The mobile site opens to a simple search box where you can enter a product name or the number that appears under the UPC bar code found  on most products.  Snappr returns a list of products with price, a picture and user rating if available. The site is available in English and German and can be used anywhere in the world.

Does this sound familiar?  Snappr is a near clone of Barcle which I reviewed in Feburary.  To Snappr's credit, it's a more attractive site than Barcle and seems to work better too.  Searching is much faster and the bar code database seems more complete.  In a quick test with three products, a prepaid mobile phone, a book, and an analog to digital TV converter box, Snappr found the phone and the book, while Barcle found none of the items.  Plus, Snappr shows prices in the search results list, while Barcle requires you to drill down into each item's detail page to find the cost.

It's not all rosy with Snappr though. Products are returned in random order rather than sorted in some logical fashion like by price from lowest to highest. The prices shown are often wildly different than the actual price on the retailer's site. Like that SIM card for $1.19 shown in the screenshot.  The actual price on Amazon is 29.99! There doesn't seem to be a pattern, sometimes Snappr's price is higher than the real price, sometimes lower.

Like almost every mobile shopping site, actually making a purchase can be difficult. There is a "Buy.." link for each item which goes to the retailer offering the product.  But the link often goes to a full web page that is impossible to use on a mobile. Fortunately many of Snappr's items are sourced on Amazon.com which does deliver a mobile page whenever it detects a mobile browser. Registered Amazon users with a credit card on file can even make "1-click" purchases on the Amazon mobile site.

Snappr also has an iPhone app that can use the phone's camera to capture product bar codes so you don't have to key in those long strings of digits. That's a great idea which I hope they extend to other platforms. I don't have an iPhone to try it out with but according to a post on the Agregated Intelligence Blog, it works but is harder to use than Android's ShopSavvy due to limitations of the iPhone's SDK. Source: Mobility.mobi

Filed in: Wap Review Directory - Shopping

Ratings: Content:  Usability: 

Mobile Link: snappr.mobi

If you have been using twitter to track real time news like terrorist attacks in Mumbai or natural disasters like tsunamis or hurricanes, you would have realized that twitter is in its emerging stages of being able to provide refined real world news in real time. This is exactly what StanzIQ, a real time search and information service wants to do for you and guess what they have even raised $1.5 million in venture funding from True Ventures and other individuals like Jack Moffitt, Patrick Mahoney and Brian Zisk.

According to information provided to Mashable:

The StanzIQ team originally built a phenomenal XMPP-based infrastructure for acquiring, sorting, and distributing data in real time in order to build the Internet chess community Chesspark. The aim was to build a real time game and community on top of the XMPP suite of protocols which is perfect for managing real time data. We have spun off the chess site and turned our attention and our toolset to a much bigger challenge.

The StanzIQ team has lead the drive on building numerous Open Source Applications and Protocols which are now used by companies ranging from giants like Microsoft to indie developers like Rogue Amoeba, not to mention their work on XMPP which is used by companies including Google, Cisco, Neuros and Yamner. StanzIQ has a number of Open Source tools which it has built, some of which are also licensed commercially including Speeqe, Strophe (in 3 languages), Punjab, and Palaver.

The system is currently in private phase.

---
Related Articles at Startup Meme:

After 11 years working in the world’s largest software company, Microsoft, Keith Curtis has written a book, After the Software Wars. Surprisingly enough it isn’t about how life was at Microsoft but much against his former employer’s anticipation he sides with the Open Source to be the software’s future. Microsoft has always had a tough time accepting Open Source, while many others in the business (Sun Microsystems. etc) have readily accepted it and are bent at perfecting and bringing more softwares to add to its growing list (Google for one).

It’s so obvious that with people looking for the cheapest alternative (and those that are worth it) and the Cloud becoming a norm slowly and gradually, paid software will eventually be the story of the past as developers put their heads together to bring the best. A passage from his book reads:

The difference between free, and non-free or proprietary software, is similar to the divide between science and alchemy. Before science, there was alchemy, where people guarded their ideas because they wanted to corner the market on the mechanisms used to convert lead into gold.

Every one of those developers out there is an alchemist and there is no one to guard their collaborative expertise to Open Source every software.

---
Related Articles at Startup Meme:

During a breaking news event, we typically sit glued to a Twitter search. And yet that method of tracking news in real time is fairly embryonic: it’s the first step towards all the world’s data becoming real time, and available via constantly updated news feeds.

That’s the basis of StanzIQ, a real time search and information app being developed to track everything from emerging terrorist situations to seeing the feedback on a live concert - on your phone, while you’re in the crowd.

True Ventures Funding

On paper at least, it’s a good bet, with backing from a top VC firm and an experienced team. StanzIQ will soon announce a $1.5 million funding round from True Ventures, and the group consists of Jack Moffitt, Patrick Mahoney and Brian Zisk, who, along with Jon Callaghan of True Ventures, were partners in Green Witch Internet Radio (an early open source streaming service acquired by CMGI in January 2000). Moffitt was one of the lead developers of XMPP (Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol), a set of open XML technologies for real-time communication. And it’s XMPP that forms the basis of StanzIQ.

The Chesspark Connection

The other consumer app you might remember this team for: Chesspark. As the company explained to Mashable:

The StanzIQ team originally built a phenomenal XMPP-based infrastructure for acquiring, sorting, and distributing data in real time in order to build the Internet chess community Chesspark. The aim was to build a real time game and community on top of the XMPP suite of protocols which is perfect for managing real time data. We have spun off the chess site and turned our attention and our toolset to a much bigger challenge.

The StanzIQ team has lead the drive on building numerous Open Source Applications and Protocols which are now used by companies ranging from giants like Microsoft to indie developers like Rogue Amoeba, not to mention their work on XMPP which is used by companies including Google, Cisco, Neuros and Yamner. StanzIQ has a number of Open Source tools which it has built, some of which are also licensed commercially including Speeqe, Strophe (in 3 languages), Punjab, and Palaver.

All of which sounds great in theory, but the proof will be in the real time results. We’ve yet to see any. And until we get our hands on this thing, we’re reserving judgment.

Win XP	CS3	CS4
Cold Launch on Benchmark Machine*	21.7s	12.8s
Cold Launch on User Machine**	36.4s	19.5s
iMac (Leopard)
Cold Launch	25.5s	16.4s

 

* Benchmark machine is the optimized setup machine for taking consistent launch performance numbers. It has no virus scanner and a totally defragmented hard disk.

** User machine is the one similar to user environment, having a virus scanner, fragmented hard disk with a few common applications installed.

• The team has posted a series of how-to guides and source files created by leading designers.
• Jack Westbrook came up with a set of scripts for exporting each AI layer as a separate PNG.

VLC - the cross-platform media player and streaming server. VLC media player is a highly portable multimedia player for various audio and video formats (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg, …) as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols. It can also be used as a server to stream in unicast or multicast in IPv4 or IPv6 on a high-bandwidth network.

What information does PlayerSearch provide?
PlayerSearch provides you with the latest news, video, podcasts and blogs focused on individual players or teams (stats coming soon!). We search the full spectrum of on-line sports content from mainstream sources such as ESPN and CBS Sports to local newspapers, team websites, sports blogs, the best fantasy sports focused sites and much more. We also search the latest sports video from Truveo, Youtube and other sources such as NFL.com. If the information you are looking for isn’t provided directly on the search results page, it can most likely be found through one of the many links to other websites.

Is PlayerSearch a Search Engine?
Yes and no. The site is architected as a search engine because search engines are incredibly easy to use and provide you with the information you are looking for in the fewest clicks possible. No one ever needed an FAQ to figure out how to use Google Search! However, we do not crawl the web as Google does and we actually own a lot of the content included in the results through partnerships with key news and stats providers. While we use algorithms to search and index over a thousand sports focused feeds, we rely on human editors and our users to determine what those sports feeds are and how they should be categorized. Our strategy is to combine the benefits of algorithmic search, human sports editors and user submited content to provide the most targeted, comprehensive and fresh sports focused search results possible.

Source: PlayerSearch

Thanks to a tip from Eric Leebow.

A small open source burning application for Windows. CDrtfe is a win32 frontend for the cdrtools (cdrecord, mkisofs, readcd, cdda2wav), Mode2CDMaker and VCDImager. It can burn data discs (CD and DVD), Audio CDs, XCDs, (S)VCDs and DVD-Video discs. For Windows 9x, ME, 2k, XP.

It’s a long road to a victory in the browser wars. Just ask Firefox. The open source browser which launched in 2004 just cracked the 20 percent threshold of the market share for November, according to Net Applications, pushing it a step closer but still miles away from IE.

Recently a few new players have also thrown their hats in the ring, including Google with its much-hyped Chrome and the lesser known, Mozilla-based social web browser Flock, which released its 2.0 version this past October. But do these newcomers even stand a chance?

The Basics

Firefox is gaining ground for good reason: it’s simple, reliable and secure. Its tabbed browsing led to a similar remodel in IE and it has a slew of add-ons that give it a leg up over the competition. It’s slowly becoming the new standard with a steady audience, and that will be hard to beat anytime soon. And its open source platform leaves room for alternatives and experimental niche browsers like Flock.

Flock 2.0 is basically a Firefox with a lot of perks and pre-installed add-ons for those heavy into social networking.  Think of it as a FriendFeed of the browser world, which brings all of your friends from 23 various networks together in a sidebar. It is also one of the first browsers to incorporate media feeds for photos and videos.  Flock is all about sharing what you find on the web as you surf, and it allows you to accomplish this pretty easily by dragging and dropping them either into an email or onto a friend.

Chrome is the polar opposite of Flock, and its big advantage is that it’s even simpler than Firefox, or any other browser out there right now.  The search bar is also integrated into the address bar, which seems to be the wave of the future, at least for those who swear by Google search and don’t need any bells and whistles. Unfortunately, Chrome’s only available for PCs at the moment.

Usability

Chrome wins hands down on getting the job done.  It’s quick and painless with a clear focus of searching for information using Google’s engine.  Dynamic tabbed browsing is a staple now, and if anything crashes, only that tab will go down, not your entire session, which is nice. But if you want a richer web browsing experience stick with Firefox or Flock.  There’s also no easy way to subscribe to RSS feeds from the search bar as there is with Firefox.

Flock can feel a bit overwhelming at times with all of the sidebars of information, but once you get everything set up and get the hang of it, it’s pretty convenient and preferable to keeping a million tabs open for sites like Twitter and Facebook. The drag and drop interface is great.  When you just want to email a YouTube video or picture it’s much easier than copying any URLs, although it does also seem a bit too easy to share something that you might not want shared.

The only other problem with the social networks is that you can’t really fit all of that functionality into a sidebar.  It’s a good way of consolidating friends, but it’s more like a giant address book than anything else. Simple things like posting tweets are a bit confusing, with no clear box for entering in text. When a friend adds content, however, it will open up the profile in the main browser in full view, so you still need to go back to the source.

Speed

Despite the extra features, Flock is surprisingly just as fast as Chrome or Firefox, at least on a medium grade PC.  Looks like they’ve improved upon this concern in the latest release. And Chrome seems to have Firefox beat in this category but the difference isn’t anything drastic.

Privacy

Incognito — aka “porn mode” –  is the new way to surf, as every browser is picking up on this private surfing option that Safari first initiated.

Chrome has faced some privacy concerns at launch with its Omnibox monitoring and recording too much information, but this can all be prevented by changing the default settings and going Incognito.

Expandability

Chrome doesn’t support any extensions or add-ons yet, so Firefox still dominates in this area.  But if you are looking for simple, you probably don’t want much more than Chrome already offers.

Final Thoughts

Firefox is here to stay, but there will always be a long tail of niche alternatives like Chrome and Flock.  When Chrome moves into Mac realm it could pick up some market share from Safari.  Flock will be there for social network junkies who want to try something new, but the first step to making Flock mainstream will be for more of the social networks themselves to go mainstream. Twitter is on track, but still has a long way to go before it’s a household name. If you’re only on Facebook or MySpace, you probably don’t need to worry about the extra sidebars and features.

---
Related Articles at Mashable | All That's New on the Web:

Flock Gets a New Boss, Flock 1.0 Coming
Flock Public Beta Now Live
How Can Flock’s Social Browser Play Into the “Open” Movement?
Flock’s Social Browser 1.0 Has Finally Arrived
More is More: Flock 2.0
Flock CEO Jumps Ship
Anxious About Private Browsing in Firefox? Try the Latest Build

Reading the come-on to prospective entrants provides some insight into the pressures biotech and pharma generally are facing these days to impress potential investors, analysts and the scientific community (from whence comes the brainpower it needs for survival’s sake):

“Take advantage of this opportunity to showcase your organization’s efforts and talents, and contribute to the industry’s broader knowledge base.

EARLY BIRD DEADLINE (No Fee): December 18, 2008
FINAL DEADLINE FOR ENTRIES: January 21, 2009

Benefits of participation:

* Gain Peer Recognition: Spotlight the talent of your team, and position your organization as a thought leader, among an elite group of life science professionals.
* Heighten Visibility: Use creative positioning to add another layer of credibility in the industry. Entries, nominees and especially winners receive recognition at the Gala Dinner, in widely-distributed press releases, in the Best Practices issue of Bio-IT World magazine, as well as continued coverage on Bio-ITWorld.com and in the Best Practices Compendium of entries.
* Leverage Exposure: Showcase your expertise and unique solutions, and use the exposure as a conduit to valuable connections, investors, sales leads, job candidates, and other external audiences.

Well, it is working with me so far!! I get the magazine and there is always something interesting about how modern science is conducted and the results disseminated.

It was interesting to read what fields are covered in competition:

* Basic Research & Biological Research: Disease pathway research, applied and basic research
* Drug Discovery & Development: Compound-focused research, drug safety
* Clinical Trials & Research: Trial design, eCTD
* Translational Medicine: Feedback loops, predictive technologies
* Personalized Medicine: Responders/non-responders, biomarkers
* IT & Informatics: LIMS, High Performance Computing, storage, data visualization, imaging technologies
* Knowledge Management: Data mining, idea/expertise mining, text mining, collaboration, resource optimization
* Health-IT: ePrescribing, RHIOs, EMR/PHR
* Manufacturing & Bioprocessing: Mass production, continuous manufacturing

I decided to take a look at what was showcased in 2008 and perusing many of the articles linked to is a good way to see how big pharma and big government science are adapting to the world of Science 2.0.

Here is an interesting article for example: Connecting the Cancer Community caBIG Time

Now this is an ambitious undertaking that I had not heard about before. Here is some of what I read here:

caBIG™ stands for the cancer Biomedical Informatics Grid™. caBIG™ is an information network enabling all constituencies in the cancer community – researchers, physicians, and patients – to share data and knowledge. The components of caBIG™ are widely applicable beyond cancer as well.

The mission of caBIG™ is to develop a truly collaborative information network that accelerates the discovery of new approaches for the detection, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of cancer, ultimately improving patient outcomes.

The goals of caBIG™ are to:

* Connect scientists and practitioners through a shareable and interoperable infrastructure
* Develop standard rules and a common language to more easily share information
* Build or adapt tools for collecting, analyzing, integrating, and disseminating information associated with cancer research and care.

Since its inception, caBIG™ has committed to the following cornerstones:

* Federated: caBIG™ software and resources are widely distributed, interlinked, and available to everyone in the cancer research community, but institutions maintain local control over their own resources and data.
* Open-development: caBIG™ tools and infrastructure are being developed through an open, participatory process. caBIG™ leverages existing resources whenever possible, rather than building new tools in every case.
* Open-access:caBIG™ resources are freely obtainable by the cancer community to ensure broad data-sharing and collaboration.
* Open-source: The caBIG™ source code is available to view, alter, and redistribute.

Whoa! That is a pretty sweeping mandate and game plan! This is one heck of a gargantuan undertaking, but when you read about the dynamo behind it and look at how far it has come in a few years you start to have real faith in big government science and realize that within massive research organizations there are some damn impressive people who want to take a machete to stultifying processes and stodgy mindsets that have unnecessarily impeded scientific progress for too long. One such intellectual powerhouse is profiled thus:

Kenneth H. Buetow, Ph.D., is the National Cancer Institute (NCI) Associate Director for Bioinformatics and Information Technology and the Director of the NCI Center for Bioinformatics (NCICB). As Director of the NCICB, Dr. Buetow oversees coordination and deployment of informatics in support of NCI research initiatives and the Center’s participation in the evaluation and prioritization of the NCI’s biomedical informatics research portfolio. Dr. Buetow initiated the cancer Biomedical Informatics Grid™ (caBIG™) pilot project and oversees its activities.

Go, Dr. Buetow, go! Keep the good work! The hope, apparently, is to create a model in the case of cancer that will engender like networks throughout medicine. A worthy, noble goal.

By contrast, to the culture of openness Dr. Buetow exemplifies here is a case of really bad marketing. As I write this column, I am clicking around some of the links in the original Bio-IT World article. I wanted to see to check out what sorts of conferences were advertised for those in the biomedical field. I was rather intrigued by the idea of writing here about the 4th Annual World Healthcare Innovation and Technology Congress. But to get a brochure, you have to register — give me a break! How lame is that?

And then to compound the image of troglodyte thinking and the utter incapacity to grasp the revolution that is Web 2.0 that healthcare IT already has in the rest of the tech world, here is the wording on the press page.

“World Congress press credentials are available to full-time editorial staff writers employed by a trade publication, mainstream media outlet (newspaper, radio, TV, etc.), or online magazines. Freelance writers or contributing editors may request press credentials if the event is being covered for a specific publication.”

Grrrrrrrr. That pretty much excludes tech bloggers who produce some of the best coverage of IT around. If I were in charge of a major tech conference, I would not hire Patrick Golden to be my director of communications. But then I am just a little tech blogger and he has bigger fish to fry. But dissing the tech blogosphere is not the act of a smart person in the age of Web 2.0. No wonder the bright young minds of tech give healthcare a pass so very often–much to my continuing dismay, as someone who works in healthcare.