Brothers seek investment in bid to revolutionise the event planning industry

Two brothers, Ben Maughan, 27, and Tim Maughan, 30, have just launched a crowdfunding campaign on Seedrs in a bid to raise some capital to further develop their event planning business, Add to Event, and transform the way the UK organise events.

The online business aims to make event organisation simple and stress-free by pairing event organisers with the best local suppliers depending on their criteria. The web app allows users to post details of their desired event on the website so that local suppliers can instantly get in touch with quotes for their services. With a huge number of registered service providers, the website can be used to organise any event, from small children's parties to huge corporate events.

Accenture, BBC and Sainsbury's are just three of the companies that have already used the application for organising corporate events.

Brothers and founders of Add to Event, Ben Maughan (left) and Tim Maughan (right)

Ben and Tim Maughan, brothers from Cheltenham, founded Add to Event after being fed up with how hard it was to find great suppliers for events in their area. The pair were trying to organise a mini-festival when they realised the true need for a platform such as theirs.

Ben Maughan says: “We had a great idea for a mini festival but found we were spending hours trawling through event directories and calling various suppliers only to find they were already booked or not available for the dates we were looking for. This was extremely frustrating and very time consuming.

Tim Maughan explains: “We had a good search but couldn’t find any companies that were trying to address the problem so decided to build the solution ourselves! We run a digital agency so have all the skills required to build a web app so it made perfect sense.”

The site now receives hundreds of requests a day from people all over the UK and the brothers are now seeking extra funding in order to rapidly expand their user base. Ben and Tim have turned down offers from angel investors in order to raise capital through an equity crowdfund, to give their customers the opportunity to part own the company and share in their success.

Add to Event is joining a popular wave of marketplace businesses that are changing the way people request local services. Consumers are becoming more demanding and are constantly on the lookout for services that make their lives easier. Other well-known online marketplaces include Hassle, enabling people to find local cleaners, Mybuilder, to find local tradesmen and AnyVan, to find and book a man with a van.

More information on the crowdfund campaign can be found here.

Your iPhone is Your New Backpack

Believe it or not iPhones have a way of simplifying almost anything. Take school for example, a lot of money, time and planning goes into preparing you for a new semester. You have to purchase supplies, new books, reading requirements and much, much more. There’s an app for that. In this list of compiled back-to-school apps you will find almost everything that you are looking for. 

Textbooks aren’t cheap and of course you can buy them used and save money - or you can download CourseSmart and view the full text of more than 7,000 textbooks all on your iPhone for free. Bought for your iPhone the books cost half as much as their print equivalents and without all the weight and bulk on your back. 

For those reading assignments, download Stanza. If you are required to read some of the classics this app has more than 30,000 to choose from, all free. It’s a great app for required reading or just catching up on a good book. 

Your professors talk quickly and you don’t write quite that fast so it’s hard to keep up. Evernote is an app that lets you type and synchronise notes, voice memos, photos from your iPhone directly to the web. You don’t have to worry about missing something, forgetting your notebook or losing your notes, it can all be accessed from the app or the Evernote website. 

If you can get away with having your iPhone out in class, download the Graphing Calculator. This might not get you through advanced calculus but it can help you through most maths courses. With this app you can graph multiple equations and it will email the results to you. 

MyHomework will help you stay on top of your assignments by organising them for you. Keep track of your class schedule and any upcoming assignments. It will colour-code them and keep you aware of their due date. Also, it will automatically sync with your desktop, always keeping you updated. 

Everyone has use for a dictionary every now and then, so download the Dictionary.com app. Whether you are writing a term paper, studying vocabulary or just trying to expand your knowledge of the English language, this app will do just that. 

Documents To Go gives you the ability to sync and view Office files and PDFs to your phone while allowing you to create documents as well. 

Flashcards are the perfect studying strategy and Brainscape is the perfect app. You waste the majority of your time writing out flashcards when you should be studying. With this app you can create free flashcards or download already-made cards to study with. Share them between groups and with syncing, you can always pick up where you left off no matter which device you use. 

One of the worst parts about writing term papers and essays is the bibliography. You’ve spent a lot of time on gruelling research and the worst part is writing out your references. With EasyBib you simply scan the barcode of the book you’ve used and watch as the app creates bibliography magic. 

Going back to school doesn’t have to be expensive or stressful. The iPhone has a way of simplifying lives and tasks and even assignments. These school apps are guaranteed to take some of the load off while keeping you up to date and on top of upcoming assignments.

Glasscubes Collaboration and Project Management Software

Smart-minded creative groups, businesses, charities and other teams are all benefitting from the wave of cloud-based document sharing and project management tools that allow for remote working, team efficiency and major savings on costs.

In particular, there is a very special offering from Glasscubes, whose extremely intuitive and complete setup represents superb value to small and mid-sized businesses. 

So below you'll find a round up of why we at Geekanoids are so impressed with Glasscubes' solution for better collaboration.

• Cost The price structure for Glasscubes is the best in the industry. Even where alternative software packages offer a similar suite of high-quality tools for teamwork, there's no comparison when it comes to how the contracts are managed. Glasscubes provide huge flexibility to their customers (no fixed, long-term contracts), and huge storage at very low prices.

• Security Clearly this is an essential issue for any group that handles sensitive information. Glasscubes' infrastructure for storage and security is operated using 2048 bit encryptionand Interxion's data facility in the heart of London's financial centre.

• Workspaces The hub of a group's online interaction, the workspaces are customisable, and provide huge advantages over more traditional methods for exchanging information and files, messaging and project management. Conversations are threaded and avoid the problematic email experience of important pieces of information getting lost in a long chain of comments. Documents are version-controlled, which means individuals can always be sure that they are accessing or working on the correct amended version of a file. Meanwhile, tasks are reported and easily traced throughout a project's development.

• Customer services Glasscubes' UK-based technical support receives excellent feedback and reviews from customers. They provide email, online chat and telephone support to customers of all sizes (many companies will limit their support for customers that fall below a certain account-size threshold), with a super-quick 3-hour response time.

With such a powerful set of benefits to be gained from moving from a paper-led office culture to a smart online one, the opportunity to enhance a team's ability to interact, develop and close out projects with high-level collaboration software will be an exciting prospect for team leaders and business owners everywhere.

ExpenseIn Preview: the Brand-New UK App for Receipt Management

November 2015 will see the introduction of a very exciting new business expenses app, ExpenseIn, for those of us who as part of our general routine have to manage a large number of receipts and complete the associated VAT returns in order to make allowable expenses claims for businesspurposes with the HMRC.

The Problem
Historically, individuals have had to collate all the receipts that they accumulated driving around the country's motorways, attending client, partner or investor meetings and presentations, staying overnight at hotels or B&Bs, while grabbing lunches and lattes on the go. All those receipts would have to be retained and filed, which would invariably mean an overflowing, receipt-stuffed wallet, or desktop spikes with pierced and crumpled bills going all the way back until last Christmas and beyond.

But that's not all.

As a company employee, they would then have to spend hours filling in spreadsheets for the finance department, who would in turn have to scrutinise those returns and interact with said employee until all parties were satisfied that the claims and receipts matched up, with each claim legitimate and in keeping with the latest UK tax requirements. A huge amount of combined company hours.

The ExpenseIn App Solution
So for the self-employed, finance department and business owner, the facility that ExpenseIn provides to track and organise expense records comes as an absolute godsend.

Importantly, a USP of the ExpenseIn app is that it comes from UK tax specialists, with a working knowledge of UK tax law and business practices, who are therefore able to ensure that all updates are fully compliant with the latest in HMRC developments.

Furthermore, the app itself looks extremely efficient, practical and simple to use - receipts are captured and then discarded while their record is easily accessible and exportable in the cloud-based storage system; expenses can be submitted in an intuitively simple way; approval flows are straightforward and logical to set up; and policies are quick to establish or amend.

But what's also very attractive is ExpenseIn's pricing system, which, especially with the annual payment plan, is tremendously competitive, with costs close to half of those of some main competitors.

So taking into account the breadth and depth of ExpenseIn's features, simple yet thorough setup and pricing, we at Geekanoids really can't wait for its November release.

Best World Cup Apps

With the 2014 World Cup fast approaching, passionate fans will be able to savour a football-filled summer as the best players in the world will swap their domestic duties at the end of the season to put on the national shirt and represent their country with pride. Billions of people across the world will, once again, be glued to their television sets across households and pubs as they cheer their national side onto potentially glory in Brazil. 3.2 billion tuned in to watch the drama unfold during South Africa 2010, with viewing figures set to be even bigger for Brazil 2014 as the four year wait for the most prestigious tournament in football is over.

Image courtesy of http://pixabay.com/

Innovative technology now allows football fans to keep tabs on everything related to the World Cup, with a plethora of downloadable apps available to smartphone and tablet users who can access the latest stories, live streams and on-demand highlights, and live score reports whilst on the go. It allows fans to keep glued to the action wherever they are, whether it is during a long commute or waiting for a doctor’s appointment, which is particularly invaluable when they cannot see the action unfold on television. World Cup apps allow users to enter a world of football at the touch of a screen, with the best options providing the best quality betting service, live score system and trending news stories which include who will be included in Roy Hodgson’s 23-man squad for Brazil 2014 and the odds on crouch to get a recall?

Official FIFA app
The official FIFA app is the perfect download for every football fanatic who wishes to keep in touch with everything that is happening throughout this summer’s World Cup. Available in five languages, the multi-purpose app also covers every domestic league across the world via a live score system, league tables and fixtures to ensure you remain up-to-date across the football world. The app also allows users to watch live matches through extensive tournament coverage, with official FIFA stories and highlights provided after the action has ended on the pitch. Football fans can also benefit from receiving live score updates as goals fly in during the World Cup, which includes the goal-scorer and minute it was scored which can be handy for football punters who have a bet on and, more importantly, for those on the go.

Coral
Gambling via smartphone and tablet devices has further revolutionised the multi-billion gambling industry in providing punters with a more convenient and efficient method to place bets at their own discretion. The Coral app perfectly condenses their desktop service onto handheld devices which allow users to gamble during the World Cup whilst on the go without having to sit in front of a computer or travel to their local bookmaker office. Coral’s mobile app provides a comprehensive selection of betting markets to choose from, such as tournament top scorer and outright World Cup winner, to ensure football punter can enjoy the very best gambling experience during every game. Their service is supported through a live in-play market that offer regularly updated odds during each World Cup game, thus offering more opportunity for football fans to enjoy the action and potentially win variable amounts of money in the process.

LiveScore
Keeping tabs on the latest football scores is arguably the prime use for football apps by fans who wish to be up-to-date across every domestic and international fixture. The LiveScore app is a simplistic, yet effective, app that allows you to access a wealth of football scores across the world, and is regularly updated minute-by-minute. Its layout is filtered through each domestic league and international tournament, with the screen packed with latest, half-time and full-time scorelines. Tapping on each score bar can allow users to see which players have scored, who provided an assist if there is one, and yellow and red cards that are branded by the referee during the game. LiveScore can be utilised through Brazil 2014 as a direct portal to the latest scores which keep you instantly informed on how well teams are doing in every game, and whether your home nation are set to go all the way to the Final.

Google releases standalone Camera App

You may have noticed that Google has been slowly moving many of the core apps and features from Android into separate apps available in the PlayStore. A good example of this was the Google Keyboard which was made available for anyone to download. Today Google has released the Android Camera app to the PlayStore as a standalone app simply titled 'Google Camera'.

There are a number of improvements and refinements in the Google Camera app from that found in Android KitKat firmwares. The new app introduces a much cleaner interface with a more prominent shutter button.  Also present is a brand new Lens Blur mode which promises to produce SLR quality photos and a shallow depth of field. A detailed list of features are listed below:

• Photo Spheres for immersive 360º views

• Lens Blur mode for SLR-like photos with shallow depth of field

• Panorama mode with high resolution

• 100% viewfinder for getting the maximum resolution from the sensor (no dropped pixels)

• Updated UI that gets out of your way and is centered on an extra large capture button

• Works on phones and tablets running Android 4.4+ KitKat

The new Google Camera app is available to download now from the Google PlayStore to anyone running Android 4.4 or above (KitKat). Whilst the camera apps found in flagship devices such as the new HTC One (M8) or the Samsung Galaxy S5 are pretty decent anyway it never hurts to have more options available.

GTI + Underworld -- Play the Road Official Video

Volkswagen Golf GTI + Underworld have collaborated on a project that synchronises driving and music in real time. Play the road generates music via a phone app that's connected to the GTI's onboard computer, reading the driver's location and movements to compose music live.

Subscribe to the Volkswagen UK channel:http://www.youtube.com/user/UKVolkswagen

Stay on the Ball with the Bwin Sports App

As much as we would like to spend most of our days in the stadium, rooting for our favourite sports team, it is not always feasible. That is where the bwin sports app comes in handy. It lets you take the excitement of your favourite sports events with you while keeping you up-to-date on the latest game results. Bwin is a pioneer in the world of mobile sports betting and their app has been released for Android phones and tablets as well as the iPhone and iPad. 

With the bwin sports app you can enjoy all the features of bwin sports betting on the go. This includes:

• accessing your bwin account and checking your details and bet updates.

• placing live bets and pre-game bets.

• placing single, multiple and system bets.

• receiving live video updates of sports events.

• accessing the entire bwin sports betting range.

• using the betfinder feature to help you find new sports events to bet on.

• a sleek and ergonomic design.

The user friendly interface takes any frustration out of the betting process and makes it easy even for complete beginners to place a bet on the outcome of a game of their choice. With the app you are able to bet on any sporting event from football, American football, rugby and tennis to Formula 1, snooker, golf, ice hockey and many more. The betfinder feature makes sure that you will never get bored as there are always more games with fantastic odds to bet on. 

The bwin sports app is being continually updated to give the user the best possible betting experience. Due to the gambling nature of this app you will need to be at least be 18 years old if you wish to place a bet. Good luck!

Apps on iPhone 5S more crash-prone than other models

The mixture of new software and hardware improvements is enough to make apps running on the iPhone 5S more crash-prone than those on other iPhone models.

Apps running on the iPhone 5S crash twice as often as those available on the iPhone 5 oriPhone 5C, data from mobile app analytics company Crittercism shows. The information, which was presented to All Things Digital and published on Friday, comes from analyzing "hundreds of millions of apps," according to the tech site...

Read the full story here... Source: CNET

Apple Updates 'Apple Store' iOS App for iOS 7

In what is undoubtedly the first of many Apple iOS apps to receive updates for iOS 7 today, the company Apple Store app has been updated with iOS 7 compatibility, a new icon, and a "refined user interface" more in line with the iOS 7 design aesthetic. 

The updated app appears to carry identical functionality to the previous version, although the company has been reported to be planning to push out a new tool within the app next week that will allow customers to check stock levels of the new iPhone models at their local Apple retail stores. 

Source: Mac Rumours

MyGlass app lets you control Google Glass from your phone

Like the idea of Google Glass, but don't fancy swiping the side of your specs the whole time? There's an app for that. It's called MyGlass, and it's just been updated to let you control your hi-tech spectacles from your Android-powered mobile.

I know, part of the appeal of Glass is that you don't have to fetch your phone out of your pocket, but endless swiping and speaking commands might get a little tiring. And that's where MyGlass comes in...

Read the full story here... Source: CNET

Samsung shows off tablet-optimized Twitter app at its unpacked event

Samsung had a lot of the world’s attention yesterday when they unveiled the Galaxy Gear and Galaxy Note 3 devices. Both here highly anticipated announcements that have gotten people excited all over again for Samsung products. However, it appears as though Samsung unintentionally announced someone else’s product. We’re talking, of course, about a tablet-optimized official Twitter app...

Read the full story here... Source: Android Authority