If you’re a dog owner, then you know how important it is to find a good dog sitter while you’re out-of-town. You probably also know how difficult of a task it can be, and how expensive it is to board your dog at a kennel.

Instead of shipping your pooch off to a scary cages, the service Rover will help you find people who are willing to sit for your dogs, and on short notice.

The site lets you put in your location, and shows people who have made themselves available to watch dogs for pretty fair prices.

It’s like AirBnB for your dog

Sometimes you learn about a business trip at the last-minute, or you have an unfortunate family emergency on the other side of the country. Not everyone is lucky enough to be able to fly with their pet, so boarding them is the only option.

When you visit Rover, all you have to do is enter your zip code, the dates you need someone to sit for your dog, and whether your dog needs to watched in your home or someone else’s.

When you sign up for the service as a dog owner, you can enter in all of your dog’s information and attach it to your profile. That way, when you want to book a reservation, the potential sitter can see if your dog is a match for their home. Having all of your pet’s information in the system will help you book that last second sitter even faster.

Once you find matches based on your location, you can visit listings from those willing to watch your dog on the dates that you’ve entered. Since the service is new, the rating system doesn’t have any activity, but seeing who has a high rating will help you choose the right sitter. This leverages an honor system similar to AirBnB and Uber cab, in that if you end up being rated poorly, you won’t be attractive to other dog owners in the future.

Potential dog sitters put up photos of their home and add notes about any other pets they might have. Dog sitting is a great idea to make a few extra bucks, as well as spend time with animals if you don’t have your own.

Sending a reservation inquiry is as simple as filling out a web form.

As soon as you find a sitter that suits your dog’s needs, simply send them a note, and Rover will manage the back and forth messaging. It’s certainly a much cleaner option than scouring Craigslist for a good temporary home.

If you ever need a dog sitter or you’re open to watching dogs for others and making some money, Rover is definitely the perfect site for it. It’s beautifully designed and has a reputation and review system that will hopefully build into a worldwide database of welcoming arms for your pooch.

➤ Rover

Here’s something straight from the set of Star Trek. A Silicon Valley startup has developed a device built on Google’s Android operating system that can be worn as a watch.

According to a report on FT.com today, Wimm Labs has developed a 1.4-inch square touchscreen display for companies to develop into their own customized products, such as watches, health monitors or mountable displays for bicycles. Developers can also create micro apps for the device.

The device comes armed with two processors – one for basic functions such as time-keeping and step-counting (pedometer), whilst the other is designed to support more advanced features such as WiFi, Bluetooth and GPS.

Whilst the module’s software is based on Android, it will also be compatible with BlackBerry and iOS devices, and it comes pre-equipped with a library of micro apps such as calendar, weather and world clock. Third-party apps would allow it to be used as a TV remote control among other things.

Developers should be able to access the device some time in September, and it should go on sale to the public shortly after that. Meanwhile, here’s what it looks like, image courtesy of Beta News: