Ideas of the week 28th-Oct-2011

This week’s post for the Ideas of the week featuring ideas that might change our world.

 

1. Recycling plastic is now possible
Recycle+ Environment+Mike Biddle

Mike Biddle has broken the loop and found a solution to recycle 80-90 % of plastic waste that is lying around and damaging the environment. More

 

 

 

2. Tiles that harvest energy from footsteps
Kinetic energy

Laurence Kembell-Cook, the director of Pavegen Systems has created Pavegen tiles – a low carbon solution that aims to bring kinetic energy from footsteps of pedestrians. More

 

 

 

3. Smartmirror using AR to display much more than just reflection
AR + Innovation+ Smartmirror

This Smart-Mirror uses Augmented Reality to present users with a wealth of information such as weather and news, social network feeds, streamed internet TV, personal health information and can even act as a personal coach.More

 

 

 

4. Self-steering tractor to make farmers lives a lot easier
Tractor+ Farmers+Technology

A team of researchers in Belgium have developed a robotic self-steering tractor that has a steering system which analyzes the terrain conditions and calculates the optimal speed and turning radius in real-time. More

 

 

5. How Social Digital your company is?
Social Business Index+ SocialDigital

A site called the Social Business Index uses an undisclosed algorithm to provide a real-time assessment and ranking of how social (or connected) a company is. More

 

 

 

6. California’s Government gears up for 21st century
Technology+iphone app+Government

San Francisco’s government is using technology to get more accessible to its people. They are saving lives with an iPhone app that gives anyone with CPR certification the option to be notified if someone nearby is having a cardiac issue and need immediate help. More

 

 

7. Take This Lollipop… If You Dare
Facebook+Dare+Takethislollipop

It’s a site called Take This Lollipop, and in order to best experience it, I can’t tell you what it is. Just that it’s quite exclusive, and you’ll need a Facebook account to use it.

 

 

 

 

 

This week’s post compiled by : Karan Guglani

Ideas of the week 21st-Oct-2011

This week’s post for the Ideas of the week featuring ideas that might change our world.

1. Own a color, Save a life
Innovation+ Social Welfare

Dulux has launched a website initiative with UNICEF in which users can buy one of  the 16.7 million colors  to raise money for children’s charity. more

 

 


2. Giant QR Codes Might Help Businesses Get Noticed on Google
Design thinking + Creative

Google Earth and Google Maps can now sport a large QR code on your rooftop. more

 

 

 

 

3. WanderPlayer Turns Your Phone Into a Controller for Any Computer Game
Mobile + Game + Innovation

WanderPlayer has developed a technology that turns iPhones and Android phones into controllers for computer games. more

 

 


4. Airborne Wind Energy Technology Can Fly Like a Kite
Technology + Innovation

Now a kite flying in the sky can generate energy for us. As it flies, it harvests energy of higher-speed winds, which brings the power that is used for generating electrical energy. more

 

 

 

5. Touchscreen to create an augmented reality experience.
Technology + Innovation + AR

Intel’s chips and a 7-foot-tall clear touchscreen combine to  create an augmented reality experience for consumers. more

 

 

 

6. One Man’s Plan to Bring WiFi to an Entire Continent
Technology + Communication

Kayak.com co-founder Paul English plans to blanket Africa in free wireless internet. more

 

 

 


This week’s post compiled by Alok Kumar


Ideas of the week 7th-Oct-2011

 

future technology

We all have ideas worth sharing, and this is the place to do it. We are particularly interested in those ideas which might make a significant difference in the world in which we live. This blog post under the heading of Ideas of the week is a part of a series of weekly posts by us where we will share with you some of the ideas/links that we come across during the week and find interesting. We would love your feedback on our posts and we would love it even more if you share some links with us too!

 

1. A post by BostInnovation on how NFC technology could impact mobile payment in the near future

Mobile payments are becoming more and more commonplace in society with the increase in  smartphones and advanced mobile devices, More

 

 

2. The Indian Chulha made healthier and being promoted as a healthier cooking mechanism across the world. Read more about the initiative here.

The Low Smoke Stove is a low-tech solution to enable healthy indoor cooking. This stove has been developed to fight the ill-effects of indoor air-pollution, More

 

 

3. Content Marketing- An infographic depicting the process of content marketing

Content marketing is the art of communicating with your customers and prospects without selling. It is non-interruption marketing. Instead of pitching your products or services, More

4. Intel’s Skool Software brings free material for healthcare workers

The Intel Skool Health Education Platform provides anytime, anywhere media content delivery and assessment platform. The idea is to help healthcare workers in developing nations treat women and children better,  More

 

5. Paypal – An interesting video to showing how the way we shop can drastically change

The future is about creating real consumer choice, flexibility and control over how people shop and pay. The future of money is already happening with PayPal. More

 

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This week’s post compiled by:Karan Guglani

The Ladies’ Oracle

 

To all those interested in the occult, worried about the future or belonging to the female gender, I have some exciting news. Ideafarms is proud to present its first android game ‘The Ladies’ Oracle’. The Ladies’ Oracle is a fun game that never fails to give accurate answers to any question asked. Originally a book by the same name, the game comes equipped with answers to over 95 questions that every girl of every age wants to know.

Men and women alike are often curious of the unknown and ask questions like;“When will I get married?”, “Will I have any children?”,“What does the future have in store for me?”. The infallible prophet “Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa”, had long ago worked out a fascinating mechanism to help you arrive at the answer to these questions which he had compiled in the original classic book by the same name – The Ladies Oracle. The book has been for years considered the perfect bible for every woman out in the world.

The Android game by Ideafarms has been designed to preserve the authenticity and enigma of the book while adding an element of fun and mystery to make it more engaging for the user.

Ask a question, choose a symbol, and get your answer. It’s that simple! Scroll through the list of questions and you’re bound to find one that suits your fancy. (Psst: The game also has a jump index bookmark thingy that makes it easy to browse questions.)

Once you’ve found a question you like, you are taken to a shape selection page, where 16 figures are moving randomly around a grid. Just tap a block to select a shape. Your destiny is in your own hands, because it is the shape selected that determines the outcome of your fate.

Spend some time trying out its features. The game never ceases to amaze you. For some answers, the Oracle will even suggest a charm or ritual. You can even choose to keep it to yourself, or share the answer with your friends through e-mail, Facebook or Twitter.

Though there are some unlucky days, during which it is not advised to consult the Oracle, and it is not considered prudent to ask the same question twice in one day, you need not worry about it as the game is designed to help you out there.

Hard to put down, the game promises to be your constant companion, be it an important meeting, a lazy Sunday afternoon, or a fun filled slumber party.

So girls, go to the android market now and download this game. This one is for you.

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Google Streetview Mashups

Seeing some nice pictures people have taken through Google Street View from around the world, roused our curiosity  and we decided to read up more about it. The first stop was the Street View site by Google. On the site, Google claims that Google Maps with Street View lets you explore places around the world through a 360-degree street-level imagery. You can check out restaurants, visit neighborhoods, or plan your next trip.

They even have a technology page on the site where they have described in detail the process, techniques and equipment they have used to gather all the street view data and have stitched it together for viewing. Quite impressive. You can read more about it here.

So of course the next question that came to mind was (we have seen quite a number of examples of very useful mashups that were created using Google Maps over the number of years), whether the same has been done with Google Street View. Below are a few examples we liked.

1. Stweet – Google Street View convenes Twitter

Stweet as the name suggests is a mash up of Google street view with twitter. It shows the exact location from where the tweet originated against a panoramic view of the location using Google street view.

Once a user selects a destination, Stweet shows the tweets from the selected location and as the user moves around in Street-view, it shows more tweets from those locations.

Stweet refreshes automatically when a new tweet is found in the destination that the user is viewing. Currently only available for some cities of US and Europe.

Created by: We Love The Net

Link: http://www.we-love-the.net/Stweet/

2. Zombie attack on Google street view –

Streetview Zombie Apocalypse developed by Wonder-Tonic

is a game using Google Street View. The user can choose his location and can fight the zombies and“œmoving pins” against the street view of that location.

You can play the game here: http://wonder-tonic.com/zombie/

3. World Cup Soccer 2010 Venues – Step up on Puyol’s playground

If you’re a sports fan, you probably came across this mashup developed for the Soccer World Cup – 2010. You can take an inside look at the various World Cup venues, pan around and check out the videos and images from that location and read up more about the location. It was early days yet for Google Street View but this was quite a nifty little tool developed for those who are fans of Soccer and Technology both.

Link: http://www.mibazaar.com/worldcupsoccer/venues.html

4. Globe Genie –

And now you can roam the streets of London and take your own short vacation while sitting in the air-conditioned comfort of your office. Globe Genie is mashup using Google’s street view technology with which you can teleport yourself to your favorite destination. You can view street level details about almost any place and it feels like actually you’re there.

Just select the continent and hit teleport, experience a whole new level of possibilities.

Link: http://web.mit.edu/~jmcmicha/www/globegenie/

5. Street Traveler –

A mash-up to virtually travel around the streets of some of your favorite cities around the globe. Roam around the streets of Sydney, Prague, Paris, Rome, Tokyo, Barcelona, Madrid and London using Google Street View. It lets you read about your favorite destinations, visit your favorite landmarks, and tour around in the panoramic view.

Link: http://streettraveler.blogspot.com/2009/08/list-of-places-in-rome.html

(If you’re in the mood for a few laughs, you can also check out these funny sights captured while taking some of the street views http://www.streetviewfunny.com/streetviewfunny/index.php)

However, looking at these examples and more, it’s pretty clear that it is early days yet for Google Street view and it hasn’t yet been tapped for it’s full potential. We are not sure whether it is because Street View by itself imposes some technical constraints (it could be that it’s just not as handy as Google Maps yet) or whether it hasn’t been explored as an option by people yet. We are definitely interested in exploring this further and discussing ideas on how Google Street View can be used to create more valuable tools. If you have some ideas and feel that you would like to discuss them with us, do feel free to reach out or share.

(Incidentally, Google has already started capturing Street View images for India and Bangalore is their pilot.)

source : http://ibnlive.in.com/news/google-launches-its-streetview-project-in-india/156060-3.html

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Should we let them walk all over us?

Small in size but in the news always for the right reasons, Ideafarms maintains that it follows a partnership model of engagement with its clients as opposed to a traditional client-vendor relationship and we have also successfully lived the model over a period of 8 years (2002-2010) with Continental AG. One of the key ingredients of any partnership is “trust” that the parties have to invest in each other to be able to successfully derive mutual benefit from the engagement. While we believe we did more than our share to establish a successful partnership with Continental AG, we feel we have been dealt with the short end of the stick in this case.

In the news – For all the right reasons

‘Should Government Support Davids?’ was a very pertinent question asked in this Economic Times article (dated 28 April 2011) which raises important issues about protecting overseas, the intellectual property created by India’s Small & Medium Enterprises. We know that it has perhaps not been a cakewalk for us to sustain a legal battle against a blue chip European multinational and we can understand the plight of many others like us, some of whom may not be able to afford fighting for what rightfully belongs to them – their intellectual property – being flouted brazenly by companies that least need to do so.

Quoting from the article –

“While Indian information technology companies should, indeed, be encouraged to diversify into software products whose intellectual property they own and license, what recourse do Indian companies have, particularly the small ones, in case foreign parties , particularly large ones, violate their intellectual property? Is it possible for the government to fund the legal expenses of Indian companies defending their intellectual property abroad, once initial screening shows a viable case?”

Ideafarms would love to hear your views and looks forward to starting a debate on this important and relevant issue.

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