Monday, June 23, 2014

Project J.A.R.S. Updates, Gripes and Cool stuff

Project J.A.R.S. has had a busy month which is why I am doing the blog a few weeks ahead of our normal schedule cause we have found so many cool startups over the last few weeks. In our last blog we talked some of the problems startups experience and ways to keep themselves motivated. Well if you are looking for inspiration...lets start with Developer news and then we will move into the tech and business stuff that I think everyone will enjoy. 


YO! Not just a Philly Thing

Right off the top lets talk about how Mosche Hogeg, CEO of Mobli and Co-Founder of Yo. Now get this...Mosche Hogeg is located in Tel Aviv and he wanted a simple way to get in touch with his wife using his smartphone. He didn't want to bother with email, or send her a text. No those would lead to lengthy conversations which would suck up his valuable time. (Men we are short and to the point sucks right?) so according to him he wanted a one word notification that would "let the person know they were being thought of or were need." according to the Business Insider story by Alyson Shontell. Now let's stop here for a moment, as many of you know or may not know I'm from Philadelphia and we own and hold it as a cultural trait to use the word Yo for everything. In greetings it's  "Yo, wassup!", if we as Philadelphians see something surprising we say "Yooo!!!" with a few added words of course. 

When I saw this app I was so taken back by the fact that no one in Philly thought to build this app ourselves. So dug around and found that this idea for the app was actually kicked around for quite a bit before it was released. According to Tech Blogger Robert Scoble "This is the stupidest, most addictive app I've ever seen in my life" Well let me tell you our readers something, if your from Philadelphia or the surrounding areas Yo is word associated with everything from food to romance to everyday interactions. It's a calling card that identifies Philadelphians because just by how you say Yo, and use it in your daily life it will can tell the locals which part o the city you are from or if your a neighbor say from north or south New Jersey.

The power of Yo has reached an all time high and I am saying this without being funny, Yo thats wassup. because so far investors have committed 1.2 Million dollars so far for the app. I personally would like to thank Mosche Hogeg  for inadvertently paying tribute to a city and a culture I love very deeply, your million dollar app has a home right here in the city of brotherly love.


Wearables: the dawn of a new age?

Mark O'Neill wrote a very interesting story on Wearable in the workplace called Wearables At Work: Early Adopters Will Win according to him the age of the smartphone is reaching its sunset and the new dawn will bring forth wearable technology to replace it. I know this seems a little far fetched but its really not if you think about it. The clock is constantly ticking when it comes to how we use technology and it is speeding up. Now you can exercise without having a trainer just by downloading an app to your smartphone, you want directions to a restaurant put on your Google Glass and let it take you to your destination. Your watch is now moving in the direction of the Dick Tracy watch, now your calls are coming in on what used to be your time piece. I think we all must realize that our tech is catching up with our childhood fantasies. The days of watching Star Trek and saying that would be a cool device to own has just landed in our laps.

The future of technology has opened many doors that were once closed, we are seeing advances in medicine with the use of robotics and nano technolgy, not to mention learning more about the human brain by using technology to explore the most mysterious regions of the brain. Everything from buying a car to shopping for clothes can now be done with a simple click of a button. I think Mark O'Neill hit it on the head with this article. Take a moment to read it I think you will be very impressed.

Robots and self replication

+Fraser Cain from HeroX.com has offered an interesting challenge to robot builders, the challenge is to build a robot that can build another robot from raw materials then those two robots build another robot etc. etc. Robots that can replicate themselves is a cool challenge I mean think about tit you purchase one robot and it can build other robots to perform other task you need to have completed. Fraser has included rules to keep people from building Terminator robots, (which in my opinion is quite wise) to get more information go to herox.com  and checkout the rules and the reward of joining the challenge. Project J.A.R.S. is going to follow this challenge because we like to see innovators get the press and credit for their work. 

Solar Roadways

Okay this is the last one for the day, and you may have heard me talking about this tech before, its called Solar Roadways. Well here is a little background straight from their site to fill in the blanks 
"Years ago, when the phrase "Global Warming" began gaining popularity, we started batting around the idea of replacing asphalt and concrete surfaces with solar panels that could be driven upon. We thought of the "black box" on airplanes: We didn't know what material that black box was made of, but it seemed to be able to protect sensitive electronics from the worst of airline crashes.
Suppose we made a section of road out of this material and housed solar cells to collect energy, which could pay for the cost of the panel, thereby creating a road that would pay for itself over time. What if we added LEDs to "paint" the road lines from beneath, lighting up the road for safer night time driving? What if we added a heating element in the surface (like the defrosting wire in the rear window of our cars) to prevent snow/ice accumulation in northern climates? The ideas and possibilities just continued to roll in and the Solar Roadway project was born."
So far Solar Roadways has been very busy with their campaign on Indiegogo which was a huge success they have raised just over $2 million dollars for their project and it looks like they are ready to move to phase three. Solar Roadways is an example of environmental technology, they are developing a solution that has global ramifications. If they can get their solution to work with our roadways here in the United States and other countries they would be able to provide a cheap energy resource that we as global tenants can use everyday without adding to the problem of global warming. With Solar Roadways we could reduce the carbon footprint in our atmosphere drastically over a few years buy using a technology that depends on an abundant resource we call the sun. +Jim Ault one of the founders of Project J.A.R.S. has been following Solar Roadways and has committed Project J.A.R.S. and our resources to helping Solar Roadways via social media and other resources. This is what Project JARS is about supporting those with ideas that influence change. 
Well that's all for this edition of Project J.A.R.S. monthly blog. As always please feel free to drop us your comments and suggestions. You can find us on Twitter @projectjars or here on Google+ 

www.projectjars.com 



No comments:

Post a Comment