SkipSearch ALPHA released
SkipSearch logo
The ALPHA version of SkipSearch has been released!!!
SkipSearch is a proprietary front-end to OpenRecommender, an open source recommendation engine. Its primary features include:
- Easy-to-use Interface with hover-intent to reduce clicks, audio controls & shortcuts
- Lightweight HTML5 / CSS3 layout
- Mobile-friendly, responsive design
- Schema.org properties and support for RDFa/Microformats
- Import data from multiple accounts (Google/Yahoo/Microsoft/Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIN/Last.FM/StumbleUpon and other social media account integration)
- Export functionality based on open formats (RSS, ATOM, OPML, XSPF, FOAF)
- OpenID authentication
- OAuth authorization
Top 10 Finish in MintChip Challenge: THANK YOU!
BCmoney Actions
It is with great humility and gratitude that I announce that I have finished in the Top 10 of the Mintchip Challenge with my proposed application and idea that “A digital currency can be used for P2P barter and micropayments“.
You can see the full list of finalists in the Mintchip Challenge here:
http://ideas.mintchipchallenge.com/
There were really some phenomenal entries into the contest and this has to have been one of the most well-received and highly active (by sheer number of participants/voters) campaigns of all the ChallengePost software development-related contests so far. Congratulations to all the competitors, it was an honour to be amongst such talent. While I didn’t earn one of the big money prizes for my app (you can see the teams and applications who were winners of the demonstration side of the contest here) I do feel honoured and appreciative of the Top 10 finish for the idea itself. I would like to thoroughly thank everyone for their ongoing support, and let you know that this gives me the positive encouragement I needed not to give up on my idea of creating a fairer, more efficient and transparent money system, built on the idea that one deserves to enjoy the fruits of their labour however they wish and not have the income generated from their hard work just handed out to greedy corporations via questionable transaction fees, high interest payments or uncalled for service fees.
When I started this experiment called “BCmoney MobileTV”, I had the seed of an idea in my head, that today:
- we can do a better job at distributing the world’s essential resources (food, water, energy for heat/lights, etc)
- we can valuate people’s contributions to society a lot better than we currently are
- we (at least in North America, but really worldwide) spend alot of our time on activities that benefit other people or organizations (sometimes without even knowing it)
With this post, I am also taking the time to announce the development of a new Web Service, to be known only as “BC$”, and henceforth, the existing BCmoney MobileTV site will serve as the testbed for it. The Web Service will be a simple, lightweight tool to passively track creation and consumption habits online. This will be different from existing tracking tools in that it will absolutely respect “Do Not Track” requests and immediately stop tracking individuals on request (i.e. whether that is just temporarily or permanently). Read the rest of this entry »
P2P Barter – My entry to the MintChip Challenge
Here’s an explanation of what we have today, followed by a Use-Case for my idea…
A newspaper illustration depicting a man engaging in barter, paying his yearly newspaper subscription to the "Podunk Weekly Bugle" with various farm produce. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
TODAY:
1. Person A is a farmer who has worked hard all season and is ready for harvest of their crops. For simplicity’s sake, let’s call him the “Seller“, since the next step will be to sell their produce. For that they may need any of the following:
a location (i.e. storefront or directly from their farm)
an advertising budget to attract patrons to their own farm directly (or to their storefront)
transportation or a carrier service to do deliveries, or,
distributor agreements which arrange to have the produce picked up exactly when it is ready and bring it to 3rd party wholesalers or retailers for stocking in their storefront
Read the rest of this entry »
FOAF and the Facebook Death Star
The Facebook Death Star
Since the February confirmation of the Facebook IPO, Facebook has continued to stagnate in user-base yet as an organization it holds no punches as it attempts to grow internationally, and its stock price continues to soar as Class A shares finally open up to the average person (major investment firms had first dibs at the initial Class A shares released during the IPO). Facebook founder and owner Mark Zuckerberg maintains 58% control of the company through complete control of Class C shares and veto power over all Class B shares. This is indeed shaping up to be a new Galactic (global internet) Empire, similar to that sought by a young Annakin Skywalker in Revenge of the Sith. The new schematics for a seemingly unstoppable battle station would be the carefully-timed Facebook Timeline rollout along with Facebook Connect and OpenGraph protocol. So if one can draw vague parallels between Mark Zuckerberg and Darth Vader, who can play the role of the Emperor? An obvious choice would be early angel investor Petr Thiel of PayPal, but a more appropriate figure is Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, whose company owns approximately 2% of Facebook:
Symbolizing Facebook as the death star is hardly a new concept, just check out these previous references.
Enter the FOAF project and its RDF/XML data format for representing friendship connections in a social network, as well as personal interests and contact info. Although the FOAF file format is designed first of all to be machine readable, it is often desirable to be able to browse it as if it were a usual Web page.
Read the rest of this entry »
Unboxing the MintChip
Royal Canadian Mint (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The Royal Canadian Mint(RCM) has sponsored the MintChip Challenge 2012 in an effort to attract developers to the idea of developing software for the MintChip and giving away their best financial application ideas, basically, for free (on the long-shot that you are one of the few who win).
Starting April 1st, 2012, they began mailing out physical MintChip developer kits for up to 500 contestants (which will likely be an order of magnitude more actual developers involved when you count those who will inevitably work on larger teams).
Since Digital Currencies and related technologies have long been on my radar as a major business opportunity area, as well as a personal interest of mine in terms of how they work, it was only natural to apply for a kit. Today, mine finally arrived!
Contained in the package:
- USB-microSD reader with MintChip software pre-installed
- 2 MintChip MicroSD cards (aka. the MintChips themselves)
- 2 SD-microSD card readers (paired with MintChips; one can act as sender, one as receiver)
- Brief instructions on how to find your $100 balance for each MintChip (but no URLs, of course!)
- The package itself has a punch-out Door Hanger on the back
BC$ = Behavior, Content, Money
The goal of the BC$ project is to raise awareness and make changes with respect to the three pillars of information freedom - Behavior (pursuit of interests and passions), Content (sharing/exchanging ideas in various formats), Money (fairness and accessibility) - bringing to light the fact that:
1. We regularly hand over our browser histories, search histories and daily online activities to companies that want our money, or, to benefit from our use of their services with lucrative ad deals or sales of personal information.
2. We create and/or consume interesting content on their services, but we aren't adequately rewarded for our creative efforts or loyalty.
3. We pay money to be connected online (and possibly also over mobile), yet we lose both time and money by allowing companies to market to us with unsolicited advertisements, irrelevant product offers and unfairly structured service pricing plans.