The Internet of Things - like real coffee or Internet-connected mobile wallets - is on the horizon. We are waiting, a world in which all our devices are connected and communicate with each other in a sort of futuristic circle of life.
But as with any major change in technology, we are certainly not there yet. For those of us who are growing impatient, ¿I can present the Gecko, a new Indiegogo project has meant to "make your smartphone smarter."
The idea here is that the accelerometer equipped Gecko connects to your smartphone via Bluetooth low energy to help control the various things in your life and bring gesture controls and triggers to your smartphone.
With Gecko, the connection is not built into the devices themselves, but rather can be applied to objects in the house through these accelerometer- Bluetooth-based labels.
The device itself is filled with a TI CC2541 SoC removable battery type button with a year's worth of juice (depending on usage), as well as buzzer and LED light for alerts.
So, for starters, you can use a Gecko hand to control the music on your phone, or to activate
camera
to take a photo or record a video. With Gecko application accompanies even can trigger several photos taken at set intervals. The Gecko comes with four gestures available, including turning left and right and moving once or twice.
Meanwhile, Gecko can also be used as a tracking or monitoring. Tag your gateway to receive alerts when opened or closed. Tag a pillbox to get a reminder when you or a loved one has not taken his medication that day at the scheduled time. Tag your pet to get an alert when you leave a radius of 100 meters. Hell, label your child to make sure they do not go away, either.
You can even find the phone if it is paired with a Gecko as long as you have not lost the Gecko. (But in that case, you should really work on being more organized.)
The project recently went on Indiegogo and has about 40 days to reach its funding goal $ 50,000. That's plenty of time for this well-designed, clever little adventure, and hat tip Woz does not hurt either.
Everyday steps that brings us to the Internet of Things are taken. We have seen this with Samsung TecTiles-friendly and NFC tags that trigger reactions in the phone, but even with devices like the Nest learning thermostat and smart lock Lockitron.
Summer's almost over, but it is also important to stay hydrated. According to the CDC 43 percent of Americans drink at least four glasses of water a day, and while the actual amount you should drink varies from person to person, four glasses probably are not cut.
That's where Caktus a Finnish startup neat hardware presented on the second day of demonstration TechLaunch New Jersey, comes into play. His mission? To fix that shortage of drinking with an application and a curious sensor that straps on your water bottle.
The sensor (called, adorably enough, the embrace) is a gizmo lined foam that wraps around a bottle of water and silently tracks your movement. Not just a tiny koozie though - the embrace silently watching the movements of the bottle so you can provide your users with a rough idea of the amount of liquid that have embedded so far. Think of it as a giant Jawbone Up that straps on your water container and you're on the right track.
As always, however, the hardware is only part of the equation. A companion app (iOS only for now) uses an algorithm to suss out which of these movements to the user to actually lift the bottle to drink and which are just noise caused by random motions. The application also tracks the ambient temperature and maintains control over what type of exercise you're doing (I still have to drill it yourself) so you can update your hydration goal in real time.
To listen Panu Keski-founder Pukkila tell the Hug (and the rest of Caktus) was born out of necessity. An extreme avid athlete, he got used to his girlfriend reminding you to drink more water while he was out carving up the slopes of the Alps. When he moved to New York, however, useful feedback mechanism disappeared and Keski-Pukkila set out to create something that could fill that vacuum hydro-focusing in particular.
And you know what? As downright eccentric as the whole thing sounds, the combo of the Embrace sensor and application really worked very well. In a brief demonstration, the sensor was able to pinpoint that approximately two ounces of water expelled from the bottle, and the partner application updates almost immediately. With a hug, you're not quantify yourself as much as you quantified the material that goes into your body. That said, the team is taking a proactive approach when it comes to all those gadgets fitness tracking floating around. They have already managed to bake in support for Fitbit users will not have to punch in the number of glasses of water you have taken down in a day.
For now the device remains strictly in its prototype stage, but the team is working with enthusiasm to get the hug, partner applications and an API-dev friendly ready to
prime
time early next year. So far they have enclosed $ 25k in seed funding TechLaunch throttle, and plan to launch a crowdfunding campaign in early 2014 to enclose the money needed to start mass producing these things.
Old
iPhone
springs are a depressing spectacle in this world of cables and connectors Lightning, sitting with his 30-pin connector exposed and alone. There are a number of Bluetooth accessories that can be used with these devices, including one accessory-maker named Freeda Auris. But his latest project is a similar attachment brings AirPlay and DLNA streaming to the docks.
The Auris Skye is currently seeking funding on Kickstarter, and connects via Wi-Fi instead of Bluetooth. It allows you to stream music from your iPhone, iPad, Android, or Windows Phone and Mac or PC on your local Wi-Fi network using proprietary streaming protocol Apple AirPlay or DLNA on Android and Windows. It is also Wi-Fi Direct enabled, so you do not even need to have a Wi-Fi router or network available for use.
Their are some advantages to using AirPlay via Bluetooth. For one, if you have other AirPlay speakers and stereos at home, you can transmit to Skye and simultaneously from a Mac or PC. Apple has also made every effort to optimize the AirPlay streaming protocol for a high quality, so you'll get a much better sound vs using Bluetooth, as long as the Skye works as advertised. Also, no need to mate; Skye should only appear in the list of available streaming devices once established in your network. Finally, the Wi-Fi range is much greater than that of Bluetooth.
Skye also do not need a separate power supply as it uses power from the dock itself, which is normally used to charge the iOS device sitting on crib. The Auris team says have been tested with a range of speakers now, and so far have not found one that does not work, and offer a control application get configured.
Headquartered in Santa Clara Auris already done and sends two audio accessories, so you know how to build the product. The company previously kickstarted their Bluetooth receiver, and raised $ 131,911 (higher than its $ 40,000) objective. It is worth noting that some supporters complained about the quality of this device in the comments for that project, but Auris has redesigned the original product, and has already exceeded its goal of $ 56,000 Skye, raising $ 72.197.
AirPlay can be tricky to do well, but the latest incarnations of the technology in consumer products have performed reliably, so Auris has much to offer with this project and a timeline for sending Hopefully December 2013 the company learned some lessons from his first lap, though, because this is a very useful accessory to have.
Google may have glasses and Apple may be rumored to be making a smart watch. Now Microsoft can be effectively buying itself a work of wearable Theater by paying up to $ 200 million in assets and a treasure trove of patents quiet Osterhout Design Group of San Francisco, an old USA military contractor.
The deal is not closed yet but we are hearing that term sheets have been reduced. They are still negotiating on the price and what will ultimately be included in the agreement between many patents Osterhout, which stands at more than 140 staff and more. From what we understand, the prices are focusing discussions around what Microsoft will buy from ODG: whether to include only patents, or if it will also include existing contracts, and staff. Google,
Samsung
LG and apparently expressed interest in the company, but Microsoft is the most aggressively pursued.
ODG has been around since 1999, and as befits its line of business people working in military technology, has been well below the radar. The only investor in the company that is listed on Crunchbase profile is David Spector, a former partner at Sequoia who is now working on his own startup, meCommerce.
We have come to ODG and Microsoft to comment for this story and will update if they respond.
strategic fit
Microsoft is at a turning point as a business, which is taking a big step in two key areas around hardware and services company. This agreement, and Kinect Xbox head Don Mattrick originally defended before leaving to be CEO of Zynga, is one that could help in these two areas.
Osterhout has built a business of military contracting in recent years which has about $ 40 million to $ 50 million in contracts. The United States government is one of the largest customers of the company. Osterhout launches its technology - which, for example, could be used in the head that can help the user to detect the direction of moving objects quickly, or behind closed doors - not consumers, but large companies and other organizations.
The access code can not die yet. the
iPhone
Security System Fingerprint Touch ID 5s can be unlocked with the finger, even if you are asleep. That means a jealous lover could hold the phone to your thumb while sleeping and read all your texts, call logs, emails and more.
Apple confirms that a dead thumb will not work. Chloroforming the victim could, but international spies have no luck cutting a
first
Minister thumb to access their insurance / selfies files. Apple also does not send a copy of the fingerprints back to their servers, and instead stores it in a "safe enclave" in its A7 processor designed to be accessible by hackers or other applications.
Apple has worked hard to make the security system ID Touch easy to use. So Easy A 5s can be unlocked by a cat, your toe, or even your ... member, if you have registered your phone. The real problem, however, is that Touch ID has no way of knowing if someone passed out.
Types of fraternities, with the head up. You could wake up from a night of drinking to find his bros sent a message to all your ex boyfriends and creatively rewrote his
Facebook
Profile. However, the biggest threat is likely to misuse by significant others.
It is common to hear the story of a suspicious girlfriend or boyfriend who went through your phone unlocked guy / girl while sleeping, found them flirting with someone else, and left them. Numeric passwords prevent this.
But Touch ID is vulnerable to "sleephacking."
As anyone knows which finger [s] you have registered with tactile identifier, you can pick up the phone to the nightstand, pressed against the finger to sleep, and voila, the phone is unlocked.
If you have personal things shadow on your phone, you must have personal things ... no shadow on your phone. And if the other significant rifle will through your phone while you sleep, you have bigger problems. But if you're stuck sleeping by someone unscrupulous, you may want to go to settings, enable lock code, and delete the tracks that you have on file.
It really all comes down to the idea that there is no password that humans have yet developed is convenient and 100 percent safe. Bit strings, no facial recognition, and no fingerprints. The lack of perfect digital security has become part of our culture - a risk and an inconvenience to no one is above time. On that note, I leave you with this painting play / poem Banksy:
The Makerbot digitizer seemed too good to be true. It was a solid 3D scanner, compact could replicate a solid object without much fuss and had a level of detail unprecedented in the home market exploration. It is now clear that this is more than a compelling idea.
I saw the Makerbot in action yesterday and spoke with CEO Bre Pettis on Makerbot experience in the construction of the entire system - PCB for that matter - in America and how it felt to be a manufacturer in the heart of Brooklyn. "It feels great," he said.
The whole system is surprisingly light and uses a special class 1 laser
camera
to raise a cloud of points based on the object to be scanned. You tell the system how light or dark the object and then click a button. A few minutes later they have a complete object that can be modified, edited, or digitally increase and then print to any printer. It also exports files to compatible files .thing makerbot.
A turntable rotating the object slowly so that each surface is scanned.
The digitizer will ship in October and sell for $ 1,400. Pettis promised they were going to have enough on hand to meet demand and that his factory was working overtime to get ready devices.
I spent my formative years using up AA batteries at a frantic pace, and I can not count the number of times my parents said they wanted to zap my trusty Game Boy dead. While there is nothing they can do to save my childhood now, people have worked Vonkil Technologies something that should help a new generation of parents away toys kill at will.
Enter Batthead, the star of a new Kickstarter campaign you want to do your rechargeable AA batteries much, much smarter.
Here's the concept in a nutshell: they have essentially taken a rechargeable AA battery and crammed a Bluetooth 4.0 radio and an accelerometer in it. You will probably see where this is going - thanks to a companion app, users can enable and disable remote batteries in order to conserve more energy for when it is really necessary. Of course, parents can put on their hats trolls and off remotely toys for their children from a distance using their iOS devices (the Vonkil team says that Android support is in the works too).
The accelerometer adds a curious little awareness to the fold, and users can configure to activate the batteries only when they are moved or oriented in a certain position. I can already hear gossip about the questionable value it brings to the table, but the notion of a flashlight that turns on automatically when you pick it still seems terribly clean.
Now I can not blame you if all this sounds a bit familiar. A seemingly similar concept called the TetherCell was successfully kickstarted earlier this year (although supporters still expect the first shipments to exit). The big difference though is down to execution: while the TetherCell is also controllable remotely from an iOS device, the fact that the product itself is just a sleeve that wraps around a AAA battery means there is only as the team could physically squeeze into the thing. Since the cell contains a rechargeable Batthead addition to large number of sensors, we are ultimately left with a more capable power supply.
Of course, there are some caveats to consider. Do not go expecting these things to beat a whole Eneloops confidence, for example. The team has not released that yet capacity rechargeable cell (I reached out and will update the post if and when they do), but I can not imagine that longevity has not had a success considering the amount of space for all those other bits must assume. And then there's the price difference to consider, too - a single, run-principles Batthead without an accelerometer will cost you $ 19 CAD, while the fully dressed version will cost you $ 40 CAD. Not exactly the most cost-effective way to feed their countless remote controls, but it may be worth it just for some handyman and home fans out there online.
