Lebanon turns to apps to avoid gunfights

 

We have apps for alarm clocks, diets, traffic, news, and now we have an app that helps those of us in dangerous areas avoid street violence. These advance-warning apps help the Lebanese avoid the violence spilling over from Syria.

Mohammed Taha founded Ma2too3a, a crowdsourced app that takes real-time information from its users about protests, traffic, roadblocks and other violence and plots them on a map.

Although smartphone penetration in Lebanon is relatively low, the app has over 80,000 downloads, while actual usage depends on the current  political climate.

Meanwhile entrepreneur Firas Wazneh is seeking to develop a product that will respond to gunfire. The app, called Way to Safety, aims to leverage crowdsourced information, especially sound and geolocation, to identify the type of weapon used, direction of shooting, and number of shots fired within 30 seconds of the incident. The app also takes data from twitter to help identify the situation.

Due to the culture of the area, which juxtaposes celebrations with extreme acts of violence, it is important for residents of the area to be able to distinguish between fireworks and gunshots. Not only does this app provide utility in terms of avoiding dangerous areas, but it also helps offer peace of mind to know that that loud bang was in face not violence.

Why I’m Curious

As technology becomes more accessible to developing nations, its citizens will become increasingly innovative in developing ideas that will actually solve for problems that can save lives. I’m curious to see what technologies develop around mobile that aren’t purely based on commercial interest, but that are based in human interests. Further, I’m curious to see how big data can potentially affect geo-political conflicts.

Check the Weather, Check the Crowds

Everyday, we wake up and check the weather before heading out, but soon enough we could be checking how crowded our destination is — at least that’s what start-up venture Placemeter thinks.

Their technology uses algorithms to identify how many people are going in and out of venues or hot spots in a city. The idea is that you will be able to check how crowded your favorite coffeeshop is before you go, or how crowded that department store is, or whether you need to leave now to get in line for that concert. They currently use live-streams of various parts of NYC and they only need 2,000 more cameras to cover the entirety of Manhattan. The team is currently working on gathering data, and beta users are encouraged to mount their iphones on their windows with a provided suction cup to stream video over wifi to help with the data.

The service is somewhat similar to Waze, a corwsourced mapping service with 50M users and 70K contributing data.

<via techcrunch>

Why I’m Curious

As we get closer and closer to Minority Report status and companies can track our whereabouts, I’m becoming more curious about how willing people are to give up their data in exchange for value-adding efficiencies, whether its more targeted advertising or simply utility.

With this app in particular, I’m wondering if

a) enough people will opt to stream video from their phone

b) whether an mobile app will be rolled out for people on the go to see what their destination looks like

c) whether retail brands or entertainment brands will start leveraging this data to provide flash sales or promotions based on the number of people at their branch locations

Buick Designs Car Interior Based on Pinterest Submissions

Buick ran a “Pinboard to Dashboard” promotion that encouraged Pinterest users to create interior design inspirations for the 2013 Encore luxury car. The automotive company invited ten of the most influential fashion, design and food bloggers to participate in the promo and create their inspiration board. The promotion is part of the company’s efforts to reach out to a younger target market and show that the brand can use social media and have fun with it.

The winning Pinterest board was by Michael Wurm, Jr., a bed-and-breakfast owner from Pennsylvania. Wurm has around 4 million followers on Pinterest and his collection had beach scenes and sea foam-colored tones, which became the inspiration for new design deatures, textures and colors for the luxury car.

Why I’m Curious: We are continuing to see this trend of collaborative marketing as brands move away from marketing at consumers and towards marketing with them. I find it  interesting to watch an automotive brand leverage the Pinterest platform to trigger deeper conversations and experiences between the product and consumers. Buick’s creative use of crowd-sourced design through Pinterest serves as a nice example of social activation. I’m curious to see how Buick will continue to share content through their pinboards and if this campaign really drove sales for them or simply just deepened brand perception.