When most of us are messing around on our phones we use Apps, little programs that hook us straight into the service, game or social network we want. In fact, most of us won’t use a browser on our mobile phones much these days, but browser tech is getting seriously clever and what are called Web Apps are coming along leaps and bounds with WebVR at the cutting edge.

This excellent mobile browser technology was a blast to use and pretty unobtrusive, only requiring access to my phone’s microphone and geolocation functions to give a really fun interactive experience
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This month Co-op Insurance has launched a really fun interactive Web App called Up & Away that takes users on the hot air balloon trip of a lifetime, around the world like Willy Fog! What is really clever is the experimental browser technology that connects to your phone or tablet’s built-in compass, geolocation and microphone, opening up the world in a completely unique way. This new interactive experience will work on your iOS11+ and Android 7+ device, no App needed here. Just visit the Up & Away site in your browser, Chrome 61+ recommended, and get ready for lift off.

By blowing into the device’s microphone, users can blow the Up & Away hot air balloon up into the sky in a bid to visit different locations around the globe. Keep blowing into your device to see how far you can travel. Apart from huffing and puffing into the phone to power your flight, pointing the device in the direction you want to travel lets you control which continents you visit. The harder a user blows, the further the hot air balloon will travel and – with the aim to get to destinations including New York, Nuuk, Paris and Berlin – users can challenge themselves to get further each time.

Up & Away The world is waiting for you… Blow our hot air balloon through the skies and see where you land

Sat comfortably at home I was nevertheless feeling restless, so took my balloon for a trip. A little countdown allowed me to fill my lungs and my first long blow took me 1,253 miles, all the way to Helsinki!

Co-op Insurance has launched a really fun interactive Web App called Up & Away that takes users on the hot air balloon trip of a lifetime
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A cute little illustration showed the city and a few of its inhabitants while a bite-sized traveller tip warned me that temperatures there could drop to -50C. Too cold for me, so I quickly set off, although I forgot to point my compass south and only made things worse, landing 1,953 miles away in Nuuk – the capital of Greenland.

A cute little illustration showed the city and a few of its inhabitants while a bite-sized traveller tip warned me that temperatures could drop to -50C
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My third attempt to escape the cold landed me in the frigid North Atlantic, so I scrabbled for my rudimentary geography and started thinking more carefully about the direction I wanted to travel in.

Blow number four landed me far to the east in the Brexit-shattered Brussels, but this was not quite warm enough, so travelling due south via Prague my fifth blow got me to the glorious Malaga – where the traveller’s tip informed me I could enjoy 320 days of sun per year. Wooo Hooo!

My third attempt to escape the cold landed me in the frigid North Atlantic
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Basking on the beach for a few minutes made my tummy grumble, so I headed west and after an epic journey arrived in New York City where they serve the finest steaks on the planet. I was home.

This excellent mobile browser technology was a blast to use and pretty unobtrusive, only requiring access to my phone’s microphone and geolocation functions to give a really fun interactive experience. Highly recommended for a bit of armchair travelling at this grim time of the year, at least here in the UK!

Tom Atkinson is a Digital Producer & Photographer at R3Digital and Reviews & Dept. Editor at Tech Trends. Connect on LinkedIn and follow him on Twitter @R3Digital

The post Up Up & Away! appeared first on Tech Trends.

Lemonade is the Insurtech start-up using Artificial Intelligence and Behavioural Psychology to turn insurance into a force for good

If ever there was a bitter lemon, it has to be insurance
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It’s not hard to figure out where the inspiration for this company’s name has come from. If ever there was a bitter lemon, it has to be insurance, which most of us see as a necessary evil. But with Lemonade buying insurance is done through an app in no time and with no paperwork, yet the company is also a fully licenced insurance carrier reinsured by Lloyd’s of London. According to their mission statement, by striking that balance between old and new, replacing brokers and bureaucracy with bots and machine learning, it aims for “zero paperwork and instant everything.”

Lemonade wants to take insurance from necessary evil to social good
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But it’s the lack of greediness in Lemonade’s the business model that seems most disruptive, as it so emphatically breaks away with the way that legacy insurers traditionally operate. Lemonade takes only a flat fee, and give back unclaimed money to causes that its policyholders care about through their ‘Giveback” program -developed by Chief Behavioral Officer Professor Dan Ariely.

This goes far beyond marketing fluff, and is actually baked into the very core of their business model according to Lemonade’s CEO and Co-founder Daniel Schreiber. “We’re using technology to gather people with a shared cause and realigning incentives to bring the best in us all,” he says.

This strategy has not only earned the company B Corps status – similar to Fair Trade or Organic certification, which makes sure the company meets rigorous standards of social and environmental performance, accountability, and transparency – but looks to be bearing fruit in commercial terms as well. The company has just released surveys showing that it now ranks as the top choice among first-time buyers of renters insurance in New York State, with an impressive 27.6% share of that booming market. 110 million Americans rent their home, including 75% of under 35-year-olds, making this segment one of the largest and fastest growing in the industry.

The Google Surveys indicate that Lemonade – which was only launched in September last year – has overtaken big names such as Allstate, GEICO, Farmers, Liberty Mutual, Progressive, and other legacy insurers.

The first of two Google surveys compared Lemonade’s market share in renters insurance to that of other leading insurers, and pegged Lemonade’s overall market share at 4.2% (E: +2.1% / -1.4%). To put that into context, the national average market share amongst the top 10 homeowners insurance companies is 6.3%, and they’ve been in business, on average, for 104 years.

The second survey corroborated the 4% overall market share, and proceeded to break it down by when respondents first bought insurance. About 88% bought their first policy before Lemonade launched , and among them, Lemonade’s share was correspondingly low (0.9%). However, among the 12% who entered the market this year, Lemonade commands a 27.6% share (E:+12.6/-9.8)

“Attaining 4% market share in a few months, in such a competitive category, is without precedent,” said Peter Diamandis, founder and executive chairman of the XPRIZE Foundation, and cofounder of Singularity University.

Diamandis believes this is nothing short of a wake-up-call for the entire industry, as the numbers actually don’t do justice to how disruptive Lemonade has been in the short time since it has entered that space:

“As remarkable as this achievement is, however, it actually understates the Lemonade phenomenon. The vast majority of the ‘market’ bought their policy before Lemonade existed, so the more telling number is the share amongst consumers who entered the market since Lemonade did.”

This is backed up by the fact that in the two months since Google ran these surveys, the Lemonade customer base has more than doubled, and growth is expected to continue at a similar pace going forward according to Schreiber.

“But even if we just maintained the status quo — within a few years our overall market share would automatically come to match our ‘brand new’ market share. That’s what ‘brand new’ market share means; and that’s why it’s probably the single most telling metric of all,” he says.

Alice Bonasio is a VR and Digital Transformation Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio on Twitter.

The post Refreshingly Different Home Insurance for the Digital Age appeared first on Tech Trends.