Techdirt. Stories filed under "solutions"

DailyDirt: Step Right Up And Try Your Luck...

Michael Ho — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 17:00:00 PDT

Over the last few years, there have been plenty of crowdsourcing platforms to find solutions to difficult problems. And we've seen some brilliant examples of challenges solved via this method. But it doesn't work every time (nor should anyone expect it to). Here are just a few more open contests to find some innovative answers.

The DOE awarded Philips Lighting North America with the L Prize and $10 million for developing a replacement for the 60-watt incandescent bulb that only uses 10 Watts to achieve the same light output. Apparently, approximately 425 million 60-watt incandescent light bulbs are sold in the United States every year, so if incandescent bulbs could be replaced without a public outcry.... [url]
Out of about 400 applicants, a solution for the Wendy Schmidt Oil Cleanup X Challenge to clean up massive oil spills like the BP-Deepwater Horizon disaster has been found that is three times better than previous techniques. Team Elastec/American Marine recovered oil at 4,670 gallons per minute and won a $1 million prize. [url]
The US Air Force, NASA and the National Reconnaissance Office have opened up a competition for rocket launch contracts. The United Launch Alliance might not be the only way for the US military to fly to space -- if companies like Space X can really create suitable rocket systems. [url]
To discover more interesting business-related content, check out what the deal is on StumbleUpon. [url]

By the way, StumbleUpon can also recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

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Offering Solutions Rather Than Criticism

Nina Paley — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 07:11:20 PDT

Inspired by responses to Let’s Make More Regulations.

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DailyDirt: Challenges For Fun And (Non-)Profit

Michael Ho — Mon, 23 May 2011 17:00:00 PDT

Solving really tough problems is a more collaborative process than it used to be. Luckily, it's getting easier for a wide variety of people to come together and work on these difficult challenges. Here are a few prizes looking for creative people to produce some really cool solutions.

The Buckminster Fuller Challenge is looking for folks working on humanity's most pressing problems. Fuller had a pretty lofty goal "to make the world work for 100% of humanity, in the shortest possible time, through spontaneous cooperation without ecological offense or disadvantage of anyone." [url]
There's a $10 million prize for the Tricorder X PRIZE -- which is looking for a mobile medical device that can diagnose patients better than or equal to a panel of board certified physicians. It also needs to make a cool "whoo whoo" sound when it wave it over people. [url]
NASA has several Centennial Challenges that are still active -- looking for solutions to various problems like green aviation, super-strong tethers, interplanetary robots to return samples and more. Space elevators, FTW. [url]
To find some other online challenges and games, check out what StumbleUpon has found to play. [url]

By the way, StumbleUpon can also recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

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Institutions Will Seek To Preserve The Problem For Which They Are The Solution

Mike Masnick — Fri, 9 Apr 2010 07:33:00 PDT

We already wrote a detailed analysis of Clay Shirky's recent writeup on complex business models. However, a few of you have sent over Kevin Kelly's recent post about Shirky's piece that also compares it to Clayton Christensen's Innovator's Dilemma, but thankfully highlights the one key line in Shirky's piece that may have gotten lost in the original:

"Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution."

Kelly calls this the "Shirky Principle." To me, it calls to mind Upton Sinclair's famous line:

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!"

They are not the same point, but they are related. In both cases, these are situations where people will often seek to preserve a problem or a falsehood, rather than recognize that it doesn't need to be that way. There are lots of industries where this is a major issue.

But, of course, the real problem is in how they go about trying to preserve that problem. They will go to great lengths to demonize the solutions. This is why the newspaper industry has, at times, lashed out at Craigslist and Google News -- two operations that have essentially removed problems that the newspaper business used to solve. It's why old school video guys lash out at YouTube or Boxee -- because they have removed problems that television used to solve. And, yes, it's why the RIAA and the MPAA lash out at file sharing apps and services -- because they have removed problems in distribution and promotion, that they used to solve.

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