Your company winning a massive competition in the UK and netting yourself around $150 000 for your troubles must be a lekker feeling. Ask Chris Chuter, whose invention called ‘Peeple’ took top prize at the John Lewis awards last week.

Soak it up Chris, bask in the glory – with his invention described as follows:

Peeple is a smart camera that attaches to existing peepholes in front doors. By connecting it to a home Wi-Fi network, it can identify, inform, screen, and alert users to anyone who arrives at or opens their front door. Whether it’s a courier arriving with a delivery or the kids sneaking outside, Peeple sends a notification to the user’s smartphone or tablet and lets them virtually look through the peephole from wherever they are

Pretty cool hey, except the tides have quickly turned for Chris as another app called ‘Peeple’ grabs the public’s attention. Let’s see what that app is about courtesy of Wired:

Peeple, the app, is the Yelp for, well, people. You use it to rate your fellow human beings based on things like their personalities, their professionalism, and how good they are at dating. There’s no opt-out, either. If you are drawing breath, someone—anyone—with the app can rate you and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Now Chris and his team nabbed the name Peeple on Twitter, although it appears people can’t be asked to check who they are really tweeting before they twist their knickers…

Here’s a screenshot from the ‘Our Story’ section of the other Peeple, the one where you rate your fellow human.

Chuter isn’t backing down in the battle to retain their original name:

While Peeple could pivot and attempt another stab at user approval, there’s that whole matter of its trademark, which Peeple the thing has and Peeple the app doesn’t (yet—the application remains in limbo… in Canada). “As a company, we have the registered U.S. trademark with intent to use,” says Chuter. And just so it’s clear: “We are not changing our name and we’re not going anywhere.”

We know which one is proving more popular across Twitter right now, but give people the chance to say something nasty about other people and you might be on to something big.

Then again offer me the chance to sit on the couch and decide who gets to enter my home before I respond to the doorbell? Looks like a close run thing.

[sources:wired&peeple]