Everything comes with a story attached these days – often catering directly to consumers’ quest for authenticity and often in a simple attempt to differentiate one product from the rest.

Increasingly technology is playing its role too. Launched to coincide with Manchester’s Future of Everything festival, the RememberMe project uses RFID tags and QR codes to embed stories about clothes donated to Oxfam.

The project is a collaboration between Oxfam and Totem, who also produce an iPhone app that allows consumers to tag their own items and save video, audio or text ‘histories’ of these objects using printable QR codes.

This idea is also leading to other creative uses with one estate agent using QR codes to let potential buyers ‘see’ inside a house via their phones.

An estate agent in Didsbury, Manchester is using tales of things to creatively market its properties. Gascgoigne Halman has placed QR codes/barcodes on its properties to allow buyers to see inside the property without actually having to set foot in the house before making the commitment to view.

An opportunity for some creative thinking perhaps?

Ever thought what Iddictive would look like live? Probably not, but I did.

The result is SHOWCASE, a one-day conference showcasing exciting new projects and product launches from hot start-ups and growing companies.

This first event will take place in my own backyard and focus on developments in the world of cloud, mobile and web-based apps. And it’s free.

If you’re going to be in Ireland on September 16th, come check us out.

Site: www.showcaseconf.com

The image above is a concept drawing for a pair of motorised shoes, called Treadways, which have been entered into the annual James Dyson Awards.

Of course the inventor Peter Treadway (yes, that’s his real name) has gone one better and actually built them – well prototypes at least. If successful you could be seeing these on sale.

And if Heelys are anything to go by, they’ll no doubt be accompanied by plenty of killjoy signs in malls and shopping centres saying ‘no treadways allowed’.

You can see the various iterations of the idea in the video below.

For tourists and locals alike, finding your away around Ireland is not always the easiest thing to do. Maps are frequently out of date and GPS devices rarely include details of interesting sights and attractions.

Irish entrepreneur John Ward has tackled the problem head on with a new GPS service, that not only helps you find ‘local activities, attractions and accommodation’ in Donegal but also helps bring them to life.

Navigatour works with most sat nav devices and includes information about attractions, accommodation, places of interests and quirky sites across Donegal – and will appeal as much to locals as tourists.

Even more interesting is Racontour, an audio upgrade which also includes interesting local histories, anecdotes and tales, narrated by locals – “some hilarious, some bizarre but all very interesting”. The audio files are triggered as the driver passes key locations, making it a bit like having a tour guide in the car with you.

In order to get some authentic audio material we recorded a radio series called Rambling House where we got some great stories. Storytelling is a vital part of Irish culture so it was great to be involved in this aspect…

Culture works very well with technology – it may seem like an odd partnership but in getting across what is great and interesting about this island, we need to work with the technologies that are in people’s pockets.

The downloads will be sold via the navigatour.ie website as well as through local tourist offices and there’s an iPhone application currently in Beta. Of course the hard work is in building up the stories and while the company hopes to replicate the model across Ireland, this could be a great one to partner with in your own locale.

It may sound a little odd, but most retailers that sell both online and off, maintain separate stock control systems and often have to resort to updating their online stock levels manually.

Belfast-based startup AirPOS aims to fix that.

AirPOS is stock control and ePOS software that connects bricks and mortar and online sales channels, allowing retailers “to sell from a single stock across unlimited points of sale”. The software integrates with most existing POS hardware and comes with a genuinely disruptive price tag at around 10% of existing POS software.

Delivery in the cloud also allows AirPOS to be used anywhere an internet connection is available (suggesting a whole host of mobile uses), unique scalability, real-time stock updates and immediate software upgrades (which are free for life).

“With AirPOS we intend to accelerate the technology revolution in sale systems – particularly mobile commerce – and to break and disrupt traditional business models,” …  “We’re taking our leads from the truly innovative companies of the web like PayPal and Salesforce.com, thinking about viral coefficients, zero-touch distribution and freemium models.”

As you’d probably guess, AirPOS has already attracted private investment and is being looked at with interest by giants like PayPal and Adobe (the whole thing is built on Adobe Air). As early investor (and former VP and SVP at AOL, Inc. and Cisco Systems) David Kirk put it: “It feels like being in on the ground floor of an eBay or Amazon.”

Site: www.airpos.co.uk

More at SyncNI

The new iPhone release is undoubtedly stirring up a lot of interest at the moment but it’s worth pointing out that there are still millions of people using ‘normal’ phones – and they want apps too.

Aimed squarely at that market, Safebox is Java-based privacy tool for mobile phones (although Android and Blackberry versions are in the works).

The free application (downloaded nearly 84,000 times at the time of writing) allows users to create a ‘secret space’ inside their phones and use it to send encrypted SMS messages to other users. Users can also use SafeBox to store confidential notes such as passwords, credit card details, access codes, door code, PIN numbers, and anything that they don’t want anyone else to see. If your phone is lost or stolen, this password protected area is, in effect, invisible.

Privacy is already big business and an industry that will continue to grow as users become increasingly aware of the amount of personal information that they share online and via mobile devices.

And whether you’re Tiger Woods or simply can’t seem to remember your credit card number without writing it down, simple applications like Safebox provide accessible options for consumers keen to protect their private info.

Site: www.safebox.mobi

NB: Safebox are entered into the Gettie Award 2010 for best Java App. If you feel like helping them scoop this award, you can place a nomination on http://www.gettieawards.com/nominate.php .

Dublin Pitch Slam – Sonru – (w/o judges feedback) from Guidewire Group on Vimeo.

Sonru, Co. Wexford

Winner of the recent Dublin Pitch Slam event, Sonru is a remote video interview tool which has recently been set loose on the recruitment industry.

Sonru allows recruiters to interview candidates remotely by setting up an interview, creating questions and selecting the timings for each question. These interviews are then sent to selected candidates who complete it using a webcam and broadband connection – from anywhere in the world and in their own time.

Completed interviews are stored in a password protected account to be reviewed and shared between colleagues, who can in turn leave comments on each interview.

Interestingly Sonru’s pricing model means recruiters only pay for completed interviews that they choose to view. Indeed, from the recruiters’ perspective, the cost (travel, room hire etc…) and time savings are likely to be considerable.

Particularly useful for whittling down the numbers from the first round of candidates, it seems an obvious solution for anyone recruiting from a geographically diverse pool or in large numbers.

And as Fergal O’Byrne hinted at in his Pitch Slam presentation there are obvious applications in industries like online dating and education too.

If the best ideas seem obvious in hindsight, Sonru must certainly be amongst the better ideas we’ve seen this year.

Site: www.sonru.com

Media Lightbox, Newry

Sending big files by email is a pain in the backside. Media Lightbox makes it simpler by providing a place to store, organise and share big files easily and securely.

Although up against some big name competitors, the Northern Ireland-based company is building an impressive client list – in particular large brands coordinating branding and marketing efforts across territories.

Co-founder Anthony Kieran was kind enough to chat with us about the story behind the business, the impact of scooping high-profile awards and their thoughts on the industry.

Could you tell us a little about what Media Lightbox is and where the idea came from?

The idea came from Shane Meehan, founder and partner of Media Lightbox. While working in a local council, his department had to send images on a continual basis to newspaper and magazine editors and others to produce marketing brochures and promote events.

But those images might have been retained by a photographer — who could be difficult to contact and who might have deleted photos that were now required. Alternatively, the images might be on the office computer, CDs or stored by the designers — but finding the files was another difficulty.

Shane realised there were other difficulties, too. Sending editors high resolution images could take an age, might block the recipient’s email box and frequently bounced because their file size was too large for the recipient’s system. But sending low res images often led to requests to re-send them as high res.

The solution was to set-up a web-based system on which all the images were stored and managed. When artwork was needed by a newspaper or magazine, the link to the file could be emailed, with the option of downloading the appropriate resolution. And the solution for his own business could work equally well as a service to an array of clients.

Media Lightbox was consequently set-up to provide clients with a file storage and retrieval facility, designed by Shane, but organised by his partners — myself and Cecil Hetherington — who had the technical capacity to translate the ideas into practice.

How does the site stack up against other services, what makes you different?

We are an online low cost, feature rich Digital Asset Management system. Our system is designed to work on all browsers and the iPhone (with other phone OS being worked on at present!).

As part of our service we also have an artwork approval system which allows companies such as NOKIA to have artwork for a launch of a product agreed between teams based worldwide with the click of a button.

You recently picked up a gong in the All-Ireland Seedcorn competition – and €50k to go with it – how has that affected the business?

The Seedcorn was a wonderful experience. It made us really study our business plan, understand where we stood in the market and the opportunity that we needed to target. It enabled us to fine tune the business plan as well as allowing us to pitch to business people of note from across Ireland.

The publicity that we enjoyed was very beneficial to us and helped us to get some big clients onboard like Vodafone, Comic Relief, Fortis Bank and other local businesses.

In the UK, the Liberal Democrats have recently introduced an ammendment to the Digital Economy bill seeking to outlaw ‘web lockers’. What are your thoughts on this?

We are in favour of more censorship of the internet for things like pornography, abuse and scams. We are on the fence in terms of copyright infringement there are good and bad points which need to be weighed up.

We are not in favour of making service providers responsible for content. For example, BT are not responsible for what I say on the phone, and I don’t think we should be responsible for the content from Media Lightbox users either.

The government have a responsibility to protect the general population, especially children, by simply blocking access to illegal material, which they fail to do. What they seem to be thinking of here is a sledgehammer solution that shifts the responsibility elsewhere, inconveniences legitimate users and doesn’t really solve the problem anyway. Typical government solution then!

What would be your advice for anyone considering starting a similar business?

Similar to ours? …Don’t!

Otherwise, go into it with your eyes open – if you work hard and keep positive, anything can happen.

Enjoy the ride!

Site: www.medialightbox.com