Cool Product of the Day

The print journalism and publishing industry is shrinking yearly as digital magazines and newspapers become the new standard.  This shift has created a new barrier for those who want to get their publications out to the majority of the market online.  Getting a magazine or newspaper to the widest possible audience now requires technical skills that one did not need in the print era.  However, cool product Prss takes down that barrier of difficulty for professional writers and publishers who want to release their work as high quality digital publications.  Prss is a web platform where users create, design, and fill their digital publications with content. It also includes a distribution service to release those publications globally via the Internet.  Prss gives publishers the tools to design and create their own mobile app for their digital magazine even without excessive technical knowledge or skill.  Readers can access the apps you publish via digital distribution services such as Apple’s Newsstand in iOS.  If you don’t understand what Newsstand is or how it works, an Apple tech support service will be able to help you. Read more »

Losing your keys is not a fun experience.  You end up locked out of your home and unless someone who lives with you has a spare key, you have to go to great expense and effort in order to enter your house or apartment again.  The August Smart Lock is a cool product that removes the risk of this happening to you.  The team at August claims that, with their product, the only thing needed to enter your home is your smartphone.  The device uses the combination of a mobile app and Bluetooth technology to recognize your phone when you approach and automatically unlock so you can enter as soon as you get to your door.  You can log into the app from any mobile device, so you won’t have to worry about problems if you change your phone.  However, it is probably best to make sure you have a smartphone computer support service available in case your phone breaks at an inopportune time.  Read more »

Kairos is a cool product in technology that utilizes biometrics to form the base for a timeclock system at a place of work.  Kairos runs on a smartphone or tablet and checks employees in and out of their shifts through facial recognition technology.  When an employer uses Kairos, all an employee supposedly has to do to punch in for their shift is look at the smartphone or tablet camera.  Kairos will automatically recognize the employee as legitimate and record their punch-in time.  If this cool product works as advertised it could be seriously advantageous for small businesses.  It doesn’t require any extra equipment beyond a working tablet or smartphone that a company might be able to repurpose.  It can also effectively prevent any type of timecard fraud.  If employees must have their faces recognized by the camera in order to punch in or out of their shift, then it would be impossible for someone to punch in someone who wasn’t on time or absent.  In theory, this would increase the accuracy of timecards and avoid any potential abuse of the system.  Employers who want to take advantage of Kairos but have no experience with smartphones or tablets can seek help from business computer services. Read more »

Keeping track of your life, remembering every detail and keeping your calendar updated can be a seriously tedious task.  This is so much the case that those who can afford it often hire personal assistants to handle the job for them.  Unfortunately, many people do not have the means to outsource their life upkeep.  That’s why the people who work on cool product Gini believe they can reach an untapped market.  Gini is software that utilizes AI technology to sort a person’s life automatically based on their documents.  Whenever someone gets a new batch of paperwork, whether physically or digitally, they can input it into Gini and the software will recognize the important pieces of text in the document—dates, names, and addresses.  The software will then automatically sort this information into a digital calendar and address book.  Users then get alerts, reminders and updates about events, appointments, and bills so they never have to worry about keeping track of this information manually.  Gini lets users upload documents of multiple different file types.  However, that does mean users have to scan physical documents to make digital copies that are uploadable to the software.   If you have difficulty with your scanner, you will need computer tech support available to take full advantage of Gini. Read more »

Artsy, a cool product on the web, has made it its mission to use the Internet to make the world of high art accessible to anyone that wants to experience it.  Artsy collects art internationally by partnering with major galleries to keep an online database where anyone can search for, learn about, or view specific artwork that is for sale.  They have also formed partnerships with several museums and foundations to provide online access to public art that is not for sale, but enthusiasts may still want to view and discover online in high quality. Currently, Artsy claims to have over 50,000 pieces collected on their site for viewing.  The site offers users a multitude of ways to filter the content on the site to suit their specific interests.  The site sorts works by medium, subject material, style, price, movement, geographical origin and time period.  Artsy tries to ensure than anyone can easily find their specific tastes within the site’s ever-growing database.  If you have trouble navigating the site, call for PC support services. Read more »

People sharing and renting each other’s property is a growing trend in the consumer web space.  Companies like Airbnb have people share their apartments and extra rooms so others don’t have to use hotel services.  Cool product Qraft wants to take this trend and apply it to recreational vehicles and items that its website refers to as “adventure” related.  This includes alternative transportation like boats, planes, RVs, and motorbikes.  Qraft also has a section for users to rent out hiking, climbing, and camping gear for those who prefer to have their adventures on foot.   What makes a Qraft potentially very profitable for its users is that these items and vehicles often go unused for months at a time.  That means that people can rent their items out often and make a profit on their recreational toys.  These items are often very costly and see very limited use, but with Qraft, a user could theoretically get much more out of their investment in an item like a boat or RV.  Recreational vehicle owners who want to rent their items out but struggle with the web will want online PC support to help them. Read more »

There are many cases where having a private phone number can be beneficial and increase personal privacy.  However, setting up a second cell phone line can be costly and require more effort than it’s worth.  Cool product Burner makes the process far simpler.  Burner is an iPhone and Android application that creates private numbers for use on your smartphone when you need them.  You can either set up a separate number indefinitely or make it active for a specific period of time.  This creates a wall of privacy between you and general public.  For example, if you ever need to give out a number on Twitter or Facebook for business reasons, Burner allows you to create a private number specifically for those calls.  If that number is ever compromised somehow, you can just “burn” it by deleting it from the app.  Users can keep as many extra phone numbers as they want in the app at any given time.  If you have trouble getting your Burner numbers to integrate into your phone properly, you will need smartphone computer support.   Read more »

There is constant discussion in education circles about how to use technology to improve students’ experience and performance.  New startup and cool product Quizlet is directly addressing this issue with its online tools to aid children in studying.  Quizlet attempts to take the stress and tedium out of studying by solving two problems: the consolidation material that a student needs to study and the engagement of the student in the studying process.   Quizlet solves the first problem by allowing students, teachers, or parents to input their own study sets so only the necessary information gets into Quizlet’s system.  This cool product solves the second problem by turning the information provided into a series of games that randomize the material to optimize it for multiple playthroughs.  Each time a user adds a study set to the Quizlet website, they also post it publicly for any others who may want to use it.  This makes it easier for teachers to utilize Quizlet for their classes, as they can simply link students to the appropriate study set to ensure all students are studying the correct material. If you ever have trouble uploading study sets onto their website, remote tech support should be able to help you. Read more »

The video entertainment industry has seen a massive shift in its business model over the last several years thanks to the success of subscription-based streaming sites like Netflix, Hulu Plus, and Amazon.  Following these changes, music-streaming services like Spotify and Rdio also grew rapidly and proved the subscription model works for music as well as video.  However, there is one form of entertainment that until recently was still untouched by the purely digital subscription model: books.  Cool product Oyster wants to change that with a monthly subscription model for eBooks.  The team at Oyster has seen that the market proves that subscription-based entertainment is a viable business model and they want to prove that eBooks are the next form of entertainment that can benefit from this system.  Currently, they offer a monthly subscription where users can access any of their library of 100,000 books on any iOS device as often as they want.  If you have concerns about using your Apple products to read books, find Apple tech support to learn more.  Read more »

Video messaging is becoming more common due to the growing presence of integrated webcams in laptops and mobile devices, but most video messaging services require one of two things: either you and the person you’re messaging both install proprietary software, or you have to record your video message and save it to your computer before uploading elsewhere.  Cool product Eyejot aims to eliminate all inconvenience from the video messaging process.  Eyejot is purely browser-based, so it doesn’t require any software installation.  Eyejot also handles your video messages in the cloud when you record them, so you don’t have to worry about file management.  Essentially, Eyejot is taking the most convenient aspects from web-based e-mail services and applying them to the younger video messaging format.  Eyejot wants to make sending video messages as simple as e-mail for consumers.  They want to make it so that fewer people have to call computer support just to send video mail over the web. Read more »