I was lurking around 500px.com when I cam across this photo series from photographer Yume of fire flies flitting around in the forest, blink-blink-blink’ing, during a long exposure period. The result is quite breathtaking!  It’s as if someone happened upon secret fairy gathering deep in the woods one night. The collection was also featured on laughingsquid.com and has garnered a lot of love since.  Have a look!

This whole series stopped me dead in my tracks! I thoroughly enjoyed it and thought you would too.

At first we thought we’d seek refuge in our favorite coffee shops or even the library. But we both found that when we went to those places, that focus quickly became an issue. Distractions were abundant and those spaces in general were unpredicable at best. So when public spaces didn’t pan out, we ended up looking at alternatives. It was around then that Mercury Studio here in downtown Durham, NC found us. We saw a Tweet about a local writing workshop being held there, so we signed up an went. We didn’t know it was a co-working space at first and, furthermore, we didn’t know what to expect.

The night of the workshop we walked in and were immediately greeted with smiles and folks eager to give us a tour of the space. There was the café area near the front door that had ample chairs, tables and comfy retro couches and chairs to sit in, a kitchen with a sink and fridge, two bathrooms, a coffee and tea section (with an über fancy burr coffee grinder), lockers for members to put stuff in, a space specifically for artists, individual desk areas for folks who needed their own space and a larger area in the back for folks to have group gatherings (that could also be rented).

Basically, something for everyone.

And that, with the combination of the awesome fellow creatives that are members there, completely sold us on getting a membership. There’s a really wonderful energy at Mercury that makes you feel like creating. It helps you focus. And when you do take a break to talk with other members there, you almost always come away more inspired than when you arrived. All members here are creatives in some way – photographers, web developers, yoga instructors, accountants, freelancers of all kinds, writers, published authors, social media gurus… the list goes on and on.

It more than accomplished what I needed from it as well. I wrote a huge chunk of a novel there (which I have since finished), have launched client websites there, created many-a-blog post, edited video, attended parties, gallery openings, crowd-sourced funding events, live music, movies screenings….

It seems cliché to say that it’s AMAZING, but it really is!

What started as us taking a chance on a place that we had a hunch would help us give more to world, ended up being a lot more. Up until then we had never even thought about co-working spaces. Now, going forward, I can’t imagine living somewhere that didn’t have this as an option.

So if you are on the fence, or are simply seeking a better environment to do what you love, I definitely recommend seeking out a co-working space. They are a popping up everywhere now. If you live near downtown Durham, NC and are looking for a coworking space, come check out Mercury Studio and if your are looking to donate to something exceptional, be sure to check out their indiegogo campaign they started recently.

They are trying to make everything they do, even better!

Hey all,

I stumbled upon this Kickstarter this morning and had to share it with you. For years I’ve been looking for a versatile stand for my iPhone that wasn’t a pain to carry around in my pocket.

To date, I’d only found stands that would work if I was wearing shorts or pants with cargo pockets.  I always wanted a solution that was less obtrusive and more portable.  I know, I know, it’s probably stupid but – I just hate the feeling of extra crap in my pockets. Hell, I even hate carrying my keys.

This invention by Geometrical Inc. & Rambod Radmard appears to remedy all those issues. About the only thing that I am concerned with, would be the structural integrity of the stand once it’s assembled. After watching the video though, I am willing to give it the benefit of the doubt.

Check it out for yourself and let me know what you think! Did you back it? If not, why?

For a variety of reasons I often find myself going into “Private Browsing” mode when using Apple’s Safari browser on my Mac. Maybe I am on a public wi-fi connection at a coffee shop, or maybe I am using a friend’s Mac for a quick Google search and want to give it back precisely how I received it – private browsing mode can be a handy way of accomplishing “leave no trace” browsing whenever it is needed.

Regardless of the need though, I really hate the process of enabling it: once in Safari, click the “Safari” menu in the top left menu, click “Private Browsing…”, then click “ok” on the window that pops up shortly afterwards.

Is this really that much of a big deal to do? Of course it’s not. But wouldn’t it be easier if there was a keyboard command/shortcut to toggle private browsing mode on and off without touching your mouse or touchpad?

I think so and, luckily, it’s really easy to set up.

The Steps…

1. Click the Apple Menu in the upper-left corner of your screen.

2. Choose “System Preferences” from the drop down menu.

3. Select the “Keyboard” option under “Hardware”.

4. Click the “Keyboard Shortcuts” toggle at the top of the window.

5. Then click “Application Shortcuts” in the left column.

6. Now you just click the “+” button to add a new shortcut.

7. In the new window that pops up, select “Safari” from the top pulldown menu.

8. In the “Menu Title” field, type “Private Browsing”.

9. In the “Keyboard Shortcut” field, type what ever you want your shortcut to be. For me I chose “Command-Control-P”.

10. Click the “Add” button and you are done!

The Result…

Now when you are in Safari on your Mac and you want to quickly go into “Private Browsing” mode, all you have to do is type your new shortcut and it instantly toggles it on! To turn it off, just type the shortcut again. It’s that simple.

I am absolutely sure this tip can be found elsewhere on the internet (there’s no way this is a “new” idea). But I just wanted to write a quick walk-through on how to set it up for you all.

Hopefully it’s useful to you too! :)

Since “Children of Men” (a 2006 film), I’ve been waiting patiently for his next feature film, “Gravity”, and yesterday the first teaser trailer for it dropped. It sure looks like more of the same from him.  Near-futuristic, emotional “what  if?”  themes, over-layed on top of beautifully shot visuals.  I got chills from it. And those last couple of seconds… (gulp!)

Here’s the trailer. And yeah, it’s now officially on my short list…

A great idea…

When Apple announced Passbook with iOS6 I, like quite a few iOS enthusiasts, was very intrigued.

The idea of going to a concert and, when I got to the venue, having my tickets show up on my lock screen a swipe away from being scannable at the door, was not only an incredible concept, but it was also an amazing convenience!

Then when I saw the companies involved, companies like Ticketmaster and Eventbrite, Fandango, major Airlines, Target and even REI… I suddenly had this wonderful feeling that all of that fishing around in my wallet that I do at the register or at a venue entrance, would finally be done with! It was a nice thought!

So what happened?

Well, I don’t go to too many Ticketmaster-based shows (and my experience so far, a lot of Ticketmaster venues don’t even support scanning tickets on phone screens anyways). I like seeing movies in independently owned theaters. I rarely shop at Target. REI’s implementation is pretty weak (it only displays my member card number), and my main Airline (for better or worse, US Airways), has somewhat of a “if you blink, you’ll miss it” integration of Passbook. So when I do occasionally fly, I completely overlook it.

With the exception of one concert that had tickets setup through Eventbrite (which worked quite well by the way), I had yet to have that quintessential Passbook experience: where several tasks in one outing were completely handled without me having to unlock my phone or print something out on paper.

Not until this last weekend that is. :)

The Situation…

I was getting away for the weekend, for a self-imposed writing retreat in Charlotte. I booked a flat in the downtown area through AirBnB (I’m a HUGE fan of the service) and found the fares for a round trip ticket from Durham on Amtrak to be surprisingly cheap. I knew AirBnB had Passbook integration but I was honestly surprised when I found that Amtrak did too!

Two train tickets, one accommodation reservation and just like that: I finally had my test case!

The game was afoot! :)

I added both train tickets and my AirBnB reservation to Passbook a week prior and went on with life until the weekend came for me to leave.

My expectations were fairly basic. I wanted to arrive at the train station in Durham (and Charlotte on the way home), get a notification, swipe the notification on my lock screen, have the conductor scan the displayed ticket, and board the train. Upon arrival to where I was staying, I wanted another notification to pop up when I got close to the address and have all of my reservation info readily accessible, with clickable phone numbers and addresses (postal and electronic).

In fairness, I already knew that the info I needed for where I was staying would be displayed on the AirBnB Passbook card. But what I didn’t know, was if it would show up on the lock screen automatically when I got close to the address.

That all said, how did it work?

Amazingly well! The day of my Amtrak departure, as the time got close, a notification came up telling me the time that my train was supposed to leave. Not only that, it also told me that the train station I was leaving from was nearby (info I already knew, but still)!

When the train got to the station and the conductor started asking for tickets, I swiped the notification on my lock screen and there was my ticket, with my name, order number, departure/arrival time and a scannable bar code that worked perfectly with their scanners. I showed the conductor my phone, he scanned my lock screen and I hopped aboard. It was that easy! No questions were asked and many other passengers had the exact same experience.

Next up? My arrival at my accommodations for the weekend.

The place I was staying at was within walking distance from the train station in Charlotte, so I hoofed it. As I got within a half a mile from the address (give or take), I took my iPhone out and, lo and behold, there was the AirBnB reservation notification on my lock screen! When I got to the location, I swiped right on the notification and it instantly gave me my reservation info, including phone numbers to reach the owner and instructions on how to check in and check out. After I settled in, I texted the owner as a courtesy to let him know that I arrived (and on the day I left), but other than that, I never spoke to, or saw him.

Honestly, it couldn’t have worked better! The train ride back to Durham worked just as well as the train ride to Charlotte: without a single hitch.

Such Potential…

The idea behind Passbook is an experience that is totally in Apple’s wheelhouse. They have always thrived on making those mundane, “everyday life” experiences that we simply put up with, easier and better.

With a such a great Passbook experience under my belt, I was instantly left wondering why it had taken me this long to experience it (hard to believe it’s been 8 months since iOS 6 was released into the wild). Though I am sure there are totally rational reasons why so little companies have added Passbook integration to their respective apps, I do think it’s a shame and a total missed opportunity. Because these two companies did, I have even more love for AirBnB’s service and I absolutely look forward to riding Amtrak again. For the first time ever, I went on a trip away from home and didn’t have print a single sheet of paper before I left. I mean, how cool is that?

Until more adoption takes place, I guess we’ll just have to take these great and ultra-convenient moments when we can get them.

If anything, I just wanted to share my experience with you all, so that you know these kinds of textbook “Apple moments” do exist. That they don’t just look cool in the commercials.

What do you think? Have any of you had good experiences with Passbook? Let me know in the comments! I’d love to hear about them!

I had every intention of writing what will probably be a ridiculously long review of Scrivener (I’ve literally written tens of thousands of words in it after all) before I even mentioned Scapple. But then Literature and Latte went ahead and announced today on their Twitter feed that they were taking Scapple out of beta next week.

So, naturally, I thought I would help spread the good word.

What it does:

At its core, Scapple exceeds most at being very easy to use. You double-click anywhere in the window to create text objects (blocks or “bubbles” of text, images, etc…), and then you drag these text objects on top of each other to link them together with a dotted (or solid, or arrowed) line.

Seriously, that’s it.

Of course if you dig a little, you’ll find that there is way more that you can do with this powerhouse of an app! But I love, love, LOVE the fact that you can launch it and, without a tutorial, be making very quick and versatile mind-maps of anything in under 5 minutes!

I’ve used Scapple for mapping out chapters in novels I’ve written, making diagrams of floor plans, any kind of hierarchy I can think of and, with its ability to export to PDF, I’ve even used it professionally in my day-to-day!

Just Get it…

Like Scrivener, its strength lies in its core simplicity. If you need it for anything beyond that, the tools are there, patiently waiting. For that aspect alone, I give it my highest recommendation.

Next week the finished version will be available for purchase (L and L says it will be under $15) on the Mac, so go out and support it folks. You won’t be let down. I promise!

Here’s the link to the beta download if you want to give it a try before the official 1.0 release!

UPDATE – Download links:

• The official 1.0 release can now be found on their site right here! 
• If the Mac App Store is more your speed, you can find the link to that version here. (though you’ll most certainly get updates to the app much quicker if you purchase the version directly from Literature and Latte’s site.)

And, as an added bonus, they also released a video tutorial on the basics (and some more advanced stuff) of what Scapple can do. So if you need further incentive, check out the embed below:

Last August, my wife and I decided to downsize our home situation moving from a 1500 square foot home, into a 500 square foot studio apartment.

That’s right… we moved into a home that was a third the size of what we were used to.

The reasoning behind this decision is worthy of another post entirely, but one of the results of this move was the act of us digitizing our entertainment, as well attaining a paperless lifestyle.

It certainly wasn’t easy and like all expected challenges in my/our life, I had to have a plan of attack from the outset. First and foremost we needed get rid of a lot of stuff! Physical CD’s, DVD’s and books take up a lot of space in your home (whether you notice it or not) and our new tiny apartment simply wasn’t going to have the room to house everything we collected over the years. So it didn’t take long before I decided that anything that could be transferred to a hard drive or cloud-based storage, would be.

Sounds simple enough right? It is actually. But, another problem reared its ugly head. After ripping and selling all of our music and DVD’s over the years, I knew immediately that this process would take time, and lots of it.

The good news though? It’s totally worth it. The even better news? There are a lot of ingenious services out there that will help make the process much, much easier. So I thought I’d share my findings with you all.

Entertainment…

With the advent of cloud-based services like iTunes Match and the low price points of external storage nowadays, it’s simple (and relatively cheap) to come up with digital backups of your entire entertainment library. I ended up subscribing to iTunes Match, transferring my entire music library there and buying a USB hard-drive cradle like this one for everything that Match wouldn’t cater to. By the way, if you have a lot of old hard drives laying around, this cradle is awesome, as it caters to both desktop and laptop drives.

On the software end, to rip our CD’s I’d used iTunes over the years and for the DVD’s, I used RipIt. Both apps are incredibly easy to use and I never ran into copywrite issues ripping the DVD’s either. Please note that the time this takes has EVERYTHING to do with the speed of your CD/DVD drive. I think collectively, I was at it for about a week, just evenings though. It’s boring “work” and you should find something to do between rips. As I mentioned, we were moving so I had plenty to do.

Once everything was ripped, I sold all of the physical copies on Craig’s List or gave them to friends and family. And no, that wasn’t easy.

The Dead Tree Stuff…

So, that obstacle behind me, I moved on to everything else. It didn’t take long at all to realize that digitizing your music and movie collection is dead simple compared to digitizing all of the paper that’s been in your life.

Next I dealt with the books.  The books weren’t that big of a deal. We basically kept our treasured copies (the ones you read more than once, or the ones that changed your life) and got rid of, or sold, the ones that were literally collecting dust. Then, after you have done that bit of curation, you look at the remaining stuff and see if it’s worth buying their e-book counterparts. It’s surprising how this simple process whittles down the bulk of your book collection. I am not going to lie, if you love books, this process is really hard to go through. Prepare yourself and steel your resolve. You can do it!

In the end, we sold the bulk of our book collection to used book stores around the area, but another great find was donating the rest to charity programs that routed your books to other countries or even prisons. If you have books after this process (I had an old HTML 3 book the no one wanted, can’t blame them either), at the very worst you should be able to recycle whatever is left.

Once the books were gone, we felt like we were really making progress! The house we were selling suddenly seemed downright cavernous! We were well on our way! But then we started opening our closets and saw all the white file boxes with Sharpie-scrawled years on them.

The Rest…

What was in these boxes were all of the documents we’d collected over the years. It was either important stuff (like tax info) or things that we thought we might need in a pinch (like service manuals for your vacuum). There was a lot of crap too that we simply didn’t need at all: it would all have to get recycled.

When it was all there, sitting out in front of us, it was intimidating thinking about everything we were going to have to do to make this work. But you start simple and go from there. We started the process by going through everything quickly, separating everything into two basic piles: the stuff we planned on keeping and the stuff we were going to shred and recycle. After that was done, it seemed a little more manageable which was great psychological booster. I went ahead shredded everything we were going to recycle and brought it in bags to the local recycling center. We actually used some of it for packing material too!

At this point in the process, we had gotten rid of about 60% of it all. It was time to digitize the rest!

How We Did It

First things first: move to paperless billing. Log into the respective site of any of your monthly bills, or give them a call and make that switch. Almost every service offers it now.  Just bite the bullet and make the change, I think you’ll find the adjustment period very short. :)

You also need to realize that you are not the first person who has done this. Today, there are TONS of resources out there. But if I had offer one to you? I’d recommend this: “Paperless Field Guide” by David Sparks.

This book is invaluable in breaking down the process of creating a paperless, workflow-based system in your life that is not only space-saving (physically and digitally), but is also immensely useful and reliable going forward. Sparks offers great hardware and software suggestions and his writing and overall approach to the subject matter is very accessible and not overwhelming in the slightest. He also offers excellent examples and though I found Sparks’ personal workflow system a bit overkill for me (he’s a lawyer, so it kind of needs to be), I ended up with my own, much simpler workflow; borrowing a lot of best practices from the book and adapting it to my life.

That’s what is so great about this book! It isn’t a blue print for what you need to do, it’s merely a guide.

Here is my paperless workflow, in a very barebones format:

1. Find, or receive, a piece of information that’s worth keeping forever.
2. Scan this document somehow (more on this below) into a PDF document, preferably with OCR (again, more on that below).
3. Move this document into a predefined folder structure that’s easy to navigate through, with a predefined title structure. I went with “year_date_description” (i.e. “2013_0410_utility_bill”).
4. Verify everything saved properly and get on with your life.

Sounds simple right? Well, it is, but not until you get a hold of the right tools.

What We Ended Up Using…

A Document Scanner of Some Kind: This is pretty crucial and, luckily, there are a TON of options out there. We bought an HP Scanner/Printer combo a long time ago for $50, so we used that. It doesn’t have to scan spectacularly, but it definitely should scan documents so that they are highly legible. The faster it scans, the more time you will save.

PDFScanner: This software works incredibly well with any scanner you plug into your Mac and, compared to it’s competition, it is very low-priced at just shy of $15. Just turn your scanner on, launch “PDFScanner”, click the “Scan” button”. That’s it! It will take your paper document and create a PDF out of it in no time.

Other things this software can do that are pretty invaluable are OCR – Optical Character Recognition as well as preset naming conventions (if you want the date it was scanned, inserted in front of the title every time you scan a document for instance). Both of these features are key, if you are trying to organize your documents so that they are easily searchable. “PDFScanner” can also mimic duplex printing as well, which is nice when you have a multi-page document that you want to transfer into one multi-page PDF document.

I was initially skeptical at the price, and while it’s more expensive counterparts can in fact do more, this software catered to my needs/paperless workflow nicely! I used it to scan literally everything we had left on file (read: 100’s of documents).

Dropbox: There are a ton of online cloud storage solutions out there. I use Dropbox because it’s flexible and I am already familiar with how it works. If you go with another one, make sure the service you choose supports folder structures. Most of them do nowadays, but I thought I’d throw that out there. PDF’s don’t take up much space, so I have been working with a free Dropbox account at the moment. I haven’t even come close to my 5gig limit, you/I can always pay for more storage if you run out.

JotNotPro: Mentioned in the “Paperless: Field Guide”, this is my mobile “Plan B”, for when I am not going to be near my home scanner anytime soon, or if I am just being plain old lazy. It’s an iOS app that you use to snap a picture of your document and then it automatically turns the pic into a pdf for you to send where ever you’d like. You can also link this app to automatically upload to a location on Dropbox as well, which made it no-brainer for me.

There’s a free version of this app that might suit you just fine, but I ponied up a couple of bucks for the Pro version. It provides extra functionality and it’s just a great app, so I wanted to support the developers.

Evernote: I’ve mentioned Evernote several times on this site. No bones, I love it. But as far as my paperless workflow is concerned, I use this only to file non-paper based things, like prescription and insurance cards, my license, my passport… you know, the important stuff that you need to literally have at your fingertips, tagged and in full color.

A lot of people use Evernote as their complete paperless eco-system/workflow. I didn’t only because I use Evernote for a lot of other digital-memory-based systems in my life and didn’t want my important/crucial documents getting buried in all of that. If this fits the bill for you though, go for it. You can’t beat free and their mobile apps are second to none.

Worth the Time and the Effort.

Whether your life necessitates it or not, digitizing your entertainment and important life documents, as time-consuming as it was initially, was an incredibly smart move for us. I no longer have to drag boxes out and leaf through a ton of folders to find my insurance info, past salary amounts or my tax info from five years ago. Now that it’s organized and searchable, I can find pretty much anything in a matter of minutes (at home, or on my phone even). That’s pretty incredible when you think about it!

Developing a good workflow makes this task WAY less arduous and having the right tools (hardware and software) can automate scanning and filing into a process that takes less than ten minutes out of your day.

The minute you need it and you see, firsthand, how much your hard work paid off?  I tell you, it really is a thing of beauty. And seeing all of that extra closet space you just regained?

Well, that’s pretty awesome too! :)

But that doesn’t mean that RSS is going with it.

While I am not terribly surprised in this day and age by how many people have no idea what RSS actually is, I am very surprised by the amount of folks who think that RSS, as a technology, is synonymous with Google’s Reader service.

This notion couldn’t be further from the truth!

As it turns out, our valued RSS feeds are very much alive and well.  It’s just the medium that we all (myself included) chose to read all of these feeds in, that is going away.

So now all we have to do is choose an alternative.

Since I am in the same dilemma that many of you are in, I thought it’d be a good service to show the services I’ve been thinking of transitioning to. Here they are in no particular order of importance:

• Feedly.com - These guys’ membership EXPLODED after Google’s announcement. Their service will take care of your mobile RSS fix, with apps on the all major mobile platforms. Desktop and laptops will have to live with the web client but from what I’ve seen, that experience is clean and pleasant to look at.
• Newsblur is a bit more hardcore for RSS wranglers, but the added functionality comes at a price ($2 a month for anyone with more than 64 feeds) and, worse, they are no longer accepting free accounts for folks with less (a restriction that is, for now anyways, temporary). If you are willing to pony up the cash though, they offer a lot of great functionality that many other web-based services don’t, like nested folder structures for folks who like to organize their feeds, feed refreshes every minute, built in keyboard shortcuts and native mobile apps for both iOS and Android. Not bad!
• For a Mac user, NetNewsWire is a great alternative. Die hard fans got a good shot of adrenaline after Google’s news dropped. The company that bought NNW, Black Pixel went somewhat dormant after their purchase years ago, but now with a major competitor out of the way they are gearing back up to fill that gap.  Having used NetNewsWire on my Mac and iOS (iPhone and iPad) platforms in the past, I am very comfortable in saying that, as an application, it’s a solid product! But it’s missing a very crucial bit of functionality still: feed sync between desktop and mobile platforms. This was the main reason I ditched their product years ago and it’s still the reason why I hesitate to go back. Still, they are making a renewed commitment to bringing reliable sync to their platform, so it may be worth jumping back in. If feed sync isn’t important to you at all, I can heartily recommend this service without hesitation.
• Also in the Apple-only arena is Reeder which, up until now, has been pretty much solely catering to the Google Reader platform. The developer of the app Silvio Rizzi, has now come forward and made commitments to a multitude of feed alternatives to quell his rabid fanbase (both of which my partner in crime and I are a part of). I have the utmost trust in Rizzi’s skills. Hands down, if you are an iOS/OSX fan, the attention to detail that he puts into is native apps is far and away the best RSS experience I’ve experienced to date.  If he delivers on his promises (and I have no reason to believe he won’t) we Mac users will be well cared for.
• Another paid web-based client that is getting some attention is feedbin. Like Newsblur, Feedbin also charges $2 a month, but it’s layout is super clean, it’s got tagging for organization, lots of import options and claims of being super speedy in its feed delivery! I haven’t used it personally, but a lot of developers I admire are getting behind them.
• The last option I will offer is from the folks at FeedAFever. Fever got a good amount of attention for its novel approach at serving up your RSS info.  Some of the attention was good, and some of it was a bit mixed. Still, I wanted to offer it up as an alternative because it’s always worth checking out the folks who are trying to do something different with a service you and I use every single day.
• UPDATE 03/28/13 – A great recommendation from wordshepherd.com – The Old Reader: http://www.theoldreader.com -  ”It looks and acts very much like Google Reader pre-Google+, before they nuked their sharing tools. So you can follow your friends’ shared items, and comment on them, all in a self-contained, curated ecosystem.” – haven’t checked this one out yet, but I certainly appreciate the social aspects involved in this implementation. Sometimes things don’t need fixin’! Thanks David!

So, those are just a smattering of the “Google Reader replacements” I’ve encountered that are getting good or, at worst, interestingly mixed press. The web-based options will always be your best ally because they are OS-agnostic. If you can find one that also offers a quality native mobile OS experience, than that will always be the icing on the cake.

If you have any alternatives that I missed, please add them in the comments below! I’ll update the post immediately with your recommendation and a link back to your site! ;)

In the meantime, good luck with whatever alternative you go with! I will certainly offer an update with whatever I end up choosing.

Honestly, the key thing to remember is that you don’t have to say goodbye to those web sites out there that have given you content in the past that you enjoy on a sporadic non-Twitter-like level.  They still exist and, in most cases, are better than ever! :)

RSS on the web hasn’t changed at all.  Far from it.  If anything, it’s just being given that all-too-rare opportunity to evolve!

“Your Car and Smartphone, Connected

Just plug the Automatic Link into your car’s data port. Your car and smart phone
will automatically connect whenever you drive, wirelessly.”

This one has been making the rounds today and for good reason: there are so many awesome ideas at play here! Basically, “Automatic” is a hardware and iOS/Android software solution that connects to your smart phone to your car in a really ingenious way. Once connected, it gives you quite a bit of functionality! The complete list can be found here (just scroll down).

The top ones for me though are easily:

• The way it connects to your car. It “…plugs into the same port your mechanic uses when you take your car in for service.” and it’s use of the low-energy Bluetooth 4.0 connection to conserve your phone’s battery life is really well thought out.
• The geolocation of your car is always recorded in real-time. So no need to take a picture of the spot you parked in. The location can also be shared.
• Accident/crash support. Contacting 911 with your location all the while texting loved ones once help has responded and is on the way, is pretty great.
• Real-time reporting on engine lights (listing their cause) AND the ability to reset them. To me, this alone is totally worth the price of the service/hardware! $69.95 (!?!)

Check out the video below! It covers everything above and more.

As you can probably tell, I am smitten with this. Just a very, very interesting idea for a service. And it’s the implementation of it, that makes it so intriguing to me.

I could be wrong, but I am pretty sure there isn’t anything like it out there!
—–
Company: “Automatic”
All video and pictures were taken from Automatic’s own press material.