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In this issue:

  * Growth Opportunities in Ethanol Biofuel
  * Virtual Worlds and Interoperability
  * The 3-D Internet
  * Data Security and Driver Privacy
  * Financial Services for Gen X and Gen Y
  * The Next Step in OLED Displays
  * Innovation in Second Life
  * VALS[TM] Groups and Travel
  * The Business Side of Emotions
  * Signals of Change

	
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 New Publications
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Growth Opportunities in Ethanol Biofuel

The United States, the European Union, and other regions
have begun moving toward widespread blending of biofuels
such as ethanol into conventional petroleum fuels to
address the challenges of climate change and energy
security. The production of ethanol biofuel presents a
huge growth opportunity for biocatalysis, but only
through the development of new biocatalysts to enable
second-generation biofuels, which is essential to achieve
national goals for biofuels markets in a sustainable way.
Governments and private players are focusing on basic
biofuels research that might produce breakthroughs in
biocatalyst and bioprocess technology.
(October 2007 Biocatalysis Viewpoints)
http://www.sric-bi.com/Explorer/BC.shtml

(This publication is part of our Explorer service.
To learn more about Explorer, see
http://www.sric-bi.com/Explorer .)

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Virtual Worlds and Interoperability

Without interoperability, virtual worlds will remain
isolated "islands" on the Internet, and the vision of the
three-dimensional Internet that IBM, Microsoft, and
others espouse will never come to fruition. But virtual
worlds have a long way to go before they can achieve even
basic interoperability, such as avatars that can move
between virtual worlds. After meeting with a group of
high-profile companies interested in pursuing
interoperability, IBM and Linden Lab announced plans to
work with a wide range of partners to achieve
interoperability objectives such as "universal" avatars,
security-rich transactions, platform stability,
integration with existing Web and business processes, and
open standards.
(October 2007 Virtual-Worlds Viewpoints)
http://www.sric-bi.com/VWC/VWviewpoints.shtml

(This publication is part of our Virtual-Worlds
Consortium [VWC]. To learn more about the VWC, see
http://www.sric-bi.com/VWC/ .)

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The 3-D Internet

Three-dimensional (3-D) spaces are proliferating on the
Internet, and various signs indicate that they will
eventually have a significant effect on the way users
access information using computers and digital devices.
Systems are still far from those that science-fiction
writers anticipated years ago, but we now have most of
the tools necessary to build a 3-D information
metaverse--such as virtual worlds, mirror worlds, and
mashups--and we know that the vision is practical. The
challenge is to integrate and implement these tools in
ways that people find useful, intuitive, and fun.
(The 3-D Internet)
http://www.sric-bi.com/Scan/ScanMonthly/SM055.shtml#D07-2558

(This publication is part of our Scan[TM] service. To
learn more about Scan, see http://www.sric-bi.com/Scan .)

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Data Security and Driver Privacy

Vehicle communications could be important for reducing
congestion and improving road safety, with various
applications informing drivers about traffic delays,
stalled cars, rain, and other road conditions. Future
vehicle-communications systems could also control
collision-avoidance systems that automatically engage
brake systems. The challenge for carmakers is to ensure
that the information emanating from a vehicle is
trustworthy while protecting the identity of the driver.
(October 2007 Connected Cars Viewpoints)
http://www.sric-bi.com/Explorer/CC.shtml

(This publication is part of our Explorer service.
To learn more about Explorer, see
http://www.sric-bi.com/Explorer .)

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Financial Services for Gen X and Gen Y

Data from the 2006-07 MacroMonitor identify some
43.4 million Gen X and Gen Y households: those that are
headed by people born after 1962 and are not retired.
Gen Xers and Gen Yers are better educated and more
willing to access financial services and products on the
Internet than are their predecessors, the Boomers, and
they have a significant emerging affluent population.
Clearly, this rising age cohort should be of prime
interest to financial marketers who wish to establish
brand loyalty and take advantage of cross-selling
opportunities--yet it remains a mostly misunderstood and
markedly underserved market segment.
(Opportunity on the Rise: Marketing Financial Services
to Gen X and Gen Y)
http://www.sric-bi.com/CFD/MRsummaries/MR-VIII-03.shtml

(MacroMonitor is part of SRIC-BI's Consumer Financial
Decisions [CFD] group. To learn more about CFD and the
MacroMonitor, see http://www.sric-bi.com/CFD .)

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The Next Step in OLED Displays

Organic light-emitting-diode (OLED) displays are among
the most promising next-generation flat-screen
technologies. To date, however, OLED displays--
specifically, small, passive-matrix OLED screens--have
primarily found use in a single application: cell-phone
subdisplays. Recently, Samsung SDI and other panel
manufacturers have begun volume production of alternative,
active-matrix OLED displays, which offer glowing colors,
high contrast ratios, rapid response times, and low power
consumption. This development should lead to greater use
of OLED displays as the main displays of cell phones and
other handheld devices, with emerging applications in
televisions and (eventually) flexible displays.
(October 2007 Organic Electronics Viewpoints)
http://www.sric-bi.com/Explorer/OE.shtml

(This publication is part of our Explorer service.
To learn more about Explorer, see
http://www.sric-bi.com/Explorer .)

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Innovation in Second Life

One goal of SRIC-BI's Virtual-Worlds Consortium is to
examine how companies can improve their innovation
practices with virtual worlds. Possibilities include
improving the communication between the virtual teams
that create new products, prototyping products in virtual
worlds, and creating systems that guide teams through
structured innovation processes. Another possibility is
to harness the creativity of existing virtual-world
communities. In particular, Second Life residents have
consistently demonstrated their capacity and enthusiasm
for creating new virtual objects. Among the companies
that have attempted to tap into the creativity of Second
Life residents are Electrolux, Coca-Cola, Pontiac,
Starwood Hotels, and Alcatel Lucent.
(November 2007 Virtual-Worlds Viewpoints)
http://www.sric-bi.com/VWC/VWviewpoints.shtml

(This publication is part of our Virtual-Worlds
Consortium [VWC]. To learn more about the VWC,
see http://www.sric-bi.com/VWC/ .)

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VALS[TM] Groups and Travel

Noting that "Travel is part of the American psyche," the
Travel Industry Association reports that U.S domestic
travel increased 12.6% to more than 1.9 billion person-
trips between 1995 and 2005. (A person-trip is one person
traveling 50 miles or more, one way, away from home or
overnight.) Even with increasingly crowded highway and
airport conditions and the rising cost of fuel, the
association expects person-trips to surpass the 2 billion
mark in 2007 and to rise to almost 2.2 billion by 2010. A
recent report explores the VALS[TM] groups' attitudes
toward travel as well as the frequency with which they
are traveling and the types of domestic and foreign
vacation activities that they favor.
(VALS[TM] Industry Report: Travel)
http://www.sric-bi.com/VALS/summaries/2007-10IndRptTravel.shtml

(This publication is part of our VALS[TM] service. To
learn more about VALS, see http://www.sric-bi.com/VALS .)

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The Business Side of Emotions

Emotions remain a mysterious construct despite recent
advances in neuroscience and psychology, so accurate
insights are rare, and emotion-based marketing strategies
typically must rely on the intuitive skills of the
marketer. During the past decade, however, long-held
suppositions have been giving way to new ways of thinking
about rationality, emotions, and consumer behavior. Ever
since Daniel Kahneman won the Nobel Prize in economics in
2002 for his insights into prospect theory and behavioral
economics, which appear inconsistent with standard
theories of consumer economic rationality, companies have
increased their pursuit of novel market approaches that
can leverage consumers' emotions.
(The Business Side of Emotions)
http://www.sric-bi.com/Scan/ScanMonthly/SM056.shtml#D07-2560

(This publication is part of our Scan[TM] service. To
learn more about Scan, see http://www.sric-bi.com/Scan .)

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Signals of Change

Synergistic advances in computer interfaces, software,
and hardware could exponentially speed the arrival of
sophisticated mixed realities that merge real-world and
digital-world objects to create new communications or
information environments. The latest issue of Scan[TM]
Monthly explores this and other signals of change,
including the risks that go along with flexibility in
globalized manufacturing, the potential of new biological
discoveries to help solve some of humanity's most
pressing problems, the importance of even marginal
advances in the understanding of innovation, the
connection between immigration and economic health, and
corporate initiatives that take on the coloration of
public policy.
(Scan[TM] Monthly, October 2007)
http://www.sric-bi.com/Scan/ScanMonthly/SM056.shtml

(This publication is part of our Scan[TM] service. To
learn more about Scan, see http://www.sric-bi.com/Scan .)


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