The other day, while doing nothing in particular, i stumbled across GrandCentral. I assure you, this is no reference to the mammoth station on 42nd street!
Are you sick of all those times you have lost you cell phone? We all know how much of a hassle it can sometimes be to even get your own cellphone number back let alone the actual device. What about when you want to switch carriers, possibly to get an iPhone...and cant keep your old number? Well GrandCentral, the brainwave of Craig Walker and Vincent Paquet, is a startup that provides a fascinating service that takes care of this problem. Grandcentral allows you to choose a number and OWN IT FOR LIFE!
Pretty interesting, eh? Thats what i thought. So how do they do this? The number you select is not linked to your sim card, service provider or cell phone. Using an online console, you can control the number you picked. You can then redirect calls that you receive at that number to whatever number you might be using at the time - virtually any number on the planet - all with the click of just a few buttons. Thus making it incredibly simple for you to switch numbers or carriers at any time without confusing the people that call you!
Now obviously the startup offers a whole range of excellent services, if not for which im sure Google wouldn't have been so keen to gobble it up. Check out some of these features:
* Check your messages by phone, email, or online
* Keep all your messages online for eternity
* Record and store your phone calls (just like voice mail)
* Quickly (and secretly) block an annoying caller
* Click-to-dial from your address book
* Surprise your callers with a custom voice mail greeting
* Forward, download, and add notes to your messages
There is a whole bunch of other stuff that makes it fascinating and with a little imagination this technology could be used in a whole range of different ways. A new company for instance could set a number for itself that it might use in marketing material, when it finally raises enough capital to expand into larger offices it doesn't need to rework marketing materials with new numbers. I merely has to log into its account on GrandCentral and redirect its GC number to its new office number. Nice.
Check it out at www.grandcentral.com and let me know how it works for you or what creative uses you can come up for it!
Saturday, January 5, 2008
Google Docs
In a rapidly globalizing world the need for collaborative communications is increasingly becoming a standard. Mobile Telephony and Email now form he backbone of almost every industry.
Google is innovating in this field and has recently created a word processing software known as Google Docs (http://docs.google.com) that allows multiple users to simultaneously edit, collaborate and work on charts, documents and presentations from anywhere in the world.
It could cut down communication costs drastically. This has incredible implications for not only the business sector but also the education sector.
Google is innovating in this field and has recently created a word processing software known as Google Docs (http://docs.google.com) that allows multiple users to simultaneously edit, collaborate and work on charts, documents and presentations from anywhere in the world.
It could cut down communication costs drastically. This has incredible implications for not only the business sector but also the education sector.
Tegrity - A Classroom Revolution?
The other day i came across an interesting tool for educators called Tegrity.
According to them...'Tegrity is the first Student Achievement System that impacts learning across the entire institution, improving retention and student satisfaction. Tegrity makes class time available all the time by automatically capturing, storing and indexing every class on campus for replay by every student. Educators know that the more students can see, hear, and experience class resources, the better they learn. With Tegrity, students quickly recall key moments or replay entire classes online, on their iPods and cell phones.'
They basically offer a range of services that allow classrooms and campuses to digitalize them selves and offer a greater variety of educational resources to students. So all you educators out there, make sure you check it out...
Friday, January 4, 2008
Welcome...
Welcome.
You probably arrived in one of the million different ways that modern technology allows you to access information like this. Perhaps you arrived from a search engine like Google, or from a social bookmark on Del.ici.ous. Maybe you are one of the 59 million users on Facebook and followed a link here, or you could have just as easily followed your RSS/XML subscription here. It is possible that you are sitting in a village in a distant land on one of the $200 XO laptops from the '1 laptop per child' program. Perhaps you are vacationing in the south of France and are using your iPhone. The world is definitely shrinking courtesy of quantum leaps in the fields of communications, information and technology (amongst many others).
Many of the names and technologies mentioned represent some of the greatest innovations of our time. Inventions that have/will have the potential to change... to change the way we access information, the way we share it, the way we create equal opportunity, the way we train our leaders, the way we educate our youth and thus change the world we live in.
Our generation has that power; the power to bring about change on a global level at an unprecedented rate. And why would we not have that power? We have the resources, technology and the capacity...all we lack is the will to make it happen and faith in the ability to do it.
The profile of innovators, entrepreneurs, leaders, risk takers and life savers has changed. They are now younger, more creative and a lot more ambitious then ever before. They are not slowed down by the burden of 'youth' and 'inexperience' and are not easily hindered by set backs. They create industries where none existed and dream dreams that haven't been dreamed before. At times they might be considered 'idealists' attempting to achieve the impossible...but to them impossible is merely a man made restriction, to them impossible really is nothing.
There is now a huge migration in the way young people think...they are no longer waiting. They see tomorrow's problems, tomorrow’s opportunities and tomorrow's chances and grab at them today.
That is what this is about. This is about technologies, tools and people that aim to make an impact on the world. It’s about technologies, tools and people that can help YOU in your entrepreneurial effort to make an impact - be it for profit or not - the bottom line is being able to help people and societies that are in need.
I am quite likely to miss a great number of important technologies, so I do urge you to e-mail me in order to inform me about them. Alternatively, you could even contribute to the blog simply by writing to me. Feedback is a real pleasure, so do be generous and constructive.
Have a wonderful tomorrow.
Anish
You probably arrived in one of the million different ways that modern technology allows you to access information like this. Perhaps you arrived from a search engine like Google, or from a social bookmark on Del.ici.ous. Maybe you are one of the 59 million users on Facebook and followed a link here, or you could have just as easily followed your RSS/XML subscription here. It is possible that you are sitting in a village in a distant land on one of the $200 XO laptops from the '1 laptop per child' program. Perhaps you are vacationing in the south of France and are using your iPhone. The world is definitely shrinking courtesy of quantum leaps in the fields of communications, information and technology (amongst many others).
Many of the names and technologies mentioned represent some of the greatest innovations of our time. Inventions that have/will have the potential to change... to change the way we access information, the way we share it, the way we create equal opportunity, the way we train our leaders, the way we educate our youth and thus change the world we live in.
Our generation has that power; the power to bring about change on a global level at an unprecedented rate. And why would we not have that power? We have the resources, technology and the capacity...all we lack is the will to make it happen and faith in the ability to do it.
The profile of innovators, entrepreneurs, leaders, risk takers and life savers has changed. They are now younger, more creative and a lot more ambitious then ever before. They are not slowed down by the burden of 'youth' and 'inexperience' and are not easily hindered by set backs. They create industries where none existed and dream dreams that haven't been dreamed before. At times they might be considered 'idealists' attempting to achieve the impossible...but to them impossible is merely a man made restriction, to them impossible really is nothing.
There is now a huge migration in the way young people think...they are no longer waiting. They see tomorrow's problems, tomorrow’s opportunities and tomorrow's chances and grab at them today.
That is what this is about. This is about technologies, tools and people that aim to make an impact on the world. It’s about technologies, tools and people that can help YOU in your entrepreneurial effort to make an impact - be it for profit or not - the bottom line is being able to help people and societies that are in need.
I am quite likely to miss a great number of important technologies, so I do urge you to e-mail me in order to inform me about them. Alternatively, you could even contribute to the blog simply by writing to me. Feedback is a real pleasure, so do be generous and constructive.
Have a wonderful tomorrow.
Anish
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