[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NI1SnxHceqw&w=560&h=315]

DICETV: If you’ve been thinking about starting your own development company, or offering your services on a freelance basis, here’s some food for thought. I’m Cat Miller, and this is Dice TV. Did you know that some restaurant owners are replacing waiters with iPads? Customers can view the menu, place orders, pay and even summon a waiter by accessing a customized application. This is the start of a noveau regime. A restaurateur in California spent more than a year -- and a million dollars -- developing a digital ordering system. Pardon the pun, but to an aspiring entrepreneur, that’s some serious bread. At another restaurant, customers can choose their oowinuh from a huge oowinnuh list on a iPad. Perfect for the discerning wine connoisseur. Restaurants aren’t the only ones replacing people and paper with tablets and applications. Hyundai has replaced the operating manual for one of its luxury cars with an iPad app. It includes interactive videos, a dealer locator, and you can schedule routine maintenance. Pretty cool. The FAA has approved the use of an app for iPads that could save the airlines tons of paper and a lot of money annually -- and the pilots won’t have to carry bulky flight manuals and charts in those big boxy briefcases that they lug around. Governments are also starting to use tablets: In Florida several city governments are considering using iPads to save money and reduce clutter. Some Florida school systems are also trying tablets, and in South Korea they are planning to get rid of textbooks entirely. Even a few NFL teams are working on putting their play-books on iPads. So, a big market and a big opportunity. . . How to get in on it? Many customized apps are developed by freelancers and startup firms because the entrance costs are relatively low and the apps can be developed by just one person. If you don’t want to build apps for the consumer market, there are start-up ventures developing business apps that are starting to receive funding. In fact the numbers are starting to get pretty big. So the market is ripe for your app-building genius -- and for your small nimble company -- to get to market before the big guys. So if you’ve dreamed of being your own boss -- but thought you’d never have a chance -- your time may have come. I'm Cat Miller and this has been Dice TV. We now return you to your regular desktop.