When the inevitable happens and robots take over the world, let's all hope that TacoCopter meat and bone Skycatch bring delicious Mexican treats over the fence to the last remnants of humanity. Anthony TacoCopter have entered during the panel "These are not the droids you're looking for," where he discussed the future of autonomous robotics and sensing technology is changing our lives.
The robot is a basic quad-copter with a small box at the bottom that opens automatically. This unmanned plane was piloted by an employee Skycatch but the Christian founder Sanz has prototypes that can follow a laser around the room and even run completely autonomously.
I, for one, welcome our robotic taco-delivery gentlemen.
Believe it or not, people still use MIDI. That said, would not it be cool if you could connect their MIDI keyboards and drum machines to your iPad so you can add some serious disruptions to its latest musical production? With the PUC an Indiegogo project from the creators of Guitar laptop called the Jamstik, now you can.
Zivix makes wireless tools for information age, and this is his latest creation. The PUC based connecting 5-pin DIN to Wi-Fi and is powered by two AA batteries or micro USB devices. It's almost as big as a real hockey puck and IN / OUT switchable. Any CoreMIDI over Wifi enabled application work with the PUC.
Why is this cool? Well, it has almost all the older (and newer) compatible with iOS MIDI devices. It also makes it a little easier to make cool on stage and stuff in the studio with the placement of instruments.
The company will build the first PUC in the USA, an interesting option that should accelerate product development. They are looking for a total of $ 50,000 and have only spent $ 5,000 in pledges. They are offering a special price of $ 69 Disrupt currently about $ 30 off the suggested retail price end.
While the PUC you can not make a studio musician red hot at night is nice to know that someone out there is still thinking about the MIDI-heads.
The vacuum cooking is probably one of the most high-tech methods of food preparation that home cooks can perform without a degree in chemistry and / or kill themselves and those around them. That's why I was particularly excited to try the Anova, a circulation pump to automatic vacuum that can turn a piece of cold chicken in a succulent taste sensation in about an hour.
Sous vide is a form of poaching in which meat and vegetables are in bags and then cooked slowly at low temperatures in vacuum sealed recirculated water. The Anova, for example, allows you to seal a chicken breast in a bag and fully without losing any of the juice or burning flesh. Then you can brown the meat surface by hand after cooking, creating some of the best darn chicken you've ever tasted.
The Anova is surprisingly simple. To use it you need a large pot with water and an outlet. You should seal the meat in a plastic bag - zipper bags probably will not work, unfortunately, so a thermal vacuum sealer is also needed. Next, adjust the temperature and time. For example, I cooked the chicken on the right at 60 degrees Celsius for 45 minutes. Then I Salé and seared on a hot skillet.
The system has a temperature range of 25 ° C to 99 ° C and a pump of 12 liters per minute circulates water during cooking. Ideally preheat the system before turning on the food because the food lying comfortably in warm water, not a great idea.
The founder and creator, Jeff Wu, claimed to have made the first vacuum system of affordable housing in the market. Although there are some open source projects and DIY out there, this is one of the most "Apple-esque" fire and forget the models we have seen. Wu has a background in biochemistry, computer science, and finance. He builds hardware for pharmaceutical and chemical companies.
"Most, if not all of the products that I helped develop are directly related to the investigation of new drugs, medical research or the development of new innovative materials," he said. "I'll meet a lot of smart people in my line of work - mostly doctoral researchers, graduate students, and Nobel prizes occasionally. - Which is indeed as I found vacuum"
"I was in Boston visiting a research group at MIT / Harvard / BC (I forget which) about 4 years ago and saw some graduate students sous Viding some chicken in a circulator laboratory and finishing off on a hot plate. This interests me enough to try it in the lab that was a big mistake that almost killed the project, "he said. "I basically had no idea what I was doing because it was really no clear guide to sous vide in 2009 and above all this, my luggage was sucked into the turbines of scientific circulators."
So it's amazing? Yes. I'm a little hooked. The fact that this thing is only $ 199 (which will also have to invest in a vacuum sealer $ 70 and a big pot) makes it very compelling and it made an excellent meal in just a few hours. I've always wondered how the most elegant restaurants make most of their succulent meat and not soggy vegetables and now I know. Because it requires very little preparation you can essentially set it and forget it. You can also leave food at a low temperature for 72 hours, creating some amazing slow-cooked it's not as careless as a pot of baked beans, but it's so tasty as one meal.
Again, $ 199 is a great investment for a pretty cool tool for cooking. However, if you are a fan and want to try sous vide, this is probably the best device out there. There are other online water furnaces, but those passing the $ 400 mark and higher. This is the first "independent" model - you do not need another computer to work, but not much - and it's surprisingly easy to use and elegant design.
Well sous vide is obviously a very intense culinary technique. Fortunately, food nerds like Wu are out there and do interesting things like Anova.
Would you buy a manufacturer of robotic drinks these men? Sure it would. These are the creators of Monsieur, a robotic waiter will squirt out a margarita or a good Manhattan in a minute using Android, a lot of bombs, and a little alcohol.
Created by Barry Williams and Eric Givens and launch Disrupt SF 2013, Monsieur allows you to select a drink - which includes pre-designed recipes and you can download "packages" that add different types of drinks to the mix - and the machine does the rest . Nozzles squirt out very specific amounts of plonk wine and mixers and drink is ready. Each drink is exactly the same and, except a little shaking, they are ready to drink.
Bartending and beverage service have not innovated in ages, "Givens said." There have been a couple of attempts to create machines that pour cocktails but not to make a product that is smart, funny and smart. "
Givens and Williams met at Georgia Tech. Givens has a BS in Mechanical Engineering and Williams has a Masters in CS. He worked for
Panasonic
and Siemens before he began in lord. Judge Paul angel investor, co-founder and vice president of Barracuda Pindrop, gave the team a little funding after seeing the first prototype.
Monsieur was born when Givens finished waiting an hour for a cocktail. "In frustration I asked why there was only a machine to make my drink. Leave After dinner that night, I started reading more about cocktails and soon enrolled in bartending school," he said. The first prototypes worked, but did not have enough pizazz.
Team beta units deployed in restaurants and bars in Atlanta and are working on partnerships with brands of drinks and sports stadiums. They see this as a "waiter in a box" that staff be rolled into a room and that users can order drinks without having staff on hand. The system keeps a record of what was served and the place can call a bill at the end of the night. You can even change the strength of the drink "regular" a "boss." I had a drink "boss" when I tried the machine and was certainly quite good.
In short, it's better than a bottle of vodka in a bucket.
Our drinks taste great, people love to use Monsieur and helps companies become more profitable, "Givens said. Besides who would not want a robot butler baby named Monsieur? Team could put the box in a pair of leggings and give a thin mustache and you have a real winner.
Soil IQ is a company that is leading the "Internet of things" trend to urban agriculture and rural.
They are building a probe that transmits and soil fertility
time
data matched to an application. Founded by a graduate of Princeton and soil scientist who has worked with hundreds of Kenyan farmers to increase crop yields, Soil mission of IQ is to help people to grow food more sustainably.
"The reality in this country is that most of our food is produced in factory farms," said CEO Jason Aramburu. "This is excellent for the production of corn, soybeans and grains, but not so good for the production of healthy food."
In response, IQ soil has incorporated a mobile ground sensor for small gardens and farms to help normal people grow a healthy supply of fruits and vegetables. Its probe is fed by a
solar panel
so it can run indefinitely. They are retailing for about $ 49 to consumers and partners thinking bigger.
So you are not only aimed at American consumers, the company has a dual mission. They are also working with one of its investors, Orange Telecom, to help implement these probes to farmers in East Africa.
Aramburu previously started an organization called re: char, where he worked with over 1,300 Kenyan farmers to increase their yields.
But now he says he is trying to focus on the production of food for the 100 million households in the USA So he moved to the construction of IQ ground. The probe can track and transmit soil nutrient content, pH, temperature, moisture, and light data. They have built an analytics platform that makes recommendations to home gardeners about how to optimize the seed selection, fertilization and irrigation.
You can run either ground-based or hydroponic gardens, either food or medicinal crops. They even rigged to send SMS or
Twitter
alerts when the plants need attention.
They also have a big ace in the pocket through a partnership with Yves Behar, fuseproject behind the famous industrial designer and creative director behind the jaw. He will help you with the application configuration floors IQ and product.
The business model has a number of different angles. Not only is the hardware revenue, IQ soil could also license its data set, assuming enough people use it to produce interesting on which crops grow well in different environments data. Furthermore, if enough of a consumer base build, could also earn affiliate income promoting other products such as organic fertilizer or seeds.
What's this? An ordinary vending machine you say? If that was your guess, it would be a mistake, but it would be understandable why you might not notice anything special. That's because, on the outside, this looks like any other vending machine plain-Jane. No screens or touch in special areas or NFC chips or anything like that grace its exterior, however, this machine can accept mobile payments for PayPal or Google Wallet.
How? Well, it has a special device in it - designed and developed by Red Like Us Keyston Ray Hernandez and Clay - which connects to the existing hardware inside and communicates wirelessly to accept payment and add credit and PayPal Google Wallet. Platforms Other payments are being planned right now.
Using either an application for smartphones that developed or mobile website (in order to identify a vending machine ID and to close the transaction cycle) credit is added to the machine when authorized. Pow! Their drink is out like a slipped a crisp dollar bill (or conversely as you fought for more than 3 minutes trying to deploy a bill that could be mistaken for a Spitwad).
Out of the transactional nature of the payment process, there is also a built-fi game. The application can also tabular loyalty points for sharing your purchase and trackable perform other activities. In one scenario, the team is investigating the product price variable depending on the influential status of the buyer. For example, someone with a high Klout score might get an item at a reduced price or even free if they agree to broadcast your purchase. They are even considering geo-fencing some vending units to broadcast your location to impulse purchases. Very clever.
There have been many concepts in recent years, especially international, who have tried and deploy the capabilities of alternative payment for vending machines, but many have required new hardware interfaces, changes or payment methods are agnostic and can add a considerable expenditure of capital deployment. That kind of spending is notorious for delayed roll growth and stifle innovation.
But the beauty of the network approach Like Us is that it is plug and play. You drop your little wireless node in the vending machine, connect it to the motherboard chip old school inside and mobile payments are enabled. No external alterations to the machine itself are required.
monetization
Obviously, it could be difficult to make items for sale, but the team is considering some options. They are investigating a convenience fee for consumers or possibly data rates to owners of vending their cloud node capacity.
What comes to mind as a viable option for monetizing would simply accept a reduction (and only) purchases where payment is facilitated by the system. I mean, that the purchase could not have happened otherwise so the court could be justified.
Overall, I think the concept is a great idea, but who cares what I think? What I really want to know is "what Mark Cuban thinks about it?" As it turns out, actually has an opinion about it and, in fact, is an investor. Mark has spent $ 75,000 so far on the device Like Us Network.
How Mark Cuban got to participate as an investor is an interesting story in itself. Mark and Ray Hernandez met during a freak accident at a gym where a man who had resolved an "event" of pacemakers and fell off a treadmill. Both Cuban and Hernandez and some other good friends, got the help of man, and then the conversation took place and the concept is on the radar of Mark. He advised Ray and Keyston and now we're here at the launch of the concept in TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2013.
BotObjects 3D printer is a printing company that promises "full color" in a system that uses a set of colored filaments for extracting colored plastic in layers. Like Makerbot, plastic ProDesk3D layered deposits and can print color bands around an object and not really specific points in a model.
That said, they have more video of the printer in action (I can not embed here, perhaps by design); the founders have offered a practice after a little back and forth.
After following this company in the last month or so, I've seen a number of 3D printers express skepticism in your product. I've seen a lot of vaporware in my day - I was one of the first guys to poo-poo the Phantom console at the time - and, at least, these guys are willing to work the crowd. The printer, as shown in these videos is not exactly full color printing - it is essentially only good in creating bands of color around a device - but could be programmed to add spot color in the right places.
Although I can not say I have seen this with my own eyes, my understanding of the technology we are seeing a working model will be ready to ship within a few weeks.
Is this a true color 3D printer? If you accept the clear limitations of the current incarnation then sure, it's entirely possible to create colorful plastic objects very well with this technology. If you are looking for something more detailed, however, you will need to use services like Shapeways to print real, full color sandstone. I am cautious but optimistic about BotObjects ProDesk3D, that is all I can be without seeing it in the flesh (or plastic).
