Many of you may have seen Luis von Ahn’s recent TED Talk making the rounds on the interwebs. Luis was behind the creation of Captchas, and subsequently re-Captchas, which help digitize books each time you fill out an online web form. It’s an elegant solution for two difficult problems. And in this most recent TED Talk, Luis discusses his latest project called Duolingo. The very ambitious goal of this endeavor is to crowdsource the translation of the entire internet into many different languages. How exactly? Well, you can jump ahead ...
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![Youku Boosts Chinese Film-Makers With New Indie Projects [UPDATED]](http://www.penn-olson.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/youku-film-250x250.jpg)
Dec 5 2011
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YourGolf Online: An App That’s Changing How the World Plays Golf
YourGolf Online is a GPS-enabled golf logging mobile app that allows you to record at which courses you have played, how you made approach shots, and how what scores you have earned. Golf players will no longer have to note their scores on a piece of paper, as the app is now available on Android devices and the iPhone, and is being used in 188 countries all around the world. Three years ago, the app was developed by Asai, Inc., a system development company based in Tokyo and China's Fuzhou city. ...
Dec 5 2011
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Japan’s Compath.me Helps You Discover Places To Visit
Compath.me, a Tokyo-based start-up from Open Network Lab (a seed acceleration program by Digital Garage and Joi Ito) just brought us the official release of their iPhone app last week. On December 7, the start-up is expected to make a finalist pitch at Le Web, one of the world's largest tech conferences happening this week in Paris, where the app will become available globally. This photo-sharing app aims to help you discover locations and events around you. By sharing pictures and comments with other users, you can discover a place you might not otherwise ...
Nov 23 2011
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Sribu.com: Crowdsourced Designs for Just About Anything
Sribu.com was founded back in June by Ryan Gondokusumo and has quickly become one of the hottest startups around in Indonesia. It crowdsources designs almost for anything you can think of, from logos to t-shirt designs, brochures to calendars. We talked to its founder to learn more about Sribu. 1. What is Sribu.com? How does it differ from a service like 99designs.com? Sribu.com is a crowdsourced design website between customers and the creative community. Crowd-sourcing is a concept of using a community of people to accomplish tasks traditionally performed by an employer or ...
Nov 15 2011
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Slick New Web Apps From Youku Entice You to Study, Then Party
Youku (NYSE:YOKU), China’s biggest online video site, has today launched two new web apps on its platform. One is an impressive virtual classroom where you can view the lecture’s slides and make notes all on the same page; the other is a party-oriented music-video feature where you can easily make playlists or sing along to the lyrics. The diverse and slick-looking web apps - called Youku Classroom and Youku Music Box (pictured above), respectively - have been made by the Youku Labs division and incorporate some social media elements as well. Back ...
Nov 11 2011
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Youku Boosts Chinese Film-Makers With New Indie Projects [UPDATED]
Youku (NYSE: YOKU), China’s biggest video-sharing site, has just launched a new portal called Youku Presents, which showcases some of the country’s young, indie filmmakers. Youku Presents gives practical support, promotion, and potential sponsorship to some young, Chinese digital movie-makers, and has grown out of the website’s earlier Youku Originals platform. But this new initiative is a sort of hybrid of indie-made and Youku-produced content. The first Presents project kicks off today with a series from five young, local filmmakers called “Operation Thanksgiving” - a bit baffling, though, since that’s a North ...
Nov 7 2011
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How an Indonesian Web Service Helps You Avoid Doctor’s Waiting Rooms
MeetDoctor is an integrated web service platform for patients and health service providers in Indonesia. It was one of the finalist for Asia’s Top 50 Apps, and just this past week it officially released its beta version. It features online health consultation, medical articles, as well as a health services directory. Dr. Adhiatma Gunawan, the CEO of MeetDoctor, explained: Most of us are spending quite a lot of time waiting to see doctors. We’re trying to create an efficient way to search health information by giving flexibility to all patients to access ...
Nov 3 2011
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Lei Jun: Can we embrace failures in our society?
This article is part of our coverage of the 2011 China Mobile Developers Conference. Lei Jun is far more energetic today than at Disrupt Beijing. Time is running short at China Mobile Developer Conference (CMDC) and he is cutting the bullshit, throwing away his slides, and speaking straight from his heart very passionately. Diving straight into innovation, Lei Jun says that innovative entrepreneurship is about building and creating something that someone else hasn't done. Copying isn't part of success and that received a loud round of applause. Lei Jun says that ...
Oct 28 2011
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Ad Tech Tokyo: Augmented Reality Fun With Qoncept
At Ad Tech Tokyo this afternoon I had an opportunity to check out Qoncept, a developer of augmented reality (AR) technology. Some of our readers may recall Bandai’s snazzy One Piece ARcardass application from a few months back, which they had a hand in developing. Today’s demonstration was also impressive, and was a good example of how augmented reality can be used for a practical purpose, one that’s more than just eye candy. In the video below, you’ll see how an iPad camera focuses on a figure on a wall, ...
Oct 26 2011
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More Thoughts on Innovation in Asia, This Time From Serkan Toto
After Charlie’s piece yesterday on innovation and what’s really cool in tech start-ups, I thought it would be fitting to point out Serkan Toto’s presentation on innovation in Asia, just in case some of you might have missed it. For those of you who read this blog, you’ll already know Serkan as an authority on technology in Japan and Asia, as we’ve cited his articles more than a few times. In his presentation Serkan sheds some common misconceptions about the practice of cloning in Asia, and he mentions a number ...
Oct 25 2011
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Thoughts on Innovation and What’s Really Cool in Tech Start-ups
Dedicated readers may have noticed that I was away for a few days last week. I was in Hong Kong, dealing with the tail end of a visa nightmare that has consumed the past several weeks of my life. It wasn't the most pleasant trip I've ever taken, but it did give me some time to reflect on the the tech industry from a broader perspective than I usually have time for. We talk a lot about innovation and what companies are really shaking things up, yet all too often "innovation" ...
Oct 14 2011
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Can Twitter Be Used to Predict Seoul’s Next Mayor?
Earlier in the year, we saw how Facebook played a big role in the Singapore elections. We also saw that online discussion of an election could be aggregated and visualized in an engaging and informative matter. Right now in Korea, market research firm Daumsoft has put together a web dashboard that might give an indication of which candidate could win the October 26 vote for Seoul mayor. Daumsoft’s dashboard, viewable at campaign.socialmetrics.co.kr, lets you see the discussion that surrounds each of the candidates (Won-soon Park and Gyeong-won Na), as well ...
All Japan’s Earthquakes in 2011, Visualized in One Startling Video
Feb 9, 2012
VCotton Wants to Knock Your Socks Off. And Sell You New Ones
Feb 8, 2012
Taiwan’s EZTABLE Raises $1.5 Million in Series A Round, Heads to Mainland China
Feb 9, 2012
Agate Studio Wants to Make the World Happier With Games
Feb 8, 2012
CyberAgent Ventures Invests in Vietnamese Music Service
Feb 7, 2012