A cleaner way to clean up
Renee Boulet-Mazer became frustrated while potty-training her 3-year-old son, Zach.
“I walked into the bathroom, and he was cleaning up his ‘misfire’ with the same towel my family used to dry their faces,” said Boulet-Mazer, who at the time was a stay-at-home mother in Thornton. “I was in shock.”
That misfire sparked Boulet-Mazer’s invention of the wall-mounted Healthy Shelf, which dispenses disposable paper towels and moist hand wipes.
The shelf, for which Boulet-Mazer is seeking a patent, comes in black, white and cherry finishes. It sells for about $25 and can be purchased on several websites, including www.target.com and www.healthyshelf.com.
Boulet-Mazer said she has sold about 7,000 shelves and generated about $100,000 in sales since the product debuted earlier this year. Boulet-Mazer hopes to raise more than $500,000 in venture-capital financing to expand her company’s sales and marketing.
Restaurants, hospitals and schools have purchased the shelf, said Boulet-Mazer, 41.
“It enhances decor, provides shelf space and replaces germ-infested cloth towels,” she said.
– Will Shanley, The Denver Post
Digital frame goes wireless
Wanting to shake up your display of family photos at the office?
With digital picture frames, you can create slide shows of your loved ones that rotate through the frame’s LCD screen.
Getting those pictures into the frame generally requires a direct connection to a computer, or the insertion of a flash memory card filled with photos.
A new model from a British company called A Living Picture untethers the frame from all physical storage media, letting you download pictures to the frame over a Wi-Fi connection, wherever it sits in the office.
The Windows-compatible product, named Momento, can also display stock quotes, weather and other information that will be available through the SideShow feature in the new Windows Vista operating system.
The Momento will be released Dec. 1 but is available for pre-order from Amazon in 7- and 10-inch models starting at $200.
– Eric A. Taub, The New York Times
