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Tag: Crowdsourcing

  • Waze Adds Snow Warning Feature With Winter Weather Reports

    Waze Adds Snow Warning Feature With Winter Weather Reports

    Waze, the popular community-driven traffic app, just received a major new feature in preparation for the winter season.

    According to a press release provided to 9to5Google, Waze has launched Snow Warning, a feature aimed at helping drivers navigate through dangerous winter weather.

    The new feature was created in partnership with the Virginia Department of Transportation and will build on the app’s crowdsourcing feature by allowing users to report snow covered, unplowed roads and icy conditions. This can be especially helpful when dealing with black ice, something that is difficult to detect.

    The Virginia DoT plans to use data from Waze to better plan for future bad weather. In the meantime, Snow Warning is now live in 185 countries and can be accessed via Hazards > Weather.

  • Police Still Claiming Google Is Helping Cop Killers with Its Waze App

    Police are still really pissed about Waze.

    The Google-owned traffic app uses crowdsourced data to let drivers know about upcoming accidents, road closures, weather conditions, construction zones, and more. The app also contains a feature that allows users to pinpoint the location of police on a map – and it’s that feature that’s causing tension between Google and law enforcement.

    And police are using strong language, saying that Google is literally endangering the lives of police.

    Wisconsin Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr and National Sheriffs’ Association CEO Jonathan Thompson penned an op-ed published on CNN.com, calling on Google to rethink its stance on the police-tracking features inside Waze.

    “For the fifth year in a row in 2014, ambush attacks on police officers were the No. 1 cause of felonious deaths of law enforcement officers in the line of duty. Nevertheless, Google continues to market a smartphone application that lets lawbreakers pinpoint the location of police officers in the field. Google’s executives won’t even discuss the subject with organizations representing law enforcement,” they write.

    “t takes just a couple of clicks on Waze’s ‘traffic cop’ icon to identify their locations and indicate whether — in the opinion of the anonymous user — the officer is ‘visible’ or ‘invisible.’ At that moment, the officer or deputy becomes an identifiable target whose whereabouts are available to any one of Waze’s 50 million users worldwide.”

    Clarke and Thompson deploy the recent murder of New York police officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu to aid their argument. In that specific instance, cop-killer Ismaaiyl Binsley just so happened to post a screenshot of Waze on Instagram a few weeks before he shot two NYPD officers as they sat in their car.

    But there’s no indication that Brinsley actually used Waze in the commission of the crime, and there have been no reported instances of Waze factoring into a crime against police. Even the Slate article linked to in their op-ed says this:

    The shooter, Ismaaiyl Brinsley, does not seem to have used Waze to locate the two officers he killed (because he was not carrying his smartphone for a few hours prior to his attack), but he did use the Waze police-tracking function in December and even posted screencaps of it to his Instagram.

    It was this incident, however, that put Google and Waze on many police organizations’ bad side.

    “The police community needs to coordinate an effort to have the owner, Google, act like the responsible corporate citizen they have always been and remove this feature from the application even before any litigation or statutory action,” said Sheriff Mike Brown of Bedford County, Virginia, one of the early LEOs to speak out against Waze.

    But many feel that police are being disingenuous when they speak about concern for police safety.

    And you can’t blame them, especially when the National Sheriffs’ Association admitted that it’s anger over Waze is kind of about speeding tickets.

    “While officer safety is paramount and our major concern, we are also concerned this app will have a negative effect on saving lives and with public safety activities,” said John Thompson, NSA Deputy Executive Director. The ability for individual or organized crime to track law enforcement puts every community they protect at risk! If the bad guy knows where law enforcement is all the time, it makes it much easier for them to carry out their illegal activities,” said the NSA in January.

    “Highway deaths claim more than 30,000 lives each year. The use of radar and other speed reducing activities have helped make a substantial reduction in these numbers. This app will hamper those activities by locating law enforcement officers and puts the public at risk.”

    What Clarke, Thompson, and other law enforcement officials are calling for is for Google to simply remove the functionality from the Waze app. Of course, if Google were to comply who’s to say there wouldn’t be other apps – with the same functionality – either created or propagated.

    Police are arguing against citizens knowing where they are. That’s all Waze does. It allows nothing but basic location information. There was an officer spotted at x on the map.

    Between police scanners, Twitter, TV and radio reports, and simply dialing 911 and reporting a situation – people have plenty of ways to not only find the location of police, but potentially draw them to a certain location. If someone wants to ambush an officer, do they really need Waze?

    “In 2013, 10,076 people were killed in alcohol-related automobile accidents. And in 2011, 9,944 people lost their lives in speed-related fatal crashes. Is the highest, best use of Google’s geo-mapping and crowdsourcing capabilities to help drunk drivers avoid checkpoints and give speeders assistance in evading speed limits?” says Clarke and Thompson.

    Evading speed limits? I don’t know about you, but if I know a police officer is parked around the corner I’m likely to be on my best behavior. Maybe evading speed traps is more like it.

  • Cops Are Flooding Waze with Fake Info in the Hopes of Rendering It Useless

    Some police are taking on a this pisses me off, so I’m going to try to destroy it strategy when it comes to crowdsourcing traffic app Waze.

    According to a report from Autoblog, who cites reporting from a local NBC affiliate, hundreds of police officers in Miami are flooding Waze with inaccurate information in the hopes that it’ll render it useless.

    Police around the country are not happy with the Google-owned Waze. The app, which allows users to crowdsource traffic data, has a feature that lets them pinpoint, on a map, the location of cops. Organizations like the National Sheriffs Association and the Fraternal Order of Police have claimed that this could lead to police “stalking”, putting officer in mortal danger. The NSA called called for Google to remove the feature altogether.

    Of course, it’s not really about officer safety. In fact, the NSA has admitted that it’s actually, kind of about speeding tickets.

    Here’s what they said:

    “While officer safety is paramount and our major concern, we are also concerned this app will have a negative effect on saving lives and with public safety activities,” said John Thompson, NSA Deputy Executive Director. The ability for individual or organized crime to track law enforcement puts every community they protect at risk! If the bad guy knows where law enforcement is all the time, it makes it much easier for them to carry out their illegal activities.

    Highway deaths claim more than 30,000 lives each year. The use of radar and other speed reducing activities have helped make a substantial reduction in these numbers. This app will hamper those activities by locating law enforcement officers and puts the public at risk.

    No mention of the revenues generated by speeding tickets, of course.

    Waze’s rather logical response to this is that the app actually aids in getting people to drive with more caution. If its users know a cop is just around the bend, they’re more likely to slow down.

    And you’d think that Miami police’s plan to flood the app with false reports of police locations would have the same, if not magnified effect. If you think there’s a cop around every corner, you’ll probably drive a bit slower.

    But this overlooks an even bigger issue – how the crowdsourced app works. Users can report false information and the app weeds it out. Plus, new users aren’t given as much credence.

    Also, letting other drivers know about speed traps is completely legal.

  • Kickstarter Tosses Rules, Human Review for Some New Projects

    Here’s the thing about some people–they’re shits. Here’s the thing about the internet–some of those people use it. Here’s the the about Kickstarter (or any other crowdfunding site for that matter)–it’s the internet asking you for money.

    Kickstarter, although it’s done its best (arguably better than any other crowdfunding site) to prevent it, is a place where liars, cheats, crooks, and idiots could possibly get into your wallet. It’s also a place where wonderful projects can be given their day month or so in court and given a fair verdict of worthy or not worthy. Some great things would have never seen the light of day, had it not been for online crowdfunding. In general, online crowdfunding, with Kickstarter as its current king, is a benefit to society and culture.

    But remember, some people are shits. Part of what keeps any place a relatively shit-free zone are rules and review. Today, in a interesting move, Kickstarter has opened the floodgates for projects–many of which will be able to go live without a once-over from a pair of human eyes.

    Kickstarter is calling it ‘Launch Now’, and it’s a new system of project moderation that employs an algorithm instead of actual breathing humans, as it has been since day one on Kickstarter. Here’s how it’ll work:

    The feature uses an algorithm incorporating thousands of data points to check whether a project is ready to launch — things like the project’s description, rewards, funding goal, and whether the creator has previously launched a project.

    If the project qualifies for Launch Now, the creator can go live whenever they’re ready. If the creator wants to connect with someone at Kickstarter, we’ll review the project and offer our feedback and advice.

    If a project doesn’t qualify for Launch Now, the creator will need to share the project with us for a review before it can launch.

    “We want creators to have the support and freedom they need when building their projects,” says the company.

    I mean, that sounds ok? Kickstarter’s relatively stringent review process was both a plus and a minus, depending on who you asked. It provided a tighter seal to ward off fraudulent and doomed-from-the-start projects, but it also made it harder for some projects to get approved. The latter cases would head somewhere else, likely Indiegogo, where they aren’t (or weren’t) at picky as Kickstarter.

    Kickstarter has provided an additional statement on the matter:

    “The longterm health and integrity of Kickstarter drives everything we do. We’ll continue to actively govern the site with thought and care. Projects will be reviewed by a sophisticated algorithm we developed over the course of years that looks at thousands of data points. And our Moderation and Trust & Safety teams are focused on making sure everyone on Kickstarter is following the rules.”

    That human review process involved following specific rules for certain types of campaigns. For instance before today, Kickstarter didn’t allow bath and beauty products and some types of software campaigns. They also banned hardware projects offering multiple quantities of a reward. Those are all good as of today.

    In fact, Kickstarter has streamlined their entire project rules section to three basic criteria that must be met: “Projects must create something to share with others, projects must be honest and clearly presented, and projects cannot fundraise for charity, offer financial incentives, or involve prohibited items.”

    As long as they aren’t on the short prohibited items list (things that are illegal, heavily regulated, or dangerous)–they’ll probably be approved. By an algorithm.

    Look–things will be fine. Kickstarter isn’t doing away with all of their rules and moderations. It’s not the Wild West of crowdfunding. But knowing that this is now how Kickstarter allows projects to launch on the site–well, it’s worth knowing before you plop money on the table for that “Panacea” brand face cream.

    Image via Kickstarter, Facebook

  • LeVar Burton Works to Bring Back ‘Reading Rainbow’

    If you remember the days of LeVar Burton hosting the PBS show Reading Rainbow, then your childhood was awesome. Unfortunately, most of the kids in elementary school now can’t say the same, and Burton is looking to change that. Burton started a campaign on Kickstarter this morning to raise $1 million to bring back Reading Rainbow. If the crowdsourced project is successful, the Reading Rainbow program will be available online and will be provided to 1,500 classrooms at no cost.

    After teasing of big news to come on Twitter, LeVar Burton posted the announcement that he is trying to bring back the popular reading show this morning. The announcement was met with an outpouring of support, with people wasting no time in pledging anywhere from a buck to hundreds of dollars to bring back the show.

    Check out Burton’s Twitter announcement below.

    Burton says he wants to bring back Reading Rainbow because of the staggering number of children that will grow up illiterate.

    “I believe that every child has a right, and a need, to be literate. We have a responsibility to prepare our children…and right now, the numbers show that we, as a society, are failing in that responsibility,” Burton posted to his Kickstarter page. Burton goes on to say that “1 out of every 4 children in America will grow up illiterate,” which is a ridiculously high number for a first world country.

    Check out LeVar Burton’s Kickstarter video for Reading Rainbow below.

    As with most crowdsourced projects, people that pledge money are promised certain goodies depending on how much money they contribute. People that donate will receive anything from a special thanks on Burton’s website for a $5 donation all the way to a private dinner in Los Angeles with LeVar Burton as well as Burton’s Star Trek visor for a pledge of $10,000.

    Even though Burton has five weeks to raise the necessary funds, it looks like he will be able to raise that amount in less than a day, as more than $800,000 has already been pledged to the campaign. Around 20,000 people have made pledges so far, which shows just how much people believe in the project.

    Whether you choose to contribute to Burton’s project or not, here is a nice blast from the past:

    Image via Kickstarter

  • Reddit Helps Find Missing Mom with Alzheimer’s in NYC

    Reddit Helps Find Missing Mom with Alzheimer’s in NYC

    I’ll be the first to admit, when someone says “reddit is on the case!” I tend to cringe a bit. We all remember that unfortunate situation shortly after the Boston Marathon bombings were the reddit sleuths took it upon themselves to figure the whole thing out. We know how that ended.

    But sometimes the crowdsourcing works.

    Yesterday, a New York City man made a plea in the r/nyc subreddit: My Mom has Alzheimer’s, she’s missing in the Upper West side of Manhattan, and I need your help.

    “My mother went missing yesterday (4/21/14) after wandering out of my parent’s apartment on W 69 St between Central Park West and Columbus. She was alone in the apartment at the time, and we believe she left in the early afternoon,” said user Josh Goldberg.

    “Her name is May Goldberg. She is 59 years old, Chinese, 5’6″ 115 lbs. She has shoulder-length black hair and we believe she might be wearing a white, long-sleeve, zip-up fleece (NY1 article lists alternative clothing that she MIGHT be wearing). She speaks both Mandarin Chinese and English. She walks with a slight limp due to hip-replacement surgery she had several years ago. She has severe dementia.”

    Along with notifying the police, Goldberg provided the reddit community images of his mother and a link to an article about her

    In about seven hours, his mother had been found.

    “Hi guys. I am so glad May will be shortly reunited with her family. I was walking home from work around 9:30-10PM and I noticed May at East 47th and Lexington Avenue. As I saw Josh’s post in the afternoon she looked very familiar. I quickly pulled out my phone and visited this page to ensure it is indeed her. When I realized it’s her, I approached her, asked for her name, told her that her family is looking for her, and took her to Hyatt Hotel lobby to contact the police. The gentleman and lady at the Hyatt front desk were extremely helpful and they contacted the police. Two police officers arrived within 3 minutes. They identified May and I believe they called for an ambulance. In the meantime, I quickly sent a personal message to Josh via Reddit informing him that her mom has been found and that she is with the police,” said user geryorama.

    Reddit has dubbed him the ‘Where’s Waldo’ champion of the world, having found Goldberg in a city of eight million people.

    Josh Goldberg took to his post to update r/nyc that his mother had been found, and to thank the community for their help.

    “MY MOM HAS BEEN FOUND! She is safe, but she is being checked out at the hospital as a precaution. A million thanks to /u/geryorama for finding her on the street and alerting the authorities. The outpouring of support has been completely overwhelming. My family and I send a HUGE thank you to the entire Reddit community. You are amazing. Thank you,” he said.

    Gotta love a happy ending.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Tom Hanks Movie Gets Kickstarter-Style Funding

    Tom Hanks is a big enough name that anything he touches nowadays turns to gold. It shouldn’t be tough to fund a movie that has Hanks already signed on. Captain Phillips just made over $217 million and got six Academy Award nominations.

    Hanks himself has had 5 Best Actor nominations, and won for 2 of them (Philadelphia and Forrest Gump), as well as 4 Golden Globes and 7 People’s Choice awards.

    So why is a project that Hanks is signed on to going the crowdsourcing route?

    According to The Guardian, Hanks is on board for a film to be called A Hologram for the King, based on a 2012 novel written by Dave Eggers. Also on board are Tom Skerritt — of Top Gun and Steel Magnolias fame — and Sarita Choudhury. who plays the wife of Saul Berenson (Mandy Patinkin) on Homeland.

    The film started shooting in early March of this year and should be wrapped in June.

    The crowdsourcing angle on this is not your usual Kickstarter story. Instead it is about a company called Junction Investments. Go ahead and click on the link for Junction. You’ll see what looks like a typical login page with the headline:

    Passion meets profit. Invest in major motion pictures.

    You’ll notice a button that says “Apply for Membership”. That will lead you to a page informing you that: Junction is currently only open to select investors. To be considered for membership, please complete a membership application.

    And here is the rub. Membership in Junction Investments is only available to those persons with net worth of $1 million or more, or an annual income of $200,000.

    This is your daddy’s Kickstarter … if your daddy is a millionaire. As the website FAQ says:

    For now, Junction is focused on opportunities to invest in studio-quality films. Through our relationships with several of the top Hollywood agencies and producers, we are able to present our members with exclusive opportunities to invest alongside professional film financiers in major motion pictures.

    According to Deadline, Junction Investments is not about getting a movie green-lighted. The projects here are already “a done deal.” It is about giving “smaller” investors a piece of the action. Unlike Kickstarter, your investment in a film like the one Hanks is in does not just get you a credit and some schwag. You get a cash return.

    Junction allows investors to track the progress of a project that they are invested in, or are interested in investing in. They do warn that it could be years before you see a return, or you may see none at all. It is a caveat emptor situation, as is all speculative investments. But crowdsourcing just got a ticket to the big time.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Crowd-Sourced Science Actually Works, Shows Study

    For a few years now NASA and other scientific researchers have been using the collective power of the internet to help gather data for scientific research. In addition to older projects that crowdsource computing power for math-intensive research, other projects such as classifying space clouds and spotting early planetary systems have begun gathering data using the human touch. Now a new study published in the journal Icarus shows that these initiatives could actually be working quite well.

    Researchers at the University of Colorado have been able to show that online volunteers may be just as good as experts when it comes to certain types of data-gathering. The study was based on a CosmoQuest crowdsource citizen science project that asked participants to count the number of craters in pictures of the moon.

    “What we can say is that a very large group of volunteers was able to chart these features on the moon just as well as professional researchers,” said Stuart Robbins, lead author of the study and a research scientist at CU. “More importantly, we now have evidence that we can use the power of crowdsourcing to gather more reliable data from the moon than we ever thought was possible before.”

    Robbins and his colleagues looked at multiple images of the moon that were put online as part of the project. Planetary scientists with between five and 50 years of experience were asked to count the number of craters in each image. Study results found that the accuracy of volunteer crater counters was comparable to that of the trained scientists.

    “The results from the study were very reassuring to us,” said Robbins. “Without this first step of verifying the accuracy of volunteer crater counters, there would be no point in continuing the project. Our study results mean we can now use the power of crowdsourcing to gather more data than we ever thought possible before.”

  • NASA Crowdsources WISE Data Mining

    NASA Crowdsources WISE Data Mining

    NASA this week announced a new website, DiskDetective.org. The website allows visitors to help NASA researchers cull through data to help uncover young systems that could one day spawn planets.

    “Through Disk Detective, volunteers will help the astronomical community discover new planetary nurseries that will become future targets for NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and its successor, the James Webb Space Telescope,” said James Garvin, chief scientist for the Sciences and Exploration Directorate at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

    The images on the Disk Detective website come from NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission. From 2010 to 2011 the WISE spacecraft conducted a comprehensive survey of the sky at infrared wavelengths, imaging more than 745 million objects.

    Now, the Disk Detective website will allow everyone to help sort these objects by category. What astronomers are looking for are bright objects that appear to be planetary systems in-utero. With millions of candidates to sort through and computer techniques insufficient they are relying on the eyes of volunteers to crowdsource the research and find targets for future observations.

    “Planets form and grow within disks of gas, dust and icy grains that surround young stars, but many details about the process still elude us,” said Marc Kuchner, an astrophysicist Goddard. “We need more examples of planet-forming habitats to better understand how planets grow and mature.”

    According to NASA, the Disk Detective project is another in a new commitment by the U.S. government to open data and crowdsourcing. NASA has used crowdsourcing to forward scientific research in the past. Most notably the agency set up a crowdsourcing effort to help with the classification of interstellar clouds.

    Image via NASA

  • David Chang: Let’s Raise $6B on Kickstarter and Buy the Redskins

    Could the Washington Redskins’ name controversy, front office troubles, and generally horrendous football woes be solved with a new, crowdsourced owner? World-famous chef and successful restaurateur David Chang (of Momofuku Noodle Bar, Má Pêche, Milk Bar, Momofuku Ko, and many more) has an interesting plan and it involves Kickstarter.

    Check this out:

    Seriously? Well, he says so. $6 billion might be a bit of overkill, but hey, you never know.

    Kickstarter responded with this little population tidbit:

    Who’s to say that Chang wouldn’t run the Redskins better than Snyder? Since buying the team in 1999, the Redskins have lost 55% of their games and have only made the playoffs three times.

    And that whole name controversy thing? Please, Chang is probably the only person who could make this idea work:

    Image via and Twitter, hat tip UPROXX

  • To Keep the Service Free, Duolingo Is Now Powering CNN & BuzzFeed’s Translations

    Duolingo is two things, really. It’s a language-learning app, for one. But it’s also a giant crowdsourced translation hub, as the very students (users) who learn new languages with the app are the ones helping to translate site and documents all over the web.

    Duolingo has just announced that they have increased the focus and intensity of that model by partnering with CNN and BuzzFeed. Duolingo will not translate BuzzFeed and CNN content, and in turn BuzzFeed and CNN will pay for the translation services.

    This, according to Duolingo founder Luis von Ahn, is what will help keep Duolingo free to language learners everywhere.

    “As you know, Duolingo is committed to providing free language education for the world. From the beginning, our plan to finance the platform has been to have our students translate real-world documents as they practice their foreign language skills. We like this model because it’s a mutually beneficial arrangement: students receive high-quality, completely free language education, and organizations get translation services powered by the students. Today’s announcement that two major publishers are financing our operation by translating their content with us is a significant milestone in keeping Duolingo free forever,” says Ahn.

    “With over 10 million users, we’re now able to guarantee high-speed, high-volume translations in a matter of hours. By combining the effort of multiple students translating each phrase, our algorithms are able to produce crowdsourced translations as accurate as those from skilled professionals, meeting the quality standards of major publishers.”

    Duolingo first opened up to the public in June of 2012 after a length beta period. Back in July of this year, when Duolingo finally launched an iPad app, Ahn said that the app had 5 million users. That means that Duolingo has doubled it user base in just over 3 months.

    Speaking of CNN and BuzzFeed, the two companies recently launched a YouTube collaboration.

  • GE Uses Vine To Complete The World’s Longest Apple Drop

    To help celebrate the recent #GravityDay throughout social media, GE enlisted the help of some gravity conscious Vine users. The idea behind the crowdsourced video was to capture the world’s longest apple drop on video, and the result is something Sir Isaac Newton would be proud of. For those of you who don’t get the significance of the apple dropping in relation to gravity, it’s time for a little reading. According to GE’s information, over 1000 Vine users responded to the company’s “casting call.”

    To give people an idea of these contributions, GE created an entertaining highlight video featuring, of course, a large number of the Vines that were submitted:


    After seeing that, I can’t be the only one that wants to see all of the apple drop Vines thrown together into one big compilation video. Surely not. Anyway, here’s the complete description for what it is you just watched:

    On September 8th, GE celebrated #GravityDay by calling on fans to help create the world’s longest Apple Drop on Vine. Over 1,000 people participated, grabbing apples and uploading Vines from around the globe. Check out this mix of some of our favorites, and watch bonus footage from the first ever Vine shoot in zero gravity at the end of the video.

    And yes, the zero gravity Vine video is worth the price of admission. In fact, zero gravity Vines should be standard operating procedure for all future missions where such conditions are encountered. The appeal of perpetual flotation is hard to resist.

    [Lead image courtesy]

  • Kickstarter Expanding to Australia and New Zealand ‘Soon’

    Kickstarter has announced that it will open up to Australia- and New Zealand-based projects soon. While there is no official launch date, the company promises that project creators in those countries will have access to its platform “in the very near future.”

    Kickstarter currently operates in the US and the UK. Entrepreneurs in Canada are able to start building their projects now, and they’ll go live on the Canadian Kickstarter site on September 9, 2013.

    The reaction on Twitter to news of Kickstarter’s most recent expansion is positive for the most part:

    Existing Australian crowdfunding platform Pozible pointed out that it’s already been providing this service for a few years now:

    Reaction was overwhelmingly positive when Kickstarter posted the announcement on its Facebook page. In fact, users in Europe and Asia chimed in asking when the company plans to expand into other countries.

    What exactly does this announcement mean for project creators in Australia and New Zealand?

    For now, they can sign up at Kickstarter Australia to receive updates on the launch. The company is also hosting free Kickstarter Schools in Sydney this month.

    Some hope to see a Kickstarter team physically located in Australia at some point in the future. If the way the company has handled its expansion into Canada is any indication, project creators in Australia and New Zealand can eventually expect to see meetups, workshops, and – at the very least – online office hours.

    A search by location on Kickstarter reveals Australia-based projects currently exist, but they’re being operated on the US side of the site. The launch of an official Australia/New Zealand site will make currency exchange and compliance with country-specific government regulations much easier for project creators.

    Image: Kickstarter

  • Foursquare Asks Users to Help Make the App More Informative

    Foursquare has spent the past year or so making a bunch of alterations to its apps with one clear goal in mind: Foursquare wants to be the go-to place for local search and discovery. Foursquare is taking on Yelp, Google Places, Urbanspoon, and more. Remember that “going beyond the check-in” line that Foursquare has been using for years? Well, now they’re getting serious about it.

    Earlier this year, a major app update put local search and recommendations front and center, and since then Foursquare has been making tweaks to turn the app into a premier place to find information about locations. For one, they completely redesigned them to make them more photo-rich and to contain more of the info that users want when looking for a place to eat, drink, or see a show on the go. A couple of months ago, they expanded menus on restaurant pages in a partnership with Locu.

    Today, they’re looking to make business pages even more informative by crowdsourcing their research. With an app update, Foursquare is bringing quick questions to the app that ask users about key features of the locations they’re checking into.

    For instance, after you check-in to a restaurant, Foursquare might ask you if the place has free Wi-Fi…or if it has outdoor seating…or if they accept all types of credit cards.

    Basically, Foursquare wants users to help them display more information on business pages.

    Speaking of Foursquare and businesses, the company recently opened up their self-serve ad platform to thousands of small businesses – and they are continuing to allow more businesses to apply for the program every day.

    The last major app update to Foursquare for iOS was dedicated to speed improvements, making the app start up and load locations for check-ins twice as fast.

    You can grab the new Foursquare for iOS and Android today.

  • Kickstarter Comes to Canada: Build Projects Now, Launch Them September 9th

    As promised back in June, Kickstarter has finally launched to Canadian projects.

    This is Kickstarter’s second major international expansion. The crowdfunding site officially went live for U.K.-based projects back in October of 2012. Like the U.K. rollout, today’s launch in Canada is more of a soft launch. Users can start building their projects starting today, but they won’t officially go live until September 9th. Kickstarter says that this should give everyone plenty of time to perfect their project presentations.

    All of the fees will be the same (Kickstarter will take a 5% cut on successfully funded projects) and all Canadian-based projects will appear beside U.S. and U.K. -based projects (there won’t be a special Canadian Kickstarter site).

    As far as pledging for Canadian-based projects goes…

    “The mechanics of Kickstarter (all-or-nothing funding, rewards, etc.) are identical for all projects. When pledging, however, backers of Canadian projects will enter their payment information directly on Kickstarter rather than through Amazon Payments. All pledges will be processed securely through a third-party payments processor,” says Kickstarter.

    So, if you’re in Canada and have been itching to kick off your project – the wait is over. Head on over to Kickstarter’s project starter page and get to it. And of course, good luck.

  • Kickstarter Launching in Canada Later This Summer

    Kickstarter has just announced their next international expansion. It’ll be Canada, and the crowdfunding site says that they’ll open up to Canadian projects “later this summer.”

    There’s not much more about the expansion right now – but you can sign up to be notified when Kickstarter Canada officially launches at kickstarter.com/canada.

    This will be Kickstarter’s second major international expansion. They officially went live in the U.K. back in October of last year. The way that works is U.K.-based projects are simply integrated into the main Kickstarter experience – alongside projects from the states. Projects basically work the same and are subject to the same rules, except for payments. It’s likely that Canadian Kickstarter projects will function in a similar manner.

    After its first month of availability in the U.K., Kickstarter announced 30 successfully funded projects, with £2,069,164 in funding spread across 45,799 individual backers for 407 total projects.

    Since its launch, Kickstarter has seen 43,972 successfully-funded projects out of 104,265 total projects. Users have pledged over $580 million.

  • Want A New Windows PC? Make Your Friends Pay For It

    Windows PCs are expensive. Well, at least the good ones are. Microsoft wants to make it a little easier on the poor college student with a new program called “Chip In.”

    Chip In is a new crowdfunding platform where a prospective Windows PC buyer can invite their friends and family to pay for the new PC. Think of like Kickstarter where the end result is you getting a new PC after enough people back it.

    In an obvious bid to get more people to buy Windows PCs, Microsoft contributes the first 10 percent of the total cost for the computer. After that, prospective buyers must beg and plead friends on Facebook to contribute random amounts of money to your fund. After funding is successful, Microsoft will ship off the PC to you.

    Of course, there are some caveats here. The first is that all the PCs are equipped with Windows 8. The second is that you’re stuck with the limited selection of PCs Microsoft offers on its Web site. That means that you’re not going to get some super powerful PC out of this. In fact, the most expensive PC on the list is the mid-range Sony VIAO all-in-one for $1169. Oh, and they’re all touch screens as well if that’s going to bother you.

    Oh, and all of these Windows 8 PCs come with equipped with Office 365 University. College students get three months of the service for free and only have to pay $1.67 a month for it afterwards.

    Still, this is kind of a cool idea. College students, and poor people in general, are always wanting new PCs. Surely you have a few hundred Facebook friends willing to toss $5 your way for a new PC. It’s not a bad deal at all if you’re willing to put up with mid-range Windows 8 PCs.

  • Kickstarter UK Sees 30 Successes in the First Month

    On October 31st, Kickstarter finally made good on a promise to open up to UK-based projects. Today, the company is letting us know how the first month has gone. In a word, promising.

    in the first month, UK-based projects saw £2,069,164 in funding across 45,799 individual backers. 407 total projects have been launched since Halloween, and 30 of them have been successfully funded.

    “Of the 400 projects that have launched, 30 have already been successfully funded and many more are on their way. A public art project called the Chime Pavilion was the first successfully funded project, with triple its funding goal. The very first project to launch, a hardware project called Picade, was successfully funded with £74,000 pledged — double its funding goal,” says Kickstarter.

    Funding for these UK-based projects has been global. While 78% of backers for US projects come from the US, only 39% of backers for UK projects come from the UK.

    Back when Kickstarter opened up to UK creators, company co-founder Yancey Strickler hinted that more international expansion may be based on the success of the UK launch.

    “The request to expand internationally has long been one of our most requested features. We certainly are interested. We’re going to see how the UK launch goes and figure out the next moves from there. There’s a lot of places that will be interesting,” he said.

    After the first month, it looks like Kickstarter is calling the UK expansion a success. They note that the over £2 million in pledges is “amazing” and that they are “thrilled by [creators] success.”

  • Kickstarter Finally Goes Live for UK-Based Projects

    Back in July, crowdfunding site Kickstarter told everyone that they would soon open up in the UK, allowing the people in the region to launch projects on the site. Earlier this month, Kickstarter set October 31st as the official launch day for UK-based projects. Well, check your calendars. Kickstarter is now open for business in the UK.

    There are plenty of just-launched projects from the UK, including places like London, Belfast, Liverpool, Leeds, Edinburgh, and Cardiff. Kickstarter gave UK residents the option to start building their products about three weeks ago.

    If you remember, Kickstarter added a streamlined international shipping option for both U.S. and U.K. projects earlier this month. They also explained that projects from each location will work pretty much the same, with one little change: payments.

    “The mechanics of Kickstarter (all-or-nothing funding, rewards, etc.) are identical for US and UK projects. When pledging, however, backers of UK projects will enter their payment information directly on Kickstarter rather than through Amazon Payments. All pledges will be processed securely through a third-party payments processor,” they said.

    And the UK may not be the only expansion we see. In an interview with the BBC, Kickstarter co-founder Yancey Strickler said that the company was definitely looking at other countries.

    “The request to expand internationally has long been one of our most requested features,” he said. “We certainly are interested. We’re going to see how the UK launch goes and figure out the next moves from there. There’s a lot of places that will be interesting.”

    Stay tuned.

  • Kickstarter Finally Opens Up to UK-Based Projects

    Today, crowdfunding site Kickstarter announced that they will finally open up to folks in the UK. Although we knew that this was coming since July, today’s announcement provides details and a specific date for project-creators to shoot for.

    On October 31st, people in the UK will be able to launch their projects on the site. Kickstarter is announcing this three weeks in advance in order to give creators what they feel is “plenty of time to build and tweak” their projects. Starting today, UK users can begin to build their projects by heading to the Kickstarter Start page.

    All UK-based projects will reside among the rest of the Kickstarter projects – as in there will not be a separate site for UK users.

    According to Kickstarter, payments will work a bit differently in the UK:

    “The mechanics of Kickstarter (all-or-nothing funding, rewards, etc.) are identical for US and UK projects. When pledging, however, backers of UK projects will enter their payment information directly on Kickstarter rather than through Amazon Payments. All pledges will be processed securely through a third-party payments processor”

    One last thing as part of this announcement: Kickstarter has added a streamlined international shipping option for both U.S. and UK projects, which they hope will make it clearer when creators need backers to tack on a little extra to their pledge for international shipping costs. Creators can also cut off rewards to international backers if they please.

    Last month, Kickstarter made a pretty big change to the way creators display their projects, banning simulations and forcing them to outline all risks associated with backing them.

    So, UK-based project-creators, get to building! Kickstarter says that they will send you an email when your project is ready to officially launch on October 31st, just in case you happen to forget.

  • Kickstarter Bans Product Simulations, Forces Project Creators to Outline Risk

    You’re making an investment on a not-yet-actualized product, and there are plenty of risks involved in this. That’s the message that Kickstarter wants to give its product backers. “Kickstarter isn’t a traditional retail experience,” they say, and even more bluntly, Kickstarter is not a store.

    With that in mind, they’ve instituted some changes in how product creators can advertise their projects on the site. The first new mandate is that creators have to discuss “risks and challenges” to their projects.

    Now, under the product description on Kickstarter page (starting today), Creators must answer the questions “What are the risks and challenges this project faces, and what qualifies you to overcome them?”

    We added the “Risks and Challenges” section to reinforce that creators’ projects are in development. Before backing a project, people can judge both the creator’s ability to complete their project as promised and whether they feel the creator is being open and honest about the risks and challenges they face.

    Translation: You have to tell people exactly what they’re putting their money into, and describe what could go wrong so they can make a more informed decision. This new information will appear on every Kickstarter project.

    And Kickstarter has made new guidelines for specific types of projects – hardware and product design. Once again, in order for backers to get the most accurate representation of what they’re backing, Kickstarter has banned product simulations and renderings. Any videos and images of their products must be genuine, current versions of the product that only show what it’s capable of right now.

    “Products should be presented as they are. Over-promising leads to higher expectations for backers. The best rule of thumb: under-promise and over-deliver,” says Kickstarter.

    They’ve also banned the offering of multiple quantities of a reward (unless it makes sense as a pair or set).

    Kickstarter continues to draw skepticism from backers who are concerned with where their money is going, considering not all projects come to fruition. With this update, Kickstarter aims to protect investors while also making sure they know the risks involved.