The mobile apps continue to come fast and furious in industries far and wide. One of our latest spottings? An iPhone app from insurer State Farm that lets customers look up policy information, record accident details and submit claims.

Available both for the iPhone and the iPod Touch, State Farm Pocket Agent is a free application with features for all consumers, whether or not they're already customers. Its On the Road feature, for example, uses the iPhone's GPS to help users find the nearest hotel or gas station or call a tow truck, taxi, locksmith or rental car service. A built-in checklist, on the other hand, reminds drivers what to do when they're in an accident. Then, of course, there's a way to look for nearby agents. Registered State Farm customers, meanwhile, can do all that plus look up their policy information, record accident details and submit claims, including photos of the accident taken with their iPhone cameras.

Serving as a sort of mobile brand butler, as our sister site would say, Pocket Agent is just one of many examples of the myriad new opportunities enabled by the iPhone and Android platforms. Make consumers' lives easier when they need it most, and they're more likely to become—and remain—loyal customers. (Related: Real-time flight reviews via Android and iPhone — Zipcar's iPhone app finds and unlocks cars — Adidas creates free iPhone guide to Berlin's street art — ING app for G1 phone uses camera & compass to show nearest ATM.)

Website: www.statefarm.com/iphone/index.asp?WT.svl=104

Spotted by: Chris

Transparency tyranny has already forced countless industries to be more honest, as we've been documenting for several years. The latest to succumb? Ski resorts, which were shown by a recent Dartmouth study to exaggerate their snow conditions on weekends by as much as 23 percent in the hopes of attracting more skiers. Thanks to a free iPhone application, however, skiers need rely on the resorts' own reports no more; instead, they have access to real-time reports from their peers.

Available both as an iPhone app and as a Google Gadget, Ski Report lets skiers view and publish first-hand ski reports and photos right from the slopes. They can track their favourite trails at a glance, as well as locating nearby ski areas via GPS coordinates. Powder points highlight areas with the most snowfall, while live ski area cams and weather forecasts for ski areas are also available. The iPhone app and Google Gadget cover ski areas within the U.S. and Canada, while the SkiReport.com website includes 700 areas worldwide.

It should be noted that there are also related apps out there from brands such as REI, whose interest in the community is certainly understandable. Seems to us, though, that the ones who really ought to be sponsoring this kind of thing are the ski resorts themselves. The Dartmouth study found that resorts exaggerated considerably less after the Ski Report app came out, and that the improvement was most evident at resorts with good iPhone reception. Had that improvement been at the resorts' own initiative, they could have been the ones to lead the innovation rather than being forced to follow along behind. Dispense with the deception, embrace openness and community instead, and make the transparency triumph your own! ;-) (Related: Mobile apps hit the slopes — Ski lift tickets at a discount.)

Website: www.skireport.com/iphone/
Contact: contact@skireport.com

Spotted by: Rick Noyes

When we first covered the prize-winning Layar augmented reality browser back in September, we had a feeling applications would soon start start popping up all over the innovation landscape. Sure enough, just a month or so later we saw the technology used at a music festival, and now it's being put to work to reveal insights about Dutch architecture.

To recap on AR: when a camera-equipped smartphone is pointed at a scene, AR apps will superimpose information and links relevant to the location. SARA, which was created by the Netherlands Architecture Institute (NAi) in partnership with IN10 Communicatie and Layar, is billed as the world’s first mobile architecture application featuring augmented reality with 3D models. Users of the technology simply hold up their smartphone to see photos, video, 3D models, scale models and other details about buildings currently in situ as well as those from the past and any planned for the future. The app is currently showcasing the new Market Hall in Rotterdam's Blaak district. Although it's still under construction, those with the app can view a 3D model of how the finished building will look. SARA also allows users to add their own information about any building or map tours of their favourite architecture. Beginning next month, the entire city of Rotterdam will be viewable through SARA; within five years, NAi expects the whole country to be covered. The technology was launched last month on the Layar platform and will be downloadable from the Apple App Store and Android Market beginning next month.

It's not hard to imagine augmented reality apps like SARA becoming a key component of tourism, giving visitors to an area insight about not just the architecture but also historical events and other points of interest. The possibilities are virtually limitless; time to get to work! (Related: iPhone app helps road warriors find a place to work — Louis Vuitton's walking tours of Beijing, Shanghai & Hong Kong.)

Website: en.nai.nl/exhibitions/sara
Contact: info@nai.nl

The proverbial $100 laptop has been held up as an ideal for years, but until recently, no actual machine has come even close to that price. Now, however, there's the Cherrypal Africa, a 7-inch mini laptop that costs just USD 99.

Designed with developing countries in mind, the Cherrypal Africa features at least a 400 MHz processor, 256 megabytes of RAM and 2 gigabytes of flash memory. Its screen offers a resolution of 800 by 480 pixels and it can run either Linux or Windows CE. A built-in Lithium battery, meanwhile, can power the machine for up to four hours. Also included in the 1.2kg device are a built-in speaker and microphone. To keep prices low, Cherrypal buys excess inventory, shells with minor cosmetic flaws, discounted limited batches and other high-quality but discounted components and systems, company chairman Max Seybold writes on the company blog. The result, he adds, is that many of the devices actually shipped feature components more powerful than the minimum level promised on the site.

The goal, Cherrypal explains, "is to help educate children all around the world so that the digital divide is no longer a divide but a global community of knowledge that everyone has access to. By placing technology within the grasp of people who otherwise would not be able to afford it, we believe that this can make a significant difference."

Indeed, Cherrypal—part of Tristate Hong Kong Group—has already teamed up with the PAAJAF Foundation to build a learning center for children in Accra, Ghana. Since launching the Cherrypal Africa, it has received orders from more than 150 countries around the world. One to sponsor, team up with or otherwise get involved in...? (Related: Internet-in-a-box for areas without electricity — Open-source software for low-bandwidth consumers.)

Website: www.cherrypal.com
Contact: green@cherrypal.com

Spotted by: Ruben Feith

Airports and Twitter have one thing in common—they both create an ever more connected global village. Be that as it may, airports themselves can still be pretty lonely places while waiting to board. A French Twitter tool aims to remedy that: bored twitterers need only tweet #boarding along with an airport code (e.g. LAX), and they'll get a reply with a list of twitterers in that airport in the last few hours. Alternatively, Boarding.fr displays a map of all the world's airports and the users in them. Users can choose which random stranger they'd like to tweet and maybe meet while in transit.

Like Lufthansa's MySkyStatus, which tweets passengers' flight updates on their behalf, it's an example of real-time applications adding an automated element to the ongoing conversation that our sister-site calls foreverism. Web developer Damien Guinet created the @boarding 'twitterbot' when he realised many of his followers would tweet just to say they were in an airport. He decided to add value to this by letting them find out who else is there. Although he designed the free service "just for fun", it constantly records data to build up a picture of the most tweeted airports, and Guinet recognizes the potential to partner with airport-based advertisers—perhaps tweeting relevant airport discounts to users of the service? (Related: Connecting airline travellers for a shared cab.)

Website: www.boarding.fr
Contact: damien@boarding.fr