thinking
becomes increasingly impossible. As he
sees it: “Our ability to learn suffers, and
our understanding remains shallow.”
Small is only too aware of what too
much time spent online can do to other
mental processes. Among the young
people he calls digital natives (a term
first coined by the US writer and educa-
tionalist Marc Prensky), he has repeat-
edly seen a lack of human contact skills
http://www.inventmagazine.online
Boeing is the latest example – on how they
might get to grips with the effects of online
saturation on their younger employees, and
reacquaint them with the offline world.
When I ask him how I might stop the
internet’s more malign effects on my own
brain, he sounds slightly more optimistic
than Carr: we have the capacity to pull
ourselves back from the mental brink –
though only if we know what’s at stake.
“The brain can right itself if we’re aware of
these issues,” he says. “But we have to make
decisions as to what we can do about it. Try
to balance online time with offline time,” he
tells me. “What’s happening is, we’re losing
the circadian rhythms we’re used to; you go
to work, you come home, you spend time
talking with your kids.”
What about the idea of calming down
when you’re online? I’m actually pretty
good at offline time, but as soon as I’m
back at my desk, it’s all YouTube and
compulsive email checking, and it’s rather
doing my head in. “It’s hard,” he says.
“There’s a pull. The Internet lures us. Our
brains become addicted to it. And we have
to be aware of that, and not let it control
us.”
Among the people with walk-on roles in
The Shallows is Scott Karp, the editor of
a renowned American digital media blog
called Publish2, whose reading habits are
held up as proof of the fact that plenty
of people’s brains have long since been
rewired by their enthusiastic use of the
internet.
“the way I THINK
has changed”
Despite a degree from New York Univer
sity in English and Spanish literature, Carr
claims that Karp has given up reading
books altogether, perhaps because of
Carr claims that Karp has given up reading
books altogether, perhaps because of what
a working life spent online seems to have
done to his mental makeup. One of Karp’s
online posts is quoted as follows: “I was
a lit major in college, and used to be a
voracious book reader. What happened?
7
 COVER STORY
What if I do all my reading on the web
not so much because the way I read has
changed . . . but because the way I THINK
has changed?”
As it turns out, Karp has only stopped
reading non-fiction. Contrary to Carr’s
thesis, he says he still has no problem
reading novels, and thinks his long-term
memory is in as good shape as ever.
What he attests to, though, is a radical
shift in the way he consumes informa-
tion, which may or may not have caused
his mental circuits to change.
This, he tells me, is all down to his
appetite for connecting multiple bits –
and, it seems, only bits – of information,
rather than digesting big chunks of
stuff from single sources, one at a time.
“I thrive on that connectedness of
information,” he says, “so now, I maybe
read a given author’s argument in much
briefer form than a 10,000 word article
or a book – and then jump to another
author’s argument, and follow that train
of thought. And sometimes I find that I
make leaps in thinking by reading things
from different perspectives, and going
from lily pad to lily pad.”
He assures me he understands any
argument’s strengths and weaknesses
before flitting to the next one, but I’m
not so sure. Aren’t there thousands
of books that have to be read in their
entirety before we can really get our
head round the author’s point of view?
The last thumping great book I read
was the biography of Barack Obama by
David Remnick, the editor of the New
Yorker – and the idea of boiling it down
to a skimmable extract seems almost
offensive. The same applies to, say, any
number of books by Marx and Engels,
or even (possibly) Ozzy Osbourne’s
autobiography.
“Absolutely,” he says, rather guiltily. “I
completely agree with that. And I’m sure
that I have come up shallow, if you use
Nicholas Carr’s argument. But I’ve only
got a finite amount of time.”
Whatever, Karp is not fazed by the
idea that heavy internet use might be
reshaping his brain. “Everything changes
our brain,” he says. “Everything. That’s
8 http://www.inventmagazine.online
Photo credit: http://andrewburn.org/
teammates are doing, to the mechanics of
the game. You can set up a thesis for The
Depths, just as much as The Shallows."
And what of all these worries about
the transformation of the human brain?
"Temporary synaptic rewiring happens
whenever anybody learns anything," he
says. "I'm learning a musical instrument
Professor Andrew Burn at the moment, and I can feel my
synapses rewiring themselves, but
I get a more convincing antidote to the it's just a biological mechanism. And
Carr thesis from Professor Andrew Burn it seems to me that to say that some
of the University of London's Institute of neural pathways are good and some are
Education, who has long specialized in the bad – well, how can you possibly say
way that children and young people use that? It could be a good thing: people are
what far too many people still call "new becoming adaptive, and more supple in
media", and its effects on their minds. their search for information." Carr, he
Equating the Internet with distraction and reckons, is guilty of a "slippage into an
shallowness, he tells me, is a fundamental almost evolutionary argument", and he's
mistake, possibly bound up with Carr's age not having it at all.
(he is 50). "He's restricting what he says to He's also not impressed by the way
the type of activities that the middle-aged Carr contrasts the allegedly snowballing
blogosphere-addict typically engages in," stupidity of the internet age with the
says Professor Burn. "Is there anything in altogether more cerebral phase of
his book about online role-playing games?" human progress when we all read
books. "What if the book is Mein Kampf?
“to say that What if it's Jeffrey Archer? Or Barbara
Cartland? Am I not better off playing a
some neural well-constructed online game, or reading
pathways are Aristotle's poetics online? I really don't
see why books should particularly
good and some promote worthwhile thought, unless
they're worthwhile books. And the same
are bad – well, applies to what's on the Internet."
how can you This all sounds both comforting
and convincing, until I return to The
possibly say Shallows, and a particularly sobering
that?” sentence on page 222 (contrary to
Carr's darker predictions, I easily made
it to the end). "We are welcoming the
Not much, I tell him, and he's off. frenziedness into our souls," he writes.
"Carr's argument privileges activities of There's something chilling about those
the skimming and browsing kind. But if words, and even 20 stupid minutes
you look at research on kids doing online on YouTube and an impulse buy from
gaming, or exploring virtual worlds Amazon cannot quite remove them from
such as Second Life, the argument there my brain.
is about immersion and engagement –
and it's even about excessive forms of
immersion and engagement that get
labeled as addiction. The point is, to play
successfully in an online role-playing
game; you have to pay an incredible
amount of attention to what your
 VISION

THE VISION AND

THE VISIONARY
THE CREATIVE PROCESS
By Steven J. Paley

H ow do you get the vision? Where

does it come from? This is a complex
subject, but in brief, vision can come from
anywhere at anytime.
Below are four examples of vision:
• Seeing a problem that has not prviously
been recognized or acknowledged. An
example of such a problem is the length
of time between sending a package and
its delivery to the recipent. The logistics
of the mail processing system dictated
in the mountains with his dog one day
in the late 1940s. There was nothing
unusual in this, except that when de
Mestral returned, he noticed that his
pants and the fur of his dog were covered
wit cockleburs, the spiky seed-pods that
cling to whatever moves past them so
the seeds of the plant will be spread. De
Mestral started removing the burrs and
It takes an inventor's mind-a mind open
to seeing in a new light that which is right
in front of us-to say, "Hey, this would make
a great fastener." Once that novelty is
recognized, the vision is in place. Now the
question becomes "How do I get from here
to there?" It took George de Mestral years
of hard work and persistence to make
his vision a reality. But he held fast to his
vision, even in the face of ridicule and
temporary failure. De Mestral collaborat-

Velcro Hook and Loop Fastener.

that the transit time was typically close
to a week. Federal Express pioneered the
idea that a package could be delivered
the next day.
• Seeing a solution and discovering the
problem it solves. The invention of chew-
ing gum described in the previous chap-
ter is an example of having a solution and
then finding the problem.
• Seeing a new use for existing technology.
Examples of this include the idea that
electricity, when it was first harnessed,
could be used for communication (as
developed by Samuel Morse and others);
that radar could be transformed into a
cooking device (microwave oven); and
that the integrated circuit could be used
to make a handheld calculator.
• Seeing a novel solution to an existing
problem. Here the vision or insight is
seeing a better way to do something that
is already being done. Fasteners such as
the paper clip and Velcro are examples of
this approach.
Note that every example above starts course, his experiments paid off, and in
with the word seeing. Once you can see
the idea clearly in your mind, you have a
place to begin. Invention often involves
what I call seeing the hidden obvious. We
all wish we were the inventor of Velcro,
but it took George de Mestral going for
a walk in the woods to see the hidden
obvious. De Mestral, a Swiss mountaineer
and electrical engineer, went for a hike
ed with a weaver employed by a French
textile tile manufacturer to refine his
invention. Eventually, he found that treat-
ment with infrared light strengthened the
Photo by Ivan Boden.
nylon hooks to the desired degree to form
the burr side of the fastener, enabled him
to create a multimillion-dollarindustry.
out of curiosity, decided to look at one of
them under his microscope. He saw the
surface of the burr was covered with tiny
hooks which easily fastened to the fur of
an animal or the clothing of a hiker. He
wondered if he could somehow use this
mechanism of attachment to design a
new kind of fastener. He began to work
on his idea by experimenting with
different materials, one with a hooked
side and the other with a loosely woven
cloth side to receive the hooks. In due
collaboration with a textile tile manufac-
turer, he eventually produced a revo- The Art of Invention: The Creative
lutionary new temporary fastener. He Process of Discovery and Design
called the product Velcro, a combination Steven J. Paley. Amherst, NY:
of the words velour and crochet. Prometheus Books, 2010. 236 pages.
How many times have you walked
through thewoods and had burrs from
plants stuck on your clothing? Most of us
would simply consider it an annoyance.

http://www.inventmagazine.online 9
 The world’s first wristwatch with a dual frequency
locator beacon

Breitling has reaffirmed its pioneering role in the

field of technical watches and instruments for
professionals by creating the very first wristwatch
with a built-in personal locator beacon (PLB). The
Emergency is a high-tech gem equipped with a
dual frequency transmitter compliant with the spec-
ifications of the Cospas-Sarsat international satel-
lite alert system and serving both to issue alerts and
to guide search and rescue missions.

Developed in conjunction with major scientif-

ic institutes, the Emergency is distinguished by
numerous microelectronic and microtechnical
innovations, including a revolutionary rechargeable
battery, a miniaturized dual frequency transmitter
and an unprecedented integrated antenna system –
three features specifically developed for this model.

As the first ever wristworn dual frequency PLB, it

establishes itself as a safety and survival instrument
in all distress situations on land, at sea and in the
air.

10 http://www.inventmagazine.online
 EXPLORATION & EMMERGANCE OF IDEAS

Needfinding
& Paradigms
FINDING UNMET NEEDS BY DISCARDING OLD
PARADIGMS AND SEEING NEW PARADIGMS
By Steven J. Paley

T hese needs are often not apparent

until they are discovered. Entrepre-
neurship usually involves discovering an
unfulfilled need and building a business
around the solution. Needfinding is a
subtle art and certainly not a science.
It requires that we remove our mental
filters and see our everyday world in a
completely fresh light. The most difficult
part of needfinding is discarding our
existing paradigms. Paradigms are
mental models of the way things are.
In his book The Structure of Scientific
Revolutions, Thomas Kuhn argued that
when information becomes available
that does not fit within the paradigm,
digm, a scientific revolution occurs
and the paradigm is forced to change.
Kuhn calls these revolutions “paradigm
shifts.” Paradigm shifts are generally
vigorously resisted until they are proved
valid beyond a shadow of a doubt. When
personal computers were first devel-
oped, the existing paradigm digm was
that there could be no real use for a small
computer in the home. Computers were
designed for industry or research. There
were mainframes and mini-computers,
and all processing was centralized. The
idea of small, personal computers was
far outside the paradigm. Again, it was
difficult at the time for people whose
worldview of computers was with-
in the existing paradigm to imagine
Photo credit: Getty Images
project he was working on. It was called
the Xerox STAR system-a small comput-
er with a revolutionary new interface.
Instead of programming this computer
in some arcane and technical comput-
er language through a text editor, one
interacted acted with the machine in a
much more human and intuitive way. The
software ware displayed images, called
icons, of office paraphernalia such as
file cabinets, inets, files, and documents.
Imitating real life, documents could be
dragged in and out of files. This was
accomplished by a small device that sat
beside the computer and maneuvered a
cursor around the screen. The professor
called this device a mouse. (It looked a
little like a mouse with its tail-like con-
necting wire.) The professor extolled the
virtues of the STAR machine, saying that
it would bring computing to the average
person. At the time, I was a full-fledged
computer geek who programmed in
everything from hexadecimal to FORTH.
I could not imagine why anyone
would want a machine that took the
challenge out of computing, that made
computers simpler, more understand-
able. Another gentleman Steve Jobs
visited Xerox and came out with a
very different impression. Where I
saw an interesting novelty, he saw the
future of computing. Inspired by the
work at Xerox, Steve jobs went on to
develop the Apple Lisa and the Apple
Macintosh. Jobs had a vision, and had
the courage to venture forth against
the prevailing vailing paradigms. How
do we get outside of our paradigms?
The difficulty in stepping back from
your established surroundings and
seeing anew is immense. However, a
good start is to recognize that we are
all bounded by paradigms. Only once
we are aware of their existance can
we try to move beyond it. A key to
needfinding is getting outside of our
paradigms.

Photo credit: Shutterstock

anything outside of it. The challenge

for the inventor is to be able to step
outside of his paradigm and see other
possibilities. I had the experience of
being stuck in a paradigm in the early
1980s when I was a graduate student.
My professor was a researcher at Xerox
Research Center (PARC) in Palo Alto,
California. One evening, he invited our
XEROX Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) is the innovation lab of XEROX
class to the Xerox facility to see the new
corporation where graphical user interface (GUI) was invented including the mouse.

http://www.inventmagazine.online 11
 CREATIVE COLUMN

21
WAYS TO
STAY
CREATIVE
by Steven Sullivan
LIST

4.

5.
6.
7. LISTEN
8.
9.

10.

12. COLLABORATE
13. PERSEVERE
TRY AGAIN

MAKE MISTAKES
16. EXPLORE
RISK
NEW IDEAS

POSITIVE
21. EXPERIMENT

12 http://www.inventmagazine.online
 CREATIVITY

Creativity is the act of turning

new and imaginative ideas into re-
ality. Creativity is characterised by
the ability to perceive the world in
new ways, to findhidden patterns,
to make connections between
seemingly unrelated phenomena,
and to generate solutions. Cre-
ativity involves two processes:
thinking, then producing. If you
have ideas, but don’t act on them,
you are imaginative but not
creative.

ING
Photo credit: Getty Images

CREAT
SOME
OUT OF NO TH
. . . as imagination bodies forth The forms of
things unknown, the poet’s pen Turns them to
shapes and gives to airy nothing A local habi-
tation and a name.   —SHAKESPEARE, A Mid-
summer Night’s Dream, V.i. 14-17

http://www.inventmagazine.online 13
 NEW INVENTIONS
Electronic Inventions Today
NEW APPS AND WEBSITES YOUR KIDS ARE USING
By Polly Conway
G one are the days of Facebook as a
one-stop shop for all social-network-
ing needs. Recent reports go back and
forth on teens’ favorite digital hangout,
but the fact is that these days, teens are
diversifying: dividing their attention
among an array of apps and sites that let
them write, share, chat, and meet new
friends. It may seem more complicat-
ed to share photos on Instagram, post
secrets on Whisper, flirt with people
on Skout, and share jokes on Twitter,
but tweens and teens seem to enjoy
keeping up with their various virtual
outposts, and each one offers something
different. You don’t need to know the ins
and outs of all the apps and sites that
are “hot” right now (and frankly, if you
did, they wouldn’t be trendy anymore).
But knowing the basics such as, what
they are, why they’re popular, and what
problems can crop up when they’re not
used responsibly -- can make the differ-
ence between a positive and a negative
experience for your kid.
Below, we’ve laid out some of the most
popular types of apps and websites for
teens: texting, micro-blogging, self-de-
structing/secret, and chatting/meeting/
dating. The more you know about each,
the better you’ll be able to communicate
with your teen about safe choices.
TEXTING APPS
Kik Messenger is an app that lets kids
text for free. It’s fast and has no message
limits, character limits, or fees if you
only use the basic features. Because it’s
an app, the texts won’t show up on your
kid’s phone’s messaging service, and
you’re not charged for them (beyond
standard data rates).
What you need to know:
It’s loaded with ads and in-app-purchas-
es. Kik specializes in “promoted chats”
-- basically, conversations between
brands and users. It also offers specially
designed apps (accessible only through
14 http://www.inventmagazine.online
the main app), many of which offer prod-
ucts for sale.
There’s some stranger danger. An app
named OinkText, linked to Kik, allows
communication with strangers who
share their Kik usernames to find people
to chat with. There’s also a Kik communi-
ty blog where users can submit photos of
themselves and screenshots of messages
(sometimes displaying users’ full names)
to contests.
ooVoo is a free video, voice, and mes-
saging app. Users can have group chats
with up to 12 people for free -- and it’s
common for kids to log on after school
and keep it open while doing homework.
Maybe they’re using it for group study
sessions?
What you need to know;
You can only chat with approved friends.
Users can only communicate with those
on their approved contact lists, which
can help ease parents’ safety concerns.
It can be distracting. Because the ser-
vice makes video chatting so affordable
and accessible, it also can be addicting.
WhatsApp lets users send text messag-
es, audio messages, videos, and photos
to one or many people with no message
limits or fees.
What you need to know:
It’s for users 16 and over. Lots of younger
teens seem to be using the app, but this
age minimum has been set by WhatsApp.
It can be pushy. After you sign up, it auto-
matically connects you to all the people
in your address book who also are using
WhatsApp. It also encourages you to add
friends who haven’t signed up yet.
MICRO-BLOG APPS AND SITES
Instagram lets users snap, edit, and
share photos and 15-second videos,
either publicly or with a private network
of followers. It unites the most popular
features of social media sites: sharing,
seeing, and commenting on photos. It
also lets you apply fun filters and effects
to your photos, making them look high
quality and artistic.
What you need to know:
Teens are on the lookout for “likes.”
Similar to the way they use Facebook,
teens may measure the “success” of their
photos -- even their self-worth -- by
the number of likes or comments they
receive.
Public photos are the default. Photos
and videos shared on Instagram are pub-
lic unless privacy settings are adjusted.
Hashtags and location information can
make photos even more visible to com-
munities beyond a teen’s followers if his
or her account is public.
Private messaging is now an option.
Instagram Direct allows users to send
“private messages” to up to 15 mutual
friends. These pictures don’t show up on
their public feeds. Although there’s noth-
ing wrong with group chats, kids may be
more likely to share inappropriate stuff
with their inner circles.
Tumblr is like a cross between a blog
and Twitter: It’s a streaming scrapbook
of text, photos, and/or videos and audio
clips. Users create and follow short blogs,
or “tumblelogs,” that can be seen by any-
one online (if made public). Many teens
have tumblelogs for personal use: shar-
ing photos, videos, musings, and things
they find funny with their friends.
What you need to know:
Porn is easy to find. This online
hangout is hip and creative but some-
times raunchy. Pornographic images and
videos and depictions of violence, self-
harm, drug use, and offensive language
are easily searchable.
Privacy can be guarded but only
through an awkward workaround. The
first profile a member creates is public
and viewable by anyone on the Internet.
Members who desire full privacy have
to create a second profile, which they’re
able to password-protect. Posts are
often copied and shared. Reblogging
on Tumblr is similar to re-tweeting: A
post is reblogged from one tumblelog to
another. Many teens like -- and, in fact,
want -- their posts reblogged. But do you
really want your kids’ words and photos
on someone else’s page?
Twitter is a microblogging site that
allows users to post brief, 140-character
messages -- called “tweets” -- and follow
other users’ activities. It’s not only for
adults; teens like using it to share tidbits
and keep up with news and celebrities.
What you need to know
Public tweets are the norm for teens.
Though you can choose to keep your
tweets private, most teens report having
public accounts (Pew Internet & Ameri-
can Life Project, 2013). Talk to your kids
about what they post and how a post can
spread far and fast. Updates appear im-
mediately. Even though you can remove
tweets, your followers can still read what
you wrote until it’s gone. This can get
kids in trouble if they say something in
the heat of the moment.
Vine is a social media app that lets
users post and watch looping six-sec-
ond video clips. This Twitter-owned
service has developed a unique com-
munity of people who post videos that
are often creative, funny, and sometimes
thought-provoking. Teens usually use
Vine to create and share silly videos of
themselves and/or their friends and
families.
What you need to know:
It’s full of inappropriate videos. In three
minutes of random searching, we came
across a clip full of full-frontal nudity, a
woman in a fishnet shirt with her breasts
exposed, and people blowing marijuana
smoke into each other’s mouths.
There are significant privacy concerns.
The videos you post, the accounts you
follow, and the comments you make on
videos all are public by default. But you
can adjust your settings to protect your
posts; only followers will see them, and
you have to approve new followers.
Parents can be star performers (without
their knowledge). If your teens film you
being goofy or silly, you may want to talk
about whether they plan to share it.
CHATTING, MEETING, DATING APPS
AND SITES
MeetMe Chat and Meet New People,”
says it all. Although not marketed as a
dating app, MeetMe does have a “Match”
feature whereby users can “secretly
admire” others, and its large user base
means fast-paced communication and
guaranteed attention.
What you need to know:
It’s an open network. Users can chat
with whomever’s online, as well as
search locally, opening the door for po-
tential trouble.
Lots of details are required. First and
last name, age, and ZIP code are request-
ed at registration, or you can log in using
a Facebook account. The app also asks
permission to use location services on
your teens’ mobile devices, meaning they
can find the closest matches wherever
they go.
Omegle is a chat site (and app) that
puts two strangers together in their
choice of a text chat or video chat room.
Being anonymous can be very attractive
to teens, and Omegle provides a no-fuss
opportunity to make connections. Its
“interest boxes” also let users filter po-
tential chat partners by shared interests.
What you need to know ;
Users get paired up with strangers.
That’s the whole premise of the app. And
there’s no registration required.
This is not an app for kids and teens.
Omegle is filled with people searching
for sexual chat. Some prefer to do so
live. Others offer links to porn sites.
Language is a big issue. Since the chats
are anonymous, they’re often much more
http://www.inventmagazine.online
explicit than those with an identifiable
user might be.
Skout is a flirting app that allows users
to sign up as teens or adults. They’re
then placed in the appropriate peer
group, where they can post to a feed,
comment on others’ posts, add pictures,
and chat. They’ll get notifications when
other users near their geographic area
join, and they can search other areas by
cashing in points. They receive notifica-
tions when someone “checks” them out
but must pay points to see who it is.
What you need to know:
Skout is actually OK for teens if used
appropriately. If your teens are going
to use a dating app, Skout is probably
the safest choice, if only because it has
a teens-only section that seems to be
moderated reasonably well.
There’s no age verification. This makes
it easy for a teen to say she’s older than
18 and an adult to say she’s younger.
Tinder is a photo and messaging dating
app for browsing pictures of potential
matches within a certain-mile radius of
the user’s location. It’s very popular with
20-somethings as a way to meet new
people for casual or long-term relation-
ships.
What you need to know
It’s location-based.Geolocation means
it’s possible for teens to meet up with
nearby people, which can be very dan-
gerous. As a user of these new electronic
inventions, the bottom line is that you
should know what they do and how to
use them. So do your research and check
the default settings to insure you have
what you want setup the way you want.
15
 TECHNOLOGY REVIEW
LESSONS FROM THE
DIGITAL CLASSROOM
TECHNOLOGISTS AND VENTURE CAPITALIST
ARE BETTING THAT ONLINE LEARNING WILL
RESHAPE EDUCATION
By Nanette Byrnes
I n four small schools scattered across San
Francisco, a data experiment is under
way. That is where AltSchool is testing how
technology can help teachers maximize
their students’ learning.
Founded two years ago by Max ¬Ventilla,
a data expert and former head of person-
alization at Google, AltSchool runs schools
filled with data-gathering technology.
Information is captured from the moment
each student arrives at school and checks
in on an attendance app. For part of the
day, students work independently, using
iPads and Chromebooks, on “playlists” of
activities that teachers have selected to
match their personal goals. Data about each
student’s progress is captured for teachers’
later review. Classrooms are recorded, and
teachers can flag important moments by
pressing a button, as you might TiVo your
favorite television show.
The idea is that all the data from this net-
work of schools will be woven into a smart
centralized operating system that teachers
will be able to use to design effective and
personalized instruction. There is even a
recommendation engine built in.
16 http://www.inventmagazine.online
While most schools don’t have the type
of technology AltSchool is developing,
classrooms are increasingly filled with
laptops and other digital teaching aids.
This year U.S. elementary, middle, and
high schools are expected to spend $4.7
billion on information technology. What
is new is that many of the technologies
are capturing expansive amounts of data,
enough of it to search for meaningful
patterns and insight into how students
learn. The potential for that to be turned
into profit is a big reason investors
have increased funding of educational
technology startups worldwide, from
$1.6 billion in 2013 to $2.4 billion in
2014; they invested over $1 billion more
in the first quarter of 2015, much of that
in China. What all that data is teaching
us about how we learn and whether
technology is actually making instruction
better are the big questions at the heart
of this Business Report.
At the AltSchools, where tuition can ex-
ceed $20,000 a year, the goal is to create
highly individualized instruction built on
a system that can grow to reach a broad
scale. Four more AltSchools are opening
this fall, including one in Brooklyn, New
York, and Ventilla hopes to eventually
sell access to the system to other schools,
too.
AltSchool has raised $133 million
from the likes of Facebook founder
Mark ¬Zuckerberg, venture capitalist
John Doerr, the Omidyar Network, and
venture firms Andreessen Horowitz
and Founders Fund. “What if we tried to
create not just great schools we’d like
to send our kids to, but an expanding
ecosystem?” says ¬Ventilla, who started
thinking about education when he and
his wife began applying to preschool for
their daughter in 2012. “What role can
technology play to superpower each child
and each set of parents and educators?”
Similar experiments are under way in
colleges as well. In the seven years since
the first “massive open online course,”
Connectivism and Connective Knowledge,
was taught by two Canadian educators,
Stephen Downes and George Siemens,
MOOCs have become a source of tremen-
dous amounts of data about students’
behavior. Examination of this data has
intensified since 2012, when the three
largest platforms for these classes were
launched: the Harvard-MIT joint venture
edX and two for-profit companies founded
by former Stanford professors, Udacity
and Coursera. Between the fall of 2012
and the summer of 2014, more than a
million people participated in the 68 open
online courses on EdX, logging 1.1 billion
clicks on the edX servers.
While only a small percentage of stu-
dents complete any given MOOC, their
data is helping educators develop new
teaching models that promise to be more
effective—such as programs that combine
online instruction with one-on-one coach-
ing or support, regular quizzes, and other
check-ins on progress. where 50 percent
of students have traditionally earned a D
or F.
Reports on students’ progress, the time
they are putting in, and their engagement
and success then go to student coaches
who reach out by e-mail, text message, or
in person. In the first two semesters the
school used this approach, the pass rate
increased to 75 percent.
 THE DARK WEB
WHAT IS THE DARK WEB?
THE DARK WEB IS WHERE ILLEGAL ACTIVITY
AND LEAGAL ACTIVITY TAKES PLACE WITH
WEBSITES THAT ARE NOT AVAILABLE THROUGH
USING A SEARCH ENGINE
By Matt Egan
T he Dark Web is a term that refers
specifically to a collection of websites
that are publicly visible, but hide the IP
addresses of the servers that run them.
Thus they can be visited by any web user,
but it is very difficult to work out who
is behind the sites. And you cannot find
these sites using search engines.
Almost all sites on the so-called Dark
Web hide their identity using the Tor
encryption tool. You may know Tor for its
end-user-hiding properties. You can use
Tor to hide your identity, and spoof your
location. When a website is run through
Tor it has much the same effect.
Indeed, it multiplies the effect. To visit a
site on the Dark Web that is using Tor en-
cryption, the web user needs to be using
Tor. Just as the end user’s IP is bounced
through several layers of encryption to
appear to be at another IP address on
the Tor network, so is that of the website.
So there are several layers of magnitude
more secrecy than the already secret
act of using Tor to visit a website on the
open internet - for both parties (See
also: How to delete your Google location
history).
Not all Dark Web sites use Tor. Some
use similar services such as I2P - indeed
the all new Silk Road Reloaded uses this
service. But the principle remains the
same. The visitor has to use the same
encryption tool as the site and - crucially
- know where to find the site, in order to
type in the URL and visit.
Infamous examples of Dark Web sites
include the Silk Road and its offspring.
The Silk Road was (and maybe still is) a
website for the buying and selling of rec-
reational drugs. But there are legitimate
uses for the Dark Web. People operating
within closed, totalitarian societies can
use the Dark Web to communicate with
the outside world. And given recent rev-
elations about US- and UK government
snooping on web use, you may feel it is
sensible to take your communication on
to the Dark Web. (I’ll stick to Facebook,
but I like the attention.) See also: What
does Google know about me?
Have a quick look by all means, but
How to access the Dark Web? please don’t take our linking to it as an
Technically, this is not a difficult process. endorsement.
You simply need to install and use Tor. Also, Dark Web sites do go down
Go to www.torproject.org and download from time to time, due to their dark
the Tor Browser Bundle, which contains nature. But if you want good customer
all the required tools. Run the download- service, stay out of the dark!
ed file, choose an extraction location, And do heed our warning: this article
then open the folder and click Start Tor is intended as a guide to what is the
Browser. That’s it. The Vidalia Control Dark Web - not an endorsement or en-
Panel will automatically handle the ran- couragement for you to start behaving
domised network setup and, when Tor is in illegal or immoral behaviour.
ready, the browser will open; just close it
again to disconnect from the network.
Depending on what you intend to do on
the Dark Web, some users recommend
placing tape over your laptop’s webcam
to prevent prying eyes watching you. A
tinfoil hat is also an option.
The difficult thing is knowing where to
look. There, reader, we leave you to your
own devices and wish you good luck and
safe surfing. And a warning before you go
any further. Once you get into the Dark
Web, you *will* be able to access those
sites to which the tabloids refer. This
means that you could be a click away
from sites selling drugs and guns, and -
frankly - even worse things.
Aggregation sites such as Reddit offer
lists of links, as do several Wikis, includ-
ing http://thehiddenwiki.org/ a list that
offers access to some very bad places.
http://www.inventmagazine.online 17
 IMPACT

18 http://www.inventmagazine.online

Are Outdated Rules Killing
Innovation in Your Company?
GET RID OF THE OBSTICALS IN YOUR WAY
By Holly G Green
I nnovation is the process of coming up
with new ideas and/or putting together
existing ideas, products or services in new
and different ways to achieve value. In or-
der to do that, we sometimes have to first
get rid of the obstacles that are getting in
the way. One quick and simple method for
eliminating barriers to innovation is to kill
a stupid rule.
I would love to take credit for this idea.
But in the interest of full disclosure, it
belongs to Futurethink, an innovation
consulting and training firm that helps or-
ganizations think differently, drive change
and achieve success.
A great idea is a great idea no matter
who comes up with it, and this one de-
serves passing on.
Implementing “kill a stupid rule” is sim-
ple. At your next team meeting, ask, “If you
could get rid of any rule in this company
– either kill it or change it – what would
you do and why?” Don’t worry about if
the boss won’t like it or whether it might
cost too much. Just what would you kill
or change, and why? Then sit back and let
people throw out ideas for 10 minutes.
Next, choosing from all the ideas present-
ed, have everyone write down on a sticky
note the one rule they would most like to
kill or change first. Group the sticky notes
together on a white board, depending
on whether they would be hard or easy
to implement and would have a low or
high impact on the organization.  Sort out
the rule changes that would be easy to
implement and have a high impact on the
organization. Then ask the team: what do
we need to do to make this happen?
Interestingly, you may find that many
of the “rules” people want to kill aren’t
actually rules. Instead, they often turn out
to be assumptions, thought bubbles, or
internal messages that people tell them-
INNOVATION
selves about the way things are supposed
to be. And that’s where the notion of
“kill a stupid rule” aligns with what I am
constantly helping clients with.
So much of what goes on in organiza-
tions is a result of thought bubbles and
assumptions. These unspoken thoughts
and beliefs perpetuate themselves
because we’re all running so fast that we
don’t take the time to question whether
our assumptions are still valid in today’s
world. Over time, they become internal
“rules” and limiting constraints that
guide decisions and actions on an indi-
vidual and organizational level.
Unfortunately, most of these rules
center around what we can’t or shouldn’t
do rather than what we could or should.
As a result, they act as constraints on our
thinking. They shut down the creative
thinking process and close our minds to
new ideas and possibilities.
My approach is to encourage people
to pause on a regular basis and take a
measured look at their thought bubbles
and assumptions. Killing one stupid rule
is one technique for doing that.
Here are a few more from my new book
Using Your Brain to Win.
To shift your brain out of “stuck” mode
and get it used to considering new pos-
sibilities:
• Ask “What if…?” questions. For exam-
ple, what if our “right” answer is wrong?
What if this “rule” no longer applied to
our business or industry? What if we
could change this rule; what would we
do differently?
• Change your perspective by putting on
different stakeholder hats. Do customers
agree with your unspoken thoughts and
assumptions? Your employees? Your
vendors? Would someone outside your
industry see your rule as necessary or as
http://www.inventmagazine.online
an obstacle to progress?
• Solicit alternative viewpoints. Too of-
ten, teams rush to consensus rather than
considering all the options. When that
happens, make a deliberate effort to get
opposing ideas and opinions out on the
table. For example, “It seems like we’re
all in agreement here. Are there any oth-
er perspectives we might be missing?”
• Have people come up with the worst
possible solution to a problem. Then turn
it around and see if any of those ideas
apply. Trade problems. If marketing is
struggling to resolve an issue, let pur-
chasing take a stab at solving it.
Regardless of the technique, the underly-
ing principle is to stop taking your rules
for granted just because they’ve been
around a while. Whether you kill a stupid
rule or merely prod, poke, annoy, pester
or harass it, pausing to challenge your
assumptions will help you see things
differently and give new life to your
innovation efforts.
A Call to Action: Identify one rule you
will kill in your organization and why.
A great idea is a great idea no matter
who comes up with it, and this one de-
serves passing on.
Implementing “kill a stupid rule” is sim-
ple. At your next team meeting, ask, “If
you could get rid of any rule in this com-
pany – either kill it or change it – what
would you do and why?” 1sticky notes
together on a white board, depending on
whether they would be hard or easy to
implement and would have a low or high
impact on the organization.  way things
are supposed to be. And that’s where
the notion of “kill a stupid rule” aligns
with what I am constantly helping clients
with.
19
 NEW GIZMOS
& GADGETS
SHOW STOPPERS AT CES
An ultra-high fuel economy car was unveiled
at a satellite event during the the Consumer
Electronics Show in Las Vegas. A startup
called Elio Motors is preparing to launch
a $6,800 car in 2015 that boats impressive
efficiency - up to 84 miles per gallon for
highway driving (49 miles per gallon for
urban driving).
20 http://www.inventmagazine.online
Sonocent Audio Notetaker, making sense of recorded inter-
views and meetings
If you are transcribing, you can type into either to two
text panes, one of which is called Reference and the other
just Text. When you are typing in one of these panes, you
can use keyboard shortcuts to control the audio, such as
Ctrl+Space for play/pause, Ctrl+\ to skip back, and Ctrl+/ to
skip forward. The Reference and Text panes are function-
ally identical, but let you keep two different types of notes
with one recording. There is also an image pane, which can
include images, PDFs or PowerPoint presentations.
The all-new supercar represents Ford’s commitment to inno-
vation through performance. Its advanced, lightweight carbon
fiber composites as well as other technologies will help serve
the company’s entire product lineup, and will be on display at
the show.“Ford GT is the ultimate execution of an enthusiast
supercar – we are honored Ford GT has been named the Offi-
cial Vehicle of CES,” said Raj Nair, Ford group vice president,
Global Product Development. “Ford GT includes innovations
and technologies that can be applied broadly across Ford’s
future product portfolio – another proof point that Ford con-
tinues raising the performance bar while ultimately improving
vehicles for all of our customers.”
A next-generation, 600-plus-horsepower twin-turbocharged
EcoBoost V6 engine demonstrates remarkable efficiency – a
key attribute of its endurance racing-derived powertrain. The
engine is mated to a seven-speed dual-clutch transaxle that
provides for near-instantaneous gear changes and exceptional
driver control.
Aerodynamic efficiency is at the heart of the design of the
Ford GT, with every slope and shape designed to minimize
drag. An active rear spoiler is keyed to both speed and driver
input, deploying and adjusting its height and/or pitch angle
depending on conditions.
An F1-style steering wheel integrates all necessary driver
controls, creating a stalkless steering column that allows
uncluttered access to the transmission paddle-shift controls.
A fully digital and configurable instrument cluster provides a
wealth of driver-focused data. The display is configurable for
multiple driving environments and different driving modes.
Beginning production in 2016, Ford GT arrives in select
global markets to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Ford GT
race cars placing 1-2-3 at the 1966 24 Hours of Le Mans.