Hello All,

I’m proud to announce that CrowdSpirit is mentioned as a Crowdsourcing example by Deutsche Telekom within their contest. In fact, Deutsche Telekom is launching a very interesting initiative Called “Deutsche Telekom Interactive TV Award” in order to think about the future of IPTV. Look at the contest and earn up to 1 million €

Here is the original post (in German)

„Shake it!“ or how Crowd Sourcing is stirring up product development

Openness is good for fresh ideas. For companies, it can also allow the incorporation of resourceful minds from outside a project. This concept has become the principle of Crowd Sourcing and Open Innovation Initiatives. And since outsiders often have a different view than one’s own employees, this can improve a product’s user-friendliness. Even Deutsche Telekom looks to “crowds” for advice.

Once a strategy, necessity forced Open Innovation to become a virtue. Anything new is quickly assimilated in the information age, eliminating the advantage the innovation once offered. So why not turn the tables and profit from the speed of information dissemination by tapping external sources and sharing the results? IBM’s Eclipse Project is one of the best-known examples of competitors participating side-by-side in an Open Innovation Network.

Crowd Sourcing initiatives also adhere to the principle of exploiting the creativity and resourcefulness of a competent external group. Web 2.0 is the perfect tool. Projects such as CrowdSpirit or Fellowforce invite participants to contribute their concepts or evaluate ideas. The result is a constantly changing hit list of ingenuity.

Interactive TV is uniquely suited to this his type of collaboration. Deutsche Telekom would like to see just how this can function with the announcement of the award and gather experiences from the development crowd. It will be interesting to see what emerges.

What kinds of ideas do crowds have? See for yourself – it’s fun. A little tip: our favourite button is way up top and is called “Shake it!”

If you’ve already clicked there, you might find the following suggestions inspiring:

• Engadget – New ideas that make the life of an early adopter easier.
• Gizmodo – A gadgets blog with plenty of ingredients for a spicy co-existence with and among technology.
• Metafilter – The community blog run by everyone.
• BITS @ New York Times – Technology, innovation, community and making money.
• TechCrunch – The blog that makes $240,000 a month by introducing new products and business ideas.
• Slashdot – News for Nerds. Stuff that matters – ‘nuff said.
• Wired’s Gadget Lab – Even more toys.

best regards,

Lionel, CrowdSpirit Founder

So says a survey of 4,427 consumers conducted by ChangeWave, anyway.

Although who these consumers are, what kinds of electronics they’ve recently purchased, and how many actually plan their gadget sprees 90 days in advance don’t appear to have been taken into consideration at all, Seeking Alpha feels the data is strong enough to warn investors of rough roads ahead. The consumer electronics sector, they say, is getting “whacked” and “slammed . . . with a vengeance,” partly because fewer respondents plan to buy an iPod or cell phone within the next three months.

Hmm. Either the UMPC blues aren’t limited to just UMPCs or a good deal of those surveyed are happily using their iPod touches and iPhones. Tough call.

source: Pocketable

!!! Check also the interesting ideas on CrowdSpirit !!!

best regards,

Lionel, CrowdSpirit Founder

Thanks to an innovative design and well-thought form-factor, the Transformer concept phone by Shkinder Maxim can do much more than your average mobile device. The Transformer has the capability to act as a mobile phone, photo/video camera, multimedia player, projector, and is even working on support for holographic imaging and 3D scanning.

further details on gearfuse

!!! Check also the interesting ideas on CrowdSpirit !!!

best regards,

Lionel, CrowdSpirit Founder

Here is a nice article from Aayush Ayra

Apple has a knack for taking existing technology and devices and turning them into simpler products that have an excellent user interface and good design. They’re often thinner (but heavier) than existing products in their class, have fewer buttons, WiFi, a truckload of software level restrictions, generous displays and sealed batteries. Generally, they also throw in a bunch of advanced sensors for good measure.

Today, Apple’s product line-up consists of the Macs, iPods, iPhone, AppleTV, Xserve and some Mac and iPod accessories. Given that Apple is no more just a computer maker, the diversity in their lineup pales in comparison to the other heavyweights in the consumer electronics field, such as Sony and Samsung.

I’m in favor of having a focused approach and a limited selection of products myself. We don’t want Apple to spread itself too thin and the product quality to suffer as a result.

However, I do think that there is room for an addition to their lineup. Like they did with the iPhone and the iPod, there is one more industry that requires Apple to intervene with a revolutionary product and spur the existing players to step out of their comfort zone and improve their offerings. Like they did with the iPhone, Apple needs to step in and raise the bar.

I’m talking about the digital camera segment. I’ve used several compact digital cameras from a variety of companies. I’ve fiddled with all their settings, tried all sorts of techniques I know and read the user manuals in an attempt to find the magic key which would allow me to take a picture I can be proud of. But all of it has been to no avail.

No matter what I try, I just cannot seem to come up with a decent picture. In every shot, there is a lot of noise, it’s underexposed or overexposed, maybe the colors are not right. Something goes wrong and the picture never turns out well. I have accumulated an iPhoto library full of shots that I’m too ashamed to upload to Flickr. After every vacation, I return home, connect my camera to my Mac and hope that this will be the time when I’ll finally be able to get some Flickr-worthy shots, but it’s always the same story of disappointment. Every trip is a missed opportunity.

Apart from the quality of the pictures, there are several other complaints—the designs of most cameras are just plain pathetic, the user interfaces are almost universally poorly designed, the batteries need to be charged separately, they cannot charge via USB, don’t have WiFi, etc.. The point I’m ultimately trying to make is that this calls for an intervention from Apple.

I want a sexy looking camera, the Apple Snapshot perhaps, that I can pluck out of my jeans pocket, click a button to take a shot, connect it to my Mac over WiFi later and get a library full of decent pictures. That’s all I want. I want the camera to have options only slightly more complex than the iPhone’s camera (which has none at all). They could, possibly, have an ambient light sensor onboard that would detect the lighting conditions and automatically modify the camera settings based on them.

What do you think? Is it too fantastic an idea? Can there be no such thing as an easy-to-use camera? Would Apple never enter any field with a glamor quotient as little as the digital camera’s? If you were Steve Jobs, would you be considering a move into one more field? If yes, which one? In other words, is there any product you want Apple to make? Will I ever stop with these questions?

source : Apple Matters

!!! Check also the interesting ideas on CrowdSpirit !!!

best regards,

Lionel, CrowdSpirit Founder

Canvas is the name of this concept laptop computer which was designed by Kyle Cherry. It is designed specifically for designers or artists. The Canvas appears to be about A3 in size and features a navigator which is a 4 way controller to scroll around images, a side bar which contains all the tools bars needed which keeps the main main workspace completely clear, a touch pad which works in a similar way to a Wacom and other handy controls which a designer might need.

The concept idea of the Canvas is to allow users with little or no experience to make a switch from traditional to digital workflows. It will accomplish this by using a familiar interface.

A touch sensitive keyboard is included under the screen which can slide back and tilt upwards. Along with the keyboard is your regular touch pad for working with it as a normal laptop. When I say normal, the design is far more sleek looking then most other laptops.

With the Canvas being concept there is no release date and no information regarding any potential release dates. For now, just take a look over these sleek looking renders.

further details and pictures on gadgetvenue

!!! Check also the interesting ideas on CrowdSpirit !!!

best regards,

Lionel, CrowdSpirit Founder

The Turn Signal Biking Jacket would be a welcome addition to my biking paraphernalia. The LEDs are controlled via a wrist mounted switch and it would double as a nice warning signal to drivers at night.

source : gadgetreview

!!! Check also the interesting ideas on CrowdSpirit !!!

best regards,

Lionel, CrowdSpirit Founder

Here is a nice point of view from James Stoup about Apple

So, apparently the iPhone is a big deal. Yeah, who knew? And Apple hasn’t calmed things down by releasing an SDK for the iPhone either. In fact, it seems like Apple has been in the press a bit more than usual lately. That’s great, I have no problem with that.

And pundits have been saying all types of crazy things about the iPhone. Words like “revolutionary,” “absolutely amazing,” “game changing,” and “I sold a kidney for this thing” have been bandied about. I also don’t have a problem with any of this.

In fact, the consensus seems to be that the iPhone will positively impact cellphone design (if you could call it design) for years to come in virtually every level of every market. Great. Woo-waa. I’m loving it (to steal a phrase from McDonalds).

And then someone had to go and make the claim that Apple (via the iPhone) is going to dominate this next era of computing. And that is when I started having a problem.

When I first read that I immediately had two questions. One, will Apple really dominate the next era? And two, will it be a good thing? I have a feeling the answer to my first question is going to be yes. Simply because Apple is just too good to beat for the indefinite future. And it isn’t just the iPhone, it is the entire ecosystem they are creating of which the iPhone is merely a piece. An expensive, beautiful, and highly lucrative piece, but a piece nonetheless. And so Apple’s competitors aren’t going to be able to beat them by designing a better phone. They are going to have to try and take on the entire system that Apple has designed and that is going to prove to be an almost impossible task. The only company out there who even has a chance of competing with Apple in all areas is Microsoft. But they are so unbelievably inept they will offer no real challenges in the years to come.

So, if we assume that Apple is indeed going to be top dog for the next decade or so, the next question of course is “is this a good thing?” Well, relative to what, you might say. If we are going to compare the years of Apple’s domination with that of Microsoft, then yes it will probably be a good thing. But that one was kind of a no brainer, because at this point in time I think it’s hard to find anyone, even the most die hard MS fan, who will agree that Microsoft’s years as a monopoly greatly benefited your average consumer. So perhaps that isn’t a fair question.

A more valid comparison would be to look at the past ten years of the cell phone industry, then look at the past 6 months of the iPhone industry, and ask which system seems better. Once again, I think Apple would come out ahead because the iPhone is just such a compelling product and the experience is so much better than anything currently out there. But even taking that into account, and even if Apple runs a benevolent monopoly, in the long run the consumers are going to suffer.

Now, they are probably going to suffer with sleek, easy-to-use devices that are a joy to use…but they will also slowly get locked into the world that Apple is creating. And Apple has shown time and again that they will gladly give up user control in favor of doing things the way they feel they should be done. Will this mean that things will degenerate into the worst days of Microsoft’s rule? No, probably not. But no monopoly, regardless of how initially benevolent it starts off as, is ever anything but a nightmare for consumers. And while I do love Apple and all the products they make, I’m really hoping that they get some competition soon. It seems unlikely, but I sure hope it happens. I have no desire to for any company to completely control this next era, even a company as well loved as Apple.

source: Apple Matters

!!! Check also the interesting ideas on CrowdSpirit !!!

best regards,

Lionel, CrowdSpirit Founder

SPOT says it’s Personal Tracker device is the world’s first satellite messenger. Leveraging both GPS satellite and SPOT’s own network, the device is able to report its location to friends and family even in areas without cellular or wireless coverage.

Priced at $169.99 (plus $9.99/month service fee, or $99.99/year), SPOT’s Satellite Messenger boasts up to 1 year battery life (using 2 AA lithium batteries), global coverage, the ability to track your position using Google Maps, and 9-1-1 alerting for life-threatening emergencies. The bright orange handheld device is water- temperature -and shock-proof, and has the ability to send pre-defined “I’m OK” emails or SMS alerts. Oh, and it floats too.

futher details on GPSmagazine

!!! Check also the interesting ideas on CrowdSpirit !!!

best regards,

Lionel, CrowdSpirit Founder

The modern world wastes gallons and gallons of water. Fortunately, these days folks are catching on. God knows I’ve seen my fair share of waterless urinals. Yeah, it’s a little funky ‘on paper’ but they actually work and they don’t have that horrible urinal cake smell that get’s all up in your mouth. Washup on the other hand, is a conceptual product that reuses the washing machine’s water to flush the toilet. It mounts above the toilet taking full advanatge of the preexisting plumbing and also saves space if you live in a small apartment.

source: gadgetreview

!!! Check also the interesting ideas on CrowdSpirit !!!

best regards,

Lionel, CrowdSpirit Founder

Although the days of Enron and Worldcom are behind us, the days of cooking the books and paper shredding are far from over. Hence the introduction of Rexel’s Auto+ shredder. This thing destroys up to 500 pages at a time and chews through staples and paper clips. For added security, you know, since you never know when you’ll be shredding evidence, the Auto+ features a password protected door. Pretty much the inverse version of the Ziszor shredder we saw a few weeks ago.

product info source : gadgetreview

!!! Check also the interesting ideas on CrowdSpirit !!!

best regards,

Lionel, CrowdSpirit Founder