Cash may be increasingly rare as a method of payment in most transactions, but tipping remains one of those areas where it's still often the standard. Therein lies a problem for international travellers, who must juggle multiple currencies; Where's My Tip, however, aims to offer a solution.

Wait staff and bartenders should always be tipped directly on the bill, Where's My Tip stresses. Rather, it's focusing its cashless alternative on travellers who need to tip doormen, bellhops, housekeepers, valets and concierges. How it works? Users begin by paying an annual USD 100 membership fee, which entitles them to 100 free tip cards—additional ones are 50 cents each. Then, when they travel, they can hand out those cards instead of cash. Each card features a unique member ID number, which can be used by the recipient to request a tip online; there, they enter their name and Paypal email address as well as a suggested tip amount. Once that happens, Where's My Tip emails the tip request to the member, who can pay the requested (or other) amount with a credit card or Paypal account. Where's My Tip then forwards the funds to the person who requested the tip. All tips and tip requests are reviewed, routed and processed by hand to keep unwarranted tip requests to a minimum; at the same time, all members must maintain an extremely high ratio of tips paid to tips requested to ensure they don't hand out cards as a way to avoid paying a tip. Membership in Florida-based Where’s My Tip is currently by invitation only.

Paypal may not be many service-givers' first preference as a form of payment, but Where's My Tip says it's working on alternatives. At the same time, there's no denying the appeal of cashless tipping, particularly for international travellers short on local currency and unfamiliar with regional tipping norms. How about creating a brandable version that hotels can give guests for in-house or local tipping, with payments simply added to the final tab...?

Website: www.wheresmytip.com
Contact: pr@wheresmytip.com

Spotted by: Peter Yu

In the United States, more than 40 cents of every dollar patients spend on health care goes toward insurance billing and overhead. That means clinicians must see more patients each day just to make ends meet, resulting in longer wait times, shorter appointments and higher costs. Aiming to apply some fresh thinking to an area that sorely needs it, Qliance has developed a new model for health care that works like a health-club membership and excludes insurance from the process.

Qliance reminds us of Hello Health for the way it aims to make medical services friendlier and more accessible for everyone. With three clinics in the Seattle area, Qliance gives its members unrestricted access to its clinicians and services for a monthly fee of between USD 44 and USD 129. No long-term contract is required; rather, members simply pay a registration fee of USD 99 and choose from two types of service plans—one with remote hospital coordination, or one with bedside hospital coordination by Qliance clinicians. Services include checkups, vaccinations, pneumonia, minor fractures, routine women’s health exams, and ongoing care for chronic illnesses such as diabetes, hypertension or obesity—the primary and preventive care, in other words, that accounts for 90 percent of the medical issues that drive people to the doctor, according to Qliance. For more serious problems, Qliance recommends that patients have wrap-around insurance plans; the company's providers also coordinate any necessary outside specialist or hospital care for their patients. The overall result? Shorter wait times, longer appointments (an hour for physicals, for example) and savings of up to 50 percent for patients and employers alike over traditional insurance plans. Open seven days a week, Qliance also reinvests in its clinics, electronic medical records and patient services the 40 cents of each dollar that would have been lost to billing and overhead, it says.

Qliance has already received USD 13.5 million in funding, including investments from Jeff Bezos and Michael Dell, and it's aiming to expand outside Washington as early as next year. One to get in on early? (Related: Doctor 2.0 uses IM & sticks to house calls — A simpler way to make a doctor's appointment.)

Website: www.qliance.com
Contact: info@qliance.com

Spotted by Susanna Haynie

Patients the world over who are sick of long wait times at doctor's offices and emergency rooms are increasingly getting respite through services such as InQuickER and Queue Watch. Lending further proof that the concept is a good one, Quebec-based TechnowaiT has now come up with something similar.

TechnowaiT's 1-2-3-Go! service is designed to allow patients to leave the waiting room and go somewhere else to pass the time until it's their turn to be seen. Patients begin by registering at the doctor's office and taking a number. They can then go anywhere they're reachable by phone; by calling in regularly to an interactive system, they can find out via an automated message how many people are still ahead of them, and how much waiting time still remains. As their turn approaches, they can then return to the clinic in a just-in-time fashion. Eventually, TechnowaiT aims to add phone alerts so that patients can get notified half an hour before it's their turn, according to a report on Montreal's CTV. Currently free, the service will ultimately be priced at CAD 3.

After a pilot project in Laval, Que., TechnowaiT now aims to implement the technology in myriad hospitals and walk-in clinics.

Spotted by: CTV Montreal via RP

Website: rendezvous.technowait.com
Contact: info@technowait.com

Anyone who spends a lot of time online will have used a file sharing service to send large files to friends or colleagues, or maybe even to download a music track or two. While functional (and free), those services aren't harbingers of style or user-friendliness, bombarding users with off-target banners and frequent prompts to upgrade to premium services. Which is why Dutch startup WeTransfer thinks there's money to be made by offering a more appealing alternative.

WeTransfer's feature list isn't unusual: it's free and allows users to send big files (up to 2 GB) without registering. Files are available for two weeks, and can be transferred to up to twenty people. The main difference with other online file transfer services is WeTransfer's approach to design and sponsorship. Like its competitors, the company relies on advertising for revenues. But instead of running questionable banner ads, WeTransfer sells wallpaper advertising—those pretty pictures in the background. Since WeTransfer's own interface is minimal, that leaves a lot of space for a sponsor's brand. (The screenshot above shows a wallpaper for Blyk, the mobile network operator we've written about in the past.) In addition to buying wallpaper space on WeTransfer's main site, companies can also sponsor their own channels—Blyk, for example, can send its audience to blyk.wetransfer.com.

No stranger to this flavour of online advertising, one of WeTransfer's founders is lifestyle and music blogger Nalden, whose design-heavy nalden.net has sold wallpaper space to brands like Nike, Vodafone and Apple. The lesson here? Take an existing service, make it more enticing for consumers and, with a little coaxing, brands will follow. Oh, and don't forget the free love!

Website: www.wetransfer.com
Contact: advertising@wetransfer.com

Toy rental is a concept we've already seen implemented on more than one occasion, including one in Texas and one in France. Just recently, however, we came across another contender in Canada that targets not just consumers but also businesses that keep toys in their waiting rooms.

Serving Vancouver, B.C., Lucky Duck Toy Box provides a wide assortment of toys for kids aged newborn through five years old. Parents or grandparents simply choose a subscription plan--ranging from CAD 24 to CAD 69 per month for 3 to 12 toys--and pick out which toys they'd like to start with. Lucky Duck then delivers those within days. A month later, customers login once more to choose their next set; when their delivery date arrives, Lucky Duck swaps the old ones for the new ones. For businesses, Lucky Duck Toy Box offers a like-minded solution to the problem of old, dirty, worn out toys in waiting rooms. Instead, it delivers a fresh assortment of sanitized playthings to keep businesses' youngest customers safe and entertained. All toys are lead-tested, inspected and cleaned with environmentally friendly products. Weekly and custom delivery plans are also available.

Whether for transumers or for businesses that cater to kids, toy rental seems to be an idea whose time has come. Something to emulate for all the pediatricians, kids' dentists and other toy-laden professional offices near you...?

Website: www.luckyducktoybox.com
Contact: info@luckyducktoybox.com

Spotted by: Melanie McIntosh