Feed: CoolBusinessIdeas.com - AggScore: 74.7

iStopOver caters specifically to direct rental of space from one person to another and has two main sites, iStopOver for Home Rentals which allows users to rent space in their homes to travelers looking for unique accomodations. iStopOver for Office Rentals allows users to rent excess space in offices such as extra desk space, meeting rooms or entire offices. In addition to the two main sites, iStopOver has specialty sites for events and groups such as the 2010 World Cup in South Africa and Vancouver 2010.

Guests (Travelers) use iStopOver for Home Rentals to find accommodation in someone’s home as an alternative to paying high hotel rates. Usually priced well below average hotel rooms, renting a room on iStopOver offers value for money. You won’t find impersonal check-in, loud noise from other guests, and extra charges at every step. In many cases, it gives you the opportunity to “live like a local”.

FaceChipz.com has all the features of a real social network – but with one big difference: kids can only communicate with others they’ve physically exchanged FaceChipz tokens with – no strangers allowed! No one can arbitrarily contact them. No one can search for them. It’s the social network they collect, but doesn’t collect them.

The Chips have the weight, look and feel of a high-end casino chips -- on the head-side is ...a face -- an emoticon. On the tail side is a code. They are totally collectable -- think Pogs meets Webkinz. The initial collection has 200 and they just went on sale at ToysRus.

The way it works is: kids register each FaceChipz token online by entering the unique code on the back of the chip into the FaceChipz code reader. Once the FaceChipz are registered, kids hand them out to friends or to someone they would like to become friends with. The Receiver goes online and enters in the same unique code from the back of the FaceChipz. The FaceChipz database confirms the friendship and the two are linked. Once a FaceChipz token is registered by both the Giver and Receiver, it cannot be used again.

Four popular "cookie diets" are the latest quick-fix weight-loss fads. Followers eat special cookies about six times a day, and sometimes an additional "normal" meal of low-fat foods, for less than 1,000 calories total per day.

Dr. Siegal's Cookie Diet has been endorsed by Kim Kardashian, Jennifer Hudson and Kelly Clarkson. The treats contain protein, amino acids for appetite control, and cellulose for satiety. The plan includes a daily multivitamin.

Smart for Life not only sells cookie kits, but other prepared foods. The Hollywood Cookie Diet serves up a proprietary mix of protein and fiber for sustained energy. The Soypal Cookie Diet, which originates in Japan, mixes in soy pulp to keep people fuller longer.

In the case of fad diets, long-term health and wellness goals take a backseat to the pursuit of a beauty ideal. Cookie diet followers want results, and they want 'em fast, with minimum of effort or thought in regard to calorie counting, meal planning, shopping and exercise.

The hot diet trend is turning women into cookie monsters [Iconoculture]

Inhabitat: This smart Upcycle Ottoman by Gus* Modern is made of repurposed jute bags that were once used to carry organic fair trade certified coffee. Produced in a limited quantity, each piece is unique and shows the branding and markings of the bags used in the process. No word if they still carry that wonderful coffee scent, but you can still identify which company produced the beans and where they came from.

Upcycled Ottoman Made From Coffee Bags [Inhabitat]

Unplgged: When we read about this, we thought that this was a concept, but no, it's actually something that you can buy right now. All over the world, people are using magnetic and RFID cards all over the place in order to get into their workplaces. There are a few different option available for homes, but they are costly. The FaceID system wills tore up to 500 unique faces in its database and will unlock the front door to anyone in there. A pair of digital cameras allow the system to recreate a 3D image of your face. It runs this rendering through a face-detection algorithm to match the faces up. Since the images are 3D, it stops anyone from trying to hack this system with a photo. The system can also cope with different lighting conditions, it even works in the dark!

FaceID Let's You Unlock Your Front Door With Your Face! [Unplgged]

New Scientist: A camera you can wear as a pendant to record every moment of your life will soon be launched by a UK-based firm. Originally invented to help jog the memories of people with Alzheimer's disease, it might one day be used by consumers to create "lifelogs" that archive their entire lives.

Worn on a cord around the neck, the camera takes pictures automatically as often as once every 30 seconds. It also uses an accelerometer and light sensors to snap an image when a person enters a new environment, and an infrared sensor to take one when it detects the body heat of a person in front of the wearer. It can fit 30,000 images onto its 1-gigabyte memory.

New camera promises to capture your whole life [New Scientist]

Coolest Gadgets: When women travel, their makeup case goes with them, wherever they’re getting ready, that case is typically right there. Having a simple case always makes getting ready far less chaotic. Then if you add your favorite music to the combination, it makes for a more soothing morning. This Stila case manages to give both by having speakers actually built into in order to hook up your MP3 player.

The Stila case has plenty of compartments to keep your makeup where you can actually find all of it. To top things off it actually includes some makeup, like foundation, eye shadow, lip glaze and convertible color for your lips as well as cheeks. Along with the speakers, it has a DVD beautytube and an instruction card. The entire case and kit is being sold for $69.99.

Stila Makeup Case comes with built-in speakers [Coolest Gadgets]

Yanko Design: I quite agree with Je Sung Park when he says that disposable cameras and cell phones have gained acceptance, so why don’t we take the next step and bring out a disposable computer. His Recyclable Paper Laptop is quite a raw version and could do with some refinement. It uses recycled paper or pulp material all packed in layers. This is so that you can easily replace the damaged portions (even corrugated paper will tear easy). The vibe of a Paper Laptop is intriguing, I know eventually someone will figure out the tech bit, so let’s see who will take the bait.

Disposable Paper Laptops [Yanko Design]

Reuters: A company behind plans to open the first hotel in space says it is on target to accept its first paying guests in 2012 despite critics questioning the investment and time frame for the multi-billion dollar project.

The Barcelona-based architects of The Galactic Suite Space Resort say it will cost 3 million euro ($4.4 million) for a three-night stay at the hotel, with this price including an eight-week training course on a tropical island.

During their stay, guests would see the sun rise 15 times a day and travel around the world every 80 minutes. They would wear velcro suits so they can crawl around their pod rooms by sticking themselves to the walls like Spiderman.

Galactic Suite Ltd's CEO Xavier Claramunt, a former aerospace engineer, said the project will put his company at the forefront of an infant industry with a huge future ahead of it, and forecast space travel will become common in the future.

Space hotel says it's on schedule to open in 2012 [Reuters]

Rivetz - Customise Your Thongs from Rivetz on Vimeo.

Rivetz is a brand new online store where you can customise thongs. You can design and then buy online. You can log on to choose the colors for the straps and the base, as well as choose from a variety of rivets (the little metal studs that attach the straps) to complete your own unique flip flops.

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Three Simple Steps to Wean Off One-On-One Clients and Create Leveraged Income

Yes, you love your clients but honestly, too much one-on-one work can leave you feeling exhausted and strapped for time, plus it can limit how much you can make. You end up not only feeling burnt out but feeling broke, even though you're working plenty hard. When it comes to money and marketing.....

Continued in BIZNESS! Newsletter Issue 93 >>>

- Wearable Rock Guitar
- Bake and Tweet
- 99% DuoFertility
- Electric Urban Bike
- Step on It – The Foot Flush
- Olympics Medals from Circuit Boards
- SmartSponge

Continue reading these top stories in the BIZNESS! Newsletter >>>

- Close Too Quick and You Lose Profit
- Top 5 Twitter Pet Peeves
- Is Your Timing Keeping You From Being Successful In Your Business?
- Career Planning: How to Discover Your Dream Job
- Ways to Effectively Utilize Outlook to Increase Productivity and Save Time
- Enjoying Life: How Discovering Your Natural Skills Can Keep Things Looking Up
- Two Women Entrepreneurs, Two Ways To Deal

Continue reading these top stories in the BIZNESS! Newsletter >>>

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Free 28-pages PDF report (worth $38) - "Cool Business Ideas in 2009" - included with your subscription. Learn more here.

CoolBuzz: The Ora watch surpasses all watches on innovative designing, intricacy and finesse in haute horology. The sight of this watch is such a novel experience that you won’t be able to inhibit the mesmerization it causes subtly. There is nothing very flashy about Ora. It has three tapes running in three different directions to keep the time, which at first may appear discrete, but are, in fact, one unit cohered together by time. All its appeal lies in the unprecedented design concept by Alexandros Stasinopoulos and the ease and elegance with which it embraces within itself such a marvel of complicate craftsmanship. The uppermost tape measures time in minutes, overlapping two smaller tapes that display hours and the current day of the week, respectively.

Ora watch epitomizes the term ‘measuring time’ [CoolBuzz]

ThinkGeek: Here at ThinkGeek were just wishing for a fully playable guitar built into a t-shirt when along came the Pixie of ROCK... she wailed with face melting guitar solo and *POOF* there it was in our hands... The Electronic Rock Guitar Shirt. We turned on the mini amp, cranked the volume to 11 and started to rock. As the Pixie explained, the Electronic Guitar Shirt is incredibly easy to play because each button on the neck is a major chord. She went on to mention how you can play dozens of classic rock songs with very little skill. However she warned us never to use the Guitar Shirt for evil lest, we are prepared to summon the Demon of Rock and duel to the death for musical supremacy.

Electronic Rock Guitar Shirt [ThinkGeek]

The Walkstation is the fully integrated combination of an electric height-adjustable worksurface with an exclusively engineered, low speed commercial grade treadmill. And it’s the first product in the entirely new FitWork category of products from Details designed to bring healthy habits to sedentary workers while they are actually working.

The fully-functional treadmill display console shows speed, calories burned, time and distance. High torque motor is built in to withstand the rigors of slow speeds and possible higher weights for long periods of time. While exercising, the Height-AdjusTable Worksurface allows you to carry on your work comfortably.

UPDATE:
Steelcase Store is giving away three Walkstation treadmill desks (retail value of $4699). To enter, individuals or teams/companies will submit a short 2 minute video and a 200 character limit or less essay explaining why they should receive a Walkstation. Winners will then compete in a two-week walk-a-thon in December and, via Twitter, share their experience. For every mile logged, Steelcase will make a donation to Friends of TOMS, the non-profit organization of TOMS Shoes.

More details here http://store.steelcase.com/go/walkstation-contest/

BakerTweet from POKE on Vimeo.

BakerTweet is a way for busy bakers to tell the world that something hot and fresh has just come out of the oven. It's as simple as turning the dial and hitting the button. All of the baker's followers get a Twitter alert to tell them that it's bun-time.

The first BakerTweet device has been installed at the Albion Cafe on Boundary Street in Shoreditch, London. To find out what's cooking follow @albionsoven on Twitter.

BakerTweet allows businesses to use Twitter to communicate in real-time about offers, pricing and stock from a device that can withstand kitchen peril and is much simpler to operate than a laptop or a mobile.