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Thank you, thank all of you great readers for a great year 2014! We hope you enjoy our contributions and features as much as we enjoy hearing your feedback and thoughts about them.
So 2014 is over and we saw a lot of innovative products and services. We sat down and reviewed them all and for the first time we are giving away awards for the best idea, product, startup and app in 2014.
We hope you enjoy our picks.
“Be on Time or Get a Fine” App
On the idea sharing and collaboration platform http://www.ideaswatch.com we found many great ideas to build apps or even build startups around. One in particular caught our attention that would be a great value add around the facilitation of meetings.
User Payne Adetoro shared the following idea on this webpage:
The app will be used to agree on a meeting time and also on the fine per every minute a person is late. The app is connected to the mobile subscriber account or mobile wallet, and the fine is automatically charged to his account, maximum $15 per meeting.
The money is either transferred to the person who arrived on time at the meeting or to a charity. If all the people who have agreed on the meeting are late, all participants are fined and the money could be donated to a charity.
We believe this could be a very nice addition to email and calendar applications and apps on smartphones alike. Not only for African regions, as referenced by him, but for the whole world this could be a nice practice around the setup and facilitation of meetings so they start on time and stay efficient. There is potential for this great idea!
Check it out and get in touch with him at:
http://www.ideaswatch.com/startup-idea/be-on-time-or-get-a-fine-app
Logitech Mobile Speakerphone P710e
After the initial testing of the Logitech Mobile Speakerphone P710e we continued to use the little gem in our everyday operations. Whether as generic speaker connected to a workstation or connected via bluetooth the P710e does a perfect job. As per our article “UC Monster: Review of the Logitech P710e Speakerphone” we confirm its primary function is business class communication such as conference calls or even video conferencing, but even taking it to an off-side BBQ party, its heavy battery capacity always played along well which makes this product a great allrounder with a reasonable pricing with currently 120$ on Amazon.com.
Logbar
Earlier this year we reported on the “Ring” by Logbar from Japan in the article “Ring: New Gesture Controller from the Future”. After the crowd-funding campaign has been successfully completed the production was delayed a little in order to include important improvements to the hardware and that is waiting time that nobody was mad about as it feeds directly into a better product.
The Logbar Ring might be one of the wearable devices that might make a real impact on how people control their technology. The design and development team is highly engaged with the funding parties and we expect great improvements from this product in the new future.
Caustic 3
As the best app on iOS and Android, we have chosen Caustic 3 by Single Cell Software for music production. This little beast can do as much as bigger studio software alternatives you have to buy for big bucks. Set up your virtual rack with instruments and effects and intuitively produce music on the go. After a few minutes you will already navigate like a pro and there is nothing that would block the creative processing of getting your funk into the track.
On Android you can try the app for free and if you want to use it properly with save and export functions you can unlock these functions for under 10$. iOS users will need to make the purchase up front. If you visit the developer’s homepage you can even download a free version for PC. The working files can be transferred at any time so whatever you created as rough work-in-progress piece to capture it, can be refined at the PC if you prefer the big screen and speakers for completing the mix.
Find it for iOS at the iTunes App Store and on Android via direct APK file or from the Google Play Store.
This were the picks for 2014 and we surely hope you agree and enjoyed checking these out. If you also know great candidates that made the race in your opinion, we would love to hear from you in the comments section below. Maybe they can challenge the competition again for the next year’s awards.
Thanks for reading and have a great year 2015!
Photo credit: Asten
