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OpenStreetMap To Give Google Maps A Run For Its Money By Launching Its New ‘iD’ Editor

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Google has become the king of maps because of the technology that it has developed over the past eight years. One competitor, OpenStreetMap, has developed its own tools and built a community of map enthusiasts that now powers services like Hipmunk, Evernote and Foursquare. Today, as promised, the company has released a brand new map editor, code-named “iD,” which was built from the ground up by MapBox.

The editor will allow its community, and those who have never edited a map before, to plot out roads, landmarks and everything in between. I’ve had a chance to play with the editor over the past few weeks, and it’s amazing. Google has its own community tool, dubbed Map Maker, which helps the company get into the nooks and crannies of the world that it hasn’t gotten to yet.

Now that OpenStreetMap has its own set of tools which makes map editing easy, I expect the service to ramp up the quality of its maps, making it a real alternative for apps and services looking for a service provider. Here’s what OpenStreetMap US Foundation Secretary, Alex Barth, had to say about the release of the editor:

Starting today 1 million community mappers gain access to this new editor. It radically flattens the learning curve for existing users and for the two thousand new ones OpenStreetMap adds every day. Investing in core infrastructure like this is a game changer for OpenStreetMap and legacy proprietary data companies won’t be able to keep up with the combination of top notch editing experience and openly licensed database. In short, we will get more people adding more data, faster.

Adding and changing roads in an existing map is as simple as dragging and dropping, using iD:

The editor itself is open source and built in pure JavaScript with the d3 visualization library. As MapBox has been building the tool, its had involvement from coders around the world already:

The editing tool below, which has been what OpenStreetMap has had for its community to use, was not so easy to get the hang of:

MapBox CEO, Eric Gundersen, thinks that that the iD editor will kickstart the community, which will lead to more content: “This editor is so easy to use, anyone can start mapping in minutes. This is going to increase both data quality and quantity in OpenStreetMap and that means MapBox is going to have the best map in the world.”

The “best map in the world” would mean that it surpasses both the quality and breadth of Google’s offering. That’s no small feat, but we’ve seen open source products in the past reach millions…just ask WordPress.


[Photo credit: Flickr]

Go here to read the rest: OpenStreetMap To Give Google Maps A Run For Its Money By Launching Its New ‘iD’ Editor

The Weekly Good: Embrace Wants To Give All Infants An Equal Chance For A Healthy Life

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[Editor’s Note: This is a weekly series. If your company is doing something amazing to help a charitable cause or doing some good in your community, please reach out.]

Disruption comes in all shapes and sizes, and benefits people of all shapes and sizes. When you think about global entrepreneurs solving hard problems, you might not think about creating hardware products that aim to save the lives of premature babies.

A company called Embrace, based in India, is doing just that. It sounds lofty, altruistic and extremely difficult. That’s mostly because it is, and Embrace is making a difference in the face of uphill battles that they see as completely solvable and surmountable. According to WHO, 15M babies are born premature throughout the world, with 1M of them never getting the chance to live a long life. This is a very real problem.

Breaking down the walls of personal healthcare sounds like something that goes on in an MIT lab, but it’s actually something happening in the city of Bangalore, and Embrace is doing it in extremely unique ways. Its product is an infant warmer that can protect a premature infants during their most vulnerable time after birth. Most of the time, these babies have to stay in hospitals, which can be extremely expensive, away from the parents.

The infant warmer that Embrace has developed allows families to take their precious newborns home and care for them in a safe and affordable way. Since premature babies cannot properly regulate their own temperatures, these devices help keep them warm while mom and dad introduce the new member of the family in the privacy of their own home. This is no small problem and this team is making it happen.

Embrace has developed an innovative, low cost infant warmer for vulnerable babies in developing countries. Over 20 million low-birth-weight and premature babies are born every year around the world, and over 4 million die within their first month of life. Temperature regulation is a key problem among many of these infants. Embrace has developed an infant warmer that costs a fraction of the price of existing solutions, and that functions without a continuous supply of electricity.

For reference, Embrace has taken this device built by GE, and made it cheaper, mobile and more personal:

The result? These items completely conceived of, designed and manufactured by Embrace:

This product requires no in-depth training to use, no electricity and no maintenance. It just works, as field tests have proved before launching its latest version.

The most interesting thing that I gleamed from talking to one of its co-founders, Rahul Panicker, is that its number on competitor, in theory, is GE. It happens that GE is a global partner for Embrace when it comes to distributing their product. For the for-profit arm of Embrace, this is a fantastic position to be in, business wise. After two years, grabbing funding from Khosla Impact and Capricorn Investment Group doesn’t hurt either.

Embrace started as a team project at Stanford and has evolved into its current iteration in Bangalore, drawing employees and volunteers from all over the world who are focused on creating change and disrupting emerging markets. I spoke to some marketing interns that had come from Palo Alto and Mountain View specifically to work on this problem. As the team walked through some of its design concepts, it felt like this would be the product that Apple would create if it were in the healthcare space…there’s that much attention to detail here.

Even though there is no medical device standard in India, the team has adopted the European standards, which is a forward thinking move to make its products available everywhere they are needed. The team sees huge opportunities for Embrace products in Africa, Ghana and Latin America with at least pockets from 30 countries total requesting the product to be launched in their back yard.

Until that expansion comes, which it most certainly sounds like it will, Embrace is focused on making a big difference where it is. The feedback that they’ve received and business they’ve gotten, mostly from word of mouth between families, is important lessons and feedback learned as a tiny group of people try to tackle huge markets like healthcare.

Since I’m on the Geeks On A Plane trip with Dave McClure, I’ve been bouncing some ideas off of him as far as what stories would be interesting for you, as readers, to read and learn something from. On Embrace, McClure says that their story is a perfect example of “India lifting India up and not relying on anyone else.” That’s pretty powerful.

You can participate by donating money to Embrace’s non-profit arm, or just sharing their story with friends. This company has made a product for hospitals that cost $250 and products for home that cost $80. When you stop and think about how impactful that is, it’s quite mind blowing. I walked away impressed and inspired, and I of course asked McClure if he’s invested in the company yet. His answer was “not yet,” which certainly doesn’t sound like a “not interested.”

Read this article: The Weekly Good: Embrace Wants To Give All Infants An Equal Chance For A Healthy Life

Campaign Monitor Plugin for Digital Access Pass | Elance Job

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Category: IT & Programming > Web Programming
Type and Budget: Fixed price (Less than $500) Escrow
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Need WordPress Merchant Site/ECommerce Help | Elance Job

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GarageFuse Launches 3D Social Aftermarket Configurator For Car Enthusiasts

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Virtually every car manufacturer today has an online car configurator that shows you what your car will look like as you spec it out. For car enthusiasts, however, the car that the manufacturer delivers is really just a blank slate that still needs to be modified, tuned, and personalized. GarageFuse, which is launching in beta today, wants to become the car configurator for these aftermarket customers. The site offers its users a 3D configurator that is not manufacturer-specific and a community of active enthusiasts who can share and discuss their custom creations.

The service was founded by 22 year-old Daniel Oldja. For the time being, GarageFuse only focuses on Audi’s lineup, ranging from the A3 to the R8 GT Spyder. As for aftermarket products, the site currently provides access to custom wheels from a number of premium vendors, as well as an aftermarket body kit from PPI Automotive Design for the R8. In the long run, the site aims to expand to other OEM manufacturers and aftermarket companies “by exploring the next greatest demand and impact within the community.”

Most of the configurators that are currently on the market use pretty basic source photography. GarageFuse says it’s the “first 3D configurator that is not manufacturer specific.” The site was developed by DreamSoft and – sadly – uses Flash to display the 3D images.

“The capacity to visualize aftermarket parts on cars is a challenging task, and while existing car configurators have become an important marketing element, they only serve OEM components to their audience,” said Oldja, who is CEO of GarageFuse. “GarageFuse eliminates this longstanding barrier by allowing users to build their own vehicle with a combination of OEM and aftermarket parts in a 3D environment.”

Read more here: GarageFuse Launches 3D Social Aftermarket Configurator For Car Enthusiasts

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