Liquid Secondary Market for Stuff, aka EBAY

Never before has there been such a liquid market for used stuff. Does this ebay/craigslist driven reuse drag on consumer sales or allow people to purchase new things with confidence knowing that they can recapture value on the secondary market?

Online Video Programming

The glut of content available on Google Video and YouTube needs a human editor. We can envision new "networks" popping up that program content "on top" of these giant video aggregators. Savvy programmers will comb through the mass of multimedia, pick out the gems and program them on websites that will feel similar to the ABCs and NBCs. It's not that the on demand revolution isn't real, it's that people don't always know what to demand. These meta-networks can be as niche as a web version of Americas Funniest Home Videos, where all the online video of toe stubbing or pie-facing is available in one location. Or as broad as today's tradtional network programming.

Saudis to Insure Against Market Losses

Wow, if you can buy a 2-year put on the Saudi exchange times with the expiration of the Abdullah insurance, I would go for it:

Saudi king plans 'risk-free fund'

Saudi King Abdullah has pledged to boost his citizens' prosperity

Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah plans to set up a risk-free investment fund in a bid to attract small investors to the country's flagging stock market.

Saudi citizens will be able to invest up to 500,000 riyals ($133,000; £70,600), in the bourse - buying and selling on the market for two years.

The individuals can keep any gains but the state will absorb losses.

MyPayPal

Wow, there is a lot of useful information having to do with PayPal and Auctions at mypaypal.com!

Bottled Tap

Everyone knows that Dasani is just filtered tap water in a bottle. Remember that whole brouhaha in the UK when they got photos of the Dasani facility and it was basically just garden hoses and plastic bottles (or so)?

Well, the DSBPI entrepreneurial team believes that Dasani has opened up a new market niche in the competitive water space for "Bottled Tap". We plan on launching branded Tap from various high profile locations around the US "Beverly Hills Tap", "SoHo Tap", "Jackson Hole Tap". Customers can sample water that is usually reserved for the jetset!

Probably won't be sold at Whole Foods.

Apple Should Buy Blackberry (RIMM)

Beside for the whole fruit/berry synergy, we think that a combo device would be killer. It would enable always on iTunes downloading via Edge networks, streaming video and the power of Blackberry email. It would get Apple closer to the wireless carriers AND fortune 500 enterprises while upgrading Blackberry's design team.

Nokia 770: Apple Please Copy This

So DSBPI tech team played around with the Nokia 770 Internet Tablet today. It's cool. But we can't help but think that Apple would do it one better by putting a hard drive in and having it work with iTunes. So come on already.

Iran: So Let Us Get This Straight

So, the price of oil is high because of worries over Iran. And Iran is a huge exporter of oil and benefits from higher prices. And the price of oil is high because of worries over Iran. And...

All That Space

We used to have shelves for books, media centers to hold DVDs and VHS tapes, towers for CDs, computer desks, TV stands, and phone books. Soon our books will be a Sony® Portable Reader System, our music will all be stored on a small hard drive, our computers will all be laptops or ultra-mobile PCs, and our TVs flat pannels hung from the wall.

In the case of getting rid of our encyclopedias in favor of Wikipedia, we are taking high-value residential square footage and "outsourcing" it to cheaper server-farm real estate in nowhereseville.

So what are we going to do with all that space? Will we live in smaller homes now that we don't need to keep the Yellow Pages handy? Will the real estate market crumble under the weight of the square footage glut caused by analog-free living?

Japan seeks to build successor to Concorde

The best news of the day:

Japan seeks to build successor to Concorde, To discuss project for supersonic jet with NASA
The Associated Press (apwire)
Published on 2006-05-08 18:15 (KST)

Stung by repeated setbacks, Japan's space agency plans to start talks next month with NASA about jointly developing a supersonic successor to the retired Concorde, an official said Monday.

Japan is trying to leapfrog ahead in the aerospace field with a plan to build a next-generation airliner that can fly between Tokyo and Los Angeles in about three hours. But a string of glitches, including a nose cone problem during the latest test flight in March, has led the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency to look for an international partner.

''In the future, we think we need some kind of cooperation with NASA,'' JAXA spokesman Kiyotaka Yashiro said. ''Every developed country is doing some kind of research,theU.S., Europe and Russia.

International cooperation is essential.'' Japanese researchers and engineers plan to meet counterparts from the U.S. space agency next month to discuss possible cooperation, Yashiro said, calling the June meeting a ''first step.'' Yashiro's comments came in response to a Japanese newspaper report that said JAXA would ally with NASA and the U.S.-based aerospace giant Boeing Co. on the next stage of development. Japan is expected to develop the engine, which would generate 1 percent of the noise of the Concorde, while Boeing builds the airframe, the Nihon Keizai newspaper said.

Yashiro said the report was premature and that no decisions have been made on partners.

A breakthrough in supersonic flight could help transform Japan's aerospace industry. The country, which does much of parts manufacturing for U.S.-based Boeing Co., has only a limited domestic airplane industry.

Japan aims to have the Concorde's successor making regular flights by 2025, Yashiro said. But research will still be needed through the next 10 years before a prototype can be built, he added.

Among the hurdles are two difficulties that plagued the Concorde, jet-engine noise and high fuel consumption. Japan has already successfully tested an engine that can theoretically reach speeds of up to mach 5.5, or more than five times the speed of sound.

But test flights of an arrow-shaped test model over the Australian desert have had mixed results.

In one incident, the aircraft prematurely separated from its booster rocket and crashed. Then, in a much-vaunted March 30 trial, the airplane failed to reach its target altitude and the nose cone cover failed to jettison as planned.

The Concorde first flew in 1969 and became a symbol of French and European industrial acumen. But the planes were retired from commercial service in October 2003, never having recouped the billions of tax dollars invested in them.

The Concorde exploded in flames after takeoff fromCharles de Gaulle airport near Paris on July 25, 2000. The accident, which killed the 109 people on board, presaged an end to the career of the sleek but costly supersonic aircraft.

The Japanese project uses a so-called Supersonic Combustion Ramjet -or scramjet - engine was designed to travel at speeds of up to 8,000 kph (5,000 mph), or 10 times the speed of conventional aircraft.

The U.S. has already carried out a flight test with a scramjet engine, while the European Union, Japan, China, Russia and India are in different stages of testing their technologies.

Japanese companies slated to participate in the venture include Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Kawasaki Heavy Industries Ltd., Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd. and Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries Co.

MSFT: See, We Arent a Monopoly

The Seattle Times: Business & Technology: Ballmer defends Microsoft's spending increase.

We wonder if this $2bn isn't a way of MSFT buying insurance against global cries of "monopoly!" "See," they will say, "what monopoly needs to suddenly up its expense base by $2bn to respond to ... competition?"