Have you ever had an idea that you know without a shadow of a doubt will be the next big thing? Have you ever seen yourself coming up with the next idea that will be sure to shake the earth? If you said yes to any of the above questions, one of your main problems will be to find funding like any new business. Symbid.com attempts to use crowd-funding just like kickstarter.com to help those brilliant or not individuals to raise capital. If everyone had the amount of money that they needed to turn their ideas into reality, then we can be sure that we would be having a lot more businesses in our world. How is this possible?

In an attempt to solve this problem for the entrepreneur, symbid.com offers a unique feature where you can post all your bright ideas. The process does not end there, you; the entrepreneur will still need to get funding for your projects. So how do you get the money you need to kick start your idea? Posting your idea on symbid.com is just the first step. The next thing that you will need to do is to find investors who will invest in your bright idea. After you have posted your idea in symbid.com, anyone who is interested in your idea will be able to invest in it with as low as two euros to as much as they would wish to invest. Through funding the investor becomes a shareholder of the promising business opportunity. With symbid.com the entrepreneur surely comes out smiling; his or her idea is given a lease of life through crowd sourcing and crowd funding. Founded by Korstiaan Zandvliet symbid.com surely helps out many entrepreneurs with funding for their projects and ideas. Korstiaan Zandvliet saw the need for a way in which entrepreneurs would find funding for their great projects. If there is one thing that is absolutely great about symbid.com is that as long as an idea is great, you can be sure that you will find the much needed funding.

If you are wondering whether or not there is another similar crowd funding provider, then I can inform you that there are other providers such as Maxclass.com or kickstarter.com  which is in one way or another similar to symbid.com, and a few others. By the look of things, symbid.com has nothing to worry about when it comes to competition. With its firm grip on the market, you as an entrepreneur can be sure to get the funding that you need and your dream will finally see the light of day. What symbid.com actually tries to achieve is crowd funding for the great ideas that many people have. Thanks to this principle, we will be seeing many bright ideas being birthed.

As for my opinion on the potential that symbid.com has and how its future is likely to shape up, I can only say that many entrepreneurs and many investors have been waiting for such a platform, but some competitors are already very well positionned. A platform where they can share their ideas with the world, on the part of the entrepreneur and where investors can find the right projects which they can invest in is a crowing trend. We can be sure be seeing a lot of changes in the way businesses are created and the number of businesses will surely be on the rise.

In conclusion, there is a lot for us to see from symbid.com. We can be sure that we will see a lot of ideas being given life by symbid.com and thanks to symbid.com, you can be sure we will see great ideas coming to life. We can only thank Korstiaan Zandvliet for seeing the problem that many face when trying to kick off their ideas. With crowd sourcing and now crowd funding, your idea will finally find life. The only thing that you need to do is to dream more, you can be sure to find the much needed funding with symbid.com.

One of the startups previously talked on smartideabox.com is currently seeking funding on Symbid. Sellanapp.com

This is certainly good news for many entrepreneurs. Considering that there will always be competition from various angles, it is best that as an entrepreneur you find a way in which you can stay ahead of your competition by applying all that you need to and at the same time avoiding the mistakes that your competitors made. So how does mixrank.com work to show you what measures your competitors took up and the results that they had? Mixrank.com is actually a spy tool for contextual and display ads. This means that with the help of mixrank.com you can see exactly where your competitors are buying traffic and which ad copy is performing best for them across over 93000 Google AdSense sites. When it comes to getting the right market for your products it is important that you take up the right measures that will be sure to propel your business to a whole new level.

When you get to know what your competitor is doing to get traffic, you can go ahead and employ the same measures or even take up a new strategy for you to get the traffic that you so much need for your business. You and your business are at a point of authority when you can actually see what your competitor did and what results he got. You can then go ahead and choose which measures you will employ to thrust you and your business to higher heights.

Founded by IIya Lichtenstein, mixrank.com offers to change the growth of businesses. With what mixrank.com offers, you can always look at what your competitors are doing and you can then go ahead and align yourself in the right path so that you can get the results that you want.

As for my personal opinion on what the future holds for mixrank.com, we can be sure that we will see a lot of businesses using it so as to keep ahead of the competition in the field that they are in. Mixrank.com acts like a tool that a business can use to stay ahead of its competition by simply looking at what other businesses are doing. The one thing that I hope businesses can do with this tool is to fully utilise it and we can be sure that we will see a lot of growth not only in the quality of goods and services that consumers get but also in the effectiveness of the products. With mixrank.com I am looking forward to a time where the goods and services that I get will be quality products which are very efficient in nature.

In conclusion, we can only hope that businesses will adopt mixrank.com and all that it offers and then go ahead and use it to better their output and by what they get from mixrank.com, they can go ahead and get more traffic and stay ahead of the competition. From the above, it is clear to see that with the help of mixrank.com, we will see better services and goods for the consumers.

Have you heard of it? Have you heard of Dacuda.com? If you haven’t heard anything about dacuda.com, then it is high time that you get to know SLAM Scan® technology. The great thing about dacuda.com and its products is that they have a mission to deliver low cost and easy to use SLAM Scan® technology in all of its devices. If you still have no idea of what SLAM Scan® technology is, then wander no more; SLAM Scan® technology is the kind of technology that combines robotics principles for simultaneous Localization and Mapping (which is simply shortened to SLAM) with computer vision. What this means is that with devices which use SLAM Scan® technology, you can digitize information in a new and exciting way, in short the scanning process just got a lot simple. With SLAM Scan® technology and dacuda.com you can now be able to handle the complexity of free hand movement in real time while delivering a high quality scan.

From the above, it is easy to notice that it can be quite expensive to have such revolutionary technology at affordable prices for the masses. For the first time with dacuda.com, you can expect cheap reasonably priced products that use SLAM Scan® technology. So how is SLAM Scan® technology helpful? Once in a while or maybe a lot of the time we need to scan a lot of documents or even small parts of documents or images very quickly, the only way to do it nowadays is to take a picture or run towards a scanner. SLAM Scan® technology makes this process a lot easy by making the process fast and intuitive. This is because SLAM Scan® technology offers instant recognition of text, images and tables. This goes a long way in ensuring that you save time by shortening the time that it takes to scan documents and much more.

Recently, in line with their vision of making scanning a lot easier, they have come up with the mouse scanner. The mouse scanner is a gadget that will really help out many people with scanning their documents. The mouse uses this revolutionary technology improved & developed by Dacuda and gives a whole new experience in scanning. So how does it actually work? Lets’ look deeper in how the mouse actually works. The first thing that any scanner needs is a way to input data. In this particular case, the mouse uses a video stream of overlapping images which are usually recorded by a CMOS camera chip. Then it goes a step further where correspondences of images are detected and aligned in real time. With the mouse device, you can be able to edit the information instantly after you have scanned it, may it be on Microsoft word, Excel or any other applications.

Founded in 2008, there is still a lot that we can wait to see from dacuda.com. It is with its technology that we can be sure that there will be a complete change in the future of scanning. This means that you should really watch out for what dacuda.com will be out to develop. For sure I can’t hide my excitement on what the future holds for these new scanning technologies. If you are out to make sure that you get only the best when it comes to scanning then keep your ears open on what Dacuda is set out to deliver. It is certain that the future is really bright. With the team getting numerous awards for their achievements three years down the line, you can be sure that we will be seeing the next big thing in dacuda.com. With this great idea, getting information on your computer will be quite quick. What this means is that you won’t need to wait for a long time for you to get the information you need on your computer for you to be able to edit it. What I definitely know about dacuda.com is that the mouse scanner is just the beginning for them. We can be sure to see a lot more inventions in the near future.

In conclusion as a computer user and someone who uses the scanner quite often, this is quite good news and will go a long way in helping people who want to improve their scanning speed. All we can do for now is to wait for better things up ahead.

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• Viral Radar: The World’s First Scanner Mouse (socialtimes.com)
• Doxie Go: Wireless Scanner (mostly) Cuts the Cord (techcrunch.com)
• Review: NeatDesk Scanner For Mac (techcrunch.com)

You just moved out of your previous home and you are now out looking for an apartment where you can move in. The above statement covers it all especially the part where you searching for an apartment to move into. If there is one thing that you need to know about finding an apartment is that it is surely not an easy process and you are sure to get confused or even frustrated. I remember some time ago when I was out in search of an apartment. I must admit that those few days were some of the worst days in my life. I moved from apartment to apartment, just looking for that one apartment that I would really love. It is very important that you love an apartment before you think of moving into the apartment.
Maybe my definition of an apartment is not your definition of an apartment and this is just why it is so hard to find an apartment that really suits your needs. What we really need is a way that makes the apartment hunting process much easier and turns it into something that you will smile about. I’m really happy that I can now say that there is a way out of it all through livelovely.com. I just wish that this site was up and running before I moved into my apartment. You really should thank me for sharing this with you.
So what does livelovely.com do? With the help of livelovely.com, you will find the apartment that you are looking for hassle free. Would you imagine the whole process being completely scrapped off and all you have to do is to move into the apartment that you have always wanted the apartment that you so much love. Believe me; you need to make sure that the apartment that you finally move into is an apartment that you love. This is exactly how livelovely.com works; it gives you access to tens of thousands of rental listings from across the web which are updated in near real-time. This means that what you see is exactly what is there. If there is one thing that I really love about the site is the fact that you can even opt to be notified about new rentals through your email account.

If you are a landlord and you are wondering if there is something for you in livelovely.com, then don’t worry about a thing. With livelovely.com, you, the landlord also stand to gain. You will get to view renters resume. It is with this resume that you will be able to make the decision of whether or not to let a renter to live in your apartment. With the resumes that you get from prospective renters you will be able to get the best renter to live in your apartment as the resume includes a detailed rental history of the prospective renter, his or her employment information and any other relevant personal information. The advantages are two fold, for the renters; you will be able to stand out from the rest of the renters, depending on how good your resume looks like. When you look at this idea critically, you can’t help but be thankful of the good that this idea holds for you and many other people.
As for my opinion on what the future holds for livelovely.com, I must admit that I really love the idea. Livelovely.com is one site that you can be sure will draw in many renters and landlords alike. For the landlords, they can be sure to get great renters for their apartments. The system that livelovely.com brings to the table is great. The renter can be sure to get an apartment that he or she loves. With the number of apartments being on the rise every day, livelovely.com gives many a chance of getting an apartment that they will love and be happy with the easy way.
In conclusion, we all must admit that the idea behind livelovely.com is really great. We can only be thankful to Leslie Chicoine, Blake Pierson, and Doug Wormhoudt, the co- founders of livelovely.com for their great contribution in removing the frustrations that are common to the apartment hunting process.

Related articles

• Lovely: A Sleek Tool To Make Your Apartment Search Slightly Less Painful (techcrunch.com)
• Lovely wants to help you find the perfect apartment, without the hassle (thenextweb.com)
• Renters Week 2011: Introducing Renters Week 2011: Curbed Might Pay Your Rent! (curbed.com)

It is about time that we saw an application that made taking pictures more interesting. With kooba.com application, déjà vu, we are sure on the right track to seeing greater things in the near future. With the application, you will find it a lot interesting to take photos and even share the same photos with your friends. The application works in a really interesting way, it uses image recognition for automatic labelling of your snapshots. This really saves you a lot of time and energy, from the sound of things, it really sounds like a great application. Let’s take a deeper look at how it exactly works.

If you just love taking pictures and keeping all those precious memories then kooaba.com’ déjà vu application is the application for you. Designed to operate on iOS phones, it will turn your iPhone into your visual memory. The déjà vu application goes a step further and makes sure that your experience is much better. This is mainly by automatically labelling all your snapshots, this means that you don’t have to worry about the number of photos that you take. All that you need to worry about is the quality of photo that you take. This surely sets a huge smile on a lot of faces. The great thing about it all is that you can also can go ahead and edit the labels as you would wish.

If there is one problem that many have identified while taking photos is that the applications they use do not allow for fast picture taking and easy navigation through the photos. With the déjà vu application however, the above problems are fully addressed. The déjà vu application came about from the need of a better photo taking experience. Since the integration of the camera in the phone, we have seen a lot of changes in the way we take pictures. Though this has been the case since 2006 where we saw the first phone with an integrated camera, there hasn’t been so much change in the nature of the photo experience. The only difference between then and now is that the phones now are much more sophisticated and much more efficient. The need for an application that helped people with photo taking and managing their photos increased day by day. This need saw the birth of the déjà vu application. It is through this application that you can effectively organise all the photos that you have.

The number of photos that many individuals have is overwhelming. From this assertion, one thing that is clear is that we need a system that will see us saving our photos and organising our photos in a much easier way. This is what kooaba.com déjà vu application does. Once you take your pictures using the application, the application will label all your snap shots and keep them in an organised format. If your phone is out of memory and you need more space to store all your special memories, kooaba.com déjà vu application has a way out for you. After taking your photos, the application synchronizes with your personal account on cloud. On cloud, they are stored safely for as long as you would like. Though they are synchronised with kooba.com cloud application, you can always access the photos from any device.

As for my personal opinion on what the future holds for kooaba.com déjà vu application, I can only say that the future for the application is quite bright. The application is set to gain a lot of popularity since it is the only application that integrates image recognition for automatic labelling of your memos, the profits that kooaba.com is set to get from its exploration in this particular field will really reward the whole team behind the déjà vu application which they deserve. I am sure that with time, we will be seeing a lot of changes in the way we take photos and the ease with which we can organise all our photos, thanks to kooba.com déjà vu application.

With the déjà vu application, we can only pray that things keep going in the right direction. With the current success that the application is having, things are looking up. We might just see something new from the application.

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• The Android Déjà vu (webtropic.cc)
• Deja Vu uses image recognition to organize your visual memory (thenextweb.com)
• Kooaba’s Paperboy app makes printed newspapers digital, partners with over 2000 titles (thenextweb.com)
• Déjà Vu app adds image recognition capability to Evernote (intomobile.com)
• Déjà Vu – Your Visual Memory (swiss-miss.com)

There has been a rapid growth in online shopping for a various range of commodities including clothes. When it comes to clothes especially, you may be thinking that a purchase that you just made was the right one for you until you get the clothes you bought online in your hands. They may either be oversize or undersize. This is quite the frustrating situation, since you really can’t wear the clothes that you bought if they are not your size. What sproov.com has will make you wipe that frown from your face. It is possible with sproov.com to find the right clothes that you need, this means that you can find the right colour, the right length, the right width; in general the right size for you.

You might be thinking that it is impossible to do so, but why don’t you take a look at sproov.com and see for yourself. It is actually very simple how everything works. You can now be sure that all your shopping on online stores will give you what you really want through sproov.com. When you are in a store, this time not an online store, you might be attracted by the design of a certain line of clothes of a particular brand. Liking the design of the clothes is one thing, getting to own a couple of similar clothes is another different story. You will need to make sure that the clothes that you choose fit you properly. This means that you will need to have your size taken. After having your size taken, all you now need to do is to look for the clothes that fit you well. It is this simple principle that sproov.com operates from. The need for a system that one could effectively use to get the clothes of your size from online shopping was big. Now with sproov.com, we have some good news.

if you don’t want to end up with shirts like this:

Sproov.com offers to take on the size issue when it comes to online clothes shopping. By the look of things, everything is looking up for sproov.com. Now that I’ve told you everything that you need to know about sproov.com, let’s take a look at how it really works. Just like I said, it works on a really simple principle: taking your size and then finding the clothes from different designers, different styles just for you. Maybe I have made things a little bit more complicated for you. You’re probably thinking of how practical it is to take your size and get the kind of clothes that you want, clothes that fit and suit your tastes online. With sproov.com, the answer is simple. All that you have to do is to make sure that you enter two similar pieces of clothing on the site in the appropriate fields. It doesn’t end there, with just a simple click after doing the above; you will get to see different models and brands of clothes which are just the right size for you. Let’s take a simple example of jeans. You might be looking for jeans that will fit you just right from various designers, or even different styles. All you need to do is to tell them of your size by entering two similar jeans in the appropriate fields and then all they will do is recommend you some jeans of different designs and styles for you to choose from.

As of my personal opinion on the potential that Spoov.com has, all I can say is that there is a lot for us to look out for, the idea is great and with growth in online shopping, we need to find ways in which the customer will be able to get what he or she is exactly looking for. Spoov.com is certainly headed in the right direction. We can only look forward into the future for a way we can do online purchases with much more ease and the much needed speed.

In conclusion, it is true that the idea is great and will do a lot in making sure that the online shopping experience is much better. Thanks to this idea, we will be seeing a lot more satisfied customers. It is this simple truth that will see the growth of spoov.com if they manage to keep their promises.

Photos of the winners of StartupWeek in Vienna:

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• Sproov – Making Sure The Clothes You Buy Online Fit You Perfectly (smartideabox.com)
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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.

Quite a number of people are out to find a solution to their power consumption. As many have come to realise, there is a lot of electricity being wasted in their house by technology they use at home. Getting a gadget that will be able to monitor your power consumption and even help you in a way that you are aware of the amount of electricity getting into your home is what some people are out to find. With ecowizz.net, you will be able to save energy in a more efficient way.

It is the need for us to save energy in our homes that birthed ecowizz.net. Ecowizz.net is a company that makes products that will help you in saving energy in your home with ease. With the products that they have to offer you can have complete control over your energy consumption. This is really good news for quite a number of individuals.

When you look at the type of products that they offer, you will notice that they are the only players that are currently in the field. This means that the field is quite scary for many businesses. Just recently we saw Microsoft, Google and Cisco launch experimental software and hardware to help homeowners in this particular regard. It was after a while that all of the mentioned companies bailed out of the project. This left a gap and which ecowizz.net has come in to fill. The products help you monitor the amount of energy getting into your home each and every day making it easy for you to know exactly where it is being used most and what you can do to minimise power usage in your house by employing the right measures. Picture this for a moment, you just dozed off and left the lights on, your television set on, and a lot of other electrical appliances using energy on. What ecowizz.com products aim to achieve is for you to have little or no cases of energy wastage in your house.

Press on cc button to switch english subtitles on

As for my personal opinion on what the future holds for ecowizz, I can say that it will be a tough ride. The idea is really good for me, but when it comes to using the technology that ecowizz has to offer, you can be sure that not so many people will be interested. The market is now aware of the amount of energy the consume and the majority think they are doing enough, this means it will require a huge amount of work to educate the costumer base. The reason being; people cannot see the benefits of such great technology, it very likely to be seen as a small gadget that will help them monitor a fraction of their consumption and that looks complicated. The interest in monitoring one’s own electricity consumption will become a growing trend but in the near future all I can see is gloom.

It is one thing to have great products and services, but quite another to have products that are actually meet the requirement of large target market. To conclusion, I think ecowizz needs to rethink their sales strategy and make their product more attractive. They need to grab attention by using real success stories and maybe giving away the device for free and take a small percentage on the savings the costumer makes. I think a strong and well structured referral system  could be a could idea as this kind of devices will sell well on word of mouth. It’s all about sales & unfortunately is also the case for green technology. I’m looking forward to how this company will shape up in the future.

Today I received an email from swiss “couponing” website Qoqa.ch an offer for a half price ecowizz system I was two fingers from buying it but I didn’t. The main reason is that is the majority of my plugs and an ON/OFF button and that I cannot connect my lights on the system. I will only invest in this if I can control my entire house from my iphone and monitor the consumption otherwise I see it as a gadget.

Related articles

• Measuring Your Energy Consumption (lumoenergy.com.au)
• Facebook Launching “Social Energy” App for Improving Energy Efficiency (treehugger.com)
• Do smart energy gadgets actually save you money? (moneyexpert.com)
• The Recession’s Toll on the Green Economy Home energy-monitoring systems have wilted, green job growth is lackluster, and we’re left to worry about the state of green tech By Rebecca Boyle (imullins89.wordpress.com)

When it comes to events, the organiser has to do a lot for him or her to appeal to the attendees. This means that he or she needs to know of the likes and the dislikes of the attendees. The next thing that the organiser needs to do is to make sure that he or she schedules more time for what the attendees like and minimise on what they do not like. This sounds huge! You are probably thinking that it is almost impossible to please everyone. You are right on one thing, it is hard to please everyone, but you can try to please most people. The one thing that any organiser will be willing to tell you is that he or she wants the same attendee of a previous event to show up for the other event that he or she will organise. It is this state of events that have lead organizers to develop their own software applications for each and every event that they organise and hold, so as to create the best atmosphere for the attendees to benefit.

Let’s take a look at what you, the attendee, would like to have in the event that you are attending. The one thing that will get you going to such events is the need to network. You would really love to meet up with a person who holds the same interests as you and maybe a person you can work with to discover new business opportunities. Every business person understands how important this is. In whatever event they attend, they will be out to make sure that they have effectively interacted with other attendees.

From the above it is clear to see that there is a need that needs to be met if events are to be more successful both to the organiser and to the attendee. This is where bizzabo.com comes in. you are probably thinking of it as genius at this stage, but wait till you hear the rest of the story. It is indeed genius and brings a lot of relief to event organisers and gives smiles to attendees.

Bizzabo.com places itself in the middle of the equation and serves both the organizer and the attendee. It is a free location based mobile application for networking at business events. With this application you, the attendee, can discover new business opportunities and meet ups. It also serves the event organiser in that he or she will engage more effectively through the application.  Bizzabo.com, is an Israeli start-up company Founded by Eran Ben- Shushan, Alon Alroy and Boaz Katz, all alumni of the San Zell Entrepreneurship programme, bizzabo.com promises to be a must have for any event organizer. It is funded by private investors and advised by professionals in the business events category. This is one reason that it is so good.

How does it work? It helps you search for other event attendees. This is usually based on the title, company, industry and other favourable criteria. The application also presents you with a suggestion list that matches you to other attendees based on your profile and interests. For event organisers, they are able to keep track of attendees from previous events. The organiser can also upload events to bizzabo.com’s directory and edit the information about the event at any time, may it be during the event or before the event.

One advantage that the application has is that the event organiser can brand the page with his or her event logo, colour themes and even the up to date agenda. This is one idea that the world is embracing with arms wide open. Another valuable feature that bizzabo.com has to offer is that it allows the organisers and attendees to post special offers on their products or services. From this, it’s easy to conclude that with bizzabo.com at your event, you will generate some significant revenue.

As for my personal opinion on the potential that bizzabo.com has to offer, I must admit that I am in love with the idea. With bizzabo.com the organizer and the attendees stand to gain a lot. This is real- time event networking at its best. Bizzabo.com is certainly pacing the way in giving the attendees what they really need from an event that they attend.

In conclusion, we are sure to see a lot of exploration in event networking. The one thing that we can be sure of is that you, the attendee, will stand to gain a lot.

Related articles

• Bizzabo is the new event-based social networking tool for professionals (thenextweb.com)
• Live Business Networking App Bizzabo Wins Aug 2011 TechAviv Peer Award (techaviv.com)
• Bizzabo:New Business Networking Application (techmadly.com)

With Sellanapp.com, you have a chance to turning all those light bulb moments into reality. Founded by Aernoud Dekker, sellanapp.com promises to bring you all the resources that you need for you to create your ultimate application. This is one idea that is set to bring a lot of smiles all over the world. If you were afraid that your ideas were not going to see the light of day, you need not worry; sellanapp.com will bring you all the tools that you need.

Sellanapp.com offers you a platform for crowdsourcing where you will be able to source for funds. With this, you will be able to source, fund, develop and distribute the application for your favourite device. In a nutshell, what really happens is that you’re great ideas are brought together with the people who are willing to get your idea up and running.

SellAnApp from NewLogics on Vimeo.

This idea is surely one of a kind. It only means one thing; we will be seeing a lot of applications available for our day to day use. The great thing about mobile applications is that they are fun and they make life a lot more easy and interesting. With this platform now, many bright ideas will be brought to fore and this will see a lot of improvements in terms of the quality of applications that we get. To a great extent we can say that we have only seen the tip of the iceberg. Mobile phone applications are set to bring on board a lot of innovation and incorporate a lot of aspects that we need every now and then. This only means that there is a lot for us to see in a few years or so.

As for my personal opinion on what the future holds for sellanapp.com. I will say that this idea will be the mother of many mobile phone applications; I also believe that we will see a lot of improvements with regards to the ease with which one can make his or her application. Surely we need to thank Aernoud Dekker for his one of a kind contribution to helping many people achieve their dreams. When we look at the financials, mobile applications can help you gain a lot more than the initial investment. This is why investors will be keen to make sure that they invest in sellanapp.com. The world is certainly turning out to be quite a great place. With Sellanapp.com, it will be much easier to get your ideas and dreams fulfilled. Now with mobile application downloads exceeding music downloads, we are set to see more applications popping up, a lot of investors will be investing a lot in this particular sector.

In conclusion, sellanapp.com is sure to see a lot of business taking place; from those with the ideas, to the developer, to the investor and finally to the market. When we turn a blind eye to all the benefits that sellanapp.com has to offer with regards to the market, we still find that there are numerous advantages that the individual without funding stands to get. The first being the much needed tools to get his project running and finally to get to use it. With sellanapp.com, we are moving into an age where applications are set to bring a lot of change in our day to day lives. You can be sure that the application that you are using currently will be history tomorrow all with the help of sellanapp.com.

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• SellAnApp: A new platform that lets you produce, fund and promote your own apps (thenextweb.com)
• Backend Service Provider StackMob Comes To Android (techcrunch.com)
• Examples Would Help Clarify When a Mobile Application Qualifies as a Mobile Medical Application (projecthealthdesign.typepad.com)

With the current rise in cases of copyright infringement, plagiarism and content theft depotcode.com is a service provider that is out to make sure that your work is registered. Registration is just one part; depotcode.com will be out to make sure that your content is protected. When you have your work registered with them, you will be able to prove authorship. It has helped a lot of individuals who are out to register their works as fast as possible instead of going through the country’s rigorous requirements involved in getting protection for your works. This process which is conducted through the country’s copyright office actually takes a lot of time and it is this void that depotcode.com tries to fill. Though this is the case, it does not replace the country’s official registration with the copyright office.

The concept behind the making of depotcode.com was the legal need to provide proof of when exactly some work was created and who did so. This has prevented a lot of people from laying claim to something that they really did not come up with since someone else copied the work and claimed that it was his or hers. Some few years ago, with the country’s copyright office as the only option with which you would protect your work from plagiarism or even theft, many people suffered. Depotcode.com has come out in favour of anyone who has a product that he or she wishes to protect from greedy individuals who will be out to steal the idea for their own benefit.

Currently depotcode.com stands against other similar service providers. Some of these service providers have been in the industry for quite a while. They include Numly, Safe Creative and Myows. These are just but some of the common companies that let you register your documents and works. So what is unique about depotcode.com? Though all these companies provide the same type of service, it is only with depotcode.com that you will find that you don’t need to register for you to register your works. All that you will need to do is to fill in the sign up document with your name, your company and your email details and your work is registered and protected from theft.

This is not the only thing that is unique to depotcode.com. It is only with depotcode.com that you will have a QR code added to your uploaded works. This includes your PDF’s and images. When you want to share out your works with friends or with anyone else in the world it is always important for you to send the copy that is marked with the QR code. With this copy, the person or institution to whom you are sending your work to will be able to confirm whether or not the work actually belongs to you. As you would have guessed, this has discouraged many content thieves from stealing content and using the content for their benefit. It is only through QR code that one is able to do this.

The advantages that depotcode.com has to offer over the other similar service providers go far beyond the uniqueness that its service has to offer. As stated earlier on, it is only with depotcode.com that you will not need an account for you to register your works with them. Similar service providers such as Numly will only register your products if you first of all set up an account with them. Another advantage that depotcode.com has over other competitors is that depotcode.com accepts texts, images, PDF’s and a variety of programming languages. This certainly brings a smile to many.

As for my personal opinion on what the future holds for depotcode.com, all I can say is that there is a lot more that they should do with their system if they indeed want to appeal to a larger group of people. The first thing that comes to mind is the process that is involved in registering your subsequent works. You will need to go through the same tedious exercise of submitting your email address and all necessary information. This certainly doesn’t work for me. I’d rather have an account where all I will need to do is to submit my documents and everything is done. From the names to the email address and of course the QR code. One major aspect that needs to be reviewed is the pricing. The charges are simply too high and to top it all off, you will still have to pay more for your work to be registered with depotcode.com after two years.

The long and short of it is that there is a lot of good in QR code, but for it to get to higher heights there’s a lot that needs to be done.

Related articles

• DepotCode: Copyright Verification Through QR Codes (plagiarismtoday.com)
• 5 ways to protect your work online (thenextweb.com)
• Learn the Difference Between Registered and Non Registered Copyrights (rawbusinesslaw.com)
• 5 Copyright Wastes of Time (plagiarismtoday.com)
• EasyTimestamping: EU-Authenticated Timestamps (plagiarismtoday.com)

What is Topguest.com? This is the question that’s on a lot of people’s minds. This is because the idea behind it is quite radical and appeals to a large group of people. Topguest.com is a social media loyalty programme. With this programme all that you need to do is synchronise your various social media accounts such as Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Gowalla, Yelp, Loopt and even Google Latitude. Now based on where you check in, you are awarded with points towards discounts on future hotel stays and other travel perks. This gets you thinking about the spa treatment that you have always wanted.

Founded by Geoff Lewis, who says that Topguest.com was all inspired by, the love of travel and of course, the ever dynamic technology; the ultimate combination which brought about Topguest.com. Just recently, location based social networking services have become very popular. Now with Topguest.com hotels have a great way of staying ahead of the social curve. When you go to a participating place and you check in to your social media accounts, Topguest.com credits you with points. If you are wondering how they actually ensure that you are indeed in participating areas, then you do not have a clue of what geological check in software is all about. It is with the help of this geological check in software that they are able to track your exact location and get to credit you with points.

So how do you get it to work for you? The one thing that you will need is a smart phone and everything will be so easy. I almost forgot to state that it is a member’s only mobile application, which means, you will need to know someone who is already a member for you to register and start earning points. After you are registered as a member and have downloaded the application, you will get real hotel points, air mile and even elite travel perks automatically for your visits to your favourite social networks only in participating areas.

Yes, there are other providers of similar services. Among them are Jetsetter.com and Vacationist.com. What sets Topguest.com apart from other competitors, is that, only with Topguest.com will you find that you are not actually being sold discounted luxury vacation packages. You are actually earning very valuable points that will get you discounts on future hotel stays and more travel perks. Another advantage that Topguest.com has over its competitors is the ease with which one is able to sign up, but of course, you will need to have an insider for you to join the club. This is one thing that not so many people are happy about. It bluntly means that if you don’t have anyone who is already using Topguest.com then you will just have to do without the benefits and all the perks that Topguest.com has to offer.

As for my personal opinion on the potential that Topguest.com has, I must first of all say that I was really excited to join the member’s club. I really love massages and a whole load of other Spa treatments. For me, there is no better way to relax than by having a massage, somehow the daily stresses seem to disappear. With me being a twitter addict, I surely stand to gain a lot from my numerous visits to various places in New York. I also heard that as a member you can choose to earn currency from priority club rewards, viceroy rewards or standard rewards. This has gone a long way in making sure that I visit my favourite hotel for all my dining needs. I’m just waiting for my points to accumulate so that I can order several rounds of drinks the next time I’m out with my pack of friends.

In conclusion, Topguest.com embraces both the old and new in that it takes up the traditional concept of loyalty rewards program and fuses it with geological check in software to award you points every time you visit your favourite hotel restaurant. The future for Topguest.com seems to be very bright. With the right improvements, we will be sure to see a lot of Topguest.com not only being used in hotels but also being used in other fields of the economy. We can only wait and see what the next move for Topguest.com will be.

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• Loyalty Goes Virtual: Driving Behavior with Gamified Rewards and Location (gamification.co)
• Paul Frank and Element Tap Loopt for Location-Based Incentive Programs (mashable.com)
• Location-based social network BuzzMob launches. We’re not sure if it’s awesome, yet. (venturebeat.com)
• Tripbirds – check out the teaser page (tedvalentin.com)

Once in a while we find that we need some money for us to do a little bit of this or that. We head out to our relatives for solace and maybe get the amount that we so much need. If the amount is quite high on the other hand, the option that comes to mind is; bank loans. Bank loans have helped out a lot of individuals start off business empires. It is through these loans that many people are able to survive.

Though this is the case, the interest rates for borrowing money are quite high. The reason why many individuals opt for bank loans is due to the fact that they do not have another option which they can use to source for funds. This has led banks to exploit their debtors by imposing high interest rates on the loaned amount. Even though it is the investors who mainly finance the bank, the bank does not usually honour them the way they should. Investors are forced to settle for very low interest rates. The catch in this particular regard is that they will only offer the investor large interest rates, the longer you bank money with them, this actually encourages investors to invest their money for a longer period with the bank. This is just sad; the borrower and the investor lose, but the bank comes out ahead.

Anyone who wants a large sum of money to invest in a business of their choice will be out to find a creditor whose interest rates are low. With lendingclub.com this dream is quickly turning into a reality for many and you can also join the club. How does lendingclub.com do this? The bank in most cases is the link between the investor and the borrower. Since the bank is in the middle of everything it will make sure that it reaps from the trade and the one to bear the brunt in this case is you, the borrower. So what exactly does lendingclub.com do? Is it a bank? These are just but a few questions that are running in your head.

What lendingclub.com does is that it completely does away with the bank. This means that it is only the borrower, and the investor in the deal. This serves an advantage to both parties involved; the investor gets higher returns on the money they lend out and the borrowers get lower rates on personal loans.

Here is how it all works. If you are an investor and would wish to make the best out of this opportunity all that you will need to do is to go to the online site and then choose an account type. You will find various selections of investing accounts and retirement accounts that are designed to suit various investors’ financial goals. The next thing that you need to do is to build your portfolio and invest in notes. A note is the currency that you will use on lendingclub.com. With their trading platform you will also be able to put up your notes for sale at any time. This will give your investment liquidity when needed. You can also buy notes when you are in need.

Let’s move on to the borrower, if you want to borrow a loan, it is easy and fast. What about confidentiality? That too is factored in. All that you have to do for you to request a loan is to log into lendingclub.com and click the loans link on the site. If you are not a member, you will be guided to a borrower registration page. This is where you will fill in all your details for you to be verified and for your creditworthiness to be assessed. With those simple steps, you will be able to apply for a loan.

Lendingclub.com is surely set on giving banks a headache. This means that we will be finding a lot of individuals borrowing money and a lot of investors willing to lend money, all with the help of lendingclub.com. Since the right measures to ensure that both ends of the bargain are met, you can rest easy that there is nothing to worry about. Thanks to lendingclub.com, the borrowers save a lot and at the same time lenders also reap favourably from lending

Related articles

• LendingClub – Peer to Peer loans, bypass the banking for the benefit of everyone (smartideabox.com)
• Peer-to-peer lending: How to borrow from and lend to ordinary people (confused.com)
• Where Are the Best Places To Borrow Money in a Pinch? [Ask Lifehacker] (lifehacker.com)
• LendingClub attracts attention of investors (sfgate.com)

One of the biggest headaches organizations face today is the ability to attract the best human resource. Placing a job ad in the mainstream media may result in tens, hundreds or even thousands of applications. Despite such overwhelming response and the tedious screening process, it is very probable that the vast pool of applicants will still not result in the right candidate.

This is why networking is one of the best ways to get a good job since the best jobs are rarely advertised. Now Socialreferral.com seeks to somewhat automate the job networking for the benefit of both the job seekers and the employers.

As a platform developed for businesses seeking to fill staffing positions, Socialreferral.com rides on the social network of a business’ existing employees. For it to work effectively, the first step is for the business to encourage staff to link their online social profiles to Socialreferral.com. Whenever there is a vacancy, employers need only upload the details of the jobs onto Socialreferral.com.

The platform will scan through the social networks of each participating employee to identify social connections that are a close match. Each employee with at least one near-fit social connection is then presented with the list of potential candidates within their own online social circle.

No employee will see the matches from another employee’s circle of online friends unless the two share a connection with the same person. The employee assesses the matches within their online social circle and identifies the candidate(s) that are, in their view, the best fit for the job before they proceed to invite the person(s) to apply for the position.

Socialreferral.com goes beyond conventional networking and actively converts each participating employee into a head hunter. Through Socialreferral.com, businesses can have a smaller pool of applicants to choose the new hire from yet have nearly all applicants being persons with skills that are fairly close to what the job demands. Compare that with a public job ad where persons with closely matching skills are often in the minority and recruiters have to sift through piles of enthusiastic but unqualified candidates.

Does Socialreferral.com have weaknesses? Yes. First, Socialreferral.com is only as effective as the number of participating employees and the size of online social networks. Fewer employees and smaller social circles mean a smaller pool to choose from. The second is employee bias. Since it is the employee who notifies their friend(s) to apply, they may skip an otherwise qualified candidate in favor of a closer friend who they would prefer gets the job.

Related articles

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• Get Hired With Help From Your Social Network Friends (mashable.com)
• Google blocks ex-employee’s “Social Circles” book over Google+ launch (slashgear.com)
• Unusual business ideas: Social network recruiting (1000ideas-en.blogspot.com)

Ever been caught in a dilemma and wished a friend or relative was close by so they could give you advice on which is the best decision? Now, in certain circumstances, you would need only call them up and explain what the issue is and they will understand well enough to give you the appropriate pointers. But at other times, this is just not practically possible.

A good case in point is when you are out shopping and cannot decide between two floor tile designs. At such times, you cannot comprehensively describe each option to them over the phone in a way that they will fully understand.

Introducing Swatable.com – the new online platform for remotely roping in your friends and family to help you make an informed decision when choosing between two options. The process is relatively straightforward. You identify the two items you need help in making a decision on. Next, use your iPhone to take a photo of the two objects which you would then upload to Swayable with a description of each. Alternatively you can search for images of the two objects online.

The link to the ‘Swayable’ is then distributed to your circle of friends and relatives on Facebook, Twitter or on email. Each person would vote on either one of the two items depending on the one they prefer. Real time percentages on the Swayable app representing the proportion of your social connections that voted for each alternative will be available.

You can then choose to either go with the majority vote or make a contrary decision knowing full well that it might not necessarily have the approval of most of your friends and family. Either way, you will be certain that you got advice that was based on an accurate description of your options thanks to the images.

Swayable.com is a fun and practical tool. But it is not the first online tool to employ group opinion and decision making. Some earlier sites though targeting different niches from Swayable include AmIHot.com, RateMyFace and probably the most famous, HotOrNot. That the Swayable iPhone app is free is a positive and removes one major impediment from the application’s future growth.

There is currently an app for the iPhone. But whereas the iPhone still commands a substantial share in the smart phone market, Android phones are projected to be the most dominant smart phone operating system by the end of 2011. A version for Android phones would be a great way to tap into that fast growing segment.

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• How to Make a Decision with Swayable (lockergnome.com)
• A new kind of “Hot or Not:” Swayable (businessinsider.com)
• A new kind of “Hot or Not:” Swayable (scobleizer.com)
• Need A Quick Opinion From Your Friends? Try Swayable (readwriteweb.com)
• Swayable: Social Decision Making With Your Friends Help (blogherald.com)

Do you remember that time you went to a party and the DJs seemed completely disconnected from their audience in the sense that they just could not find the music that struck the right chord? This can be a source of great frustration not just for you as an attendee of the party but for the DJs too.

Actually, look at things from the DJs perspective – you have tens, hundreds or even thousands of people in front of you looking to have a good time and you have to find the music that will connect with most if not all of them – tough to say the least.

Finding music that will appeal to everybody is virtually impossible. Music tastes are almost like fingerprints – no two people have an absolute identical music taste. And it looks like one person, Ben Gleitzman, wants to take the literal comparison of unique physical attributes and unique music tastes a step further.

Introducing Automatic DJ – a system that can decipher the kind of music you like simply by scanning your face. How is that for intuition! Sounds outlandish? Not quite. The ‘intuition’ is actually backed by a fairly logical process – unsurprisingly, the internet is involved.

Automatic DJ uses a special iSight camera that captures an image of your face and then runs it through a recently added feature on Facebook – face recognition. With more than 700 million active user accounts, there is a strong chance that the person whose face is scanned by Automatic DJ will already have a Facebook profile.

The system then looks at the music preferences as outlined on the person’s Facebook profile and then creates and plays the appropriate music. In effect, the songs are automatically selected for you hence the name Automatic DJ. You do not need to say a thing. The application’s owners have gone ahead and made the source code public so that other programmers may customize and improve the software even further.

Automatic DJ is no doubt an interesting and fun application. It might not have everything going for it though in the long run.

First, Facebook has already come under fire for creating a database of Facebook user images that can be deciphered by image recognition software without obtaining the express permission of users. Whether this functionality will continue to be available is not clear. And even if it will be, many users will squirm at their data being that easily traceable. Since Automatic DJ relies on Facebook’s image recognition facility, this could end up being its waterloo.

The second shortcoming is that music preferences on Facebook are not completely streamlined neither are they wholly representative of all the music genres. And just because someone indicates they like reggae music for instance does not mean that they enjoy music by all reggae artists.

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• Diy Dj (wonderfulweddingsforless.wordpress.com)
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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.

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• 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)

Every once in a while, there comes innovative technology that has the potential to revolutionize howhealthcare is administered. Intelligent skin patches are quickly proving to be just that with GENTAG becoming one of the leaders in this niche industry.
The skin patch is a low cost, passive and customizable technology that does not require battery power tofunction. The skin patches are in fact a combination of an adhesive patch with an embedded RFID chip.

Initially, the skin patches found application as tools for identification. For instance, hospitals could usethe skin patches to reduce potentially life threatening errors involving surgery-patient mismatches,mother-child mismatches after child birth and patient-medication confusion.
The skin patches have also found application in amusement parks and similarly crowded locations wherethe possibility of children getting lost after being separated from their parents is high.
But now GENTAG is moving the application of skin patch technology a step further – RFID diagnosticskin patches. The diagnostic skin patches are simply ID skin patches but now with sensors based onGENTAG’s proprietary RFID chip technology.

These new skin patches facilitate the real time diagnosis, geo-location and health condition monitoring via smart phones, PDAs, laptops and PCs that can read RFID chips. Using these readers, the data can bequickly transferred from or to authorized persons whether it is a doctor or a close relative.
So far, patents have been filed for the diagnostic skin patch’s glucose level sensing, fever monitoring, UVexposure checks and temperature/pressure sensing. The adhesive used on the diagnostic skin patch isFDA approved and can last for up to 2 weeks depending on the wearer’s skin type.
Once the patch is removed, it cannot be re-used. Since the chip contains some sensitive information including a link to one’s medical records and a picture, this un-reusability is meant to reduce thelikelihood of the details of the previous wearer being used to execute fraud. That being said, the RFIDchip can be protected with a pass code just in case.

The GENTAG skin patch is shower proof, flood proof and does not trigger any allergies. Consistent with ISO standards, each RFID chip has a unique ID.
As a tool that makes health care more efficient than before, GENTAG is likely going places if it cancontinue to grow the number of health conditions that the patch can be used to diagnose. Theorganization is currently developing diagnostic skin patches for new conditions in conjunction with anumber of corporate partners.
Overall, the fact that the technology can be customized to diagnose a wide array of medical condition simplies that the opportunities for this product are vast.

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Anyone who has been on FaceBook for a while will know that one of the most successful app-game onthe giant social networking site has been Farmville. But as popular as Farmville has been, the reality today is that many people hardly know where the food they eat comes from.

This is especially so when you consider the growing transition from majority rural nations to majorityurban. The concept of how and where the food was grown and processed before it ended up on storeshelves seems far removed for the typical urban dweller. This knowledge gap and distant reality does not serve the best interests of the future of humanity as faras food security and eco-sustainable agriculture is concerned. The UK’s single largest farm land owner-administrator, the National Trust, has embarked on an experiment that seeks to change all that that.

Dubbed My-Farm.org.uk, it is an online project that seeks to enlighten people about farming and food production via a participatory approach that incorporates a real farm. Participants are engaged in all key decisions around the farm in Cambridgeshire, on Wimpole estate which is administered by UK’s NationalTrust.

At the core of each My-Farm.org.uk decision is the monthly voting. At the beginning of each month, theMy-Farm.org.uk community is asked a series of questions regarding the farm such as which crops toplant or what type of animals to keep. The questions are originated by a full time farm manager. There is also a community manager whoserves as the eyes and the ears of the participants on site. The community manager uses webcams, blogposts, photos and videos to keep users informed about the goings on.

A team of experts are on hand to provide project participants with any additional information they need to make their voting decision. The vote is then conducted and the winning option implemented on thefarm. The analysis and discussion before and after the voting is a powerful way of keeping participants fully engaged in the process. National Trust is targeting 10,000 participants for the Wimpole farm. If more people request to join beyond this number, National Trust will take that as a sign of the project’s viability and will create a new farm from the 250,000 hectares in the UK that are under its custody.

Each participant on My-Farm.org.uk is required to pay a 30 sterling pound subscription fee. All the income earned from the subscription fees is used in the project to finance staff costs and cover the expenses that must be incurred if the farm is to continue running. And it is on the number of subscriptions that the My-Farm.org.uk project will succeed or fail. Unless theproject can attract at least 6,500 subscriptions, the money raised will not be adequate to keep the farm running and will force National Trust to refund all subscribers.

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• FarmVille Comes to Life! Real Farm in UK Run By Internet Vote (video) (singularityhub.com)
• MyFarm takes “cow clicking” into the real world (gamification.co)
• FarmVille Comes to Life as MyFarm (weinterrupt.com)
• “National Trust’s MyFarm – Farmville Goes Real” and related posts (geeknewscentral.com)
• FarmVille Inspires Real Life Farming Experiment (mashable.com)

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.

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