Scuba texting

I’ve always wanted to learn how to scuba dive, even though it makes me kind of nervous. I have it on my ‘‘Bucket List.’’ But this handy little device might make me feel a little more comfortable when I do try it. The Underwater Digital Interface lets you send text messages while diving. It mounts on your arm and ‘‘allows for communication not only with the rest of the underwater team, but with those on boats above or waiting on land.’’ Sounds good to me — especially the part where there’s an SOS function at the touch of a button.

Enemies "provide a focal point for a cause," as Guy Kawasaki said in his book "Selling the Dream." But Max Kalehoff points out that they are so much more. Tactical enemies, such as competitors, "create polarizing tension that mobilizes humans and organizations to innovate, compete, perform, and succeed. The raw framework of enemies and fear of surrender is hardwired into our brains." But conceptual enemies are also key. What is the big idea, the big enemy you need to defeat? "Conceptual enemy frameworks can instill mission, clarity, and fire inside every employee and company department."

New England's own Hasbro, the toy company that brought us Mr. Potato Head, Monopoly, and Scrabble, is trying to shut down Scrabulous.com. Why? Because it's an exact rip-off of Scrabble, a Hasbro anchor brand. On Scrabulous, you play an online version of Scrabble with all your friends on Facebook. It's very popular: They claim 569,000 daily active users, and it ranks as the ninth most popular app on Facebook.

Bruce Nussbaum gives two thumbs up to the design of the Tata Nano, India's answer to the automobile. The Nano is 10 feet long, costs $2,500, and gets 50 miles per gallon. Demand is high for cars in India, given the rise in incomes, and "10 million additional cars [could be] on Indian roads in five years." The Tata Nano "will be sold in kits that are distributed and serviced by people who will assemble it for the consumer. This could . . . make the Nano available throughout India without a large dealership network." Wow. Innovation for cars is absolutely happening outside of our SUV nation.

This year I decided I will just say no to unnecessary plastic bags. I'm in good company. China has actually outlawed plastic bags. And New York City just passed a bill "requiring large stores and retail chains to collect and recycle plastic bags they give to shoppers." Big Apple retailers that use bags have six months to display a recycling bin in a prominent location in their stores. That should give New Yorkers plenty of reminders that plastic bags are a plague upon the earth. Boston? How about we pass that bill next?

What's the most wired US city? According to Forbes, it's Atlanta. Huh? Well, the Big Peach hosts the regional headquarters of AT&T and Verizon. It's the communications hub of the Southeast and the home of Bell South, Earthlink, and cable giant Cox Communications. Oh, and it spent millions to wire its downtown for the 1996 Olympics. Other cities in the top 10 include Seattle, San Francisco, and surprisingly, Raleigh, N.C., which ranked third. Boston? It's 13th.

The company that's famous for instant cameras is alive and kicking. This year, it plans to update the Polaroid camera concept by selling a portable printer for your cellphone or digital camera. "Polaroid's new printer is a little bigger than a deck of cards and connects to phones by USB or Bluetooth." And here's the wow factor: They use a thermal printing technology from Zink Imaging Inc. - so there's no ink. Zink was founded in 2005 and purchased technologies from Polaroid as it was coming out of bankruptcy. Now Zink and Polaroid are based in the same Waltham complex.