Validate your problems, startup ideas to create products which people want

Control+F for life #search #lifestyle

Wed, 22 Jan 2020 13:02:00 +0000

We spend so much time on searching for stuff in our real-life that, we have got used to the criminal waste of time it is.

It is 2020, there must be a better way to search for things in real-life right? Or at-least help to place things better, so that we can find them easily when needed.

I'm sure this a problem faced by everyone, I challenge the brilliant minds to come up with a solution for this.

5 points posted by Jacqueline Holt

Saving offer notifications on smartphone #notification #bookmark

Mon, 20 Jan 2020 14:50:00 +0000

I get offers via push notifications regularly, but when I need them I'm unable to find those as I might have dismissed those notifications.

e.g. Say, I receive Uber offer code via notification on some random day, if I fail to click that notification and apply the code immediately; I'll loose that notification as I dismiss dozens of other notifications or if I receive another notification from Uber. At-least, Uber has provision to apply offer codes as soon as we receive the notification and use it on a later date; but many apps require the offer code to be used only at the time of purchase(which can vary from the date of notification).

If there was an app to store notifications, or better just the offer notifications then this problem can be resolved.

3 points posted by Yogesh Basu

Finding local delicacies internationally #food #tourism

Thu, 16 Jan 2020 13:41:00 +0000

I travel internationally a lot and when ever I visit a new city in a country I struggle to find small restaurants or a road-side vendors which/who offer local delicacies at good quality. I prefer small restaurants or small vendor for local delicacies as they are the ones which are not available in larger restaurants in which ever city you are i.e. they are the ones which are really hard to get outside that place; but hard to find via Google because they are not mapped.

There are services like eatwith which started out as food-sharing service i.e. get the food cooked by a local, but once they get bigger they tie up with bigger restaurants/chefs like most other services. Food sharing is a no go for introverts like me as well, I prefer places where I can eat food at peace and not have lot of conversations to do it.

I would like a service which provides crowd sources data for small restaurants and road-side vendors providing local delicacies; say where to find the best Khao Soi in Chiang Mai or Pani Puri in Mumbai.

3 points posted by Jörg Rüger

Cleaning leaf debris from roadside trees #environment #cleaning

Tue, 14 Jan 2020 13:33:00 +0000

My local body is a joke, so we have to clean the leaf debris from the road every day ourself in our street. This has become a huge chore, wasting our time and energy. This has lead to many residents despising road side trees in-spite of we being in the dire need of more trees for the sake of the environment. We have a law against cutting down public trees.

I would like to hear some solutions to grow more trees in the public areas but without the nuisance of having to clean its debris every day.

2 points posted by Saranya

USB Type-C CONDOM #USB #cybersecurity

Mon, 13 Jan 2020 13:52:00 +0000

Juice jacking is a type of cyber attack where data is stolen from the electronic devices via USB port when they are plugged in for charging. This has become so common that, Los Angeles' District Attorney's Office published an advisory to travelers about the potential dangers of public USB ports.

This works because data lines on the USB ports are not disabled during charging at the hardware level and often require the users to put their smartphones or other devices to charge only mode. Fortunately there are devices like USB CONDOM which disables the data lines during charging and prevents any form of data transfer thereby preventing juice jacking.

But since Type-C USB devices use the data lines to negotiate voltage with the source; USB CONDOM would limit its function and thereby making the devices charge slower. This is counter intuitive as, we would want the devices to charge faster at a public charging point and there is a need gap.

3 points posted by Abishek Muthian

Finding which college course help reach ambition #college #education

Thu, 09 Jan 2020 17:03:00 +0000

There are plenty of resources for finding universities, colleges and their ranking; but I'm yet to come across one which can simply tell me which course should I take based on my current skills, financial capacity and at which university to reach my ambition.

Say, if my ambition is to be an astronaut, may be I need not waste 4 years on Engineering; perhaps I can take 2 years course on Physics, Math, take up the pilot training program and apply to NASA (or) May be new space ventures such as SpaceX, Blue Origin would have Astronaut training program themselves and I should focus my education according to it.

A education/career advising web service or app should be able to give me this advise after getting the necessary inputs from me such as education, skills, grades, financial situation etc. based on up-to date information on the field of education, career, global economy, emerging technologies etc.

3 points posted by Tina Ray

Protecting one's time #lifestyle #timemanagement

Wed, 08 Jan 2020 13:30:00 +0000

Netflix's biggest competitor? Sleep. Sleep, eating, physical activities, communicating in-person etc.; anything related to healthy lifestyle of an individual has become a competitor to companies dependent upon the screen-time.

Several of the top apps have claimed to have more than an hour of screen-time on average among its consumers, so someone who consumes several such products are forced to make more time for it. Time being constant(at absolute level) for all, only way for an individual to make more time for these new lifestyle habits is to remove time from existing healthy habits.

It's not that reducing or removing smartphone altogether can solve this, the issue is not just psychological addiction but also economical and political. Companies are allowed to grow larger than the governments and their only limitation is an individual's time. Is there a need gap to protect one's time?

3 points posted by Abishek Muthian

Identifying myself from random Internet videos #video #Internet

Tue, 07 Jan 2020 13:24:00 +0000

I was checking out a random Youtube video the other day and for a pleasant surprise I was there in it. It was tourist video and I was standing outside a shop when I was captured in the video. I thought it would be nice for other strangers in the video to identify themselves in the video as well.

Then I thought, wouldn't it be cool if anyone can identify themselves in the random Internet video when they want to. I searched for such solution but couldn't find any.

Since, it's common nowadays for anyone to shoot a video and upload it to the Internet; I think it would be great if there is a tool for identifying ourself in those videos.

3 points posted by Angel Ruloph

App for collaborative fiction #crowdsourced #wirting

Mon, 06 Jan 2020 13:30:00 +0000

When I was in school we used to collaboratively write stories by each individual in the class continuing upon the story on a paper. It was lot of fun and I think it made us better at writing and reading.

Lately I've been searching for an app which does collaborative fiction i.e. where one person kicks of a story by writing few sentences, the next person continues it and so on. The best I could find was wattpad, but that is more of a crowd validated writing where the author regularly connects with their readers.

But, what I want is a crowd written story for fun say like wikipedia for fiction. If anyone knows such an app let me know or please build one!

4 points posted by Shweta Gogoi

Finding paying customers for a product #marketing #sales

Mon, 06 Jan 2020 12:52:00 +0000

Web software consumer market has been behaviourally optimised to seek 'FREE' products. People happily use low quality free products, which steal their data, control their free speech and elect governments for them; but stay away from high quality, reasonably priced products which offer better values for their price.

If this continues, only monopolies which can spend Billions in advertising their free products can continue their business and small businesses which aims to provide better value cannot even reach their customers.

There is a need for a new marketing phenomenon which can help such reasonably priced products reach their intended customers i.e. those who are willing to pay for better value and create a behavioural change towards buying high quality, sustainable products.

4 points posted by Nancy Ilias

Automatic video to podcast conversion #podcast #video

Fri, 03 Jan 2020 13:10:00 +0000

I like to listen to podcasts more than I like to watch videos on Youtube. Some videos such as Interviews, News can be converted to podcasts as usually there is not much value in the video of such content; but the conversion needs to be done manually by extracting audio from the video.

I would like to have a podcast app which can also take in video links (such as Youtube, Vimeo etc.) and convert them to audio (i.e. podcasts) automatically.

4 points posted by Gibbs

Make TV dumb again #privacy #cybersecurity

Mon, 30 Dec 2019 13:03:00 +0000

The Operating Systems, Applications used by major Smart TV manufactures are found to be highly vulnerable to hacking. Also, updates for earlier Smart TV's isn't straightforward as many need to be flashed via SD card and which not many are going to do even if the manufacturer had updated their firmware to fix some vulnerabilities.

Smart TV manufacturer's themselves exploit the available capabilities to flash unremovable Ads and may even upload screenshots from your TV for automatic content recognition.

So, if Smart TV's are dangerous, annoying, why buy them right? Well, that's the problem I'm stating here - There aren't many options to get a dumb TV with latest display technology i.e. 4K/8K HDR if we want to supply our own apps via SBCs/Apple TV etc.

3 points posted by Abishek Muthian

Inexpensive IoT fire safety system #IoT #firesafety

Fri, 27 Dec 2019 13:12:00 +0000

Recently in Delhi, fire broke out in a factory resulting in the death of at-least 43 people and more than 50 were injured. Since this happened during early morning, most of the occupants(labourers) were sleeping and so couldn't notice the fire in time; besides the factory building itself was illegal & didn't have proper fire safety.

If there was a fire alarm, lives could have been saved and if that alarm was capable of sending alerts outside (SMS/Internet) then at-least outside help could have been received in time.

To be frank, I didn't have any fire alarm at my house. Frightened by this incident I searched for one on the market and the ones with decent ratings where overwhelmingly expensive. I'm of middle income category, if these are expensive to me, no wonder many here aren't even aware of fire safety systems let alone someone spending money on it for a building housing poor labourers.

Why are these expensive when a smartphones in the country are half the price?

3 points posted by Girish

How candidates are selected for interviews #interview #recruitment

Thu, 26 Dec 2019 13:33:00 +0000

In current leading job sites, first communication between employee and employer is monotonous; If I see an opening I apply with my stored CV and wait for the return communication from the potential employer.

The reason for an employer not selecting the candidate for an interview could be several, but since there is no feedback mechanism at this level the candidate would never know and there is no room for improvement.

As for the employer, they have to rely upon historical data on CV to make a judgement on whether the candidate is fit for their job interview; they end up loosing lot of time, money in eliminating unfit candidates during interviews and perhaps they might have lost a suitable employee since they did not offer them the interview.

I think there is a need gap for improving how the candidates are selected for the interviews with very specific job description, transparent recruitment criteria, better ways for a candidate to showcase that they have necessary skills to execute the role, transparent process and feedback.

3 points posted by Zimochrome

Sanity checker #mentalhealth #psychology

Mon, 23 Dec 2019 14:51:00 +0000

I would like to have a mechanism by which users can check their mental health regularly themselves through a series of standardised tests. This would be very useful for someone with hereditary mental illness and would like to keep a tap on their mental health.

There are numerous occasions by which someone may be at the risk of mental illness apart from hereditary reasons e.g. environment, age, side-effect from infections of implants, accidents, medication etc.

An easily accessible system with which a user can track the progress of their mental health would bring more awareness towards mental health and its treatment. A fitbit for mental health?

3 points posted by consiousbeing

Country rankings for immigration #immigration #rankings

Mon, 23 Dec 2019 14:39:00 +0000

I'm looking for regularly updated country's ranking based on various factors such as democracy, freedom of speech, weather, infrastructure, economy, healthcare, crime rate, justice, progressiveness, science&technology, climate action plan, immigration policies etc. for immigration.

I could find different websites with data for above categories with different levels of updating, intuitiveness but I think there is a need gap for a single website which ranks countries with updated empirical data with easily accessible interface with focus on immigration.

3 points posted by globalcitizen

Notification pollution #mobile #productivity

Sun, 15 Dec 2019 13:46:00 +0000

An average US smartphone user supposedly receives 46 app push notifications per day. It's highly likely that most of them are distributed during working hours, so if distributed equally an average user is interrupted ~ 3 times/hour during 16 hours when they are awake. This figure is likely higher in some Asian countries, where some apps play integral part in the lifestyle.

Science is clear on the effect of notifications on productivity - it's bad. Both android and iOS has features to disable notifications for the entire app or by categories, but when it comes to categories the onus is on the app developer to maintain the etiquette.

I think there is a need gap to impose etiquette on the users as well, considering majority of the notifications are from messaging apps and social networks. Making the user select the category of notification e.g. 'delayed' for a meme & 'immediate' for urgent, emergency communication can help this.

4 points posted by Abishek Muthian

Hard for small companies to rank on search #search #seo

Sat, 14 Dec 2019 23:22:00 +0000

It is difficult for small or new companies and independent content creators to rank on search even though their content may be truly good. It means small business lose a lot of potential revenue and exposure every year simply because they can't compete with a company that has the budget to have better SEO strategy. Existing search engines prioritize long time players because of the trust of their content, not necessarily quality content compared to a newcomer.
4 points posted by Grimm1

I forget my web bookmarks quite often. #internet #organizing

Thu, 12 Dec 2019 18:30:00 +0000

Like the title says- I forget to check out my bookmarks. I often stumble across some really cool articles/blog posts which I often bookmark. But the next day, I totally forget about them. The bookmarking feature on most browsers isn't that user-friendly and I have over 500 bookmarks waiting to be re-opened again. Maybe some cool startup idea I found in a blog post or maybe some really cool product which I want to read more about later. It's almost like I need a reminder to reopen my bookmarks, but this feature isn't there on Chrome or Firefox. Just because of this, I have lost out on lots of cool information. 4 points posted by Sayan

On premise video indexing with visual data #analytics #video

Thu, 12 Dec 2019 06:08:00 +0000

Current video indexing are mostly done by converting 'speech-to-text' and then indexing it. This is mostly done to save on compute resources and that algorithms to index video with visual data are not as stable as that of text.

e.g. Searching for a video for an old man with red shoes wouldn't yield results unless there was an audio in the video describing it when using speech-to-text indexing.

It is said that even Youtube hasn't indexed all its video by visual data due to sheer number of videos. There APIs available like that from Microsoft which claim to enable video indexing with visual meta data, but they are not a on-premise solution and so using those might rake up bills if the number of videos are large.

There is a need gap for on-premise video indexing technology.

2 points posted by datascience enthusiast

How ancient architectures looked like via VR #Architecture #VR

Fri, 06 Dec 2019 16:19:00 +0000

Recently I came across an article which showed how Pyramid at Giza looked like in 2560 BCE during its pristine condition. The limestone finish was breathtaking, unlike anything we remember current day pyramids by.

Reconstruction of such ancient architectures digitally when they were at their pristine would give us fresh perspective and appreciation of human efforts of that time. It would be more immersive if we could also take a virtual tour of the reconstructed interior architectures of the ancient wonders via Virtual Reality.

I feel VR and Simulation tech is at a such a phase now that, this need gap for creating a new experience of ancient wonders can be fulfilled and with tourism industry growing stronger; there can be commercial viability for such a product as well.

3 points posted by Abishek Muthian

Better employee verification system #verification #employment

Mon, 25 Nov 2019 16:56:00 +0000

Recently I had cleared an interview from a large organisation and all that was pending was verification on my previous employment. The verification was conducted by a 3rd party and they sent email to all my past employers. My very first employer (5 years back) had since shutdown the company and in-spite of personally vouching for me to the verification company; they didn't accept it because it wasn't from their official email id.

The communication from that employer wasn't from official email id because the THE COMPANY HAD SHUT DOWN, the verification company kept insisting that my employer verify via official email id. The incompetence of the verification company in not knowing how email domains work has nearly cost my job.

If an email domain is all what it takes to verify, then how is it even properly verified? I think there is a need gap for better employee verification system.

4 points posted by jobseeker

MVP Build Partners #mvp #prototype

Sun, 24 Nov 2019 21:46:00 +0000

Platform for to-be founders to publish what they're working on and not just get feedback or request funding but collaborators who share vision and leverage platform to build till MVP. Platform enables collaboration and progress until some goal is achieved. Think Kickstarter but backers are team members or cofounders.

Reduce immediate need for funding. Build shared vision
Get people with shared ideas from various countries to collaborate and improve success rate
Not just coding - Product/Project Management, Marketing, Architect, Designers..
As there's no guaranteed paycheck, collaborators actually share the vision and are self-motivated to work towards the target
Platform manages engagement & legal detail
Some features may be suitable to team members with other sources of income and/or students who want to contribute to a shared goal
Platform provides project management tools to ensure goal is achieved
At this point, no discussion about funding (maybe later). But efforts put in by collaborators are managed and documented
Access to testers/pilot users

1 points posted by Don Barry

Sharing WiFi network with strangers for money #WiFi #Internet

Sat, 23 Nov 2019 12:36:00 +0000

There is need gap for alternatives to mobile Internet via cellular network, the closest solution being WiFi hotspots. But, WiFi hotspots being run by monopolies doesn't protect the openness of the Internet.

Opening home, office, personal WiFi to the public without password protection addresses this, that's exactly what Open Wireless Movement aimed to achieve with custom router firmware. But, goodwill alone rarely reaches scalability; how about sharing WiFi for money? I'm not the first to suggest that, OpenGarden tried to do it in vain.

I'm quite certain that the above projects failed because of the need to run custom firmwares on WiFi routers, which is a large friction for homes/offices or individuals who don't know about it or have the right hardware. With the availability of cheaper network hardware, better open network software stack, I think the need gap for sharing WiFi with public for subscription commission can now be achieved.

How can we do it?

3 points posted by Abishek Muthian

Non cellular network mobile Internet #Telecom #internet

Thu, 21 Nov 2019 13:47:00 +0000

With Monopoly or Duopoly in the Telecom industry of most countries, the democracy of mobile Internet itself is under threat. There is a needgap to remove cellular network stack for mobile Internet completely.

Fortunately there is no need to reinvent the wheel, we have not been using cellular network for mobile Internet in our homes and offices for several years with WiFi. Long range WiFi hotspots outside our home/office can address this need gap as well.

The reason why long range WiFi hotspots haven't been fielded widely is due to the regulations concerning transmission power for radio, the transmission power required for long rage WiFi transmitter is prohibited in several countries. There are no such limitations on long range WiFi receivers.

A long range WiFi receiver accessory for smartphones/laptops with WiFi hotspots placed at algorithmically calculated optimal locations can address this problem.

4 points posted by Abishek Muthian

Democratisation of AI/ML/DL hardware #ArtificialIntelligence #hardware

Mon, 18 Nov 2019 03:48:00 +0000

Organisations like OpenAI are doing a commendable job in democratising Artificial Intelligence software stack i.e. opensource AI tools accessible to anyone and not just the big firms. But democratisation of hardware required for Machine Learning or Deep Learning is nowhere in sight.

GPU is already a big bottleneck for an individual/startup from a poor economic region. Considering, even entry level Software Engineering jobs now expect the candidates to know ML; it is imposing a huge disadvantage over a large sector of students from poor countries. AI accelerator hardware like TPU, Graphcore AI available to only big cloud companies would further worsen this.

This issue has largely to do with how semiconductor industry by itself is structured. With only handful of fabrication plants capable of mass producing semiconductors of this nature and they being integral part of 'soft power' in Geo-politics; it's hard for a startup to enter this space and when they do, they have no option to tie-up with these cloud companies.

Not only 'AI powered end product' will increase the inequality; but the ML education/research already has.

3 points posted by Abishek Muthian

Password less authentication #authentication #cybersecurity

Tue, 12 Nov 2019 12:31:00 +0000

Even when thousands of online accounts get hacked each week due to weak passwords, people continue to use them. Even though free random(pseudo) password generator apps are available for years now, it hasn't gained large adoption.

Passwords by design rely on weakness in human psych - memory; we cannot generate or remember random passwords which are secure.

It's time to do away with passwords completely and come up with seamless, secure alternative which can work for a layman or security professional alike.

3 points posted by PasswordHater

Challenge platform for non tech graduates #jobs #skills

Mon, 04 Nov 2019 16:39:00 +0000

There are number of platforms for tech graduates to show their skills via hackathon, competition to get recruited. But there are no such platform for a non tech graduate or for someone who has non technical skills in general such as agriculture, cooking, sales, marketing, accounting, communication, research, writing, travel, fashion, art, design (non-digital) etc. to showcase their skills for getting recruited.

I think its high time cookathons, saleathons, writeathons etc. for non-tech fields is conducted to connect the skilled with those who are looking for them. My wishful thinking is that this should encourage even those without proper degree or formal education in those fields should be encouraged to participate if they have necessary skills.

This sounds like a true problem, but one reason for why this hasn't been taken up or solved yet could be because the majority of those who are facing this problem are jobless and entrepreneurship is the last thing which comes to mind when someone is not having any money.

5 points posted by jobseeker

Collaboratively edit group photos in realtime #photography #editing

Wed, 30 Oct 2019 16:51:00 +0000

Thanks to smartphone, we take inordinate amount of photographs. We edit the photographs before posting it to the social networks or chat apps to look the best of ourselves or at least we like to think so!

But, we cannot edit others in a group photo or group selfie as editing how others look in our photograph without their consent seems inappropriate and so most of the time only the person who owns the smartphone in which the group photo/selfie was taken gets to edit the picture.

I would like an app which allows editing group photo in realtime collaboratively, across all platforms and agree upon a final version once every one in the picture has approved.

3 points posted by Bakshara

Automatic transcript for podcasts with search #podcasts #transcript

Mon, 28 Oct 2019 17:03:00 +0000

Podcasts are an antidote to noise filled, cognitive bias fuelling on-screen media. But, there are limitations to consuming information from audio; searching and retrieving information from a podcast are full of hurdles, audio only podcasts are out of reach for people with hearing disabilities and other accessibility issues.

Considering the state of current speech recognition, audio processing; I would like a podcast app where transcript are generated in real-time and showcased like how lyrics are displayed in the music streaming apps with ability to search over podcast's transcript at any time.

There are few services which offer transcript for podcasts, but aren't real-time and require payments to be made for each episodes.

P.S. Android has live transcribe feature for any audio, but including transcript within a podcast app would be frictionless and could provide historical search features.

5 points posted by Abishek Muthian

Tracking micro changes related to my career #news #career

Wed, 23 Oct 2019 02:43:00 +0000

Say, I'm a programmer; I would like to know the changes in the new version of a programming language I use, changes in the APIs I use, changes in the technology concerning my area of work.

But it's just not the technology which can affect a career, from economic slowdown to rising sea levels could have an impact on a career. Currently there is no individual solution to connect the dots and watch the micro changes related to one's job.

I would like an app which can take specific inputs about my job description, analyse possible career trajectories and monitor micro changes related to those careers and give appropriate suggestions to pursue.

3 points posted by Yogesh Basu

Affordable E-Ink large external displays #EInk #displays

Wed, 16 Oct 2019 17:46:00 +0000

Due to the exponential growth in the LCD/OLED display technologies larger, higher resolution, higher frame rate displays are more affordable than ever, But the E Ink external displays or E Ink computer monitors remains elusive from large adoption in the consumer market.

There are large E Ink external displays available for a while now from the likes of Dasung, Onyx but due to higher price e.g. $700 to $1000 for 13.3" E Ink display, where as a 4K 32" color LCD display monitor is available for ~ $200. Higher price of E Ink display slows adoption and slower adoption keeps these display prices high and new entrants to the E Ink market.

Of-course E Ink display use is limited to document consumption due to its monochrome colors and low refresh rates. But considering document consumption (browsing articles) or activities requiring low refresh rate (e.g. coding) occupies majority of screen time for many professionals, An E Ink display can serve them well.

Many who have used E Ink Kindle's browser to browse web in the newer frontlight models would vouch its positive effect on the eyes.

3 points posted by Abishek Muthian

Identifying fake reviews in Amazon, other sites #ecommerce #reviews

Tue, 15 Oct 2019 17:22:00 +0000

Almost every review for accessories of a newly launched product I see on Amazon India is a fake review e.g. Smartphone case, Tempered glass etc. I see that reviewers have left similar, positive reviews with 5 stars rating for several other products.

I'm sure this is not just limited to Amazon India, as I could find other news detailing the ways the sellers employ common people to give fake reviews in the promise of free goodies. So, this practice must be common among several sellers across different ecommerce sites.

I would want a service which can differentiate fake reviews and genuine reviews seamlessly in the ecommerce sites.

3 points posted by Asra Banu

Human memory, lack of thereof #psychology #neuroscience

Mon, 14 Oct 2019 05:12:00 +0000

Human memory is overrated, they are weak and fallible. Study shows we tend to think that we will remember something important more than we will. False memory can be implanted in someone's mind extremely easily, something which marketers, politicians, elements with nefarious intentions have been exploiting for centuries and our brain itself can create false memories to cope with trauma.

Then there are numerous memory biases which clout our judgement leading to undesirable consequences for ourselves and for others around us.

In-spite of hard scientific evidence that our memory cannot be trusted, our day-to-day life, stability of the society; especially the legal system is built upon human memory. We need frictionless solutions to improve human memory.

5 points posted by Abishek Muthian

Organizing favourite online food recipes #food #organizing

Tue, 08 Oct 2019 16:50:00 +0000

There are host of food recipes available online in different websites and apps but no versatile mechanism to store the ones we like in an easily retrievable manner.

There is a need gap for a tool/service which allows us to save recipes from different websites, apps and retrieve as and when needed. If the tool can generate nutritional/calorie information and cost information for the stored recipe in the background; it could be an added advantage when using the recipe instead of having to search for the calorie information in different websites.

3 points posted by needgap finder

Mineral loss in the vegetables, declined by 90% #nutrition #agriculture

Wed, 02 Oct 2019 13:08:00 +0000

Research estimates put 90% decline of minerals in vegetables in the last 100 years. This, added with challenges in the diagnosis of critical minerals in the human body is affecting the treatments for nutritional deficiency and related diseases.

Loss of minerals in the vegetables have been attributed to several causes such as extermination of soil life through modern farming practices of heavy tilling, over-fertilising, inadequate fertilisation, focussing on macronutrients etc.

For faster production, plants are fed Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassium but other essential elements which are required for the health of plants are ignored. This causes nutrient deficiency, not only for plants but also for other organisms which subsist on plants such as humans.

There is a need gap for startups to stop the loss of minerals in vegetables and also revitalise soil health.

3 points posted by Abishek Muthian

Creating a team with only remote employees #remoteworking #employment

Fri, 27 Sep 2019 04:59:00 +0000

Forming a good core team for a startup is a large challenge, having remote team could help with better talent acquisition and also reduce the costs for setting up the infrastructure. There is no goto place for getting full-time remote employees for a startup which is yet to be launched.

Available options are mostly focussed upon freelance workers, which wouldn't work for a startup needing dedicated workforce.

3 points posted by Yogesh Basu

Smart power strip which communicates with phone #power #environment

Mon, 23 Sep 2019 16:56:00 +0000

Devices which are connected to the power strips draw power even when they are not in use, experts say this standby power consumption in an average home ranges from 5 percent to 10 percent of household energy consumption. It supposedly accounts for 1 percent of worldwide carbon dioxide emissions.

Current smart power strips available on the market address this by cutting off power supply when the demand for power reduces there by signifying that the device is in standby mode. This works well for devices without battery e.g. Television, Music System etc. But, a smartphone would begin charging again at 99% thereby triggering power demand on the power strip frequently.

Smartphones and other similar devices with batteries have overcharging protection so they cutoff power demand at 100%, when the power depletes to 99% the charging would be resumed again. I would want a smart power strip which gets realtime battery statistics from the smartphone and cut off power supply when the optimum battery level is reached e.g. 80% and automatically start power supply again when the battery has reached low level e.g. 40%.

3 points posted by Abishek Muthian

Calculating climate impact for everyday tasks #environment #carbonfootprint

Thu, 19 Sep 2019 07:12:00 +0000

Every day tasks such as charging our smartphone to taking a flight leaves a carbon footprint thereby having an impact on the climate and environment. Some lesser than others, but even those with less carbon footprint for an individual can make large impact on the climate when entire population is considered.

I want easier ways to calculate carbon footprint and other things which impact the climate due to my regular activities. Current climate change, environmental awareness is all about shaming people for their actions rather than constructive ways to mitigate those actions.

I think better climate change awareness is the need of the hour, fulfilling the need gap of easier way to calculate our personal impact on climate could help that.

3 points posted by Bakshara

area denial counter-drone technology #defence #drone

Mon, 16 Sep 2019 16:45:00 +0000

Drone technology, apart from numerous peaceful use cases has become a force multiplier for offensive operations. Drones capable of inflicting damage on infrastructure, lives are not only limited to nations with large defence budget, but has been effectively used by unorganised groups to cause large scale damages due to the low cost of developing and operating a drone force.

Malicious or accidental use of drones in airports have wreaked havoc. Drones are not limited only to air, explosive laden drone boats have already been used in the conflict.

Current counter-drone or anti-drone tech involves blocking signal to the drone for forcing it to land, hacking and use of physical force to destroy drones. The rise of auto pilot, anti-jamming/hacking, swarm tech would render existing counter-drone measures obsolete and hence the need gap for efficient area denial counter-drone technology.

3 points posted by Abishek Muthian

Hiding spoilers of shows and movies in the web #web #spoilers

Sat, 14 Sep 2019 15:52:00 +0000

When I haven't watched the latest episode of a very famous show or haven't watched a famous movie, I am forced to go off the grid (off Internet) until I have watched the show or movie because of the spoilers.

Currently I am using blocker plugins on browsers such as Ublock Origin to block comment section of certain websites, unsubscribe from subreddits related to that show or movie to prevent spoilers. These methods are not efficient, in turn loose the benefits of comments and non-spoiler content from my favourite subreddits as well.

I think there is a need gap for spoiler blocking considering how much media coverage famous shows and movies are getting nowadays. 3 points posted by Book Lover

I don't have access to a proper library in my city

Fri, 13 Sep 2019 09:50:00 +0000

I live in a Tier 2 city with a population of 40 lakhs. There are lots schools and colleges in my town but there are no good public libraries. As a working professional that likes to read in my free time, I have to rely on buying books online which proves to be very expensive.

I would love to have a library like The British Library in my town or some other alternative where I can borrow books.

3 points posted by stoikrus

Following work of a non-acting member from films #movies #information

Thu, 12 Sep 2019 02:44:00 +0000

Many times I like the work of a member from a film crew such as, cinematographer, visual effects director, music composer, stunt coordinator, dialogue writer, director etc. who are not actors or at-least not lead actors. I feel they don't get the attention they deserve in making a movie great.

I want to follow the latest work of a cinematographer, visual effects director, dialogue writer, stunt coordinator etc. I liked in a movie. Actors, especially lead actors get stupendous coverage on television and online; but others from the film crew who had put exemplary effort don't get covered about their latest work.

A fan like me who would like to know about the latest work of these professionals, would watch a movie/series for their work but have no mechanism to get the required information and hence the need gap. Of course, some of them might have twitter accounts; but I would like to get updates on just their latest work and not their personal/world views; so Twitter doesn't fill this need gap.

3 points posted by Ramon Eater

Lyric based music playlists #music #genre

Mon, 09 Sep 2019 15:50:00 +0000

I am fed up with love/romantic songs which are mostly misogynistic, sexualising women. I have nothing against love/romance as such, but I am bored of music when every song in the playlists of the music apps is a love song.

It is either, what a man feels about a women, or a women singing about her exes, rap about every external body part of women, men singing about non reciprocating love feelings and vice versa. Is that all lyricists can do?

Music is an essential part of human civilisation, I reject the idea that we can create only love songs now. I want playlists ordered by lyrics like Philosophy, History, Science, Motivational, Pets, Vehicles, Love etc. I am sure there are songs in the past which fits into every one of those categories and more.

Perhaps this would motivate the music creators to write better songs.

3 points posted by ShapeOfYou

Getting things done at individual level #productivity #taskmanagement

Sat, 07 Sep 2019 14:24:00 +0000

I spend much of my time browsing Reddit, YC-HackerNews and looks like needgap is going to be on that list. I'm not sure whether this is social network addiction, as none of the sites I mentioned is a social network. But, I spend inordinate amount of time on them and on other stuff without getting the tasks which I had in my mind done.

At the end of the day my tasks lists are full, get postponed, more tasks get added the next day, this cycle repeats. This undone task lists depresses me every night, but I don't do much about it the next day and hence the cycle.

I want something which helps me focus and gets things done. I'm sure, I'm not the only one with this issue.

5 points posted by Shinzo Reyen

Plain T-shirt subscription service in India #clothing #india

Fri, 06 Sep 2019 12:50:00 +0000

I like plain T-shirts, from what I see in my office and outside; I guess so do many. Plain T-shirts are look neat, clean, time saving (even though I haven't taken the extreme measure of wearing single colour every day to avoid decision fatigue) and most importantly it is appropriate for an office environment.

I want a good quality plain T-shirt of different colour sent to me every month for a reasonable price. There are clothing subscription services in India, but they do exactly opposite of what I need; they cater to the fashion (or is it anti-fashion) conscious customers and so they include shoes, belt, glasses & what not along with mediocre clothing at a premium price.

I would happily pay half of what the current clothing subscription services charge for just a different coloured T-shirt every month.

2 points posted by NerfHerder

Sharing what's on the mind without judgements #forum #communication

Fri, 06 Sep 2019 06:44:00 +0000

I think everything is a facade on social networks, people tend to project different picture of themselves or project as someone else whom they wish they were. I would like to have a place where I can share my thoughts as it is without the fear of judgements or prejudice from those who read it.

I want a place where I can un-censor my thoughts, At the same time I don't want the forum to be a toxic place which plagues forums which advocates anonymity and free-speech. I guess, anonymity also brings out a facade from people and makes them do something online which they don't normally do in real life.

So, I think there is a need gap for a non-toxic forum where anyone can post anything on their mind period.

1 points posted by RandomThoughts

Secure transfer of encryption keys after death #cryptography #cybersecurity

Thu, 05 Sep 2019 16:25:00 +0000

The day before my surgery, which had high probability that I may not survive; I was setting up master key for my encryption keys, writing it to a physical file and handed it to my father telling him to hand it over to my company shareholders if the need arises and provided biometric access to my mother from my smartphone. Reason being, I was the single founder, executive of my startup, all the intangible assets was under my control and most of it encrypted as it should be.

So, incase of my demise I wanted my shareholders to have access to the data if they decide to run the company. Obviously I survived, but looking back at that day; I feel that if someone knew that they may die the next day they should probably do something better with their time than reminding their loved ones that they may die. Of-course, writing master key to a file is not great for security either.

For a non subjective example for this need gap, $145 million worth cryptocurrencies was locked after the CEO died and he was the only person with the passphrase for encryption.

5 points posted by Abishek Muthian

Forum for discussing about specific songs #music #forum

Thu, 05 Sep 2019 15:27:00 +0000

There seems to be a need gap for a forum for discussing about specific songs, where a user can tell about the song they are listening to, what they like/don't like about it.

Current music based social networks like MySpace seems to be more about the music artists rather than the preferences of the music consumers. If you have opinion about this need gap, or know startups solving this problem join the discussion in the comments.

3 points posted by needgap finder

Curated list of privacy oriented services #privacy #curatedlist

Thu, 05 Sep 2019 14:53:00 +0000

There is a need gap for curated list of privacy oriented services across all platforms, like what Guardian Project does for android up-to some level.

But there are many privacy focussed services from browsers to credit cards, if they are listed in a single place according to the category; it will be easier for anyone to find a privacy respecting product/service for their need.

3 points posted by needgap finder