Mophie’s Samsung Galaxy S5 Juice Pack Gives You Ample Smartphone Life

Mophie has a new Juice Pack out, designed for the Galaxy S5. The case packs a huge 3,000 mAh battery within its glossy shell, which is slightly larger than the 2,850 mAh unit within the Galaxy S5 itself. True, you could carry around a spare battery for the GS5 and pop the back whenever you want more power, but the Mophie’s extra juice is just a switch away, and it includes passthrough charging, which is a lot simpler than changing out internal components.

The Mophie comes in a variety of colors, but the review unit I was sent is a glossy white. It’s like the Mophie battery packs you’ve come to know and love, with a curved back ensconcing the ‘baby bump’ of the spare powerhouse. Of note, however, is that this will significantly increase the pocket presence of your GS5, since at its thickest point it more than doubles the depth of the device.

It also adds length to the top and bottom of the 4.7-inch smartphone, giving it a physical footprint more akin to that of the new iPhone 6 Plus, but with a much chunkier profile. As you might expect, it also adds weight. But the trade-offs have immediately apparent value: You’ll likely get a full charge from empty from the battery pack, plus or minus a little bit depending. Given Samsung’s already impressive battery life on the GS5, you’ll find that can mean up to three or more full days of battery on a single charge of both the case and phone, which is game-changing when you’re using it on excursions.

I’m reluctant to carry around the behemoth that the GS5 plus the Mophie becomes when combined Voltron-style too often, but for special cases like conferences it would be a veritable life-saver. Mophie’s typical commitment to quality shows here, too, with a battery that should last you more cycles than lower cost options from Amazon.

Mophie’s accessory will run you $99.95, so it’s worth considering whether you need this kind of gear in your life before laying down some cash, but if you find yourself seeing that red battery icon more often than you’d like, it’s still likely your best, most convenient choice for spare top-ups.

Apple’s OS X Yosemite Reaches GM Status, Nears Consumer Launch

Apple’s OS X Yosemite operating system is arriving soon, and the fact that the developer preview just reached Golden Master status, alongside a 4th public beta preview update, means we probably don’t have long to wait. Last year, Apple released its Mavericks GM build about three weeks before it released the update to the Mac App Store for everyone to download, so Yosemite is on track for the mid-to-late October launch window many are predicting.

Apple is expected to launch Yosemite at a special event, at which it will also reveal new iPads, according to multiple rumors. The event will probably take place either in the first two weeks of October, or during the last week of the month, following a report from the always-accurate Jim Dalrymple that it won’t happen on October 21 as originally reported by at least one source. Given the timing of this GM release, either an October 14 or an October 28 date make the most sense.

The GM build is generally the same (or very close) to the final release that Apple makes available to consumers. Last year, a revised version of the GM was introduced just two days prior to the final launch of Mavericks, which took place on October 22, at a special event during which Apple introduced the iPad Air, as well as the iPad mini with Retina Display. Sequels to those two devices are likely on the agenda for any October product refresh Apple has planned this year.

New Macs are also likely in store, though exactly what will be revealed remains up in the air. Some reports suggest that there will be a Retina iMac line for the first time since the debut of Apple’s Retina display technology for Mac hardware with 2012’s MacBook Pro. There has also been a lot of buzz around a 12-inch Retina MacBook Air, though reports are mixed on whether this would arrive this year or next.

Another question mark is a 12.9-inch iPad that Apple is said to be developing, according to Bloomberg, with a reported launch date early next year. Given that Apple also plans to launch the Apple Watch in “early 2015,” it’s possible we’ll see a separate follow-up event that includes some of the products mentioned above alongside its official availability announcement.

Either way, this Yosemite preview software launch is likely the last before full consumer availability, so get your computers, hearts and minds ready.

Kahuna Plans To Avoid “Wrist Fatigue” With New Algorithm For Smartwatch App Notifications

It sounds like the upcoming Apple Watch and other wearable gadgets are going to create a whole new avenue for apps to communicate with you — and that could get pretty annoying.

At least, that’s the assumption at Kahuna, a Sequoia Capital-backed startup that helps mobile marketers test and automate their push notifications.

I mean, excessive notifications can get annoying on your phone, too. But founder and CEO Adam Marchick suggested that with wearables devices, there’s a risk that (for example) you could go to the movies, turn off your phone like a conscientious moviegoer — but your smartwatch continues chiming “every five seconds” because you keep getting notifications.

You don’t want to be that person. As the person sitting behind you at the theater, I don’t want you to be that person. And if you’re an app publisher or developer, you don’t want to be the one annoying your users in similar situations.

That’s why, in Marchick’s words, Kahuna has extended its existing technology and “built some new algorithms on top of it to determine what type of messages are really watch-worthy.” There are few big pieces to Kahuna’s wearable algorithms, he added — first, a layer that automatically limits messages to prevent “over-messaging.” There’s also an element that looks at the urgency and timeliness of a message (“Does this have to be completed in the next 10 or 15 minutes?”).

Kahuna can also look at the behavior of individual users and help developers target their messages accordingly. So if you always order delivery between 5:30 and 6 on Tuesday evenings, and if it’s 6:05 on Tuesday and you haven’t made the order, then there’s a good chance you just forgot. That could be the right time to send a reminder, Marchick said.

The company says the algorithm will be compatible with the Apple Watch and eventually Android devices as well. While Marchick pitched this approach as relevant to the entire wearable ecosystem, he also suggested that the Apple Watch will be “the first wearable that gets to scale.”

iPhone 6 And 6 Plus Arrive In China On October 17

Apple has announced the official launch date for the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus in China. On October 10, customers will be able to pre-order the devices from Apple’s site. On October 14, they’ll be able to put earlier orders in at Apple’s retail locations, and devices will become available for pickup on October 17.

The iPhone 6 and 6 Plus will be launching on China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom. The 6 will be available at a suggested retail price of 5,288 RMB (~$860) for the 16GB model, 6,088 RMB (~$990) for the 64GB model and 6,888 RMB  (~$1120) for the 128 GB model. The iPhone 6 Plus comes with a suggested retail price of 6,088 RMB (~$990) for the 16GB model, 6,888 RMB (~$1120) for the 64GB model and 7,788 RMB (~$1267) for the new 128GB model.

The “Impossible” Projection Watch Hits $1.4 Million In Crowdfunding

In what I suspect will result in a refrain of “I told you so” from multiple parties, the crowdfunding for the Ritot projection watch – a watch that projects the time and other data on your wrist using a low-throw projector – has closed. The project raised $1.4 million on Indiegogo after extensive chatter about nonexistent prototypes and problematic founder information (“It was public knowledge that the founder’s names, locations, and update promises kept changing, yet some shrugged it off.”)

Can this watch actually be made? First we must remember that there is no working prototype, a huge red flag. The bill of materials on the entire project looks far too expensive for the $199 early bird price although we’re not completely privy to the company’s plans. However, it looks like enough potential fools and their money have been parted, at least at this juncture, to make the product a reality. To add to the confusion, the project managers changed their location from the Ukraine to the US, citing image concerns. Indiegogo, for their part, does due diligence on campaigns like these but is not in the position to pull the plug except in cases of absolute fraud.

As we’ve noted before a crowdfunding campaign is a gamble. It’s a gamble for the backers and it’s also a gamble for the creators who, arguably, have far less to lose if a campaign fails. It’s also a gamble for crowdfunding companies: when a big campaign is considered fraudulent, the backers blame Indiegogo and Kickstarter for doing exactly what they’re supposed to do. It’s like a gambler blaming the house for losing.

However, campaigns like this one are no good for anyone. While I could imagine someone with more resources making a timepiece like this a group of designers from the Ukraine may have issues completing the project. I suppose only time will tell. Whether or not this product is another gust of hot air is anyone’s guess, but not many are optimistic:

“And so the deed is done. Congrats to nearly 7000 naive people, incompetent/uncaring Indiegogo staff and of course to the Ritot team who proved all you need to become a millionaire on IGG is a few photoshopped pics and high school level basic engineering.
To those who did not heed, I feel for you. To those who think you will ever see a product – Hope getting burned here wont kill your crowdfunding love, just make you more careful and properly review the projects you give money to.”

Video: Cirque du Soleil Does Its Thing… With Drones

Cirque du Soleil is known for doing incredible things with the human body. Now it’s doing incredible things with quadcopters.

In a collaboration with ETH Zurich and its Swiss spin-off company Verity Studios, Cirque has gussied up a brigade of drones to look like lampshades floating about their creator’s workshop. I’ll leave the rest for the video.

I’ve been to a couple of live Cirque shows in the last few years. Each time, there was at least one act that left me scratching my head, trying to figure out how the hell they pulled some act or another. If they’re starting to dabble with automated props that can whiz around the stage or above the audience, these shows are going to get crazy(/crazier).

Here’s the behind the scenes:

[via BoingBoing]

How Much Better Is Each New iPhone’s Camera? Here’s An Excellent Comparison

It’s easy to say that the iPhone’s camera has gotten better over time — that’s pretty much a given. But how much better?

Lisa Bettany, co-founder of Camera+, decided to put it to the test. Eight generations of iPhone, lined up in a row… all taking the same photo.

The results are pretty damn neat. The differences start to get a bit less massive as you reach the last generation or two — but they’re definitely still noticeable. I’d forgotten how bad the first two iPhones were at Macro photos.

It’s also a great way to highlight the quirks of each generation’s sensor. Take a look at the crazy color processing/flaring of the iPhone 4 photo up top, for example. If you said #nofilter on that, no one would’ve believed you.

These screenshots don’t quite do the shoot-out justice. Check out Lisa’s fully interactive side-by-side comparisons here.

(Note: that link seems to be having intermittent issues under increased traffic. If the photos are full size by default rather than a fancy expanding side-by-side, or if the site fails to load completely, try again later)

The $5 Lineable Bracelet Tracks Your Kids When They Wander Away

The Lineable, the unfortunately named tracking bracelet for kids, aims to make it easier for parents to keep tabs on their little ones thanks to the magic of beacons. Essentially a wearable iOS-compatible beacon, the device notifies you when your child is too far away and it allows other iPhones to become a sort of ad hoc GPS system that can track your little one through the dark, scary woods (provided he or she is also surrounded by Lineable users.)

Created by Tyler Moon, a former Samsung developer, the Beacon and Bluetooth 4.0 compatible device that will cost a mere $5. To use it parents will slap it on their wee ones. When the wee ones leave the Beacon tracking area, the parents get a notification. Then, when the baby is too far from home, other Lineable users get notifications when the kid is near. This mesh network obviously depends on the popularity of the product, but I could see it being useful in bigger schools or playgrounds. The bracelet battery lasts a year and, interestingly, it features a patent-pending method to engage the battery when you’re ready to use the device, thereby preventing run-down while in storage.

A “multiple children” mode will allow teachers to keep tabs on multiple kids at the same time.

“Lineable connects all Lineable app users globally and use their smartphones to track lost children,” said Moon. “Lineable will utilize the resources of other nearby smartphones with Lineable apps to track its locations and this could expand globally as well.”

What inspired the product? “As Beacon and Bluetooth 4.0 are out in the market, Lineable thought of using these technologies in various areas,” said Moon. “Narrowing down the focus in a specific area, we decided families and children needed help and also children going missing are one of the biggest social issue that United States face as well.”

The project has hit $16,000 on Indiegogo, more than halfway to its $30K goal. The bracelet should ship in February 2015.

While the viral properties might be a bit ambitious, I’m sure there are some parents out there who want to know when their kids do a runner. Sadly it’s not hacksaw proof so little Cindy or Charles may be able to cut it off in a pinch. That’s why you have to back it up with a proper Omnilink prisoner locator, available to parents and select law enforcement.

Bending All The Phones: iPhone 6 vs. HTC One M8 vs. Moto X

Before the launch of the iPhone 6 Plus, the idea of people being concerned about how “bendy” their phone is would’ve seemed laughable. A week later, I’m hearing random people in my just-outside-of-the-echo-chamber coffee spot talk about it like they’d talk about the weather. Strange.

Yesterday afternoon, following complaints of new iPhones coming out of their owners’ pockets bent, YouTuber Lewis Hilsenteger posted a video of himself managing to bend the iPhone 6 Plus without much effort.

Today, he’s back with more phones. Does the iPhone 6 bend the way the 6 Plus does? What about other aluminum-backed phones, like the HTC One M8?

It’s about as unscientific as it gets, but if we’re considering “however hard this guy can push with his bare hands” as a standardized unit of measure, the iPhone 6 seems to fare considerably better than the 6 Plus did. The One M8 groans a little and the screen temporarily jumps out of place, but there was no permanent damage. The 2014 Moto X, meanwhile, seems to put up a helluva fight.

(If you’re interested in seeing what sorts of things companies do to test their phones against all sorts of different potentially damaging situations, check out these videos I shot of Nokia’s hardware damage labs way back in 2008. A phone’s tendency to bend would likely be tested with something like the machine shown in the over-extension test video.)

And for those who missed it, his original 6 Plus bending video:

relayr Gets $2.3M To Foster An Internet Of Things App Ecosystem

Berlin-based relayr, maker of the WunderBar, an Internet of Things (IoT) hardware dev kit which resembles a chunky chocolate bar, has closed a $2.3 million seed round, from unnamed U.S. and Switzerland-based investors.

The startup had previously raised a €250,000 friend and family round, and had been on track to close a €500,000 seed earlier this year — but received a higher funding offer from a different set of investors, which is the $2.3M round it’s reporting today.

relayr said its new seed investment will be put towards expanding its presence in the U.S., with the startup having already established a foothold in North America, with plans for more growth and upping its visibility there (it’s recently been showcasing its kit at DroidCon NYC and the World Maker Faire). It’s not abandoning Berlin, though, and intends to relocate to a new, larger HQ in the German capital at the end of September to accommodate planned new hires to expand its 20-strong tech and community teams.

The startup took the wraps off its WunderBar kit at the start of this year, before launching a crowdfunding campaign, back in March, on the hardware-focused Dragon Innovation platform, with the aim of getting the kit into the hands of developers who want to get started building apps that talk to connected objects. The crowdfunder brought in more than $111,000.

relayr’s thinking — with the WunderBar — is that software devs might not be quite so comfortable wrangling soldering irons and chips as they are lines of code. And so furnishing them with a plug and play hardware kit, complete with SDKs and an API for easy interfacing, will smooth the way for app makers to become IoT app builders.

But the hardware dev kit is just one part of relayr’s vision; the larger play is a cloud services platform (that will be hardware agnostic), called the OpenSensor Cloud (OSC). In essence it wants its cloud to become a unifying platform for developers building IoT apps — acting as a central hub for data flows to and from connected sensors and the apps that leverage this data.

“WunderBar is an enabling tool and a short term revenue stream, but the priority and middle-term and long-term revenue is around the cloud services for developers and manufacturers, i.e. device and data management, visualisation,” says relayr co-founder Jackson Bond.

“The OSC is geared towards both app developers and product manufacturers. It is a cloud platform that enables sensor data to be used by app developers to come up with cool apps, and for manufacturers to rapidly prototype their connected products by offering a single platform for different devices to communicate with each other.

“It uses open APIs and SDKs for iOS, Android (and soon node.js and python) making it easy for developers to choose what platform they feel most comfortable developing with.”

Initially the OSC will be free for developers to use, but the idea is to monetize IoT projects as they scale — by charging for data volumes.

Bond says relayr also intends to build a ‘smart apps’ marketplace, presumably also opening up an app store revenue stream model for the company, based on acting as the repository that hosts and enables discovery of IoT apps.

That big piece is yet to come though. For now, the focus remains on shipping hardware kits and building developer momentum for the nascent IoT. relayr started shipping its WunderBar kits just last month. And Bond tells TechCrunch it has sold around 600 kits so far.

“In total, we have had 282 backers from 40 countries who have ordered 325 boards, the rest have been sold through Conrad Electronic. Conrad basically swooped in and purchased an exclusive distribution license during the campaign. Our pre-ordering opened after our campaign ended (also March 4), and pre-orders now total 300,” he adds.

The relatively small number of crowdfunder backers for WunderBar looks to be due to relayr’s decision to run its campaign on the less high profile Dragon Innovation platform, rather than its original choice of Kickstarter, which is less specialist but has a wider reach.

“Scott Miller, CEO of Dragon, had called us up the Sunday before we were going to push the button to launch on Kickstarter to convince us to use his platform, as he thought they could also help us to both market the product and manufacture it,” says Bond, adding: “Hardware is hard, and we are software guys.”

In terms of who has ordered its WunderBars so far, Bond reveals that just under a third (30%) of current orders come from companies, large and small — including Microsoft Device Labs, Cisco, LogiTech, ARM and SAP. Educational institutions, including the University of Amsterdam, and medium sized manufacturers are also part of this business bundle.

“Most of these companies are looking for a dev kit to play with and to use for rapid-prototyping, together with a cloud platform for managing historical data,” says Bond. “The rest of the orders come from independent developers. We now have over 500 sign-ups on our app developer mailing list, and an additional 120 have signed up on the developer dashboard which we just started promoting two weeks ago.”

In terms of competition, the199$/145€ WunderBar is priced higher than single board computers such as the Raspberry Pi and Arduino, however Bond points out that it packs more hardware punch — given the quantity of connected sensors, sensor channels, radio and bridging tech on board.

Each WunderBar comprises multiple smart modules — which include sensors to monitor temperature, proximity, light, color, humidity, movement, and home entertainment systems via an infra-red transmitter. Also included is a Grove Connector, to expand its reach to Arduino-compatible Seeed Studio sensors.

Apple CEO Tim Cook Says Tech Companies Should Accept No Compromises On Climate Change Issues

Apple CEO Tim Cook sat down with UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres today at Climate Week NYC to discuss Apple’s concerns when it comes to climate change, and what the company is doing to address the situation. Cook summed up his company’s efforts by saying that Apple needs to be “one of the pebbles in the pond that creates the ripple,” refer to inspiring a broader effort to improve environmental practice among tech industry leaders.

“You look at what are the root causes, and you’re not accepting that there’s a trade-off between the economy and the environment,” he said in the interview. “If you innovate and you set the bar high, you will find a way to do both. and that you must do both, because the long-term consequences of not addressing the environment are huge.”

Cook said that this attitude of not compromising is something that Apple has already had plenty of practice with when it comes to their product design and development process, which is why it makes sense to apply it here, too.

“That’s the reason that everyone at Apple [...] is not accepting that you have to pick this or this,” If we took that kind of approach to our product, we would never make a great compromise. the truth is that you can’t compromise.”

As an example of Apple’s environmental policy leadership, he cited the new headquarters currently under construction in Cupertino, which Cook said he expects to be one of the greenest buildings on the planet. He also pointed to its data centers, which use renewable energy for power, and to their efforts all the way down the supply chain in keeping their partners in line. Cook said that this requires real, hands-on work.

It’s dirty and it’s detailed work,” he said of their supply chain audits and partner responsibility programs. “It’s rolling your sleeves up. it’s not esoteric and theory, it’s real work and real projects.”

Cook’s general advice for how to improve the state of the tech industry and its overall contribution to climate change situation improvements are best summed up as a call for greater transparency. Without calling anyone out directly, Cook still managed to challenge Apple’s competitors to do more in terms of making their environmental effects part of the public record.

“I think companies have to communicate, to consumers, about what they’re selling, and they have to do it in a way that communicates the whole of their footprint, and not just the one part they’re looking good on, but all of it,” he said. “And I think that if you do, I’m an optimist, I think that if you do that consumers are smart and the vast majority of the world wants to do the right thing, so I think [transparency] will drive desired consumer behavior. if you have enough companies that begin to do that, I think consumers will vote with their dollars.”

Apple’s own environmental efforts have earned it a significant amount of praise from Greenpeace lately, where it currently ranks as a top performer among major tech companies, especially regarding use of renewable energy.

Now You Can Quickly Share The Best Parts Of Your GoPro Videos With BrightSky Labs’ App ’10’

A few months ago, we told you about BrightSky Labs, a startup that hoped to unlock videos recorded on GoPro cameras and other wearable devices and make them easy to edit and share. Today, the company is releasing the first version of its video-sharing app 10, which is designed to do just that.

The 10 app was created to reduce the friction GoPro users currently have when finding and editing videos to share. Currently, anyone who attaches a GoPro to their snowboard, surfboard or any other device usually ends up waiting until they get home and upload videos to their computers before being able to access them. Then they have to go through the trouble of sorting through all the content they recorded for just the choice bits and cut them down before uploading them to YouTube or other networks.

BrightSky Labs hopes to simplify that process, which they believe will make for a lot more shareable and shared GoPro content making its way online. The 10 app makes it simple for extreme sports enthusiasts to finish recording, check out the videos they’ve recorded, and get right back to the slopes or the surf, or whatever it is they’re being extreme on.

The app connects directly to a user’s GoPro camera via Wi-Fi, enabling it to capture video as it’s being recorded, or to access pre-recorded videos that are already saved on those devices. The magic of 10 comes from an algorithm that quickly helps users discover the most interesting snippets from their recordings, and to quickly cut them into shareable bits.

The app’s editing bay has a two-axis slider that makes it easy for users to scroll to a shareable section of video by sliding the cursor left or right, and also to change the length of the bit they want to share by sliding up or down. It also is able to recognize where a video is shot and suggest filters that users might want to overlay on the video.

Users can also add music or narration to their videos, either from their phone’s microphone or from a selection of licensed tracks that are available in the 10 app. Once that’s all done, it’s time for users to share their videos to networks like YouTube, Facebook, Vine, and WhatsApp.

According to co-founder Ian McCarthy, BrightSky Labs picked the name “10” for the app because the team wanted its brand “to be about the enjoyment from using the tech, not focused on the tech itself.” After testing with users, the company found the name resonated with users and how they felt about their adventures. “We heard pretty unanimously that it means for them “the best,” McCarthy wrote in an email.

Oculus Execs Believe Controllers Are The Missing Link In Virtual Reality

When you put a child in virtual reality, they instinctively raise their hands hoping to see them, says Oculus CTO John Carmack. Yet Oculus doesn’t have its own gloves or handheld controllers, despite rumors amongst the VR community that Oculus would reveal a controller today at its Oculus Connect conference. Carmack concluded “The missing link in VR is controllers”.

But considering ‘The Future Of VR’ panel with the Oculus execs started with the question of “where is the VR controller?”, it seems clear the company will move to build or support handheld input devices.

In fact, early today during their demo of the new Oculus Crescent Bay headset prototype as source told an Oculus employee they wished there was a controller, and the employee responded “it’s coming.” Yet currently, Carmack says that people want to see their hands in virtual reality, “and we’ve got nothing there right now”.

What that will look like is still coming together, though. Carmack, the famed technologist from Quake-marker id Software, said that “Controllers is such a factious and contentious issue that it’s not going to be clear when someone wins.” Oculus’ 22-year old founder Palmer Luckey said that “There’s no clear path towards what is best [for controllers]. People haven’t identified the problems.”

Eye tracking was another form of input the Oculus big wigs discussed as part of the future of VR. The idea is that rather than turning your head to move your vision, you could one day just glance around. Oculus Chief Scientist Michael Abrash discussed that VR headsets would probably have to support “foveated rendering“. This means that the resolution of an image fluctuates so the most important parts are higher-res. What’s important can be determined through eye tracking. However, Abrash said foveated rendering is probably still too computationally intense for current VR rigs to handle. In the end, though, the top priority is to not make people sick.

As for where Oculus goes with input devices, Luckey did confirm that it has been doing testing in the handheld input space, but it’s been a challenge. “It’s surprising how accurate you have to be [with detecting head movements as a controller] to make it good, and you have to do the same with your hands. Having any latency makes you feel like your hand is dead.”

Today’s Oculus Crescent Bay announcement was all about creating a headset which offers true “Presence”, where you feel like you’re actually transported into the virtual world. With a motion tracking headset where you can tilt, lean, duck, and even walk around a little, it’s coming close to accomplishing the first stage Presence, where it’s immersive as long as you don’t try to run around or lift your arms. But as Oculus Chief Architect Atman Binstock said, the next frontier is “Hand Presence”.

During the Q&A I asked what the execs thought were the advantages and disadvantages of different input devices like dual-wielding nunchuks, motion tracking, and gloves, and which is each of their favorites. Luckey responded that a great device for guns is not the same as a great device for swords is not a great device for productivity apps. He said there will need to be a device that’s good for generally interacting with virtual worlds, though. With so many different use cases for VR and different corresponding input devices, it leads me to believe that Oculus will build a platform for connecting third-party input devices to its headsets. This would leave controller fragmentation to the developer community so Oculus can focus on generalizable problems and opportunities that exist across VR apps.

This Robot Tastes Better Than A Wine Critic

Robots might be unseating the cherry job of wine critics soon. Researchers in Denmark have created an artificial tongue to find out whether expensive wine actually tastes any better than the cheap stuff.

The research, first published in ACS Nano, claims that an optical nanosensor based on surface plasmon resonance (SPR) can discern how you experience the sensation of dryness in wine. And they say this nanosensor can judge the way the tannins will hit your flavor sensors better than the finest wine critic can.

Some may argue that it takes a human, not a robot, to discover what is worth a sip. However, the researchers at Arhaus University argue that the nanosensor is free from the human critic’s personal prejudice. They may have a point. There’s a lot that goes into making wine taste a certain way. Everything from the variety of the grape to the minerals in the soil to what kind of sunlight the grapes received chemically affects the taste and smell of the wine from season to season – in even the same grape.

According to MarketWatch, over 31.4 billion 750 ml bottles of wine are bought and sold throughout the world every year. While some standard ratings have been placed on wine and there’s a decent following in wine personalities and what they recommend, everyone has different tastes in what they like. This makes it particularly hard to decide which wine will do at the local grocery store.

PhD student Joana Guerreiro has taken part in developing a sensor, which – by using nanoscience – can measure how we experience the feeling of dryness in wine. Photo: Lars Kruse, Aarhus University.

Instead of telling you that this wine tastes of leather bound books and mahogany, the nanosensor lets you know just how astringent the wine is. It does this by measuring the molecules in your mouth instead.

“The sensation arises because of the interaction between small organic molecules in the wine and proteins in your mouth. This interaction gets the proteins to change their structure and clump together. Until now, the focus has been on the clumping together that takes place fairly late in the process.

With the sensor, we’ve developed a method that mimics the binding and change in the structure of the proteins, i.e. the early part of the process. It’s a more sensitive method, and it reproduces the effect of the astringency better,” says researcher Joana Guerreiro.

The researchers point out that this technique is not new, but that using it to create a sensor that can measure an effect rather than just a number of molecules is. And the technique can be applied to much more than just wine.

Arhaus University indicates on its website that the science behind this machine can also be applied on a molecular level to develop targeted medicine. “The sensor can be used for diagnostic purposes. It could possibly be helpful for discovering and even preventing diseases,” says Duncan Sutherland, research director for the study.

IMAGE BY Shutterstock

Apple Sells 10 Million iPhone 6 And 6 Plus Devices During Launch Weekend

Apple has officially confirmed a total of 10 million iPhone 6 and 6 Plus sales during their initial weekend on sale. This is a new record for an iPhone launch, besting the 9 million iPhone 5s and 5c sales from that launch last year, and far outpacing the 5 million new iPhone 5 devices sold back in 2012.

Analyst estimates for launch weekend sales ranged from between 7-8 million from Bernstein’s Toni Sacconaghi, up to sales in the “low teens” of millions from Wells Fargo analyst Maynard Um. Many had pegged launch device numbers at around 10 million, citing supply constraints as a limiting factor. Apple’s iPhone 6 and 6 Plus also launched in one fewer country than did the iPhone 5 and 5s, and that country was a significant one for Apple: China, which has recently become one of its primary hardware revenue drivers.

Apple had previously announced a record-setting 4 million iPhone 6 and 6 Plus pre-orders during the first 24 hours of availability, after they originally went up for order on Friday, September 12. The previous announced, official pre-order record was 2 million, set by the iPhone 5 two years ago. The intense pre-order demand, paired with the unprecedented line sizes reported at most stores last Friday when the new iPhones officially went on sale explain the record-setting number of pre-orders, and Apple’s assurance that demand far exceeded supply during initial sales. Apple CEO Tim Cook said in the press release accompanying today’s announcement that sell-through records with this generation of iPhone were exceeded “by a larger margin” and that the company could have sold “many more iPhones with greater supply.”

By the end of this week, Apple intends to open up iPhone 6 and 6 Plus sales to 20 additional countries, including Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Isle of Man, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates. As far of a breakdown of which device is more in demand, Apple generally doesn’t provide a detailed mix when announcing new device numbers, but thus far analysts seem to agree the iPhone 6 is in greater demand, though the 6 Plus is likely in shorter supply.

Karma Rolls Out An LTE Version Of Its Pay-As-You-Go Mobile Hotspot, Pre-Order For $99

Karma, makers of the small, portable Wi-Fi hotspot that lets you pay-as-you-go, contract free, for the data you use ($14/1 GB), is now accepting pre-orders for its latest device, the Karma Go portable LTE Wi-Fi hotspot. The new device, which also supports up to 8 concurrent users, runs on Sprint’s Nationwide 4G LTE network, with fallback to 3G CDMA.

Before, the device ran on Sprint’s 4G WiMAX network (previously known as Clearwire.) Now that the company has switched to LTE, the Karma Go provides users with broader coverage.

The new device maintains its lilliputian size, at 2.59″ x 2.59″ x .47″, so it easily slides into your pocket. It also offers up to 220 hours of battery life in standby mode, or 5 hours during use with upload speeds of 2-3 Mb/s and download speeds of 6-8 Mb/s.

As before, the data you purchase to use with Karma never expires, allowing you a true pay-as-you go experience without having to commit to a contract. That makes the device ideal for the occasional business traveler, for example, or anyone who doesn’t like getting stuck without an internet connection.

In addition, what really makes the company unique is its philosophy around Wi-Fi sharing. Unlike with the mobile hotspots sold by mobile operators, Karma users are encouraged – and incentivized – to share their connection by earning free data for doing so. When a Karma hotspot is powered on, it broadcasts a signal like “Free Wi-Fi by Karma,” and when others connect to it they’re prompted to login with their own Karma account or create a new one. After doing so, both the sharer and recipient earn 100 MB of free data.

You can also save on data fees by purchasing data in bulk. For example, if you buy 10 GBs, the cost comes down to $9.90/GB.

The new Karma Go is available on pre-order for $99, though it will eventually retail for $149. Current Karma customers can also receive an additional discount for upgrading. The devices will ship in December.

Correction: The device dimensions had a misplaced “.” (typo). This was changed. 

Rumor: Oculus Will Unveil A Handheld Virtual Reality Controller [Update: Not Yet, But Coming]

Oculus‘ headset lets you look around virtual reality but requires integrations with unofficial controllers to move an avatar, fire weapons, or input other commands. But at tomorrow’s Oculus Connect virtual reality conference, sources say Oculus is expected to unveil an official controller or controller industry standard to make it easier for developers to build more complex games. Several developers have been placed under NDA regarding the conference’s big news, though sources could not confirm details. However, four sources told TechCrunch that a gamepad is what’s being whispered around the Los Angeles VR community.

[Update 9/20/14 12:45pm PST: Oculus did not reveal a handheld controller today, instead showing off its new Crescent Bay feature prototype headset that's the successor to the DK2, and the Oculus Platform VR app marketplace. However, when a source was getting a demo of the Crescent Bay and told an Oculus employee they wished there was a handheld controller, the employee replied "it's coming."]

The Sixense STEM System wireless virtual reality controller

One developer told us that code in the new Oculus SDK implies some official controller or API for connecting the Rift headset to a gamepad is on the way. The news makes a lot of sense considering that earlier this year, Oculus acquired Carbon Design, which designed the Xbox 360 controller and the Kinect motion sensor. We’ve reached out to Oculus for comment.

Right now, some developers use hacked console video game controllers or third-party VR controllers like the Sixense STEM to pipe inputs beyond head movements into Oculus. I tried the lightsaber game demoed below last night at TechCrunch’s Virtual Reality Meetup in LA, and the Sixense STEM felt natural and easy to pick up (literally). It was clear why Oculus would want to officially support these kinds of experiences.

Oculus could potentially release an input device of its own design. This could look like a traditional Xbox controller that may or may not have motion control, or like two handheld Wii Nunchucks which would allow for more realistic wielding of objects, such as pistols, swords, or a bow and arrow like in Survios’ ‘Zombies On The Holodeck’.

Alternatively, Oculus may simply create a standard for controllers built by third-parties like Sixense that could connect to the Rift, along the lines of the MFi standard for game controllers introduced by Apple with iOS 7 last year. It would then likely present an example of these controllers built by partner.

The Sixense Razer Hydra controller

Since the Rift already uses a camera facing the user to detect head movement, controllers could piggyback on the same platform to recognize how a user moves the input device or devices.

An official input device or platform could unify some of the fragmented VR space, encouraging developers to invest in building games, art, and social apps that work on Oculus hardware connected to PCs and mobile offerings like Samsung’s VR headsets. That confidence will be critical to getting flagship experiences built that lure mainstream consumers to the alternate dimensions offered by virtual reality.

Come back to TechCrunch at 9:30am PST on September 20th to watch the livestream of the Oculus Connect conference and see what’s unveiled.

Additional reporting by Kyle Russell

Notion Ink Quietly Releases The Cain Windows Tablet

I place this here not as a recommendation to buy but as a reminder of the great Notion Ink Wars of 2011. At the time, Notion Ink was offering an Android tablet that everyone thought was the second coming and, when the dust settled, it was a fat load of nothing.

And now they’re back.

The company is setting its sights a little lower. Its next product is the Notion Ink Cain (irony not included). It’s a 10-inch, Atom-powered Windows 8 tablet with 32GB of storage. In short, it’s a stock, low-end Windows 8 tablet for $325. This looks more like a trademark sale than anything else, as the Notion Ink name was once considered a major force on the Internet, especially by a very vocal group of fans.

If you’ve followed Notion Ink at all, I suspect you’ll understand the gravity of this product, at least in certain circles. It is a reminder of another era when tablets were tablets, men were men, women were women, and Internet commenters were insufferable.

via Engadget

Oculus Reveals Its New “Crescent Bay” Prototype With 360-Degree Head Tracking And Headphones

Oculus gave the world the first look at its new prototype Crescent Bay today at the Oculus’ Connect conference (livestream), and I got the very first hands-on demo. Crescent Bay has a faster frame rate, 360-degree head tracking, and integrated headphones, plus it’s lighter.

Oculus also announced the new Oculus Platform coming to the Samsung VR, which brings VR to a large audience through mobile apps, web browsers, and a VR content discovery channel. You can read our full story on Oculus Platform here.

CEO Brendan Iribe called Crescent Bay as big of a step up from the DK2 as the DK2 was from the DK1. This still isn’t a consumer version, but it’s getting closer.

The Crescent Bay is not an official developer kit, but instead a “feature prototype” designed to show off the future of what Oculus is doing, similar to the pre-DK2 “Crystal Cove” prototype. The Crescent Bay likely won’t ship out to developers but will prepare them for what Oculus puts into the “DK3″ or whatever it calls its next developer kit, which VR makers will be able to buy and tinker with.

Thanks to the 360-degree head tracking powered by a camera on the back of the Crescent Bay, users will be be able spin around all the way so they don’t feel constricted, while previous Oculus headsets could tell if you facing all the way backwards. The expanded positional tracking volume and integrated high-quality headphones will make the sound of Oculus as immersive as the visuals. Oculus licensed RealSpace3D’s audio technology built at the University of Maryland. RealSpace3D allows for high-fidelity VR audio by combining “HRTF spatialization and integrated reverberation algorithms.”

Oculus also announced that it’s done a deal with game engine Unity to make Oculus support official for everyone on both the free and pro versions of Unity.

Update: Hands-On

By camping out, I just got the very first public demo of the Crescent Bay. Oculus wouldn’t allow any official photos or videos, but someone else still snapped a few and sent them to me. You can watch a short video clip of me trying it on, and here’s a description of how it felt.

During the 10 minute demo, I hung out with a tyrannosaurus rex, perched on top of a skyscraper, stood by a fire with some woodland creatures in a polygonal field, floated over a SimCity, shrunk down to microscopic size to look at giant dust mite, and watched a SWAT team fight a giant battle mech.

The headset is remarkably light, causing no neck strain . The goggle portion feels like mid-quality hollow plastic, though overall it feels pretty durable for its weight. The field of view is much wider than the seeing-through-binoculars feel of the Samsung Gear VR, but it still frames your vision a bit. There’s some space around the nose that let me see out the bottom of the Crescent Bay, which kept me from feeling fully transported.

The best part was how quick and accurate the motion tracking was. At one point in the demo, I was in a dressing room in front of a mirror with a floating mask mimicing my movements. No matter how fast I turned or spun around, I couldn’t detect any real latency in the mask. The motion tracking always kept up.

The way it does that is with an array of tiny LEDs layered over the outside of the Crescent Bay headset. Unlike the DK2 which just used LEDs on the front, there’s a back panel to the strap that goes around you head which holds LEDs that can also be tracked with a camera so Oculus knows when you turn all the way around.

What felt most noticibly missing was a gamepad or controller for being able to move walk around or enter commands. This is what was rumored to launch today at Oculus Connect, but didn’t. But a source tells me that when they told an Oculus employee they wished the demo had a controller, they were told “it’s coming”.

Oculus Wants To Win PC and Mobile VR

Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe announced that over 100,000 Rift developer kits have shipped to over 130 countries. He said “If you love sci-fi, this is your holy grail. Today it is happening. Virtual reality is here. Just let that sink in. We thought about flying cars, maybe hover boards, and virtual reality. Now it’s here. Our mission is to transform gaming, entertainment, and how we interact…We’re really sprinting towards the consumer version.”

To do that, Oculus needed to nail “Presence” or feeling like you’re actually in the virtual world. That means nailing every component of a VR rig so that no step causes motion sickness. These components are tracking the motion of your head, CPU, GPU, display, photons, optics.

Iribe went on to explain that Oculus sees VR as dividing into two categories, and that it needs to win at both:

• PC-based: Where computers can drive the most immersive experiences.

  “With positional tracking, high frame rates, low persistence, and strong GPUs, you can create unbelievable worlds, you can create believable worlds.”

• Mobile-based: Where affordability, accessibility, and mobility will bring VR to a mass audience.

Last night, Oculus also announced it would open source all the technology around its DK1 developer kit on Github. This could help developers level up their own development, build components using Oculus’ designs, and even sell these products without having had to come up with them.

By creating official new hardware and software platforms, Oculus could help unify the fragmented VR industry which has been using unofficial hacks to make third-party peripherals works with the Rift. The announcements could convince developers that Oculus is a more stable platform to build on so they increase their investment and help it build VR experiences that mainstream customers will find interesting.

Coming off raising $2.5 million through Kickstarter and another $93.4 million from VCs, 2014 has been an epic year for Oculus. It took huge numbers of pre-orders for its DK2 developer kit before being acquired by Facebook in March for $2 billion. Despite a quick backlash from some developers and Kickstarter supporters for selling out, Oculus has largely reassured the VR community that having Facebook as a parent company makes it more of a reliable platform, not less.

Bigger developers began signing on, creating an ecosystem of peripherals and content experiences around the Rift. Most recently, the DK2 began shipping to developers and Oculus built a mobile VR rig for Samsung which lets you slip a Galaxy Note in to act as the headset’s screen.

Now we’ll get to see what developers will do with the new Oculus Crescent Bay headset and Platform.

This Week On The TC Gadgets Podcast: Apple, Moto 360, And Amazon

This week, you might have noticed that Apple introduced a few new products. That said, we’re getting to know the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. Meanwhile, we’ve actually grown more attached to the Moto 360 than expected, and are in the process of learning about Amazon’s newest gear.

We discuss all this and more on this week’s episode of the TC Gadgets Podcast featuring John Biggs, Jordan Crook, Natasha Lomas and Darrell Etherington.

Have a good Friday, everybody!

We invite you to enjoy our weekly podcasts every Friday at 3 p.m. Eastern and noon Pacific. And feel free to check out the TechCrunch Gadgets Flipboard magazine right here.

Click here to download an MP3 of this show.
You can subscribe to the show via RSS.
Subscribe in iTunes

Intro Music by Mendhoan.

Video: Man Buys The First iPhone 6 In Perth, Immediately Drops It Onto Concrete

WHOOPS.

On the upside, it doesn’t look like the screen got too busted up.

Plus, hey, even if it was shattered… at least he got a U2 album out of it*.

[* haha just kidding no one wants that]

Kickstarter Updates Terms Of Use Section Related To Failed Projects

Popular crowdfunding destination Kickstarter updated its Terms of Use today to clarify what specifically needs to happen if a project runs into trouble and creators are unable to deliver. The terms changes come on the heels of new FTC rules which state how online retailers now have to abide by a 30-day shipping requirement, or refund customers payments if the customer doesn’t consent to further delays. Though Kickstarter itself is obviously not an online retailer, it does provide a platform where products are sold. [See update below]

It’s likely just covering its bases with these changes, to make sure it doesn’t get into any hot water when the FTC’s rules go live on December 8. [Update: Kickstarter denies an FTC connection, saying: "Our Terms update has been in the works for months and was driven by a longterm effort to make everything about them straightforward and clear." The update is not in response to the new FTC rules, the company says.]

In Section 4 of Kickstarter’s revised Terms of Use, the company now explains that when customers are backing a project, they’re creating a legal agreement between themselves and the project creators, not with Kickstarter.

That alone could help to absolve Kickstarter from any legal action from backers who want to sue when projects go south, the product never ships, and their money effectively disappears.

However, Kickstarter took things a bit further in order to spell out exactly what is expected from creators when projects fail. For the most part, this involves communicating with the community of backers to explain what happened and why, documenting how the funds were used up or how they’ll be put to use to complete the project in alternate form, and offering a revised timeline.

Kickstarter also reminds creators that they need to be “honest” and not make “material misrepresentations in their communication to backers.” (In other words, scammers beware.)

Additionally, the terms now state that creators who are unable to stand by the promises they made in their project may be subject to legal action by backers. (The possibility of legal action has always existed, but that part was not spelled out clearly in the previous terms.)

The new Terms of Use will go into effect for all projects launched on or after October 19, 2014, the company says.

The company also notes that the updated terms have been simplified for easier reading and comprehension, with a lot of the earlier “legal jargon” removed.

You can read the changes for yourself, in full, here.

Apple’s iPhone 6 And 6 Plus Go On Sale To Long Lines Of Fans

Apple started selling its iPhone 6 and 6 Plus today, with sales in-store kicking off at Apple Store retail locations beginning at 8 a.m. local time. The lines this year are longer than they have been in recent memory, if not ever for an iPhone launch, and by all accounts this is shaping up to be probably the most successful iPhone launch day in history — provided there’s plenty of stock on hand to satisfy the gathering throngs.

Lines at Apple’s 5th Avenue store go on for at least five city blocks, for instance, and is estimated to be well over 1,000 people deep at last count. Queues elsewhere around the world are also snaking around city streets and packed with folks.

Apple’s main store in Toronto at the Eaton Centre had already amassed a long line that snaked around the entire upper floor of the mall where it’s located when I dropped by last night, with people spanning an area of about two city blocks indoors wrapping around and doubling back in a massive throng of people.

I spoke to the first three people in line: Frank Cranton, a Canadian soldier just back from Afghanistan who’d been there since Monday and who had never owned an iPhone before, only iPads; Ishan Vadera, who’d been there since Tuesday and who was a repeat iPhone owner but who wanted this device especially badly; and Bruno Wong from Canadian startup Orchard, an exchange marketplace for used iPhone devices.

Speaking to those in line revealed that most were drawn to this device because of the bigger screen and impressive new design Apple launched with the 6, though there were also many who were interested in the camera and other new features. For many near the front, this was an upgrade from devices older than the 5s, or their very first iPhone and a switch from Android.

The scale of this launch, at least as witnessed first-hand at the Eaton Centre, far exceeds previous new device releases, so it’ll be interesting to see what that means in terms of launch weekend iPhone 6 and 6 Plus sales.

BlackBerry Tries Again With The Porsche Design P’9983 Smartphone

Not to be outdone by the new iPhones or Galaxy Notes, BlackBerry is shouting “me too!” with the introduction of a new smartphone. Meet the Porsche Design P’9983, a slightly re-skined and re-worked BlackBerry Q10 with a 3.1-inch touchscreen.

Don’t be fooled by the swanky Porsche Design exterior. This is a Ford Fiesta with a Porsche 911 body.

Inside the Porsche Design P’9983 is the same hardware that powers the year-old BlackBerry Q10 including the same dual Core 1.5 GHz Qualcomm MSM8960, 2100 mAh battery and 720×720 3.1-inch touchscreen. However Blackberry threw buyers a bone and upped the storage to 64GB.

According to the product page, the P’9983 rocks a slightly redesigned physical keyboard. Glass keys. If that’s important to you.

So why buy the Porsche Design P’9983? Great question and I’m glad you asked, friend. Buyers of the Porsche Design P’9983 get a special prefix on their BBM pins. Yep, a couple of special characters. I’ll let the product page explain:

Be instantly recognizable amongst Porsche Design users. The Porsche Design P’9983 smartphone from BlackBerry provides an exclusive Porsche Design PIN ID group – 2AAXXXXX, which sets you apart and makes you instantly recognizable among other Porsche Design users.

Pricing and availability wasn’t announced yet.

Join Us In Hardware Alley At Disrupt London, Won’t You?

Disrupt London is fast approaching and I’d love to see you in our amazing Hardware Alley. This even, which runs during the last day of Disrupt, features all of my favorite startups – the hardware ones – in glorious technicolor.

What is Hardware Alley? It’s a celebration of hardware startups (and other cool gear makers) that features everything from robotic drones to 3D printers. We try to bring in an eclectic mix of amazing exhibitors and I think you’ll agree that our previous Alleys have been roaring successes.

We’d like you to register as a Hardware Alley exhibitor. You’ll get to exhibit on the last day of Disrupt Londo, October 21, to show off your goods and get access to some of the most interesting people (and most interesting VCs) in the world.

All you need to demo is a laptop. TechCrunch provides you with: 30″ round cocktail table, linens, table-top sign, inclusion in program agenda and website, exhibitor WiFi, and press list.

You can reserve your spot by purchasing a Hardware Alley Exhibitor Package here.

If you are Kickstarting your project now or bootstrapping, please contact me at john@techcrunch.com with the subject line “HARDWARE ALLEY.” I will do my best to accommodate you.

Hope to see you in London!

Korea’s SparkLabs Names Its 4th Startup Intake

South Korea’s SparkLabs accelerator has named its fourth intake — including its first Internet of Things startup (a company making connected flower pots); its first startup from China, a mobile healthcare startup; along with one U.S. business in the marketing automation space.

This continues the more international flavor of the program’s recent years vs its inaugural intake, back in 2012, which consisted of South Korean companies hoping to break into overseas markets.

There were more non-Korean startups (four out of a total of nine) in last year’s SparkLabs’ batch, compared to two this time. However co-founder Bernard Moon told TechCrunch that overall the incubator had more international applications this year — noting that startups from over 20 countries applied to take part. SparkLabs received around 220 applications in total for the program, he added.

There are ten startups in the 2014 cohort in all. Each will be put through SparkLabs’ three month mentoring program, with teams receiving $25,000 apiece in funding in exchange for up to 6% equity.

In terms of business stage, as with prior intakes, the 2014 cohort ranges from nascent bootstrapping startups with only an alpha product to their name, to more mature businesses that have shipped product and raised a couple of million in funding already.

SparkLabs held its third demo day back in April, which included startups making wearable technology, medical devices, and mobile games. The fourth intake covers businesses in the Internet of Things, healthcare and social enterprise space.

There’s more of a hardware thread emerging in this year’s batch, with three startups — Open21, N.Thing and Mobidoo — all building physical kit of some form, rather than pure-play software.

Here’s the full list of ten startups in SparkLab’s 2014 intake:

HUD Technologies: HUD has developed a new technology to render 3D-images of buildings by just using floor plans. They utilize algorithmic modeling instead of other methods, such as using panoramic cameras, to generate an image of the complete building.

Open21: The founder is a serial entrepreneur who has created a potentially revolutionary touch sensor for smartphones, TVs, and other electronics. There is no need for physical buttons with Open21’s electric field that surrounds the device or appliance.

Tree Planet: Tree Planet is a virtual tree planting game that has resulted in real trees being planted in the world. So far over 472,000 trees in 46 forests in 9 countries have been planted.

Beacon Family Doctor: A startup based in Chengdu, China that plans to enhance healthcare services in the region. They have a mobile application that connects urban households with doctors for one-time or long-term medical services.

Vengine: Vengine is building a web platform providing a hiring solution for startups that aims to tackle the lack of trust, insufficient information, and simplicity while building a standard of best practices and encouraging company culture.

Stayes: The company connects unrented flats with expats on extended stays in Korea. Unlike Airbnb, Stayes is focused on business travelers.

N.thing: N.thing seeks to connect people to the green things in life. Their primary product is Planty, an internet connected flower pot. They have a complimentary app that records your “green life” with a smart gardening diary.

Onnuri DMC: A new data management platform for mobile advertising. Their product, CrossTarget, is attempting to tackle the difficult problem of cross-platform mobile retargeting.

Mobidoo: Mobidoo provides an “easy and convenient” mobile loyalty stamp service to consumers and retail stores — aiming to replace paper loyalty cards and ink stamps with an electronic stamp that works with smartphones.

BuyFi: BuyFi analyzes credit card purchasing behavior of customers and automatically triggers a series of ‘set-it-and-forget-it’ marketing programs to convert one-time visitors into multi-visit loyal customers. Currently the company serves over 10,000 merchants through its payment processor partnerships.

[Image by Koshy Koshy via Flickr]

Roku Tops 10 Million Media Streamers Sold

The media streaming world is alive and growing, as streaming set top box maker Roku has just announced that it passed the 10 million unit milestone.

According to the press release, Roku has sold (not just shipped) over 10 million media streaming boxes since launching in 2008. As it stands now, the company has a media streaming stick (that starts at just $49 and competes directly with Google Chromecast) as well as three other tiered media streaming boxes.

In terms of software, Roku has 1,800 streaming channels and has been working to integrate that software into other manufacturers’ hardware, such as TVs.

Roku mentioned that their own customers account for 37 million hours of video streamed per week, doubling that of major competitors like Apple TV, Chromecast, and Amazon Fire TV.

While the stat is certainly impressive for Roku as a company, it’s perhaps even more exciting for the folks working on the media side of the industry. As users take more and more control of what they watch and when they watch it, entrepreneurs are lying in wait to jump into the never-ending mess of cable, copyright and courtrooms to try and unbundle the way we consume media.

Companies that have come before, most notably Aereo, haven’t been able to crack the code and truly change the way the media industry controls its content. But as Roku’s latest stat suggests, the world is moving to on-demand whether the TV industry likes it or not.

The Surface 2 Slow Fade

The 64GB SKU of the Surface 2 is sold out on Microsoft’s website, and, according to a sales person that Neowin spoke to, it likely won’t be restocked. The sales rep said the company is looking to get rid of inventory of the older device and “focus on the newer version of Surfaces.”

Remember the Surface 2? Microsoft introduced the successor to the Surface RT last year, along with the Surface Pro 2. The device was a large step past the original Surface device. Akin to the RT, it was aimed at students and other groups that needed mobility over power.

Lost in the cancellation of the Surface Mini and the release of the Surface Pro 3 is Surface 2 — it isn’t clear how well it has sold, and the future of its operating system, Windows RT, is somewhat occluded at the moment, as Microsoft isn’t expected to demo its successor until early next year.

Microsoft recently cut the price of the Surface 2 by $100. In a statement asking for comment on the lack of SKU inventory, Microsoft demurred to say anything of substance, instead mirroring its past message that it wants to get Surface into the hands of as many people as possible. Cutting its price is a way to do that.

You can still buy a 32GB Surface 2, or the most expensive 64GB SKU that also includes LTE capability.

It seems that Microsoft is leaving the Surface 2 behind. RT-based Windows tablets haven’t done well since inception, and the Pro 3 is likely Microsoft’s main bet for the Surface line this year.

I haven’t uncovered chatter regarding an immediate successor to the Surface 2. It might have been the Surface Mini. If that’s the case, there might not be one.

CEO Of Guess Watches Welcomes Apple To The Fray

In what amounts to a “welcome” turned sputtering softball aimed at Apple’s broad side, the CEO of Guess Watches Cindy Livingston wrote an open letter to Apple while, at the same time, proclaiming her own interest in the smartwatch world. Guess, a fashion brand founded in the 1980s, is best known for dress watches known as “department store styles”: the kind of pieces available at jewelry counters in major department stores.

The most interesting news, to be sure, is Livingston’s announcement that Guess is partnering with Martian, a smartwatch brand that produced a number of unusual pieces but has thus far kept quiet about its reaction to the Apple Watch.

Livingston writes:

LETTER TO CEO OF APPLE, FROM CEO OF GUESS WATCHESDear Mr. Cook:I wanted to write to you and welcome you to the Watch Industry and also offer my personal thanks to you.As one of the largest fashion watch brands in the world, we have been around for more than 30 years. In the early 80’s, there was really only SWATCH (the brand) and GUESS Watches. At that time, we had many critics who thought we were crazy. No one thought that anyone would want this new type of “novelty” timepiece. They believed that the only “real” alternatives were Swiss mechanicals or traditional quartz timepieces. Fortunately for us, consumers thought differently!

We are part of an old and proud industry. Every year we’ve experienced change in some way. Over these years, we have seen the introduction of quartz movements, the rise and fall of calculator watches, digitals, analogue-digitals and many many brands, both big and small. It seems that the test of time has shown that the wrist is an obvious place for both function and fashion.

Fast-forward to today and the world has changed. The proliferation of smartphones and the demand of consumers for round-the-clock connectivity have changed the way people access time. This has caused an understandable fear and challenge in our industry (even if no one likes to admit it).

We personally welcome this new challenge to remain relevant to our young, sexy and adventurous consumers who see as much importance in the device they carry and the messaging app they use, as the clothing and accessory brands they buy.

Over the past year, there has been dramatic speculation of the future of “wearables” and Apple’s entre into this segment. This week, you delivered! Just as we had in the early 80’s, there are naysayers and believers. I, for one, am a fan! Your innovation and attention to detail is spectacular.

In today’s connected world, consumers deserve the next level of combining fashion and function. We’ve always been much more than a watch. Now, we too are going to take that concept even further. As we look forward to the launch of our own connected timepiece for GUESS… “Powered by MARTIAN”, we’re happy to have another true brand innovator in our industry that confirms the wrist as the dominant place for self-expression.

Congratulations.

Cindy Livingston
President & CEO
GUESS WATCHES

Martian is part of the previous generation of LCD- and E-ink-based smart watches that are currently reworking their missions as the Apple Watch looms. Why Guess is partnering with them and not, say, Pebble or Metawatch, is the real question here but I suspect the addition of an analog face coupled with a small digital notifications window matches the Guess aesthetic.

While I suspect this was written in the tone of Apple’s “Seriously” ad published in the 1980s, I worry that the Martian platform will be sub par in the face of future contenders, a sobering consideration for the fashion brand.

via 9to5mac

First Wave Of “Affordable” Android One Phones Breaks Cover In India

Google has announced the first Android One devices — which are targeting the Indian market, starting at Rs 6,399/$105. Hardware partners for this first wave of affordable ‘Droids are Micromax, Karbonn, Spice and chipmaker MediaTek. It added that the Android One program will be expanded to Indonesia, the Philippines and South Asia (Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka) by the end of the year, with more countries to follow in 2015.

Android’s global reach is already staggering but Google clearly isn’t content with owning the vast majority (circa 80%) of smartphone marketshare. With mobile maker Nokia out of the frame, now it’s been consumed by Microsoft, Google has evidently spotted a new not-so-niche market for Android to own — assuming it can persuade basic mobile phone buyers to opt for a smartphone instead.

Writing in a blog post today, Google’s Sundar Pichai, SVP, Android, Chrome & Apps, noted that some five billion-plus people don’t currently own a smartphone vs around 1.75 billion who do.

Google announced Android One, back in June at its I/O developer event. The program targets emerging markets with low cost Android devices. The aim is to improve the affordability and quality of budget Android smartphones by working with OEMs to identify components to use and pre-qualify suppliers for parts to ensure they work well together.

Why should Google care about raising quality standards at the budget end of Android? First and foremost to ensure the smooth running of Google apps like YouTube — which is how Mountain View monetizes Android. Driving affordability and low end quality should also help to further bulk out Android’s marketshare, and perhaps drive loyalty to the platform and discourage switching to another mobile OS at a later stage.

Apple has continued to shun the low cost smartphone market — which has allowed Android to own the space (and others, like Microsoft’s Windows Phone, to make a push for it). Google evidently wants to cement Android’s low end dominance, as well as seeking to improve its own reach into budget Androids — given that a large proportion of low cost devices running Android do not include Google’s Play store or have any of its apps pre-loaded, so aren’t currently contributing to Mountain View’s coffers.

If Google can build Android One as a budget brand it will be hoping to squeeze out the budget ‘Droids that lack any Google services. Although — for now — there’s still room for those devices to thrive at a sub-$100 price point.

Another potential driver here is Chinese Android startup Xiaomi, which has gained significant sales traction with smartphone hardware skinned with its own UI, including a mid-tier handset priced around $130. Google may view Xiaomi as a potential threat, if it can scale large enough that it’s able to replace Google services with its own alternatives. Android One may therefore be a defensive play to nip the threat of higher calibre low end Android competition in the bud.

To ensure a decent apps experience, the core hardware of Android One smartphones includes a quad-core chip, front and rear cameras, dual SIM card slots (an important feature for emerging markets where users often need to carefully manage carrier costs), a Micro SD card slot to expand storage, and enough battery capacity to survive a day’s use. On the software side, Android One devices are pledged to get the latest version of Google’s OS direct from Google — so these handsets will be among the first to get the forthcoming L release of Android, due later this year.

On the data cost front, Google has partnered with Indian carrier Airtel so that owners of Android One devices using the Airtel network will get Android software updates for free for the first six months. They will also be able to download up to 200MB per month worth of apps from Google Play without eating into their mobile data allowance.

Also today, Google said it’s expecting more hardware partners to join Android One, name-checking phone makers Acer, Alcatel Onetouch, Asus, HTC, Intex, Lava, Lenovo, Panasonic, Xolo, and chipmaker Qualcomm. “We expect to see even more high-quality, affordable devices with different screen sizes, colors, hardware configurations and customized software experiences,” it said.

3D Printing Company Stratasys Is Buying GrabCAD For Around $100M

Some M&A activity afoot in the world of hardware design: GrabCAD, an online community that has been described as the ‘Github for mechanical engineers’, is getting acquired by 3D printing giant Stratasys, a source tells us. The companies plan to announce the deal a little later today [Update: confirmed]. We have heard that the deal is in the region of nine figures, and around $100 million. It is an all-cash deal, but the exact figure is not being confirmed by the companies.

The high price comes in part from the fact that there were several others approaching GrabCAD, from what we understand. Suitors included the usual suspects — others who have strong CAD businesses like Autodesk and have made other inroads into providing vertical social networks for the visual community like Adobe, which acquired Behance last year.

Apart from the offer price, Stratasys’ approach, which will integrate GrabCAD as a separate operational unit in the Stratasys Global Products and Technology Group, was the most compelling to GrabCAD. Hardi Meybaum, GrabCAD’s co-founder and CEO, staying on to lead GrabCAD operations after the deal closes this month.

This is the latest in a string of notable acquisitions by Stratasys: others include MakerBot last year for $403 million, and Solid Concepts (you know, the ones that made the world’s first 3D-printed metal gun) earlier this year for $295 million. While those two, plus Interfacial Solutions (also earlier this year) all furthered Stratsys’ manufacturing capabilities, what GrabCAD gives the company is a deeper play into community services that exist around it.

GrabCAD, which is based in Cambridge, MA, launched as part of the TechStars Boston cohort in 2011 (it was also a part of Seedcamp just prior to that — it was originally founded in Estonia and still has development offices there and in the UK). GrabCAD had raised around $13.6 million from investors that include Charles River Ventures, David Sacks, Matrix Partners and Atlas Venture.

What GrabCAD gives to Stratasys is twofold.

First, it gets a collaboration platform in the form of Workbench — which launched last year as a place for a CAD workgroup to access and develop local and cloud-based files.

And second, Stratasys gets a vertically-focused social networking community, in this case currently serving over 1.5 million mechanical engineers who connect with each other, exchange ideas, seek out partners in crime, and can access a library of over 500,000 CAD models.

“This is part of what got us excited about it. The value of what the GrabCAD network brought was so clear,” said David Skok, a general partner at investor Matrix, which was an investor in several of GrabCAD’s rounds. “So often the value [in social networks] is not, but what GrabCAD did early on was address the concept of engineer drawings. Drawing a model without a preexisting idea is very hard, so there is a very concrete value for participants.” And there was an added benefit, he says: every time someone uploaded something new, GrabCAD got another long-term search term into Google, “creating a viral effect to increase the community.”

There is a clear business interest for Stratasys in offering platforms to further promote the community behind the services it offers, it further ties in users to Stratasys’ ecosystem, the engineering equivalent of going from field to table, as it were.

This last point seems to be logic behind the deal for Stratasys. “The addition of GrabCAD provides Stratasys with a leading cloud-based collaboration platform for engineering teams to manage, share and view CAD files,” said David Reis, Stratasys CEO, in a statement. “By increasing the collaboration and accessibility of 3D CAD files, we believe we can further accelerate the adoption of 3D printing solutions and Stratasys’ product offerings. Together with GrabCAD, we believe that we will accelerate innovation and provide increased value to a growing universe of customers seeking to utilize 3D printing solutions. We also welcome GrabCAD’s active and important community to the Stratasys family. The potential within our 3D ecosystem is very exciting.”

“GrabCAD was founded to bring the world’s engineers together and help them collaborate to bring better products to market faster,” said Hardi Meybaum, CEO of GrabCAD, in the official statement. “By joining forces with Stratasys, a global leader in 3D printing and additive manufacturing, we believe we can extend the reach of one of the most exciting and innovative design collaboration technologies available. With its broad and growing customer base and worldwide presence, Stratasys can provide more customers around the world with exciting new solutions to meet their design needs.”

Vertically-focused social networks is an area that some VCs and others have highlighted as an area of interest as we see more maturation in social media, and a desire less for catch-all, huge communities and more for targeted and focused experiences.

Stratasys, which went public in 2008, is currently valued at over $6 billion.

Updated throughout with more detail from official news announcement.

DipJar Raises Funding For A Tip Jar Where You Pay With Plastic, Not Spare Change

The move to a more “cashless” society has not been without its victims – namely, those whose incomes relied on the spare change and small donations that once came from customers emptying their pockets, but are now locked up in digital bits and credit card swipes. The lowly tip jar today often sits empty, as few carry around the quarters and dollars with which to fill it. A company called DipJar wants to change that, and has now raised a $420,000 seed round to scale production of its hardware.

The round was led by Project 11, the new fund from Bob Mason, Brightcove founder, and Katie Rae and Reed Sturtevant, former Techstars Boston directors. Other angels in the round include Will Herman, Warren Katz, Joe Caruso, Mike Dornbrook, Bill Warner, Scott Heller, and others.

The New York-based company, currently incubated by the Bolt accelerator in Boston, was founded by CEO Ryder Kessler, a former director of strategy at New York cab-sharing startup Bandwagon and VP of Sales Jordan Bar Am, previously of McKinsey, and the co-founder of fruit importer Oke USA.

Kessler said the idea occurred to him simply because he began to “feel like a jerk” at one of his favorite coffee shops which only offered tipping via a cash-only tip jar.

Not only was everyone paying with plastic these days, reducing the tips overall, the baristas there also confided in him that they would rather the store stay empty since there was no financial upside to an influx of customers.

The problem with the reduction in cash-based tips means lower-income workers or those who once depended on a tip-based boost to their salaries, would likely turnover faster as they exited to try to find better-paying jobs, Kessler realized. That’s bad for the businesses who would then have to incur more training costs, and, ultimately, the turnover could affect customer service, too.

Baristas, of course, aren’t the only ones affected by customers’ disappearing cash. Deli workers and sandwich makers, ice cream scoopers, coat checks, valets, barbers and hairstylists, hotel housekeepers, and more also once relied on handfuls of dollars customers gave to them, whether by hand, placed in tip jars, or left in envelopes.

Though customers are now paying by credit or debit, they’re not always getting receipts, or getting those that do don’t necessarily have a line to enter a hand-written tip, because business owners don’t want the hassle of accounting for the extra funds and distributing those back to their employees.

This is what the DipJar, as it’s called, aims to solve.

How It Works

The company began building custom prototypes of the DipJar tip jars, and rolled just under two dozen out to New York-area businesses and charity groups starting back in summer 2012. One recent adopter of the technology is the Central Park Conservancy which used the DipJar to raise funds from those attending a film festival, and now plans to roll it out to visitor centers.

Currently, the DipJar’s hardware involves off-the-shelf parts, but with the funding, the company is working to scale up to mass production.

The unit itself is basic: inside the jar is a standard credit card reader, and not much more. The customer inserts their card and pulls it out to swipe, and the jar will automatically deduct a pre-configured amount (as determined by the business).

Just as important, the act of swiping makes a loud “change clinking” sound so the employee will know you’ve tipped. That will save you from one of those awkward Seinfeld situations (remember George Costanza reaching back into the tip jar because he wanted to make sure he got credit for having done the deed?). Kessler also says version 2 will include a light array as well, along with other refinements, to help encourage and notify other customers and staff of the tips being processing.

The funding will be used to grow the team of two to 4 or 5 over the next few weeks, and further develop the software for businesses that will allow merchants to enter in employee information and track tipping as a metric of customer satisfaction, if they choose. The team is also working to automate the payouts to employees, which are currently distributed by check every two weeks. And, of course, the hardware is being improved to make it a scalable solution.

The team is also gearing up to be ready when the shift to EMV takes place, or if Apple Pay helps push NFC adoption into the mainstream, says Kessler. “We already own the trademark for ‘TapJar,'” he notes regarding the latter.

Kessler won’t detail the cost to produce the jar today, or how much it will sell for, explaining that the company has been exploring several business models, including monthly pricing, upfront pricing, and pricing by volume. Similarly, it’s too early to disclose metrics of the DipJar’s impact on increasing tips, he says, since those can vary wildly by business and the DipJar only has a handful of customers today.

However, he would tell us that the DipJar hasn’t cannibalized cash tips, from what they’ve seen. “The DipJar brings in new money for the recipients,” he says.

Plus, he adds, though the team was planning to run short 3 to 6 month tests, “no one wanted to give it back…that speaks to the success of the product.”

Misfit Wearables Launches The Flash, A More Affordable Fitness And Sleep Tracker

Misfit Wearables, which has sold roughly 600,000 metallic, quarter-sized activity trackers or Shines, has launched a more affordable fitness wearable called the Flash. The company, which was co-founded by an extremely experienced hardware CEO Sonny Vu and former Apple CEO John Sculley, has been building beautifully designed wearables in the health space.

Instead of the burnished metal finish that the Shine has, the Flash is made of soft-touch plastic in seven colors from lemon-line zest to fuschia. It will cost $49.99 or about half of the Shine’s roughly $100 price.

“We used to call it the Shine C,” said Misfit’s CEO Sonny Vu, referring to Apple’s naming scheme for the iPhone 5s and the 5c. “But it’s not that. It’s not the cheap Shine. It’s really targeted toward a different segment. There are some people who love the sleek elegant design of the Shine and are fine paying $100 for that product. And then there’s a segment that wants a more colorful presentation with something more fun that they can afford to buy for their kids. That’s what the Flash is for.”

The Flash basically does everything the Shine does. It can track your steps, your sleep, your calories burned and your cycling and swimming through a paired app. It’s available for pre-order today and will ship in mid-October.

The interesting thing is that both the Flash and Shine are not even the products that Misfit originally raised its $23 million in venture funding on.

That mysterious product — whatever it is — is coming out next year. Activity trackers were just a more practical product to build in the short-term, and it’s turned out to be very lucrative.

Vu said Misfit is profitable and doesn’t really need to return to the table for additional financing. The company’s backers include Founders Fund, Khosla Ventures and Li Ka-shing’s Horizons.

The company’s ties to Apple have also helped tremendously via distribution partnerships in Apple stores.