When it comes to travel, maybe you are on a vacation or just on a business trip, we are always out to find some adventure, something that is far from the norm, something new. For you to get the best experience from a place, then you need to have everything planned out quite well. It is at this point that many people go wrong and eventually wind up not enjoying their visit as much as they should. With getyourguide.com, you can get all that you need online. This means that you will not only find an experienced guides to show you all the exciting places in the area, but you will also get the best guide who knows the do’s and don’ts in the place.

It does not mean that you will only be getting a guide to guide you around the place of visit; you will also be able to book for tours, attractions, and even activities. This is quite a great idea. To be able to complete all your booking in one site is amazing. If you are a constant traveller, you do know how hard it is to have everything that you want planned out for you in advance.

Let’s say you are going to Kenya on your vacation, all that you will need to do is to log onto getyourguide.com and you will be able to book for everything you need. You can book a camel ride, you can also book a visit to the Maasai Mara, and you can also book yourself a stay in one of the exquisite hotels in the country.

Through getyourguide.com, travel has been made hassle free at pretty favourable prices. With getyourguide.com you will get the best deal for the best experience. This is because getyourguide.com works with local travel companies who will be out to make sure that you get to experience all that your place of visit has to offer. If you would love to visit Europe, North America, Asia, Africa, Oceania or even south America, all you need to do is to log into getyourguide.com and all your needs will be addressed. By getting rid of all the intermediaries, you will be sure to get the best price, guaranteed.

Founded by Johannes Reck and Pascal Mathis, what getyourguide.com has to offer is quite unique to the market as it works with local providers so that you can get the best experience. This goes beyond what we are usually used to. We are usually used to individual providers providing booking for their services online, with getyourguide.com; you get everything in one place. If you would love a spa treatment during your visit and some rock climbing at the same place of visit, getyourguide.com will help you make all the arrangements with the best providers around. All you need to worry about is the important stuff; having the time of your life. If you are out to find the perfect visit, where you practically have everything worked out for you then Johannes and Pascal have it done for you through getyourguide.com.

As for my personal opinion on the whole idea, I must admit that I love the idea. Too many times we find our holidays and vacations getting all messy due to some few mishaps here and there, which are all as a result of not finding the right provider for the service you want. Previously all we had were many providers from different parts of the world that offered online booking, now with getyourguide.com; you will get all that you need in one site. The one thing that really intrigued me is a provision that they have. It states that if you happen to find your booked tours at a lower price elsewhere, they will make sure that they refund you the difference. This will be done without any questions. I guess that getyourguide.com is what we have all been looking forward to when it comes to having a great experience while travelling to exotic places all over the world. I sure know what to do the next time I want to visit the pyramids to get the best experience.

In conclusion, getyourguide.com is for sure a great idea. The one thing that we can expect from getyourguide.com is more growth in terms of service. This only means that we will be seeing even much better deals than the ones that we currently have. If you do love travelling then getyourguide.com will let you enjoy your travel with all your needs being addressed no matter how diverse they may be.

All new entrants into the location based social networking space have two people to hank – smart phone manufacturers and Foursquare. The number of location based apps entering the market is growing at a phenomenal pace as more players seek to benefit from the momentum Foursquare has created while carving a niche for themselves that will differentiate them from Foursquare. Like SCVNGR.

Think about FourSquare but with a stronger gaming element. That is SCVNGR for you. That being said, SCVNGR consider themselves to be the reverse of this i.e. a gaming platform but with strong social networking functionality. Either way, there are certain elements of SCVNGR that are not too different from the capability found in location based social networks like Foursquare.

Users check in to a location, use Twitter or Facebook to indicate their arrival and then have the option of creating and/or attempting a couple of challenges in order to earn points. SCVNGRs discover new places, share from the experiences of persons that have been to the same location all while they carry out short fun activities on the platform for real or virtual rewards.

The fact that the challenges can be tied to a location has made SCVNGR attractive not just to individuals but for businesses as well. So far, more than 650 institutions have signed onto the service. SCVNGR runs on two of the largest smart phone operating systems – iOS and Android – and so has a large potential target audience.

In today’s business environment where competition is quite intense, the institutions a startup is associated with can sometimes make or break its reception in the market. On this front, SCVNGR has fared well with Google Ventures in its corner as one of its major financiers. Funding has also been provided by DreamIT and Bantam Group.

SCVNGR is an original idea in many respects. But the platform will find it difficult to run away from constant comparison with Foursquare. SCVNGR also has to contend with one of the biggest problems for budding social networking sites – numbers. Whereas Foursquare can sometimes have as many as a hundred people checked into one location at the same time, not so with SCVNGR.

The large user numbers on Foursquare is what makes contests such as battles for ‘Mayor’ attract intense interest and competition. Unless SCVNGR can find a way of rapidly attracting users in their hundreds and thousands, the allure of competing for points, badges and rewards will not be strong enough to draw and retain interest inthe platform.

Related articles

• HOW TO: Start Marketing on SCVNGR (mashable.com)
• How SCVNGR’s First National Brand Partnership Scored Big During March Madness (mashable.com)
• SCVNGR Looks To Make ‘Checking In’ Less Antisocial, More Physical (techcrunch.com)
• “We Have Only Made Two Mistakes…Our Most Notable Was SCVNGR” (businessinsider.com)
• Finalists for Best Use of Gamification at MITX Awards (gamification.co)

UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) equipped with cameras have found broad application in a number of
fields both commercial and research. There is though one inherent limitation with the images captured
via UAVs – the images are non-continuous and are not 3-dimensional.

But all that seems set to change with the Pix4D technology developed by EPFL. Pix4D allows you to
convert your UAV drone’s two-dimensional photographs into a detailed 3-dimensional map.

The process is relatively straightforward – at least on the front end. All you need to do is upload the
photos from your UAV to the Pix4D. The UAV images would contain the appropriate GPS geo tags for
each photo.

The location of the Pix4D app that you will upload the UAV photos to will depend on the
implementation of Pix4D you have signed up for. The Pix4D implementation options available are: a
cloud version, a server on your network and a minimalist installation that can run on a laptop or desktop
PC.

Once you upload your photos, the process of converting the images to the 3D map takes no more than
30 minutes. To create the map, Pix4D will determine the internal and external orientation of each
image.

The cameras on ordinary UAVs are of lower resolution than the cameras used by sophisticated satellite

systems. In addition, the UAV cameras are of varying power depending on each UAV. Ordinarily, this
would mean the Pix4D app would have to be recalibrated each time photos from a different UAV are
uploaded.

But this is not necessary since Pix4D performs an initial analysis of each set of photos uploaded to it and
uses this data to estimate the internal parameters of the camera. This estimation factors the variation of
the lens between photos as well as variations occasioned by temperature changes.

You might be wondering why the application is called Pix4D whereas it produces a 3D map. The answer
lies in Pix4D’s ability to integrate the time factor. In other words, you could take photos of the same
area but on different times of the month, week or year and create a 3D map of each using Pix4D.

You can then use Pix4D to overlay the 3D maps allowing you to see any changes to the landscape
that may have taken place between the times each set of photos was taken. This functionality can be
particularly useful for farmers with large ranches who may want to keep track of the progress of their
crops’ growth.

Related articles

• Uav,Uas,now comes the aerostat (via SMARTPLANE) (crufc.ca)
• Successful Launch for Elbit UAV (israelnationalnews.com)
• Batcopter UAV observes anti-collision bat behavior, crashes into ground (video) (engadget.com)
• Making a Real Batcopter, With Parts From the Hardware Store (science.slashdot.org)
• ‘Batcopter’ studies bats in flight (gizmag.com)

In the past, the primary source of accommodation when one embarked on long distance travel was a hotel; outdoors camping or crashing at a friend’s place were the other significant alternatives. But in recent times and thanks to the internet, there has been a drive for alternative, low cost and more culturally connected accommodation. Airbnb.com is one of the major players in this new space.

Airbnb connects people that have room to spare with persons looking for accommodation in the same location. Unlike the coldness, formality, seclusion and monotony that is characteristic of hotel rooms, guests that find a place to stay using Airbnb can develop genuine friend connections with the person hosting them, have access to facilities they ordinarily would not in a hotel and have the opportunity to savor the day to day culture and practices of their destination.

The range of accommodation options and pricing are as broad as they come. One can find anything from a city apartment to a medieval castle in the countryside.

The process of booking on Airbnb is relatively simple. Guests enter their intended destination, the dates they need the property and then proceed to browse the matching properties by availability. Guests can send a request for clarification or additional information to property hosts.

Once the guest is comfortable, they key in their credit card information to book their space. Hosts must approve the booking within 24 hours. With the booking confirmed, the host’s contact information, the property’s actual address and any other vital information will be disclosed to the guest.

The next step is for the guest, to finalize their travel itinerary and share these details with their host with the most important being their arrival date. If you are the guest, note that at end of your stay and when you get back home, you can post a review of your experience. The host will also be able to give a review of your time as their guest.

That’s the process if you are a guest. But what if you are a host? The process is just as easy for the host – you log in, fill your profile details before listing your property. The details should include the type of accommodation (e.g. whole house versus one room), its availability and your price per night.

From there on, you wait for guest enquiries and approve or disapprove reservation requests as you find appropriate.

Whereas, guests are required to pay before the reservation is made, as a host you will not receive the funds immediately. Instead, the funds will be held for 24 hours after the guest checks in. This is done to reduce the likelihood of scamming e.g. guest arrives to find accommodation that is completely different from what they paid for.

Airbnb.com has a number of extra features with one of the most popular being the Social Connections. This is a service that allows users to locate and connect with people from their past or present who are members of Airbnb.com.

So popular has Social Connections become that there are currently over 20 million connections between Airbnb.com users. Connections span everything from former class mates to colleagues working with the same multinational organization but in different countries.

Comparison with www.couchsurfing.com

Airbnb.com is onto something – but it is clearly not the first crowd sourced accommodation website on the internet. One of the earliest and most well known crowd-sourced accommodation websites is Couchsurfing.com. While the concepts are strikingly similar, there are some distinct differences between Airbnb.com and Couchsurfing.com that one should look out for.

The first is on cost. If you are looking for the lowest cost, back packer type of accommodation, Couchsurfiing.com has it in far greater abundance than Airbnb.com. In fact, accommodation is presumed to be free though guests are encouraged to part with a token to their host as a sign of appreciation and goodwill.

Yes, it is true that Airbnb.com has relatively wide range of alternatives including low cost options. However, you are less likely to find a ‘-room-with-mattress-on the-floor-available’ type of listing on Airbnb.com although this is a very real possibility (in fact almost ordinary) on Couchsurfing.com.

The listings on Airbnb.com tend to have a more conventional, homely feel in comparison. Also, some of the properties listed on Airbnb.com are in fact more expensive than an average hotel room in the same location.

Thanks to its more personalized and informal approach, Couchsurfing.com provides more search options when you are looking for accommodation including gender, age and activity level. The site also has a database of hundreds of Couchsurfing.com member-organized events in different parts of the world. And unlike Airbnb.com, there is no registration fee required for one to join or participate in Couchingsurfing.com.

But Couchsurfing.com’s advantages in being a forum for extremely low cost alternatives are counter balanced by its higher risk and less controlled environment. Though no money is expected to change hands, you are more likely to be ‘scammed’ on Couchsurfing.com than you would be on Airbnb.com in the sense of someone posting one thing only for you to meet something different on the ground – there are really no obligations on Couchsurfing.com.

The rule in Airbnb.com that funds are not released to the host until 24 hours after the guest has checked in makes it more difficult for unscrupulous persons to advertise one thing but actually present another. In addition, you are less likely to have privacy in accommodation sourced through Couchsurfing.com – shared spaces are far more prevalent than on Airbnb.com.

Among the common strands between the two sites is the use of host and guest reviews to show the credibility of site users.

Comparison with www.wimdu.com

If Airbnb.com is the commercialized version of Couchsurfing.com, Wimdu.com is a clone of Airbnb.com. Other than the fact that Airbnb.com is US-based, has been in operation for longer and has a much larger number of location options and users, there is not much to choose between it and Wimdu.com. The interface is strikingly similar and even the font used on the Wimdu.com logo is almost the same as that used for the Airbnb.com logo.

Wimdu.com is a German based startup with an eye on the European market and Asia too. There are already national versions of Wimdu.com in Spain, France, UK, Italy and of course Germany. Wimdu.com had made an attempt to enter the Chinese market through a subsidiary Airizu.com (again, an uncanny resemblance to Airbnb.com) but the Airizu.com URL now redirects to the main Wimdu.com site.

Wimdu.com currently runs a number of voucher campaigns in an attempt to attract more users to the site. Another key difference with Airbnb.com is that Wimdu.com ensures that if for some reason a booking request fails to go through, the customer service team will make every effort to ensure that the user gets a similar or better quality accommodation at no extra cost. The site also sends its own representative to every property listed to ensure an accurate representation of the property’s quality.

Even though the owners of the site are keen on exploiting the absence of a significant player in the European market of the same stature as Airbnb.com, the borderless nature of the internet means ‘home grown’ alone will not be a selling point that is sufficient to sway European users away from Airbnb.com.

To Wimdu.com’s credit, even though Airbnb.com still leads in Europe, Wimdu.com is growing quite fast in Europe and is already the leading player in the Asian market.

Make sure you give a look at www.housetrip.com too:

http://smartideabox.com/blog/housetrip-com-the-smartest-way-to-rent-a-holiday-flat/

Related articles

• Wimdu – the international expansion of an Airbnb-clone (eu-startups.com)
• Kodesk Is Like An Airbnb For Office Space (techcrunch.com)
• Airbnb Buys German Clone Accoleo, Opens First European Office In Hamburg (techcrunch.com)
• Airbnb moves ‘aggressively’ into Europe (ft.com)
• Airbnb is growing fast, adding 1,000 listings every day (thenextweb.com)

Car sharing is a concept that has been explored in many different ways. The issue of congestion and the high ration of car per inhabitant keeps on increasing. Most cars are designed to transport 5 people, but most of the time they hardly occupied by more than 2 people.

Most concept of car-sharing up to date requires booking your car in advance and having a limited amount of choice or on the other hand they embrace the concept of hitchhiking trying to fill cars to their full capacity.

GetAround.com is bringing car-sharing to the social web. We all know the success of such companies like Zilok.com in france for exemple which focus in facilitating rentals between individuals. GetAround.com is focused on making car rentals as faster and easier than ever before. By Creating in intuitive platform that enables individuals to easily register their cars making them available to potential costumers. Basically they call themselves a a peer-to-peer car sharing service. You are going to actually rent a car from someone that lives near you, or rent your car out to someone in your area.

They claim the rental process takes around 60 seconds! They also make sur to provide legal backup for both parties with an  Insurance coverage that  includes liability, collision, property damage, and uninsured motorist protection. Their process can be completed with simple iphone no paperwork needed!

This car rental market is dominated by big players such as Zipcar but founders are confident that their innovation will help them to quickly penetrate the market. They’ve been awarded the Most Disruptive Startup at  this years TechCrunch’s Disrupt Conference 2011. Here’s is one of the stats that makes this company so disruptive, 2 days after their official launch they already had 1600 cars available for sharing – that is 20% of ZipCar’s market acquired in a single day!

They also offer devices that you can plug in your car enables smartphone holders to directly access the car without having to pick up the keys, just like state of the art rental companies. They however hold a totally different position by only playing the role of the faciliter for peer-to-peer rentals taking a percentage on the transaction. On the website they claim that lenders can make up to 350 dollars a months by lending their car around 15 hours per week! I guess the only downside of the service is that you will have to return the car to it’s initial location, You wont be able to drop it in Las Vegas if you came from San Francisco.

I’m curious to see how things will evolve they’re in private beta at the moment but have made an impressive buzz with this award from Techcrunch.

Related articles

• Car-sharing service RelayRides raises $5.1M from Google Ventures (venturebeat.com)
• Interview with GetAround: Revving up car sharing with an awesome app (thenextweb.com)
• Getaround Signed Up 1,600 Cars In A Day; That’s 20 Percent Of Zipcar’s Fleet (techcrunch.com)
• Startup Turns Anyone’s Car Into Part Of A Zipcar-Like Fleet (mashable.com)
• Getaround app takes car sharing peer-to-peer on the iPhone (tuaw.com)

Instead of spending, why not earn something. Keeping a very simple fact in mind; that the oil prices are rapidly increasing while wind power is a source, which is totally free for, and full of potential if you find the methods to take advantage of it. Furthermore wind power is environment friendly and infinite source of energy.

A market that could benefit from such energy are shipping companies. If they are provided with efficient sail technology they would be able to reduce fuel costs considerably. At the moment there is no sail system that has meet the strict requirements of the maritime shipping industry.

This until a company named SkySails came into the picture offering top-notch wind propulsion system. This is the only company that has been able to meet the requirements and needs of the maritime industry. According to the company with current wind conditions around the world, average annual fuel costs of ships can be lowered by 10 to 35. This figure can vary according to wind conditions. The company states that under an ideal wind condition the fuel consumption of a ship can be reduced by 50 % on temporary basis!

The Main focus of Skysails is their towing kite propulsion systems specifically created for cargo ships. With current products it can accommodate cargo vessel weighing between 8 and 16 tons. The company is investing importantly on research and development. Future plan are to deliver a similar upgraded product designed for heavier load. The goal is to be able to move loads of around 32 tons in the near future after that further down the line the target capacity they want to achieve is of 132 tons.

High tech rope for green shipping is another creation by the SkySails. They have worked closely with DSM Dyneema and Gleistein to create an innovative product aimed to increase quality & sustainability of ropes within the maritime market. The company has gathered experts in the fields of synthetic fibers manufacturing to develop an amazing product called the “towing kite technology”. It is known as the world’s most powerful wind propulsion system that reduces the consumption of fuel of ships up to 35 %. The venture of the company is a success and according to themtogether they will push the boundaries of the traditional and existing technologies to optimize and scale the SkySails system.

With this new technology being introduced in the market, existing cargo vessels will be out dated. Skysails kites are specifically design to be installed on any old vessel, which will be a key strength when approaching shipping companies. If early adopters prove the benefits of such innovation it will surely give a jolt to the other companies. Gradually it seems logical that wind towing technologies will be allied to more costly a traditional fossil fuel energy.

Related articles

• Three Tips to Avoid Costly Shipping Mistakes (entrepreneur.com)
• Cargill will have a kite sail on a 30,000 ton cargo ship (nextbigfuture.com)
• Green mega-yachts: Not-so-filthy rich (economist.com)
• Climate Change and the Impact of Shipping (gcaptain.com)
• Maine wind farm could be latest ‘not in my backyard’ casualty (venturebeat.com)

Gigwalk is an iphone application that aims to use the growing “smartphone workforce” in crowd-sourcing effort to complete mini-tasks. Today’s world is very dynamic and everything changes at a very fast pace: Shops, Roads, or services etc…Google and other companies send a lot of money and time to try and map our world but it’s an effort that will be continuous and with big risks of quickly being outdated.

The idea is this: If you need something simple done at your store or other physical location, as long as it’s something almost anyone can do, you can put a job up on Gigwalk for people to grab..

Gigwalk classfies the tasks (Gig is how they call it) into 4 different categories:

Mapping

Mapping tasks range from Verify Roads & Signs to Transportation or even for people who want to Create their Own Map. More precise tasks exemples:

Local

Shopping

CrunchBase Company Profile

Official Website

Whether it is for purposes of computing tax returns, preparing yearend accounts or to help you have better grip of personal or business expenses, recording and keeping track of expenditure is important. But considering the sheer number of receipts the average person piles up in a month or year, it is clear that maintaining order is no mean task. It is not unusual for one to spend hours each month organising and adding up receipts.

Plendi.com is changing how people manage receipts by making the process more efficient. Plendi’s process is simple. First, install the Plendi app on your smart phone (the app is available for iPhone, Android and Blackberry). Use your phone to take a photograph of the receipt. The image is then securely transmitted to Plendi.com servers.

The sooner you can take the photo after the receipt is issued the better – the receipt is still in pristine condition and not a crumpled state as is likely to happen after it is handled for a while. Taking the photo early is also important in safeguarding the record just in case the receipt is lost shortly after.

On receiving the digital image, the back office staff at Plendi manually key in the important fields from the receipt and upload the data by the end of the next business day. The data captured includes date, currency, vendor, net amount, VAT and total amount.

All the information can then be accessed on Plendi.com by the client. The records (including the images) can be exported to Excel and PDF files. With Plendi.com, there is no longer need to worry about lost receipts. Plendi.com stores your records for an indefinite time frame for as long as you are subscribed to the service.

This archive can come in handy during a tax audit, external audit, internal audit or a dispute. Remember that tax authorities in several countries including the US, the UK and Ireland accept receipt images as legitimate supporting documentation for tax returns. The digital records ensure accountants have much less to do and save valuable time – they no longer need to sift through, organise and record tons of paperwork.

Plendi.com automatically converts the currency of the receipts to your home currency thus saving its clients the headache of manual conversion of foreign currency-denominated receipts. Using Plendi can see one significantly reduce their tax bill. For instance, one year’s parking receipts can bump a significant chunk off one’s overall tax obligations.

One of the key areas of concern with Plendi.com will be data accuracy. After all, the data is manually keyed in by humans. Plendi do admit they can make mistakes. However, their recommended course of action in the event of an error might not come across as reassuring – that is, users should use the web interface to correct any such errors that are inconsistent with the receipt image. This may be translated to mean that clients are ultimately responsible for the accuracy of the records.

In order not to appear as though they are absolving themselves from blame for typing errors, Plendi.com would probably create a stronger case for the quality of their output if they could indicate their current error rate (as long as it is impressive). For instance, a 99.8% error rate will give users the confidence that errors are the exception and not the norm.

Punctuality, task coordination and organization are all vital habits for anyone intent on having a productive life. But even the most meticulous person can fall short once in a while. Think about boarding a train on a long journey, taking a nap and eventually missing your stop. What about planning a dinner for friends and family but getting caught off guard by the guests’ arrival? A businessman may miss a crucial appointment simply because the taxi company forgot to send the cab on time.

Geotick is a recently launched smart phone app that promises to ensure you are never late for an appointment, never get caught off guard and never miss your destination. It is a location based application that relays time sensitive, user determined, notifications to the apps users and their peers before the users arrival at a pre defined destination. Geotick uses the GPS capability of the smart phone to trigger a message to one or more people of the app user’s impending arrival.

So for instance, during a dinner event, guests that have the Geotick app would simply configure the app to notify the host once they get within a certain distance of the dinner venue. The long distance traveller that wants to take a nap but is not completely certain of the exact time the bus or train will arrive at their destination can configure the Geotick alarm to ring once they are close to their stop.

At the moment, Geotick is only available for iphone users. The free version has the basic features such as setting the alarm and defining locations. The $2.99 version has extended functionality that includes the ability to send text to a spouse or cab driver as well as customize the audio alarm. iPhone users can use the free version to test the basic functionality of the application before they eventually make the decision to buy.

The Geotick app deals with a problem that has plagued man for generations. Diaries, wrist watches, alarm clocks and phones are all tools that can be used to help one meet their punctuality, coordination and organization goals. While Geotick goes a step further than these other tools by incorporating GPS-triggered alerts, it will probably be an uphill task to get this app widely embraced by the mass market as is envisaged by the $2.99 price tag.

Geotick’s developers may need to incorporate a couple of more capabilities to the app if it is to immediately resonate with the iphone masses. That said, the success of Geotick all boils down to how well the apps owners execute its rollout and respond to the feedback of initial users.

To say that travelling can be a nightmare is an understatement. What comes to mind first is the strenuous check in process at many airports. But airport red tape is just one of the key hassles that travellers must grapple with.

Another major pain is finding accommodation especially when one is looking for short term accommodation. Hotels may have rooms available but the cost can be prohibitive. This is where short term rentals (sometimes referred to as home stays) can be ideal.

However, anyone that has tried it knows that finding a good quality, decently priced rental especially on short notice is not easy. HouseTrip.com tries to give some method to this madness by serving as an intermediary between hosts on the one hand and travellers on the other.

Launched in January 2010, HouseTrip.com has had resounding success with about 20,000 persons using it to find short term rentals last year. 90% of traveller reviews so far have indicated having a positive experience.

HouseTrip.com provides benefits for both travellers/guests and hosts. For guests, cost is probably the largest incentive. One can get an entire apartment for the same amount (or less) than they would spend on a modest hotel room.

Staying in a rental provides a more authentic experience than staying in a hotel room. The guest gets to see and be a part of the day to day life of the locals. The third advantage is HouseTrip.com ensures the security of the guest’s money each step of the transaction – no need to fear falling prey to scammers.



For hosts, the main advantage is the ability to enjoy a steady of income from letting their property. Second, a host enjoys the economies of scale that looking for guests through HouseTrip.com presents.

It would take a lot more effort and present many risks were the host to look for guests on their own. HouseTrip.com works hard to ensure that properties listed on the site appear among the first pages on search engine results thus increasing the list’s audience and the likelihood of getting a guest.

Another benefit is that the host ultimately has the last word on who stays in their house and who does not. It takes a simple mouse click for one to reject or accept a booking. Getting one’s property listed on HouseTrip.com is free. The host determines what price to charge and also decides when they want to rent out the property.

HouseTrip.com is not the first website that has sought to connect rental apartment hosts with guests. However, HouseTrip.com has sought to distinguish itself by developing a more careful and systematic approach. For instance, HouseTrip.com covers only a certain number of countries – the site does not list rentals from every country in the world.

This is in contrast to the go-for-broke methodology employed by other sites where there is little or no control to ensure that guests and hosts get value and are not swindled. That said, it is expected that with time, HouseTrip.com will cover ever more locations. As long as the site sticks with its stringent but efficient process, such expansion is not likely to see deterioration in the quality of service.

Shuttl will use current infrastructure and implement their API in order to deliver these quality service.

With carefully calculated algorithms ensure that prices will be competitive. Delivery partners will be provided with GPS tracking: Customers can track their delivery in real time, improving their experience and contributing to reduction in delivery failures.

Location based apps are all in the hype at the moment. But to be honest it is a small revolution, people can be connected to places to areas which means they can be provided with much more relevant information on their surroundings. People want to be connected to people locally and want information about their very own environement. Google already understood that a long time ago, when you are based in Siberia you are more likely to be directed to siberian websites logical.

What anttenna does, as they call it, is to facilitate person-to-person exchanges in real-time. What you must be thinking now is well Graiglist already does that. One difference is that antenna is more focused on day-to-day small exchanges or events, some exemples are:  Got an extra ticket? Need an extra ticket? Lost your dog? Having a yard sale or an open house?

It turns traditional classified listings into geo-tagged twitter sized microlistings. Which makes those listings more efficient with a nice push notification which alerts you when something is happening close to your location . The real innovation i think is the it considerably reduces the length of  the traditional exchange process. Please see bellow a video that illustrates the app and an illustration of the 3 step it takes to make a successful exchange.

How Anttenna Works – Mobile Advertisements.

With todays geolocalization technologies and hightech mobile devices. Us The crowd can become a public CIA. Taking pictures, videos of what we see and just sharing it with our world with precise GPS localization.

The first idea that came to my mind was: what if we could know where every cop is in our city. I wouldnt mind taking a picture of cop when ever I see one. And i would be delighted to be notified if one is approaching my parked car. Its all about crowd sourcing to help the community. Everyone has a mobile device, if a community commits to actively spot things it can become very precise.

It takes about 30 seconds to take your iphone, open the “copspotter” app and just clicking OK. Everybody would be ready to do this on a daily basis if they know they can avoid fines regularly. The app would notify people in a 5 km radius, or accutally the user can locate on the map where his car is parked and everytime a cop is spotted in a 2km radius he gets notified.

Combining technology learned from the segway and mixing it with some coolness made this object what it is. Constantly calculating it’s balance point it’s totally stable. Current prototype can achieve a speed of 40mph and it’s fully electrical.

With it’s small size it is going to be perfect in crowded cities, where it can navigate at ease in every small space. It’s designed to commute with ease from home to work. it’s incredibly easy to use weighing  54.4 kg (120 lb) and no complicated controls except for an on-off switch. You simply push your body weight forward to tilt the machine and move forward.

Watch this video and meet with Gulak a impressive 19 year old at the time Canadian inventor.

The concept of Car sharing is nothing new it has been tested & applied in many different ways with more or less success, but it has never been industrialized.

Pierre Braunwald now offers a new solution by using today’s new technologies along with our environmental awareness.

In two words: Imagine a social network, like facebook, on which a potential driver can create an account. It provides a profile description, the new memebr then receives a GPS receiver at home. Once in his car, he recorded his usual routes (home work) with this GPS tool. The different routes appear on his account on the website Carpuce. When he wants to propose one of his trips, he goes to the site and active for a given date and time. Thereafter, the site compares supply and demand and offers the driver a passenger interested in his journey.

To ensure its development, Peter resorted to crowdfunding: the goal is to bring together investors providing 13 500 85 Euro each. In addition to shares in the company, the shareholder will have the privilege to receive free service Carpuce … life.

It’s like the future of hitchhiking

http://www.carpuce.com/

Started as an online community based around a forum, Local Motors as just built its first car. They used crowd sourcing to design the elements, which means that everyone could participate. What is interesting is the mix of collaboration and competition that they made. Building a car can be divided in many different tasks, which can be assigned to different people. Some of thoses tasks however cannot be devided, like the design because it has to be consistent.

Those are the basic elements that form competitions, in which members of the community take part. The design winner for example is a Korean student who conceived the entire car and clearly astonished other members with his renderings of the beast. Add all those elements together and you get the first open source, crowd sourced, community built car. Amazing stuff.

Whatever the country, let’s face it: it’s always been a hassle. First, you have to detach the plastic bag and moisten your fingers to open it. Then, you always have to think about  the order in which you put the items in (because either the product or the bag might break). Lastly, you always end up with several bags that are a pain in the neck to carry and that will eventually finish in the garbage (which is not environmentally friendly).

We’ve sent a man on the Moon 50 years ago. Why haven’t we found a smart way to carry our food purchases? Several people have tried to innovate, for example by implementing a rolling cart (the ones you see the grandma’s with). I personally think it is way better than the original plastic bags we use, but the problem is it’s unfashionable and you have to bend down to reach for the items.

So I’m looking for your ideas. I am sure we can find a way to revisit the classic grocery bag and turn it into an efficient and fashionable item. Why not have a grocery bag that you can fit on your back, like a school bag?

Now what? In my mind, diesel engines are the future. We fixed their pollution problem a long time ago, they don’t consume much, and they are fast! (Audi wins every 24h du Mans with a diesel powered car since 3 years now). And you know the best part? A friend of mine recycle old restaurant frying oil in his diesel new beetle and drives with it.

So far, there have been some opposition to bio fuel because people make it out of crops. How can you justify starving people of destroying the amazon to power your car? Arable lands are precious, we should not grow petrol on them.

However, 75% of the world is covered with oceans. Salted water cannot be used to water crops, and there is a problem of fertilizers getting to the sea from the over use we make of them. Why not make petrol out of algae then?

I have read that some species have 10 times the energy potential of land crops.

I see many different ways of growing them: directly farm them in the sea, have them grow between glass just like solar panels, etc.. What is sure is that the potential will be enormous as soon as the petrol price will go up. I read that big companies like boeing are already spending some money in R&D, but this is the kind of new technology that you can develop low cost if you are creative. The most important point I think is finding the best algae specie, it should be resistant, grow fast and produce much oil.

They already do it: http://earth2tech.com/2008/03/27/15-algae-startups-bringing-pond-scum-to-fuel-tanks/

This article from MIT is interesting too: http://www.technologyreview.com/business/20319/page1/

I just thought the other day about the days when I lived in London where the beloved milkman delivers some milk and yoghurts to your doorstep for a monthly fee!  Imagine bringing this back from the past maybe upgrading it with a nice baguette and eggs every 3 days.

I Love the charm of the glass bottle that is recyclable this could also be a could selling argument.