Fast Company (magazine), March 2013

choi

(1) Jesse James DeConto, A New Leaf; As consumers cut back on tobacco, old-line growers are turning to niche crops.
http://www.fastcompany.com/3004955/tobacco-farmers-new-crops

My comment:
(i) Read only introduction AND the first farmer, McRay Greene Jr.
(ii) Stokes Purple sweet potato. Stokes Foods, undated.
http://www.stokesfoods.com/

The website does not mention its origin.
(iii) Stokes Purple sweet potat
http://www.specialtyproduce.com/ ... eet_Potato_8662.php
("The Stokes Purple® Sweet potato is an American-grown sweet potato. Its name is derived from the county in North Carolina where the sweet potatoes were originally grown. Stokes County, NC was traditionally a tobacco growing region until the sweet potatoes were introduced and farmers could use it as a replacement crop using the same equipment and farming techniques as tobacco. The Stokes Purple® Sweet Potato is a registered trademark of the Saura Pride Sweet Potatoes, LLC")
(iv) David Karp, Stokes Purple Is a Sweet Potato of Mystery; The deep purple sweet potato packs plenty of flavor and possible health benefits. Los Angeles Times, Nov 2, 2012 (in the column Farmers Markets).
http://articles.latimes.com/2012 ... ews-online-20121102
("It was discovered in the United States by Mike Sizemore, 61, who grew up on a farm in North Carolina, the nation's largest sweet potato-producing state. He said in a phone interview, speaking in a delicious Southern drawl, that he worked for 30 years catching car thieves for the state government before retiring in 2003. He always wanted to farm and saw sweet potatoes as a replacement for tobacco, cultivation of which was declining in his area, Stokes County. One day in 2003 he won a prize for his sweet potatoes at a state fair, and an unidentified woman gave him some deep purple sweet potatoes of unknown origin")

(2) The World's 50 Most Innovative Companies.
http://www.fastcompany.com/section/most-innovative-companies-2013

(a) No 17  Max Chafkin, Samsung, for elevating imitation to an art form

* No need to read the test.

(b) No 36,  David Lidsky, Corning, for being the 800-pound gorilla of the touch-screen business
http://www.fastcompany.com/most-innovative-companies/2013/corning
(Gorilla 3, announced in January, 2013)

My comment:
(i) The text says, "It's [Gorilla Glass is] used on more than 1 billion smartphones and tablets and is now a $1 billion-a-year business for the $8 billion Corning."
(ii) There was something wrong, I thought upon reading it. About $1 a piece in a smartphone? But it turns out to be true. See

Too Early to Set Sapphire Phone Screens; Sterne Agee says Rubicon Technology and GT Advanced could benefit. Barron's, Aug 30, 2012
http://online.barrons.com/articl ... 21420696187082.html

Quote:

"Over the past six months, there has been a lot of chatter in the sapphire industry regarding the opportunity to use sapphire as a replacement for cover glass in mobile phones. Our checks indicate that prototypes already exist.

"Gorilla Glass at 15 cents per square inch is very attractive relative to sapphire at $3.00 per square inch (at bargain-basement prices).

(c) No 38  April Rabkin, Landwasher, for building the (mostly) all-natural toilet of the future
http://www.fastcompany.com/most- ... ies/2013/landwasher

Quote:

"He [Henry WU, CEO and founder of Landwasher] has now installed more than 10,000 of his toilets across China and sells almost $7 million worth of them a year, making Landwasher a worldwide leader in environmental sanitation and Wu a millionaire.

"The Landwasher toilet solves this problem in straightforward fashion, so let's just be clear about how: It makes use of number one to flush number two. * * * Valves separate urine and fecal matter. Urine, which is sterile, is stored in a tank under the toilet, while solid waste is obliterated with what looks like the engine and blade of a garbage disposal. The system then uses the sterile urine to flush. Landwasher toilets use only one-tenth of a gallon of water to staunch any odor--or none at all if a blue surface disinfectant is added. The computers and moving parts can even be powered by solar energy.

My comment:
(i) Henry WU/ Landwashrer   吴 昊/ 北京蓝洁士科技发展有限公司
www.landwasher.com
(ii) urine in the urinary bladder 膀胱 IS sterile. However, when urine reaches the outer half of the urethra 尿道, it (urine) picks up E coli 大腸桿菌 there--and is no longer sterile.

(d) No 44  Chuck Salter and Erik Sofge, Seegrid_Mazor Robotics_Space X_ReconRobotics, for creating roaming factory-worker giant
http://www.fastcompany.com/most- ... pacex-reconrobotics

My comment:
(i) View graphic 1 ONLY (legend: "It has five pairs of CMOS sensors--similar to webcams--that constantly scan so the bot 'sees' where it's going")
(ii) Company website is Seegrid.com. BUT Google Chrome browse warns me there is software in that site. So here is a video clip supplied by the company.

Seegrid #1531, Driverless Robotic Industrial Trucks, In Stock and Install In Hours. YouTube.com, published by SeegridCorporation on Nov 30, 2012,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VR8mI9NkoOA