For today’s Startup Quick Byte we take a look at another cloud based service, SquadMail. This like yesterdays is based out of Berlin, but aims to make email between multiple people easier. If you are working with someone else, or a team of people, SquadMail makes it so attaching documents, or files into a single folder for easy secure use.
For Startup Quick Byte we’ll take a look at Buddy Beers based out of Berlin Germany. Buddy Beers takes being a friend to the next level by enabling people from even countries away to buy drinks for their friends. The concept is pretty easy, you buy a drink for your friend with the app, they’ll then receive an email and link to the app, if using an iPhone. Show the bartender at the bar in question, then hit redeem and you are now just waiting for the bartender to make the drink your friend just bought you.
Samasource founder Leilah Janah works with refugees in Kenya (photo boingboing.net)
Women lead non-profit Samasource is tackling a great social issue while helping to get some of the menial grunt work of today’s biggest internet companies complete. Leilah Janah is the founder of this incredible organization.
Samasource has trained women living in third world countries with basic computer skills and outfitted centers in India, Pakistan, Haiti, Uganda, South Africa and Kenya. These centers have basic computers, internet and access to samahub which provides the trained women with microwork. Microwork can include meta tagging, light data entry and other small digital tasks that many in the big companies that utilize Samasource don’t want to do.
Some of the corporate participants include Google, Linkedin and Intuit.
“Outsourcing is a one trillion dollar industry,” Janah tells 7×7.com. “We train these women and then we bring them work. We are serving an entirely new demographic. These are people who would not get employed otherwise. They were earning less than $3 per day before Samasource. They are all from rural areas or from the slums.”
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A Singapore start up called Hearty SPIN has released a new app meant for helping autistic children communicate to the Apple app store. The SPIN in Hearty Spin stands for Solutions for People In Need. Hearty SPIN’s website describes them as a “social enterprise that creates special education, learning and communication assistive technology apps for individuals with autism and other special needs worldwide”.
Their first app for autistic children, called Picture ACC, and uses visual learning strengths to help children communicate more effectively. The app, which is available in English and Chinese, is designed for iPads and iPhones.
ACC stands for augmentative, alternative communication. This app allows autistic children to communicate by using the pictures on the screen.
“Picture AAC app enables children with autism to learn effective communication by utilizing their visual learning strength.” said KhengWah Koh, Founder of Hearty SPIN
Parents of autistic children are very aware of the PECS binder which allows autistic children to pick from a number of pictures to help communicate with friends, family and loved ones. The Picture ACC app effectively takes the idea behind the PECS binder and puts it into a touch screen app format.
You can find out more about the Picture AAC app here
While hot tech start up Uber is preparing to embark on London before the 2012 Olympic games there is already an app available for iPhone and Android that lets people in England hail a taxicab.
The app called Hailo is a network that matches passengers and licensed taxi drivers. The app makes cabbies days more sociable and allows British taxi drivers to go to destination fairs rather than waiting at taxistands all day.
The app is great because it beats calling a taxi. Instead the user can click a button on their Hailo app and a cab is dispatched to them. Hailo promises you’re never two clicks away from a taxi. Hailo allows you to pay by credit card or debit card in-app or in cash to the driver. Hailo cab drivers will even wait five minutes before starting the meter.
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Nibletz was launched in the summer of 2011. We’ve been here ever since and have seen some phenomenal growth as of late. What’s a niblet? It’s a small crunchy byte from the tech and startup scene.
We’re here to bring you news and news bytes from around the startup and tech world. You’ll see stories here from the hot startup pockets like Silicon Valley, Silicon Alley, Silicon Beach and other places that don’t have Silicon in the name like the GigCity (Chattanooga), New Orleans, Austin, Syracuse, London, Berlin and more.
In these economic times more and more people are trying to find security in themselves and taking their ideas to the next level. Many fail, while many succeed and we’ll continue to bring you those stories from start-ups next door and start-ups across the globe. If it’s interesting, we’ll run it and the editorial team at Nibletz finds many things interesting.
We love to talk to people and want to hear about your startup so if you have a startup or know of an interesting startup send us an email at startup@nibletz.com we also like talking to people on the phone and we have a bad ass phone number for that (202)-NIBLETZ (2O2) 642-5389 it’s real easy to remember.
Another great thing about Nibletz is that we want our readers to understand the news and the lingo in and outside of the valley so you won’t find stories that are backed by old Silicon Valley urban legends. We’ll source stories from everywhere.
We read TechCrunch and PandoDaily, well Daily so we won’t do a lot of regurgitating from those sites, keep visiting them as well. But make sure you add nibletz.com to your RSS reader and drop us a line or a phone call.
If you’re not sure if you have startup news or you know you’ve got some cool tech tip for us send that email to tips@nibletz.com oh and our phone number again is (202)-NIBLETZ (2O2) 642-5389
Berlin’s wahwah.fm was in Ausitn Texas for SXSW for the second year in a row. Last year, the new iPhone app start up took home an App Circus award. This year they were showing off WahWah in the SXSW Interactive trade show in the Berlin/Germany row.
wahwah.fm is a new kind of music sharing app that is available for download throughout the world. What it does is allows you to broadcast the music you’re listening to on your iPhone to other iPhones in close proximity with the wahwah.fm app installed.
Because the end user or listener to one wahwah.fm station isn’t controlling the music itself they aren’t under the same scrutiny as in-demand listening apps like Pandora or Spotify.
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Nick Tippmann
Kyle