Nothing to wear? Peer-to-peer fashion rental start-up could help | Guardian Sustainable Business | Guardian Professional You know how it is – a wardrobe full of clothes but nothing to wear? Or indeed a city full of people but no-one to meet up with? Young, French entrepreneur Fiona Disegni has come up with a solution to both. Disegni certainly has the background for it. "I started with a small event in a flat in Paris with friends," she explains. "Women are always unsatisfied with their wardrobe, they keep spending and they never wear the majority of what they buy. So far the concept has been events-based – 40 to 50 individuals sign up, pay an entrance fee, and bring their clothes to rent or simply turn up to meet and browse. "We are peer-to-peer but we are also about bringing a sustainable solution to fashion professionals," says Disegni. "The core of our proposition is that every time you buy something you have a guilty feeling – you have to rationalise it. The plan now is to move from bijoux events to the online masses. Disegni admits there is a fear of being "too early for the market".
L'émergence de la Consommation collaborative Volvo: 'Car trains will happen' Road trains will be a feature on Europe’s roads by the end of the decade, according to Volvo’s senior safety engineer. Thomas Broberg said closed-road trials had already successfully got two cars attached to a road train and revealed that Volvo will be conducting field trials in Sweden by the end of the year. Road trains feature a lead vehicle setting a pace on motorways that other cars can communicate with and connect to, leaving the speed and steering to the lead vehicle. Small fees are likely to be paid to the lead vehicle, said Broberg. “Road trains allow a driver to use their time better, drive safer, reduce congestion and improve the environment,” he said. “You’re always following another car, so why not let the driving be done by someone else?” Read more on road train technology Broberg believes road trains are a step towards fully autonomous cars, technology that Volvo is also researching. Geely’s purchase of Volvo could also have big implications for crash safety. Mark Tisshaw
Peer to Peer File Sharing - P2P Networking Peer-to-peer (P2P) networking eliminates the need for central servers, allowing all computers to communicate and share resources as equals. Music file sharing, instant messaging and other popular network applications rely on P2P technology. What Is P2P?P2P is a standard approach to network design that eliminates the need for dedicated servers. P2P Software Progams and Networks TutorialPeer to peer networks comprise both peer workgroup LANs and P2P file sharing networks. Free Software - P2P File Sharing ProgramsThis index describes each of the top peer to peer file sharing client software programs. Free P2P Music and Movie Download TipsVarious technical difficulties can interfere with P2P download activity. P2P Network SecurityOpening up your computer network for P2P file sharing is easy and fun but can also be dangerous. What Is Darknet? DivX File Compression TechnologyDivX is a popular, free encoding standard for digital video files. What is PeerGuardian?
Craft as a creative industry: what doesn't get counted, doesn't count | Culture professionals network | Guardian Professional The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) issued its paper for consultation on classifying and measuring the creative industries in April. This new paper proposes the removal of 'crafts' as a recognised category within the creative industries. This is of great concern to us and the thousands of makers and organisations across the UK who contribute to one of the most vibrant craft sectors in the world. DCMS states that the removal of crafts as a recognised category would not have any impact on funding and they have reassured us that it believes craft is still a very important sector. However to omit this as a category denies makers, craft agencies and organisations and the government itself robust and commonly agreed data that evidences craft's importance. So why is DCMS proposing to remove crafts? The Crafts Council continues to be involved in direct talks with DCMS but our views have not been taken on board to date. Quotes from our Facebook community include:
The Top 8 Collaborative Consumption Stories Of 2012 Collaborative consumption, the peer-to-peer economy, the micro-entrepreneurship economy, the sharing economy: whatever you want to call it, this was the breakout year for digital platforms that let people share their personal assets, and in many cases carve out a decent side business from them. Home-sharing service Airbnb is perhaps the best-known platform, but it’s hardly the only one that has found success. Peer to peer carsharing marketplaces like Relayrides and Getaround also grew in popularity over the past year; Relayrides is now available nationwide; Getaround is only available in select cities, but it recently launched a service that lets people rent their idle vehicles for months at a time. Even for those with no home or car to rent, the sharing economy has ballooned to include almost anything you could want to loan: your driveway, cooking mastery, IKEA furniture-building expertise, waffle maker. 1. 3 Rules For Building A Collaborative Consumption Business 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.
Horse "Passports" Proposed in Europe as Meat Scandal Gallops On As the horsemeat-dressed-as-beef scandal continues to rock Europe's food industry, a number of organizations are calling on stricter European regulation, including an EU-wide horse passport register. The Federation of Veterinarians of Europe (FVE) said creating a centralised record of horse passports would prevent the issuance of duplicate passports, thereby curbing the risk that horses banned from slaughter enter the food chain. There is no evidence that eating horsemeat in itself poses any health risk, but veterinarians give horses drugs which are banned from human consumption. "A main reason for deciding to exclude a horse from being consumed as food is that this allows the animal to be treated with a wider range of veterinary products", the group said in a statement. Following tests, the UK's Food Standards Agency found traces of the drug phenylbutanzone, or bute, in eight dead horses, three of which may have entered the food chain in France. Horses in their stalls via Shutterstock.
P2P Networking Design and craft subjects fall out of favour in schools | Rachel Williams | Art and design Oskar Paulinski is talking Education Guardian through his design for a birdhouse, conceived in the style of a chocolate box-perfect country cottage. Holes in the roof, fashioned to look like skylights, will allow the birds to fly in and out, and doors at ground level allow access to the box's owner. The pencilled plan shows pretty paned windows. "I'm still figuring out whether to paint them on or leave it as glass," says the 16-year-old. We discuss whether nesting birds might prefer the darker interiors afforded by the painted option. "I like practical stuff and designing stuff," says Oskar, who is studying for a GCSE in resistant materials at Strood academy, in Medway. Simon Ofield-Kerr, vice-chancellor of the University for the Creative Arts (UCA), might view Oskar's window question as a perfect example of the importance of realising designs in real materials, for real use. "My sense, when I go into schools, is that it's all become very flat," he says.
Agréger la réputation de la consommation collaborative, l’exemple de Fidbacks | La confiance entre inconnus est un élément clé pour comprendre le développement de la consommation collaborative. Cette confiance est rendue possible par différents mécanismes, au premier rang desquels les réseaux sociaux et les systèmes de réputation, mais également par des outils spécifiques. L’intérêt porté aux initiatives ayant un lien avec cette thématique ne fait que croître : Facebook a annoncé hier l’embauche des deux fondateurs de Legit, une startup qui travaillait sur un système de réputation universelle. Fidbacks est un de ses outils, lancé il y a quelques jours, le service permet d’agréger ses différents profils afin de capitaliser sur l’ensemble de ses expériences. Fidbacks, qu’est ce que c’est ? Fidbacks c’est le CV de la consommation collaborative. Une fois leur profil en poche ils n’ont plus qu’à le partager afin de démontrer facilement leur « honnêteté » sur l’ensemble des sites de consommation collaborative qu’ils utilisent. D’où vient l’idée ? Un dernier mot ?
Deliver a Fix for Traffic Jams | 10 Ideas That Make A Difference The next time you’re stuck in traffic, blame all that stuff you buy online. E-commerce sales jumped 15% last year, to $186 billion in the U.S., and the daily volume of shipments for FedEx and UPS has grown every year since 2009. Moreover, to keep pace with demand for faster deliveries, many of the rigs dispatched by Amazon, eBay and Fresh Direct leave before they’re fully stocked. In other words, there are now more trucks, and more traffic, than ever. That increase helps explain why urban commuters waste at least 52 hours each year in stop-and-go jams, according to the Texas Transportation Institute. (MORE: The 10 Worst U.S. There are a number of ways to address this problem, including a push for off-peak delivery (see sidebar). The most inventive option, however, comes from Brussels. Although bikes can’t fix delivery backups by themselves — they struggle with larger shipments — Hani Mahmassani, of Northwestern University’s Transportation Center, sees their potential.
Telstra Peer To Peer Sharing Crackdown | P2P Speeds To Slow Down Opinion Telstra ... set to start a controversial new trial that will slow down P2P speeds. Photo: Glenn Hunt Bypassing Telstra's P2P crackdown is child's play Telstra BigPond customers – especially those downloading a lot of pirated content – may soon notice their internet speeds dropping, courtesy of a trial the telco is conducting to, it says, improve its network. The trial will see the internet speeds of BigPond ADSL customers who choose to share content via peer-to-peer networks deliberately slowed down, known as throttling, during peak periods. While it is true that a lot of content downloaded over these networks is pirated material including music, movies and software; there is a lot of content that isn't. Advertisement Leaving the piracy issue aside, what gives internet service providers the right to selectively filter content and manipulate speeds based on that? But what if Telstra isn't necessarily prioritising its own services, what if it's just trying to play internet police?
Rentez-Vous founder Fiona Disegni Beyond Zipcar: Collaborative Consumption It’s been more than a decade since the founding of Netflix and Zipcar, and by now both are well-established businesses. They’re leading examples of an economy and culture model we call collaborative consumption—systems of organized sharing, bartering, lending, trading, renting, gifting, and swapping. Collaborative consumption gives people the benefits of ownership with reduced personal burden and cost and also lower environmental impact—and it’s proving to be a compelling alternative to traditional forms of buying and ownership. Click here for a larger image of the graphic. We’ve organized the thousands of examples of collaborative consumption into three types of systems: Product service systems enable companies to offer goods as a service rather than sell them as products. In redistribution markets, used or preowned goods are moved from somewhere they are not needed to somewhere they are. Collaborative consumption is not a niche trend, and it’s not a reactionary blip to the recession.