Legal Commentary

Richard Branson's not the only one out there offering significant prizes (in the case of Sir B, $25M) to stir the minds of inventors and motivate creativity. Branson's offering a bounty to whoever can figure out how to create munchkin devices or other ways tol gobble up excess CO2 in the atmosphere, to combat global warming.

My former boss, Steven Brill, is tackling terrorism and overcrowded airports. He's offering a prize purse of half-a-mil to the homeland security industry, for new technology that will "allow TSA to modify its security process for members (by allowing them, for example, to keep shoes and outer garments on or not to have to remove laptops from carry-on baggage.)"

The $500,000 Innovation Prize, offered by Clear, "will go to the first industry team that comes up with a TSA-approved technology enhancement that improves throughput by at least 15% while not compromising security."

Start crankin' those ideas.

Meanwhile, reports Brill, Clear has persuaded TSA to drop "the illogical requirement that Clear members need to present a photo identification along with their biometrically-secure Clear cards to pass through security," so if you belong, you'll soon be getting a new card w/ yer photo on it.

As I mentioned in a prior post, I was skeptical about Clear, but I'm drinking the Kool-Aid after my very first experience. It's flat-out awesome.