Recycling
StuffBee - Give & Take for mobiles
StuffBee aims to promotes “give and take†on Mobiles
StuffBee gives the opportunity to anybody having redundant objects to avoid trashing them by meeting other persons in need of those objects within the same geographic area, thanks to their mobile and Internet.
Benefits are multiple: increasing interaction between unknown persons, save time and money, avoid recycling.
At first sight, this project may seems exactly the same as "Freecycle Cellular Osmosis" but the application is operational and the project scope is broader:
- Deploy the ultimate "give & take" application in hands of 3 billion users.
- Broadcast the free object database created by mobile users with existing "give & take" websites to unify users of Internet and Mobile communities.
- Help bulky object departments to broadcast reusable stuff to persons living within the publication area instead of recycling usable objects.
- Help local humanitarian associations by increasing visibility of available items and give a better service to people in need.
StuffBee has been designed initially for Android mobiles. It will soon be ported to all other mobiles.
StuffBee is operational and shows an attractive, compelling, multithread design optimized to offer a rich give & take user experience.
Languages available are English and French.
In June, StuffBee will feature 10 Languages scaled to a total of 70 languages in September.
Users will interact with Real/Virtual objects, their mobiles and other users.
We made everything possible to provide a rich user experience by using animations, colors, game technics while keeping StuffBee smart, efficient and addictive.
Givers and Seekers will play with their mobiles. Givers will use their camera to picture their stuff through the publication wizard while Seekers will browse free objects gallery thanks to StuffBee Intuitive Image explorer.
Tech & Smile is participating to other challenges, contacting representatives of “give & take†websites, local and european authorities, potential sponsors/supporters … to make this project a reality.
StuffBee uses already a SOAP Server to establish communication between mobiles and possibly other "Give & Take" websites.
We need help in meeting mobile providers for packaging/deploying StuffBee on all mobiles.
Freecycle Cellular Osmosis
The internet will osmose into the cell phone. Many internet transactions could easily be done on a regular cell phone using text messaging & other nifty mapping etc tools.
Freecycle.org: n. 1 a web community which enables people to give items away in their local community rather than to throw away these items of little or no monetary value. 2 a global gift economy which keeps hundreds of tons a day out of landfills.
Cell: n. 1 the most basic unit of life surrounded by a thin membrane which enables the absorption of nutrients. 2 a mobile phone requiring no cord or computer to connect with other members of ones community.
Osmosis: n. 1 the passage from one medium into another through a thin membrane such as the wall of a cell so as to equalize the concentration on both sides of the membrane. 2 an apparently effortless absorption of ideas.
The Freecycle Network current enables millions of members to effortlessly exchange items for free in 85 countries. 100% of all exchanges are limited to the medium referred to as the "internet." The concentration of activity is extremely high.
The other medium is the cell, or "mobile phone." This medium has a concentration of gifting of 0% and is an vast & undeveloped medium protected by a surprisingly thin membrane from the “internet.†Oddly enough, this medium is highly fluid and has become naturalized on every continent and is much more widespread than the so-called "internet" medium.
Nearly every humanoid carries such a medium on their person, not only in the more developed "Western" biome, but also in virtually every varying and developing micro-climate and biome on the planet. In fact 80% of all phones in Africa are “mobile phones.â€
This project seeks to enable a penetration of the thin membrane which separates the cell from the highly concentrated medium which is this internet. With careful treatment and web/cellular engineering we believe that we can bring about a concentration shift to 50/50.
By enabling the cell to assume the functionality of the net, a viral expansion and dissipation is achieved of what may then become a truly “global gift economy.â€
mashup catalysts: n. pl. 1 Coding which enables offering of items and their receipt directly via cell phone in interaction with Freecyle.org and other local cell phones. 2 Linkage to existing mapping functionality which then provides directional input on the cell phone to guide the humanoid to the local gift pickup location.
1) A mapping tool which is cell-phone enabled.
2) The cell phone for making & receiving posts via a photo/text sent via text messaging for example, and mapping access/viewing of directions. Take picture of item with phone, send to website and it goes out to all others who wish to receive it in their email or on their cell phone.
3) The internet / freecycle.org as the sort of home of data, posts, pictures, membership tracking, etc.
We've got the website. Just need to plug in the new cell phone and mapping functionality.
We have an excellent project manager whose day job is as a fancy schmancy engineer but who barely has enough time nites and weekends to keep the main site going (his wife also just had a sweet little baby). We have tons of volunteers with varying degrees of tech skills. We have a beta testing team and a webmaster. We need the coding of the new tools. We might have a cell phone company interested in kicking in coding help and some funding, particularly as relates to the mapping tool. We may also have a software company willing to offer us their coding which already enables the "posting with photo" via cell phone piece of the puzzle, free of charge. Nothing firm yet. We'd either need someone who can do the above coding, or if we get funding or help from the above companies, we'd need help finding an engineer who we could then hire to keep this site going full-time.
This doesn't really exist yet. See www.freecyle.org for the main data source. Re: mapping on a cell phone and re: making item posts via a cell phone, there could be a number of options.















