Tag Archives: iPhone

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Capture 3-D Photos on your iPhone

Seene is a free app developed by tech company Obvious Engineering that uses “scene reconstruction technology” to give your iPhone the ability to capture 3-D photos.

The company claims this is the first software that allows your phone to make actual 3-D images. You can compose a shot just like you would a 2-D image, but must move around what you’re photographing, taking multiple shots, so the camera can capture it from different angles, adding depth to the picture. The software then compares distances from the different viewpoints, and builds a lifelike image.

The images are shareable; you can send image links, which are viewable in most browsers. At a minimum you need an iPhone 4S, and it appears that the application works much better on newer models.

This could be an interesting way for a producer to capture images at a client’s location. Or, perhaps, an adjuster capturing a 3-D image of the damage on a vehicle. Sending a link to that image would allow anyone to be able to see the damage from multiple views.

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NetVU Creates Phone App for Conference

The Network of Vertafore Users (NetVU) has released an Android and iPhone app specifically designed to help attendees at their upcoming User Conference get instant access to information. The app can be used to find exhibitors, schedule meetings, browse sessions, get local information, and more.

netvu-feature

Features include session information for 150+ conference sessions. Each session is sorted by track, level, and specific day. You can check out credentials and photos for each presenter. You can also search for specific presenters to easily figure out which sessions they are teaching.

Also included will be an updated list of conference attendees as well as exhibitors.

Feedback surveys can be completed during the session while it’s fresh in your mind, including comments on your conference experience, or you can rate any of the featured services.

Another section includes detailed maps for the property and the exhibition floor. Included are custom GPS maps of the hotel and the local Orlando area. You can even drop a pin onto the satellite map to remember where you parked or where to meet friends. Social network connections such as Twitter, Facebook, and FourSquare are also integrated.

To download the app from iTunes, visit: NetVU Conference 2011 – Orlando

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Consumers Under Age 35 Prefer Apps

Data collected by market research and consulting firm Parks Associates, found that Generations X and Y tend to prefer using mobile applications over Web browsers on smartphones, as compared with older mobile users. This group is especially put off by mobile Web sites not designed for the small mobile screen.

mobile applications

The preference for native mobile applications is growing because apps don’t require users to enter Web addresses or to deal with slow browser speeds. An application can provide a better experience than mobile-friendly Web sites.

When I look at how I use my iPhone, I find I use downloaded applications more often to read information. When I want to look up information, I may use the mobile browser or a search application. It seems to me that native mobile apps will always be preferred when the mobile Web experience (slow loading times, no mobile site) remains poor.

What does this mean for you?

  1. Make sure your existing Web site is mobile friendly.
  2. Consider obtaining or creating a mobile application customized for your agency.
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Visa Launching Contactless Mobile Payments for iPhone

Paying for purchases at the checkout counter by waving your iPhone in front of a payment terminal will soon be a reality, thanks to a new partnership between Visa, Inc. and DeviceFidelity. They have teamed to launch a mobile payment technology for iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, and (one would assume) iPhone 4.

According to a press release, the new Apple-certified technology combines a protective iPhone case with a secure memory card that will host Visa’s contactless payment application, Visa payWave.

Introduced in September 2007, payWave allows cardholders to wave their cards in front of terminals in order to pay for purchases at point-of-sale. The technology is similar to MasterCard’s PayPass solution, which rolled out to select markets in 2005. This technology already works at over 32,000 retailers, notes the company’s corporate Web site, and the list is “rapidly growing.”

This mobile payment technology won’t be limited to iPhones. To use Visa’s technology on non-iPhones, users can insert the card into phone memory slots to transform them into mobile payment devices.

Considering that people often lose their mobile phones, the application is designed so that it can be password protected and uses “advanced security technology,” according to the release, to uniquely identify each transaction. If a phone is lost or stolen, the phone’s owner would simply call their provider, who could then immediately deactivate the account, just as they would do if a credit card was lost or stolen.

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Data Wants to Be Free

A recent article in National Underwriter listed the top 10 technology trends for insurance companies. One of the trends was “Web Services and SOA Tools.” Here is how this trend was described:

“P/C insurers operate a large ecosystem of systems and applications that integrate for seamless processing. In the past, companies had to hard-code integration between systems, which was costly, time-consuming, created challenges when applications were replaced and integration had to be redone, and was often difficult to overhaul due to technology incompatibility. The use of Web services/service-oriented architecture (SOA) enables companies to deploy services instead of using one-to-one integration. These technologies will help insurers improve their straight-through processing (STP) capabilities and reduce integration costs.”

While the article was specifically addressing insurance companies and their internal operations, it also applies to the agents selling those companies’ products.

Agencies have struggled with creating “seamless processing” between the agency information contained in an agency management system, carrier internal processing systems, and other third-party applications an agency might elect to use to streamline their operations.

The days of information being trapped within the agency management system need to disappear. Vendors should not be the gatekeepers of that data and hold agencies hostage. They can no longer limit or control how, and under what circumstances, an agency has access to their client and prospect information. Client and prospect data want to be free of the artificial borders and boundaries that still exist.

Web services and SOA are two examples of technologies that are already in place that make it much easier to allow different systems to communicate and share data. Web services are simply a standardized way of integrating Web-based applications using open standards over an Internet protocol backbone.

Other industries are rapidly implementing Web services and open architectures to extend their reach and allow third-party developers to extend the core platform. Examples in other industries include:

  • Salesforce.com: This company has grown over the last 10 years to become a standard for selling cloud computing and software. Part of this growth is a result of the AppExchange, a marketplace for third-party developers who have created over 1,000 applications and services that extend the utility of the Salesforce CRM and the Salesforce.com platform.
  • Apple iPhone: There are now over 100,000 applications that iPhone users can download and use on the iPhone platform. As you may have heard, Apple tightly controls the types of applications it allows in its store. Yet, these third-party apps have made the iPhone one of the top mobile devices.
  • Infusionsoft: This is the marketing platform I currently use to manage all of my marketing activities. It comes with an extensive application programming interface that allows anyone with some programming skills to move information into and out of the cloud database. This provides me with great flexibility to customize their platform to meet my specific needs.

The above examples are just a few. These industries understand that you can’t control and keep clients simply by holding their data hostage. If you have created a good platform that performs well, then you only add more value for existing clients by opening access to that platform.

Agency system vendors and insurance companies need to stop talking about open access and, instead, take concrete steps to open access to data for the agents they serve.