Wired News: When David Yang recently looked for a new apartment in Chicago, he took an aerial tour of the city. As a 22-year-old on a limited budget, Yang couldn’t afford to hire a helicopter for his visual inspection of Chicago. Instead, he turned to HousingMaps, a hack that combines craigslist real estate listings with city maps from Google Maps. […]
Home Searching
Phoneworld
USATODAY.com: Ferney Zantello uses his cell phone for a lot more than just talking. With his tiny Sanyo SCP-7300 he can surf the Internet, take pictures of his wife and kids, zap them wirelessly back to the family and pick up quick text messages from his wife through the day. “Most people my age I know only use phones for […]
RSS Marketing
DMNews: MSN is using MessageCast technology to let Fox Sports fans sign up online to receive scores and news from their favorite teams via alerts and RSS feeds. Fans visiting the MSN Fox Sports site at msn.foxsports.com can choose to get such information through their PC via MSN Messenger, mobile device or e-mail. They also can opt for a combination […]
Daddy’s Shorts
Iconoculture: “Have bottle, will travel!” That’s the modern parent’s bottle, er, battle cry. But where’s a dad to stash the immediate gotta-haves, like bottle, binkie, and wipes? Hook and Tackle figured out a manly way to make do – and give an existing product a contemporary pop-friendly spin. Their Bottle Shorts do the trick, with a formula-size side pocket and […]
Marriage Business
USAToday: When Dane and Nancy Bryant were married two years ago, the guests gave them silverware, wine glasses, a picnic set and a business idea that dramatically changed their lives. Dane, a Web site developer, had decided to make CD wedding invitations for the 115 guests. The discs featured a photo montage of the couple, a two-minute video of them […]
Skin Networking
Technology Review: This month, NTT Labs, the research and development wing of Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation, plans to start conducting field trials for a radical new “human area networking” technology called RedTactont that uses the naturally-occurring electrical fields of human skin to transmit data. The slim, PCMCIA-based RedTacton transceiver combines a an optical receiver circuit equipped with a super-sensitive […]
1TouchConnect
Yenra: An innovative cell phone service offers live interpretation, concierge assistance, and help services with one touch of a keypad. 1TouchConnect is the first international telecommunications provider to combine convenient local and international calling with traveler assistance. “We created 1TouchConnect to bring added comfort, convenience and security to vacationers and businesspeople who are once again traveling in record-breaking numbers,” says […]
Online T-Shirts Seller
Startup Journal: Dan Mowry thought he knew just how to turn his family entertainment newsletter into a successful online business. Two years ago, he designed an attractive site and loaded it up with features to entice readers and advertisers: electronic crossword puzzles, a history quiz and cartoons. Almost as an afterthought, he designed a T-shirt with his company’s logo, a […]
Bookmarking Retailers
RFID in Japan: A Tokyo-based company TechFirm is launching a service that connects consumers and small retailers using RFID. Consumers having RFID-chipped phones can “bookmark” their “favorite” stores by showing their phones to RFID readers installed in stores. Information about a “bookmarked” store is automatically transmitted to a mobile phone. Consumers can access information about all “bookmarked” stores using dedicated […]
T-shirts Made Fresh Daily
Springwise: Three great examples underlining that retail formats and shopping habits continue to blend, turning everything into easy-to-ogle, easy-to-customize and easy-to-buy: At The T-Shirt Deli in Chicago, unadorned shirts are selected from a deli counter and then adorned with garnishings of personalized lettering, delivering on a “T-shirts made fresh daily” tag line. The starting price for t-shirts ranges from USD […]