Sociosophy

Everyone’s got problems.  And the truth to problems is that it is always easier to solve someone else’s than your own.  Enter Solvr.  You post a problem, and other users help you work it out.  It’s not a public service, so you’re not exactly airing your dirty laundry for all to see; the URL to your problem is private.  Send it to your friends and they’ll take a stab at it.  Every “idea” is a proposed solution, which is met with another problem and so on until there are no more foreseeable glitches.  The best thing about this service is the super clean form.  Phone conversations with Mom and even online forums get messy; Solvr uses the tree outline, so you can see exactly how your problem progresses into a solution.  (You remember tree outlines, right?  From third grade?)  Interesting and quirky…but will people actually use this?  Mom’s going to be so disappointed.

Layar is the baby of mobile innovation company SPRXmobile.  The “world’s first mobile Augemented Reality browser” allows users to actually see what they are searching for, from jobs in the area they’re standing in to the closest ATM.  Layar was originally launched for the Dutch market and works on mobile phones hooked up with a camera as well as GPS and a compass.  The application is first available through the Android operating system, but development with a focus on the iPhone 3G S is in the works.  A launch in the US (as well as Germany and the UK) are planned for this year.  Keep your eyes peeled and in the meantime, watch this.

And I remember when the camera phone was huge…

Okay, I dig this one.  Springo is a shortcutting tool as well as a crap-cutting tool.  It’s like a search engine for…searches.  Springo takes the (Internet) age-old problem of website overload and makes it better by singling out the most relevant sites for your searches and presenting them at-a-glance instead of the old click-and-load.  From your initial query, you can also narrow down or expand the search to fit your needs.  Say you want…a puppy.  You’ve got PetFinder.com, PetSmart, PuppyFind.com andPetco.  Voila.   These picks are chosen based on usage statistics and are ranked by their popularity among us, the searchers.  Google just got a sidekick.

Germany-based Hobnox is a niche-market social network site that includes some incrediby unique features that I’ve never seen before, and honestly, I’m glad I hadn’t until I saw them here. Hobnox is a music, film & culture centric site, it’s members should at least be interested in, or want to take part in any one of those things.

One of the cornerstone features of the site is the Audiotool. If you’ve ever worked with an 808 or digital sequencer, you NEED TO TRY THIS. It’s absolutely remarkable. In fact, it’s like having the instruments right on your desk, only on a screen instead of sitting around collecting dust.

Audiotool

Hobnox even went as far as to allow you to customize your set up with modular effects boxes, plugging in and reorganizing your cabling setup, and every single effect, switch, knob, leveler, control lever… works. It’s insanely well done. They need an award for just that portion of their site alone, seriously. (more…)

Ok, this is just sweet. I’m a HUGE fan of “now”, in fact, I like “now” so much that I have a hard time paying attention to the last post I wrote 10 minutes ago. Yauba is an advocate of now with the first (that I’ve seen) effective, flawless, REAL TIME search engine. It leverages blog search, micro-blog search, social media search, and image search to provide you with results in a clean interface, and is very well done as a whole.

I’m a fan. This is getting added to my Firefox search bar, in fact, I’d have to say Yauba is now my #1 choice for finding things that are growing trends, and perhaps even for searching events that are happening “now” that I am unable to attend. I’m keeping this post short, because you just need to try it. Serioulsy. GO. NOW.

That is all.