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Earlier this year, we wrote about Shisheido's Digital Cosmetic Mirror, installed at a Tokyo department store to let women test makeup without actually applying anything to their skin. Following in Shisheido's augmented reality footsteps is L’Oréal, which will be trying out digital mirrors in the UK this summer. How it works? Customers snap a digital self-portrait using the mirror's camera. They can then scan a product's barcode to see it 'applied' to their self-portait, using the system's touchscreen interface to select different colours or get recommendations for shades or products that match their skin tone or eye colour. Customers will also be a Besides offering customers a convenient and hygienic way to try new shades and products, the mirror could help prevent buyer's remorse and therefore reduce (costly) product returns. The system used by L’Oréal was developed by EZface, which has also partnered with Boots and Walmart. As reported by Brand Republic, "L'Oréal will be trialling the kiosks later this month offering products from brands such as Maybelline, ahead of a possible commercial deal." Letting customers try before they buy (dubbed tryvertising by our sister-site trendwatching.com) can be a remarkably potent way of advertising products. And a virtual approach, using augmented reality, seems like a natural fit for the fashion and beauty industries. Website: www.ezface.com |
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There's little doubt mobile phones can have an empowering effect on those in developing nations, and we've already seen efforts to use such technologies for improved income opportunities and healthcare, to name just two examples. Now Finnish Sibesonke—a spinoff from Nokia Siemens Networks—is doing something similar to give underprivileged consumers new access to classifieds, chat and social networking services. Sibesonke's vision is to empower the 2.5 million or so disadvantaged mobile phone users in emerging and developing countries. Specifically, it has built a service that's accessible with even the simplest mobile phone using interactive telecommunication protocols. There's no need to upgrade a phone or establish an Internet data connection; rather, Sibesonke works using SMS and the USSD text-based browsing protocol, both of which are part of the GSM technical standard. With Sibesonke's proprietary service, even users of 10-year-old GSM phones can browse content and make posts online. In South Africa, for example—where Sibesonke has focused its first efforts—users need only dial *120*686# to establish a data call that gives them a text screen on their phone. From there, they can access job ads, buy-and-sell services, health information and social connections, among many other offerings. Sibesonke is a for-profit company; its first commercial service is iBOP, a phone-based market research tool designed to gather consumer insight about products, services and advertising from less wealthy South Africans. Meanwhile the company has already won several awards, including the Red Herring 100 Europe 2010. After a pilot in South Africa last year, Sibesonke is now working towards expansion, and it seeks partners on both the technical and socially focused ends. Website: www.sibesonke.com Spotted by: John Greene |
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Cash may be increasingly rare as a method of payment in most transactions, but tipping remains one of those areas where it's still often the standard. Therein lies a problem for international travellers, who must juggle multiple currencies; Where's My Tip, however, aims to offer a solution. Wait staff and bartenders should always be tipped directly on the bill, Where's My Tip stresses. Rather, it's focusing its cashless alternative on travellers who need to tip doormen, bellhops, housekeepers, valets and concierges. How it works? Users begin by paying an annual USD 100 membership fee, which entitles them to 100 free tip cards—additional ones are 50 cents each. Then, when they travel, they can hand out those cards instead of cash. Each card features a unique member ID number, which can be used by the recipient to request a tip online; there, they enter their name and Paypal email address as well as a suggested tip amount. Once that happens, Where's My Tip emails the tip request to the member, who can pay the requested (or other) amount with a credit card or Paypal account. Where's My Tip then forwards the funds to the person who requested the tip. All tips and tip requests are reviewed, routed and processed by hand to keep unwarranted tip requests to a minimum; at the same time, all members must maintain an extremely high ratio of tips paid to tips requested to ensure they don't hand out cards as a way to avoid paying a tip. Membership in Florida-based Where’s My Tip is currently by invitation only. Paypal may not be many service-givers' first preference as a form of payment, but Where's My Tip says it's working on alternatives. At the same time, there's no denying the appeal of cashless tipping, particularly for international travellers short on local currency and unfamiliar with regional tipping norms. How about creating a brandable version that hotels can give guests for in-house or local tipping, with payments simply added to the final tab...? Website: www.wheresmytip.com Spotted by: Peter Yu |
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While instantly gratifying, buying ice cream from a vending machine isn't as fun as it could be. Which is why SapientNitro and Unilever created the world's first smile-activated ice cream vending machine. The underlying technology is sophisticated, but the concept is simple: consumers walk up to the machine, smile and are rewarded with a frozen treat. When its motion detectors sense someone is near, the machine beckons them to come closer and interact. Using facial recognition technology, it can then recognize a person's age, gender and emotion, and measure their smile using a "smile-o-meter". If their grin is wide enough, they get free ice cream. Users can also opt to have a picture of their happy self uploaded to Facebook, which ties in perfectly with Unilever's brand message: "share happy". Currently being showcased at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival, the smile-activated ice cream vending machine will be rolled out at high-traffic locations across the globe over the next 18 months. From security checkpoints that recognize eyes, to cameras that spot friends and family, machines are increasingly capable of smart interaction with humans. Throw in emotion and delight, and you'll create a memorable experience that knocks the socks off traditional advertising. One to have fun with! (Related: Ice cream factory in a vending machine.) Website: www.sapient.com/en-us/SapientNitro/Work.html#/?project=157 Spotted by: every-ware via notcot |
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For those who want to learn a new language—or even brush up on a current one—there's already Popling for instruction one small bite at a time. Now a new alternative from Berlitz takes a similar approach but adds a social element with multimedia instruction and Twitter-like capabilities. With support for 15 different languages, Vocabu offers a social way to build vocabulary. Users begin by entering the words they want to master—input can be done manually, or via the “Vocabu Wordclipper,” which lets them highlight any word on a page and drag it to their browser for automatic inclusion. A series of preset libraries are also available. Users can set goals as well in terms of the number of words they'd like to master each week, with badges to look forward to when they do. From there, Vocabu helps users learn the words from their “wordstreams” by trawling the web for visual references using sites like Flickr or for examples of the words used in sentences from real-time tweets on Twitter. Users of Vocabu can form groups for mutual learning and inspiration, and a “follow me” function mimics the one on Twitter for sharing and comparing the wordstreams being studied. Vocabu will soon be available as a desktop application, with an added word trainer function. Apps for iPhone and Android are on the way, too. Currently free and in beta, Vocabu will operate on a business model that offers both freemium and premium services. When we wrote about Popling early last year, we were impressed by its bite-sized approach to educational instruction; now, Vocabu's addition of social elements makes just as much sense. Purveyors of other educational material—time to bring a social element to your own instructional offerings? Website: www.getvocabu.com |
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Earlier this year we covered Destination Dinners and its meal kits designed to replicate dining experiences from around the world. Now a group of Chicago restaurateurs is planning to implement a similar concept in a sit-down restaurant that sells seating by the ticket and offers four menus per year. Currently in development by the team behind Chicago's Alinea restaurant, Next Restaurant will select its menus “from great moments in culinary history – or the future,” as it's put on the site. “Our chefs will investigate, test, refine, and present authentic menu interpretations from cultures, places and times,” the team explains. Depending on the cuisine, meals will include five or six courses of food, beverage pairings and service. Perhaps even more interesting is that instead of reservations, bookings will be made more like a theater or a sporting event, via online ticketing. Tickets will be fully inclusive of all charges, including service, with pricing depending on the particular seating—Saturday at 8 pm will be more expensive than Wednesday at 9:30 pm, for example. In general, food will range from USD 40 to USD 75 for the entire prix fixe menu; wine and beverage pairings will begin at a USD 25 supplement. Two walk-in tables will be made available every evening, while subscriptions covering all four menus over the course of a year will offer both discount pricing and preferred seating. The team behind Next Restaurant is also building The Aviary, a “bar without a bar or bartenders” that will be situated right next door on Chicago's West Fulton Market. Both are planned to open this fall. Similar in many ways to some of the “anti-restaurants” and supper clubs we've seen—the Stolen Supper Club, for example—Next Restaurant is notable for its explicit recognition that dining out isn't always just about food; often it's more about the experience. And by embracing its ticket-based model, it hopes to be able “to serve 4-star food at 3-star prices.” Website: www.nextrestaurant.com Spotted by: Cagla Pakel |
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By turning down the thermostat by 10 to 15 degrees Fahrenheit during the nighttime hours, consumers can save between 5 and 15 percent on their heating bills each year. With an eye toward helping to make that happen, Australian Lazypatch has created the Duvet Suit and other lounging gear aimed at keeping consumers warm while they reduce their energy usage at night. With a drawstring waistband, large pockets for TV remotes and other essentials, a removable hood and a carrying bag that doubles as a pillowcase, the Duvet Suit is designed to keep wearers warm while they watch TV, take the dog for a bedtime walk, attend a sporting event or participate in any other occasion where cold can be a problem. Available in 12 different colours and patterns, the polyester-filled Duvet Suit is priced at AUD 130 for a full suit or AUD 65 for the pants or jacket alone. The AUD 170 Deluxe Down Suit, by contrast, features duck down and duck feather fill, also with a 100% cotton outer layer. Then there are Lazypatch's AUD 40.70 thermal boots with duck down filling and ultra soft leather/suede soles. Lazypatch is currently in discussions with a dyeing and printing company, meanwhile, to enable customized colours and patterns. It may already be winter in Australia, but in the Northern Hemisphere there's still plenty of time before the cold weather sets in. Stockists in northerly climes: the timing could be just right for you! Website: www.lazypatch.com
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Airports are no strangers to innovation when it comes to attracting business, and we've already seen several interesting examples—Heathrow's installation of a writer in residence, for instance, and dance lessons at the Aeroports de Paris, to name just two. None of the ones we've seen so far, however, can achieve the same heights—quite literally—as Singapore's Changi Airport, which has installed a slide four storeys tall. Reminiscent of artist Carsten Höller's wildly popular installation in the Tate Modern a few years back, The Slide@T3 bills itself as the world's tallest slide in an airport. That may well be true, for the thrill-seeker's dream stands a full 12 metres high, permitting top speeds of up to six metres per second. To encourage visitors to experience the thrill, Changi gives consumers two slide tokens for every SGD 30 they spend at the airport in a single receipt. For the faint of heart, there's also a one-and-a-half-storey version that can be tried for free in the airport's Basement 2 level. Changi Airport also, incidentally, maintains a Children's Playground, a multimedia Entertainment Deck and multiple movie theatres. As Höller notes in an interview about his own slide, “the state of mind that you enter when sliding, of simultaneous delight, madness and ‘voluptuous panic,’ can’t simply disappear without trace afterwards.” It leaves a lasting impression, in other words—which, of course, is what the experience economy is all about. ;-) (Related: Bungee jump for high-end thrill-seekers.) Website: www.changiairport.com/at-changi/events-and-promotions/the-slide-t3 Spotted by: David Rhoades |
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Where most of the composting initiatives we've seen have focused on helping consumers get the dirty job done on their own household waste, Utah-based Eco Scraps collects leftover food from grocery stores and restaurants and turns it into valuable organic soil conditioner for sale at local nurseries. Americans throw out nearly 30 million tons of food every year, and 27 million of those come from supermarkets, restaurants and convenience stores. Hoping to put that waste to good use, Eco Scraps collects leftover food and coffee grounds from five grocery stores and six coffee shops in Utah Valley, according to a report in the Standard-Examiner. A delivery vehicle makes rounds to pick up some 2,000 pounds of local waste each day; it then brings them to Eco Scraps' Provo workshop, where they are ground up, mixed and turned daily until the resulting compost is ready to be bagged and sold. Roughly 60,000 pounds of compost are reportedly produced each month and sell out quickly at local garden retailers and wholesalers. Launched by a Brigham Young University student, Eco Scraps took second place recently at the BYU Social Venture Competition and is also a Sparkseed innovator. The company hopes to expand to five additional markets in California, Arizona, Colorado and Oregon by early 2011, with further expansion after that. Time to make trash part of your next treasure...? (Related: Compost service for urbanites, with soil in return — Garbage into gold, via worm poop.) Website: www.ecoscraps.net Spotted by: Garett Gee |
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If empty shipping containers can be used to create foldout restaurants and pop-up hotel rooms, then why not pop-up health clinics? Better yet, why not ship those clinics to remote parts of the world where the care is needed most? That, in fact, is precisely the notion underlying Containers to Clinics (C2C), a Massachusetts-based nonprofit that is gearing up to open its first such clinic next month at Grace Children’s Hospital in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Through a partnership with the local Ministry of Health, C2C's clinic is designed to fill critical gaps in health service delivery for vulnerable women and children in disaster-ravaged Haiti. Whereas much health care in the area is currently being conducted beneath weathered tents, the C2C clinic will offer a dignified, secure and clean space for women and children to receive pregnancy care and reproductive health treatment, childhood vaccinations, post-partum and newborn care, and infectious disease testing and treatment from local medical professionals. Two 8-by-20-foot, retrofitted containers make up the C2C clinic: one featuring two exam and consultation spaces and the other housing pharmacy and laboratory spaces. Both are designed with diagnostic, lighting and climate-control technologies appropriate for low-resource settings and compatible with local cultural traditions and health education needs, C2C says. Containers were donated by Triton Containers; design and construction on the project were provided by Anshen +Allen and Stack Design Build. Is there any pop-up need containers can't serve? We've yet to spot one, but it's particularly exciting to see social needs getting addressed this way. C2C aims to bring its container approach to other needy places as well. Providers of all things medical: one to sponsor, partner with or otherwise get involved in...? Website: www.containers2clinics.org Spotted by: Michael Sharkey |
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The safety hazards of bicycle and scooter travel may demand protective gear, but that's no reason to stop being stylish, as we've already noted before. Recently we came across a new innovation for participants in either mode of transportation in the form of reflective lace that can be sewn into or worn over traditional clothing. Reflective Lace, also known as “LFLECT,” is available in lengths of 120cm or as a set of two ruffled elastic rings to be worn directly over socks, gloves or hair; both are priced at GBP 20. Eight colours are available—including antique beige, antique mint green, black, bright fuchsia and canary yellow—as are two designs, including one with a bicycle pattern and wavy border. Reflective Lace is currently available only from London-based Lost Values, but its maker welcomes inquiries from potential retail partners. Bicycle-related stockists the world over: one to offer your fashion-conscious customers...? Website: www.reflectivelace.com Spotted by: Green Thing P.S. Along with three other companies we've featured (Sugru, Make Do and Woolfiller) Reflective Lace is in the running for Sustainability's Next Top Model, a contest organized by our friends at Green Thing. Head over to the competition's Facebook page to vote for your favourite. |
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We've noted on numerous occasions the fact that traditional advertising can no longer hold a candle to promotion via social media—see New Zealand's Pass It On initiative for one recent example. Aiming to make the value of such social endorsements explicit, Pay with a Tweet is a platform that lets content owners sell their goods in exchange for a single tweet rather than cash. Developed by German-American Innovative Thunder, Pay with a Tweet bills itself as “the first social payment system where people pay with the value of their social network.” In other words, rather than paying with currency, purchasers of any kind of content tell their friends on Twitter about it instead. Interested content owners simply sign up with Pay with a Tweet, including the download URL, the tweet to be posted and a link to their company's website. Purchasers, then, follow a “forced viral” model to promote the product in question far and wide. Pay with a Tweet is currently available for testing on Innovative Thunder's own book, “Oh My God What Happened and What Should I Do?” Traditional advertising's impact has been fading for some time now, but this is one of the first attempts we've seen to make social media's value explicit. Content creators the world over: one to try out on your own latest work? (Related: Free products for bloggers at invitation-only events — Travel company gives bloggers free trips — Connecting restaurants and bloggers for 'tastecasting' via Twitter.) Website: www.paywithatweet.com |
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