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Today, Blackbox launched the Startup Genome Compass, a benchmarking tool designed to help entrepreneurs keep track of their startups' progress and know what to do next, based on data from more than 3,200 startups and research from Berkeley and Stanford. Many a bright-eyed entrepreneur heads west hoping to strike it big in the Silicon Valley startup game, yet 94% of them fail

Instead of constantly buying and discarding new products, what if everything was specifically designed to be recycled or broken down, mimicking the circular process of (non-human) life on earth? Our economy, you might have noticed, is founded largely on a culture of consumption and disposal

By asking peers to decide who deserves the most government aid--instead of using empirical measurements--money can have more lasting effects. When governments and NGOs plan on giving assistance to the most needy, how do they know who needs the most assistance? It's a question people are at great pains to answer, yet social welfare programs around the world are still plagued by error and abuse

A few months ago, the team at Blackbox seed accelerator set out to decode the "genetics" behind successful startups (See this short piece at Fast Company and also " Love in Startup Land ."). Their initial report, the Startup Genome Project , surveyed over 600 tech startup companies in Silicon Valley and around the world and gave them insights that let them continue their survey.

A special nod to this year's Council Members who made 2011's Inc. 5000 honoree list. Many are multiple year winners.

The general public has no idea how much they pay for electricity or how to use less, undermining the central premise of smart meters and hindering their adoption. Smart power meters are, in theory, supposed to help with everything from electric vehicle adoption (low electricity rates encourage people to charge up at specific times) to bringing more renewable energy on the grid (pricing will vary based on when it is available). But smart meter implementation hinges on the idea that consumers actually understand their electricity use.

With the augmented reality browser, Junaio, your smartphone can recognize reality via its camera--and then tell you even more about it. Metaio just transformed its Junaio Augmented Reality browser into a highly useful tool. Its new Scan function recognizes a range of real things--from pictures to QR codes to product barcodes--so it can supply extra info to its users about what it's looking at.

At the Designer Fund’s first Designer Fair, IDEO’s Elle Luna explains how brands are increasingly seeking to gain customers and build loyalty by showing their human side. Want to build your brand? Traditionally that’s meant a lot of chest thumping

Preparing to launch your start-up means more than simply making sure you have a viable product and potential customers. Here are five tips on how to prepare yourself to be a founder. John Bradberry was fascinated by the idea of how someone may prepare to start a company.

Steve Jobs's return to Apple in 1997 is often referred to as the greatest second act in business history. He had been ousted more than a decade earlier in 1985, and was forced to watch helplessly as the company he built tumbled toward bankruptcy, hampered by poor management, a weak product line, and a dearth of innovation

Google's digital marketing evangelist breaks down five steps to starting your company on the right web-analytics track. There are world-class analytics tools available for free from both Yahoo and Google that will get you more data than God ever intended you to have. Yet, perhaps shockingly, a vast majority of decisions website owners make are based on faith rather than data

This and more important news from your Fast Company editors, with updates all day. Wikileaks Leaks

Want to wake up to something besides murderous rage at a blaring klaxon? These alarms use people, podcasts, and science to help you rise without raising your ire. If you own a smartphone, it's easy to gaze at an old-fashioned, single-purpose alarm clocks and conclude it doesn't do nearly enough.

An Iowa convenience store employee took no-longer-saleable soup from the dumpster to feed to her dog--and was fired. The Iowa Court of Appeals upheld a decision to deny unemployment benefits to a convenience store employee who was fired for taking soup from the dumpster. The company, an Iowa-based chain of franchises called Casey's General Stores, has a policy that employees cannot remove any company property from the stores without paying for it—including out-of-date, no-longer-saleable items such as doughnuts and soup

A new project, funded by the U.S.