Innovation

Apple iPhone 4G

(Source: Gizmodo.com)

The new Apple iPhone 4G is inspired by the curves and tapering found on their famed Macbook Air. Some mock-ups floating around have suggested that the body will be an aluminum unibody design. That seems possible but so are tons of other innovative industrial designs out there.

The new design is exciting but the new technology introduced will sure to be even more amazing.  Speculations include a dual-core processor and better graphic chips that can deliver higher video resolutions and better still images when taking a photo.

One of the biggest features to excite people is the front mounted camera. This will give the new iPhone 4G the ability of video conferencing on both Mac and PC. Being compatible on multiple platforms is the key to the success of this feature. Hopefully video conferencing will be compatible with Skype and MSN and maybe we will even see iChat for PC? This feature would create a huge step forward in communication and information sharing.

The biggest draw to the iPhone 3Gs was the improvement in battery life. Hopefully this is something they will continue to improve on the iPhone 4G while also focusing on increased memory. No new information on the plans for expanding carriers has been announced but Version is working on  a 4G data network .

With so much speculation around the interwebs no one is sure of what exact features will be in the newest version of the iPhone or even if it will be called the 4G. We are just going to have to wait for the July 2010 release date, meanwhile you can get some free ringtones for your iPhone.

Blackberry 9550 aka Storm 2 aka Odin

(Source: Engadget.com)

The Blackberry Storm  plans on releasing an updated version of their Blackberry Storm smart phone. The new model, Blackberry 9550, has taken into consideration community feedback on problems and issues with their previous release.

The Blackberry Storm 2 will include much needed WiFi support and improved processing speeds. They have also added a 3.2 mega-pixel camera for improved photo and video quality. You will able to see your higher quality photos on their expanded 360 x 480 resolution screen. The gaps between the display and the frame are now much smaller and there is no more wobbling or dust collection.

The biggest improvement is the removal of “click back” touch screen interface. There is speculation that the new version will give the user the ability to turn this feature back on, not sure why you would want to. This will surely improve the use of the Blackberry’s touch screen that has also been improved.
For now, the OS is practically the same, version 5.1, and likely won’t change too much but the phone reportedly has more memory, which improves performance. Storage memory has also been doubled to 2GB.

The network will be on Quad-Band GSM/Edge technology and will most likely release for Verizon and Vodafone. There has been speculation that Blackberry’s 9520 phone will be supported on the AT&T network and the Rogers Wireless network.

Below is a video of Crackberry.com’s First Look at the Blackberry 9550 Odin:

We will continue to post more information on the future Apple iPhone 4G and the upcoming Blackberry 9550 Odin.

Ask a question on twitter, and you may have a pretty good chance of getting an @reply from the friendly VybeTrybe account.

VybeTrybe describes itself as a place to ask questions and get answers from friends, experts, and people just like you.  But wait, isn’t that what Yahoo!Answers, JustAnswer.com, and WikiAnswers.com do too?  Yes, and no.

Traditional answer sites, like the ones already mentioned, are their own communities.  The Yahoo! people shoot the breeze at Yahoo!, the experts at JustAnswer advise the novices at JustAnswer, and the WikiAnswers members chew the fat with WikiAnswers members.  VybeTrybe appears to be looking to make a mashup of all of these communties – plus facebook.

Rather than going through the process of signing up for a VybeTrybe (VT) account, VT makes it signing in simple with facebook connect integration.  It is nice to see that some startups, like VT, are realizing that facebook actually does have between 200M – 300M members that [click to continue...]

…Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) that is.  What were you expecting anyway?

Alice.com officially launched to the public in it’s beta stage earlier this week on June 22nd.  Since then the CPG retailer has managed to grab the attention of KillerStartups and startup superblog TechCrunch.  The main idea behind alice.com is to allow people to conveniently shop for their household goods (kitchen, bathroom, office, cleaning, hygiene, etc.) on the internet.

While alice.com is perhaps one of the most innovative and new concepts to grace the internet this year, it is perhaps also one of the riskiest.  While most of the world shows no aversion to [click to continue...]

It has been about 5-6 weeks since tidy dino, Ben Kaufman, and his team launched their crowd-sourced product development platform in the firm of the quirkiest website on the internet.  In this short amount of time the quirky community has managed to turn out 3 full products to pre-sale (shop ‘em), and has two more currently in development.  Quirky is an especially convenient platform for those who lack the resources or contacts to turn their inventor’s dreams into reality.  For just $99 you could have your idea voted on and considered for development by the quirky community.  However, before you let your idea run wild through the minds of the quirky community, I would suggest you take the following things under consideration and advisement.

Do Your Homework. Make sure that the product you decide to submit is a relatively new idea, a significant improvement on an existing product, or has the potential to squash any other inferior products in the market.  There are a few people in the quirky-sphere dedicated to [click to continue...]

User generated content website Qassia was released amidst a rather mediocre buzz about their services.  Users can write intel, gain an anchored backlink, and keep 100% of the AdSense revenue generated by their content.  For most internet writers and users it went in one ear and out the other.  Many were content to stick with HubPages and Squidoo.  What these two sites lacked in complete revenue surrender, they made up for in autority and search engine ranking.  Qassia was not to be deterred.  Many users have latched onto the website as a way to continue building quality links and earning a few dollars each month via AdSense.

However, only the short-sited member and internet user would have thought that Qassia (parented by Qondio) would remain strictly a content driven website.  For Qassia, the real product was the innovative advertising platform/software under development.  From Qassia’s inception users were protected from committing click fraud as Qassia shielded users own AdSense ads from themselves.  This concept would prove to be a vital part of the uniQlicks platform.  Earlier on in the spring [click to continue...]

Bing.com recently re-released the Live.com search engine under a new name and with a new purpose.  Rather than have bing just be another search engine, Microsoft intentionally branded bing as a “decision engine”, claiming the the search results will be more relevant to the searcher by cutting the clutter and solving the query.  Bing’s follow through on their decision engine claims is mediocre, but I suppose thay are mostly deserving of the title.  If their were a king (or queen) of decision engines, hunch.com would definitely deserve the title.

Hunch.com launched within the last week with much fanfare and anticipation mainly because of the involvement of co-founder Caterina Fake’s (co-founder of flickr) involvement.  Along with Caterina, hunch.com claims three other co-founders with most of the rest of the staff claiming common backgrounds in education at MIT and employment at SiteAdvisor.

Hunch is like a mashup of Yahoo! Answers and a mega-8ball.  Hunch asks users a string of about 20 questions when they reach the hunch homepage and then offer suggestions on search queries after the string is complete.  When a query is made, a few more questions are asked regarding personal preferences – and based on the input hunch spits back 5 answers/solutions to your question. [click to continue...]

In terms of search engines, Google is Old Faithful.  Since 1996ish, Google has managed to guide internet users through the interwebs to answer queries and find nuggets of knowledge.  While Twitter has been around and fully functional since 2001, it wasn’t until late 2008 going into early 2009 that users and popular internet personalities pointed out the extreme value of the real time twitter search engine.  WolframAlpha was released this week to much fanfare and while it is not a search engine in the traditional sense of the word, it is sure to make certain regular queries much easier to answer.

Google. Google has been the go-to search engine for all queries – common, niche specific, or otherwise.  Trendwise, Google can expect more of the same.  Their large search portfolio including trends, blogs, [click to continue...]

Thanks to the brilliant exclusive partnership struck up with Apple’s iPhone AT&T has gained some sort of expert status in the arena of smartphones, data plans, and wireless mobility.  Whether it was calculated or not, the iPhone effect is in full force at the Dallas based Data/Com company as they announced a program to sell subsidized netbooks with 3G mobile internet access.

AT&T is looking at the future of mobility with wide eyes and open minds.  AT&T peeked into the crystal ball and saw [click to continue...]

Ben Kauffman, entrepreneur and founder of mophie and Kluster, has struck again.  Quirky.com is somewhat of a  follow through on Ben’s original mental concept of Kluster.  Kluster was originally meant to be a platform where ideas and inventors collaborated with designers, engineers, creative namers, etc on product ideas.  Kluster quickly morphed into an online collaboration platform and their software is now used by many for such collaboration.  Kluster’s NameThis.com has seen moderate success for both business owners seeking to name their product or business.

Quirky.com takes a few elements of both of the Kluster platforms and combines them into one stunning product development service.  Quirky.com’s main purpose is to address the common inventor’s conundrum.  People have ideas, but lack the capital and perhaps innovative improvements and feedback needed to bring that product to the market.  For $99 [click to continue...]