Apple’s New Spaceship HQ Doesn’t Look Like A Spaceship Yet, But It’s Huge

Apple’s new spaceship-style campus is one of the last things on the company’s mind right now, with the iPhone launch looming just over the horizon. However, that hasn’t stopped some curious folks from peeking around over at the construction site.

YouTuber jmcminn has captured video on a GoPro Hero 3+ using a Phantom 2 drone, and the end result shows us the foundation of this building for the first time. Earlier shots of the construction site were pretty much just pictures of crop circles in the dirt.

This video not only takes a look at the circular building structure, but shows just how big the campus is in relation to the neighboring buildings.

Apple has been planning this new campus for a long time, with the city of Cupertino giving the company permission to get started back in 2012.

Of course, compared to the mockups we saw back in November, the video can be a bit of a let down. But it’s Labor Day weekend, which gives you a bit more time to use your imagination.

Check out the video here:

DrinkMate Is A Tiny, Plug-In Breathalyzer For Android Devices

Devices that plug into smartphones to augment the built-in sensors with additional smarts are continuing to make their way to market, many fueled by crowdfunding. Here’s another contender aiming to extend the capability of Android smartphones: a teeny breathalyzer called DrinkMate, currently seeking $40,000 on Kickstarter to make it to market by December.

The 1.8-inch long device is designed to plug into a powered Micro-USB port and, when used in conjunction with its companion app, displays a blood alcohol content (BAC) rating after the user has breathed over its semiconductor-based sensor. DrinkMate does not require a mouthpiece, the user just blows into an air inlet, which helps keep the design compact and the device hygienic.

We’ve seen smartphone breathalyzers before, such as the hefty Alcohoot for iPhones, which we covered last year. But the DrinkMate is a lot smaller and a lot cheaper, following a Moore’s Law trajectory.

It also claims to be able to deliver on the accuracy front — which is obviously the key aspect here, and a claim that remains to be tested given this is still a prototype — claiming BAC measurement levels at an accuracy of +/- 0.01% BAC at a BAC of 0.02%. DrinkMate’s sensor maxes out at 0.20% BAC but if you’re that drunk you’re unlikely to be compos mentis enough to use this gadget, let alone find your car keys.

In addition to accuracy levels, it remains to be seen how DrinkMate’s performance holds up in rugged, real world environments when the drinks are flowing and users may not be following best practice testing procedure. A savvy companion app that steps users around potential pitfalls, such as by ensuring they wait long enough after their last drink to avoid an inaccurate rating (based on alcohol in the mouth), is going to be required to avoid misleading readings.

DrinkMate’s Washington, DC based makers say the basic idea behind the device is to generate a visible, shareable BAC rating as a way to pile more peer pressure on groups of drinkers so they keep each other safe. That’s a laudable aim, but there is of course a risk of encouraging opposing behavior — so again the tone of the app is important. The current app designs are pretty basic but the makers say they are adding more features weekly.

While ever more mainstream interest sensors, from location sensors and motion/health focused hardware, are being embedded into phones, more specialist and/or targeted sensor hardware — such as the DrinkMate’s BAC analyzer — is something that makes sense as a smartphone supplement.

Bottom line: not everyone is going to want or need this type of sensor embedded in their phone but there will be people who see value in having various specialized gizmos hanging off their keyring which, after being plugged in, extend the utility of their mobile device. (Or indeed which they wear on their person and connect to their mobile via Bluetooth.)

Price wise the DrinkMate is currently being offered to Kickstarter backers starting at $25.

The hardware is guaranteed compatible (tested) with the following Android devices:

• Samsung Galaxy S3, S4, and S5
• Samsung Galaxy Note 3
• HTC One
• Motorola Moto X
• Asus Transformer Prime, Infinity

The makers’ say they are planning an iPhone version but only if their Kickstarter campaign for the Android version is successful.

At the time of writing they have raised just over half of their $40,000 target with another 25 days left to run.

Starfish Aims To Prevent Accidental Heatstroke Deaths By Alerting Parents To Children Left In Cars

New, first-time parents are terrified that they’re going to somehow accidentally hurt their baby – they will drop the child, or hit that weird soft spot on the baby’s head. Or maybe they’ll forget to put the baby on their back to sleep, and they will die of SIDS. A new breed of startups and “baby tech” gadgetry now caters to these fears, selling everything from baby wearables and bed sensors to fancy monitors that treat baby as just another device to be analyzed and optimized.

The latest geegaw aimed at parting concerned parents with their money is Starfish, a smart car seat sensor that connects with your smartphone to alert you if you’ve forgotten your baby in the car.

We’ve all heard the horror stories: the overworked parents who forget to drop off their children at daycare, sometimes simply because of a change in routine.

These babies perish due to heatstroke, trapped in cars for hours on end as temperatures soar.

It is truly the stuff of the nightmares.

Starfish, now on Kickstarter where it’s raised $13,000+ of a $15,000 goal, wants to offer a “safety net” of sorts.

The device is a small, round, weight-activated sensor that notifies your smartphone when you’ve left your car without your child. It’s meant to fit under the child’s car seat with self-adhesive tape. It then sets up a “geo-fence” around the vehicle of roughly 20 feet. If you exit that geo-fence with baby still in the seat, you’re notified via your iPhone or Android.

If you don’t respond after 5 minutes, your emergency contacts are then notified as well.

The goal is to prevent these accidental deaths that come not from intentional parental negligence, but those caused by otherwise good parents who make a mistake.

“As you well know, this is something that has been a hot topic lately, as on average 40 children perish each year in the U.S. from hyperthermia in a car,” explains founder Matthew Sheets, (hopefully pun not intended). Sheets, an enterprise software developer at an academic medical center in Alabama, says his experiences have taught him how technology can improve lives, and even save them.

“To me, that was something I could not stand by and watch. I also realize that this tragedy can and does happen to anyone,” he continues. “Everyone intends to be a good parent, but our product serves as a great back up.”

That may be true, but it’s worth also pointing out that the chances of it actually happening are very low. Of those 40 children (technically, 38, according to non-profit KidsAndCars.org), only some percentage – roughly half, it appears – are left accidentally by parents. In other cases, it may be intentional negligence, murder, or, as NHTSA once pointed out, a case where children climb into unlocked vehicles without parents’ knowledge, then accidentally lock the doors and can’t get out.

Or to put it in different terms, a person has a better shot at getting struck by lightning, which accounts for over 200 injuries per year.

That’s not to downplay the issue or minimize the tragedy that occurs when this mistake results in a child’s death, of course. However, a gadget-based solution may not be necessary. The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services instead is encouraging parents to “Look Before You Lock.”

A related awareness campaign is working to offer safety tips, run PSAs, distribute materials to daycares, and even provide window decals. The root of the campaign is about getting parents to make looking for baby a part of their routine when exiting the car, along with other normal tasks like grabbing your belongings and locking your doors.

But for those who prefer a technological solution to quelling their fears, the Starfish is selling for $40 on the Kickstarter page.

Nokia’s Here Maps Its Future On Samsung With Its First Android And Tizen Apps

Opera may have taken some of the wind out of the Nokia brand’s sails with the news that its browser will be replacing Nokia’s on the now-Microsoft-owned, winding down, feature handset business. But today the Finnish company that has remained after the Microsoft handset sale had some interesting news of its own: it’s tying up with Samsung for two new versions of its Here mapping product, a free Android version coming first to Samsung’s Galaxy line of devices, and a Tizen version for Samsung’s Tizen-powered smart devices, specifically the Gear smartwatch.

Nokia says that Here app will be available on Samsung Galaxy devices exclusively. We have asked the company when it plans to make it available to other Android handsets and will update this as we learn more. (Update: there will be availability elsewhere, but no timeline when. “HERE for Android is part of our partnership with Samsung, but we aim to make HERE available to as many people as possible,” a Here spokesperson tells me, adding that it will be sometime “later this year.” Another spokesperson tells us that Here for Samsung Galaxy smartphones will be rolled out at the same time that the Gear S starts to retail — further strengthening the link between the two pieces of news and the functionality.

The new apps are coming at a key time for Samsung, which is trying more and more to differentiate itself from the rest of the Android pack — the world’s most popular mobile platform, but also the most widely used by a variety of OEMs alongside Samsung — and create services that are unique to its devices alone.

Samsung is currently the world’s most popular maker of Android-based smartphones and other devices, but it has a lot of competition coming after it, from established competitors like LG to those like Xiaomi from China cleaning up in its home market and very clearly looking at growing more. At the same time, it’s looking for ways of driving more interest in its new wearable device — hence tying the functionality together to incentivize consumers to stay within the Samsung ecosystem.

Mapping has been one of the “killer apps” of the new age of mobile, with location-based services helping our always-on, always-present devices becoming companions for our everyday lives and the things we like and need to do, taking things like smartphones beyond basic functions like making voice calls and sending texts to others.

For Here, the interesting thing is that the Samsung apps are the result of a licensing deal between the two companies — meaning that Here will have received some form of payment as part of it. That’s important for a company that only recently, after losing a lot of money for years, been just about breaking even — or reporting a slight loss, depending on whether you count its non-IFRS or IFRS-reported numbers. Even though maps may be a core part of our mobile usage these days, that hasn’t always translated into them being a strong revenue generator.

And the moves come as Here is undergoing a reorganization of its own: Michael Halbherr, a longtime Here exec, stepped down as CEO last week.

The Android app will work much like it does on Windows Phone and iOS devices — users will be able to access maps for some 200 countries, see turn-by-turn navigation, search for businesses and other places of interest, and access the maps using GPS when there is no network connectivity available.

The Tizen Gear app, meanwhile, will mean that users of the Galaxy smartphones will be able to sync up their maps between their devices. The idea here is that for some situations mapping will be easier to plan on one device, but to use on the other. The apps will also integrate with in-car systems and integrate with mapping apps that run across all three, such as location-sharing app Glympse.

Screenshots of how the two will look are below.

Dyson’s New Teaser Explains Why They’ve Been Spending So Much On Robots

Dyson is teasing a big announcement for September 4, and it released a new video teaser to get people thinking about what might be unveiled. The video shows a lab as seen from the perspective of a particularly wide-angle lens, along with quick bursts of schematic imagery that’s somewhat suggestive of robotic vacuum designs, with a circular device even depicted rolling along the floor at one point in the video.

Dyson isn’t saying exactly what “Project N223″ is just yet, but the company has been spending a lot on robotics. Back in February, we reported on its £5 million (over $8 million U.S.) investment into robotic vision research, which it is conducting with the Imperial College London. Even prior to this investment, Dyson has been engaged in a 15 year project studying systems that allow robotic devices to see and analyze their surroundings, which has clear benefits for robot vacuum hardware.

The iRobot Roomba 650, which Dyson could be looking to one-up.

Pioneers in the robot vacuum space include iRobot, which created the Roomba, but seeing what kind of take the best vacuum maker in the world can offer, especially given the innovations they’ve brought to traditional vacuums, should be exciting. Of course, this could still theoretically be a robot butler or something else entirely, but at least we don’t have to wait in suspense for long.

Apple Confirms Special Event On September 9, Likely For iPhones

Apple has sent out invites to a special event it’s holding on September 9, where we will almost certainly get our first official look at the next iPhone. The invites follow a previous report from Re/code pegging Tuesday, September 9 as the date, and the event’s timing is consistent with the launch of the iPhone dating back to to the iPhone 4S, when Apple began releasing new versions of its smartphone in the fall instead of in the early summer.

The event will almost definitely see the introduction of one, if not two new iPhone models. Scuttlebutt is that we’ll see at least a 4.7-inch iOS-powered smartphone and maybe one larger 5.5 inch model introduced by Apple at the event. Though only one might launch a few weeks after, with the larger version shipping later. Apple has been reportedly gearing up to provide sapphire-based displays in at least some of these devices, which could offer benefits in terms of durability and resistance to scratches and shattering.

This event is a bit atypical for Apple in that it’s being held neither on Apple’s Cupertino campus nor the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. Instead, it’s being held at the Flint Center for the Performing Arts in Cupertino. Our guess is that this has something to do with capacity — Apple’s auditorium is very small and if Apple sees this as a high profile release — there are rumors of a wearable, too — then it could want more bodies in the seats.

Apple will also likely announce the general availability of iOS 8 at this event. If it follows the pattern of previous releases, it’ll arrive for existing device owners a few days before the iPhone 6 (or whatever Apple chooses to call it) ships.

We’ll be at the event, bringing you all the news and announcements direct from Apple live as they happen, so tune in right back here on September 9 for our coverage.

IFTTT Lands $30 Million Series B From Norwest Venture Partners, A16Z

IFTTT (If This Then That) has just announced it has closed $30 million in Series B funding led by Norwest Venture Partners with participation from existing investor A16Z. As part of the deal, IFTTT is also bringing on a new board member, Josh Goldman, who is a general partner at Norwest and who holds advisory roles on 15 other boards, according to CrunchBase.

IFTTT is a platform that aims to give people control over the way their Internet-connected services and devices communicate with one another. This is done through a very simple statement: If this, then that.

Users can program Twitter to interact with the weather or the time of day, program their phones to go silent when they enter the office, or set their Nest thermostat to react to cues from the weather or their location.

It’s an IoT play that couldn’t be maturing at a better time.

“When we started the company we were thinking very long term; what’s on the service right now is just the tip of the iceberg,” said Linden Tibbets. “We always had this idea of IoT in mind, but the speed with which that happened, because of things like Kickstarter and the general excitement around the opportunity even in the last 12 months, has turned into a roar.”

IFTTT launched back in 2010 with a relatively bare-bones product, and has today grown to offer more than 125 channels (integrations with other services, devices, etc.) with companies like Nike, Square, ESPN, Nest, Jawbone, eBay and Microsoft. There are over 14 million personal recipes on the platform that are triggered 15 million times a day.

And all this at a time when Google is snatching up Nest, and Samsung is scooping up SmartThings.

“Following this round of funding, one of the things we’ll be driving towards is turning on our first revenue stream, which will be premium accounts,” said Tibbets. “We want to allow customers on our platform to do something above and beyond what they’re already doing, and we receive requests every day for great premium features like turning on multiple Twitter or Instagram accounts.”

IFTTT has raised a total of $39 million, with existing investors including Lerer Ventures, betaworks, BoxGroup, SV Angel, Founder Collective and more.

Infamous First Light Review: Good Things Happen When DLC Doesn’t Feel Like DLC

There’s rarely a modern game franchise that manages to catch and keep my attention, but Sucker Punch’s PlayStation-exclusive Infamous is among those. The tale of ordinary humans getting and coming to grips with super powers in an open-world environment is always captivating, and that’s true even with the new Infamous: First Light expansion DLC for PlayStation 4, which takes the setting and mechanics of Infamous: Second Son but creates a new adventure, with a different protagonist, new powers and standalone gameplay that doesn’t even require you own the original title.

First Light is a rarity in the world of DLC in not requiring owners to have the software title upon which it is based. It also retells a story already told in the main storyline of Infamous: Second Son, but from a first-person perspective which sees you take up the role of Abigail Walker, aka Fetch, a supporting cast member from Second Son. Her origin story is a key component of Second Son, but in this game, you actually experience it, over the course of roughly five hours of new gameplay (plus side missions and other bonus content).

Despite the fact that it tells a tale we already know (to some extent, though there’s a lot going on here that wasn’t discussed in Second Son) and despite the fact that at heart, it’s a reskinned Second Son with a more limited feature set and fewer open world missions, this is still a solid game, and one that’s probably a better introduction to the Infamous series than Second Son would be for those new to the franchise.

First Light focuses on a single power set, Fetch’s neon-based abilities, whereas in Second Son as protagonist Delsin you get to explore three different power types, each with a progression tree. Fetch’s power set is one of those, but it’s different in First Light, with new abilities, altered ones and a more in-depth progression tree for skills, presumably more advanced because you’re only dealing with one here. The new treatment of the neon powers feels fresh here, and at no point did I feel like I was just playing a hamstrung female version of Delsin, much to Sucker Punch’s credit.

All of that said, First Light does still feel like a companion experience, but mostly because it gets what it does attempt right, making you wish they’d gone and done more. First Light could fare well as a standalone sequel, in fact, with a richer side mission experience and a storyline that goes beyond its current, less-than-epic scale.

Still for $15, this is a great game. That’s around the price range of most DLC story expansions, but it’s actually a complete game in its own right, with graphics and gameplay on par with top-tier console franchise titles. Sucker Punch and Sony have broken the mold for DLC with First Light, and they should be in no rush to repair it.

Findster’s GPS Tracker Locates Missing Kids Or Pets, Without A Monthly Fee

There are a number of gadgets, both new and old, that allow parents to geo-locate their children – or let puppy parents track down a wandering Fido – but many of these either fall short of the task at hand by relying on Bluetooth alone, or require a monthly fee, like the FiLIP smartwatch for kids or the Amber Alert GPS, for instance. A new gadget now in the works called Findster differentiates itself through the use of proprietary RF technology, which allows for a longer range than Bluetooth, as well as no monthly fees.

The Findster team, based in Portugal, includes founders Virgílio Bento, David Barroso, Paulo Fonseca, André Ferreira, Márcio Colunas and David Dieteren, whose background includes a mix of experience in hardware, software, and design.

Bento, a university professor with a Ph.D. in electrical engineering, also has previous experience with hardware, having developed a medical device aimed at improving rehabilitation in stroke patients in the past.

Not a parent himself, Bento admits that the idea for Findster came to him after he went looking for an affordable GPS tracker for his dog, who would sometimes become lost. But he was disappointed that most of the better GPS trackers required a monthly fee – which was hard to swallow given that the gadget wasn’t something he would need, except on a handful of occasions.

After deciding to tackle the problem himself along with the Findster team, Bento realized that there was a bigger need than just hunting down missing pets.

“People with kids told us, that is perfect for my kids. And we thought, okay, maybe we have a different segment here that’s important to acknowledge,” he says of the device’s transition in the far more crowded, and potentially more profitable, “kid tracker” space.

The founders began work on the device last year, and raised $67,000 during a prior crowdfunding campaign whose goal was $50,000. They’ve now just opened up an extension to that campaign to allow additional backers to get in. With still nearly a month left to go, Findster has raised over $11,000 so far on the new campaign.

How It Works

Findster is a bit different from other gadgets in this space because of the way it has incorporated the technology used to identify the child (or pet’s) GPS coordinates. Instead of leaning on cellular providers’ services or limited Bluetooth technology, it enables long-range bi-directional communication between two modules, one held by the parents, the other attached to the child or pet.

“We’re filing our patent now, but [the long-range communication is] below 1 GHz…and we’re using a frequency band that’s available to everyone. What makes us different are the details of the communication – how we encrypt the data, and how we design our antennas to be more sensitive,” says Bento.

Meanwhile, the child module passes information to an iPhone via Bluetooth. Between the two, the range is 1 Km. However, through an optional base station, the range can extend to 2 Km. These base stations, designed for use in the home or even at schools, are part of the company’s larger vision for setting up a mesh network for its trackers – similar to how the lost item finder Tile is working to create the same via its users’ smartphones.

In addition, the devices and accompanying software will allow for things like geo-fences, push notifications, group monitoring, emergency alerts, fall detection (via an accelerometer), a locate mode that offers proximity and direction, an activity tracker for pets (for super obsessive dog parents, we suppose), remote monitoring via the base station, and integration with the IFTTT alerts service.

Bento claims they have a working prototype, which will begin shipping in April worldwide on a first come, first serve basis. Early crowdfunders paid $99 for the two modules and a charger (retail to be $129), while the full system including a base station will eventually retail for $250.

The company is fairly certain they can hit their ship date, having already done a lot of the legwork of finding and partnering with manufacturers when working on the above-referenced earlier medical device.

Though in bootstrapping mode for now, Bento says that they’re now in talks with the medical device’s angel investors for additional seed funding.

Samsung’s New Gear S Smartwatch Features A Curved Screen And 3G Connectivity

Samsung officially takes the cake when it comes to launching smartwatches: It just announced the Samsung Gear S, its billionth smartwatch device launching this year. The Gear S has a few hallmarks that set it apart from the crowd, however, including a curved Super AMOLED display, which has a 2-inch diagonal measurement and 360×480 resolution, and a built-in 3G modem, which can let the wearable receive notification and messages, and even make and receive calls without any smartphone involved.

The Gear S is essentially a wrist-mounted smartphone, which is not something new to the industry. Samsung’s latest effort is Tizen-powered, like its Samsung Gear 2 and Gear Neo devices, and also has built-in Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity, in addition to its cellular radio. The Gear S’s hardware design might be its more impressive feature, as we’re finally starting to see displays that wrap around the contours of the wrist, rather than sticking out as a traditional flat surface.

On the software side, the Gear S has HERE navigation provided by Nokia, as well as Spritz speed-reading. It also includes GPS sensors, an accelerometer, gyroscope, compass, UV detection, barometer and a heart rate monitor. IN terms of specs, it’s packing 4GB of internal storage and 512MB of RAM, plus a dual-core 1.0 GHz processor. It has IP67 dust and water resistance, and a relatively small 300mAh battery, which Samsung says will still manage to get it 2 days of usage under normal conditions.

Samsung is also launching the Gear Circle headset alongside the new wearable, which offers Bluetooth connectivity, as well as a vibration motor to provide silent notifications, and a mic for chatting as well as receiving voice commands.

The Gear S will be available starting in October, though pricing hasn’t been announced. Regardless of what Samsung asks consumers to pay for this device, it begs the question: How many smartwatches from one company can consumers stand? Especially one based on Tizen, now that Google has thrown its weight behind Android Wear?

A Fancy Cooler Has Stolen The Title Of Most-Funded Kickstarter Project From Pebble

Arguably, Pebble and its record-breaking Kickstarter project woke the slumbering giant that is the smartwatch device category. It should follow, then, that by this time next year we’ll be seeing Android-powered smart coolers from Samsung, LG and every OEM under the sun flooding the market, given that the Coolest Cooler has now knocked the Pebble from its vaunted pedestal, with over $10.35 million raised and a little over two days remaining in its campaign.

Pebble raised $10,266,845 during its crowdfunding campaign, and then went on to become produce follow-up products like the Pebble Steel. It’s hard to compete with the power of mass media attention, however – the Coolest did both the morning news circuit and made appearances on late night talk shows, while the Pebble’s success owed a lot to its ability to appeal to early adopter and tech enthusiast audiences.

The Coolest’s popularity is unsurprising for another reason: It marks the first time my brother has told me about a Kickstarter project before I’d noticed it or seen it elsewhere. My brother enjoys tech, but he’s not a super early adopter, and the risk of Kickstarter means he’s never backed a project, yet this one merited his attention. A smart cooler with a blender, USB power, lights and a speaker rated where many others did not.

One other interesting tidbit – the Coolest almost never made it to Kickstarter in the first place, as it was submitted last year but wasn’t deemed up to snuff. Thank goodness for the revisions, or we’d never be able to take Margaritaville with us wherever we happen to wander.

Standalone Kinect For Xbox One Will Go On Sale October 7 For $149.99

Starting October 7, consumers who opted to buy an Xbox One without a Kinect will be able to snag one for $149.99.

Microsoft unbundled the Kinect device from the Xbox One in a bid to lower the price of its current-generation console. Since then, according to the company, Xbox One sales have increased by more than 100 percent.

The Xbox One is part of Microsoft’s larger Windows strategy, utilizing part of the shared Windows core. Its success or failure isn’t therefore merely a gaming play for the software company; the stakes are higher.

The Kinect device will come bundled with a game entitled ‘Dance Central Spotlight.’

Kinect itself, when introduced to the Xbox 360 console in an earlier form, became one of the fastest selling gadgets of all time. Microsoft stapled an updated version of the Kinect to its third-generation Xbox console, pushing its price tag higher than that of the competing PlayStation 4. Sales dragged in the wake of that product choice.

It will be interesting to see what impact selling the Kinect by itself will have on the larger ‘spend’ that the Xbox One generates.

Microsoft Promises Fix For Surface Pro 3 Overheating Issue

The issue that is causing some Surface Pro 3 devices to restart and tell users that they are overheating is an error, according to Microsoft. The company has promised a fix in short order.

Microsoft’s Surface Pro 3 tablet hybrid has an Intel Core i7 processor option; Microsoft says the chip requires “[its] fan to spin more regularly and at higher speeds – and for the unit to run slightly warmer.” Reasonable enough. I’ve noticed that my loaner Core i5-based Surface Pro 3 can get a bit warm when docked, but that’s not too surprising given its hardware mix when you consider the size of the device.

According to the software company, “a very small number” of Pro 3 devices are impacted.

It’s been an interesting rollout for the Surface Pro 3. I recently lost a bet regarding Surface revenue in Microsoft’s most recent quarter due to my miscomprehension of how pre-order data for the Pro 3 device would be accounted for. Presumably, Surface revenue for Redmond will be quite a bit higher in the current financial period.

For now, if you sprung for the priciest Pro 3 SKU, help is on the way.

MB&F Mixes Up Sci-Fi Canon With A New High-Tech Music Box

Watchmaker MB&F aka Maximilian Büsser & Friends is well known for its dedication to the sci-fi cause. Many of the watches – some costing over $100,000 – are reminiscent of robots, steampunk engines, and alien heads. Now, however, you and yours can own a handmade music box that looks like a weird USS Enterprise and plays, oddly enough, the Superman theme.

The box is made of steel, brass, aluminum, and “350 year old spruce wood” for the resonating chamber. Why is it special? Ariel Adams informs us:

A man, Lorenzo Pellegrini – who is in his 80s – is the only one who can select the right tree, and according to him, only 1 in 10,000 spruce trees in the correct region have the proper resonance qualities. When the right plant is found the trees are only cut down in November during a waning moon, because apparently that is when the tree is in its driest state. After being cut down, the wood is allowed to try for up to a decade before being specially cut for its ultimate use in these music boxes. If that doesn’t make for the types of stories that sell luxury goods, then I really don’t know what will.

The box will play parts of the Star Trek and Star Wars theme songs as well as some Clash, Rolling Stones, and Led Zep. Again, this thing costs $21,000 and is entirely hand made, so logic is kind of out the door here.

That said, it’s a cool, nerd-centric device created by one of the most respected indie watchmakers in the world, so it’s bound to sell a few units.

ABlogToWatch has a few more details but feel free to wonder at this Star Trek-inspired music box and, more importantly, allow the hate to flow through you because the thrusters are on the wrong side of the primary hull. Live and prosper this long look as good you will not!

Kobo’s Aura H20 Makes The High-Res E-Reader Waterproof – Your Move, Amazon

Kobo has a new e-reader out that actually could shake up the market, since it offers waterproofing as a standard factory feature on a $179.99 e-reader, with a high-res, 265 DPI 6.8-inch e-ink display. The Kobo Aura H20 basically takes the already-impressive Aura HD, makes the design thinner and lighter, and adds IP67 environmental resistance, which is a tough package to beat.

The e-reader also sports a 1GHz processor for faster page turning, and 4GB of onboard storage built-in (the Kindle Paperwhite now has that much, too, after a quiet mid-cycle upgrade). The Aura H20 has expandable storage via microSD, too, supporting cards with up to 32GB of space, in case you ever wanted to carry around more books on your device than any human being could ever possibly hope to read in their lifetime, even if all they were doing was reading continuously without pausing for sleep, food or basic human interaction.

Kobo’s e-reader has the same water/dust resistance rating as Samsung’s Galaxy S5, meaning it’s also submersible in up to 1 meter of water for up to 30 minutes, provided the USB port cover is closed. The protection used on the Aura H20 is designed to help if you accidentally spill or drop it into shallow water, not for prolonged undercover use. Which means it still isn’t quite as cool as the Waterfi-treated Kindle Paperwhite, though the fact that it’s a first-party feature that doesn’t cost over $200 means it’s still pretty badass. Plus, you’re seldom (read: never) going to want to actually read underwater, vs. just around or near it anyway.

Amazon is rumored to be preparing a follow-up Kindle Paperwhite of its own for release in early fall. The Aura H20 is available for pre-order tomorrow from select retailers, and through Kobo.com starting September 1, with a ship date of October 1. Whether it has to go toe-to-toe with a thinner, higher-res Kindle e-reader from Amazon remains to be seen, but thus far, we’ve heard nothing about water resistance as a standard feature on Amazon’s next device.

A 12.9″ iPad Could Make 2015 The Year iOS Breaks The Mobile Mold

A new Apple iPad is in development, according to Bloomberg, with a 12.9-inch display that adds around 3 inches to the size of the iPad Air in terms of diagonal screen dimensions. Such a device would be a lot larger than Apple’s current top tablet overall, and is apparently already gearing up for a production run starting in the first quarter of 2015. We’ve long heard rumors about a bigger tablet coming out of Cupertino, but if it’s finally arriving, next year could be a milestone for iOS and how it’s used.

The 12.9-inch iPad has been in development for at least a year, according to Bloomberg’s sources, and is designed to help “shake up” iPad sales according to the publication. It’s true that iPad sales have essentially plateaued over the last couple of quarters, instead of continuing to grow, as has Apple’s iPhone segment. Some analysts claim consumer shyness around new tablet purchases are tied to the availability of smartphones with ever-increasing screen dimensions.

Following that logic, offering a tablet with dimensions approximating those of laptops, albeit presumably with a much smaller overall physical footprint, makes a lot of sense. If the current lineup isn’t appealing because there’s not enough difference between big phones and standard tablets, maybe a larger display will give consumers something to get excited about.

The challenge is that larger tablets threaten to quickly become unwieldy. But there’s recent evidence to suggest that larger screens on tablet devices might not be nearly as preposterous as they once were; the Surface Pro 3, for instance, has a 13-inch display and packs a full computer within, yet remains perfectly usable (if a tad heavy) as a tablet device.

There’s other evidence to suggest a larger iPad could be on Apple’s roadmap: code in iOS 8 points to a feature in development that would allow users to run multiple apps side-by-side on the iOS-powered tablet, which would make even more sense given more screen real estate to do so. Apple could use simultaneous multitasking with increasing processor power and app capabilities to turn a large iPad into a strong competitor for notebook computers in education and in enterprise markets. Upsizing the physical hardware for iOS could begin to reveal the true potential of Apple’s mobile platform, in much the same way Microsoft’s attempts to shoehorn mobile functionality on desktop Windows have not.

Apple’s 12.9-inch iPad is far from a sure bet despite this report; as mentioned, we’ve heard rumblings about this kind of hardware in the past. But Bloomberg reporting a concrete production timeline with confidence is the best evidence we’ve had yet that it could become a reality – and if it does, it’ll be very interesting to see how Apple positions the device and what impact it has on the tablet market and Apple’s growing role in the overall PC industry, too.

Jawbone Looks At UP Data To See How Many Were Woken Up By The Napa Earthquake

Jawbone has shown one of the more interesting ways data gathered on its platform might be used for large-scale population studies: The fitness tracker company looked at its cumulative UP data to find out where wearers of its fitness bands were woken up by the South Napa earthquake that happened yesterday morning, and where people slept through the ground shaking.

Jawbone found that, unsurprisingly, those living closest to the epicenter of the quake were the ones who woke up most reliably, at around 3:20 AM when it originally struck. 93 percent of UP wearers in Napa, Sonoma, Vallejo and Fairfield woke up almost instantly, while just over half of UP wearers in San Francisco and Oakland were awoken. The effect was negligible for those further out – by the time you get to surrounding Modesto and Santa Cruz, where the effects where still detectable but very minor, there are almost no UP wearers who arose around the time of the event.

The people closest to the epicenter were also more likely to stay up longer after waking, per Jawbone – of those 15 miles or less from the epicenter, 45 percent stayed up the remainder of the night.

This data as it stands isn’t much more than an interesting observation on how we’re impacted immediately by events that could be disastrous, but it could inform longer-term studies about the impact of things like earthquakes on humans over longer periods of time. You can also see how similar data could be used to study correlations between living in earthquake-prone areas and long-term impact on sleep patterns and other aspects of health, for instance. In short, while it may seem like a lark, the data gathered by Jawbone could inform serious scientific work in the future, especially if wearables attain any kind of wide consumer scale.

LG Is Already Launching A New Smartwatch – And This Time It’s Round

Android Wear isn’t even a year old, but LG is already ramping up the hype cycle for its second smartwatch based on Google’s wearable software platform. The design for the new device centers around a circular face, a trick that Motorola is pioneering with its Moto 360 smartwatch, which should ship in early September, but which is one of two default screen configurations for Android Wear built-in natively by Google.

The LG watch appears to be looking to one-up the Moto 360 right now, with a perfectly circular face that, at least according to the teaser, emphasizes the fact that it doesn’t have to leave a small window at the bottom that makes one hard, flat edge, as does Motorola’s wearable. The design also looks to feature a more traditional case with external lugs, vs. Motorola’s design, which might be more appealing for those looking for something that more typically resembles your average, innocuous Timex or Casio.

LG will be showing off whatever this is at IFA 2014 next week, so we won’t have to wait long to have the full device specs revealed. If it ships shortly following its unveiling, then we could have a lot of Android Wear hardware to choose from come fall – though whether consumers are excited about having any devices in this category to choose from at all remains to be seen.

Via MobileSyrup

BiiSafe Buddy Is A Bluetooth Keyfob For Item-Tracking And Location Alerts

Forgetful folk who regularly misplace stuff are spoilt for a techie fix these days. Connected item trackers that link your valuables to your mobile phone have been crowding onto the market thick and fast, fueled by the rise of the less battery-thirsty Bluetooth Low Energy connectivity tech, and promising to put an end to your ‘where did I put my keys?’ woes. Just a few that spring to mind include Tile, Chipolo, Duet… the list goes on.

Well here’s another: Finnish made BiiSafe Buddy, which was crowdfunded on Indiegogo, offers item tracking via Bluetooth and a location-sharing alerts feature geared towards families by turning the gizmo into a physical button that lets you quickly share your location on a map with your chosen circle of loved ones.

I gave the BiiSafe Buddy a road test for a few days to see whether the concept lives up to the promise.

Basics

• MSRP: $50/€39 per single buddy, or lower unit cost multipacks
• Battery life of between 3 to 18 months
• Bluetooth Low Energy
• iOS and Android apps
• Product info page

Pros

• Tactile, minimalist design
• Easily share your location on a map

Cons

• Trigger range not yet customisable
• Interface has some niggles

The hardware design of the buddy is pleasingly tactile and non-slippery, given its rubbery face, although this material does attract dust so if you’re sticking it in a bag or pocket expect it to gather some lint. There’s a metal ring running around the edge of the device which offers a secure place to easily attach it to your keys or to the zipper inside a purse/bag. The buddy is not at all heavy — akin to the average key-fob in weight — and its tapered shape means it slips into even a small jeans pocket without adding unpleasant bulk.

Set up is relatively straightforward. First you need to download the companion iOS or Android app. You’ll also need to create your usage circle within the app — which means the group of people (or just yourself) who will able to locate a buddy and receive alerts from it. This is done by entering an email address and a password, both of which will be the shared login credentials for all other people in your circle. That’s a bit awkward but again it’s clearly geared towards families who are likely to be used to sharing login credentials.

NB: Only one circle can be linked to an installed BiiSafe Buddy app at a time. And all the others in the circle have to have the BiiSafe Buddy app installed — with the same username and password credentials inputted — in order to get alerts on their mobile device.

After setting up your circle, next you link and configure each individual buddy by tapping on the add new buddy icon in the app and holding one buddy near your BLE-capable mobile device and pushing the buddy button (up to five buddies can be linked per app installation). Each buddy can be named within the app and a display icon chosen for it, such as keys or a bag, to help manage multiple buddies. And that’s the set up done. The app offers other settings you can play around with, such as changing how loud the alert sound is (although the loudest setting is not very loud at all so there’s probably not much scope or need to make it any quieter).

Operation of the buddy is also pretty straightforward, although the interface does have some niggles. If you want to locate a lost buddy you open the app, tap on the particular buddy you’re after and its last known location is plotted on a map. You can also tap on ‘find buddy’ to trigger a short audio alert and a radar style interface that shows if you’re getting nearer to that buddy as you move around looking for it. Neither lasts very long (probably to save battery life) so unless your lost item is not actually very lost you’re likely to need to trigger this multiple times as you go a-hunting.

If you want to use the buddy to share your location — say with a family member who’s coming to meet you — a short press on the button will share your location to the circle. This type of location share is signaled on the buddy by a short burst of green light. Although, in daylight, the light is easily missed and if you press and hold the buddy button for too long (around 2 seconds) it will send the same location share but this time badged as a safety alert (meaning the app will mark your location with a big red circle). The buddy flashes red lights when you’ve triggered one of these safety location alerts.

The specific message that’s sent when you share your location with your circle can be configured to something of your choosing from within the app.

Given how easy it is to trigger the safety alert by mistake — say when someone only meant to share their location, or accidentally because of items pressing against it in your bag — it seems likely that a lot of false alarms are going to be triggered and sent to your circle. So it’s a shame they didn’t make the two trigger functions more distinct. Or the safety alert a little harder to trigger.

Another feature of the buddy is that it can alert you when you and your mobile device have moved more than 50 meters away from a connected buddy (you can disconnect individual buddies when you want to disable this feature). I found this less useful, because 50 meters is actually quite a distance — and you’re likely to have locked yourself out of the house long before the app gives you a warning that you’ve left your keys behind.

Currently the trigger range for this feature can’t be configured but the buddy’s makers say they are looking at ways to integrate that. It would certainly be a lot more useful if the range could be user-defined, given that the size of people’s houses vary — and a shorter trigger might make sense for your keys than for another item you want to keep tabs on. As it stands, 50 meters is only really going to help you if you drop your keys in the street while jogging. Or leave your bag on a park bench.

The buddy has a few other tricks up its sleeve. For instance the hardware includes a temperature sensor so you can view the temperature of individual buddies in the app, should you be curious about how warm it is where your keys are. Plus there’s a motion detection feature you can enable to trigger alerts when an item is dropped from a particular height. That’s neat if you worry about your keys falling out of your pocket, say, or if your child won’t leave the house without their favourite teddybear but always drops and loses it when they do take it out.

Bottom Line

If you’re the sort of person who loses their keys in their own house the Biisafe Buddy has got your back, although if your household is generally noisy you may have trouble tracking down where its gentle beeps are coming from. But at least you’ll know for sure that the errant keys are somewhere near so you can be all the more zen as you peek under piles of washing. The location sharing feature is also neat, if that’s useful to you. Families with teenage kids to pick up from clubs and events may find it helpful, although teens may be less keen to have their whereabouts tracked and mapped. Privacy considerations are an issue with any tracking tech that can be used to keep tabs on people as well as insentient things. Ironing out those sort of disputes is likely to be more troublesome than dealing with the app’s more minor interface niggles.

Apple Opens Battery Replacement Program For Affected iPhone 5 Units

Apple has created an iPhone 5 battery replacement program after it released a statement saying that it had discovered a “very small percentage” of units “may suddenly experience shorter battery life or need to be charged more frequently.”

This iPhone 5 battery replacement program is the second to arrive. Late last year, Apple had a replacement program for iPhone 5s units with battery life issues.

Apple says the affected iPhone 5 units were sold between the month of it’s launch, September 2012, and January 2013.

The support site features a tool to check if your serial number belongs to a faulty iPhone 5. The replacement program is available at Apple Retail Stores, Authorized Apple Service Providers, and via AppleCare, in the US and China first. Those outside those countries will have to wait till August 29th.

As per us usual, you’re advised to backup you data, Turn off Find my iPhone, and Erase all Content and Settings before arriving to get the battery replaced.

If you had already paid to get your battery fixed (and you’re eligible for this replacement), Apple is offering refunds.

The program is available up to March 1, 2015 and it does not extend your iPhone 5’s warranty.

TechCrunch Giveaway: Canon EOS T3i Kit And NeroTrigger

In an effort to raise awareness for their new Kickstarter-funded MIOPS smartphone-controlled camera trigger, our friends at NeroTrigger are giving away some swag. One of you will be the lucky winner of a package that includes a NeroTrigger and a Canon EOS T3i kit.

The Canon EOS Rebel is a digital SLR camera, and is accompanied by an accessory kit that includes three lenses, a camcorder and a 59″ lightweight tripod – among other accessories.

The second part of this giveaway package is NeroTrigger, an LCD color-screen designed for high-speed photography, which operates in different modes based on your setting. When attached to your camera, the compact device senses changes in your environment based on one of its six modes, and can quickly set the camera to capture difficult-to-shoot events like lighting or fireworks. The sound mode activates upon hearing a noise, and the laser mode triggers when the beam is broken. Additional modes add HDR and time-lapse capabilities to your camera, and DIY mode allows for a customizable triggering system.

This giveaway is targeting all you creatives out there, as these products give you unlimited innovative photography options.

You have until Friday, August 29, 2014 at 9 a.m. to enter. 

To enter, click the image above or follow this link.

Engineers Build A 3D Printing OS For All Printers Everywhere

If you’ve used any 3D printers over the past year or so, you’ll notice one thing: fragmentation. A few use open source apps (which are abysmal) and many use homebrew solutions which range from amazing to “meh.” Now a group of engineers wants to create a standardized, usable OS for all 3D printers, ensuring that any time you click a button to print a 3D model you’ll see exactly the same screens and functionality.

The solution, called 3DPrinterOS is a standalone software system that connects to a number of popular printers. It works on Mac and Windows as well as Linux and Raspberry Pi. Using this software, your printer turns into a networked “black box.” Users can simply send over files and print them. The service is compatible with Makerbot, Ultimaker, and some RepRap models (essentially a few of the most popular printer models) and also allows you to control and submit print jobs over the Internet.

“It’s incredibly exciting how fast the 3D Printing world is growing but without a platform that’s able to communicate across printers, softwares and applications users are unable to truly enjoy and unleash the full potential of 3D Printing,” said CEO John Dogru. “Our goal is a platform compatible with the majority of design tools and 3D printers so dreamers, designers and first time makers can collaborate, communicate and create in a universal language for the first time.”

The idea is to make 3D printing as easy as 2D printing. By creating a queue, a way to watch jobs as they run, and adding in some solid compatibility you essentially turn your $3,000 Makerbot into a $150 HP – and that’s a good thing.

Founded by Dogru and Anton Vedeshin, the project is rooted in cloud computing and IT security. By offloading the heavy stuff to a server, they reckon, you can make 3D printing more accessible and easier to use for all.

“On top of this many of the current operating systems require complicated 20+ click workflows before a design could be printed,” said Dogru. “The ability to 3D Print is incredibly exciting. We still get blown away watching a 3D Printer whir to life to create a physical object out of something that was just an idea a few moments ago. We want to share that excitement and sense of wonder with the entire world.”

The apps have just left beta and are now available for all and sundry. Perhaps, just perhaps, this will be the product that finally brings the error message “PC LOAD LETTER” to a 3D printer near you?

This Robot Butler Tried To Get Me Drunk

The merry TechCrunch band took a trip to Cupertino this week to kick it with a small robot called Botlr made by robotics startup Savioke.

The little android, outfitted with a fancy collar and racing stripes, brings small items from the front desk of the Aloft hotel, to the rooms of customers. The cute R2 can handle elevators on its own, and scoots along at around one to two miles per hour.

The Botlr is the first of its fleet, and is still in testing. We put it through its paces, tasking it with the delivery of a little something that hails from the South to room 335.

And the little robot can even dance. What’s cooler than that?

I wouldn’t be surprised to see technology of this sort grow. With improved and cheaper sensor technology, smartphones, and pervasive Wi-Fi, there is quite a lot that could be done with robots in both domestic and professional environments. The Botlr is not the last of its kind.

A Second Act For The Internet Of Things

Editor’s note: David Hirsch is co-founder and partner of Metamorphic Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm headquarterd in New York City. Prior to Metamorphic, he spent eight years at Google where he was on the founding team that launched Google’s advertising monetization strategy and execution.

There has been a lot of talk in the venture capital industry about automating the home and leveraging Internet-enabled devices for various functions. The first wave of this was the use of the smartphone as a remote control to manage, for instance, a thermostat. The thermostat then begins to recognize user habits and adapt to them, helping consumers save money.

A lot of people took notice of this first-generation automation capability when Google bought Nest for a whopping $3.2 billion. But this purchase was never about Nest; rather, it was Google’s foray into the next phase of the Internet of Things.

The ability to control the temperature using Nest or to open your garage door using your smartphone falls under first-order IoT applications. The next phase will be two-fold. It will be about connecting Internet-enabled devices in the home, as well as leveraging data to improve people’s lives and the efficiency of their businesses.

Google is already headed in this direction through Nest’s acquisition of Dropcam. Dropcam provides Wi-Fi-connected web cameras, trackers, and cloud-based storage. Having both Nest and Dropcam allows Google to own a whole host of data about your daily habits and adds another piece of hardware in the home that can communicate with Android devices.

Using Nest and Dropcam, consumers can begin to track movements and know who is in the home at all times. Google has this data, as well. If you think about it, Google has so much data already about people, but what they didn’t have was the human data of where they are at any given moment, their habits, etc. This is the missing piece to Google’s puzzle, especially around Google Now where context is everything.

Playing in the Space

We’re actively investing in the IoT space at Metamorphic. An investment we’re just closing, Weaved, provides services, APIs and infrastructure to build on the Internet of Things. Samsung recently acquired SmartThings, which provides kits to add sensors to existing items in the home and control them via your smartphone. SmartThings is an open platform, but the ecosystem needs better infrastructure to allow developers to build connectivity on devices that speak to each other.

The company we invested in helps to provide this by offering services to IoT device makers that allow them to better speak to each other and leverage the different strengths. To date, most of the Internet of Things has been built on disparate wireless protocols and companies. They live inside of their own ecosystem, but there isn’t a unifying language that allows them to speak to each other and work seamlessly together. This is a large hurdle that this category faces moving forward.

We also recently invested in a company that we haven’t announced yet that is building smart devices for restaurants and bars. In this scenario, it’s the data that is most important: not being alerted when a restaurant or bar is running low on inventory but rather allowing owners to easily reorder, make predictions around demand and improve the overall margins of the business.

This type of machine-to-machine technology is extremely powerful for the industry at large due to the ability to bring down long-term costs by reducing equipment and wasted inventory. If a bar owner knows that a certain liquor has a trend of being consumed less during certain times of the year or is losing popularity, they can be alerted in real time rather than suffering loss on the balance sheet.

This begins to influence wearables, as well. Companies like Sproutling are leveraging Internet-enabled devices to compile and use actionable data, which allows the company to do all sorts of things current baby monitors can’t: measure heart rate, temperature of the room and ambient heart rate, as well as tell you if the baby is awake or asleep or if it’s facing up or down, etc.

Eventually, though, they compile data about the baby that can predict how long the baby will be asleep for, when the baby will sleep more soundly (temperature, timing, etc.) and more. This type of data is valuable not only for the industry but for the actual parents who can start to plan their own sleep schedules around how long and when the baby will sleep.

Another good example of this is Canary, which provides seamless home security, detecting when an intruder is in your house. Canary has several sensors, including a video camera, a humidity monitor, a siren and an air-quality sensor. Over time Canary learns your habits and knows when you’re typically coming home, which visitors should be in your house, when you’re not there, etc. This allows for far fewer mistakes in tripping up the alarm and having the police department come to your house in non-emergency situations.

The Human in Act II

As more Internet-enabled devices come online, communicate with each other, and compile more and more comprehensive data sets, our world will become more efficient, safe, and personalized. I’ve spoken about the Human API before. It is a thesis about where the world is going — where your preferences, needs and interests will all be delivered to you in all forms of nutrition, media, content and health.

The next wave in the Internet of Things is a huge step in that direction, as devices begin to communicate and play off one another and more and more data is leveraged to make actionable insights, predictions and decisions. Search and discovery has been about text, but the Human API encompasses other information like human data. Examples of this would be, “Is my produce low or are we managing energy effectively?” The Internet of Things offers a new way to index information beyond text, where text is less effective (voice will be important here, as well).

There will also be an explosion of apps that will emerge and eventually define the growth of the Internet of Things. Just like Snapchat and Instagram redefined the camera on the smartphone, as all devices get smart and connected, they will become a platform onto themselves that will spawn new apps and services in which there will be “vertical solutions” built on “horizontal platforms” — just as it did with the PC (wintel) and with mobile (iOS/Android/ARM).

Stephen Liguori, formerly the executive director of global innovation and new models at GE, predicts there will be 50 billion industrial devices online in the next 10 years. I think this is coming sooner than that.

We went from desktop to mobile, which is so much more than the phone in your pocket and tablet by your nightstand. Mobile is everything and includes all of the devices we interact with on a daily basis. These devices will become connected both to the Internet and to each other. The Internet of Things is finally here and I for one couldn’t be more excited.

IMAGE BY Shutterstock USER Alexander Kirch (IMAGE HAS BEEN MODIFIED)

Tesla Model S Software Update Brings iPhone Unlocking And Ignition Start

Tesla owners have been looking forward to OS 6.0, a software update for their vehicles, for a while now, but it’s finally rolling out to vehicle owners, reports Electrek. The system adds a bunch of new features for Model S vehicles, including a new Calendar app for in-car use, and big improvements to the Maps/Navigation software. What’s amazing (and surprising) for iPhone users is that they can now unlock and start their car from their devices if they forget their physical key fob at home.

The update is yet another indication of Tesla’s commitment not only to future customers, but also to existing vehicle owners. Musk announced just last week that the Model S would get a warranty extension for its drive train of infinite miles for up to eight years. Bringing major changes to the in-car software system post-purchase is another deviation for the standard operating procedure for vehicle owners, and letting them use their smartphones as remote access and remote starters is ordinarily an expensive aftermarket upgrade.

Basically Tesla needs to make these cars affordable for ink-stained hacks like myself stat. The new $35,000 Tesla Model 3 is now official, but its limited range makes it less appealing, and we have to wait until 2017 for it to go on sale. Until then, I guess I’ll just have to stick with envy.

Nook And Samsung Announce Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 Nook, An Android Tablet For Reading

In an effort to bring the Nook platform to a more familiar – and more fully-featured – device, Nook has announced the Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 Nook, a 7-inch tablet made primarily by Samsung. It includes something called the “Barnes & Noble Advantage,” a deeply linked app that allows for book downloads as well as tech support

“It’s the first ever full-featured Android tablet designed for reading,” said B&N CEO Michael P. Huseby.

The new device will appear in B&N stores and the booksellers will offer in-store sales and support, including app setup and book browsing. It will also support “in store reading,” which allows you to read titles while in the store.

To be clear, this is a Samsung device being sold in B&N stores with a bit of branding. In terms of partnerships it’s not a bad idea but it does suggest that dedicated Nook hardware is no longer a priority.

The Galaxy Tab 4 Nook is on sale today in stores and online for $179 after $20 rebate. This is the same price available online at Amazon and other retailers.

We’ll have a hands-on shortly.

Philips Hue Lux Review: Smart Lighting For Less

If you’ve been eyeing the Philips Hue connected lighting series with keen interest but are also unwilling to spend the big bucks the current series demands, now’s your chance to get on board: Philips has kicked off pre-orders for the Hue Lux line of bulbs, including individual units and a starter kit including two bulbs and a base. The Lux trades programmable colors for a cheaper price tag, but most consumers won’t miss the extra features.

The Philips Hue Lux retails for $29.99 per bulb, which is half the price of the standard Philips Hue and Hue Downlights and Spotlights. The Starter Kit retails for $99.99 U.S., which is $100 cheaper than the starter kit for the standard color-changing bulbs, albeit with one fewer bulb included in the kit. The trade-off is that they only offer up a soft white light, which isn’t changeable, but all other Hue features are included, including times, geofencing, scene compatibility with other Hue apps and remote brightness control.

The Lux is a 750 lumen bulb at max brightness, which is roughly equivalent to a 60 watt incandescent lightbulb. The original Hue and the Hue Downlight produce 600 lumens and 630 lumens respectively, so theoretically you’re getting brighter maximum light here, but the softer light might appear less bright than a more pure white you can get out of the adjustable rest of the range.

Overall, the Hue Lux is a good option for those looking to supplement their existing Hue setup with bulbs for their desk and floor lamps, and for other installations where they just need basic lighting without all the fancy extras like color changing in sync with media playback. If you think about the fact that you can kit out a kitchen’s worth of six overhead sockets for $180 instead of $360, that’s going to make a big difference. The Lux bulbs also use 80 percent less power than a traditional incandescent bulb, and should last a lot longer, too, with estimated life span tapped at 22 years, adding to the overall value proposition.

It’s about twice the price of the non-Hue 60W equivalent Philips of the same design, but you get the connectivity in the mix, which really increases its overall versatility. If you’re a Hue system user, or if you’ve been curious about the Philips smart bulb range, this is a great new addition to the lineup. It’s available for pre-order now through Amazon and the Apple Store in the U.S., and begins shipping in the first week of September.

HitchBOT Shows That Robots Can Trust Humans With Cross-Canada Journey

A project cosponsored by a group of Canadian universities, startups and Microsoft Azure has resulted in a robot named HitchBOT successfully making its way across Canada, beginning its journey in Halifax on the country’s eastern coast and ending in Victoria, British Columbia on the edge of the Pacific Ocean.

The project saw a rudimentary robot depending completely on strangers willing to pick it up and transport it to get where it was going, and the entire journey took only a little less than a month and resulted in no major injuries, besides a cracked protector screen for its LED ‘face’ and somewhat garbled speech compared to its initial eloquence.

HitchBOT was picked up only two minutes after it began its journey, and had an easy go of finding subsequent rides along the way. The robot is very crude, but could have conversations with its drivers, though occasionally it required power from the cigarette lighter port of cars, or from any standard outlet. Its speech engine is also very simplistic, so fielding a lot of questions could potentially result in an overload that requires the bot to shut down and reboot, which could take anywhere from a few minutes to a couple of hours.

HitchBOT’s complexity or lack thereof isn’t the point of this art/science/research project, however; project co-creator Frauke Zeller says the bot’s quick and safe journey across country shows that robots can trust in the kindness of strangers, in an interview with the Toronto Star.

It’s an interesting angle, especially given how much attention is paid to whether humans can trust robots – we’re all on edge about the possibility of Skynet awakening and deciding to eradicate its imperfect, flabby, messy flesh-filled creators, but what about the (more likely?) possibility that humans end up breaking, modifying or defacing every robot they encounter in public?

HitchBOT made it safe and sound, but to be fair he was traveling across the country with perhaps the best reputation for an affable, kind citizenry in existence. I move that HitchBOT next try to make its way across the U.S., or at least the mean streets of the U.K.

Verizon Video Reveals The HTC One M8 With Windows Phone

A new video just launched on Verizon’s YouTube channel reveals what we pretty much knew was coming: HTC has created a Windows Phone-powered version of its flagship HTC One M8. The previously Android-only phone will be available with Windows exclusively on Verizon at launch.

It packs HTC’s signature UFocus feature which takes advantage of the M8’s dual camera setup, and also includes Cortana, the Windows Phone personal assistant. HTC setting up the M8 for double duty is an interesting move, and pretty much unheard of for a company’s top-level device (without hardware modifications). HTC probably wants to find a way to jazz sales, and of course Windows is always looking for new champions.

The hardware is some of the best in the business, so it’ll be interesting to see if this does indeed move the needle for Microsoft and its mobile business.

Fuhu Unveils The World’s Biggest Android Tablet Made For Family Collaboration, Socialization

The Big Tab wants to be the center of attention in your home.

Fuhu, the company that builds child-focused gadgets, unveiled the 20- and full HD 24-inch nabi Big Tab today to increase collaboration and sharing in the average household.

Both tablets come with a carrying frame that acts as a kickstand, as well as a 15-point capacitive touch screen, Quad-core NVIDIA Tegra 4 processors, and 16 GB of memory. The tablets run Android 4.4.4, but have Fuhu’s Blue MorphoTM operating system over it.

The tablet’s dual mode feature allows families to switch between nabi mode and parent mode. Parent mode runs stock android and performs like your average Android tablet. If you swipe to the right, you reach the parental controls and access to the nabi mode. Nabi mode is a launcher that holds all the apps kids would use.

The nabi system has several educational apps and games, such as the Big Canvas app that lets kids draw, create animations and edit videos; the Wings Learning SystemTM , an app that features more than 17,000 lessons and 300,000 questions in Math, Reading and Writing for pre-K to sixth; and a Chore List app, a tool parents can use to create tasks for children to complete.

But some of the main features aimed at children are games, movies and books. The nabi mode houses classics such as chess and checkers as well as a game room with traditional board games and multiplayer games such as air hockey.

Fuhu also added a collection of videos and shows from Disney, Cartoon Network and Cookie Jar Entertainment. Story Time is another app that provides 35 interactive e-books from Fuhu partners iStoryTime and Speakaboos.

The nabi system also uses nabi coins, a form of currency that is used with apps such as Chore List and the Wings Learning System to reward good behavior. Children can use the coins they earn from completing a chore to buy music, movies, books and apps with these coins. These choices are curated by parents in the Parent Mode.

Fuhu has a nabi SDK available for developers to integrate nabi coins into games directly.

The folks at Fuhu want these tablets to be a product you can carry around your house that can switch from being an educational toy for kids, to a tablet parents can use for just about anything. Fuhu’s tablet is meant to be plugged in at all times, as it only lasts 30 minutes. This defeats the purpose of being a tablet if it runs for such a short period of time.

The tablets come with parental and content controls, where parents can set time controls that monitor screen time and limit app usage.

Even with several 10-inch Android tablets on the market running resolutions higher than these Big Tabs, there are still a high number of Android apps that are not optimized for the bigger screen size, so expect to see pixels for some apps.

The nabi Big Tab HD 20” and nabi Big Tab HD 24” will launch in the fall at $449 and $549 respectively. At a high price, you get a big screen that runs several unoptimized apps, 30 minutes unplugged and the usual parental controls you can find on most kid-friendly devices.

IMAGE BY Fuhu (IMAGE HAS BEEN MODIFIED)

Watch A Robotic Copter Land On A Moving Platform

Like Voltron, robots will soon need to coordinate landings and docking with absolutely precision in difficult conditions. That’s what a group of researchers have solved by allowing a robot and a movable landing platform to communicate in order to coordinate a perfect landing.

As you can see, the quadcopter and a tank-like platform both converge on a pre-set location and both robots move themselves into position as the quadcopter slowly descends. The rotors right the quadcopter properly and finally cut out just as the landing gear touches the ground. It’s a satisfying sight.

The robot, described in a paper by John M. Daly, Yan Ma, and Steven L. Waslander, would allow military drones to come in for a landing on other autonomous land drones to recharge or move off the battlefield. It could also allow for commercial drones to land without risking getting tangled up in unseen grass or shrubbery. It’s also really scary.

It may not look like much, but this process is difficult and time-consuming and it’s fascinating to see how a pair of robots can work together to get things done.

via Robohub

Now Coming With Your Laptop: Large Helpings Of Cloud Storage

Out this morning is a spec list for the forthcoming HP Stream laptop that will run Windows 8.1, and is expected cost $199. It’s a device that Microsoft hopes will compete with Chromebooks, Google’s laptop offerings that have consumed some PC market share, mostly among less expensive devices.

To make machines running its operating system more competitive, Microsoft has reduced the price of Windows for small and inexpensive machines. The Stream fits under that rubric.

For a blow-by-blow of what the Stream offers, especially when compared to what HP’s similar Chromebook 14 contains, Paul Thurrott has you covered.

What I want to point out today is that Google and Microsoft are using inexpensive PCs as a way to pick up more cloud storage market share: The Chromebook 14, comparable to the Stream, comes with 100 gigabytes of Google Cloud Storage for two years. Similarly, the Stream — which runs Windows 8.1 and not Google’s Chrome OS — will come with 100 gigabytes of Microsoft’s OneDrive storage.

Both companies currently charge $1.99 per month for 100 gigabytes of storage, or about $50 for two years worth of the stuff. Each company is willing to swallow that cost to make computers running their platforms more tempting.

The situation also underscores the fact that the price that companies can charge for cloud storage is rapidly approaching zero. If it is being given away in 100 gigabyte chunks, attached to devices that must generate small revenues to the companies providing the storage, there is strong pressure driving the situations’ economics.

Finally, the Stream will contain a mere 32 gigabytes in its cheapest configuration. That sounds slim. But given that the device has 100 gigabytes of cloud storage stapled to it, the figure isn’t so bad. And, lowering on-device storage helps OEMs build cheaper machines.

Consumers win in every direction.

The Saleen FourSixteen Is A Faster, Louder And More Slippery Tesla Model S

The Tesla Model S is already a shockingly quick car. The electric drive train will propel it to 60 miles per hour in just over five seconds. But that’s not fast enough for Steve Saleen, owner of Saleen Automotive, who recently said that his company’s upgraded example of the Model S, called the FourSixteen, will sprint to 60 mph in the mid- to low four-second range. Because why not.

Saleen Automotive takes awesome cars and makes them even more awesomer. The company just unveiled its take on the Tesla Model S at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance. The $152,000 car features a number of mechanical, aerodynamic and aesthetic upgrades over the original.

Plus, the FourSixteen has a functional cupholder! Seriously, Elon. Model S buyeres shouldn’t have to spend $152,000 to get a cupholder.

Steve said at the car’s unveiling that he views electric cars not as a fad, but as the trend. It’s where the future is going in transportation, he adds.

Saleen states that the FourSixteen is more aerodynamic than the original. It also has improved cooling and a more track-friendly chassis, with several enhancements including a different sway bar and a software update that Saleen says improves cornering response and drivability.

The FourSixteen packs the same 416 horsepower rating as the Model S. However, thanks to an all-new 11.39:1 final gear ratio, the car is noticeably quicker and a bit louder. It also has larger wheels and upgraded brakes including an optional carbon ceramic disc system.

The interior also received upgraded interior components, but Saleen seeming removed some of the Model S’s seats. Saleen calls the FourSixteen a “four-seat supercar” with front and rear bucket seats, where the Model S sports a rear bench seat and two rear-facing seats in the back compartment.

Pricing starts at $152,000, which, mercifully, includes the cost of the base P85Model S sedan. The company is taking orders now, but the vehicles take 6-8 weeks for delivery.

Best Buy Briefly Lists The Moto 360 Smart Watch For $249

Best Buy may have inadvertently revealed pricing for the Moto 360 smart watch, set to be unveiled at a press event in early September.

The big box retailer put up a listing for the smart watch on their website, which had a full list of specs as well as a $249 price tag. The page was removed shortly after appearing.

Luckily, the folks over at DroidLife grabbed a screenshot of the listing.

According to the page, the Moto 360’s circular face is a 1.5-inch 320×290 LCD display, and the watch is also said to sport a heart rate monitor and a pedometer. The listing also claims that the Moto 360 is powered by a Texas Instruments processor (though which model is unspecified) as well as 512MB of RAM.

Of course, Bluetooth 4.0 will allow the phone to communicate with the watch. However, as Engadget notes, the listing also mentions Wifi connectivity, which is new for Android Wear.

In other words, the details of the listing may not be entirely accurate, but we can settle the matter once and for all at Motorola’s September 4 event in Chicago.

And if you’re really impatient, you can check out this hands-on video we shot at Google I/O.

Tesla Extends All 85kWh Model S Drivetrain Warranties To 8 Years And Infinite Miles

Tesla CEO and founder Elon Musk just announced via Twitter and the company blog that the drivetrain warranty for the 85 kWh Model S has been extended, giving it an eight-year, infinite-mile warranty to match that of the battery pack. This new warranty arrangement applies retroactively to every Model S ever produced, too, meaning it benefits both existing and new owners.

Originally, the Model S carried a four-year, 50,000-mile limited warranty that could be extended to 8 years and 100,000 miles for an additional $4,000 fee. Musk says in his blog post detailing the move that “[i]n hindsight, this should have been [Tesla's] policy from the beginning of the Model S program,” as the company’s warranty should reflect its belief in the improved reliability of its electric engines vs. their gasoline-powered equivalents.

Musk also notes to investors in his company that this will have a (moderate) negative effect on its earnings in the short-term, but says the move is designed to benefit the company long-term, owing to how it reflects Tesla putting its customers first.

The warranty extends to new owners upon resale of the Tesla S, too, so secondary markets also benefit. This is a huge goodwill gesture for Elon to make for its customers, and yet another shot across the bow of traditional fuel-injected gas engines. The fact that it applies retroactively makes it much more than a gesture, too, as they likely could’ve easily applied it going forward and still received praise from industry observers.