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

Tell my Skype contacts that I'm on a Zoom call #status #VoIP

Mon, 06 Jul 2020 14:05:00 +0000

When I'm on an important Zoom call, I get a Skype call and it interrupts the conversation. I'm sure you all would have faced it as well.

This can be resolved if there was a way to inform my contacts on different platforms like Zoom, Skype, FaceTime, WhatsApp that I'm on a call in another platform automatically without having to set a status for it individually(As if anyone is reading it before calling) when they call me.

My 5 bucks for anyone who builds a solution for this!

3 points posted by Michael Glassman

Disinfecting amazon packages #hygiene #ecommerce

Mon, 29 Jun 2020 14:40:00 +0000

Everyone is ordering from Amazon or other ecommerce sites to stock up and prepare for the next lockdown. But when I see the packages on my door step, I'm worried whether they have COVID-19 virus on it and I'm sure there are many others who feel the same way.

I'm spending an awful lot of time disinfecting the Amazon delivery packages, before taking it inside the house. Some days, I have to repeat this 4-5 time; each time I get a package delivered. Disinfecting the package isn't an easy task as well, I have to gear up each time, ensure that the disinfectant doesn't get inside the package and dispose the protective gear carefully.

I wish there was an easy and safe way to disinfect the packages received from ecommerce sites or any other postal delivery. How are you all solving this problem? 3 points posted by Nancy Ilias

Visual generator for repetitive code structures #coding #projectmanagement

Wed, 24 Jun 2020 22:23:00 +0000

What so you think about the current way of starting new code projects?

The current way would be the use of the different framework-CLIs and copy-pasting everything together or starting with a GitHub Starter.

But instead of doing so and then adjusting everything for your current problems domain, what so you think of a visual configuration of data structures and simple ui-wireframes, which will be translated into real code files by adjustable templates. The results must be syncable.

Would you like to use something Like this?

1 points posted by pablobico

Stop my family members from touching their face #health #hygiene

Mon, 22 Jun 2020 15:59:00 +0000

In order to prevent COVID-19 coronavirus infection, its being constantly advised to not touch our face. When we are outside, we wear face mask which to some extent reminds us not to touch our face; but when we are in our house we frequently touch our face.

It seems like there's currently no solution which prevents us from touching our face at home without having to wear face mask and shields. If someone in the house is infected with COVID-19, everyone is at risk and preventing touching face could limit the chances of infection.

3 points posted by Katy Jones

Remind me to take break when working from home #WFH #physicalactivity

Mon, 15 Jun 2020 15:58:00 +0000

I'm forgetting to take regular breaks when I work from home as I get too involved with the task, as there's no one to interrupt me like in office. Without regular breaks, I get back-pain due to over exerting myself with the work which also increases my depression at the end of the day.

Current activity timers require manual start, which are useless when we forget to start the activity timer after a break or when starting the task.

I would like an activity timer which starts automatically when I start the work and remind me at regular intervals to take a break from work without me having to take any explicit action with the timer.

5 points posted by Apsara

Verification of email ID #email #verification

Thu, 11 Jun 2020 12:43:00 +0000

Email marketing is raising right now and everyone who had a database is trying to get some result out of it. The most straightforward way is to create a Mailchimp, Campaign Monitor or Convertkit account and upload your database. But there are some restrictions. Before you upload the contact list you should check the list for validity.

1 points posted by opryshok

Search Engine for Products powered by Reddit #search #reddit

Tue, 09 Jun 2020 14:51:00 +0000

These days the search results from google are full of low quality affiliate marketing blogs. On the other hand, the products recommended on Reddit are generally good. Someone should create a search engine for products recommended on Reddit.

Karma alone cannot be used to determine if a particular product is good. For example, Nexus 5x is one of the most mentioned smartphone on r/Android but its mostly all about of bootloop complains. So sentiment analysis is needed to find whether the post/comment about the product is positive or not.

Another challenge is extracting the product name from the comments. For example, on r/PCMasterRace most people wont link to individual products but would just mention the products.

What do you guys think?

2 points posted by vipul

Listening to obscure international radio station #radio #audio

Mon, 08 Jun 2020 13:06:00 +0000

I'm under lockdown in a foreign country, like many in my situation I'm home sick. When home sick, there are things which we can do to rejoice memories of home; for some it's cooking, watching favourite family show etc. for me it's listening to FM radio stations back home.

But, not all radio stations are available online especially when the station is from tier 3 or lower cities in India. Even when the online portal for a radio station is available, they play streams from select top-tier cities.

I would like to have a Spotify like app, which can play streams from FM radio stations from anywhere in the world.

3 points posted by Rupsana

I can’t use chrome extensions on mobile #chromeextensions #mobile

Fri, 05 Jun 2020 01:26:00 +0000

I wish someone could figure out a way to make chrome extensions work on mobile. I know that on iOS, there are share extensions that work with apps. It would be great if there were some way chrome extensions could be turned into apps with share extensions that could be used in iOS.

For example, I use Pocket for bookmarks. I use the chrome extension on my desktop and I use the share extension when browsing on my iPhone. In an age when the majority of people are browsing websites on mobile phones, there should be a way to access great chrome extensions on mobile too.

1 points posted by Yocheved

How much will I be charged for my treatment #hospital #bills

Mon, 01 Jun 2020 13:38:00 +0000

How much a patient is charged for a treatment in a private hospital is mostly opaque, until the patient receives the bill. It's common to get 2x - 3x times the projected costs for the treatment.

But, times are not normal; COVID-19 lockdown has cut private hospital revenue extensively as very few people are visiting hospitals for non-COVID related treatment and not many private hospitals are participating in treating COVID-19 patients. Even those private hospitals who are treating COVID-19 patients are charging extraordinarily high price for their treatment.

So, as the lockdown lifts private hospitals are sure to charge exuberantly and discriminately for providing treatments to compensate for their loss of revenue.

It's now more crucial than ever for a patient to get an idea of how much they will get charged for a treatment in a hospital, There are currently no means to know that. A public database where patients can share their hospital bills for everyone to see would helpful in creating transparency for private hospital charges and may also bring accountability from private hospitals.

3 points posted by Katy Jones

Ad blocker for satellite television #adblock #television

Tue, 19 May 2020 13:19:00 +0000

Those who don't like irrelevant advertisements on Internet, especially on websites could make use of ad blockers to hide the advertisements.

But no such luck with satellite television, apart from irrelevant, irritating advertisements on television, they often target gullible with misinformation. Not all countries have regulations to prevent misinformation in television ads.

Some smart TVs seem to support ad blockers, which I guess blocks Internet ads; But, not sure how it would be useful as even on smart TVs many watch satellite television.

I would like to have ad blocker for satellite television, which can block advertisements when the shows cut to it and also on-demand ad blocker for advertisements which masquerade as regular content.

3 points posted by Bakshara

Cheat sheet for everything in same design format #education #cribsheet

Fri, 08 May 2020 13:41:00 +0000

Students and professionals of different domains use cheat sheets for remembering what they learnt at a quick glance from web, written or printed notes. Some even refer to cheat sheets to find the information at a faster rate without having to go through the full documentation.

There are cheat sheets possibly for everything from cooking to medical education. Here's a collection of cheat sheets for different programming languages.

But since cheat sheets are made by different individuals, each cheat sheet has different design format. Different colors, arrangements of columns, fonts and text sizes makes the cheat sheets disjointed.

If there is a platform which builds and curates cheat sheets in a single format i.e. like Wikipedia for cheat sheet, it would make cheat sheets more accessible, seamless and mainstream.

3 points posted by Yogesh Basu

Difficulties in organizing meetings #calendar #organizing

Fri, 08 May 2020 13:07:00 +0000

There's always a gap between the time when a meeting starts and when it was supposed to start. It is always complicated to manage time for meetings.

I think it should be useful to have an app that uses machine learning for meetings. What problem would be solved with something like that? An app like this will basically use machine learning and used data about speakers, so companies could organize the meeting in a better manner. 2 points posted by ali

Comparing the value of online course certificate #MOOC #education

Fri, 01 May 2020 13:29:00 +0000

There is no shortage of online courses, first there were the likes of Coursera, Udacity and now every University have their own Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) or have partnerships with online education companies to provide their course.

All of them claim that their certificate is valuable with the employers, but how can be we sure of it? There is no clear way to know which certificates, from which MOOC providers are valuable and which companies accept such certificates.

It could be very useful if there was an online portal, which compares and rates these online course certificates based upon the quality of education and actual number of people who got employed because of the certificate.

5 points posted by Tina Ray

Notification for selective portions of web/pdf #notification #webscrapping

Mon, 27 Apr 2020 07:02:00 +0000

There are still websites which provide daily updated data but don't have an app or even if they do; they don't provide notifications for the selective data I'm interested in. In such cases, I'm left with the only option to check those websites or apps regularly.

e.g. Commodity seller's price list, Banking sites which provide forex data.

Often, what I require from these pdf or other web content are just small pieces of information which can be sent over through notifications instead of having to spend the time in visiting these websites/apps or having to remember to do so.

Essentially I'm looking for a tool, which allows me to select a particular piece of information on the web or pdf to be sent as notifications at the intervals set by me, if the information is updated.

Has anyone else faced this problem? Or have a solution to this? do let me know.

3 points posted by Bakshara

Reliable, uninterrupted video conferencing #videoconferencing #Internet

Fri, 24 Apr 2020 02:50:00 +0000

Video conferencing has been in existence for over 50 years and yet it's still nearly impossible to have an uninterrupted, reliable session with multiple participants from around the world.

Don't believe me? Look at what the world's most premiere organisation tasked with preventing the next World War is facing.

It's easy to delegate the cause to the quality of the Internet itself being not equal in different parts of the world, but that's not the only problem to the issues in video conferencing. The problems range from technical to behavioural.

Technical problems include, but not limited to -

Internet QoS, latency, connectivity.
Video/Audio encoding and decoding.
Noise reduction.
Echo suppression and cancellation.
Hardware and Software incompatibilities.

Behavioural problems include, but not limited to -

Forgetting camera/mic is ON/OFF.
Obstructing the camera/mic.

There's no dearth of video conferencing tools trying to solve some these problems, but since not all of these are solved by a single system; there's still a huge need gap.

3 points posted by Abishek Muthian

Alert me when slots in BigBasket is open #India #ecommerce

Sun, 19 Apr 2020 04:57:00 +0000

Online grocery delivery sites such as BigBasket to Grofers are operating at 60-70% capacity due to manpower shortage and supply constraints from COVID-19 lockdown. But the demand for online grocery delivery has sky rocketed for obvious reasons.

BigBasket has a slot system, which opens up at random for booking and so I have to keep checking the app for open slots and I'm rarely successful. This activity is very depressing, I have spent several sleepless nights on this already.

I wish, someone could build a solution to alert the users when the slots in BigBasket is available for booking. I'm not sure why BigBasket itself hasn't provided such a feature.

I'm sure this problem is being faced by thousands in India and so a solution for this would be much welcomed.

3 points posted by Ellakiya Raju

Automatic monitoring of social distance via CCTV #ArtificialIntelligence #SocialDistancing

Fri, 17 Apr 2020 16:52:00 +0000

Social Distancing or more accurately Physical Distancing is the key prevent the spread of COVID-19 before a vaccine is made available for everyone on the planet.

But since lockdowns cannot continue indefinitely due to economic reasons, countries which were in lockdown are opening up. This brings a new challenge of how to monitor and enforce social distancing when everyone is back on the roads.

CCTVs would be crucial in monitoring and enforcing social distancing in public places and in workplaces; The manual overhead in doing it is very high, fortunately if there's one thing which AI has proven itself as more capable than human beings it's computer vision.

But, since average CCTVs don't have depth perception, have different views and people are not in the same plane of axis; judging the distance between two people from video footage is a hard problem. Fortunately, Andrew Ng's company has released a tool to do just this and has released how the procedure works - https://landing.ai/landing-ai-creates-an-ai-tool-to-help-customers-monitor-social-distancing-in-the-workplace/.

It solves the problem of calculating distance by using homography to get top-down view of the image from video, using a manual calibration tool. Unfortunately, none of this has been open-sourced as of writing and hence a need gap for this to be released as an open-source tool for any govt. or workplace to make use of.

Such a tool can also be used on open CCTV feeds from Shodan, Insecam to analyse social distancing in countries around the world.

1 points posted by Abishek Muthian

Analysis of social media posts of anyone #socialmedia #analytics

Wed, 15 Apr 2020 16:36:00 +0000

I work as a freelance social media manager, as part of my work I have to analyse the performance of the social media posts of my clients and their competitors.

Twitter & Facebook themselves offer some form of analytics; Twitter offers for all profiles and Facebook offers it for Business pages, obviously they are limited to the user profile. Social media posting tools such as Hootsuite, Buffer offer insights for those posts posted via their platforms.

But, I need insights for the tweets and posts of others. Like their top performing tweets/posts, segmented categories, timings, gain/loss of followers according to their tweet/post, tweet/post sentiment, media categories etc.

I assume this kind of insights is possible from the public data as there are some tools like https://followerwonk.com/ which gives deep insights about twitter followers and https://foller.me/ which gives insights about public tweets although is limited to 100.

I think if this need gap is fulfilled, the product could be indispensable for social media analysts.

3 points posted by Yogesh Basu

Buddy Training for anything and everything #productivity #training

Fri, 10 Apr 2020 10:12:00 +0000

When I'm training for something say for a weight loss milestone or a new language; I usually give up midway due to lack of motivation.

I know there are several apps for training which put us against several other users and challenges us to rise up in the rankings. But being an introvert, those kind of apps just rises my anxiety and doesn't help me with my training.

I was thinking, if there was a virtual buddy system i.e. someone real who trains along with us for mutual milestones, what ever it may be; say learning cooking, learning programming, physical training etc. that can be highly productive.

You may say, why not ask your friend to train with you? Well, friendships come with packages and biases. I don't think we can have absolute focus in training for something with an existing friend all of a sudden, if at all there's such a friend for everyone.

Besides, an app which pairs us with some random individual for mutual training is a great way to make friends who share common interests.

Let me know if you would like to use a virtual buddy training and if there are any apps like that already.

5 points posted by Cristen George

Rise in domestic abuse due to COVID-19 lockdown #abuseprevention #abuseintervention

Wed, 08 Apr 2020 05:06:00 +0000

Humans are social creatures, locking them down in their houses for weeks is hard on the psychological wellbeing of many. Lockdown due to COVID-19 pandemic has made the life especially dangerous for those who have been facing violence at their home in several countries.

Going out for work, school was the only recourse for many abuse victims; but now due to the lockdown, the abusers have full-time access to the victims.

French Govt. reported last week that there has been 36% increase domestic violence reports in Paris and 32% increase in the rest of the country. UK has reported 25 % increase in domestic abuse calls at the national domestic abuse helpline, their website has 150% more views compared to last week of Feb. In India, National Commission for Women (NCW) has reported a spike in the cases of domestic abuse; NCW chief has said that the number of cases are likely to be much higher but women are scared to complain as their abusers are at home.

Few countries like Italy has launched specific apps to help abuse victims register a complaint, but I feel all major apps should integrate discrete domestic abuse reporting facilities to help the victims.

1 points posted by Abishek Muthian

Certifying home network's security to WFH #certification #cybersecurity

Tue, 07 Apr 2020 06:20:00 +0000

In my previous startup, the main constraint in letting the employees to work from home was their lack of operational security knowledge and poor network security of the home Internet network.

Operational security could be improved with proper training, provided an employee adheres to the best practices; but overhauling home networks for every employee for working from home is beyond most startups.

Of course VPN can help and is used by most organisations to strengthen the security of their network when accessed outside their office, but employees often connect directly to their home network also, thereby risking their devices and by extension their office network to a breach.

I see a need gap for a service which audits the security of the home network of an employee, certifies it to be fit for work depending upon the nature of sensitivity, regularly assess the state of security, updates the employer if there is any degradation of the security and perhaps even rent better home network equipments.

3 points posted by Abishek Muthian

Alert me when Netflix has the movie I want #movies #netflix

Fri, 03 Apr 2020 12:02:00 +0000

Netflix, Prime and other streaming sites have Geo-blocked content i.e. some content is available only in certain countries due to content distribution rights.

Thankfully there are VPN to bypass Geo-blocking, but checking every single country's Netflix for my favourite movie is tedious and could risk VPN IP or account getting black listed.

I would like to have an alert service which can tell me when my favourite movie is available on the streaming platforms of my choice in any particular country.

3 points posted by Yogesh Basu

Universal hyperlocal COVID-19 tracing app #coronavirus #privacy

Tue, 31 Mar 2020 05:44:00 +0000

Technology had been an indisputable force multiplier in the fight against COVID-19 pandemic in the countries such as China, Singapore and South Korea.

Apps which provided realtime anonymised movement information of infected patients such as Corona Map in South Korea and community-driven contact tracing app such as BlueTrace in Singapore proved to be hugely successful in containing the spread of COVID-19 in those respective countries.

But not all countries are equipped to deploy such apps on demand, so there is a need gap for a universal hyperlocal COVID-19 tracing app, which can be used by any country in the world with significant smartphone penetration.

The primary aspects of such application should be,

Privacy of the patient, the data should be anonymised to prevent harassment.
Dashboard for health workers to update realtime information of the places, time where the patient had visited.
Web application, to ensure compatibility with various devices and for fast update/deployment.
Open-source.

3 points posted by Abishek Muthian

Remote Daycare for Children #remote #childcare

Mon, 30 Mar 2020 09:18:00 +0000

Now that almost all of us are working from home due to the COVID-19 pandemic situation, single parents are facing a tough time in taking care of their children and their work at the same time.

I'm unable to focus on my work and especially conference calls when having a hyperactive young child besides me. Since, we are all trying to follow physical distancing; there is no question of allowing a baby sitter from outside.

I was thinking if a remote daycare i.e. someone trusted (like those who are already working in daycare centres) could monitor the child via Skype or Facetime and engage them with games, videos etc. So that the parent can do their work in peace.

I expect this to be a need gap faced among single parents with no help all over the world, if so I would like to hear your story and solutions.

3 points posted by Angela Hemsworth

Finding correct package efficiently in a bag #package #search

Mon, 23 Mar 2020 05:42:00 +0000

I am an Amazon delivery person in India. We deliver packages here in motorcycle from a large carry/backpack bag. The packages are not-arranged in any order and has to be taken out randomly at the customer location.

Each time when I visit a customer location, I have to keep the bag on ground and search for the particular package among dozen other packages. Sometimes, when lucky the required package is at the top but most of the time I have to take out all other packages one by one till I get package I need risking loosing other packages.

I was hoping someone can solve this problem of finding correct package from a bag of random packages, to make the life of the amazon and other delivery personnel easier.

3 points posted by Suresh Kumar

External storage with hardware compression #ASIC #FPGA

Mon, 16 Mar 2020 14:59:00 +0000

Those who had to compress large assorted data and transfer it to external storage would have experienced large waiting times, once for compression and again for transfer.

Modern CPUs have have hardware based compression for multimedia(Video) in the form of instruction sets such as MMX, SSE, AVX; but lacks general purpose compression accelerators.

Hardware based compression could accelerate compression and transfer of data. Enterprise infrastructure have had hardware accelerated compression in the form of PCIe based adapters, cards, Network accelerators.

Still, a USB/Thunderbolt based USB storage with ASIC(Application-specific integrated circuit)/FPGA(Field-programmable gate array) based compression accelerators could add value to both enterprise and general consumers.

3 points posted by Abishek Muthian

Reliable, safe locks #security #locks

Sun, 15 Mar 2020 03:02:00 +0000

Locks have been around for thousands of years, although some improvements have been made throughout these years, amazingly the basic design remains the same and so are the vulnerabilities. One has to just look at the LockPickingLayer channel to find the main lock of your house or safe to be picked in under 20 seconds.

Oh, there are newer Biometric, RFID based locks you may say; see them getting picked in excruciatingly simple ways here and here respectively.

I think it's about time we consumers rise up against these subpar designs profiting over our ignorance for hundreds of years and for startups to disrupt the industry.

3 points posted by Bakshara

Lack of face masks #respirator #diseaseprevention

Fri, 13 Mar 2020 12:59:00 +0000

Due to the COVID-19/coronavirus pandemic, people have hoarded all kinds of respirators and face masks including surgical masks, N95 rated masks. This is likely to sell later with jacked up prices, leading to severe shortage among hospital staff, health workers and in countries with severe COVID-19 disease impact.

I got common cold, I thought I would wear a surgical mask to prevent the spread and avoid scare/panic in this tough times; alas I couldn't find any surgical masks locally and only at extraordinarily prohibitive prices online.

I wish a startup could come up with an innovative way to develop respirators/masks at a cheap rate and distribute it where required; after-all business is about opportunities right?

2 points posted by Tracy Devin

Hiding the subreddit name #reddit #game

Thu, 12 Mar 2020 13:18:00 +0000

When I'm browsing the reddit, I would like to play little game of not seeing the subreddit name and guessing it from the content. It would be nice if reddit provided an option to hide the subreddit name, but it doesn't nor does any 3rd party reddit apps.

A simple search reveals that there are others who would like to hide the name of subreddit, but for different reasons. Common suggestions for it seems to be altering the css via browser extensions, but since I would like to browse reddit via mobile it doesn't seem to be a viable option.

I would like to hide it for entertainment reasons and the subreddit name should be revealed when tapped on it. Perhaps if there are other takers for this, some 3rd party reddit app may implement this or a new app can be created.

1 points posted by Allen Young

Top visited, shared content in a website #analytics #web

Tue, 10 Mar 2020 16:50:00 +0000

When I read a good article from a random blog or website, I would like to read other top rated content from the same website. By top rated, I mean the most visited and shared content from the same website.

Most websites don't have any widget to rank their best articles. I would like to know if there is any tool which one can use to get the top ranked content from any website and if not is there a need gap for this?

2 points posted by Yogesh Basu

Weather correlation with COVID-19 #datascience #coronavirus

Mon, 09 Mar 2020 13:14:00 +0000

I see that several politicians, govt. officials mention that new cases of COVID-19 would come down as the global temperature rises owing to seasonal changes. Yet, daily reported cases around the world is growing exponentially even as the temperature rises.

I would like to know the temperature and other weather correlation with the new confirmed cases of COVID-19, I don't think there is yet a visualisation available for that.

3 points posted by Asra Banu

One hand keyboard #keyboard #accessibility

Sun, 08 Mar 2020 13:49:00 +0000

I buy accessibility products for a family member and I'm often put off by the high cost of such products, often being much higher than that of luxury brands for such regular products.

I understand that some accessibility products may require higher development costs than regular products and so would require higher retail price; but 200% higher cost is double whammy on the disabled and those who need accessibility products.

One such product is half keyboard, required by those with one active hand, even by normal people undergoing temporary wrist treatment for conditions such as Carpal tunnel syndrome.

There is a need gap for high quality, accessible (reasonable cost) accessibility products

3 points posted by Katy Jones

Fast, Inexpensive COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) test kit #coronavirus #medicaltestkit

Mon, 02 Mar 2020 13:21:00 +0000

Just took tests for flu like symptoms, turned out to be a normal flu. Owing to the flu season and COVID-19 scare; there are large number of people undergoing these tests, pushing the hospital resources to its limits.

That's why COVID-19 caused by SARS-CoV-2 has become especially dangerous. The true death rate from COVID-19 might be closer or bit higher than a severe season flu, but SARS-CoV-2 is more contagious than seasonal flu, with each person infected with it infecting 2.2 other people.

With the risk of COVID-19 disease becoming a pandemic, we need faster, inexpensive test kits available soon. WHO is developing protocols for COVID-19 tests, current available test kits are complex, expensive and are limited to only speciality disease centers even in developed countries.

Poor countries, wouldn't stand a chance if COVID-19 becomes a pandemic and hence we need fast, inexpensive test kits distributed globally to every primary care centers.

3 points posted by Abishek Muthian

Identifying gender from a name for marketing #profiling #marketing

Fri, 28 Feb 2020 12:45:00 +0000

In my job, I get to communicate with overseas customers over email; it is tough to find the gender from the foreign name which we are not used to, for using appropriate title.

I guess, this may be a problem faced by others performing similar roles and if so I would like to know how they deal with it.

3 points posted by Nancy Ilias

Focus drift #cognitivescience #neuroscience

Tue, 25 Feb 2020 12:57:00 +0000

In my earlier need gap, I posted Getting things done at individual level for which I received amazing responses. But, seeing that all of them are trying to do the same thing i.e. scheduling/time-managing the activities yet none of them seem to solve my problem directly, I started to realise there must be some greater underlying problem.

In my case, I think that is focus drift. I think, focus or attention drift is the primary reason for productivity loss for the most. So, time-management apps wouldn't do much if the particular tasks aren't completed within scheduled period due to loss of focus.

There is a need gap for a consumer friendly solution which can notice focus drift and alert the user to gain their attention back to the task they were doing.

3 points posted by Shinzo Reyen

Weight recommendations based on bone density #health #fitnessapp

Mon, 24 Feb 2020 02:24:00 +0000

I'm under treatment for improving the bone density, weight loss has been traditionally linked to loss in bone density, but recent studies have shown that higher weight can have negative impact on bones with lower density, so it has become very difficult to get problem weight recommendations based on bone density.

Bathroom scales can measure body fat using Bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA), which provides body fat information with fair enough accuracy along with body weight. But, since measuring bone density requires large instruments capable of performing DEXA Scan (Dual X-ray Absoptiometry), common scales cannot factor in bone density.

But, the body weighing scales doesn't necessarily need to measure bone density, fitness apps can take in bone density values from the users as they do for height, age and other factors to recommend optimum weight based on bone density. It can come a long way to help osteoporosis, osteopenia patients.

3 points posted by Abishek Muthian

Stabilization,Wireless audio in high end cameras #camera #missingfeatures

Sat, 22 Feb 2020 18:01:00 +0000

Corridor Crew on YouTube put out a video recently mentioning the missing features in cinema grade high-end cameras which are found in low-end cameras and smartphone cameras.

To summarize,

Built-in Stabilization.
Reliable Autofocus.
Wireless Audio.
Wireless Display.
3D Camera Tracking.

2 points posted by needgap finder

Online food delivery from luxurious restaurants #food #onlinedelivery

Thu, 20 Feb 2020 16:57:00 +0000

I have some favourite luxurious restaurants in different cities I visit, sometimes I don't find time to visit them when I'm in the city and would like to order them online, but none of the luxurious restaurants deliver online. Few apps allow table booking at luxurious restaurants though.

I guess, it has to do with cost and brand name.

I would like to find out, if there are people like me who don't care much about the ambience of these restaurants but the quality of dishes being served there and so would like it to be home delivered.

3 points posted by Sonia George

Remote controlled lawnmower using a smartphone.

Tue, 18 Feb 2020 19:19:00 +0000

Lawn mowing can be hot, sweaty backbreaking labor. I'd like to create a high end top down approach to controlling a powerful electric lawnmower that can allow a homeowner or commercial service company to save time and money and add a little fun back into chores that everyone has to do. Suggestions? Feedback? 1 points posted by Dan

Searching YouTube videos with transcript #youtube #transcript

Tue, 18 Feb 2020 13:36:00 +0000

When I have to search something within a YouTube video, I 'Open transcript' from the menu and search with 'Control + F' for the term I'm looking for and then click the same if found in the transcript for skipping to that part in the video.

I searched for an add-on which can do that automatically and found this - https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/keyword-search-in-youtube/dpadfnjbfalopginhcmmmccpfdaofjco?hl=en; but it doesn't seem to work anymore.

After reading from the comments, it seems that there could be a need gap for such a tool.

3 points posted by Gibbs

Betting for a cause #gambling #fundraising

Fri, 14 Feb 2020 13:16:00 +0000

Me and my friend often go on with silly bets on anything from sports to politics, the bet amount is small, often less than $10, enough to buy the winner a treat.

Recently, we made a bet on which political candidate would win a debate and the winner had to donate the money to Wikipedia; it really felt great for both of us in-spite of one loosing the bet. It felt great, because the money went to a good cause and not just a burger.

In-fact, even the opposite can be true, According to social science research betting on causes which we don't want to support can be helpful to inhibit us from bad behaviour. Max Nesterak of NPR bet his money on quitting smoking, if he loses he had to donate the money to an organisation he hates.

So, I searched for platforms which can enable such social betting after all, social networks are filled with "I bet..., You bet.." comments. I couldn't find any, how about a platform which enables such social gambling?

Say, when someone says "I bet...", pop them with this platform's link for them to bet their money on a social cause.

3 points posted by Trevor Richmond

On-demand data science without coding #datascience #nocode

Wed, 12 Feb 2020 13:08:00 +0000

Often I'm in a position where I would like to get quick insights on a web data or pdf but not equipped to run a proper data science setup or isn't economical to task it to a data scientist.

A web scrapper with builtin insight generator would solve this problem.

Say, I spin up the scrapper in the web page, select necessary data to be scrapped, mark relationships between them and at the end of the scrapping I get neat visualisations for the insights regarding the data. It can be more useful, if input is not limited to the web pages but also pdf, spreadsheet, csv etc.

I think there is a need gap to bridge modern data science advancements to non-coders who deal with large data.

3 points posted by Bakshara

Invoice fraud #billing #frauddetection

Mon, 10 Feb 2020 12:03:00 +0000

Recently, a manager in the company I work for got caught for siphoning off money via fake invoices to the company. I came to know via my friends that this is a common occurrence and has occurred in some of their companies as well.

There are different types of invoice fraud, employee perpetrated fraud seems to be one of the common ways. Some has even gone to the lengths of setting up fake business to bill out $6 Million from their employer.

In other forms of invoice fraud, criminals convince account payable of businesses to payout a false invoice; even behemoths like Google and Facebook have fallen victim to this. Invoice fraud is said to cost small businesses Billions every year.

I think there is a need gap in detecting false invoices and streamlining the process of invoice payments altogether.

2 points posted by Doku

Simple CLI for cloud deployments. #cloud #DevOps

Wed, 05 Feb 2020 09:19:00 +0000

I am a DevOps cloud engineer working with a team of designers, frontend and data engineers. I am seeing that the cloud stuff goes over their heads, and they hate the deployment process. For example; spinning up a group of databases to test an ETL job, deploying a site, or putting some script on a schedule. Even stuff like TerraForm is hard for them. They use AWS Lambdas for simple setups, but when the code base gets large and complex they come running to my team to help them deploy, or create new layers for their Lambdas. Oh, and no-one I know seems to use Heroku anymore. A few frontend guys use zeit.co, but they still need to create the database elsewhere.

Lately, I am spending time creating and maintaining scripts at work to help developers and designers deploy common stuff quickly.

I feel there is a needgap for a simple CLI tool that can ease the pain of cloud provisioning. Something that abstracts scaling, security, DNS, etc, and gets resources talking to each other.

3 points posted by corpulent

Finding generic equivalents for branded drugs #medicine #drugs

Mon, 03 Feb 2020 12:54:00 +0000

Generic medicines are literally the saviour of lives for those who cannot afford the branded medications. I often find it difficult to locate the generic equivalent for branded drugs mentioned in the prescription.

Sites like express-scripts and netcareclinic have information on generic drugs, but they are not as straightforward as a consumer would wish to be. There are number of websites from India, which is not surprising as it is a world leader in generic medicine; but the sites don't last long and not all medications listed there are available outside India.

I would wish for an app, which lets me scan the prescription and get generic drug equivalents with all necessary information immediately.

5 points posted by Katy Jones

On-screen QR code/barcode scanner #qrcode #barcode

Thu, 30 Jan 2020 12:40:00 +0000

QR code and barcode were originally invented to share data from physical material to digital medium. It worked great for getting information onto smartphones with the advent of good cameras. But, now QR codes are everywhere on the web and to access it we need another device to scan or take screenshot to scan with a QR code scanner app.

I would like a QR code scanner app which automatically scans the QR code on the screen (from web, social media, images etc.) and provides the data in return without having to manually take screenshot each time. The currently available apps which claim to do it don't work and are of very low quality.

3 points posted by Tracy Devin

Receiving SMS/calls to a phone in another place #smartphone #SMS

Tue, 28 Jan 2020 13:14:00 +0000

In my country OTP (One Time Password) for important transactions such as banking or any other identification is sent to the phone via SMS. This becomes cumbersome when I travel outside the country and need to conduct some banking transactions. I have to call someone at my place to relay the OTP over a phone call or chat message; the phone which receives the SMS is likely drained of power, taking considerable time to switch ON and so leading to missing the OTP in time.

One may ask, why not take the local SIM with me during travel? Well, the SMSs are not always received during roaming in other countries and when they do, they are with prohibitive roaming charges.

I would like a solution for this, preferably a system which allows me to keep a phone in my home country; receive phone calls and SMS to it via Internet in another country without much delay.

3 points posted by Shekar Gupta

Monetizing open-source projects #monetisation #opensource

Mon, 27 Jan 2020 13:16:00 +0000

Open-source software and hardware form the backbone of several early stage startup's infrastructure. Open-source projects which are not backed by large corporations are often run by the creators in their individual capacity and with the support of voluntary contributors in their free time.

These projects become successful because they create value for the consumers, but it rarely creates monetary value for its creators. If the creators, volunteers get remunerated for their time; they would be able to put more time into their projects, improving its quality and make faster releases.

On occasions, consumers do donate to these creators for their effort. But, the mechanism for donations are not straight forward, middle-men gains and the notion of donation seems altruistic where as it is not in this case (as the open-source project directly creates value to the consumer, often saving lot of money).

So, we need better monetization mechanisms for open-source projects, where the creators and contributors can outsource the business development of their project to someone else for getting compensated and focus on what they do best.

3 points posted by Abishek Muthian

Stock images, videos with exclusive rights #stockimages #marketing

Fri, 24 Jan 2020 17:16:00 +0000

Stock images are being used by those who cannot afford or convene a professional photoshoot for marketing or other creative purposes. But, stock images/videos get used for the same purpose by many and thereby looses its value becoming counterintuitive.

Even, paid stock images/videos face this problem.

I would like to buy stock images, videos from a wide selection at affordable rates for my marketing which is owned just by me and is not available for anyone else to use i.e. exclusive rights only to the buyer.

2 points posted by Cristen George