Tag Archives: Mobile

This Is How You Can Change The World With An App

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Mobile apps have proven to be popular for solving numerous modern-day problems. Here is an app that can help you make a better impact on the environment. But before we get started:

Did you know that the average person generates four pounds of trash every single day and that only 30% of that gets recycled? And, did you also know that recycling one aluminum can save enough energy to listen to a full album on your iPod? Or that, recycling 100 cans could light your bedroom for two whole weeks. So, why are we recycling so little? Well, simply because it is so much easier to dump our trash into a single bin and get it over with. But, 26 year-old Blake Rupe, is trying to change our bad habits by making recycling fun, with her recently launched app Re-APP.

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Re-App is designed to help people track and share their recycling habits. The app turns recycling into a competitive game that encourages players to measure and track their daily recycling efforts and get the highest amount of waste. Within the app, users can document what they recycle into a virtual bin, share their progress on social media, and see what other friends who have the app have recycled on a virtual leaderboard. Each material recycled brings someone closer to the glory of being deemed the “winner.” You can download Re-APP here

What Sparks our Fire: A mobile app that helps us visualize our impact on the world.

Are you ready to join the movement?

The Device That Will Help You Drink Responsibly

Alcohoot

While spending time in the Israeli military, Jonathan Ofir discovered an alarming statistic: more soldiers died from drunk driving than in combat. In addition to his findings, every year in the US alone, there are more than 10K deaths related to drunk driving. Both realizations were the inspiration for Alcohoot, a creative solution to a growing problem and an interactive way to monitor your drinking habits and make responsible decisions. The device is easy to use and provides consistent and accurate results.

How it works: Download the app on Apple or Android, then plug the police-grade sensor into your phone, breath into the custom mouthpiece and the app uses your gender, age, weight and height to determine your blood alcohol level (BAC) on-the-go. Alcohoot can also suggest local restaurants around you or call you a taxi home. You can even set a target BAC level and the app will set a countdown timer, so you know how long it will take for the effects of that cocktail to wear off.

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Alcohoot is a winner of The 2014 Red Dot Design Award. A prize awarded for high design quality.

What Sparks Our Fire: A useful and simple device that can help you make smarter, safer choices.

Would you give Alcohoot a try?

Are We Planning Our Future Memories?

Cameras are powerful tools to control the memories we make. In a 2010 TED Talk, psychologist and Nobel Prize winner professor Daniel Kahneman, presented the idea that millennials see the present as an “anticipated memory.” In other words, when a person takes an Instagram picture, that person is both experiencing the present reality and actively shaping how that reality will be remembered in the future. As a result, many will argue they are betraying the present by not living in the moment. But, are the memories the real motive why the ‘Instagram generation’ is so addicted to capturing the moment?

Internet surveys indicate over 80% of social media posts to sites like Instagram, Twitter and others amount to “announcements about one’s own immediate experiences”. We post pictures of what we eat, drink, where we’ve been and calmly await for the next tsunami of likes. But what is it that makes us post those pictures on Instagram? Can’t we keep those for our private use? It is undeniable we like the attention but, why do we like the attention so much?

In 2012, Harvard University National Academy of Sciences conducted a study to assess how much people liked talking about themselves and why. The results is that Humans get a biochemical buzz from self-disclosure. We devote almost 40% of conversation sharing our own experience. Sharing personal information activates the reward areas of the brain. The same as we experience after sex, food or getting money. Talking about other people in contrast does not activate the rewarding part of the brain. What is most interesting is the findings also revealed people actually love self-disclosure if they knew people were listening. All of this goes along way toward explaining the appeal of self-promoting social-media platforms like Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.

What Sparks Our Fire: The power of self-disclosure on social media through pictures.

Do you agree with Daniel Kahneman’s statement or do you think this entire generation is sharing Instagram pictures with the ultimate goal of a social validation? We would like to hear your thoughts.

Knowing When To Fly

Hitlist

While there are a number of things you can do to find the cheapest airfare, timing is everything when it comes to getting the best deals.

Hitlist is a mobile app that knows when it’s least expensive for you to book a flight to your pre-picked destinations, saving you the trouble of regularly checking travel websites. So, if you have a bucket travel list, but also a budget, Hitlist will keep tabs on travel search engines, notifying you when it’s the best time to fly to any of your selected locations. For example, you can create an alert that notifies you if/when flights to Buenos Aires are listed at $650 or less.

Among other customizable features, you can pick the best airport for your travel needs, make your Hitlist public or private, and specify if you’d like to travel only on weekends (or whenever). And there’s also a cool world map to show you all the places you plan to go to or have visited already.

What Sparks Our Fire: A mobile app that finds you the best deals on flights and helps you travel the world more affordably

What places around the globe would you save through Hitlist?

Do Be A Mooch

MootchAs the sharing economy continues to grow at a rapid pace, new ways of renting different types of property are developing and evolving. This enables the consumer to avoid spending significant amounts of money on items they may only use once or very sparingly.

Mootch – a platform for on-demand peer-to-peer and business-to-consumer renting of everyday goods with delivery and pick-up – has finally invented a way to make renting simple and safe. So, for example, if you have electronics, appliances or designer items that you seldomly use, you can make extra cash by renting them out to others. And the same goes for when you’re in need of an expensive device, mode of transportation or appliance that you may only be using for a couple of days, but don’t want to buy. Someone in your area probably has one you could rent.

Like many other mobile apps in the sharing economy, you can make money by safely and securely renting out your own stuff as well as cut expenses by renting when you need to do so.

What Sparks Our Fire: A mobile app to rent pretty much anything to and from people around you

What items would you rent through Mootch?