Gas-Go-Round

Don't these prices make you a bit nostalgic?

One, two, three….FOUR?!?! As prices at the pump reach a new high of four dollars a gallon, people all over feel the pressure to save as much as possible.

For some people, a full tank of gas may soon cost a $100 now, more that a week’s worth of groceries or a nice new pair of shoes.  Unfortunately in today’s hectic society people are on the move more than ever, which means more travel, not less. Which means more gas to buy, which means … you get the point.

However, hope’s on the way. Cheap Gas is a smartphone app that uses your phone’s GPS to see where you are, then to show you how much gas costs at the gas stations closest to your current location. Cheap Gas even plots the quickest route to reach your choice of station.

Imagine not eating up gas to find out where to get more. Now you can use your expensive fuel for what it was meant to do.

[Contributed by Andrew Chang]

Tweet that Mercedes!

To update its old, stodgy image for the social-media age, Mercedes-Benz hired Razorfish to launch the first-ever Tweet Race.

Each of four teams had a celebrity leader whose job was to motivate their followers on Twitter to participate. The more tweets a team received, the more gas they were allocated. The objective was to fuel the car until it arrived in Dallas, Texas where this year’s Super Bowl was held.

Overall, the campaign generated more than 150,000 tweets from 21,000 users. And it raised more than $120,000 for charity, reports BenzInsider.com.

Who ever knew that tweeting could create so much energy?

[Contributed by Courtney Brennaman]

Let's Bump!

Thanks to the power of social networking and many other new technologies, forming relationships and meeting new people is a whole lot easier.

Now, thanks to Bump, it's even easier.

Bump is smartphone app that allows people to share a variety of information with each other simply by "bumping" their phones together.

Before bumping, users can choose exactly what they want to send and the other party confirms this information after the "bump." Once confirmed, the information is automatically stored in the phone. This application has continued to evolve and nowadays, users can even become Facebook friends with a simple touch.

Bump is a quick, easy, and efficient way to exchange information. Things that would normally have to be inserted manually can now be accessed in a couple of seconds through a simple movement. Bump did not change how people receive information, it simply made it easier.

Goodbye tediously keying in others' info. Hello, Bump.

[Contributed by Christine Byun]

Drive More Efficiently With Your Phone

With gas prices quickly approaching four dollars and automobiles still remaining people’s number one means of transportation, everyone could use a break with the escalating costs.

The good news is every driver can now be aware of how much gas they use. The Drivegain app for smartphones educates drivers on their driving habits in a manner that can improve fuel efficiency, which in turn decreases carbon dioxide emissions. It helps drivers change how they drive to save them money and become more environmentally aware.

Connect your phone to your car's IT system, set your phone in a holder on the dashboard, and it tells you all you need to know. The app can be personalized to specific cars, and go so far as to explain which gear you should be in if your car is manual to whether your cruise speed is ideal.

Being knowledgeable about how to save fuel can save drivers money and will essentially save toxic amounts of carbon dioxide from being transmitted into the atmosphere. As a description of the app puts it, “United States drivers could ultimately save up to two hundred dollars a year and reduce CO2 emissions by 66kg by abiding by the apps responses.”

Drivegain fits the category of really new media because it, once set up, it allows drivers to be more conscience and proactive towards a task we all participate in.

[Contributed by Gabriella Callaway]

Where's That Stinkin' Bus? Lemme Check My Phone

Students at many large colleges and universities rely on campus transportation to get to class. But, with just a few minutes between classes and crowded bus stops, it is often difficult for students to know which bus to catch to get to class on time.

Transloc is a new passenger information system that is available on many college campuses. Bus riders can use it to view a digital bus map that tracks a bus's exact location.

Through an app on their Blackberry, iPhone, or Android, students can see each bus moving along its route. In addition, each bus stop contains a screen that shows a digital bus map, allowing riders to know the exact location of the buses on that route.

Transloc turns bus routes into a virtual reality, making campus transportation more convenient.
And effective.

[contributed by Bliss McMichael]

Make It Fun to do the Right Thing

As a social-media contest on the heels of its successful agency-conceived efforts, Volkswagen conducted a contest in which the rest of us were asked for ideas about how to make doing the right thing fun.

It had already made taking the stairs and throwing away garbage fun, by using new technologies in new ways ("The World's Deepest Bin" ["garbage can" for you Americans]; "The Piano Staircase"; and "The Bottle Bank Arcade Machine"). Doing so suggests that doing "bad" isn't in our genes, but in our world.

Regular-guy Kevin Richardson sent in an idea about how to make obeying the speed limit fun, which has become known as "The Speed Camera Lottery."

Rather than a grumpy visit from an officer and a ticket for speeding, a speed camera photographs cars that do not exceed the speed limit. All owners are entered into a periodic lottery, with winners earning cash awards.

The Swedish National Society for Road Safety actually made this innovative idea a reality in Stockholm, Sweden.

Zzzzzz....

Been mighty quiet the past few weeks. Let's hope those creative minds get going.