Cool Product of the Day

Gift giving is often a stressful experience for the giver and disappointing for the person receiving the gift.  No matter how well someone knows a friend or family member, there will always be times when that person chooses an awkward, inappropriate or just plain bad gift.  Jifiti is a cool product that uses mobile technology to try to get rid of this problem.  Jifiti makes a mobile application that facilitates gift giving for both givers and receivers.  Jifiti works with Facebook to help friends give each other items that they actually want.  Users can add gifts from any store or vendor to their wish list.   They can add potential gifts either through e-commerce websites or by taking a picture of the gift in a physical store.  The Jifiti app will recognize the gift from the image and label it appropriately in the wish list.  Other users can then browse friends’ wish lists in order to find gifts that their friends actually want.  Then, when people find gifts they want to give, they can simply click the gifting button on Jifiti app.  Jifiti charges the giver and sends a voucher to the giftee immediately.  Each voucher is instantly retrievable through any online or in-store vendor with whom Jifiti partners.  This process removes a lot of hassle from gift giving experience and ensures that users receive items they actually desire.  If the Jifiti app doesn’t work properly, users can always contact smartphone tech support. Read more »

Making one’s resume stand out amongst a sea of job applications is becoming more and more difficult as the national job market keeps recovering at a very slow pace.  One type of resume jobseekers are turning to in order to gain an edge over their competition is the visual resume.  Visual resumes forgo the usual long lists of past positions for more colorful charts and pictorial timelines of an applicant’s career.  In theory, this visual style stands out to hiring representatives in HR departments and makes it easier to encapsulate a long and varied career into a concise, one-page document.  However, the trouble with visual resumes is the extra time and difficulty required in creating them from scratch.  Cool product Pixsume reduces the time necessary to create a complete and appealing visual resume with their web-based resume creation tool.  Pixsume users connect their LinkedIn accounts to Pixsume’s web tool in order to import all their background information, including past jobs and education.  Pixsume also imports users’ skills and interests from their LinkedIn profile so that users can represent those skills in their visual resumes as well.  If someone’s LinkedIn profile won’t import information correctly into Pixsume, that user should get access to online tech support to help resolve the issue. Read more »

Cloud technology and wireless Internet have already given us the ability to do things like control our houses thermostat with our phones and perform remote tech support on computers thousands of miles away.  Every day it seems new ideas and products straight out of science fiction become reality.  Goldee is a cool product that may remind you of science fiction as well.  Goldee lets people control the lights in their household with their smartphones, tablets or other mobile devices.  Goldee makes light switches unnecessary and can automatically respond to someone’s movements through a house, adjusting the lighting accordingly.  If Goldee works as well as the company claims, worrying about leaving the lights on and managing their effect on the electricity bill become non-issues altogether.  With Goldee installed, people can adjust the lights in their home to match their specific habits.  The idea that your house can become smart enough to run on its own is that much closer to realization with this cool product on the market.  Read more »

Location-activated triggers are becoming a major part of the future of marketing in technology.  Technologies like GPS and NFC have made it so that specific locations and items can activate smartphones and tablets.  This technology can deliver text messages to mobile devices and even turn on certain apps.  Proxible is a cool product that inserts this technology into a company’s mobile application.  Proxible’s service turns everyday objects and locations into potential marketing tools.  As potential customers travel through the real world and interact with different locations and items, companies can engage them with their brand or product.  Proxible can’t have objects activate users’ phones without permission.  However, they can have objects trigger the sending of text messages or the activation of specific apps when the user has agreed to allow it.  Proxible enhances other businesses’ apps with these features and allows its clients to use the technology as they see fit.  By allowing this customization, Proxible ensures that each brand that can construct their customers’ experiences exactly how they want them.  If anyone has a Proxible enabled application but its features aren’t working correctly, mobile computer support may be helpful.  Read more »

Video security is an essential aspect of security for many businesses.  However, video cameras are difficult and costly to deal with most of the time.  Businesses have to attain camera equipment, install the equipment, and pay security guards to keep watch of multiple video monitors imperfectly.  Even worse, most of the time companies end up reviewing security footage only to get information on a crime that already happened. VideoIQ is a cool product that wants to change how companies use video security.  Using what they call “B.R.A.I.N. technology”, VideoIQ can recognize suspicious events in real-time with specialized software in their cameras.  This technology allows VideoIQ to help companies prevent crimes as they happen rather than use video footage to review a theft once someone has already committed it.  If it works as the company advertises, VideoIQ could save businesses significant amounts of money in loss and theft prevention.  Even with video footage to capture thefts-in-action, many crimes go completely unsolved for storefronts.  A video security system that can actually detect suspicious activity and alert security when it happens could prevent many of these crimes from succeeding in the first place.  Any enterprise interested in utilizing VideoIQ should have solid business IT support to help install the cameras and connect them to the security system.  Read more »

What if the web worked the same way your smartphone apps did by sending you notifications every time something relevant to you updated?  That’s a question cool product Resultly is trying to answer.  With Resultly, people don’t have to constantly actively search for items or frequently return to web pages in order to see if they’ve updated.  Resultly allows you to “follow” different interests on the web, as opposed to always seeking them out individually.  When you follow an interest on Resultly, you get updates on it through e-mail, on your web browser, or from the Resultly app on your smartphone.  These updates keep you informed when one of your interests has had a status change. On Resultly, you have the ability to follow everything from blogs to musical artists to a pair of boots on an eCommerce site.  Whenever something on the web changes regarding one of your interests, Resultly makes sure you know so you can follow up on it.  This could allow you to keep up with all the aspects of the web you want without having to manually look everything up all the time.  However, anyone who still needs help navigating the web as a whole will want comprehensive home computer support before trying something like Resultly. Read more »

Internet security concerns seem to grow more and more problematic every year.  Many people find themselves deeply concerned about phishing attempts and hackers gaining unwanted access to their PC or service accounts.  This also means large amounts of people constantly worry about the quality and security of their passwords.  PixelPin is a cool product in technology that allows users to replace the password function on their PC with picture passwords.  A picture password forgoes the usual text-based procedure for an authentication system where users click on four “passpoints” within an image to gain access to their computer or digital service accounts.  Users choose a picture from their computer to use for authentication.  Leaving the picture choice in the hands of the user is deliberate.  It allows people to choose an image where they are most likely to remember the specific four passpoints that they need to click on to get by PixelPin’s protection.  Users can sign up for PixelPin directly.  Service providers and manufacturers do not have to partner with the company directly for someone to use PixelPin to access accounts or devices.  Read more »

Despite the thousands of SAT preparation books and college admissions guides available on the market, the most helpful information for high school students applying to college often comes from either former admissions officers or recently admitted students.  Getting help from a former admissions officer usually means hiring them as a college admissions coach.  This situation can get very expensive for parents and is therefore prohibitive for many students.  However, cool product AdmitSee wants to offer college applicants more affordable help by leveraging information from the profiles of recently accepted students.   AdmitSee obtains information from current university students and recent graduates and compiles that information into admissions profiles.  AdmitSee then stores that information on its site and gives access to those still in the college application process.  By viewing the profiles of successful graduates, high school students can find out what different schools are looking for specifically.  This information can then help AdmitSee members in forming their own successful applications.  This advantage will help kids get in to a great school for whatever career path they choose, whether they want to be a writer, aviation engineer, or even a cloud computer repair professional. Read more »

Finding new products, books, music, movies, or activities you want to try isn’t always easy, even with all the resources the Internet provides.  While sites like Amazon provide customer reviews, they are from strangers whose tastes and experiences may not be the same as your own.  This difficulty remains present even in places dedicated to reviews specifically such as Yelp!, TripAdvisor, and Google review pages.  While these reviews can give people general ideas about the quality of different media, products and activities, they don’t compare to recommendations from people whose opinion someone trusts the most, such as friends and family.  Qwinti is a cool product in technology that attempts to resolve this concern by giving people a social platform where they can review and recommend any experience they have, but keep those reviews within the confines of one’s social network.  Qwinti only works through Facebook.  This means that only friends and family see anyone’s review of a product or experience.  This strategy aims for people to get better recommendations that are more relevant to them by limiting the pool of potential reviewers to only the people that a consumer trusts.  Anyone who has problems installing Qwinti on Facebook will need online tech support to assist them with setup. Read more »

Many of us have had our wallets filled passed capacity with a seemingly endless amount of customer loyalty and rewards cards from popular retailers.  Punchkeeper is a cool product that wants to make loyalty cards more convenient for both the companies that promote them and the customers that use them.  Punchkeeper uses a combination of mobile technology and QR code scanning so that businesses can easily set up a digital loyalty card system for their clients.  This service provides businesses with the tools to generate special QR codes that their customers can scan each time they use a service or buy a product.  Once customers scan a designated QR code with a mobile phone, the Punchkeeper mobile app recognizes the code and adds a “punch” to the appropriate digital loyalty card.  This solution prevents customers from having to fill their wallets with plastic cards that they almost never use.  Another advantage to turning loyalty cards digital is that retailers can avoid spending the resources to print thousands of cards or dealing with customers that lose or forget them when they come to shop.  Anyone who has issues downloading the Punchkeeper app or getting QR codes to scan properly can get help from a smartphone PC support company. Read more »