Free steak, if you're smart

Thanks to Media Post Publications bringing this piece of work to our attention...

In this down economy, upscale restaurants suffer greatly now that expense accounts are closely watched.
How can one enjoy a nice, juicy steak without looking irresponsible?
Enter ExpenseASteak.com, a site promoting Maloney & Porcelli, an upscale NYC steakhouse
Here's how it works.
Enter the cost of your meal into the generator, wait patiently for numbers to crunch, then download a PDF of various receipts totaling your meal amount. Genius.

Walrus created the site.

THE NEXT DIMENSION

Thanks Trendcentral for this on the fast approaching (virtual) world in 3D

With 3D this genuine, who needs reality?

3D is on its way to becoming the norm at the neighborhood multiplex, particularly for animated features and horror flicks. And while it may be a while before Woody Allen's next film visually plants us on a NYC sidewalk while screening in a Topeka theater, 3D soon will be moving from the cinema to the living room in order to enhance your home entertainment experience. Here's a look at some of these retina popping devices and how artists are taking the technology and running with it:

Sony 3D: Sony says it will have 3D technology in American living rooms by 2010 in products including BRAVIA LCD HDTVs, VAIO computers, Blu-ray discs and PlayStation 3. Although the idea of watching Lost in 3D is certainly not without its appeal, we expect that gaming may be the category to really lasso this technology. Today's new third dimension isn't like going to the arcade in the mid-'90s and paying $8 for three minutes of watching neon lines. It's adding a feeling of actual space. This could upgrade the "guy stuff" on your computer to a whole new intensity level - imagine video game bullets that feel like they're headed right into your couch.

i-3D Video Glasses : While Sony confirmed that they are going to have 3D TVs ready for gaming addicts next year, don't expect to be able to walk around images in the same way that Princess Leia circled Obe-Wan Kenobi begging for help. You'll still have to don some head gear to make the images pop off the screen. For those of us who can't wait for Sony to fine-tune the home 3D experience, the i-3D Video Glasses plug into any DVD or MP4 player and feed you video like Star Trek's Geordi LaForge got his. The images look like they're on a 80" x 69" screen, while you look like you need a ticket to Comic Con.

Projection Bombing : Let's not forget that our interest in 3D was sparked by illusions designed to look like they have depth. That concept is being stretched by street artists and, more recently, projection artists. A tech-driven evolution of graffiti, projection bombing is when fleeting images are transmitted on to unsuspecting walls and buildings with nothing more than a Honda generator, projector and laptop. (Check out this video of a digital tiger running across a city's buildings.) Urban Screen, a collective of German artists and architects involved in research and development of experimental media installations with the aim to stage urban displays, seems to be the leader in these optical assaults. The content housed in their Vimeo channel will trick your eyes even more than that online pinwheel everyone's been staring at to make their hands look like they're melting.

Who's Innovating in 2009? Finovate Preview

Thanks Netbanker for this preview of some of the year's financial innovators

By Jim Bruene on September 1, 2009 6:18 PM | Comments (3)

I've participated in dozens of online banking and technology conferences over the years, first as a banker, then as an analyst, and now as the host. Each time, I try to walk away with not only specific action items, but with overall themes that will drive product development over the next few years.

With 32 new products and services being unveiled next month at our Finovate Conference (see note 1) and with planning season just around the corner, I thought it would be a good time to review the themes taking shape this fall:

• Control: More and more tools are being invented to help consumers and small businesses take better control of their finances, both on the credit and deposit side. The tools vary from very focused tools to manage health care expenses or 401(k) allocations, to broad tools that manage the big picture. This trend is expected to continue well into the next decade.
• Mobility: Most simple financial management tasks, such as checking balances, authorizing purchases, and so on will move to mobile devices. Another huge trend that will play out over the next 20 years.
• Peer-to-peer: You can't really cut out the middleman entirely in financial services; a trusted third-party is needed to authenticate both parties. However, the third-party may not always be a traditional financial institution.
• Safety & security: This one never goes out of style. But more so than usual, consumers are seeking safe havens for their savings and investments. And they expect more from their financial service providers. It will be a long time before risk-taking reaches levels seen much of the past 10 years.
• Segmentation (online): For the most part, online banking has been a one-size fits all service, since it came on the scene in the mid- to -late 1990s. That's not good enough going forward. There will be online, and mobile, services tailored for distinct segments. Initial efforts rolling out this year target youth markets, small- and micro-businesses, and savvy investors among others.

Guide to FINOVATE Companies
The following 30 companies (plus two more in stealth mode) will show their latest and greatest innovations in 7-minute demos at Finovate on Sep. 29 in NYC. Here's how our presenting companies describe themselves.

Backbase
Backbase enables organizations to leverage their understanding of valuable customer data into highly-personalized eBusiness Portals and Applications. Branding, content, applications, and tools can be targeted to customers using profile-based personalization. Guidance and expertise can be proactively offered based upon specific customer needs. Customers can even be empowered to tailor their own user experience based upon their individual preferences.

BancVue/First ROI
These successful sister companies provide innovative checking accounts backed by dynamic marketing, data driven consulting and powerful software to community banks and credit unions. BancVue and FIRST ROI aim to change the world of banking by launching a whole new product delivery model for consumer deposit accounts and community financial institutions.

Billeo
Billeo gives consumers a fast, easy and intelligent way to exercise choice and control over their online purchases and payments. Billeo functions as the catalyst to make online purchases and bill paying as easy and financially rewarding as possible. Billeo was founded by experts from the EBPP, card issuer, banking, ecommerce and technology industries.

BillShrink
BillShrink is an unbiased, free online service that saves people money by continuously updating personalized recommendations on everyday bills. BillShrink monitors millions of wireless plans, credit cards and gas prices across the country to provide an apples-to-apples comparison of the best options available on the market.

Bling Nation
Bling Nation brings mobile payments to consumers and merchant points of sale, offering lower costs, increased efficiency and improved security compared to credit cards, debit cards, checks and cash. The Bling Nation service also enables financial institutions and merchants to offer consumers robust rewards programs and real-time redemptions, promoting loyalty and convenience and supporting “shop local” initiatives.

BrightScope
BrightScope is an independent data analytics firm that quantitatively rates 401k plans and gives employers, employees, and brokers tools to enhance plan performance and maximize retirement outlook. The BrightScope Rating™ developed in partnership with leading independent 401k fiduciaries, reviews more than 200 unique data inputs per plan and calculates a single numerical score which defines 401k plan quality at the company level.

Canopy Financial
Canopy Financial provides innovative technology solutions that power the Consumer-Directed Healthcare (CDH) programs of some of the world's largest healthcare and financial institutions. Ranked #12 on the 2009 Inc. 500 list, Canopy empowers millions of consumers to take greater control of their healthcare dollars, enables price transparency for routine medical services, and increases the speed in which healthcare providers are paid.

CashEdge
CashEdge is the leader in Intelligent Money Movement™ services that enable financial institutions to engage customers in new ways. CashEdge's Intelligent Money Movement services provide a single point of access, through an online banking or mobile application, for multiple easy-to-use consumer and small business transfer routes.

Credit.com
Serving as an educator, advocate and facilitator, Credit.com empowers consumers with easy-to-understand information about money, credit, loans and more. Credit.com is partnered with trusted financial experts and select companies in order to offer online consumers insightful tips, helpful tools and excellent deals.

Fidelity National Information Services
Fidelity National Information Services, Inc., a member of the S&P 500 Index, is a leading provider of core processing for financial institutions; card issuer and transaction processing services; and outsourcing services to financial institutions and retailers. FIS has processing and technology relationships with 40 of the top 50 global banks, including nine of the top 10.

Firethorn (Qualcomm)
Firethorn, a Qualcomm company, is the crucial link in the emerging mobile commerce ecosystem. As a pioneer in mobile banking, Firethorn is transforming the traditional wallet into a streamlined, efficient and protected mobile revenue channel that will bridge relationships among financial institutions, retailers, wireless carriers and consumers.

Fiserv
Fiserv, Inc. is the leading global provider of information management and electronic commerce systems for the financial services industry, driving innovation that transforms experiences for financial institutions and their customers.

Home-Account
Home-Account is a web-based mortgage finding service helping America's 75 million homeowners take control of their largest asset-- their home via their ‘home-account’. The service grades and analyzes homeowners and their mortgages, presents scenarios to improve their financial situation and then pinpoints the best realistic mortgage options in the market.

Infosys
Infosys defines, designs and delivers IT-enabled business solutions that help Global 2000 companies win in a Flat World. These solutions focus on providing strategic differentiation and operational superiority to clients. With Infosys, clients are assured of a transparent business partner, world-class processes, speed of execution and the power to stretch their IT budget by leveraging the Global Delivery Model that Infosys pioneered.

Intuit
Intuit Inc. is a leading provider of business and financial management solutions for small and mid-sized businesses; financial institutions, including banks and credit unions; consumers and accounting professionals. Their financial institutions division, anchored by Digital Insight, provides on-demand banking services to help banks and credit unions serve businesses and consumers with innovative solutions.

iPay Technologies
iPay Technologies is the leading independent provider of Internet bill payment services. Founded in 2001, iPay develops and fully supports consumer and small business online bill pay solutions for more than 2,800 financial institutions nationwide and in Puerto Rico. iPay offers a 99.93% payment success rate with more than 1,200,000 bill pay customers, and over 4,000,000 payments processed each month.

Kapitall
Kapitall is a rich web application that makes investing easy for everyone. Inspired by game design, Kapitall combines an intuitive and engaging graphic user interface with powerful tools that make it easier than ever to research companies, build portfolios, share ideas and get smarter about the market.

MShift
MShift, Inc. provides Mobile Banking solutions that offer the widest array of features, including Bill Payment, Presentment, Transfers, Account Summaries, History, ATM locators, and much more. MShift also provides the only available Facebook Banking application – online banking directly tied into the Facebook environment. MShift’s Facebook banking application won the Online Banking Report’s “Best of the Web” award for 2007.

On Deck Capital
On Deck Capital offers fair and fast financing to small businesses that do not meet traditional bank lending criteria. The company's proprietary underwriting and loan processing platform looks deeper into the health of small businesses, focusing on the overall business performance, rather than the owner's personal credit history.

Outright.com
Outright.com is incredibly simple, online bookkeeping specifically created for the 20 million Americans who work for themselves. Outright offers a streamlined, online solution, with the bookkeeping needs of the small business owners first. Outright's goal is to keep financial records as simple as possible, helping small businesses accurately track all of their income and expenses to estimate and prepare their taxes. And yes, it works on a Mac too.

PayByMobile
PayByMobile is a virtual wallet that will let anyone text to pay when shopping online. Shoppers load money on their wallet at the same shops where they top up to buy airtime and then simply text to pay when shopping at their favorite online store. PayByMobile uses familiar prepaid mobile usability to deliver a simple yet secure online payment alternative for everyone who has a mobile phone.

People Capital
People Capital underwrites students without credit history by projecting individual income levels and ability to pay. Their Human Capital Score™ incorporates merit data such as GPA, standardized test scores, college and major to provide a true and unbiased, data-driven measure of economic value of an education. Their peer-to-peer lending platform allows students to finance their college educations through improved access to private student loans.

S1 Enterprise
More than 100 banks and three million consumer, small business, and corporate users worldwide rely on S1 Enterprise solutions to access and manage their financial information. A division of S1 Corporation, S1 Enterprise is a leading provider of integrated banking solutions that deliver financial service providers a holistic view of their customers whether online, in the branch or in the call center.

Silver Tail Systems
Silver Tail Systems provides next generation fraud prevention to protect against business logic abuse - a rising threat on application logic costing financial institutions hundreds of millions of dollars and significant loss of trust. Silver Tail products use real-time behavior analysis to detect and alert on known threats and new behaviors, then enables the business to disrupt these attacks in real-time.

SimpliFi
SimpliFi is a free online financial planning and advice service that lets anyone plan for their financial future. The company was founded in 2004 as a tenant company in Wake Forest University’s Babcock Demon Incubator. SimpliFi is headquartered in Winston-Salem, NC, and has been providing white label financial planning services to credit unions since 2005.

Skill-Life
Skill-Life, Inc. began as CentsCity, LLC in January 2007 with the goal of building financially healthy youth and communities. Their initial vision of employing online gaming to teach financial skills has evolved into a more interactive, game-based, and comprehensive resource for awarding incentives and building life skills.

SmartyPig
SmartyPig allows customers to open goal-based savings accounts and to invite their friends and family to contribute to their goals. The system is based on proprietary, patent-pending technology and the latest in security standards. SmartyPig’s U.S. banking partner is West Bank, a subsidiary of West Bancorporation, Inc. The company’s Australian banking partner is Australian New Zealand Banking Group Limited (ANZ).

Strands
moneyStrands is an innovative, easy-to-use online personal financial service that goes beyond providing financial analysis tools, with personalized money-saving advice and recommendations, and lets people anonymously compare themselves with people with similar backgrounds and financial goals. The interface is widget-based and highly customizable by the end user. moneyStrands is accessible via a full-capability mobile web version and a native iPhone application.

Yodlee
Leading financial institutions trust Yodlee to power critical online financial applications. Yodlee's personal financial management, payments, and customer acquisition solutions unify all personal financial account information to deliver a simple, centralized and secure source for consumers to manage all of their financial tasks anytime, anywhere. Yodlee makes financial institutions' websites essential to their customers and generates new revenue opportunities.

Brainstorming service uses Twitter to crowdsource ideas overnight

Also not the newest article, but do like this on Twitter as social mind. Thanks Springwise

4 September 2009 Published on 4 September 2009 in Marketing & Advertising

If two heads are better than one, it's hard to argue with the premise of crowdsourcing, which taps multiple brains for a common end. Now offering such capabilities overnight is Ideas Culture, an Australian firm that puts creative thinkers around the globe to work via Twitter to solve a client's problem by morning.

Businesses with a challenge to solve can enlist Ideas Culture's "Ideas While You Sleep Service" to get a pack of ideas along with an evaluation matrix and implementation plan by 10 a.m. the next morning. After registering, they need only submit their challenge online by 4 p.m. By 6 p.m., Ideas Culture gets the challenge out to its Twitter-based Ideas Agents, who spend 15 to 30 minutes each on the problem. There are more than 200 agents from eight countries on the books, and each earns AUD 100 for four sessions, according to a report in the Age. Problems tackled so far have included recruiting more male customers for a singles matching service and increasing attendance for professional development events, The Age reported. Pricing—normally AUD 880—is now AUD 495 through a special trial offer.

Is there no stopping the power of the Twitter-enabled crowds? London's Royal Opera House is another organization that apparently doesn't think so. For more on putting that power to work for your brand, check out trendwatching.com's briefing on foreverism. Time to start thinking in 140 characters! ;-)

Website: www.ideasculture.com/ideas.php
Contact: enquiries@ideasculture.com

Yelp AR

OK, catching up with stuff, so apologies if this is a little old. Still, nice move by Yelp towards making AR something useful for the real world. Thanks Contagious.

Yelp AR

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01/09/2009

Oh, but the barriers, they just keep crashing down. Augmented reality has had something of a bad press recently, when a spate of largely pointless branded applications served only to reveal that 1) most people do their research in the same places, hence the coincidence of timing and 2) the novelty of technology for technology’s sake is shortlived. The potential for AR apps on mobile, where the practical benefits become obvious, were hampered by Apple’s insistence that we would have to wait for the iPhone OS 3.1 update, and low user numbers for the few handsets compatible with Google’s Android platform.

(All this is said with a nod to the innovators over at Dutch financial institution ING, whose AR app for the Android platform was released in January and allows users to locate their nearest cashpoint. http://tiny.cc/ING784)

However, user review hub Yelp’s new application for the iPhone has managed to combine the powerful tenets of purpose, functionality and technology in order to create an augmented reality app indicative of the future we were promised when the technology was first unveiled. Not only does it offer news and reviews on restaurants etc. in the area, when you shake your iPhone three times to wake the inbuilt accelerometer you can activate a feature they call Monocle. Monocle then allows you to use your iPhone camera viewfinder to layer augmented reality information over the objects in the window, in real time. There’s a demo here that explains it fully, courtesy of Mashable: http://tiny.cc/mashAR

Obviously this is a cunning use of the technology, and ideally matched to Yelp’s raison d’être. What we find fascinating is the way in which this application was created, discovered, and seeded, almost with a buzz mechanism built in to the product.

he Monocle window, once you get it working, says: ‘The Monocle is activated. Yelp thought reality was boring, so we augmented it’. Blogosphere hero Robert Scoble was the first to uncover the ‘easter egg’ functionality, and then spread the word to iPhone enthusiasts eager to share the ‘secret’, particularly as it seemed to have been constructed in direct breach of Apple’s own mandate concerning AR.

This is the stuff of which PR ripples are made - a secret functionality, a useful application of a prevalent technology, and a targeted launch designed for online chatter. We hope that this smart thinking from Yelp is indicative of AR’s evolution into a valid medium for information delivery and branding.

Ok, it's been around for a while, but i just had to include it... IKEA Heights

What a great idea: http://www.ikeaheights.com/

Map Out Government Data With DataMashe

On a roll here with some great stuff from the past few weeks on PSFK. Thanks again for highlighting the great work being done with http://www.data.gov/ & http://www.datamasher.org/

Earlier this year, we wrote about the creation of Data.gov, a site that allows access to a large amount of US government data. DataMasher is a tool that takes these vast quantities of information and allows you to whittle it down into simpler terms, offering an easy way to get hard data on certain topics without any intrusive media spin.

You can visualize and compare data state by state in various combinations (in map or list form), and contribute to the site by adding your own data sets and rating other users mash-ups.

[via Information Aesthetics]

Mould computing

oh yes, i want that stuff growing in the back of the fridge to be able to pump out a quick spread sheet for me!

Thanks PSFK: Biological Computing: Robots Made of Mold

Scientists in the UK are working on creating a robot out of mold. Using vegetative stage of the common slime mold Physarum polycephalum, they aim to create the world’s first fully biological (no silicon components) robot. Professor Andy Adamatzky of the University of the West of England explains to ScienceDaily:

“Most people’s idea of a computer is a piece of hardware with software designed to carry out specific tasks. This mould, or plasmodium, is a naturally occurring substance with its own embedded intelligence.

…Through previous experiments we have already demonstrated the ability of this mould to transport objects. By feeding it oat flakes, it grows tubes which oscillate and make it move in a certain direction carrying objects with it. We can also use light or chemical stimuli to make it grow in a certain direction.

…The robots will have parallel inputs and outputs, a network of sensors and the number crunching power of super computers. The plasmobot will be controlled by spatial gradients of light, electro-magnetic fields and the characteristics of the substrate on which it is placed. It will be a fully controllable and programmable amorphous intelligent robot with an embedded massively parallel computer.”

Eyewriter: An Artistic Tool For Individuals With ALS

OK...been way too busy to post any of the really cool things i've come across recently, but going to put some effort in now! Starting with...

Thanks PSFK for this post a really cool mashup of laser tagging with eye tracking. Nice and helping out someone in need.

September 2, 2009

Tony Quan (aka TEMPTONE) is an LA based graffiti writer, publisher and activist who was diagnosed with ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, a neurodegenerative disorder) in 2003. Despite the fact that the disease has left him nearly paralyzed, his passion to create and write graffiti never left him.

The collaborative efforts of the Graffiti Research Lab, Free Art+ Technology, Open Frameworks, and The Ebeling Group- organizations specializing in various aspects of open source computing, creativity and production- created the EyeWriter – a low cost software/eye-tracking tool that allows those paralyzed from ALS to write using only their eyes.

The first prototype of the EyeWriter was made using a combination of items from Venice Beach, CA electronics and hardware stores and open source set of C++ libraries for creative coding from openFrameworks.

This resulted in a successful demonstration on April 12, as TEMPT was able to draw his tag for the first time in over 5 years. It was sent in real time and projected on a wall that he was able to see from a window by his bed in the hospital.

The second phase of the project is due to be completed this month, and will involve an online publication of DIY instructions, open source software and video documentation of the creation of the second version.

More in-depth information about the EyeWriter is available here.

Here’s a video of TEMPT’s first tag, projected onto a wall April 12, 2009.

[via Free Art+Technology]