1. A device that rings a bell or flashes the lights in any/all rooms of my house if my cell phone is at home and rings. This way I don't have to carry it with me everywhere in the house.
2. A service which lets me know which restaurants have excess capacity and will give me a discount if I come right now.
3. A reasonably priced dependable on-line grocery service that delivers in fly-over country.
4. An email device for senior citizens as easy to use as an iPod.
5. A device that lets you know whether the dishes in the dishwasher are dirty or clean.
6. An open source Windows clone that works.
7. A device that automatically disables any cell phone in any car within 50 car lengths of me and heading in my direction.
[EDIT: Numbers 1 thru 5 were serious. #6 was a pipedream. #7 was a joke, but like James Bond's Austin Martin, I can dream, can't I? You guys are giving me what I deserve for mixing jokes in with the real stuff.]
7. A device that automatically disables any cell phone in any car within 50 car
lengths of me and heading in my direction.
I think this device would have the opposite effect that you hope for. I wonder how many days you would last with it?
Multiply the number of talker_drivers you meet with the probability that one of them can't handle the extra distraction of driving and banging on his cell phone, trying to reconnect his call that you jammed. Imagine on a busy commute, this happening every two or three seconds.
Actually, this could be a murder mystery plot, on par with cutting the brake lines. Hide a jammer in somebody's car, and wait for the inevitable result.
Here in Austria we have these things already .. dunno if you need to get a license for them, or something. But anyway they're definitely available to the general public - I've been in a few restaurants with 'jammer' stickers displayed prominently on the front door.
I'd buy one, personally. I can't stand dickhead drivers and if this is some way to make the roads safer I'm all for it ..
I don't think jammers are the right way to deal with the "loud talkers" problem - they also block emergency calls. What if someone who lives above the restaurant needs an ambulance? What if someone in the restaurant gets an emergency call from their spouse?
Fair point, I don't know how these issues are addressed with the current technology .. but I do know, these jammers are out there and can be deployed by those who want a cell-phone free environment. Every location that I've seen them in has a big sign, usually, on the front door that says "YOUR CELL PHONE WILL NOT WORK IN HERE", or something to that effect .. its up to the owner of the technology to work out what to do in that case, I guess.
1. I use a cordless phone at home with stations in every room. The base unit has bluetooth which when paired with cellphone(s) is able to receive calls. I drop the cell phone off at my charging station when I get home and never pick it up again until I'm ready to leave the house.
4. Isn't this the Peek(getpeek.com) device?
6. Doesn't Windows have to work first before a working clone can even be fathomed? I kid.
1. I've had this setup at home for 6+ years, and 80% of the people who walk into our home end up doing the same thing within weeks. It's shocking how few people realize that this is possible.
We just set our phones down when we come in the front door, or even leave them in the car, and never have to worry about missing a call or finding our phones. Most all of these support pairing to two phones and a few support 4 or more phones.
1. Neat. Just to clarify, this doesn't require a landline?
I keep my phone on vibrate all the time, which tends to mean that when I'm at home I miss a lot of calls. I'd definitely pay for a thing that looks like a regular landline phone but docks with my mobile phone.
Use location-awareness apps to set it to a ringtone when you're in the house. If you're on Android, I've had good results with [Locale](https://market.android.com/details?id=com.twofortyfouram.loc...). If you're on iOS or something else I have no idea.
Interesting, and I am on Android. But the reason I keep it on vibrate is to stop it making noise every time I get a low-priority notification. What I want is for it to ring for calls and text messages, but only vibrate for emails and facebook notifications.
Facebook: If you're using the official app, go to the main melu screen, menu button, settings, and notification controls are pretty much the bulk of the prefs.
Email:menu button pretty much anywhere, 'settings' (it's in the 'more' section if you're looking at an e-mail, then if you have multiple email accounts you tap on one. Though I don't see anything that explicitly says "make noise/vibrate/notify in menu"; all I see is "Email notifications" which I have turned on - and all I ever see is status bar notes and a trackball color flash.
I'm using CyanogenMod 7.1 on a Nexus One, things may be different for you. Especially if you're using a carrier or manufacturer branded ROM.
That is correct. I also couple it with a VOIP service but cordless phones can be used with only cell phone if you want that. I'm using Uniden but I know AT+T and Panasonic also have cordless sets that offer this "cell link" feature as well. The key is just ensuring you've got compatible versions of Bluetooth. If you're on a fairly recent cellphone, it's almost a given it will have Bluetooth.
Yes, they support multiple phones. Check the Amazon link that portman provided. It appears that all the major cordless manufacturers have sets that support this now. It's been pleasant to use since it (I'm using a Uniden set) has "just worked" for me since day one.
I'm actually going to set this up for my elderly mother for Christmas who has a regular landline but also a "dumb" cellphone. Her hearing is not that great so if the cellphone is not in her immediate proximity, she'll miss the call. In this case, I'm just interested in the redundancy for phone service in case of emergencies. It doesn't change how she will use the cordless phone at all but does provide us(her children) with more piece-of-mind. It really is this good.
A common use of Bluetooth with mobile phones has been for a wireless headset or handsfree operation in a car. This is another example of that but it happens in your home using cordless phone sets as the extension.
* 7. A device that automatically disables any cell phone in any car within 50 car lengths of me and heading in my direction.*
Pretty sure this would have the opposite of your desired effect. Nothing will distract people more and have them fumbling around with their phone than if a call drops, GPS loses signal, streaming radio stops, etc.
Obviously, people shouldn't be doing these things in cars, but I think it's always interesting to think about unintended consequences. Also, I'm pretty sure your (7) was in jest, anyway, but just playing along here...
> 5. A device that lets you know whether the dishes in the dishwasher are dirty or clean.
The door latch tells you that. If the door is latched, the dishes are clean. If the door is unlatched, the dishes are dirty.
This works if everyone who opens the door when it is latched either empties the dishwasher (and leaves it unlatched) or relatches it AND no one latches the door after putting in a dirty dish unless they also start it.
As someone with consumer electronics experience and a 94-year-old grandmother, I actually think #4 is brilliant. She will never understand how to maneuver to email on her iPad, and the abstract 'reply' and 'send' symbols we all take for granted are hieroglyphics to her. There's definitely a market for an always on, single screen email device a toddler could use. Perhaps the stylus isn't dead yet!
I don't know the first thing about marketing to senior citizens and their caretakers, but I know I spent hours searching for "senior citizen email app.."
http://www.zoodles.com/ is designed for kids, but I think it could be converted or re-imagined for senior use. The video mail system is pretty slick. I bet my kid will have it figured out before he turns 3.
Key features for such an e-mail system:
- simple addressing. In this case, just click on the picture for who you want to mail.
- a big fat "I'm done, send this!" button.
- email whitelist. No spam, no scams, just people you personally know.
- new messages should either be read automatically, or you should get some sort of overlay every time you go into the app that says "you have new messages from [people]! [BIG read now button] [smaller wait until later button]" This way, grandma will always see her new messages.
Get a laminated card with a magnetic back. The card says "i am clean". When you turn on the dishwasher, you put the card on. When you empty it you take the card of. No exceptions.
Alternatively you can buy these novelty "i am in/i am out" switches that some people have on the door of their kids room.
So, the guy suddenly loses his call. He then looks at his phone, trying to figure out what happened. In that time he accidentally swirves into another lane.
7. A device that automatically disables any cell phone in any car within 50 car lengths of me and heading in my direction.
Thanks, you just disabled my GPS, so now I'm looking at my phone trying to figure out what's wrong, instead of looking at the road. That's an idiotic idea if I ever heard one.
Though I have to ask...why haven't you made any of these things? Your #1, #4, and #5 seem like weekend projects. I can think out the basis of the technical solutions for all of them while just sitting here. Granted, there are much better ways to spend a weekend. But hooking up my cell phone to the house lights sounds like it might be kind of fun.
In general, why don't more hackers make stuff like this? It seems like coming up with the long list of ideas is the hard part. Is it that putting the things together is just too much work?
5. A device that lets you know whether the dishes in the dishwasher are dirty or clean.
I would pay for a device that simply washes the dishes at once, one at a time, only dishes.
It could be a hybrid of a toaster and a car washing tunnel: you insert the dish and it spins inside the device with sucessive phases of soap, rinse, drying, the the dish pops up, hopefully not falling to the ground.
We recently did a ton of customer development in this area. They are pretty good at using iPads and apps, if the font is scalable, but transitioning between apps is harder. Agreed, though, that "appliance" is the mindset to go with.
Surely 4 is impossible. Email is both consumption and production. Listening to music is just consumption. By the crudest estimate, that means that any email device must have an interface that is twice as complicated as an ipod.
The jokey 7 Reminds me of the time I hitched a lift with a drunk driver, because I concluded that it was safer to be in his car, than walking along the road with all the drunk drivers about. Such a device actually sounds quite dangerous - I'd rather have someone driving towards me talking happily on their 'phone, than looking at it in confusion trying to see how many bars they have.
Not sure about that. Here's how it plays out: 1) driver coming towards you gets disconnected from her call; 2) she looks at phone to diagnose problem, starts to redial; 3) drifts across center line just before reaching you...
It'd likely cause a more dangerous condition as the jammed drivers would be fussing with their phones trying to figure out what happened to their signal.
1. Clever. You can probably build it yourself with some google voice hack. My computer (via googlevoice chrome plugin) tells me when someone has called or texted already, which is pretty useful in itself because there are often times when I've left my phone somewhere but I'm on my computer.
The demo appears to be buggy, but they seem to have something substantial in the works. From the website:
Please note that Observer was build during the Node Knock Out, a 48 hour coding competition. The commercial version currently in developement, this free service will stay online as long as there are resources to support it.
Could you describe was buggy about the demo? Did it load really slow or was it something else :)?
I'm currently working really hard on the commercial version of Observer which will be much more speedy less hacked up. So any feedback is still more than welcome at this point :D
I'd pay for something that made it easier for me to remotely manage my parent's life (documents, bills, schedules, appointments, insurance, money, etc.). English isn't their first language so I end up being the go to for a lot of things.
This is a wish list. They're wishing for a PayPal wrapper when they should be wishing for a PayPal competitor that does stuff like international payments. (Side note: Stripe doesn't currently but promises international support is coming soon.)
We are working on this at StartupThreads.com. Companies are always buying swag, so the opportunity is to provide the added services that a startup would want. Some people do pay for Startup merch (startupschwag.com had many subscribers when it shut down), its just not a huge market. If you have any specific needs/thoughts would love to hear it.
Take it three steps further. I want to know what tools of all types other developers are using. I'm a game developer want to browse what other studios are actually using and sort based on developer size, time, and more.
For example what do people use for Source Control? Small devs probably use Git or SVN. Show a time trend and SVN likely trends down and Git way way up. Large devs will almost exclusively use Perforce. I want to see this data for EVERYTHING. Text editors, modeling packing, memory managers, build tools, databases, profilers, and so so much more. There are dozens of amazing, wonderful tools/middleware/things out there that I don't even know exist.
This can naturally be expanded outside of software development, but I'm greedy and want to use it for myself first and foremost. :)
So many amazing things could be done. The ideal situation is one in which users can quickly and efficiently mark all tools they use and also get them to update that list every ~6 months. It would integrate nicely with Stack Exchange network I think.
I think it's interesting how the Yelp model might work for business services, but breaks down for service providers. We're not doing lawyers, but I think lawyers are a good example of why the Yelp UX model is wrong for the "relationship" business services market.
- First, reviews are the wrong content. You won't get them, first of all, because customers of businesses who see 10-20 engagements per year will never leave lukewarm or negative reviews. Secondly, even if you only allow recommendations (like LinkedIn) and not open reviews, it's still the wrong content to describe a complex business service. The managing partner of WSGR has tons of recommendations on LI. Does one of them come close to capturing how he thinks about business or his potential value? No.
- Second, stars or any other standard comparison ranking system is the wrong discovery method. Stars help people discover who is good, but not who is good at what.
- Third, participation. LawPivot, who was able to raise several million dollars, lets lawyers generate business through a private Q&A site. Well, the most successful lawyers have no reason to use this service- they are already oversubscribed. Any service discovery/review tool dependent on active participation by the service providers leaves out the best players. This is less of a concern for the B2Brevs of the world, but describes why Guru.com and Elance became talent slums.
I probably shouldn't say anything, but we're launching (and applied YCW12) with something designed to fill a number 2 role for an often overlooked class of business services.
Nice shoutout from PG there, and because of that I will probably even check it out, but seriously I hope a name change is in line for them ... it may seem simple but it is NOT memorable and certainly not something that is going to be easy to build a brand around IMHO
#5 definitely!!! I think the ladies working in startups will definitely appreciate it! Startup schwag rarely fit me properly :( and most of them are just a logo slapped onto a T-shirt. Would be great for team morale! Plus, nice swag like rovio's angry birds plush toys, t-shirts etc are selling like hotcakes http://disrupt.techcrunch.com/SF2011/2011/09/12/angry-birds-... there's definitely market validation for that idea! I definitely believe in investing in gd schwag and who knows that might even become a source of income for a bootstrapping startup :)
Swag can be pretty big. It is a difficult industry since margins are really thin, but I think people are willing to focus on a service that helps them to outsource some of their swag needs in order to focus on other aspects of their business.
With regards to #2 on your list "Yelp for Business Services" there is a company called Contact Karma http://www.contactkarma.com/ which aims to do something along the lines of what you're looking for. My company will also eventually be in the space and allow you to search and discover recommendations through friends and friends of friends in your social networks. For the most part we're restaurants, entertainment, and services for now while we perfect the data but you can see if you're connected in anyway by checking out http://www.cliqsearch.com
Thought that's by far not all we do, my startup ( http://www.kout.me ) has the ability for people to do that. A lot of interesting problems in this space.
Hey guys, great post. I just wanted to let you know that you should add left padding to your post content. The text runs right at the edge of my screen on my phone.
True, though I think this thread has done a great job of bringing some of the unmentioned-but-existent apps to light, more so than a few hours of research by the authors. Something of a side-effect, and one of the reasons I click on "comments" for many HN stories.
It doesn't speak very well of the credibility of the investors who wrote the post to say they'll pay for something without any apparent knowledge of existing solutions, nor any critiques of why they're deficient. It's like saying, "someone should invent a good car."
I think it would be awesome if there was a "Google Voice" for Snail Mail. You would give out one address and it would follow you everywhere. This would be especially great for those 18 - 25 that are going off to college and will end up living in multiple places over a short period of time before settling down.
Here's two I would use, but making them seems to require everyone in the world to agree to some reporting API.
- Software that automatically finds receipts for all my account activity. So that if I give it my bank account statement that had a charge for Dropbox, it would automatically create dropbox.png which is a screenshot of the receipt from dropbox. This would save about an hour every month finding these manually.
- Mac OS X widget that adds all daily revenue from all different ad networks (adsense, cubics, lifestreet etc.) and displays the sum for yesterday and today in the menu bar.
Great idea for posting up a wishlist for services, until I remembered the old saying of how people are terrible at predicting future behavior. Hence, never to ask potential customers the question, "would you buy/use this". I realize that this is in reverse (the writer is asking for it), and that they are not being lead by an interviewer, but shouldnt the same theory (that people cannot predict future behavior) still apply?
Doppler for Heroku (http://dopplerapp.com/) works like a charm for having a quick rails console on your iPhone. It also allows you to provision your app and run rake tasks as well.
I'd be interested in something that also allowed code editing with github integration for the iPhone if any exist.
I'd like someone to start a service that guarantees I get the best deal on my utilities every month (gas, electricity, broadband etc). They would get paid an amount based on the saving they made for me.
I was looking into something similar to this for the UK a while ago - tricky part is the legal implications and the fact that you have to use post-fact data to identify the "best" deal when the user behaviour might change the next day.
I like this. We hadn't thought of this for StartupThreads but at the core, startups can use merch as an agent of appreciation for the loyalty and support of their users. Finding creative ways to express this will help them retain some of these power users.
The swag idea has some potential. Though there isn't much market for people paying to get startup swag, I feel that many startups would love to outsource the actual shipping out of their swag.
True, the market isn't huge, but for good quality content some would be willing to pay. We have thought about this a good deal and creating merchandise that stands out, and offering good fulfillment services is an area that hasn't been fully tapped thus far.
That makes it possible, but far from easy/convenient enough to be worthwhile.
What I imagine is intended by this is a text editor tailor made for browsing and editing code on a touch screen with limited real estate. A non-trivial problem in my estimation.
iSSH+vim for iphone has a usable interface. I've actually done emergency work through it. But if you have a bluetooth keyboard it becomes even more usable. I figure it's about as usable as you'll get with the iphone's tiny screen and keyboard.
StartupThreads.com (my site) will do some of this. There are some others like StartupSchwag.com that used to do it (Roddy actually gave me the StartupThreads domain, awesome guy) along with SwagLove (they do fulfillment for startup t-shirts).
Just signed up, and I don't know how I feel about it. On one hand I really like the UI and sign up process, because it actually made me want to give them information for some reason. On the other hand I feel like they just robbed me because they didn't give me access to the site.
We feel you! We've gotten that feedback, so we're totally changing the sign-up process and opening it up so you get access immediately. Give us a couple of weeks; code takes time, but we're on it.
For now, we sent you an invite to the current alpha. Check your email. We're making the whole product much better soon, so stay tuned.
1. A device that rings a bell or flashes the lights in any/all rooms of my house if my cell phone is at home and rings. This way I don't have to carry it with me everywhere in the house.
2. A service which lets me know which restaurants have excess capacity and will give me a discount if I come right now.
3. A reasonably priced dependable on-line grocery service that delivers in fly-over country.
4. An email device for senior citizens as easy to use as an iPod.
5. A device that lets you know whether the dishes in the dishwasher are dirty or clean.
6. An open source Windows clone that works.
7. A device that automatically disables any cell phone in any car within 50 car lengths of me and heading in my direction.
[EDIT: Numbers 1 thru 5 were serious. #6 was a pipedream. #7 was a joke, but like James Bond's Austin Martin, I can dream, can't I? You guys are giving me what I deserve for mixing jokes in with the real stuff.]