Automatic Vision-Correcting Displays Could Let You Ditch The Reading Glasses

MIT’s research department working with the University of California at Berkeley has created digital display tech that can automatically compensate for vision problems, eliminating the need for glasses or contacts for specific uses like reading or viewing GPS navigation devices for far-sighted folks, among other potential uses.

The new display tech is actually a variation on glasses-free 3D, which works not by displaying different images to both the left and right eyes, but by sending slightly different images to different parts of each pupil, simulating an image that appears right where their sweet spot is in terms of focal distance. While the tech does mean a slight reduction in image resolution, it isn’t all that dramatic, though the use of a screen with pinholes designed to block light from hitting specific pats of the pupil mean that brightness is drastically reduced. Still, a viable solution to this problem already exists and could be implemented in commercial versions.

As for how this tech might be used, the MIT team that developed it images solutions for age-related vision loss, which generally takes the form of farsightedness – that means that if you can see far but can’t read up close, you could use a GPS unit with this kind of screen to avoid having to wear bifocals or varifocals, which come with their own downsides in terms of their effect on the wearer.

It’d be great to see this built into a Kindle, too, or other kind of tablet to potentially do away with the need for reading glasses or very slight bifocals altogether. I’m definitely going to need bifocals at some point, so here’s hoping our devices of the future are smart enough to eliminate the need for them altogether without any invasive surgery required.

The NFL Gets Quantified Intelligence, Courtesy Of Shoulder Pad-Mounted Motion Trackers

The NFL is making a move to integrate RFID-based activity-tracking tech to give fans, coaches and players more information about what exactly athletes go through during each game. The Zebra Technologies tracker systems will mount to player shoulder pads and communicate with receivers installed in 17 stadiums during the 2014 season. They will provide information about each player’s position, speed, distance travelled, acceleration and more.

Zebra’s system will provide real-time analytics that can even offer information like the distance between two players, e.g. a wide receiver and the defensive back assigned to cover him. This info will be used for real-time information streams piped to fans watching at home on TV, as well as for teams themselves, who can make use of the data to change up game strategy on the field and evolve their game over time.

Sports are becoming more connected. More data could lead to big changes in the way the game is played, as teams increasingly rely on data-gathering sensors instead of imperfect powers of human observation. You can easily see how this might be used to fuel the development of second screen apps and experiences that sync up with live football broadcasts. And imagine how this newfound stream of information could impact research into the health impacts of playing professional sports.

Football has always been the professional sport seemingly most open to adopting new tech advances, so it isn’t surprising to see this partnership hit the NFL first in terms of U.S. pro athletics. It’ll be interesting to see how this catches on in other fields, too, and also how it changes stats-driven fan activities like fantasy football and video games, each of which have extremely dedicated fan followings.

JackPair Lets You Encrypt Voice Calls Whatever Phone You’re Using

It’s no surprise that pro-privacy tech has risen up the agenda since NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed the vast extent of government agencies’ surveillance programs. For instance we’ve seen a new cryptophone, the Blackphone, be born and gain significant investor backing in the current climate.

The problem with Blackphone is that not everyone who’s interested in privacy can afford to shell out ~$600 for a cryptophone, which only safeguards calls if your interlocutor is similarly kitted out. Nor do average folk necessarily want to ditch their current smartphone, or carry around multiple phones, simply to shield the content of their calls from prying ears.

So that’s where a new device called the JackPair is aiming to come in. Currently it’s just a prototype, seeking $35,000 in crowdfunding on Kickstarter to go into production. If it hits its funding target it’s aiming to come to market costing $89 for one device (to early Kickstarter backers), or $139 for a pair of JackPairs. To be clear, in order for the encryption to function a second JackPair is absolutely required — on the device the person you’re speaking to is using. So you still need multiple people to buy in to get practical use out of the system.

The concept is pretty simple: one box plugs into your phone, whether that’s a smartphone, landline telephone or VoIP client on a PC, via the standard 3.5mm headphone jack — and then, once you have paired two JackPairs to establish a secure connection, the devices will encrypt the audio before it’s sent via whatever network you’re using to the person you’re speaking to.  JackPair’s software uses a synthesized voice sound for the encrypted audio to ensure mobile devices are tricked into believing the signal is a human voice, not just modulated waves — in order to prevent Voice Activation Detection systems from screening out a sound they might otherwise identify as static noise.

How specifically does it work? The JackPair contains a port where you plug in your headphones so it sits between your headphones and the device you’re making a call on. To make an encrypted call using JackPair two people start a call then either one of them can press a button on their JackPair to generate a one-time encryption key. Once the key has been generated and exchanged, the two people on the call confirm verbally (or otherwise) that they can both see the same number displayed on their device — confirming that the call has been encrypted between those two particular JackPairs.

The one-time secret key (OTSK) is generated on the fly, using a method that JackPair’s makers say protects against man in the middle interception attacks (specifically they are generating keys using the Diffie-Hellman-Merkle key exchange protocol).

The pairing code that the two callers read out to each other, to confirm the call is now encrypted, is not the full OTSK but an abbreviated hash digest number derived from that key. As for the encryption itself, JackPair’s Jeffrey Chang say the audio is encrypted with a synchronous stream cipher –“with XOR’ed keystream resulted from pseudo random number generator using OTSK as seed, and periodic marker flag for re-synchronization”.

Although Chang hails from Taiwan originally, the team is U.S.-based — and aiming to manufacture JackPair in the U.S. too. They are also intending to open source their code so that their security claims can be verified by third parties and support for fixing any holes can be aided by a wider community effort. They say they may also look at ways to open their hardware up for review too — given that hardware can contain hidden security backdoors.

Still, Chang argues that having a dedicated encryption device is better than using an app to encrypt calls, firstly because it means the system works on devices that are not smartphones — such as landline telephones. But also because he says using a separate hardware encryption device circumvents the risk of the smartphone itself being compromised before an encryption app was downloaded.

“If the smart phone itself is compromised, then all bets are off and the encryption software alone won’t guarantee the security of your voice. It’s very hard for a standalone software app vendor to guarantee the security of your smart phone,” adds Chang.

If the crowdfunding campaign goes to plan, JackPair’s makers are aiming to get their gizmo to market this December.

The Philips Hue Tap Proves An Elegant Accessory For Connected Smart Lights

The Philips Hue system provides lighting that you can control with your smartphone, and automate with location gating and time-based alarms. But for all its fancy magic, I still find myself using physical lightswitches to turn my Hue system on and off, in larger part because often it takes more steps to unlock my iPhone, find the Hue app, open it and select the “All off” or desired scene button. Philips seems to have acknowledged that with the new Hue Tap kinetic light switch, which is an elegant solution to the one noteworthy failing of Hue before now.

The Hue Tap connects to your existing bridge with a simple setup process that involves just holding a button on the device to help it find your bridge automatically. Mine connected easily and once it was connected, it was relatively easy to assign custom functions to each of the Tap’s four distinct buttons – three small inset ones, and the entire face of the Tap, which is itself a button, too.

You can set the buttons to perform a number of tasks, including setting them to one of the scenes you’ve created in the Hue app for your phone, or turning off all the lights entirely. The one issue that’s slightly bothersome is that a button must be assigned to turn off all the lights – simply pressing one of the buttons assigned a scene a second time doesn’t turn the lights off as you might expect.

Hue Tap comes with a mounting plate that has adhesive strips already attached, so it’s ready to attach to your wall. These work really well and bond in just a few seconds, and then you can screw off the Tap with a simple counterclockwise motion to take with you around the house. I ended up mounting mine at the top of the stairs to my bedroom where I always wish I had a switch for the downstairs lights, and then I detach the Tap and take it with me to bed so I can turn the lights off before I go to sleep.

Philips is committed to building a vast ecosystem around its Hue lighting system, and the Tap is a great example of how they’re listening to feedback and shoring up any deficiencies in how the Hues currently work and interact with one another. A single bridge can support up to 25, though at $60 a pop you probably don’t need that many. It’s a great addition from Philips, however, and owning at least one should provide a nice upgrade for your existing Hue setup.

Pronto.ly’s Contactless Ultrasound Transfer Tech Aims To Best NFC

Israeli startup Pronto.ly is working on a universal alternative to NFC that relies on high pitched soundwaves to perform a contactless handshake.

Now NFC has its fans (and fanboys) — but it also has major detractors. Apple for one has so far continued to eschew adding the contactless transfer tech into its mobile devices.

But the fact you need a dedicated chip at all to fire this contactless medium up is arguably the problem. NFC’s requirement of needing a large enough user-base to make the tech useful has generally hampered adoption of both chips and NFC-enabled services, such as contactless payments, since there’s no critical mass of users to generate significant momentum.

Which is where Pronto.ly’s alternative aims to step in. The startup is building a technology based on using ultrasound as the contactless layer. It thus only requires devices to have a microphone and speakers to make use of the tech. In other words: no NFC chip required.

The system does not send the actual data a user wants to transfer via this sonic medium, but uses ultrasound to identify and authenticate a transfer device (or devices) so that a verified exchange can then take place in the cloud.

“The Prontoly solution leverages preexisting device hardware, namely standard microphone and speaker. With that we employ a timebase onetime password (TOTP) handshake between devices on the client level which is then correlated via our authentication server,” explains co-founder and CEO Nick Pappo.

“These TOTPs are the only thing exchanged over the ultrasonic sound wavelength (encrypted of course), no identifying or transaction data is ever transmitted via this medium. Once we have authenticated a transaction request between devices we push to clearance via the application selected processor.”

Pronto.ly has filed patents around filtering its ultrasound signal pattern out of background noise so it can function in noisy environments. Having a unique ultrasound pattern as its signal also means it can avoid potential clashes with — or interference from — other radio technologies, says Pappo. And even other ultrasound techs (which are, in any case, not yet in common use in the consumer electronics tech space).

That said, Pronto.ly is not the only company looking at this technology. At Google I/O earlier this summer Mountain View revealed it’s working on an ultrasound ID tech for its Chromecast device — which will allow multiple mobile users to sling stuff to the same TV screen via Chromecast without having to log onto a Wi-Fi network.

Google nabbed the ultrasound password tech from a Disrupt 2013 SF startup called SlickLogin by acquiring that company earlier this year.

That’s a neat looking use-case for sure, but Google is — currently at least — focused on one device and one use-case (logins). Whereas Pronto.ly’s system aims to be cross platform and device agnostic — so will be able to work with Android, iOS, Windows… whatever, assuming the device in question has a microphone and speaker.

It’s also targeting multiple applications for the tech — aiming to support whatever implementations and use-cases its b2b customers want to use its contactless identification/authentication layer for. Pronto.ly offers access to its tech via an SDK.

“Comparing what we have and (what we know about) Google latest announcements regarding Ultrasonic, they are concentrating on Login. For us Login is just another use case of many: Payment, Point of Sale, Smart TV, Access points. In each one of those and others, we have on going activities,” says Pappo.

Another advantage (vs NFC) is that ultrasound also doesn’t require proximity to function. The Pronto.ly tech can be tuned to work only in close proximity, but can also function over longer ranges. “One example of a technical challenge we overcame was the issue of proximity tuning,” adds Pappo. “We have some customers who require 20cm range and some with 5m range.”

Plus, unlike NFC, it can be used to broadcast a signal to multiple devices — as in a Chromecast-esque smart TV scenario.

Pappo says he has been working on developing the technology since 2012, founding the company itself back in April 2013 — helped by the proceeds from a prior startup exit.

Pronto.ly itself has raised some $600,000 so far, in pre-seed and seed funding, with investment coming from angels including Jeff Pulver, and seed funding from the hiCenter incubator and the Chief Scientist of Israel.

The startup in the process of raising a Series A, with the aim of closing the round by the end of the year, according to Pappo.

At present, Pronto.ly has multiple customers trialling the technology for different use-cases. While it’s not naming these customers yet, it says they include an Israeli bank wanting to use it for a contactless ATM for cash withdrawals; an Israeli card issuer aiming to use it for SME P2P payments (similar to a mobile payment dongle but without any dongle being required); a European bank wanting to offer a contactless ecommerce checkout process; and a wireless charging company wanting to do subscriber authentication using ultrasound.

Pappo adds that he expects the first in the wild deployment of the tech “within weeks”, via a device maker. Other deployments should surface in the wild in Q3 and Q4 this year, he adds.

In terms of business model, Pronto.ly is targeting payment scenarios for b2b monetization — working with large banks and the like — and aiming to take a flat fee per payment transaction processed via its tech.

“We will work with financial institutes and credit card issuers, working on really customized use-cases with them,” says Pappo. “We want to have at least ten big financial customers like that in one year.”

It also intends to monetize its SDK via a freemium model, so that developers can integrate it for free but have to start paying per user, after a certain usage threshold is reached.

[Image by Tess Watson via Flickr]

The SBrick Expands Your Lego Universe

Lego (or, if you’re pedantic, LEGO) is lots of fun. Lego Mindstorms is more fun. But what if you want to go to maximum fun? That’s where the Brick comes in. This $70 brick works with regular Lego and allows you to add unique features to your models including motor controls and light handling. The device is very similar to the actual Mindstorms brain but won’t take up most of your project space and instead can fit in an obscure corner. Bluetooth LTE even lets you control the brick from your phone.

In short, it’s a Mindstorms-compatible system that is RF controlled, compact, and far more programmable. What’s not to like?

Created by a group of Hungarian designers and programmers, the team is looking for £60,000 on Kickstarter. They’re half way there with 15 days to go.

“We built this because we wanted to have more fun with our LEGO, and it turns out to be a perfect tool to demonstrate the potential in our remote control platform,” said co-founder Lénárd Pásztor. “We don’t know why nobody has ever built a proper remote controller for LEGO. Even LEGO only built one which uses infrared.”

Obviously this project is in no way associated with Lego, which could end up being a bad thing for the team if the Danes become litigious. That said, they are quite excited about the project and plan on creating a set of apps for the brick as well as a system for sharing plans and configurations. For example, you can use the “steering wheel” version of the app to control a car or another version to control a tank. The app supports up to four SBricks at a time.

“The reaction of the LEGO community is overwhelming, they love the product and they love us for trying to produce it for them. We receive so many supporting letters we have never anticipated that,” said Lénárd. Time will tell what Lego thinks of the product and, more important, how cool it will be to have an RF-controlled super tank that can shoot rockets and roll over the cat.

The Modbook Pro X Turns Your Retina MacBook Pro Into A Graphics Tablet

Modbook has been making tablets out of Mac portables for years, combining the Apple computers with Wacom digitizers to let digital artists have all-in-one graphics-creating powerhouses that run full OS X software and come with ample pressure sensitivity. Now, the company’s latest effort incorporates the Retina MacBook Pro, and it’s turning to Kickstarter to fund this effort that should have artists drooling.

The Modbook Pro has the Retina MacBook Pro’s 2,880 by 1,800 display, and is configurable with up to 32GB of RAM and 2TB of storage, and the base version ships with Apple’s newly-announced 2.8GHz quad-core processor model. It’ll run Yosemite (which should be available by the time it ships next year) and the modified computer will still have NVIDIA upgrade options, two USB 3 ports, an SDXC slot, HDMI and two Thunderbolt 2 ports.

Changes include new option rear-mounted keybars that allow for quick entry of custom commands and shortcuts while they’re drawing and without requiring a physical or virtual keyboard, and a new keyboard stand that includes a way to prop up the device for drawing at angles between 30 and 90 degrees, and a full-sized ambient backlit keyboard that pairs via Bluetooth.

Microsoft has made some nice overtures to digital graphics pros with the Surface line of devices, which include pressure sensitive stylus input and ship with pens to boot. The Modbook option is a nice alternative for those looking for a Mac-specific alternative, but the iPad can also act as a stand-in for some of the functions that the Modbook once served, despite its limitations in terms of native pressure sensitivity and software compatibility. The Modbook also has Wacom tech built-in, with 2,048 levels of pressure sensitivity, and it can be specced much higher than the Surface for those that need more power. But at $2,000 to modify your own existing MacBook Pro, it’s also a steep ask in terms of cost.

This is the first time Modbook has gone the Kickstarter route, so it’ll be interesting to see how much advance interest it can generate in what is obviously a specialized product, and whether the changes in the tablet and computer biz will affect its ability to appeal to potential customers.

Nintendo Posts A Loss Despite Wii U Sales Tripling During The Quarter

Nintendo’s quarterly results are out (via WSJ), and the company saw disappointing sales of both its hardware platforms, with the Wii U managing to triple sales but still only achieving 510,000 units shipped overall, and the Nintendo 3DS dropping below a million units moved with a 41 percent decline in sales year-over-year.

The release of Mario Kart 8 still managed to buoy the company’s fortunes during the quarter, as indicated by the tripling of Wii U sales vs. this time last year, but the fact that even tripling hardware shipments for the company’s current home console only brought sales up to half a million consoles isn’t good news.

The company’s overall operating loss of 9.47 billion yen (roughly $93 million U.S.) means there will be a lot of pressure on Nintendo’s holiday quarter to impress and help the company make up its sales targets. To that end, it’s launching a score of games unveiled at E3 featuring popular franchise material and characters. Nintendo’s foray into Amiibo, its toy-based game integration system similar to Disney’s Infinity series, could help it make up some ground, but a real help would be price cuts on premium hardware like the Wii U and 3DS.

Nintendo has remained reluctant to move into mobile software sales for other peoples’ platforms, but it’s becoming increasingly difficult to see what else they could do to shore up their failing fortunes as their earnings slump extends. I’m definitely rooting for Pokemon on the iPhone, so hopefully Nintendo wises up sooner rather than later.

IMAGE BY Nintendo

Atheer Labs Releases A First Enterprise Developer Kit For Its 3D, Wearable Glasses

There is a pretty wide spectrum between wearables like Google Glass, which you take around with you in your everyday life, and fully immersive virtual reality experiences like the Oculus Rift, which take you out of the real world and are experienced in a stationary environment.

Atheer Labs, a Mountain View-based startup, is building a set of wearable glasses that’s somewhere in between.

“In certain cases, people need to do something in the physical world but they also need information or have to interact with the digital world,” said chief technology officer Allen Yang, who was a researcher at UC Berkeley specializing in computer vision and sensor networks before joining the company.

Atheer’s glasses let you see an overlay of information over the real world — like Google Glass — but they also let you manipulate digital fields or content with hand gestures. A sensor built into the pair of glasses can pick up the shape of your hands and whether you’re swiping left or right, or clicking on an augmented reality button. Sort of like the Thalmic Myo.

After an Indiegogo campaign back in February that raised more than $200,000, they’re releasing an enterprise-focused developer kit.

That kit includes the developer unit and glasses. Yang and co-founder Soulaiman Itani envision partnerships with all kinds of enterprise applications.

They’re thinking about use cases where a person might need to access online information but don’t have extra hands to tap on keyboards or tablets. Like oil workers in the fields, or doctors whose hands are unclean while they’re in the operating room.

“We’ve identified a number of these companies from airspace and industrial and machine companies and we’re engaging with them,” Itani said. “This could revolutionize workflow for large companies or it could change the way that hospital floors work with nurses and doctors being able to see vitals through the glasses.”

The initial developer kit went for $1,000 on the Indiegogo campaign, while the Atheer One glasses went for $350 to 500 depending on how early a backer joined the campaign.

Itani and Yang didn’t disclose the amount of funding that they had raised, except to say, “We have runway that we’re very comfortable with.” Investors listed on AngelList, however, include Georges Harik, who was one of Google’s first 10 employees and Hossein Eslambolchi, who was previously a chief technology officer at AT&T. A previous SEC filing also shows that they raised at least $1.5 million in January.

EA Launches A $30 Per Year Netflix For Games On Xbox One

I’d play a lot more games if they weren’t $70 a pop, and it looks like EA suspects that might be true of a lot of gamers. The game publisher just announced a new subscription service called ‘EA Access‘ for Xbox One users that will give subscribers all the games they can play (from a limited catalog) for $4.99 per month.

What games, you say? Well, there’s Madden 25 to start. And Fifa 14. And Battlefield 4. And Peggle 2. It’s a limited selection, but it’s a start, and it could cater especially to gamers who are interested in serial sports titles like Madden but who don’t see enough value in forking over $70 per year for generally incremental updates – a multi-title subscription service would provide more access to a wider range of games for the same amount of money or less, at $29.99 per year if you buy all 12 months up front at once.

You’ll also get the ability to play new games before they launch to the general public as trials, including Madden NFL 15, FIFA 15, NHL 15 and Dragon Age: Inquisition to start, and then buy the game to carry over your progress. EA Access memberships will be sold in retail stores as well as on Xbox Live.

EA’s new service is launching in beta today for a small pool of Xbox One owners, so take a look and see if you’re lucky enough to participate. There’s no timeline for a full roll-out, but here’s hoping it grows in terms of both availability and catalogue, because this is definitely and idea I could get behind.

Apple Updates Retina MacBook Pros With Better Specs

Apple has updated its Retina MacBook Pro line, with new Haswell processors that edge their predecessors (also Haswell) by small amounts (200MHz), and with new base RAM for the low-end 15-inch model that doubles the amount of memory it carries within from 8GB to 16GB.

The Retina MacBook Pro update is similar to the MacBook Air update Apple issued earlier this year, in that it improves what’s under the hood but doesn’t introduce any sweeping changes to the Retina MacBook Pro line. Apple last updated the Retina MacBook Pro in October of last year, when it introduced new Haswell and Crystal Well processors from Intel to the line, and improved battery life to 9 hours for the 13-inch version and 8 hours for the 15-inch model.

Price points for the new 13-inch Retina MacBook Pros remain the same, the larger models are now $100 cheaper. Apple still ships the 15-inch laptops with NVIDIA’s GeForce GT-750M, which is now nearly two years old. But you’ll get better value on that base 15-inch thanks to the improvement in the stock RAM configuration (which also isn’t upgradeable after the fact, so that’s a considerable advantage).

Apple shipped 4.4 million Macs in the latest quarter, which was up 18 percent from a year ago and a new record for the company for Macs sold during the quarter ending in June. Apple’s Mac line has gained market share across the PC category (which shrank by 2 percent last year according to IDC) in 32 of the last 33 quarters, so people are clearly happy with what they’re doing with machines like the Retina MacBook Pro, which got a price drop for entry-level models in October, too.

New Drobo Mini Networked Hard Drive Now Comes With SSDs, Ruggedized Flash Array

Connected Data announced the latest addition to its extensive family of external storage devices: the portable, rugged and expandable Drobo Mini with Solid-State Drives (SSD).

The company, known for providing simple redundant data protection, launched the first Drobo Mini in 2012. The new Drobo targets creative professionals, who can use the device to protect data on location and transport footage back to the studio.

The Drobo Mini, which weighs less than three pounds, features four 2.5 inch SSD bays and is also equipped with an mSATA accelerator option. The Mini can connect via Thunderbolt or USB 3.0 and the drives can easily be removed.

The key feature of this Drobo Mini is its form factor: it’s meant to be carried around on locations to make protecting your data easier.

The Drobo line is known for its ability to save data, even when multiple drives fail. The storage robot repairs itself in the event of a drive failure and provides full access to data in a protected state. Drobos can also rely on battery backup if the power goes out.

While most Drobo devices typically don’t include hard drives out of the box, Connected Devices is rolling out the updated Drobo Mini in three bundles in sizes of 1 TB, 2 TB and 4 TB, starting at a MSRP of $1,199. The SSD manufacturer is SanDisk, but the company isn’t exclusive to the manufacturer and plans to change it in the event of price drops or shortages.

IMAGE BY Drobo (IMAGE HAS BEEN MODIFIED)

The TouchPico Projector Turns Any Surface Into A Giant Android Touchscreen

The TouchPico projector is launching today on IndieGogo. Announced at this year’s CES, it’s about as powerful as a mid-range Android phone, and has a camera that sees when you draw on the surface it’s projecting on — it basically turns any surface into a giant tablet-like display.

The TouchPico was a surprisingly quick performer when we tried it out in our offices last week. While you have to use the included stylus to get the most accurate control of the “screen,” it was responsive to taps and swipes and didn’t take too long to switch between apps. The interface is stock Android, though it’s running an older build.

In our demo with the TouchPico, we tried it out with a few games that would be fun for kids, playing a video on YouTube, and a PowerPoint presentation. The projector had no trouble keeping up with games like Fruit Ninja or drawing apps, though the trailer of Dawn of the Planet of the Apes that we tried to watch didn’t show up very well, even in low-light conditions. The PowerPoint presentation, which we tested using a free app from Google Play, was a bit too slow compared to hooking your laptop up to a traditional projector.

With that said, you can also do that with the TouchPico. It has an HDMI input available, so it’s possible to use it as a dumb display for your laptop, game console, or even your phone. Darker content might not show up too well, but colorful apps for kids seem to work just fine.

At $350 on IndieGogo (and $500 later), the TouchPico is in the same ballpark as an iPad Mini in terms of price. Most individual gadget users would best be served by buying a tablet that can use all the same apps for the same price or less, with a better looking display. I think it could be fun for families, as the experience is closer to spending time around a physical game board than passing a tablet around, or even playing a multiplayer game on a console.

Business users who make frequent presentations in many small venues and don’t want to rely on setups at each location might also find the TouchPico to be a useful tool, though I don’t know how many people actually have that use case.

IMAGE BY TouchJet (IMAGE HAS BEEN MODIFIED)

Amazon Launches A 3D Printing Store With Customizable Goods

Amazon has launched a new store for 3D-printed goods, which include items that can be customized to change their size, color, material and even aspects of their design. The store covers a range of types of products, including jewelry, electronics, toys and games, home decor and kitchen supplies, and items are supplied by a number of partners including Mixee, Scupteo and 3DLT.

Amazon is touting this as the debut of a new way for the ecommerce giant to offer even more specialized inventory that can better cater to specific customer tastes. “The introduction of our 3D Printed Products store suggests the beginnings of a shift in online retail – that manufacturing can be more nimble to provide an immersive customer experience,” said Amazon Marketplace Sales director Petra Schindler-Carter, in a press release announcing the new storefront.

Along with the launch of the store, Amazon is introducing a new personalization tool for customizing some of the 3D-printed designs, which opens up a widget that lets you choose from a number of basic designs, pick the color and finish of your plastic/metal material, and preview what it will look like with a 360-degree 3D preview. You can also tweak individual aspects of the design with some items, including thickness and other dimensions.

Prices on items vary, but the most affordable tend to fall into the $30 range, and they go upwards from there depending on size and material.

The introduction of the store does indeed mark a potential turning point in the sale of online goods – it means the largest online retailer in the English-speaking world is endorsing a means of direct production and selling that could change how future products are conceived and planned. One-offs and small runs are much more affordable via 3D printing, so theoretically the sky’s the limit on the range of things customers could order, provided 3D printing technology keeps evolving.

It’s worth noting that Amazon only sells a set catalogue of 3D-printed items so far – it hasn’t yet offered a way for customers to upload their own design and have them printed as does Shapeways, for instance. Amazon likely wants to maintain some kind of quality control and not have to concern themselves with educating customers about the ins and outs of 3D printing custom designs, however – and this doesn’t necessarily mean that refinements in the process wouldn’t open the door to this kind of thing in the future.

Bose Picks A Patent Fight With Beats Over Noise-Cancelling Headphones

Bose has sued soon-to-be-Apple-owned Beats over patents it holds related to noise-cancelling headphones, according to a new report from CNBC. The new suit means that Apple has a brand new patent battleground, should the Beats acquisition go through as planned, in addition to its ongoing litigation with Samsung and others. The full complaint is listed on Priorsmart, and lists Beat Electronics and Beats Electronics International as defendants.

Bose alleges that Beats has infringed on 50 years’ worth of research, development and engineering of noise cancelling tech, and that its current lineup of these devices incorporates “at least 36 U.S. patents and applications,” broken down into 22 granted patents and 14 applications currently undergoing review. Beats products named as having infringed upon Bose’s IP include the Beats Studio line, which include the new Studio Wireless Bluetooth headphones.

In the filing, Bose also includes a brief history of the development of its tech, which began in 1978 when company founder and engineer Dr. Amar Bose was dissatisfied with his airline headphones and decided to develop better ones that would cut out cabin noise. Bose cites the QuietComfort line of consumer headphones, as well as a product history that includes the development of military specific headphones as part of the grounds for its complaint.

The specific patents Bose lists in the complaint include United States Patent No. 6,717,537, called “Method and Apparatus for Minimizing Latency in Digital Signal Processing Systems,” United States Patent No. 6,717,537, or “Method and Apparatus for Minimizing Latency in Digital Signal Processing Systems,” and United States Patent No. 8,073,151: “Dynamically Configurable ANR Filter Block Technology,” to name just a few. In total, there are five counts of infringement against five Bose patents named in the suit, which are supposedly violated by Beats’ Studio line.

Bose is seeking from the court an injunction against continued infringement, a full account of sales of infringing devices, damages including court costs, determination that the infringement is willful and upwards adjustment of damages accordingly, and “other relief” to be determined by the court.

We’ve reached out to both Apple and Bose and will update this story as more information becomes available.

The full complaint from PACER can be found below:

Bose v. Beats Civil Complaint

Update: Here’s the official statement from Bose provided to TechCrunch on the filing –

The filing is comprehensive and explains our position, and as a matter of practice, we don’t comment on on-going litigation. We can share that for over 30 years, Bose has made significant investments in the research, development, engineering and design of the proprietary technologies found in our headphones. Bose’s patented technologies enable the exclusive performance found in our QuietComfort® Acoustic Noise Cancelling® headphones. We are committed to protecting our investment, protecting our customers, and defending the patents we own.

Article updated to note that Apple’s Beats acquisition is not yet complete.

FRAMED Immerses Viewers In Digital Artwork

FRAMED seeks to stretch the boundaries of digital art and take it beyond the confines of computer screen. The full-HD IPS display itself is gorgeous, with a walnut frame, but it’s more than just an attractive monitor. It also allows viewers to interact with artwork through motion and sound sensors.

Created by Japanese startup FRM, FRAMED has far surpassed its funding goal of $75,000 on Kickstarter (it is currently at almost $262,000, with the campaign set to end on August 20) and is scheduled to ship in March 2015. Money raised will be used to cover tooling and finalize fixtures for FRAMED.

FRM was founded in 2011 by Yugo Nakamura and William Lai. Nakamura is a well-known Web designer in Japan, where his clients have included Uniqlo, Muji, and Sony, and Lai is a producer and founder of Tokyo record label TempleATS.

FRM worked on FRAMED for three years before launching its Kickstarter campaign and is working with digital art publication Creative Applications to find artists for FRM’s open marketplace, which currently represents 32 artists. The marketplace has already been open for three years, offering artwork through a subscription model, but Lai hopes that FRAMED will extend possibilities for digital its artists.

“That’s why we wanted to get people interested in Framed. With motion sensors and sound recognition, artists have a lot more tools to play with and we think that there will be a lot more visualization than can be done with traditional art,” says Lai.

Artists currently represented on FRM’s marketplace (and whose work can be displayed in FRAMED) include Aaron Koblin, a San Francisco-based artist who uses data visualizations to comment on social and cultural trends, and studio Universal Everything, which created Tai Chi by capturing movements by a tai chi master and then translating them into different materials like wood, water, and concrete.

Other potential artwork for FRAMED include a “mirror” which displays an image of the viewer with visualizations gleaned from their fitness data.

“We’re working on ways to incorporate data, working on different motion sensors, to create a mirror that shows a reflection of yourself but that adds input of your fitness data, such as sleeping habits, and visualizes it into an ‘aura’,” says Lai.

FRAMED supports a wide range of media, including GIFs, video, Flash, and openFrameworks, and you can use it to display your own images. Monitors currently start at $449 for a 24-inch one or $1,500 for a 40-inch display.

It’s currently a good time on Kickstarter for people interested in digital art. Another startup, Electric Objects, also has a beautiful digital art display that has blown past its fundraising goal. Called EO1, it costs less than FRAMED, but doesn’t have motion or sound sensors.

For more information about FRAMED, visit its Kickstarter.

The Smart Key Chain Will Store Your Files, Check Your Email, And Find Your Keys

Because everything is getting smarter, it would be silly to think that keychains would be exempt.

The Smart Keychain has four uses in one small package: USB file storage, upcoming calendar alerts, incoming email notifications, and a key locator.

The file storage bit, to me at least, is kind of a joke considering the powers of cloud storage. Still, an extra reminder for calendar alerts and incoming email on your keychain isn’t a bad idea, especially for those of us who have no plans to jump on the smartwatch bandwagon.

Where email is concerned, the Smart Keychain app lets you designate five people or organizations as very important, and you’ll receive any new emails from the important folks on the Smart Keychain. It pings your email every fifteen minutes, so breaking news in emails or time-sensitive stuff should still be handled on the phone.

The most attractive part of the whole product, in my opinion, is the key locator, with the extra features standing in as an added benefit. Users can find their keys by pressing a button on the phone, which will sound an alarm on the keychain.

The Smart Keychain can be pre-ordered on Indiegogo starting at $59, with options for 8GB, 16GB or 32GB options.

For now, it’s only compatible with iOS, but Android is in the works. Plus, the team is trying to add support for Rewards card integration, as well as a health/fitness tracking option.

Learn more on the Indiegogo page.

Google’s Chromecast Turns One, Boasts Over 400M Casts To Date

Google launched the Chromecast exactly one year ago today, and the $35 streaming stick has made some impressive progress in the intervening 365 days. The media player has added a ton of features, but Google also revealed that it has powered over 400 million Casts thus far, which involve users running software on their Android, iOS or PC device to displays connected to the Chromecast.

The device is also now more international than ever, with sales extending across 20 countries including the latest addition, Ireland, as of this writing. 30,000 stores now stock the Chromecast, too, in addition to its online availability through Google Play devices store. The app now has support for scores more apps than it did at launch, can mirror the screens of select Android devices, and has sold “millions” of units according to Google.

Chromecast is becoming more and more of true streaming over-the-top device replacement thanks to lots of iteration and feature additions, but its special power of Casting from Android devices is being baked into Android TV means that the Chromecast could become a transition device as its features are rolled into third-party settop boxes, TV sets and other devices. If Android TV succeeds as I’m sure Google hopes it will, users should be able to get their casting elsewhere. In the meantime, however, $35 remains an amazing price to pay for an accessory that does what Chromecast can do, especially given how keen Google seems to be on continuous improvement for the gadget.

Samsung Might Have Found A Shortcut To Mobile Virtual Reality Through Oculus VR

If you’re interested in virtual reality, then a new report from CNET that maintains Samsung is working directly with Facebook-owned Oculus on a headset that uses mobile devices to generate VR environments and experiences should get you excited. We’ve heard before that Samsung was working on its own VR headset, but this is further evidence that they might have a helping hand from a pioneer in the field, and the company that is arguably the farthest along in terms of delivering on the promise of consumer-focused virtual reality, following a report from Engadget in May.

Samsung understandably wants to create a VR headset powered by mobile devices, according to CNET’s sources, which makes sense given the potential such a device has to augment and drive sales for their main mobile business, in addition to opening up another potential revenue stream for Samsung in addition to mobile.

Rumors of Samsung’s efforts in VR originally came off as yet another example of the company trying to experiment in a potential direction for where the consumer tech market might be headed in the next few years – Samsung is perhaps the best current example of a major tech company that likes to spread its bets around, after all: The incredibly varied line of smartwatches it has introduced in less than a year is testament to that, as is its recent foray into high-end audio accessories.

But partnering up with Oculus could mean that Samsung’s foray into VR isn’t just another hasty bet placed mostly to get out ahead of the potential competition. Such a partnership would mean that Samsung doesn’t have to build the experience from scratch, or crib what it can by poaching expertise from Oculus competitors who aren’t nearly as far along when it comes to realizing the dream of consumer VR. If Samsung wants to achieve mobile VR fast and well, teaming up with Oculus is the right way to do it.

For Oculus, the partnership provides a shortcut to a key market they haven’t yet addressed: Mobile. Current efforts for the Rift development kits have been aimed at the desktop market. But if Samsung’s key expertise in mobile device development and design can offer them a shortcut to a market that they must, given Facebook’s focus on mobile, be looking at with hungry eyes, then that presents a huge advantage for Oculus in terms of anticipating the future of the VR space, and possibly reading a broader user base for its software platform, too.

The VR market is so early it would be premature to even call it nascent, but if Oculus is already working with major hardware partners like Samsung, that’s a smart move. Its new parent company Facebook has had success as a software-only company that’s happy to work with whatever hardware maker will further its own interests, and it wouldn’t be all that surprising to see its newly acquired VR company chart a similar path.

We’ve reached out to both Samsung and Facebook, but as of press time, neither had responded to a request for comment.

Hands On With The Production Version Of The Myo Gesture Control Armband

Thalmic Labs is a Waterloo-based startup with a very ambitious goal – to change the way we interact with our everyday computing devices. To that end, they’ve developed the Myo armband, a gesture control device that fits around the meaty part of your forearm and detects slight muscle movements, arm rotations and even electrical impulses as you gesture, translating all that information into real-time input.

We were lucky enough to get one of the first hands-on demos of the new version of the Myo, which is set to begin to start shipping to developers shortly, and to pre-order customers this fall. Thalmic CEO and co-founder Stephen Lake also takes us through the process of building a hardware startup, and shipping that startup’s crucial first product. The hardware design is final, and though there are a few bugs still be worked out (you can see a couple in the video above), the Myo is just about ready for prime time.

What’s interesting about Myo and Thalmic is how much talent they’ve brought in-house to tackle building and distributing their device – their expansive Waterloo office is nearly full and already expanding to a second level, and they house everyone from machine learning engineers to execs to logistics personnel in the same open floor plan, with only free-form breakout rooms offering any doors or walls.

Thalmic believes in doing everything as a team, clearly, and that includes doing its own sourcing of component suppliers and assembly partners, and even doing final assembly for the developer pre-order units in-house on site, with consumer launch being handled by a company in nearby Ottawa. As production volume increases, Lake says they’ll consider adding oversees partners, but for now this is very much a homegrown affair. Hopefully the final product reflects the consideration put into its design and construction.

The Sync Smartband Is A Health And Location Tracking Device For Both Kids And Grown-Ups

Wearables for kids are coming. A company called ActvContent is today launching the Sync smartband, which was initially aimed at parents looking to keep track of their wandering children. Today, as the product goes live on Indiegogo, the company is broadening its focus to appeal to families and adults as well, with a variety of health tracking functions, including a fitness tracker and sleep tracker, in addition to location tracking.

Perhaps the company realized that the market for kid-sized wearables was still too narrow?

In any event, the founders explain to us that they realized there was more potential in the company’s “My Sync” portal, to turn the bracelet and online service into more of a family-focused platform, gathering and collecting health and fitness data, REM sleep patterns, and location.

About The Band

The Sync band is made of hypoallergenic, water-resistant TPU rubber and comes in five colors: green, blue, white, pink and orange. You can opt for a glow-in-the dark version as well. Depending on use, the CR2032 coin cell battery will last two or three months. An accompanying iOS and Android application will help to track the various tracked metrics.

The new smartband will now come in two sizes, one for children designed to be less bulky on smaller wrists, and one for adults. However, even in as the larger prototype I was sent, it’s still far smaller than competitors, like the colorful, but also gigantic, FiLIP smartwatch for kids.

But that’s also because the Sync smartband is not as powerful. While the FiLIP is meant to serve as a “wearable” phone and locator, the Sync is a more typical fitness and location tracking device.

For adults, there’s not as much value in selecting the Sync over the more polished health trackers already on the market like the Fitbit, Jawbone UP, or Misfit Shine, for example, if you’re mainly looking for fitness tracking functions, as Sync’s platform is less mature.

Will Parents Want This?

But for parents, the idea is that you could attach the smartband to your child when heading to an area where you know they might get lost or wander off – like crowded amusement parks, busy playgrounds, or when going on shopping mall outings, beach trips, etc. The device is designed to alert you when the child ventures beyond the Bluetooth range of 150 feet, outdoors. (For those of you without spatial intelligence, that’s like half an American football field.)

As a parent to a little one myself, I should be in target market for such a device, and yet I find myself on the fence.

Some of my most vivid memories are those of being lost as a child. The supermarket outing where I began to follow the wrong pair of legs. The glass elevator ride sans mommy. The bike ride where I returned to find a crying babysitter and police cars out front. (I wasn’t lost, but she sure thought I was!)

And I, too, have been psychologically traumatized by the 24-hour news cycle where now every human atrocity is covered and repeated in excruciating detail. I’m aware that people snatch children. I’m aware of all the terrible things that can then follow.

That being said, I don’t know that the solution I’m looking for comes in the form of a physical product equating to an electronic leash of sorts. I guess I tend to be an old-fashioned parent.

However, there is, apparently, a whole market for “child tracker” devices for worrying parents. See for example, the Giggle Bug, Mommy I’m Here, Pocket Finder, and more.

Plus, for parents whose children have severe allergies or health conditions, making that accessible to caregivers via an app and Bluetooth could have an appeal.

One could imagine a school where all the kids at the peanut-free/allergies table are wearing their own colorful bands, I suppose. You could also offer access to your nanny or babysitter. And in the case of the elderly suffering from dementia, it could be a useful aid to family members and other caregivers, though less so to those who find the lost person and don’t have the app installed on their own phone or access to the private health portal.

Now On Indiegogo

The company was founded by Vikas Murali (CEO) and Andrew Xue, who met as freshman at UPenn. Murali previously worked at Texas Instruments in the Mobile Solutions group, while Xue worked on the BLAST telescope at the University of Pennsylvania, where he built and designed motors, control boxes and connectors.

Originally, the founders were focused on making health and medical information available in a wearable device.

“We…realized that many families have children, young adults and even parents that suffer from food allergies and other ailments, and they need to have their important health and critical emergency information close by,” explains Murali. The team later expanded into location, health and fitness tracking, he says.

The prototype has been in development for six months, and the bootstrapped team is now looking to raise $50,000 to fund its first production run. Early backers can order their watch for as low as $69, while eventually the product will retail for $129 apiece.

Samsung Backs GamePop As BlueStacks Adds $13M In New Funding

Samsung’s venture arm has contributed to a round of funding that adds $13 million to the total raised by BlueStacks, the virtualization startup that debuted its GamePop platform earlier this year to offer over-the-top mobile gaming for living room and TVs. Samsung’s investment backs the company’s vision of delivering GamePop as a white-label solution aimed at TV makers and cable providers. Other investors in BlueStacks include Andreessen Horowitz, Qualcomm, Intel, Redpoint and more.

This investment from Samsung seems like a good strategic fit, and indeed Samsung Ventures VP Ilseok Yoon said in a press release that a key reason for their investment was that the firm was impressed with how BlueStacks handled translating touch-based controls to TVs and remote control input devices. For its part, despite underwhelming reviews based on the consumer hardware devices the company originally planned on shipping, BlueStacks believes GamePop has a strong potential future, citing its strong buy-in from top-tier developers as a key advantage. The race is heating up, however, with Amazon’s Fire TV, Android TV and new hardware from Nvidia all aiming to take a stab at owning the home gaming market.

“There is no one bigger in both the Android and TV ecosystems than Samsung,” said BlueStacks CEO, Rosen Sharma, however, addressing the business value of their new partnership. “Their advice on how to navigate distribution channels has already been invaluable.”

BlueStacks says that other strategic partners have participated in the round alongside Samsung and its original investors, but it’s keeping mum about exactly who was involved for now. GamePop is also being distributed via deals with large cable companies, including a major partner to be announced soon.

Can’t Manage A Standing Desk? Meet Cubii, The Sitting Exerciser

Sitting down — and the sedentary lifestyle it encourages — is killing you, slowly but surely. The problem is, standing desks aren’t for everyone. Making the switch is a big deal. I love mine but it took a week of pain and suffering to go from seat to feet, and it still feels pretty tough on calves and soles after a full day-long standing stretch.

So here’s a third way: Cubii is a sitting exerciser that’s been designed to fit under an office desk so those who are stuck in their office chairs can push its pedals while they work and get some exercise, rather than being entirely sedentary.

The Cubii is a pretty simple elliptical trainer but the design has been tweaked so the trajectory of the pedals keeps the user’s knees low enough not to bang the underside of the desk.

It also includes a Bluetooth radio and there’s a companion app — so your underdesk mileage can be quantified. Top marks for tapping the zeitgeist there, Cubii.

Cubii’s Chicago-based makers took to Kickstarter to raise funds to get their device to market and have now crowdfunded their way past their original target of $80,000, with five days left on their campaign.

The  early bird Kickstarter price for Cubii was $279. It’s now stepped up to $299, with an estimated shipping date of January next year — just in time for your New Year’s fitness revolution.

There’s not a whole lot else to say about the Cubii, since it’s not hugely innovative. Arguably it fills a fitness hole for those who can’t manage the transition to a standing or walking desk. Or for people who have other health issues that make standing all day a no-no.

I do take issue with Cubii’s claim that standing desks are prohibitively expensive. Sure they can be, if you want something super fancy with lots of bells and whistles. Or you can spend $19 on an Ikea Lack coffee table, saw its legs down to size and put it on top of your existing desk — for a shoestring standing desk, like mine.

Oh, and another fringe benefit of a standing desk: loads of underdesk storage space. In my experience it’s a great place to keep boxes of unused gadgets.

Hands On With The Amazon Fire Phone

Announced last month, the Amazon Fire Phone is the company’s first attempt at mobile hardware. Like its cousins in the Kindle Fire line of tablets, it runs a fork of Android and gives you quick access to everything in Amazon’s large (and growing) content library.

The device itself has a premium feel that’s competitive with flagship phones from Apple, HTC, and Samsung. Like the iPhone 4 and 4S, it has glass on the front and rear, while the curved plastic around the edge of the device has a smooth, solid feel, much like Amazon’s Kindle Paperwhite e-reader.

Those familiar with the Kindle Fire’s interface will feel right at home with the Fire Phone’s “Carousel” home screen, which lets you scroll through your most recently used apps and content. A widget underneath the carousel shows notifications or links to related content in Amazon’s store, while a quick swipe from the bottom of the screen brings up a more traditional grid of your apps.

The Dynamic Perspective feature on the Fire Phone uses four infrared cameras located on the front of the device to let you look “into” the device by drawing screen elements so that they give the illusion that they’re in 3D. It’s most heavily used on the lock screen, where you can select different scenes that look like animated dioramas. Dynamic Perspective also powers the “peek” feature, which hides most info from cluttering your screen until you tilt your device to a certain angle. From what we’ve seen so far, not many third-party apps take advantage of Dynamic Perspective just yet.

The other stand out feature on the Amazon Fire Phone is Firefly, which you get to by holding down the dedicated camera button next to the volume rocker. Our quick testing shows that it can in fact pick out almost any product you point it at as long as it’s available on Amazon. We tried books, movies, CDs, toothpaste, office phones and hand sanitizer, and all were recognized instantly. Of course, those all have labels on the front — so don’t expect to point it at someone walking down the street and see their outfit show up on your phone. Of course, that might be possible in a few months, as Amazon is making the Firefly feature available to outside developers via its software development kit.

The Defender Is What You Get When You Combine A Camera, Automated 9-1-1, And Pepper Spray

Safety first! That’s what my mom always says.

Which is why it’s somewhat shocking that technology hasn’t already been leveraged to provide additional personal protection to people on the go. But the Defender looks to change all that.

It’s a new pocket-sized device that combines a camera, a 24/7 monitoring system for police and health services, and pepper spray to provide an all-in-one portable defense system that might actually help catch the assailant.

Here’s how it works:

When a user is attacked, they can press a single button that will simultaneously send a photo of the assailant to the police, sound an alarm to notify people nearby of an emergency situation, as well as blind the assailant with pepper spray.

The Defender pairs to an app on iOS or Android through Bluetooth, and uses the phone to alert the police of your emergency (along with the photo taken during the attack). If the user pushes a second button, medical services will be alerted and sent to the location.

The Defender team has set up a 24/7 monitoring station that takes the photo and the exact location of the alert and sends it directly to emergency services. Each defender comes with a year of monitoring services. The team has also partnered with Alarmsoft to provide additional monitoring services, and has seen interest from other security companies who wish to provide the Defender to their customers.

In just a day, the Defender has already reached its $100,000 Indiegogo goal, but that is thanks mostly to a $100k order from Mitco Global, a strategic partner which will distribute 1,010 units through its retail partners. The Indiegogo campaign offers the opportunity for security companies, vendors, and general customers to get in on the action, with early adopters pre-ordering the device (and a year of monitoring) for $159.

When the device goes live in stores, it will have an MSRP somewhere between $14.99 and $19.99/month on a two-year plan, translating to savings of $60 for the one-year plan offered on Indiegogo.

To learn more about the Defender, check out the Indiegogo campaign here or the website here.

The Defender – The First Smart Personal Protection System from The Defender on Vimeo.

For Its First Google Glass Effort, EBay Adapts Its RedLaser Product Finder App

Back in March 2013, eBay said it would start to work on applications for Google Glass — the idea being that the Android-powered, head-mounted computer could help consumers shop for things online and in the real world more seamlessly than pulling out your smartphone (and even less so, a full-fledged computer).

Now over a year later, the e-commerce giant is rolling out its first effort: a Glass-optimized version of its RedLaser barcode scanning app, where people can search for products online and locally, activated using voice and image recognition. Glassers can download the app here.

The project comes out of the innovation and new ventures labs at eBay, which VP Steve Yankovich describes as focused “moonshots around the idea of zero-effort commerce,” by which he means new services that reduce (or even remove altogether) the clicks you need to make a purchase.

There have been a number of other Glass apps announced that play around with idea of using the head-borne device for commerce. One called Eaze that lets a user “nod to pay” to complete a transaction even claims to have piqued the interest of eBay subsidiary PayPal.

But the significance of having a commerce giant like eBay dabbling in the new technology is a signal to the market. Glass might still be a very nascent concept (only around 10,000 units are out in the wild, and even those have not been universally embraced, and even mocked by some).

This is a sign of how it’s catching the attention of the biggest players who think that it and other wearables (including ways of connecting your own glasses) will be a part of how commerce services will be developed and used in the future.

RedLaser, as you might recall, is a barcode scanning app for smartphones that was a part of eBay’s acquisition of a startup called Occipital in 2010. It then got further bolstered with location-specific search by way of another eBay acquisition, Milo.

RedLaser already has apps for iPhone, Android and Windows Phone. eBay does not disclose how many users RedLaser has amassed to date but its focus on applications beyond its basic website is reflected in how consumers are using eBay. The company reported during its Q2 results this month that 59% of eBay customers shopped across multiple screens.

While there is always something exciting about looking at cutting edge, new technology, there is also a very practical business purpose here.

“What we found with mobile is that any time you reduced friction you increased transactions,” Yankovich told me in an interview. This is where wearables, which are even more naturally on your person than a smartphone, come into play. “Every time a wearable shows up, we have to look at it,” he says, even if it’s something that is new and may not fly as a mass market product. “You don’t even know whether this will be a tool for commerce but we have to try.”

The RedLaser Google Glass app has two components to it: the first is that a user can find a product simply by saying the name of it after activating the RedLaser app. (“OK Glass. Find a product.”)

The other, likely more precise route, is to command Glass to scan a barcode of a product in front of you. (OK Glass. Scan a barcode.”) Then, like the other RedLaser apps, this triggers a listing of other places nearby where you can buy the product, or a listing for how to find it online.

For now, there is no direct purchasing features on the RedLaser Glass app. In fact, there is little in the way of any profit elements to these commerce apps. A spokesperson tells me there will be an extension of some of the existing RedLaser relationships to Glass. (For example, BestBuy works with eBay to create special in-store experiences on RedLaser, and that will extend to Glass.)

Yankovich — who calls payments “the holy grail” of commerce technology — says that this will be a step in the future, but not for now.

“The most difficult part of payments is that RedLaser is agnostic in this regard,” he says. “We send users to retailers regardless of what payment options there are.” And apart from that there are the same issues that face other kinds of mobile payments: “duct tape” legacy infrastructure for retailers, and question marks over what really would be the easiest and safest thing for a consumer to use. “Will consumers touch their frames? Will they say something? You still have to wonder what people will actually want to do.”

Payments is one direction these new apps for wearables will go; but another is simply in how they become more sophisticated in other regards. Yankovich hints that one area eBay is looking closely at is image recognition.

“It will be harder to pull off image recognition in that the camera capability now is not good enough,” he says. “But that might be the next step. There will be improved hardware soon and that will spur some kind of evolution and we’ll react to it. We will take advantage of these products.”

Some Brief Thoughts About Apple’s MacBook Air ‘Stickers’ Ad

Yesterday Apple released a new ‘Stickers’ ad for the MacBook Air. I found it interesting for a few reasons.

• Bangs and dents mean these things get used. It emphasizes the reliability of the MacBook Air by showing that some of them have scuffs and scrapes. It’s rare in that it shows Apple products in a non-retail-box condition. The only recent personalization example I can find is iPhones in cases, which are shown in its ‘Powerful’ ads — but those don’t show any actual ‘damage’. The way Apple products look after customization and ‘real world’ use isn’t often represented in Apple ads. As Jeff Carlson points out, these are likely someone’s real machines.
• It doesn’t take design too seriously. The choice to show the stickers, as well, is a nod to the fact that people customize and ‘profane’ the clean industrial look of their Apple stuff with personal touches. I don’t think Apple was unaware of this — MacBook stickers are super popular (I used to run with a Batman). But the willingness to ‘bless’ them with an appearance in the ad and a special section on its site sends a distinct message.
• This is the first MacBook ad in a long while. Though Apple had a 30th Anniversary spot for the Mac on the whole, the MacBook itself has taken second seat to Apple’s much larger iPhone and iPad business. Raising the profile of the MacBook acknowledges that the Mac still accounts for over 13 percent of the PC market and it’s growing faster than the rest of the market combined. It also assures people buying iPhones that there is a computer out there from the same company that they can move to from whatever they’re using now.
• No screen. This is the first ad in recent memory that never shows the screen of an Apple product. I’m not sure what that means, maybe nothing, but it makes for an interesting visual.

Overall, it’s a pretty decent ad and a fresh voice for Apple. They’ve been making some changes in the ad department, having a more direct hand in the creative aspects of some of these spots, and it’s showing.

Genie Smart Lock Aims For Year-Long Battery Life

Move over Lockitron, there’s a new smart lock contender aiming to connect your door handles to the Internet so that you can lock and unlock remotely, send digital keys to friends and tradespeople (via the companion app), keep tabs on comings and goings, and get into your home without the faff of taking your keys out of your pocket.

More importantly it’s aiming to do all that with a battery life that lasts a year. Yep, a whole year — rather than a couple of weeks, as can be the case with some existing wi-fi smart locks.

That is the Genie Smart Lock vision anyway. Currently its makers are in the “engineering phase” but are taking pre-orders (at $249, with RRP set to be $299) based on their vision – ahead of a crowdfunding campaign launch next month that will aim to raise $100,000 to build the gizmo proper.

The estimated ship date for their smart lock system is “late 2014″. But bear in mind there’s no functioning prototype yet so that sounds a tad ambitious.

A key part of their business development process has been completed, though — in that they have filed a power management patent which covers their twist vs existing wi-fi enabled smart locks.

“One of the main issues facing smart lock developers is power management and ensuring battery life is at an acceptable level,” says founder Joel McAndrew, pointing to the problems Lockitron has had with battery life. “Current devices must play a trade off between the usability of the device (how frequently the device checks for a wi-fi signal) and the battery life.”

A smart lock that checks for a wi-fi signal every five to 15 seconds results in a battery life as low as two to four weeks, according to McAndrew. But the problem with checking less frequently is that degrades the product user experience being as there’s a wait before it will execute a function. 

(It’s worth noting that Lockitron has been doing firmware updates aimed at improving its battery life – we’ve asked them for the current battery longevity status for their smart lock and will update this post with any response).

The Genie Smart Lock takes a different tack. It’s using a power management system that relies on a secondary device — a wi-fi hub plugged into the mains inside your home — that talks to the connected door handle via Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE). That comms hand off means the smart lock’s battery drain is kept to a minimum because the thirsty Wi-Fi radio is being powered by the grid, and the batteries inside the door handle only need power BLE transfers.

“The Genie Hub receives the wi-fi signal and converts it to BLE. This BLE signal is sent to the Genie Smart Lock and then a reply is sent to the Genie Hub over BLE. This reply is converted from BLE to wi-fi and transmitted to the wi-fi device (smart phone or computer),” says McAndrew.

“This efficiency means that the Genie Smart Lock will be able to achieve a realistic battery life of 12 months. Users can adjust settings to further increase this battery life if they are happy for the device to scan for a signal less frequently.”

The device can also function without the hub — as a Bluetooth only lock, for keyless entry with a smartphone (or with a Bluetooth fob, or indeed via a traditional key if the battery has died completely). But, without the hub, the Genie won’t be able to offer wi-fi enabled functions such as remote unlocking and provisioning digital keys for others.

The Genie Smart Lock’s other twist vs the smart lock competition is that it is actually a whole replacement door handle, rather than a deadbolt (as Lockitron is). It’s been designed to replace all “standard” door handles, according to McAndrew, fitting a traditional 54mm door hole.

Installation is apparently easy enough for the user to do (see component diagram below) and the device is said to remove without a trace, meaning renters could potentially make use of it, not just home owners. Although your landlord may take issue with you changing the locks.

Whether it’s an advantage to have a smart door handle vs a smart deadbolt depends on your requirements. But judging by the design renders of the Genie it’s not going to win any elegant door fixture design awards so owners of period properties are probably not going to be clamoring to replace their antique door handles with such a utilitarian bauble.

The Australian startup behind Genie has primarily been bootstrapping development of the smart lock thus far but McAndrew notes it did also win a $10,000 grant from St George Bank in Australia, as part of a startup competition.

Nvidia’s Shield Tablet And Shield Controller Look To Offer No-Compromise Mobile Gaming

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The Nvidia Shield was a first attempt by graphics chip- and card-maker Nvidia, but it gave the company a taste for building gadgets that wouldn’t go away, so now they’re back with the Shield Tablet, a gaming monster that doubles as a $299 Android slate.

Nvidia’s gaming tablet is actually its second Android tablet hardware – the first was the Tegra K1 reference device it unveiled first back in January, which was designed to show off the power of its new K1, which includes desktop-level Kepler architecture for enhanced gaming power. The Shield Tablet also employs the K1, but it’s designed to go further, with even more power behind it, and a dedicated wireless companion controller to boot, called the Shield Controller.

The new Nvidia Shield Tablet has an 8-inch, 1920×1200 display for native HD resolution, two front-facing speakers, and a cover accessory that can also be used to prop it up as a kickstand, which is obviously useful for gaming scenarios. The Shield wireless controller offers low latency Wi-Fi connectivity, with about the same lag time as an Xbox 360 controller according to Nvidia. There’s an LTE option coming later, and the Wi-Fi version goes on sale July 29 starting at $299 for a 16GB version, or $399 for one with 32GB of built-in storage, though both options also offer expandable memory via MicroSD of up to 128 additional GB.

Shield’s tablet is therefore competitively priced with most of its peers, and Nvidia claims that its tablet will drastically outperform rivals including the iPad in both benchmark tests and real-world gaming performance. That’s because the Tegra K1 with Kepler supports all the same advanced graphics technologies as the GeForce Titan desktop card, including OpenGL 4.4, DirextX 12, Tesselation and more, all while consuming a fraction of the power.

Because Nvidia is using Wi-Fi for the wireless connectivity on the Shield Controller, it can also stream audio to the gamepad, which supports a hi-fidelity headset for chatting during multiplayer. Nvidia could succeed in making this the first tablet aimed at core gamers who spend a lot of time in online multiplayer matches, which has traditionally been ground firmly held by desktop devices with Ethernet and wired controller support.

The Shield Tablet also includes a built-in stylus, just like the Tegra K1 tablet, but this time it’s been redesigned. The new DirectStylus 2 tech is said to be twice as responsive as the first-generation model, and features GPU-accelerated painting and active response, vs. the passive input mode of the first. The tablet can also take 5 megapixel photos with its front-facing camera, and output video at up to 4K resolution to compatible monitors, plus it has 802.11n Wi-Fi and plays back full 1080p HD video from streaming sources including Netflix, Twitch and Hulu Plus.

Painting done with Nvidia’s new DirectStylus 2 and native painting app.

Speaking of Twitch, Nvidia Tablet is the first to feature support for streaming games over that platform natively, rather than on an app-by-app basis, which is where that 5 megapixel front camera comes in handy. Twitch support is also integrated with ShadowPlay, Nvidia’s own tool for game capture and sharing among other owners of Nvidia gaming hardware.

The Shield Tablet also supports a lot of the technology we saw debuted on the original Nvidia Shield, which is now rebranded as the Shield Portable to avoid confusion. So Shield Tablet gets support for GameStream, which allows users to stream their full-fledged PC titles from their home gaming system over local Wi-Fi, as well as Nvidia Grid, which streams games over the cloud on-demand – for now just in Northern California during the program’s initial beta. Shield Tablet also supports the console mode that Nvidia introduced on the Shield Portable, which allows you to turn your tablet into a home game console plugged into your TV using the including Mini HDMI 1.4a out port.

As a home console, the Shield Tablet might provide everything some gamers need, thanks to support for up to four controllers simultaneously (including both the Wi-Fi Nvidia Shield Controller and any Bluetooth controllers that work with Android devices). It can also act as a set-top box for over-the-top services like Netflix, and the Controller has a built-in mic and voice control function that resembles those offered on Amazon Fire TV and the newly announced Android TV.

Nvidia has certainly put a lot into the Shield Tablet, which also ships with a host of apps and games including Trine 2: Complete Story pre-installed. But that doesn’t mean it’s abandoning its previous attempts; the company tells us that the Shield Portable isn’t being abandoned, and in fact, suggest that it’s best to watch this space if you’re curious about hardware updates on that front. For now, existing Portable owners will get an update that coincides with the Tablet launch to offer support for the new Shield Controller, a better app, improved onscreen controls and more. The cheaper, $199 Tegra K1 tablet will also continue to be sold.

$299 as an entry-level price for a tablet of this magnitude isn’t asking too much, but to get the full system, you will need to pay $59 per Shield Controller, and $39 for the Shield Tablet Cover which doubles as a kickstand. Overall, it’s still a pretty good deal for what seems to be at first glance a great Android tablet that doubles as an impressive gaming machine. Of course, we’ll have a full review coming once we’ve had more time to assess the device and its merits.

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Surprise! Xiaomi’s New Metal-Edged Flagship Looks Like An iPhone. But Its $13 Wearable Is Novel

Fast growing Chinese Android smartphone startup Xiaomi, which earlier this month reported that it had shifted ~26 million handsets in the first half of this year, has unveiled a new flagship device which it will be hoping powers it over its sales target of 60 million smartphones in full year 2014.

Also today the company took the wraps off its first wearable — a fitness and security bangle called the Mi Band, which costs a throwaway $13.

Mi 4

Xiaomi’s new flagship handset, called the Mi 4, is a premium smartphone that competes at the top of the market — lining up against Samsung’s flagship, the Galaxy S5, and of course Apple’s iPhone 5s. And, on the latter note, the Mi 4 looks to have taken some design cues from Apple with distinctly iPhone-esque metal bands running around its edges.

Specs wise Reuters notes that the Mi 4 has a 5-inch 1080p display, much like its prequel — the M3. The processor has been beefed up from 2.3GHz to 2.5GHz though, with a Snapdragon 801 chip inside the M4. It also reportedly comes with 3GB of RAM, 16MB of internal memory, a high capacity 3,080mAh battery, and a 13MP rear camera and 8MP front-facing lens.

The biggest change is evidently to the design, though – it’s out with the Mi 3′s rounded plastic sides, and in with a flat metal wrapper that has a distinctly iPhone look. According to Reuters, at its unveiling, at the National Convention Center in Beijing earlier today, the Mi 4′s design draw murmurs of “iPhone” from the crowd.

Back in May, Xiaomi unveiled its first tablet device which also appeared to take design inspiration from Apple — being an iPad mini size combined with the colourful, plastic-backed appearance of the iPhone 5c.

The addition of a little ribbon of metal to Xiaomi’s new flagship may not sound like much, but it offers a trump card over Samsung, which has continued to stick with plastic for its flagship devices. In China Xiaomi’s mid-tier RedMi handset has been wooing former Samsung owners from the lower end of the product range. The company is presumably hoping a flashy premium handset can squeeze Sammy at the top end too.

Xiaomi has ambitious market expansion plans — with a big global push planned for this year that will take its devices to 14 global regions in total: China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, India, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Russia, Turkey, Brazil, and Mexico.

Demand in India for Xiaomi’s Mi 3 handset – its prior flagship, which only went on sale in the country today — apparently crashed Flipkart, according to a BGR India report. The ecommerce site had taken in some 100,000 pre-orders for the Mi 3 in India.

Mi Band

In addition to a new smartphone, Xiaomi unboxed its first wearable today: the Mi Band. As well as tracking health metrics such as steps and sleep, the bangle can be used as an identity authenticator to unlock a Xiaomi smartphone, i.e. rather than having to type in a password. It also includes a sleep-cycle alarm clock. So Xiaomi is bundling fitness and security features in one wearable to increase the utility.

At such a low price (79 renminbi), the company has a big chance to drive serious scale with the Mi Band, as analyst Ben Wood notes below.

The company is also evidently designing the bangle to encourage users to stay within a Xiaomi ecosystem of devices — which spans wi-fi dongles, set-top boxes, phones, tablets and now wearables.

A Microsoft Surface Revenue Bet

After the introduction of the Surface Pro 3, I tweeted that I thought it would do pretty well in the market. I should have clarified that I meant that in the context of prior Surface sales, but I can’t edit tweets after the fact, so here we are.

Valleywag’s Sam Biddle didn’t agree, and so we made a friendly wager on the matter.

Microsoft reports its earnings tomorrow, and will provide a fresh Surface revenue number as part of that release. I’ve confirmed with the company that the specific Surface figure will be broken out, as per usual.

It seems, however, that I somewhat borked myself in the bet. As it turns out, the $500 million figure was rounded. Surface revenue in the last quarter was actually $494 million (this is why you should never 8-K when you can 10-Q). So I skewed the threshold north by depending on a rounded statistic.

Even more, I presumed that all pre-ordered Surface Pro 3s would see their revenue tallied in the fiscal period. Not so. Only revenue from Surface Pro 3s running Intel Core i5 chips will be counted, as systems running i3 and i7 chips shipped after the end of the quarter, and thus their top line will land in Microsoft’s fiscal first quarter (the current calendar quarter). So a large chunk of revenue that I thought existed the quarter we bet on doesn’t. Oops.

So if I could take out a re-bet, I’d lower my Surface revenue forecasts by 25 to 30 percent. Though, when I’m wrong, I like to do it at full speed.

Please accept this post as an oblation for being quite probably overly optimistic.