With the movie 2012 and the prediction of the end of the world based upon the Mayan calculations we have some old and new things that rise to the surface: Nostradamus comes back in the picture, the end of the world discussions, climate change (which is a good discussion) and Mayan calculations.
Regarding this last item, Mayan calculations, I received a video from a friend and it left me standing with my mouth wide open. Multiplications for which we use electronic calculators, can actually be solved in a far more easier way. See for yourself.
Last week I attended BetaGroup #11 and I was quite surprised. First of all by the amount of attendees. Second by the quality of the event and the participation of the audience and third by the start-ups presenting.
As an opener of the evening I saw a fantastic Dr. Patrick Georges. Dr. Patrick Georges being a brain surgeon came to talk about training and coaching managers of new businesses. Nothing boring but a fun speech on how to deal with human intelligence management. He gave some cool tips and tricks but at the end it all came down to a simple “Trust yourself, follow your guts and be natural”. (The presentation)
The Now network from Sprint. My first impression was wow. A colleague mentioned it’s been around for a while. Still it is a great concept.
Turn on the sound and listen to the facts and actions that occur now. Also pay attention to some small details like construction workers running over the screen. Or hover over a video to watch it and hover over the speakers to hear music. There are too many details to mentions. Experience the Now Network yourself.
First. We Belgians adore coupons and loyalty cards. Almost every inhabitant in Belgium has at least 3 or more cards. Not even to mention the coupons we receive by daily mail, tens or hundreds.
So the other day when I had to visit several stores – stores or gas stations I very often frequent – I thought about taking my loyalty cards. Normally I keep them in the car or in my wallet but I left them at home on the cupboard. But it made me think while I was driving to get my things.
Why can’t we have just 1 card?
I agree when people say that 1 card can’t be brand related, do not have the corporate identity printed on it. But who cares? Once you collect your points, an text message can, for example be sent, thanking the person for his purchase. Or send an e-mail with an overview of the collected points (some already do). Or like most of the stores have a myStore section in which you can customize settings and get an overview of your recent purchases and collected points.
How is this technically possible?
RFID? Bar code?
Maybe it already exists but wouldn’t it be a great opportunity to have a solution like OpenID which has a solution for single sign-on purposes. Why can’t this idea be used? On ID per person to collect loyalty points and have the opportunity to send targeted coupons (coupons that will be used). This way users can easily connect to a store, a brand or service for which he wants to collect his valuable points. This shouldn’t be hard to accomplish, is it?
YOOSE
Via some stumbling and going from profile to profile on Twitter I came across YOOSE. YOOSE has a mobile solution to collect loyalty points and coupons. I think this is a great solution. Only will not every one be able to use this service unless MMS would become suddenly very popular I guess. Else a PDA with extra features such as an internet connection would be essential to get your lists from an online service (a service such as the great Evernote). Then again 3G is very expensive in Belgium. Surrounding countries are manageable. But in-store free WIFI can be made available at low cost to get your coupons, shopping lists and send and get your loyalty points.
Then again, I think this could work. Here I have my ‘1 loyalty card’ solution. All available on my mobile which I carry along at all times. YOOSE is still in under development and I even don’t know when and where they will launch.
What are Siftables:
Siftables are independent, compact devices (cookie-sized computers) with sensing, neighbor detection, graphical display, and wireless communication capabilities. They can be physically manipulated (piling, grouping, sorting) as a group to interact with digital information and media. Siftables can be used to implement any number of gestural interaction languages and HCI applications. Also Siftables provides a new platform on which to implement tangible, visual and mobile applications.(David Merrill, siftables.com)
To me this sounds the future is catching up on us real fast. Tangible cubicles that can contain, according what I have seen, anything, from educative features to musical features to video features and much more. What is makes it so great is that all cubicles can communicate with one and the other and interact. Especially the interaction makes them fantastic. Sure thing to follow.
I really see these Siftables as a future tool for educative purposes. Children can easily learn with these blocks. My daughter would love these.
Tweetbacks (beta), a super service created by Dan Zarrella. It works in a similar way as trackbacks on your blog. The only difference is that it does not show trackbacks from other blogs but from Twitter. In other words a great way to follow conversations about your posts on Twitter.
In order to win we need votes. So I’d like to ask you a favor and vote for us. Maybe first have a look at the video below to see how the application works.
Some of my colleagues will be attending the conference. Grab them by the neck and say hi. (tell them you’ve voted and ask them for a beer!! )
If we win the contest another colleague promised he’d shave his hair and walk around as a bold man. Please make sure I can use my scissors to cut of some of that hair.
Amazing. I find this pretty amazing. During the last presidential elections CNN’s Jessica Yellin was in the studio, or better, she was present via a hologram.
Next steps? Stay at the office during meetings. Done with traffic jams. Or phone calls turned into real life meetings.
With already so many applications build for Twitter, Qwitter must be an app for real Twitter aficionados and addicts. Qwitter sends you an e-mail whenever someone stops following you. It even tells you what the last tweet before your follor decided to quit following you. Talking about big brother.
Maybe Twitter should implement a personalized ‘I hate to see you leave’ message.
Last week I and many others attended Future of Web Apps in London. A fantastic event. I learned many things, heard even more new things but there was more much more. Kevin Rose is great, Marc Zuckerberg is a real phenomenon in real life, Angels really can give a massage.
I’ll try to give a synopsis as how I enjoyed the event.
It all started on Thursday morning, flying in to London City, dropping of the bagage at the hotel and take a bus towards the venue. We were being warmly welcomed by people from ‘I love MySurch’, another event that took place at the same venue. They knew how to turn a smile on every one’s face.
After this it was straight towards the registration desk and heading towards Kevin Rose (Digg) speaking bout ‘The Future of News’. Perhaps it was too early for Kevin but I really could not understand what he’s up to with Digg. They’ll launch some new features soon related to personal recommended news. How it’s going to work it’s not clear to me but I fear this will lead to premier news providers that will massively start to produce news in certain content areas. This might influence certain areas of personified news interests aka ‘brainwashing’. Certain people working in marketing might abuse this system. This of course is just an assumption. Read the rest of this entry »
Last week I attended BetaGroup #11 and I was quite surprised. First of all by the amount of attendees. Second by the quality of the event and the participation of the audience and third by the start-ups presenting. 
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With already so many applications build for Twitter, 
Last week I and many others attended Future of Web Apps in London. A fantastic event. I learned many things, heard even more new things but there was more much more. Kevin Rose is great, 
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