If you have been reading or watching the media (old and new), or just by being aware of your local surroundings, you probably would’ve felt that the human kind have been exhausting the Earth’s natural resources to the brink of extinction.  Not only that, we also have been polluting our habitat to the point of near destruction.  Maybe these catastrophes won’t come today, or in the next decade of two, but let’s face it, this planet is slowly but surely dying.  Unless we act today to prevent this, of course.  And on this basis, I suppose, the Open Planet Ideas idea was conceived.
The Open Planet Ideas is a place where you can collaborate to identify environmental issues and find ways to tackle them as a community.   This action was created by Sony in collaboration with WWF.
The basic premise, as a matter of fact, is not exactly looking for new ideas on creating environmentally friendly product, but rather to find new ways to leverage the existing technologies to solve these problems.  It’s a challenge to share inspiring, innovative and imaginative ideas on how we can make a better use of our already scarce natural resources.  Or on how we can actively change people behaviour and encourage more sustainable lifestyles.
The sharing part is the most important thing here, because unlike other actions, this searching of ideas, this brainstorming is done collaboratively, together, you – me and the whole world (well, the ones that have access to the internet anyway).
Everybody can contribute and is encourage to share their idea, others may show their support to any of these idea or comment on it, or even build yet another idea on top of an existing ones.

So, how does it work?
First of all, go and register yourself at the Open Planet Ideas website.  The collaboration process consist of several stages.  The first stage was the Inspiration stage where we could identify issues and find uses of technology that might help in solving these issues.  From these collective findings, then a panel of expert will sift through them and categorize them into popular themes.
The second stage is the Concept stage. This the stage where we can start sharing our ideas to tackle the above issues (grouped in several themes) using today’s technologies.  To give a start, Sony has provided a Technological Showcase, which comprises of some of Sony’s technology that we might be able to use as inspiration upon which we could build our solutions/ideas.
The best concepts will then move on the next stage, the Evaluation stage, where they will be rated and judged by the community and by the Expert Panel.
The last stage is where the final ideas get to turn into Proof of Concept or even Prototypes. Sony itself  will help this stage by investing in engineering and R&D resource to develop the idea but will not commercialise or make any profit out of it.  Instead the results will be released to the public domain and can be used by other parties for environmental good.

The stage one, Inspiration, had already completed now, Open Planet Ideas had shifted through 335 ideas and categorized them in 6 different themes.  The challenge now is to find solution to these environmental problems using technology that exists today.

On the last count, there are already 175 Concepts that have been submitted.  As described above, there are 6 Themes that you can use as reference.  These 6 themes are as follows:

1. Changing Behaviour
2. Cleaner By Design
3. More With Less
4. Make It Real
5. Waste Not
6. Recycling Revisited

Also as described above, Sony has provided some of its technologies that can be used as building blocks to create more ideas.

Open Planet Ideas Technology Showcase from Open Planet Ideas on Vimeo.

These Sony technologies are as follows:

• Wireless Microphone
• GPS
• Presence Sensing
• P2P Software
• Sweep Panorama
• PSP Go
• Remote Video Monitoring
• Dye Sensitized Solar Cell
• Felica

Even just by reading each page of the above technologies, my brain has already working trying to mix and match together to see if I could create something that might be useful.  I’m sure you are having the same sensation :)

To whet your appetite even more though, take a look of some concepts that I picked below that I thought pretty cool:

• A network of real-time wireless micro weather stations for micro-climate monitoring.
• Wise use of electricity using presence sense technology.
• Solar powered laptop battery recharger.
• Loyalty Card for Green Attitude.
• ICS – Intelligent Car Share.
• Measuring daily footprints.

Introducing ‘Smart Online Groceries’

So what is MY idea?  I’m glad you ask :)

Let me ask you .. How much time you spend every month doing your regular groceries shopping? Do you usually go to your local store by foot, by public transport, or by car? Have we ever thought about how much petrol we spent, how much time we wasted and how much carbon footprint we contribute to the environment just by doing our shopping? What if there is a way to do shopping in an easier, simple and more effective way, and also help to save the environment at the same time?

I won’t give you the answer here, you just have to read it at the Open Planet Ideas concepting site.  But I think this idea will catch on sooner than later.

Obviously you can also start to share your own idea, or if you haven’t got one, you can always participate in commenting or applauding (liking in Facebook speak) any of the existing ideas.
It is interesting to see Sony and WWF are using crowdsourcing, a social tool, to solve what fundamentally is a social problem.  As proven successfully by Wikipedia, provided with the freedom, place and means, the ‘hive minds’ can do wonderful things.
I am applauding (no pun intended) the effort that the Open Planet Ideas has made, and hope that this collaboration will bring a tangible and practical fruit that can be used by the mass and ultimately to save our planet.
Special note for Sony, I hope that they will stay true to their promise, especially in the part where they commit their resources into the realisation of these ideas.

So, go wild with your imagination, and do not hesitate to share your idea.  You never know what it might take you.
Join the challenge!

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Have you been waiting for Microsoft latest attempt to the Smartphone arena? Are you excited for the new Windows Phone 7? Eager to see if it’s going to give a good fight against the mighty iPhone IOS and Android?

Well today is the day, in a short while Microsoft and AT&T will hold a joint Press Conference to discuss the latest development on the Windows Phone 7.  Steve Balmer from Microsoft and Ralph De La Vega from AT&T will deliver the event.

According to Mashable, we will see some handset from manufacturers such as Samsung, LG and HTC.

You can watch it live here!

You would’ve been forgiven if you say you’ve never heard about Gumtree before,  but just like Craiglist was more well-known for the people who were living in the US, Gumtree is very much an online household name for people who live in the UK.  The site has helped many individuals and businesses to offer their goods or services, and for others (potential buyers) to find things they need.  That includes myself.  I found this flat (apartment) that I’m living in now, through Gumtree :)

How These Were All Started

Gumtree started its live 10 years ago, at the start of the millenium.  Back then the intention was to create a community website to help people who just came to London to find accommodations, jobs and meeting new people, for free (still is).

Gumtree.com Circa 2000

Then it grew to include not just London but also other major cities in the UK and a few other European countries.

Gumtree included more cities

Today, Gumtree is a very much thriving local community classifieds website with 1 million visitors every month.  They share office with eBay UK, in one of the most picturesque location in London, that has a dedicated game console room, fuss-ball and ping-pong table, and two Dr. Who style Phone Boxes (don’t ask).

[The first 2 photos on the set above are attributed to @benjaminellis]

10 Years On

This year is the 10th anniversary when the first time Gumtree was created, and it finally comes of age.  Last week some of us had opportunity to meet some people who are responsible behind the success of Gumtree, where we had a presentation on not only about the new website, but also into some insights on what the future might hold for Gumtree.

Here you can see the current website and the new one side by side:

Current Home Page (Click to Zoom)	New Home Page (Click to Zoom)
Current Individual Ads Page	New Individual Ads Page

As you can see there are a few cosmetic changes that have been done, but skins were not the only thing that they have overhauled.  There are some new features that they have added, such as:

1. More cities, and areas inside an individual city, which affects the search as well.  You can now search as wide as the whole UK, or as narrow as an individual Postcode.

Local Search

Current Area Search

New Area/Postcode Search

2. More filters on search, and next to each category item is now shown the number of the particular search result.

More Filter

3.  Google Map feature is now interactive.  You can click on the ‘Enlarge this Map’ link and it will give you a bigger map which you can move around.

4. Interactive Photos Viewer.  Click on the ‘Enlarge Picture’ and a pop-up Interactive Picture Viewer will be shown.

API Is Coming

Apart from the changes above, Gumtree also said that they are developing an API (Application Programming Interface), which immediately caught my attention, and several other web developers among the audiences.

An availability of a public API would mean that Gumtree is willing to open up it’s data to the public for their perusal.  We have already witnessed what happens with Twitter, for example, when they open their data via the API.  The result is often astonishing.

Nevertheless when asked how this API will work, Gumtree answered that they were still not sure which type of API they would like to choose, whether to open it for developer in general (ALA Twitter) or just for Affiliates.  I will be eagerly waiting for either (or both).

It’s always good to know that your favorite website always tries to improve itself, and these changes couldn’t come at a better time because as a matter of fact I am on the market again looking for place to move :)

Lastly, you can visit this blog post to get access to the new site.  Don’t worry, you can always go back to the old one.

Let me know what you think.

Today, 9th of December 2008, Le Web 2008 started its 2 days conference in Paris. Le Web, the fifth in the series now, is an Internet/Technology Conference that allegedly the biggest in Europe. This year, judging from the programs, it seems that they are concentrating on the current recession and how some of the companies/startups cope with it.  They have some sessions also on Social Media and a Startup Competition.

But one thing that is really great about this conference is that, you don’t really need to go to Paris to follow the sessions, because Le Web provide us a Live Video Streams for ALL the main sessions and another 2 stages.

I really love it when Conference Organisers decide to ‘share’ the material like this with all of us.  Talking about the real spirit of the Internet.  Other conferences that have similar scheme are Web 2.0 Summit and Carsonified Organised Events.

Congratulations to Loic Le Meur and friends for organising this fantastic event, and for letting us to be part of it !

You can watch Le Web Video Streamin in the main Le Web site or at UStream (which is the provider of this stream).

If you want to watch the recorded video clips of the sessions, you can also subscribe to this Feed.

Or, you can watch the main stage here:

Live Broadcasting by Ustream