Augmented Reality App Instantly Translates Foreign Text On Signs, Menus If you ever wanted to be able to read text on a street sign or on a menu in a restaurant when abroad, your smartphone might be able to help you soon. Japanese electronics company Omron has developed a smartphone application that can instantly translate (short) foreign texts you come across – firing up the app and pointing the phone’s camera at the text in question is enough. Omron says that in its current form, the app (which isn’t available yet) can handle English, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese. Translations are superimposed over the text shown on the display (in the picture below, you can see three items on a Korean menu shown in yellow Japanese letters).
DriveNow: BMW / Sixt Joint Venture - car sharing The BMW Group and Sixt AG are planning a unique and innovative car sharing venture. With effect from April 2011 onwards – initially in Munich and later in Berlin – the two companies intend to join forces in offering a modern mobility concept under the brand-name DriveNow; this new product will combine vehicles and service of the highest quality with simple, flexible usage. DriveNow is the first car sharing concept to place an emphasis on efficient premium vehicles and comprehensive service.
The Way We Eat Editors Note: Guest contributor Semil Shah is an entrepreneur interested in digital media, consumer Internet, and social networks. He is based in Palo Alto and you can follow him on Twitter @semilshah. “Where should we grab some food?” Perhaps no other question has motivated more consumer technology entrepreneurs. Well, I say that only half-jokingly. After the age of the Yellow Pages, we’ve all used multiple services that guide us to a restaurant seat.
Farmigo: Tapping Into The Power Of The Web To Bring You Fresh Veggies It’s no secret that fresh produce straight from the farm can often beat the potato skins off of its supermarket counterpart — and why farmer’s markets are becoming increasingly popular. But unless you set aside that chunk of time every weekend to pick up your veggies from local growers, you’re probably stopping by your supermarket anyway. The solution to this has been the emergence of Community Supported Agriculture programs, where members of the community agree with farmers to purchase a certain amount of produce, and then pick that food up at local dropoff points at regular intervals. But, while they’ve been around for decades, these programs aren’t necessarily easy to find or use. If only we could use technology to make things a bit more efficient…
Crowdtap Raises $7 Million To Help Brands Connect With Their Influential Customers Crowdtap, a service that allows marketers to easily collaborate with and mobilize targeted crowds of influential consumers, announced today that it has raised $7 million in series A funding. The round was led by Foundry Group, with participation from GSA Venture Partners and social media agency Mr. Youth. Mr. Youth invested $3 million of seed funding in Crowdtap back in 2009 (and served as an incubator for the company during its early stages), which brings the startup’s total current investment to $10 million. Bar Power Is A Nightlife App To Help You Be Less Of A Jerk At Bars Once you’ve had a few drinks at a bar it’s easy to let loose and blow off steam. Unfortunately, while you’re having fun, you could end up annoying others around you, namely the staff at the venue you’re at. By acting like a fool, you’re jeopardizing your future visits, since bartenders tend to remember who was a jerk and who was a great customer. A project at our Disrupt Hackathon called “Bar Power” is an app that will remind you to “not be a douchebag.” It’s somewhat of a game, walking you through nice things to do when you enter a bar.
HealthyOut Is Like A Personal Nutritionist For Healthy Food Deliveries New York-based startup HealthyOut already has a popular iPhone and Android app for quickly finding nearby restaurants and dishes that users can order and have delivered. Today at Disrupt NY 2013, HealthyOut is unveiling a new service, which will provide users with personalized menus of food delivered to help them lose weight or just eat better overall. Launching first in New York City, HealthyOut’s delivery service is designed to provide users with healthy options two times a day, five days a week. By combing through the menus of restaurants around the city that deliver, HealthyOut will come up with 10 meals a week that can automatically be sent to a customer’s home or office. Now, there’s no shortage of food delivery services out there.
Meta-currency - Rheonomy - Eric Harris-Braun In her beautifully insightful book, The Nature of Economies, Jane Jacobs suggests that we must broaden our understanding of economics in the context of the flow processes of the natural world. Near the end of the book one of her characters asks the question, “What are economies for?” One of the other characters answers: “… To enable us to partake, in our own fashion, in a great universal flow” Another character answers with “Economies have a lot in common with language… like language, economic life permits us to develop cultures and multitudes of purposes… that’s its function which is most meaningful for us.” Grocery Comparison Site mySupermarket Launches U.S. Megastore For Finding Best Prices Across Amazon, Walmart, Target & More On the heels of reports that Amazon is preparing to significantly expand its online grocery service AmazonFresh, grocery comparison shopping site mySupermarket is today bringing its service the U.S. Operating something like a Kayak for grocery and drugstore products, the new U.S. version of mySupermarket lets shoppers find the best prices across top stores, including Amazon, Walmart, Target, Costco, Walgreens, Diapers.com, Soap.com, and Drugstore.com. mySupermarket was founded back in 2006, and now has offices in London, New York, Tel Aviv, and Tokyo. The company currently operates a U.K. version of the site which offers price comparisons across major European retailers including Tesco, Asda, Waitrose, Ocado, Sainsburys, Boots, Superdrug, Majestic and Virgin Wines. That business has 4 million monthly users, and sees average baskets of around $130. Today, the company is making that debut with the official launch of mySupermarket.com.
The connected company Many thanks to Thomas Vander Wal for the many conversations that inspired this post. The average life expectancy of a human being in the 21st century is about 67 years. Do you know what the average life expectancy for a company is? Surprisingly short, it turns out. In a recent talk, John Hagel pointed out that the average life expectancy of a company in the S&P 500 has dropped precipitously, from 75 years (in 1937) to 15 years in a more recent study. Why is the life expectancy of a company so low?