Nerd Stalker

Silicon Slopes Startup Makes Healthcare Costs Comparison Available

2013-05-19T20:50:00.000-07:00

On the New Tech Tour, we had a stop in Salt Lake City. We came across an interesting web service in the health space - Pricing Healthcare. The name speaks for itself. Pricing Healthcare allows you to compare prices for local health services at the procedure level so manage your health bills effectively. Our Greg Viloria aka SocialGreg interviews Pricing Healthcare's Founder and CEO - Randy Cox live at the New Tech Tour - Salt Lake City at The State Room.

Comparison Healthcare is a Tough Nut to Crack

"people in this country are getting killed by the cost of healthcare, companies are going to higher deductibles to get the employees more skin in the game"

"...Obama-care is huge..what it does is cause raise healthcare costs(for the rest of us)"

"The issue is that some companies have tried this before, tried to get this pricing data, but no one can get it, the healthcare industry has no incentive to release that information, it is under lock and key”

"What we are doing is going to the American people, the data is out there, in all our health bills"

SocialGreg's Uptake

With Obama-care around the corner, healthcare concerns are not alieviated from the middle-class and the ever-growing "contractor" class who are still struggling to stretch the dollar here in the U.S. Added to the pile, companies opting for higher deductible plans to keep health benefit costs low, the pressure is on the average US worker. I like Pricing Healthcare's model though I think their battle will be adoption. But, any app or service has that problem. I hope Randy can be successful because it will finally tear down the bureaucracy within the healthcare system. Is healthcare costs rising for you?

Foc.us A Biohacking Headset to Improve Your Game

2013-05-19T17:17:00.000-07:00

Nerd Stalker interviews Michael Oxley, Founder of Foc.us, Foc.us is a headset that passes a small electric current through the prefrontal cortex of the wearer and claims increased performance. We've seen a great deal of interest from biohackers however Michael insists that although there may be other use cases for Foc.us they are squarely targeting gamers.

I got to try the foc.us out at the O'reilly Bay Area Maker Faire and was very impressed with the actual sensation I felt across my brain note my odd serious stare is due to the sensation being in effect. I can't speak to increased focus as it was a quick test and not a full use case however we do plan on getting a review unit and giving our readers our thoughts when that happens in July. What we really love about the unit is the price ($249), Michael did say that the unit is aggressively priced on purpose and the fact that they are not seeking additional funding gives the founders the flexibility to make this smart business decision. Our prediction is that the Foc.us is going to sell like hotcakes so get in line now as the unit will be shipping in July on a first come first serve basis.

Freshman Young Lady Makes Levitating Train at Oreilly Maker Faire

2013-05-19T09:35:00.000-07:00

Nerd Stalker interviews High Schooler Violet Replicon at the Oreilly Bay Area Maker Faire to talk about the her freshman transportation project, a levitating train!

Match Your Climate to Clothes For Your Active Lifestyle

2013-05-16T22:35:00.002-07:00

One of the interesting startups we found during the New Tech tour was WeatherYouWear. WeatherYouWear matches clothes to weather or climate in your current location. Our Greg Viloria aka SocialGreg interviews Founder and CEO, Michael Bhanos on their app.

Select Clothes You Can Count On

"It (WeatherYouWear) is a technology platform that makes gear and clothing recommendations based on weather, personal preferences, and activities"

"We are hinging on the Affiliate Programs, Affiliate Market, Api functionality, on-site branding and first-party data"

"We looking for some early funding and looking to get into a position to where we can take this company to fully expand what we have here"

SocialGreg's Uptake

I was interested in this web service because of the uniqueness in using data recommendation based buying experiences. Let's face it, we don't all live in California where it is nice most of the time and we don't think about the weather all that much. In the rest of the country they do so it makes sense for WeatherYouWear to exist especially those with an active lifestyle. If they are successful in getting funding and scaling, their data will be extremely valuable for brands and stores. Do you see clothes selections being selected for you this way?

Lower Your Stress of Food Phone Ordering the Eat24 Way

2013-05-16T07:11:00.000-07:00

You get home after a long day, get the tablet out and plunk down on the couch. You realize you need to eat. No motivation to cook so you search some restaurants on Yelp trying to figure out what to order, where to order and how to order. Enter Eat24. Eat24 has been famous for food delivery from your couch through the web. Now you can do it via the iPad - Eat24 App. Our Greg Viloria aka SocialGreg talks with the Eat24 team on the newly released iPad and some insights into their San Bruno, CA based company.

Food Phone Ordering Can Be Stressful

"...orders from our mobile, smart device apps make up the majority of our orders"

"(customer's say 'Talking on the phone is scary'...especially the mom and pop shops that may not understand english as much"

"all the information that you can possibly need at your fingertips...Yelp reviews embedded in the app...Eat24 Notes...kinda like Yelp reviews but is dish specific so you can remind yourself ...'the Tikka Marsala was good but get it spicy instead of medium next time'"

SocialGreg's Uptake

I thought it was interesting to say the least that the Eat24 customer's take on phone ordering that it was "scary" or "stressful." I think the stress is more like time consuming. That being said, Eat24's value proposition is that their Customer Support and Apps are the experience. They are a relatively big company-150 strong and I think it shows. The UI is clean and the experience is nice. Since starting in 2008, their adoption is very strong and have a presence in 1000 cities. A lot of the 150 are online customer service people or your "chat" line service people which are there to serve you 24 hours per day. The iPad app was just released last month and still gaining traction. Probably time to do an article on the best food apps. What are your best food apps?

Recap of 5/15 SF New Tech Startup Demos

2013-05-15T21:28:00.003-07:00

listen to ‘Recap of tonight's #sfnt startup demos. ’ on Audioboo

Let's Get Excited About the 2013 Bay Area Maker Faire

2013-05-14T03:30:00.000-07:00

This year the Nerd Stalker gang is excited to again cover the 2013 Bay Area Maker Faire. If you missed last year, here is the Nerd Stalkers Maker posts from 2012. Better yet, order your tickets to the "Greatest Show & Tell On Earth" here.

Educreations - A Free Screen Capture App For Educators Nerd Stalker interview with Co-Founder of Educreations Chris Streeter at the 2012 Maker Faire. Teach what you know. Learn what you don't. Create and share great video lessons with your iPad or browser.
Maker Faire Interview: Kurt Opsahl of Electronic Frontier Foundation Our SocialGreg interviewed Kurt Opsahl with the Electronic Frontier Foundation at the 2012 O'Reilly Maker Faire. The Electronic Frontier Foundation is "Protecting Freedom Where Law and Technology Collide." Kurt gave some insight on the foundation and how their organization protects online privacy rights of the individual.
Need an iPhone Microscope? UC Berkeley Researchers say you do Our Social Greg at Maker Faire 2012, interviews Clay Reber with a research group from UC Berkeley who has created an application turning your iPhone into a microscope called CellScope. It is fascinating to see the iPhone turn into a applications engine. Applications of CellScope can be mobile disease diagnosis, water analysis, and field research. Hear Clay's take on how their device can change the world.
iPhone/iPad Interface Makes Rubberband Power Obsolete Another Nerdstalker interview from the 2012 O'Reilly Maker Faire. Greg Viloria aka SocialGreg interviews Kazu Terasaki of GlueMotor. Typical maker, Terasaki does it for the love of his hobby. GlueMotor is an Open Source interface from KTLaboratory. No need for rubberband power anymore when you have an interface as easy as this.
Whats Blue, Nerdy, Fun to make, and saves lives? Luma League Adolfo Foronda of Nerd Stalker interviews the Founder of Luma League, Tim Z Falconer at Maker Faire. Started in April 2011 in Alameda, CA, Luma League has made and deployed bilirubin phototherapy lights (commonly called “bili lights”), and the calibration meters that go with them, to hospitals in Achham, Nepal; Goma, D.R. Congo; and St.-Marc, Haiti.
Computer Gamers Want to Preserve History At the 2012 O'Reilly Maker Faire, there were all types of makers in the Tech Pavilion. Makers are not people who make physical objects but also make their dreams a reality. We interviewed Jeff Lin of the Digital Game Museum, whose organization's dream is to preserve computer game history here in the Silicon Valley. If you love gaming, you can contribute to their cause at www.digitalgamemuseum.org/.
Want to Have a Bunch of Ninjas Controlling Your Home? At the 2012 O'Reily Maker Faire, we stumbled upon Marcus Schappi of Ninja Blocks. Ninja Blocks is a Kickstarter driven startup making control blocks with a variety of sensors for control and monitoring applications. The applications range from your home energy management to basic on/off control of an appliance. Their device is Linux and Arduino powered. Greg Viloria aka SocialGreg spent a few minutes interviewing Marcus about his "Legos for Life."
Want to Electrically Conductive Paint, No Really Nerd Stalker Maker Faire interview with Matt Johnson of Bare Conductive, makers of the electrically conductive paint for makers of all ages. With Bare Conductive products you can learn how to draw paper circuits or paint physical interactive projects, oh the possibilities.

New Tech Tour Post Show with #ThatTechGirl aka Liberty Madison

2013-05-13T16:37:00.000-07:00

Liberty Madison sat down with our Greg Viloria (aka SocialGreg) and Myles Weissleder to get some comments and thoughts on the New Tech Tour which started in San Diego, peaked in Salt Lake City and concluded in the city of sin - Las Vegas.

New Tech or Bust!

"A little bit of a challenge for an out of towner ... but after we started to line up a bunch of cool startups they started to get involved"

"We were trying to inject some vibe from San Francisco into the tech communities"

"I think we showed them what is possible"

On the Road with New Tech Tour

2013-05-09T11:52:00.001-07:00

We tagged along with the New Tech Tour last week through San Diego, Salt Lake City and Las Vegas. Our Greg Viloria aka SocialGreg gives his impressions of each of the cities tech scenes.

San Diego

The New Tech Tour lead off with a stop in San Diego - specifically Solana Beach at the The Belly Up. Very impressed with the San Diego tech scene. It is not all about Qualcomm. This event had a feel of a typical SF New Tech event-networking and a good cross section of people. This was the biggest crowd of all the cities on the tour. Here is a quick summary of the companies that pitched.

Kareer.me

Matt Wickstrand, CEO

Kareer.me is Salesforce for Talent. Companies create beautiful, engaging employer branding profiles that help them showcase their brand, office, team, benefits, company life, and more in order to attract and engage with the top talent they want. Potential talent can browse companies in an experience similar to Stumbleupon and follow their favorite companies or opportunities.

http://www.kareer.me | @kareerme | @mattwickstrand

Yealthy

Austin Neudecker, Co-Founder

Yealthy is in a up and coming area of the health industry with a suite of patient communications tools (automated follow-up + mobile communicator) focused on reducing readmissions. They help transitional care nurses manage their workflow and handle most of their actions automatically.

http://www.yealthy.com | @yealthy | @aus_n

NuLEDs

Lisa Isaacson, CBDO

NuLEDs offer lighting over IP which are Intelligent lighting systems that power and communicate through Ethernet IT infrastructure. We are development partners with Cisco and integration partners like Crestron.

http://www.nuleds.com | @nuLEDs

GFTGTHR ('Gift Gather')

Cynthia Kellogg, Founder

Conceived by wedding planning. Gift Gather offers a personalized crowd-gifting service that enables you to get exactly what you want.

www.gftgthr.com // @gftgthr // @cynthiakellogg

GoFormz

Jeff Fildey, CEO

GoFormz uses the paper forms you already have to help complete them electronically on mobile devices.

www.goformz.com | @goformz

Scoreboard Social

Tyler Anderson, Co-Founder

Born from people who use Social Media to promote clients. Scoreboard Social is an affordable and easy to use tool to get social media analytics and reporting for your competitors, industry leaders and top brands. Their tool provides actionable reporting and is also a great content curation tool to engage and share proven engaging social media content.

https://www.scoreboardsocial.com | @scoreboardsoc

Nifty.io

Daniel Wang, CEO & Co-Founder

Nifty.io allows you to find new homes for your excess stuff in your social network. You'd love to help your friends, right?, That's where Nifty comes in to give away that space consuming but memorable item.

http://nifty.io | @NiftyApp

Salt Lake City

To be honest with you, my initial reaction before I touched down in Salt Lake City was "really? We are going to Salt Lake City. But after I interacted with the people there it warmed my heart. Affectionally known as the "Silicon Slopes" to locals, the sense of community impressed me. The group was a mix of locals and transplants from other areas with a great tech resume. Here is a summary of the startups that presented.

SocialProof

Brent Jacobsen, COO

Increasing conversions with trusted social proof. Their product helps companies to easily collect handwritten testimonials at their point of sale, and then automatically publishes those reviews to the company's website. Good way to increase engagement.

getsocialproof.com | @getsocialproof

Skycrane, Inc.

Erin Valenti, CEO & Founder

Skycrane is an online and mobile marketplace that helps business owners and employees work smarter by enabling them to outsource and automate their work.

www.skycranesoftware.com // @erinmvalenti

Vinny

Alexander Kiss, Founder

Vinny is a free app which instantly shows you the wholesale price of a used car. Use this in real-time and never get ripped off again when buying or trading in a used car!

www.myvinny.com | @Vinny_Says

Voto

Scott Paul, CEO

Voto is the Social Network for "Which" akin to Hot Or Not. A simple platform for voting on photos. Its ranked in the top 50 for several weeks for social-networking category on iTunes. They say every day millions of votes are casted across several thousand user generated photo contests.

votoapp.com | @scottpaul2

AirVend

Lance Ellsworth, EVP

AirVend is a distributed POS hardware and SaaS solution for innovation in the 119 Billion dollar Unattended Retail Industry(aka Vending). AirVend offers inventory control, mobile payment, and advertising.

air-vend.com | @lancee

Grasswire

Austen Allred, CEO

Grasswire uses tiny actions of thousands of people to curate social media content in real time. Grasswire pulls in data from all of the social media sources for a specific event or hash tag and streams them in real time. As they stream, users favorite the best stuff, automatically generating a blog-like page with the top content from each event.

fastlane.grasswire.com | @grasswire

Pricing Healthcare

Randy Cox, Founder & CEO

Pricing Healthcare helps consumers see and compare healthcare prices in full view, nationwide. Their model is to help patients come together at the grass roots level, and anonymously share the pricing data from their healthcare bills. That data is then combined and shown for your specific community, anywhere in the country. Consumers can save hundreds and thousands of dollars, comparing prices and finding the best healthcare at the lowest price. This maybe important once Obama-care kicks in.

pricingHealthcare.com | @pricingHealth

WeatherYouWear

Michael Bhanos, Founder & CEO

WeatherYouWear is a technology platform making clothing and equipment choices for you based on your local weather, activities, and your personal preferences.

www.weatheryouwear.com // @WeatherYouWear | @mbhanos

Las Vegas

Las Vegas the city of tech and not sin. Well, not quite but it seems to be moving that direction. With the pending zappos mega campus on the north side in old downtown and the inNEVation center on the south side, it seems the tech scene here has some legs. This was the final leg of the New Tech Tour and was held at the inNEVation center of Las Vegas. Here is the rundown.

Tabeso

Joe Herrera, CEO

Born in the city of events, Tabeso is an iPhone app that connects the best event information in the world and combines that data with your social connections. Whether you're looking for free plays in the park, or the best concerts coming to your town...they gather data from sources across the globe and put them at your finger tips. Tabeso gives you the most popular sharing features so that you can easily attend events with your friends and family so they can attend as well.

tabeso.com | @tabeso

ALICE Receptionist (WinTech LLC)

Mike Yoder, CTO

As seen in the lobby of the inNEVation center, ALICE, the 2-Way virtual video receptionist is changing the future of your front desk or lobby. They don't claim to put receptionists out of business but to augment growing companies as they expand their floor space.

www.alicereceptionist.com // @alicereception

Nihongo Master

Taylor Dondich, Founder

Nihongo Master is an online social language learning experience. Immediately you realize you are learning alongside other people and are rewarded for competing and collaborating with others. The modern version of Rosetta Stone they say. You can scoring points and gaining achievements which makes learning a language fun and keeps you engaged.

www.nihongomaster.com | @masternihongo

Histuffy.com

Brian Liebzeit, Founder

histuffy is a way to honor your cherished stuff. You can create and share your own museum of personal objects and the memories they hold.

www.histuffy.com

LazyHusband by MER LV Labs

Ethan Duggan, 12 year old developer

When it’s too hard to actually say it, LazyHusband comes to your rescue. Here's Ethan's quick story "One day, my mom came home with a bunch of new clothes. She kept asking me how she looked. Then I realized, "I have a smart phone in my hand." So I recorded myself saying "You look wonderful." I decided to make that into an app. So over the summer, I taught myself Javascript, HTML, and CSS. It took a few months, but I built the app (using Phonegap) then eventually got it approved by Apple. I also built an Android and Kindle version. All 3 version launched at SXSW. Since then, I've build LazyKid and LazyWife and just started on my next app, Bargument."

www.merlvlabs.com | @lazyhusbandapp | @ethanduggan

imagoo

Mickey Hernandez, Founder and CEO

imagoo is a real-time social polling app and Web platform that lets consumers, brands and businesses issue challenges and comparisons and vote on content.

http://imagoo.com | @imagoochallenge

SocialGreg's Uptake

We take things for granted living in the Silicon Valley and SF Tech communities. Are we so arrogant to believe things center here - Yeah! The New Tech Tour was a humbling experience of communities trying to build an infrastructure of tech and that some great services and apps can be in your back door. Great to see the tech communities thrive outside of SF. Can't wait for the next tour. What are your thoughts?

Cue Apologizes for activating in Google Calendar

2013-05-03T15:12:00.002-07:00

Looks like the team at Cue accidentally released an accidental non opt in feature read the email to users below,

"Hi -

In case you're not quite sure who this email is from, here's the one-liner: Cue is a service you're signed up for that helps you get the most out of your day by giving you the information you'll need (phone number, location, email, file) throughout your day. We were formerly called "Greplin".

We're experimenting with a feature that would allow you to experience Cue inside Google Calendar, so that you'd always have the information you need at your fingertips, no matter what service you're using.

During testing, we accidentally activated this feature on your calendar. The only repercussion of this is that you may have seen an additional calendar called "Cue: event notes" in Google Calendar. This calendar has since been removed.

We fully intend to make this feature opt-in, and we're very sorry we mistakenly activated this feature for you. Nothing is more important to us than your privacy, and we're going to work hard to make sure we don't repeat this mistake again. If you feel uncomfortable maintaining your account, you can always remove it at https://www.cueup.com/settings.

(On the off-chance you would actually be interesting in trying something like this, please reply to this email and let me know)

Thank you!

- Daniel Gross

CEO
Cue"

Nerd Stalker's SF New Tech Post Event Show

2013-05-02T07:46:00.000-07:00

Our Greg Viloria (aka "SocialGreg") and Liberty Madison (aka "That Tech Girl") chooses the their favorites from SF New Tech's Event in April. Join them as they talk live from the Mighty nightclub for SF New Tech.

Sports Recruiting Finally Levels the Playing Field by Going Social

2013-04-25T14:34:00.002-07:00

Spring is here and we just about completed the first month of the major league baseball season. If you have a budding baseball player who wants to play college baseball but don't know where to start, you may want to continue reading this. We were pleased to sit down and talk with Brenton Sullivan, CEO and co-founder of FieldLevel. FieldLevel is a recruiting social network that helps coaches connect to help that baseball player find a program or help that college program find that player that will bring it to the next level. Brenton talks about how FieldLevel enhances the current recruiting system.

Relieving the Coach's Burden and Keeping Recruitment Competitive

"It (Fieldlevel) started out as a personal pain in the recruiting process...I was sitting in USC's campus in 2007 with Kai Sato and looked at how athletes were being recruited and said there has to be a better way, technology at that time was evolving and there was a paradigm shift in recruiting..."

"Our team was always been producing a lot of really advanced advanced technology and we really made a shift from a data management platform to a social network because the teachers on our platform a need to connect with once another..."

"Field level is private social network for coaches and what most athletes and their parents don't realize that the key to their recruitment is their coach. We empower their coach to connect with college recruiters and vouch for their athletes."

SocialGreg's Uptake

From the outside, college athletic recruiting seems like "black" art. If your high school coach or club sports coach that is connected to college programs it could be great but if he or she is not, for most other athletes it could be a long road of showcases, hiring recruiting services, highlight reel creation and for most a money drain with no guarantee of return on investment. What FieldLevel is attempting to accomplish is to give some context to add more connections to coaches to make connections to college recruiters and also to get college recruiter a competitive edge.

So many "vertical" social networks are popping up like FieldLevel. This is a great example of conversion and enhancement of an old process using a social network and the technology of the web and mobile to help recruiting. It is free for athletes, coaches and recruiters to join. Worth a look if you are an aspiring baseball player looking for a college program.

If you want to learn more visit FieldLevel's website, follow them on Twitter, fan them on Facebook.

Microsoft makes another strategic mistake #oped

2013-04-21T13:03:00.001-07:00

listen to ‘Microsoft makes another strategic mistake #oped’ on Audioboo

My thoughts on the news that Microsoft delays ios/android releases till fall 2014.

The Tech Week Update

2013-04-18T12:13:00.002-07:00

Download MP3

Adolfo Foronda and Greg Viloria pick out some interesting topics for Nerd Stalker's Techweek Update. We are talking about Google Fiber in the Captial of the Lone Star State, Baidu Glass?, WhatsApp with Google, Star Wars Laser? and more.

This week’s Nerd Stalker Techweek Podcast Picks:

Mozilla announces agnostic, safe payment system for the Web - Boing Boing http://bit.ly/17nK3Ht
Google Fiber Officially Headed to Austin, TX http://bit.ly/YcDKEv via @droid_life
Baidu Reportedly Working on Google Glass-Like 'Baidu Eye' bit.ly/XVXXtz
Aereo Threat: Would Fox Really Yank Its Broadcast Signal? http://bit.ly/YcCIZ3 via @adage
Google’s reported plan to buy WhatsApp for $1 billion would really tick off Facebook bit.ly/10LUbpC
Hospital uses iPads to help moms stay in contact with newborns http://bit.ly/YcBNIb via @tuaw

Nerd Stalker’s Speed Round

Why Mounting Your TV Above the Fireplace Is Never a Good Idea http://t.co/8yNFP0IcLo
Watch a Navy Laser Gun Blast a Drone Right Out of the Sky http://bit.ly/16Jnmw8 via @gizmodo
RIP to a comrade, @allenstern will be missed. http://t.co/4mS4jtpGwo
HP’s new Moonshot: 1,800 servers per rack, 3M visitors/day on 720 watts http://bit.ly/YcEfOF via @venturebeat

Nerd Stalker Tips of the Week:

Podcast Gallery Saves Your Favorite Shows to Dropbox, Google Drive http://t.co/Jlnmc0AOQ7
Can You Crowd Source Social Good - That's Litterati bit.ly/16w7vB9

Events Coming Up

SF New Tech: 4/24 Check it out!

Startup Blog Insights - Building Your Startup House

2013-04-12T19:34:00.000-07:00

Picture by Taffy Williams

We are happy to announce that we will be talking to Taffy Williams every month to get his "slant" about startups, leadership and business creation -- we call this segment Startup Blog Insights. We hope to get some in-depth thoughts from Taffy about topics in his blog. This month we discuss two articles Taffy wrote recently for the examiner.com called “5 Key considerations while creating a startup " and "8 Hats Entrepreneurs Often Wear."

Key Ingredients for Your Startup

"If you are not thinking about how you plan to structure this organization and how this person is buying into the business...structure is important at the onset"

"I worked for the government for 14 years and one of the things that was a hot button for me what was when I asked someone to do somethings would refuse to do something because it was not in their job description..(in a startup).your job is to do whatever it takes to make it successful"

"if you do the wrong thing at the wrong time it only takes one wrong move to demotivate your people for months"

Can You Crowd Source Social Good - That's Litterati

2013-04-02T10:37:00.001-07:00

Crowd sourcing social good? Isn't that what the higher being's job is? At Nerd Stalker, we talk a lot about the coming of vertical social networks - social networks for specific topics and socially responsible apps - ones that help the overall good of the society. We had the pleasure at SF New Tech last month to see an organization that combined the two - Litterati. Our SocialGreg aka Greg Viloria sat down with Jeff Kirschner of Litterati and got a little more in depth on the beginnings of the Litterati idea, simple workings of the application, and just being an entrepreneur.

Pictures of Litter is Art?

"I was walking through the Oakland Hills with my two little kids and was near a creek and my daughter saw that someone..threw a plastic tub into the creak and she looked at me and said 'Daddy, that doesn't go here. ' Here I am, living in the Bay Area which is supposed to be ecologically responsible and environmentally friendly, and everywhere you look there is trash, and really, that was the moment opened my eyes that I could probably do something about it."

"Even before that when I was growing up I went to Summer Camp...my camp director would instruct all of us to pick up five pieces of trash...so you have a few hundreds of kids picking up 5 pieces of trash and within minutes you have a much cleaner camp, so why couldn't I apply that simple crowd sourcing model to the entire planet"

"I really just started by taking one photograph and what I noticed...because of instagram, everything is kind of artistic and beautiful even the mundane, event trash for that matter"

SocialGreg's Uptake

I find the concept of Litterati very simple and simple is "what sells" people tell me. I think what Litterati is trying to do is change cultural norms and consciousness through our technology. Jeff's potential value is in the data the application is collecting. I don't feel Jeff is trying to "point the finger" but to have brands who have a substantial stake in the littering use their data to make people more aware. There could be a potential where McDonald's using Litterati's data and "heat mapping" it could say to its consumers, if you "literati" a piece of trash in the "red zone" we will give you a free drink on us. Good for the consumer , good for the business and good for the planet. Many organizations, like schools and communities can even try Litter Treasure Hunts. Check it out.

Catch Litterati at http://www.litterati.org / | Follow them on Twitter: @litterati | Like them on Facebook

Want to see more of Jeff's application? See his pitch video at SF New Tech

Episode 1 of Everybody Game is live!

2013-03-29T11:38:00.000-07:00

Episode 1 of Everybody Game is live! Watch it now and kudos to Carlos Rondela for getting this Kickstarter project off the ground and running.

Nerd Stalker's SF New Tech's Post Event Jibber Jabber

2013-03-22T14:20:00.000-07:00

We were grateful for attending the last SF New Tech event who quietly celebrated their 7th year informing tech audiences of the latest tech on the street. View or listen to our Greg Viloria and Life With Technology's Liberty Madison on their take on the March 20 pitches by Sensus, Litterati, Evernote, Shoplocket, Open Garden, Herdmark, Townten and WeFile.it.

On Deck for SF New Tech's Damn It's Getting Hot in Here

2013-03-19T14:01:00.000-07:00

Here's the pitch bill for the upcoming SF New Tech on 3/20. You will see pitches from Evernote,
Litterati, Townten, Open Garden, Sensus, Shoplocket, WeFile.it, and Herdmark.
Nerd Stalker will be there as SF New Tech's media partner. Tickets are still available here.

Rafe Needleman of Evernote

Meet Rafe Needleman - the Platform Advocate at Evernote. Rafe will be one of the presenters pitching at SF New Tech's March 20 event. Evernote makes it easy to remember things big and small using your computer, phone, tablet and the web. We all need help with that, right? Well, Evernote has been known for the great apps that it connects to and Rafe will tell you more how you can get involved.

"On Wednesday I'll be talking about the Evernote platform and the DevCup competition for 2013, which we just kicked off. I will also discuss a new prize we’re doing with the guys from Honda Silicon Valley Lab."

Catch them at http://www.evernote.com | Follow them on Twitter: @evernote | Like them on Facebook

Jeff Kirschner of Litterati

Meet Jeff Kirschner - Founder of the Litterati. Jeff will pitching at SF New Tech's event. For those who don't know Litterati, they are an organization dedicated to cleaning the planet one piece of litter at a time. Basically, instagram a piece of garbage that you have found, throw it away(they trust you) and become a member - pretty simple. Their organization has already rid the planet of more than 6,000 pieces of garbage.

"I was hiking in the Oakland Hills with my two kids. My daughter Tali (4 yrs) noticed that someone had thrown a plastic tub of cat litter into the creek. She looked at me and said, "Daddeee, that doesn't go there." That was the eye-opening moment. "

Catch them at http://www.litterati.org / | Follow them on Twitter: @litterati | Like them on Facebook

Matt Pacyga of Sensus

Meet Matt Pacyga - the Chief Strategist at Canopy. He will be pitching Sensus and its API for developers at SF New Tech's 3/20 event. If you haven't heard about Sensus, it is a touch sensitive case for your smartphone that expands the functionality to your smartphone experience. Think of it as an accessory that enhances your apps. Gamers - watch out! You will probably see them on iPad - Tall & Grande and Android in the future.

"we heard from the development community... We want MORE! Developers told us that they wanted more inputs from the case into the phone. We created Sensus."

Check out Sensus at http://developer.getsensus.com/ | Twitter - @canopyco | Facebook

Manuel Acevedo of Townten

Meet Manuel Acevedo - the CEO at Townten. He will be pitching a local search engine called Townten. If you haven't heard about Townten, Townten.com is a local search engine that helps you find better quality restaurants, bars and venues in San Francisco and the local Bay Area. It is currently in private beta and will be launched at SF New Tech.

"There are plenty of high-quality places to be discovered in town, but unfortunately, current local search engines use a flawed star-rating algorithm that favors large standardized places instead of higher-quality authentic local businesses. With our new technology we get rid of star-ratings and we help people discover the true topten places in town."

On pitch day you can find them here | Twitter - @townten |

Micha A. Benoliel of Open Garden

Introducing Micha Benoliel - Co-founder and CEO of Open Garden. Micha was born into technology where he learned to code in basic on a Zenith PC. Well, back to Open Garden. Open Garden leverages crowdsourcing to create seamless connectivity across 3G, 4G, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. It enables users to create their own ad-hoc mesh networks with other Open Garden-enabled devices including smartphones, tablets and PCs. What's a mesh network? Read a little about it here.

"The density of smartphones has attained a critical mass; there are now more devices to connect to the Internet than people. The ecosystem of applications gives developers access to hundreds of millions of users instantly. Open Garden is leveraging mesh networking and peer-to-peer technologies to turn everyone's phone into an Internet node in a few clicks. With Open Garden everyone can be connected everywhere as if they were at home."

Learn more at their website | Follow them on Twitter: @OpenGarden | Follow them on LinkedIn

Katherine Hague of ShopLocket

Meet Katherine Hague from ShopLocket - SF New Tech's 3/20 presenter. Katherine oversees the day-to-day ops of Toronto-based ShopLocket and makes sure customers keep coming back to their service(aka Biz Dev). ShopLocket lets anyone start selling professionally online in minutes. Simply publish a product, embed it in any website, Facebook page, or blog post, and start seeing the green pile - well, maybe start to mound at the very least.

"ShopLocket was born out of an opportunity that I saw in the market while developing themes for Shopify. I realized that as awesome as storefront solutions are they require you to leave behind whatever platform you had originally been using and start from scratch. Quick alternatives like PayPal buy buttons and marketplaces just seemed unprofessional."

Catch them at http://www.shoplocket.com | Twitter: @shoplocket | Facebook

Mathew Guiver of WeFile.it

Meet Mathew Guiver, the "life-long entrepreneur" and tax-time friend at WeFile.it. He will be pitching us at SF New Tech's 3/20 event on their new service WeFile.it. WeFile.it makes filing easier and more affordable by cutting out the middlemen, and connecting clients directly with experienced Tax Pros. All Tax Pros are screened by a member of the WeFile.it team before their profiles can go live. They verify the experience and specialties, and also ensure they are responsive and friendly.

"I started WeFile.it to do something disruptive in the tax space. A majority of the clients at the consulting firm I started after college were in the tax and finance industry. It gave me a first hand look into how outdated their products are, and quite honestly, the amount of corruption that runs rampant in the industry."

Check them out at http://wefile.it // | Twitter: @wefileit | Facebook

C.J. MacDonald of Herdmark

Meet C.J. MacDonald, one of the founders at Herdmark. He will be on the bill for SF New Tech's 3/20 event on their new collaboration tool - Herdmark. Herdmark allows you to create a library of great resources that you can use, share and add.

"We thought that there was no good way to share bookmarks with your team. There are bookmarking tools, like delicious, but they don't do anything for groups of collaborators. And there are team collaboration tools but they don't have much if any support for bookmarks, and anyway, they do so many things that we believe that they are not used for bookmarks. We think that bookmarks hold a sort of "corporate knowledge" in an organization and for subgroups in an organization. We wanted to make a focussed tool for bookmarks

Check them out at http://herdmark.com | Twitter: @herdmark |

The Birth, Death and Rebirth of Tech

2013-03-18T12:00:00.002-07:00

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This week Adolfo Foronda and Greg Viloria discusses their tech picks of the week. Adolfo talks Death of the personal car, Samsung's Android Escape Plan, Get Your Hater App and more. Greg aka SocialGreg talks about Japan Gets an Energy Breakthrough?, Human Body Password and Improve Your Android Battery Life with Apps and more.

This week’s Nerd Stalker Techweek Podcast Picks:

The rise and fall of the personal car http://is.gd/ToRSKF
How Japan's 'flammable ice' breakthrough could revolutionize the energy industry bit.ly/ZGPn5f
Samsung Android relationship analysis: great escape planned | BGR http://bit.ly/ZCdmAR
Where Have All the Gadgets Gone? http://buff.ly/16zWHCT
Smartphone Market Share, February 2013: iPhone up, BlackBerry slides | BGR http://bit.ly/132YsK1
Human Body As The Password For Secure Access bit.ly/Yj036J

Nerd Stalker’s Speed Round

HydroPack, Hydration for a World in Need by Farrell Calabrese - Core77 http://bit.ly/ZCl3Xu
Indian smartphone vendors could crush Nokia in emerging markets http://bit.ly/Yo8yfL
Exclusive: Sleep coach company Zeo is shutting down | mobihealthnews http://bit.ly/YqUToc
Astrid integrates with Siri for voice-powered reminders bit.ly/YipN3c

Nerd Stalker Tip of the Week:

Hater App http://bit.ly/12Pl1By
Improving Smartphone Battery Life With Apps bit.ly/XaceCD via @allthingsd

Startup Blog Insights: Exit Mourning to Are You Listening

2013-03-11T19:25:00.001-07:00

We believe in startups. Our SocialGreg had the opportunity to sit down with Taffy Williams, the author and voice of the Startup Blog. So, what would you do if you are a founder of a startup and got suddenly ousted by investors? As a leader, Do you listen to enough to understand and respond to the right things? Do you listen to trusted people you hired? In this episode, Taffy talks about how his experiences is reflected in his blog, a recent column written about listening leadership and finally the five stages of mourning people go through when suddenly ousted from a company.

If I Had Only Done This Differently...

"...the communication between people is not always as crisp as you think they are"

"...you are hearing what you think you want to hear"

"poor communication creates a problem when you provide people with direction"

"Sometimes the (5) stages (of mourning) occur rapidly or may skip one but you may experience all of them"

"this(stages of mourning) can happen if you lose your job, you've been replaced, or your company fails...lose of a love one"

"Some people can't get out of the depression and anger phase and that can influence their ability to get a job"

The five stages of mourning are Denial & Isolation, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance. Most people go through these stages when a traumatic event happens in their life. Losing a job is in the Top 10 stressful events as characterized by Holmes and Rahe stress scale where death of a spouse the highest. Taffy explains that some of these stages can be paralyzing if one cannot emerge from each of these stages to finally reach acceptance. Taffy has gone through this personally over his years of experience and his advice to startup founders is "have an exit strategy" because something can happen at any time.

SF Japan Night 5 Summary

2013-03-08T12:13:00.004-08:00

We attended the 5th SF Japan Night by btrax on March 5. Six great startups from Japan presented and gave us a glimpse of what Japanese startups are all about. Learning seemed to be the hot button. ShareWis took top honors as people's choice and Judge's choice at this event. ShareWis is a free "causual learning experience" as described on their website. ShareWis let's visually tracks you learning via a concept map or knowledge map and allows you to add to the learning community with your own video lectures. You can go from subject to subject and each lecture is free. Check it out.

Here is a quick synopsis on each presenter at SF Japan Night.

Satoshi Sugie, CEO
WHILL
WHILL Inc.
WHILL is next generation personal mobility that transforms the design and performance of existing mobility scooters and wheelchairs. WHILL can adapt to a wide range of mobility needs: from general adults to those with mild disabilities. You can use it standing or sitting down. WHILL Type A will expand your life horizon.

Daisuke Hiraishi, CEO
UI Scope
InnoBeta Inc.
UIscope is a remote usability testing service for mobile apps and websites. Developers can easily see how users interact with their service. We provide a special webcam for our panels to take video of how they behave with apps or websites. We also have a method to analyze these videos using our panels and build a unique database of mobile usability. What we are trying to do is collect many practices and analyze them to find out the best way to build the service, which so far, only human knowhow has been capable of.

Tomoki Tsujikawa, CEO
Share Wis
ShareWis Inc.
ShareWis turns Learning into an Adventure. Learning is a life-long journey. Yes, that’s true. However, unfortunately, many people lose their way during the journey because there is no visible progress in learning. ShareWis visualizes even the smallest effort to learn something on a Knowledge Map, a network of short lectures using YouTube video and some brief quizzes. The lectures on the Knowledge Map are connected with each other. Since the color of the lecture changes after you complete it, you can visualize your learning steps on the map. Let’s go on a learning journey with ShareWis!

Hisae Serizawa
grafic
Dentsu Inc.
grafic is an easily designable blog that stimulates your creativity. From a stylish cafe found on the streets to your favorite fashion, even memories of your trip with your love. With the feelings of a designer, you can freely express your thoughts and thrills that cannot be shown just with tweets or photos. The operations are sensuous and simple. You can trim, expand, and shrink photos as well as move stamps with the touch of a finger. Make everyday moments a masterpiece of your lifetime. grafic will assure a new sensation.

Keisuke Shibata, CEO
designclue
PurpleCow Inc.
“designclue” is a Japanese, design-specified and “Multi Language oriented” crowdsourcing platform. Through which you can post your contest by using only YOUR own language, and the contractors from all over the world will read it in HIS/HER language and join in. The “Non-Verbal oriented UI is the core competence of our service. The philosophy of “Talk in Design” makes us enable to connect so much variety of countries, so that clients will benefit from the diversity of the worlds 7 billion population. Since September 2012, the site has started its Closed Beta and acquired top-level designers from 52 countries.

Yuki Ishikawa, CEO
Comobaco
Comobaco Inc.
Comobaco allows you and your friends to create a pool of shared items both on the web and in real life. With this service, you are able to share the things you own with anyone who joins your sharing pool. You can also pitch in together with your friends to buy new items. Comobaco provides users with a brand new way to buy and to own.

Ringya Helps Manage Contacts Via Rings of People

2013-03-05T05:00:00.000-08:00

Having a hard time keeping up with contacts. How about having your friends and colleagues help you manage those contacts? That's what Ringya brings to the contact party. Ringya is an app that helps your create and manage groups of contacts for better contact management and collaboration using a combination of technology and "friend sourcing." We were happy to chat with Gal Nachum, CEO of Ringya. Gal discusses Ringya's concept of contact management and also gives some advice to entrepreneurs.

Managing Your Contacts by Context

"...realize managing contacts that you, I and people are struggling with"

"We need context...it is very hard for us human beings to remember things by name"

"Collaboration of managing contacts is a tricky thing...spreading the managing contact over circles of trust"

Ringya provides a framework of groups or "rings" that allow you to group and manage contact groups to maintain and communicate very easily. You share contacts with a given ring of people and as soon as those people accept the invite, they can add to the rings of friends and even update a contact and that update will automatically. The rings are managed by context or the connection between you and the group. Adding to the contact list is easy as it can be a scan of multiple cards, manual entry or added by your ring of friends.

SocialGreg's Uptake

Ringya is an interesting concept. As your contact list grows, managing it becomes impossible. Having people automatically update your contacts is just so easy. I like the idea of "friend-soucing" the management of contacts. Context is an easy way to keep track of contacts as well. Gal gives some advice to entrepreneurs as he is a serial entrepreneur - Ringya is his 5th startup. Ringya is available on iPhone and Android.

Like Lifting Weights For the Brain, HEG Research

2013-03-03T22:21:00.000-08:00

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Adolfo Foronda of Nerd Stalker interviews Jonathan Toomim, Founder of HEG Reasearch at the recent Bulletproof Conference in San Francisco.

The Upgraded Focus Brain Trainer includes a headband with small red and infrared LED lights that shine through the skin and skull to assess the color of brain tissue; light is reflected back to a spectrophotometer that measures the exact color of oxygenated arterial blood. The headband then sends your brain's data to your computer so you can get feedback in real time* ... and hack your circulation! *Real time is within the critical 350 ms window required for training your nervous system effectively.

You can buy the device here.

SocialTime TV: Yahoo's Marissa Mayer WTF WFW?

2013-03-03T03:30:00.000-08:00

Sean Charles (@SocialMediaSean) and Greg Viloria (@SocialGreg) are back for another episode of SocialTimeTV. This week, Sean and Greg talk about the Yahoo!'s Marissa Mayer's WFH policy, Oscar Tweets (Winners and Losers), Social Studios (flipboard for Video), Whatever Button for FB and more.

SocialTime TV Stories of the week

Why is Yahoo’s Marissa Mayer making work tougher for women?

Upstart Video Conferencing Firm Uses Billboard Ad to Tweak Marissa Mayer

17 (mostly failed) Brand Tweets From The Oscars

	Satoshi Sugie, CEO WHILL WHILL Inc. WHILL is next generation personal mobility that transforms the design and performance of existing mobility scooters and wheelchairs. WHILL can adapt to a wide range of mobility needs: from general adults to those with mild disabilities. You can use it standing or sitting down. WHILL Type A will expand your life horizon.
	Daisuke Hiraishi, CEO UI Scope InnoBeta Inc. UIscope is a remote usability testing service for mobile apps and websites. Developers can easily see how users interact with their service. We provide a special webcam for our panels to take video of how they behave with apps or websites. We also have a method to analyze these videos using our panels and build a unique database of mobile usability. What we are trying to do is collect many practices and analyze them to find out the best way to build the service, which so far, only human knowhow has been capable of.
	Tomoki Tsujikawa, CEO Share Wis ShareWis Inc. ShareWis turns Learning into an Adventure. Learning is a life-long journey. Yes, that’s true. However, unfortunately, many people lose their way during the journey because there is no visible progress in learning. ShareWis visualizes even the smallest effort to learn something on a Knowledge Map, a network of short lectures using YouTube video and some brief quizzes. The lectures on the Knowledge Map are connected with each other. Since the color of the lecture changes after you complete it, you can visualize your learning steps on the map. Let’s go on a learning journey with ShareWis!
	Hisae Serizawa grafic Dentsu Inc. grafic is an easily designable blog that stimulates your creativity. From a stylish cafe found on the streets to your favorite fashion, even memories of your trip with your love. With the feelings of a designer, you can freely express your thoughts and thrills that cannot be shown just with tweets or photos. The operations are sensuous and simple. You can trim, expand, and shrink photos as well as move stamps with the touch of a finger. Make everyday moments a masterpiece of your lifetime. grafic will assure a new sensation.
	Keisuke Shibata, CEO designclue PurpleCow Inc. “designclue” is a Japanese, design-specified and “Multi Language oriented” crowdsourcing platform. Through which you can post your contest by using only YOUR own language, and the contractors from all over the world will read it in HIS/HER language and join in. The “Non-Verbal oriented UI is the core competence of our service. The philosophy of “Talk in Design” makes us enable to connect so much variety of countries, so that clients will benefit from the diversity of the worlds 7 billion population. Since September 2012, the site has started its Closed Beta and acquired top-level designers from 52 countries.
	Yuki Ishikawa, CEO Comobaco Comobaco Inc. Comobaco allows you and your friends to create a pool of shared items both on the web and in real life. With this service, you are able to share the things you own with anyone who joins your sharing pool. You can also pitch in together with your friends to buy new items. Comobaco provides users with a brand new way to buy and to own.