With Project Miami, Bouygues Telecom Partners With Google To Reinvent Its Innovation Strategy

It was a sunny Friday morning, but I could still see the Eiffel Tower through the blinds of this conference room in Bouygues Telecom’s tower. I was the second person outside of the company to see the Android TV-powered project, and I could feel the excitement in the air.

In the fascinating French telecommunications industry, Bouygues Telecom has had a rough year. Now, the company has no choice but to rethink everything from the ground up. And this is exactly what the company is planning to do with Project Miami. It’s a bold experiment.

Project Miami is a new TV box powered by the freshly announced Android TV platform

Behind the cheesy code name, Project Miami is a new TV box powered by the freshly announced Android TV platform. It’s exactly what Google has been wanting to build for years. But the reason why Google failed with the Google TV is that it needed strong ISP and content partners to make it useful — companies like Bouygues Telecom.

Bouygues Telecom was smart enough to work with Google on this project. Once the decision was made to use Google’s operating system, the company had only one objective in mind — ship as quickly as possible.

That’s why the telecom company partnered with iFeelSmart, a French startup specializing in software development for TV. It only took 12 months for the two companies to create Project Miami and show me a demo.

The device itself looks like an Apple TV or an Amazon Fire TV. It’s basically just a small black box with an HDMI port that you put below your TV. The remote itself has nothing special; it looks like a traditional TV remote without the useless buttons.

When you turn on the device, it gets more interesting. By default, live TV starts. But when you go to the menu, a modern and fast interface shows up. You can browse the TV guide, get recommendations, launch Android apps, go to the Play Store, rent a movie, play a car game and more. It has all the power features of Android in a sleek package, and with live TV.

It has all the power features of Android in a sleek package, and with live TV.

Overall, I would consider Project Miami a UI success. Hiding Android complexity while retaining its features is no small feat. And you get access to hundreds of live TV channels, because Bouygues Telecom already knows content providers quite well.

As a reminder, in France, most people watch TV through these set-top boxes. All Internet service providers give customers a set-top box to watch IPTV and use as a media center. In 2002, Free invented the triple play offering with the Freebox. It was a groundbreaking offering for the French market. Since then, other telecom companies had no choice but to adapt.

Yet, all the boxes out there still have an ugly and slow interface. They do the job but they could be better. Bouygues Telecom is finally bringing the French set-top box market to an era of modern design. Broadband subscribers will get the new device in October 2014.

But Project Miami is larger than just a set-top box. It’s the reset of Bouygues Telecom. There were 6 people surrounding me to answer all my questions for two hours. They kept finishing each other sentences. It wasn’t a typical CAC 40 press briefing.

The 23rd floor used to be the restaurant for the top executives of the company. Now, everyone eats in the same canteen to cut costs.

Part of that was probably due to the fact that Bouygues Telecom is working with iFeelSmart on this project — it’s a young and scrappy company compared to Bouygues Telecom. “Imagine what it feels like to receive commits at 2:30am when you work for Bouygues Telecom,” someone said.

The meeting took place on the 23rd and last floor of Bouygues Telecom’s office. This floor looked mostly empty. Later, I learned that the 23rd floor used to be the restaurant for the top executives of the company. Now, everyone eats in the same canteen to cut costs.

And this is very relevant. Ever since Free entered and disrupted the mobile market, profits have shrunk.

Currently, Bouygues Telecom doesn’t have enough subscribers to heavily invest in its infrastructure like Orange or SFR, and has too many employees to keep healthy margins like Free. In other words, Bouygues Telecom is stuck in the middle.

Earlier this year, Bouygues Telecom wanted to fix that by acquiring SFR, the second telecom company in France. It could have been a great way to get a better infrastructure, improve the competitive landscape, increase prices and more. But SFR got acquired by Numericable instead.

Now, Bouygues Telecom has two options: it could try to sell the company again, or cut jobs to stay independent. It’s a gloomy future, and that’s why the company is well positioned to rethink everything internally.

The fact that Bouygues Telecom is showcasing this product to a journalist working for an American outlet is very surprising in itself. It makes a lot of sense, as there are many French readers on TechCrunch (including French journalists working for other outlets), but there are very few big French companies who would think this way.

Project Miami was made in secret at Bouygues Telecom with iFeelSmart. In such a big company, if you want to act quickly, you need to keep most people in the dark. Yet, it’s a bold strategy as some teams kept working on new iterations of the existing box, even though these updates won’t ever see the light of the day.

Bouygues Telecom wanted to act as a startup, and the result is a promising new box that doesn’t even have a name yet. Until now, only Free could pull something like this. More than the box itself, everything surrounding this project shows a new innovation strategy at the telecom company. Now, let’s hope it’s not too late.

Photo credit: b k under the CC BY-SA 2.0 license

LG G Watch And Android Wear First Impressions Review

I’ve now had about a day with the LG G Watch, and in that time the device only left my wrist when I lay my head down to sleep. It’s my first experience with Android Wear, Google’s magical new wrist-based operating system, and so far I’m finding the platform and the device to be unique and genuinely useful additions to my mobile world.

First the watch itself – my initial impressions from a few minutes of use left me with the feeling that it was at least as comfortable as a standard wristwatch, and longer use has reinforced that impression. The watch is light, and the face, while fairly large, isn’t too big as long as you don’t have tiny wrists. LG claims to have designed for everyone, regardless of wrist type and gender, but it’s still going to look large on smaller arms.

The watch surprisingly supplements my smartphone usage pretty nicely. Google has clearly put a lot of thought into Android Wear, and what to include, as well as what to leave out. The notifications it provides come in exactly as they come in to the phone, and they reside at the bottom of the interface until you swipe up to reveal them. With apps optimized for Wear, you can open up to the relevant page within an app from the watch, and you can also reply to messages in apps like Hangouts via voice input.

Voice input on the G Watch is solid. I rarely encountered any errors in terms of transcription, and that includes in multiple environments, such as the noisy surrounds of the Google I/O After Hours party last night. Activating functions with “Ok Google” worked well, too, and I found myself using my voice to command my watch a lot more than I ever would’ve imagined I would.

The buttonless design of the LG G Watch presents some interesting challenges; figuring out how to turn the device on took some time, for instance, and I had to eventually resort to reading the included paper instruction booklet to find out that you have to put it in the magnetic charging cradle to power it up.

From there, set up was also a bit tedious. Some of that was due to the fact that I was using pre-release developer software to get it going. Also, the watch has to load software and perform a series of actions during which it tells you to wait a minute, hold on, etc. multiple times. Hopefully this is streamlined in time for the consumer ship date of July 7.

The bottom line is that Google’s Android Wear is a smartwatch interface that makes sense and gives you what you need. Google Now notifications would pop up to tell me weather, remind me of tasks I’d set earlier and more. Quickly replying to text, email and Hangouts messages with canned responses or by voice is a big time saver. In general, they’ve put what you need on your wrist, and left out what you don’t.

Does that mean Android Wear will finally open the floodgates for wearable tech? Likely not just yet, but it definitely moves the category forward, and LG’s G Watch is a solid early contender. We’ll have longer-term impressions in a full review to follow later on.

Apple Keeps The iPod Alive With New Models And Lower Prices

The iPod touch just got a bit cheaper. Without any fanfare, Apple just updated the iPod touch line with a new 16GB model and lower prices for the 32GB and 64GB flavors. Now, the cheapest option, the 16GB model, sports all the goodies previously only found on the higher priced options.

Before this update, the 16GB iPod touch cost $229, lacked a rear camera and the loop wrist strap, and only came in mundane space grey. But no more.

Starting at $199, the 16GB model now comes in six colors and is equipped with a rear facing camera. Its bigger brothers, the 32GB and 64GB models, now cost $249 and $299, respectively.

The iPod was accounted for a good chunk of Apple’s revenue, but that time has passed. The iPod’s time in the limelight is gone, but the devices still remain one of the best, non-cell phone media players on the market. From the iPod classic with its click-wheel to the iPod shuffle, nano and touch, it’s hard to find a more well-rounded media player for the money. And now the touch is even better.

Google Blurs The Line Between Web And Native Apps On Android

Today at Google I/O, Chrome Director of Product Management Avni Shah introduced the new version of Chrome coming in the next Android update dubbed Android L.

As expected, we got a couple of feature updates. But it isn’t just a better version of Chrome. There is a clear and more profound message coming from Google. The company wants to blend native apps with web tabs. And the end of native apps as we know them could be closer than we might think.

In Android L, the redesigned app switcher looks a lot like Safari on iOS 7. It shows you your recent apps in a sort of card drawer. But it also shows native apps as well as active web tabs. Every web tab has the same value as an app. It’s huge.

Similarly, Google is expanding its App Indexing API to all Android apps. Before today, the company worked with selected companies. For example, when you search for a movie in Google, there could be a deep link in the search results that will open the IMDb app on this exact movie page. It’s a seamless transition from the web to a native app.

Knowing all this, imagine for a second what Android L will look like. You turn on your phone, search for something in Google using voice search on your home screen. It launches Chrome. You tap on the first search result, it launches a native app. You switch apps to read this article you found earlier in Chrome.

Back, and forth, and back, and forth between the web and native apps. After a while, you won’t even notice if you’re on the web or in a native app.

Why does this change make sense? Google has always been a web developer first. The company first became successful with its search engine. But even its following hit products were web apps, such as Gmail, Google Calendar or Google Drive (née Google Docs). Arguably, Google is still the king when it comes to developing web apps.

But even more important, Google still makes the vast majority of its revenue from web ads. The company wants people to spend more time on the web to see Google ads. It’s not going to change in the next quarter earnings. At least not yet.

So when it comes to both technology and business, Google’s future is in the web. Still. According to multiple HTML5 and web development advocates I talk with, Android could eventually become a low-level operating system with web apps on top of it. It will effectively be the end of native apps as we know them.

Multiple companies have tried this before — Palm with WebOS, Mozilla with Firefox OS. They all failed due to a combination of flaws — systems on a chip were not powerful enough, web runtimes were not efficient enough, web developers were not talented enough.

It mostly comes down to timing. Now, it would make sense for Google to slowly but surely switch to this new app model. Systems on a chip could potentially run full-fledged laptops now. Google has tirelessly worked on improving JavaScript and HTML rendering engines. And of course, there are thousands of talented web developers working for Google.

Promoting web apps is a long process and it could take years. But today is the first clear step in that direction.

Google I/O Attendees Gifted Brand-New Android Wear Smartwatches

Get ready to be jealous, Google fans. Google I/O attendees will walk away from this week’s annual developer conference with some brand-new Android Wear-powered smartwatches. They’ll be able to choose between one of the new Android Wear watches introduced earlier today, including the Samsung Gear Live or LG G3 Android Wear. In addition, they’ll also receive the forthcoming Moto 360, when it becomes available in a few months.

That’s right: not one, but two smartwatches. Because there was no Chromebook underneath their seats, and Google felt badly? Maybe that’s why they also handed out cardboard (yes, actual cardboard – a poor man’s virtual reality device) as the attendees left the venue. More on that in a bit.

@MissXu #IO14 they weren’t kidding, btw. It’s really just a piece of cardboard. Bahaha. #IO14 pic.twitter.com/xWL3f7CkaY

— Rob DeMillo (@UberRob) June 25, 2014

It may be interesting to see which of the two smartwatches attendees initially select: the LG or the Samsung.

Android Wear, which was previously introduced, was shown off during the keynote this morning, where its various features, including a card-like design and integrations with Google’s smart assistant technology Google Now, were on display.

The company also introduced a new Android Wear SDK for developers, allowing them to build custom user interfaces, control sensors, tie into voice actions, and send data back and forth between watches, tablets and phones.

The new smartwatches, which go on sale today to the general public, will also have a few new functions, including swiping to dismiss messages and displaying contextual information to the wearer.

Google Fit Warms Up

Google Fit has risen as part of an prodigious, two-and-a-half-hour-long I/O keynote that included everything but the kitchen sink (and Google Glass and Google+).

Today during its annual developer conference, Google announced a platform preview of Google Fit, a set of APIs that will allow developers to sync data across wearables and devices.

Google Product Manager Ellie Powers demonstrated Fit’s powers with the weight loss app Noom, which communicated with Powers’ Withings scale in order to keep tabs on her daily cookie habit. Also mentioned during her presentation were Adidas smart sensors and a partnership with Nike Fuel that will make Nike Fuel data available to Google Fit developers.

The dream here is the bundling of user fitness data, with the user’s permission, of course. And Google is not alone in this aspiration, with Apple’s HealthKit platform among the many products aiming to aggregate your health zeros and ones.

As the SDK for the platform will be available in a “couple of weeks,” it’s hard to know how far Google Fit could go once developers get on board. But, along with Withings, Adidas and Nike, Google has already enlisted a formidable group of fitness brand logos for its presentation slide.

Here is the only way I see this playing out well for Google: A separate Google Fit app, like Google Docs or Google Calendar for fitness, that syncs with my RunKeeper and my scale, and that I can access on a laptop or even my iPhone. The fitness data market is very closely tied to the wearables market, and neither has gelled yet.

iWatch this space.

Barnes & Noble Is Dumping Its Nook Business

Once a pioneer in the space, the B&N Nook has long lagged behind the Kindle, dragging down the bookseller with it. But no more. Barnes & Noble just announced that it will separate its retail and NOOK Media businesses into two separate public companies. This separation is expected to be complete by the first quarter of the next calendar year.

“We have determined that these businesses will have the best chance of optimizing shareholder value if they are capitalized and operated separately,” said Michael P. Huseby, Chief Executive Officer of Barnes & Noble, in a released statement. “We fully expect that our Retail and NOOK Media businesses will continue to have long-term, successful business relationships with each other after separation.”

This news comes alongside B&N fourth quarter 2014 financial results where the Nook side of the company continued to drag down the rest of the company. The company saw fourth quarter consolidated revenues increase 3.5% to $1.3 billion over prior year levels while the Nook side watched revenues decrease 22.3% for the quarter and 35.2% for the year.

The stock market seems to like this news as B&N opened up on the day and continues to soar, surpassing its 52 week high.

After the split, the Nook business will no longer have the comfy life raft of Barnes & Noble. It will be sink or swim, and if the brand’s history is any indication, the Nook will not be treading water for very long.

Google Launches Full Android Wear SDK, Lets Developers Create Custom UIs And Access Sensors

At its annual developer conference, Google today announced the launch of a full SDK for Android Wear. After a short preview period that mostly allowed developers to push notifications to Android Wear smartwatches, the full SDK will now allow developers to create their own custom apps.

This means they will be able to write their own custom user interfaces. The company demoed an app from Eat24, for example, which would allow you to order a pizza from the watch within 30 seconds and just a few taps.

With the SDK, developers will also be able to get access to sensors and tap into voice actions. As Google noted during the keynote today, voice recognition is one of the main interfaces for all of its platforms.

In addition, the SDK will allow developers to send data back and forth between a phone or tablet and the watch.

Security Researchers Uncover The Tools Governments Use To Spy On Our Phones

Edward Snowden, whistleblower of the decade, has made it consistently clear that he didn’t trust cellphones. While he never described the methods governments and other miscreants used to crack into our handsets, he maintained that eavesdroppers could hear us even if the phone seemed off and everything on our devices was open to a dedicated hacker. But he never said how it was done.

Now we know… at least partially. The app used is called RCS/Galileo by an Italian company, The Hacking Team. The app allows for full control of the data on the phone and allows users to activate the microphone on Android, iOS, and Blackberry devices. In short, this is what Snowden feared.

An intercepted Skype call

In two very detailed and independent posts, both Citizen Lab and Kaspersky have produced some very interesting documentation of the program and have even traced a piece of Hacking Team software to a Trojan horse that had been modified to look like an Arabic news reader. The teams traced the command and control servers and found multiples in over 40 countries with the majority appearing in the U.S., Ecuador, and Kazakhstan. The major exploits included access to the following phone features and apps:

Control of Wi-Fi, GPS, GPRS
Recording voice
E-mail, SMS, MMS
Listing files
Cookies
Visited URLs
Cached web pages
Address book
Call history
Notes
Calendar
Clipboard
List of apps
SIM change
Live microphone
Camera shots
Support chats, WhatsApp, Skype, Viber
Log keystrokes from all apps and screens via libinjection

It should be noted that the iOS version requires a jailbroken phone – therefore requiring physical access to the phone – but it was easier to reverse engineer than the Android version. The Android version didn’t require a rooted device but was obfuscated to hide the functionality. All an attacker needed to do for an Android attack was to download an infected app like Qatif Today, a news app. By spoofing a legitimate app source, the attackers were able to install the Hacking Teams applications on phones in Arabic-speaking countries including Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.

The proof that these tools are used by the NSA or other governments is still circumstantial – no one has admitted to using the apps to spy on citizens – but the power of the remote control app is clearly disconcerting. An iOS phone left in a hotel room could be easily attacked and compromised at any time and Android phones are especially susceptible.

“This type of exceptionally invasive toolkit, once a costly boutique capability deployed by intelligence communities and militaries, is now available to all but a handful of governments,” wrote the Citizen Lab Researchers. “An unstated assumption is that customers that can pay for these tools will use them correctly, and primarily for strictly overseen, legal purposes. As our research has shown, however, by dramatically lowering the entry cost on invasive and hard-to-trace monitoring, the equipment lowers the cost of targeting political threats.”

Citizen Lab has a full PDF of the manual used to train law-enforcement on use of the RCS program and, although they refused to make the entire document public they did publish some excerpts. Below we see one of the most jarring examples of the Hacking Teams tradecraft: the ability to inject malware into a seemingly innocuous app package and upload it with a single click. While tech-savvy users will claim that this sort of attack would never happen to them, it’s clear that now no one can know for sure.

IMAGE BY Shutterstock

Mini-Bots Are Helping Scientists Control Tiny Objects Under A Microscope

Imina has created tiny little robots that can be used to help scientists and researchers manipulate tiny objects under a microscope, giving them a tiny helping hand when looking at very small objects.

The video above, filmed by AtoZNano, shows the miBots in action. They’re controlled via a joystick-like interface and the tiny probe can measure wires and nanotubes and can even help out in medical situations.

These tiny robots are obviously going to be expensive for the average user, but I could imagine a similar robot that could help electronics hackers control their projects at a microscopic level and move small parts around a PCB or bread board. The little robot could act as a helping hand and help steady solder points and builds with its tiny probe. Cool, cool stuff.

via Simplebotics

Watch Our Wrap-Up Of The Google I/O Keynote And Day One

Google’s I/O developer conference kicked off today, and the company held its keynote address to give an overview of all the news it revealed at the event. The changes included a preview of the upcoming version of Android, dubbed “L” for now, which brings a new design paradigm to Google’s OS that helps it work across different types of screens and devices.

There were ups and there were downs during the nearly three-hour keynote, but ultimately, Google unveiled a lot of amazing new stuff. The company also spent a lot of time talking about stuff that even developers would have a hard time getting excited about, at least when presented on stage. They really did paint a vision of a unified future of Android and Chrome on the desktop, on mobile, in your car, on your wrist and beyond – in a way that isn’t just an awkwardly forced translation of one way of using software across each different usage scenario.

Overall, we were impressed, as you generally are when a multi-billion-dollar corporation spends a sizable chunk of money on cool stuff. But Cardboard may have won the day in the end.

Verizon Confirms It Will Reconnect Data Plans For Chromebook Pixel Owners

You’ve probably been following the news that some owners of the Google Chromebook Pixel who bought a two-year data plan with their devices had been stiffed. According to a number of complaints, users were greeted with a cancelled account screen when they tried to connect via Verizon’s data network and no one was quite certain what was going on.

According to Verizon, the answer is a that a few users were hit by an unforeseen problem and the issue will be remedied.

“We do understand that a very small number of Chromebook Pixel customers may have had a promo end prematurely. We apologize for this, and will work with these customers to address the situation,” said Debra Lewis, a Verizon spokesperson.

Interestingly the reaction to the original news vacillated between smug Schadenfreude to genuine outrage. Either folks jeered at the folks who paid a few thousand for a Chromebook or railed against Google and/or Verizon for not being not evil. The comment above shows how banal the whole thing really was: a goof by a major corporation that should be remedied in a day or so. For all the talk of “churnalism” and “the death of reporting” it’s interesting to note that the best pundits in the business (“Verizon didn’t sell these Chromebooks with the promise of two years of free service — Google did,” writes Jon Gruber) went off half-cocked grumbling about motives where there was only a dumb mistake. Gruber does make an interesting point: “That this story is only breaking in June, two months after it started affecting Chromebook Pixel owners, seems telling regarding the device’s popularity.” That, perhaps, is the real news here.

The First Android Wear Smartwatches Will Go On Sale Today

Want a mini Android display on your wrist? Both LG and Samsung’s first Android Wear smartwatches will be available for purchase starting today, June 25 — and yes, Samsung is now making an Android Wear device. Called the Samsung Gear Live, it looks a lot like its Tizen counterparts.

Sadly, the stunning Moto 360 smartwatch will not be available until later in the summer.

Google will make a full Android Wear SDK available, allowing you to build custom UI, control sensors, tie into voice actions, and send data back and forth to a phone/tablet.

Today, on stage at Google I/O 2014, Google demoed several Android Wear functions that will be available on all Android Wear devices including swiping to dismiss messages and displaying contextual information relevant to the wearer.

Pebble Teams Up With Misfit For Standalone Activity Tracking App

Smartwatch maker Pebble aims to be a lot of things to a lot of people, and today it’s deepening its appeal thanks to a new partnership. The hardware startup is teaming with another young gadget company: Misfit, maker of the smart activity and sleep tracking wristband Shine.

Misfit has created a Pebble app for the smartwatch that can track a user’s activity – independent of any companion smartphone software. There are others on Pebble’s app platform that offer this kind of functionality, but Misfit’s unique algorithm and hardware business make it unique among providers of this style of Pebble tracker.

The Misfit app for iOS will also be launched soon, and will add support for Pebble watches, as well as tracking more information like calories burned and total distance. That means this is a deep, two-way partnership, with Misfit allowing Pebble to stand in for its own activity tracker wristband hardware depending on a user’s preference.

This is yet another example of wearable techmakers looking to consolidate their efforts with common and shared platforms. Others like Jawbone and Nike who originally seemed content to silo their businesses have also begun to offer APIs and developer endpoints so that makers of other apps and hardware can play in the same sandbox. It’s a good way of trying to expand a potential user base with perceived added value.

Pebble calls this “the first milestone in an ongoing partnership” with Misfit, so it’ll be interesting to see just how far the arrangement takes the two. A lot of the medium-size players might be looking around for targets of M&A opportunity as Google and Apple extend their efforts around wearables, health and activity tracking, after all.

Google Makes Phone Logins Easier With Personal Login Feature For Android L

Google showed off a few new features of the next version of Android. While the company didn’t say all that much about the new features and instead focused on the new design language, Google director of engineering Dave Burke did show off Android’s new personal login feature.

Instead of having to use a pattern or PIN to log in, the phone will now know whether it is in a trusted environment. It’ll look for your smartwatch, for example, or your home Wi-Fi network. If it sees those, it won’t ask you to authenticate and just give you a basic lock screen instead. If you’re somewhere new — or you’re not wearing your smartwatch — it will still ask you for you lock-screen pattern.

With this, Google is obviously playing on Apple’s built-in fingerprint scanner on the iPhone.

Google Introduces Android One Program To Bring More Smartphones To Developing Markets

Today at Google I/O, the company launched a new initiative designed to help make smartphones more affordable to develop and release. The initiative will target OEMs specifically making phones for developing markets, which could help increase Android’s market share even further.

On stage, Google SVP Sundar Pichai discussed the prevalence of mobile and smartphones in places like India and other developing nations. While mobile is huge and helps users connect with one another, he said less than 10 percent of users in those markets have a smartphone.

Part of the problem is the affordability of those phones, and that starts with the cost of developing them. “If you look at all the OEMs in those countries, each has to reinvent the wheel… and develop a smartphone in nine months,” Pichai said.

With Android One, Google is hoping to reduce the cost of smartphone development by identifying the components that go into a smartphone and to pre-qualify suppliers for those parts to ensure they work together.

On the software side, Google is giving hardware manufacturers access to its Play Store to help them add locally relevant apps to their devices. It’s also handling all the software updates automatically, just like it does for Nexus devices.

Android is launching the program with three OEMs to start, according to Pichai: Cromax, Karbonn and Spice. The company is trying to work with various wireless providers to also lower the cost of wireless plans.

Hands On With The LG G Watch, Shipping July 7 For $229 U.S.

Today at Google’s I/O developer conference, Android Wear was a central topic of discussion. The LG G Watch was one of the devices on display, and it’s going live for pre-order at around 4:30 p.m. PT today. The Android-powered wearable device is set to retail for $229 and ship to buyers starting July 7, but I got a chance to use it early at a special press event today.

The G Watch ships with a rubber band and its weight is around the same as you’d expect from an average quartz timepiece. It holds an IPS touchscreen display that runs Android Wear, bringing you notifications and contextually relevant information as they come in.

The G Watch screen is very responsive, bright and easy to read, even in fairly bright light. Resolution on the screen is great, and it renders colors pretty faithfully based on quick impressions. Navigating the UI, which is my first experience with Android Wear at all, is pretty intuitive, despite the lack of buttons and 100 percent touchscreen interaction.

It handles voice input really well, too, translating speech to text accurately and also picking up the sound even in a relatively loud room.

LG is among the first to market, so it’ll take further testing to see if this really is a fully baked device, or something more like a placeholder designed to get their foot in the door before other OEMs (or at the same time as Samsung, of course). But based on first impressions, it’s a solid (if spare) model of what Android Wear could be.

Hands On With The Samsung Gear Live, Its $199 Smartwatch Shipping July 7

Samsung has a new Android Wear device that it didn’t really make too much of a fuss about before: The Gear Live smartwatch. It unsurprisingly resembles its brethren the Gear, Gear 2 and Gear Neo, but it doesn’t use Tizen or Android (like the first gen Gear) and it doesn’t use the same interface Samsung has been pushing on its other wearable devices.

It does however bring an optical heart rate sensor to the Android Wear camp, which is not something that the LG G Watch offers, and it also comes with a physical button, which is likewise something not offered by the LG G Watch. Google is clearly pulling the strings with regards to the launch date, as pre-orders kick off today but this doesn’t ship until July 7, but Samsung has a price advantage over LG out of the gate thanks to the groundwork laid by the Gear line.

The Gear has a screen that does appear to pale in comparison to the LG G Watch, however – literally, as in colors are more washed out. But It performs similarly to the G Watch in terms of touch response. On the wrist, it has a clasp with snap buttons that work not quite as naturally as the G Watch’s standard watch band, and the G Watch also features standard lugs that work with any 22mm watch bands, which the Gear Live does not.

Samsung’s effort essentially has the same merits and drawbacks as the rest of its smartwatches, and it likely required very little in the way of development time to get it up and running on the new OS. But whether it stands up to hardware designed specifically for Android Wear in long-term testing will require further examination.

Invention Machine Quirky Spins Out “Wink,” A New Business Focused On The Connected Home

New York-based “invention machine” Quirky, a company which turns crowdsourced ideas into real-world products you can buy like this popular flexible power strip, these connected milk jugs and egg cartons, and even app-connected air conditioners built in partnership with GE, is now venturing further into the “smart home” space with the spin-out of a separate company it’s calling “Wink.” The new business will focus on developing a platform for so-called “connected devices” – wireless-enabled products that can communicate via the internet with other services, as well as with apps running on your smartphone.

According to a profile on Quirky in today’s New York Times, the company is now fielding around 4,000 new product ideas per week, of which it selects three to take to production. And more recently, Quirky had been noticing that these product ideas were “internet of things” type products – meaning those designed to communicate with a smartphone or the home’s Wi-Fi network.

So the idea with Wink, here for iOS and Android, is to set up a platform that will allow consumers to control these various devices from an app which will operate as a dashboard of sorts for everything in their connected home. The app works with more practical things than a smart egg crate, as it allows end users to operate things like lights or door locks, for example.

The company has lined up 15 companies who will offer nearly 60 Wink-enabled products by July, including GE, Honeywell, Philips, and startups like Rachio, the Times noted. GE has also chosen Wink as its preferred connected platform, the company says.

The first big distribution deal for Wink devices is with The Home Depot, which will sell the products in its some 2,000 U.S. stores and online in mid-July. Wink products will also be sold online on Amazon.com.

As for Wink the business itself, it will be run as a subsidiary of Quirky, with its own leadership and development teams, and offices in New York and San Francisco. It will be headed by GM Chaz Flexman, previously a partner at leading VC firm Andreessen Horowitz. Brett Worthington, previously of Ingersoll Rand Security Technologies (Nexia Home Intelligence makers) will be VP at Wink, and Nathan Smith is Wink’s head of engineering.

Wink is not without its competition, however, and that could be a challenge. A number of companies big and small are betting on the “connected home” as being one of the next big markets to exploit, thanks to the rise of the smartphone and home wireless networks. Everyone from the mobile carriers to Apple and Google (with HomeKit and Nest, respectively) are starting to move into the home. Smaller companies are also testing the waters, including those we’ve covered here like SmartThings, Revolv, Insteon, ZigBee, Z-Wave, and even small app makers like Shortcut.

There are connected devices from competitors emerging in nearly all categories, too, including locks (August, Lockitron), security (Canary, Doorbot), lights (LIFX), home automation (SmartThings, Zonoff, Ninja Blocks, Ube, Berg, Twine, Xively, etc.), garden products (Bitponics, Click & Grow), bathroom appliances (Withings), nursery products (Sproutling), and more.

So Quirky’s hope to be one of the leading companies in this broader “smart home” space will depend on more than just getting a handful of partners on board – it will also need to ship products that people like and want to buy more of over time – and that means careful product selection and development.

In addition, the Wink software may need some tweaking too, it seems, if you go by what some Amazon shoppers think. Several early adopters trying to get the Wink-powered app to work with one of Quirky’s top products, the power strip, have left frustrated reviews.

“I tried for almost an hour with a Samsung Galaxy S3 and a Note 3 with brightness maxed in a darkened room before the Wink would detect and log into my home network for programming,” wrote one.

“I hooked one up, downloaded the Wink app, set up the acct [sic] and everything worked perfectly for about a month. Then there was the software update…It has only worked intermittently since,” complained another.

If consumers are going to trust Quirky’s Wink to actually control important and even critical “connected” things in their home like lights, air conditioning, locks and plugs, or smoke alarms, Wink will have to get up to speed, and quickly.

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

A Little Startup Called Cruise From The Socialcam, Twitch Founders Is Tackling Self-Driving Cars Too

From mobile-social video apps to self-driving cars?

Kyle Vogt, one of the founders behind Justin.tv, Socialcam and Twitch, is getting back to his undergraduate research roots in autonomous vehicles with a new self-driving car startup called Cruise. He’s recruited a team of engineers and roboticists from MIT.

The kicker here, though, is that Cruise isn’t making its own self-driving robotic cars in the way that Google has been approaching the space. Cruise has built a system that you can mount on an existing car and use to drive it down highways. It’s more than just standard cruise control, but it isn’t an entirely self-driving car, either.

“Moore’s law makes this possible,” Vogt said, alluding to the Intel co-founder’s theory about increasing computing power. “The computation systems for self-driving cars were large and bulky when I worked on AV in 2004. We would have 10 servers and a rack in the back of a pick-up truck. But that kind of power is now available in your cell phone.”

He added that Google had made a ton of regulatory and cultural headway in the space, as well.

“Because of Google, people are ready. Ten years ago, people would’ve said that this is science fiction. But now, they’re not asking if, but when. There’s a perception that self-driving cars are coming and people are expecting them.”

Cruise’s system has three components. There are sensor units that go on top of the car near the windshield and then there are actuators that control the steering and driving. There’s also a computer that goes in the trunk and takes up about one cubic foot of space.

When you drive onto a highway and merge into a lane, you’ll be able to hit a ‘Cruise’ button on your dashboard. The system will take control of the car’s steering, braking, and acceleration to keep you in your lane. But the system doesn’t take the place of a human driver, so you have to stay alert to make sure you’re following all traffic laws.

TechCrunch writer Colleen Taylor took a test drive below in this video:

A Ride With Cruise, The Gadget That Drives Your Car For You

The inaugural price of the product is about $10,000 and they’re taking pre-orders for a launch sometime next year. Vogt said for now, the system, called the RP-1, works with just Audi A4s and S4s.

“We realize this price isn’t for everyone,” he said. “The initial system has been expensive to develop.”

They also have to go through additional testing hoops. Vogt said that the automotive industry already has standard practices for testing that it uses on adaptive cruise control systems. Like other self-driving car proponents, Vogt pointed out the moral justification for it in terms of saving lives.

“There are 30,000 deaths a year from car accidents. Ninety percent of those are caused by humans,” he said. “When you put a computer in a car, each one of our systems has this corpus of knowledge from thousands of hours of driving. It never gets distracted and never falls asleep. If we have technology that can compensate for the shortcomings of people, we have a responsibility to do something about it.”

Vogt didn’t reveal funding details about the investors behind his new company.

Here’s its commercial teaser:

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

Google Makes Its Nest At The Center Of The Smart Home

“Okay Google, turn down the heat.”

Using Google Now, a homeowner will soon be able to talk to a Nest Learning Thermostat and complain about the heat. And that’s just the beginning.

Google is turning the Nest Learning Thermostat into the hub of smart homes. With the “Works with Nest” developer program, announced today, gadgets, cars and universal remotes will all work with the Thermostat, providing automated actions agnostic of the brand. Suddenly the smart home world is much smaller.

Nest’s Matt Rogers says the idea behind this system is to build seamless and practical experiences in the home and to sell more Nest gadgets at the same time.

The smart home world is widely fragmented. Everything from smart light bulbs to web-connected thermostats are controlled by a separate app and live in their own world. Several gadgets have attempted to bridge brands and conjoin the worlds, but this requires another gadget and another app, thereby compounding the problem.

With the “Works with Nest” program, suddenly, the center of the smart home is the de facto smart home gadget in the Nest Learning Thermostat.

The program leans on the sensors within Nest’s products. The product’s motion detection and machine learning are all tapped and farmed out for use by other gadgets.

Some of the most popular smart home gadget makers have signed onto the “Works with Nest” program, including LIFX, Logitech, Chamberlain and even Whirlpool. With Whirlpool, when the Nest thermostat notices the homeowner is away, a connected dryer will switch to Fan Fresh mode so the dryer’s cycle doesn’t end early and instead keeps running so clothes stay wrinkle-free. And with LIFX, the web-connected lightbulbs can flash red if a Nest Protect notices elevated CO2 levels or toggle the lightbulbs on to simulate someone’s in the home.

Google also enlisted the help of IFTTT so home owners can program smart switches for the Nest Protect and Thermostat. For instance, with IFTTT, homeowners can program “If my Nest Protect detects smoke, then send a text message to my neighbors” or “If a Nest Thermostat is turned under 72 degrees when the air conditioning is turned on, then send a Twitter DM to me so I can yell at my kids.”

With the “Works with Nest” program, suddenly, the center of the smart home is the de facto smart home gadget in the Nest Learning Thermostat.

Mercedes is also part of the program and select models can tell a connected Nest Learning Thermostat when the driver will be home, activating the heating or cooling at the exact moment so not one cycle is wasted on an empty home.

Sometime in the fall, Google Now will become “Works with Nest” certified, allowing Android users to command their thermostats from anywhere.

Lastly, Google worked with Jawbone to tie the Jawbone UP’s sleep tracker into the Nest Learning Thermostat ecosystem.

“Integrating with Nest is brilliant for our users because it creates a seamless experience for our users,” Jawbone’s Jim Godfrey told me. Travis Bogard, Vice President of Product Management and Strategy, expanded on the thought noting “It’s based on great technology and two sets of insight and data — Nest and Jawbone — combined to create a great experience.”

For Jawbone, the “Works with Nest” program aligns nicely with its core mission of providing an open platform. By pressing the UP’s only button, a Jawbone UP wearer can activate the sleep tracker and have the Nest adjust the climate to a nighttime mode. Likewise, when the wearer wakes up, a single press will change the UP’s mode and switch the Nest to a daytime setting.

Several notable systems are currently absent from this program, including Philips’ Hue smart lightbulbs, smart switches from Lutron and any of the home locking systems. These systems are currently enlisted in Wink’s smart home platform. Dropcam will likely adopt the “Works with Nest” certification as it will soon be under Nest’s ownership.

At first it’s a bit strange to think of a thermostat as the central hub of a smart home, but the Nest Learning Thermostat is packed with enough sensors to make the move logical. The thermostat has a motion detector, Wi-Fi, the goods to learn user behavior and currently untapped wireless protocols of Zigbee. In theory a true smart home shouldn’t need a control panel requiring constant user interaction, but rather actions that are carried out serendipitously.

Google is not alone in its quest to unite the smart-home factions. Innovation powerhouse Quirky just introduced its game plan, which is strikingly similar to “Works with Nest.” Called Wink, the platform integrates different smart objects into one ecosystem, and Quirky has lined up 15 companies who will offer nearly 60 Wink-enabled products by July, including GE, Honeywell and Philips, as well as startups like Rachio.

Google’s $3.2 billion acquisition of Nest essentially catapulted Google’s smart home ambitions ahead of Apple, which just announced its smart-home solution called HomeKit. As Matthew Panzarino explained following its announcement earlier this month, HomeKit allows a developer to use a simple set of controls to toggle the states of devices or send commands to them. HomeKit is the spiritual companion to Apple’s Bluetooth direct and multi-peer frameworks.

It’s a powerful platform that has even more potential than Google’s plan. Yet HomeKit is in its infancy compared to that of Wink or “Works with Nest,” which both will have working solutions in days where Apple’s HomeKit will not bear fruit for months if not longer.

Even an organization as brash as Google will not be able to make all the components of a smart home. Yet this Nest certification program is the next best thing as, if marketed correctly by Google and its “Works with Nest” partners, it could lead to mass adoption of the products it does make. And that alone puts Google in a commanding position.

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

Control VR Opens The Door To Virtual Offices

Control VR is a startup which has created a wearable system that captures precise motion data for virtual reality applications. On its Kickstarter page (which has raised $388,000, or more than 150% of its goal with 13 days left to go) the most intriguing use shown for its gloves and armbands is using its exact finger-digit tracking to simulate a keyboard in virtual reality, which could open the door to a number of productive VR applications beyond gaming and teleconferencing.

The control schemes available for use with virtual reality headsets like the Oculus Rift are great for gaming or other experiences where you’re mostly just moving around in your environment. You basically only need an analog stick or direction pad to control movement and a few buttons to control interactions with the environment or to bring up menus.

But some of the more useful applications for virtual reality, like being able to use a vast number of virtual displays instead of being limited by the number of physical monitors you own, don’t work too well with complicated physical controls like keyboards because you can’t see what buttons you’re pushing.

Take a look at this photo of Andreessen Horowitz board partner Steven Sinofsky testing out a Bloomberg terminal in virtual reality, for example:

Look, a prototype of Bloomberg on Oculus… infinite monitors on your desk… http://t.co/4Vwo4Zttsu—
Roy Bahat (@roybahat) May 12, 2014

You could have a vast amount of information available to you in a VR office, but it would be relatively difficult to be productive with it using only a mouse and the keystrokes you can memorize.

With the ability to finely track finger location and movement, you could bring up a keyboard in the virtual space and forgo the hardware altogether. Just as the iPhone dropped most hardware buttons for a screen that could only show the buttons you need at any given time, virtual interfaces could be built specifically for each application from familiar gestures.

Control VR CEO and co-founder Alex Sarnoff thinks that its wearables working in concert with the cameras that will come with Oculus Rift and its ilk will enable these kinds of interfaces. In an interview via email, he told me:

The sensors and software we use provide for incredibly accurate clean data and are a testament to many years of research, development and progress by our founders.  “Virtual Office” is an application we are extremely excited to  see come to fruition. The input solution virtual reality needs for perfect accuracy will be a combination of our wearable technology combined with data from the camera supplied with VR headsets.

Of course, virtual reality headsets have nowhere near the market penetration for most offices to consider putting anyone into a virtual environment any time soon. To appeal to the gamer crowd that Oculus and Sony (with Project Morpheus) are going after, Control VR also shows several other uses for its sensors, including an Iron Man-style flight simulator (and an unfortunate amount of virtual beer pong):

IMAGE BY Control VR
This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

Samsung Galaxy Tab S Review: Beautiful Screens Make These Tablets Magic For Movies

Samsung has never made a tablet that truly got my blood pumping, but that might’ve just changed. I bought an original Galaxy Tab when it was first released, only to find the experience frustrating and return it a few days later because of a dropped Wi-Fi issue. Now, Samsung has a new line of tablets called the Galaxy Tab S, and though there have been many different Samsung slates between then and now, these represent the biggest changes to date, and put an entirely new face on Samsung’s flagship tablet devices.

10.5? or 8.4? 2560×1600 display
Wi-Fi 802.11ac
1.9GHz Quad Core/1.3GHz Quad Core Octacore processor with 3GB RAM
16GB storage, expandable up to 128GB via microSD
MSRP: $399.99 for 8.4, $499.99 for 10.2
Product info page

Pros:

Amazing display
Size and weight

Cons:

Design choices aren’t for everyone
Weirdly I miss the S Pen

Samsung has produced a tablet that’s deserving of lots of praise with the Tab S when it comes to design – and an almost equal amount of scorn. These slates look an awful lot like every other device Samsung has put out this year and late in 2013, including the Galaxy Note 3 and Galaxy S5, with a metal-look band surrounding the entire device, and a faux-leather back panel that feels nice in the hand. The size and weight are amazing, as these are incredibly thin and light devices given their impressive screens and internals, but they also clearly aren’t designed to appeal to my particular demographic.

There’s a gold tint on that metallic border I mentioned, and the back in both white pearl and “titanium bronze” look has a strange silken sheen to it that’s a little flashy for my tastes. Both types of cover, including the full front-and-back Book Cover and the lightweight front cover come in similar shiny finishes, delivering an appearance overall that would be quite at home with bedazzled garments but that could never be called austere or simple, both adjectives I like to be able to use when describing my electronics.

The snaps included in the back of the Tab S to affix the covers do work wonderfully and keep things ultra secure, however, and the finishes are such that the tablets don’t feel like they’re going to easily slip out of your grasp. The side facing speakers naturally project sound forward when you’re hold thing the devices with two hands to watch movies, too. Button placement on the 10.2 puts the sleep/wake switch at the top left, which is not ideal, but otherwise these are ergonomically pleasing and well-built, questionable aesthetics aside.

The Tab S devices both perform very well, considering how much power they have to put out to make sure those displays are looking their best. The processor provides ample muscle to power HD video, including video captured in 2560 x 1440 resolution at 30 fps. There’s a sample video included on the tablet that shows just how awesome stuff looks at this resolution on this screen, and some cameras will capture at that resolution (though the Tab’s built-in 8 megapixel camera doesn’t).

In general browsing and other OS performance I found the Tab S to be mostly solid, but there were some times where the homescreen stuttered when paging through. Running apps in split screen proved no problem, however, which is one of Samsung’s key tablet signature features. Photos from the 8 megapixel camera aren’t amazing, but they’re more than tolerable if the Tab S is the only camera you have on you. If you’re using a 10.2-inch device as a camera you have other problems to worry about.

Some of the highlight features on this tablet include the split-screen app multitasking, which again works as advertised, and Samsung SideSync feature. SideSync is pretty great, letting you see your screen exactly as it appears on your Galaxy S5, Note 3, S4 and S5, and letting you send and receive voice calls on the Tab S from your S5. Pairing is a cinch, and it worked well during my tests, making for a useful tool if your phone is downstairs or across the room.

Another feature new to the Galaxy Tab S is the Adaptive Display, which is designed to make the most of the SuperAMOLED screen included in the tablets. The screen really is the highlight here, and the adaptive mode works like it does on some modern TVs, changing things like color rendering and contrast depending on what kind of content you’re viewing. In practice, it really does seem to help with the experience of watching movies, playing games and more.

The fingerprint scanner from the GS5 makes an appearance in these tablets, and works as it did in that smartphone, which is to say well and reliably, but with a little bit of futzing required to get the positioning right when you’re performing a swipe. On a tablet, it honestly doesn’t seem all that appealing as a feature, but the payment authorization through PayPal is still here and still impressive.

Founded 1969     Overview Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., together with its subsidiaries, is engaged in consumer electronics, information technology and mobile communications, and device solutions businesses worldwide. It develops, manufactures, and sells various consumer products, including mobile phones, tablets, televisions, Blu-rays, DVD players, home theaters, and digital cameras and camcorders; home appliances, such as … Website http://www.samsung.com/us Full profile for Samsung Electronics

As just mentioned, the display is the star here. Samsung has indeed nailed the tablet screen  – both look terrific, and you’d be hard-pressed to tell that the 8.4-inch model actually has a higher pixel density, as both defy your ability to distinguish individual pixels. In fact, these are top contenders for best screens in the industry, and that’s really going to help when Samsung starts offering up content sources that are better-than-HD quality.

Some Netflix content is already optimized for super high-resolution TVs, so it’s logical that they could eventually make that available to other platforms too. But for photos and other types of content, it’s going to make a difference right away.

These screens are so good that with the 10.2-inch device, it starts to feel like you’re not compromising by using a tablet to watch a video over, say, a TV or home theatre setup. It’s really that good, and if you’re looking for essentially a portable movie machine, Samsung’s devices are a safe bet.

The Tab S line packs a better battery than previous devices, and gets some power savings thanks to the SuperOLED display using true blacks instead of backlit dark tones. But this is an area where these tablets still lag considerably behind iOS devices, especially when in standby. They’ll do a fairly decent job still, however, and should give you plenty of viewing time on a long haul flight, so it’s not as much of a concern as it has been in the past. They do take a long time to charge, however, so be ready for that.

The Tab S line is a solid showing by Samsung, but their real value can be summed up in one line: these are the tablets to watch movies on. They really do the best when they’re playing back any kind of media, and the rest of their features and software feels like a gloss on top of that. Truth be told, that’s likely what most tablet users are in the market for – especially those who don’t need the power and productivity of a notebook. I still find that the Android tablet ecosystem lags behind that of Apple and its iPad, but Samsung has put a lot of work in since the first Galaxy tablet devices, and it really shows.

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

Google I/O 2014 Preview: The Developer Conference Has A Design And Wearables Focus This Year

If you’re gearing up for Google’s big annual developer event this year, you might be wondering what the company will be doing with its full two-day event, which kicks off Wednesday. Google’s focus this year is expanding to include more information and value for the gamut of app and software makers. That means speaking not just to developers but also to designers and marketers. But for the average user, there’s still plenty to look for here in terms of news and excitement, too.

A key focus this year, according to people familiar with the matter, will be Android Wear. Google announced the project earlier this year, and released it to developers in beta form. It’s an extension of its mobile OS that is designed specifically for use on smartwatches and other wearable form factor devices, and we’ll almost certainly hear a lot more about it at I/O this year.

Two manufacturers are set to debut the first shipping smartwatches running Android wear this year, including Motorola and LG. Both had promised a summer launch window for these devices, which are the Moto 360 and LG G Watch, and we’ve just entered into summer technically, so we’re almost guaranteed to hear more about these at I/O, if we don’t get a full-fledged launch of both.

We’ll almost certainly get a good long look at Android Wear in a consumer-ready form, with more details and specifics on how it’ll work in terms of both basic built-in functionality and third-party support, and there will probably be a lot of attention paid to best design and development practices for the platform, given that Google and its OEM partners will be pushing for content to populate a wearable app store for the launch of consumer hardware.

Apple has pushed its CarPlay infotainment integration a lot this year, and Google is expected to follow shortly with its own version. Officially announced in January, there’s not much known about the Android-powered in-car system, but already, partners including GM, Audi and Hyundai are on board and the tech is set to debut in new vehicles by the end of this year.

Google is said to be planning a full-scale announcement and reveal of its Android car efforts, which would be in keeping with its other efforts this year to highlight how Android is expanding beyond just smartphones and tablets to cover a wide range of connected hardware and software. Google is said to be planning to make its in-car system directly web-connected, with a focus on making it usable separate from your device, but also complementary to smartphones.

Google is looking to make this year’s show about Android above and beyond traditional mobile screens in general, and that means we could see updates on other projects that involve the broader Internet of Things. A couple of examples include its television efforts, which currently consist of Google TV. There’s said to be a competing Android TV initiative in development, which could break cover at this event.

Android TV is reportedly more focused on content than apps and software, as opposed to Google TV. Beyond that, not much is known about it. Google also just acquired Dropcam with its Nest division, which is quickly becoming a hub for all things connected home, and we’ll probably see them talk more about this push and its growing orbit of devices and services. Expect talk around Google’s growing stable of first-party products, but also a focus on how third-party software and device makers can get in on the action.

A new version of Android isn’t necessarily going to be launched at this year’s event, but we will probably get a taste of what’s to come. A recently revealed project called Quantum Paper looks to be set to bring a total redesign to Android software via distinct new guidelines, and Polymer is said to be a framework to hep make that happen via customizable, reusable interface elements.

These would make for a very different, significantly redesigned experience not only for Android, but for Google everywhere, on iOS and the web in addition to its own devices. Google wants to really hammer down on design this year, and Quantum plus Polymer look like the best possible candidates to help it chart a path forward. Given how much emphasis is being placed on including designers in the event this year, these are likely candidates for further announcements and explanation.

Google’s event this year will be heavy on those building software for its platforms, but it’ll also introduce a more inclusive definition of the “developer event” that extends to designers and marketers, too. Essentially, everyone involved in the process of building and selling software is meant to get something out of this year’s show, and that includes the old-fashioned developers too.

We’ll have all the action for you over the two-day event right here, including live keynote coverage on Tuesday morning.

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

A-M-S-Computers Monthly Events Calendar 727-645-6956

Pluggy Lock Finds (Yet) Another Use For Your Phone’s Headphone Jack

The 3.5mm headphone jack has a thriving double life supporting hardware extensions for the bog standard slab smartphone these days. More complex additions extend the capabilities of the phone by adding new sensors into the mix (like, for example, the Thermodo thermometer).

But here’s a maker aiming to add a really simple feature to your phone via the 3.5mm jack’s back door: a universal metal eyelet called Pluggy Lock.

Yep, it’s just a metal anchor point — for any device with a 3.5mm headphone jack — but that machined loop means you can secure your phone/slate to your person, with a clip and lanyard/chain, so it’s less likely to slip out of your fingers or work its way put of your pocket and end up smashed on the ground — or, indeed, be stolen.

It may well be that Pluggy is a sign we’ve reached ‘peak smartphone headphone jack extensibility’. Especially as it’s makers are pairing it with a range of coloured ‘fashion lanyards’ — which is an oxymoron if ever I heard one. Do people really want to wear their phones around their neck?

Let’s hope not.

Pluggy’s maker’s haven’t stopped at fashion lanyards either. They’ve fashioned what they term a ‘selfie dock’ — aka a magnetic platform that, used in conjunction with the Pluggy, holds your phone in a position where you can easily take a hands-free selfie. Which is possibly a sign we’ve reached ‘peak selfie’ too.

Let’s hope so.

How does Pluggy perform all these amazing feats? After being slotted into the headphone jack the user screws it in to expand a rubber sleeve, wedging Pluggy securely into place so you can clip whatever you fancy to its eyelet.

It’s apparently been stress tested to 3.2kg, and its makers claim repeat usage doesn’t damage the headphone jack. Albeit, obviously you’re not going to be able to use your headphones while you’ve got Pluggy in situ. But no matter, you can play with your fashion lanyard instead.

In terms of design, Pluggy looks to have taken inspiration from the likes of Pressy: another add-on that uses the headphone jack to augment a mobile device – in that case by adding an additional hardware button.

Like Pressy, Pluggy comes with a magnetic keyring clip housing where it can be slotted for safekeeping when not in use. Unlike Pressy, Pluggy has not managed to rake in serious Kickstarter cash. But it has 5x-ed its original modest funding goal of $10,000 — so has the funds to ship to its 2,000+ backers. Its estimated shipping schedule for the circa $16 Pluggy Lock is this September.

One other key thing to note here is that Apple has been rumoured to be considering abandoning the 3.5mm headphone jack – which has become a hard-won standard on mobile devices — in favour of a proprietary Lightning port lock-in instead.

If that’s the case, future Pluggys would be ejected from the iOS garden (though not from the rest of the mobile device world, of course) — unless their makers redirected their energy towards building extensions that work with the Lightning port.

In the meantime, iOS users hankering for hardware extensions on their iPhone or iPad can still plug and play freely. Or, indeed, Pluggy and play if you so wish.

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

3D Sensing Tablet, EyesMap, Aims To Replace Multiple Surveyor Tools

As we reported earlier this year, Google is building a mobile device with 3D sensing capabilities — under the Project Tango moniker. But it’s not the only company looking to combine 3D sensing with mobility.

Spanish startup E-Capture R&D is building a tablet with 3D sensing capabilities that’s aiming to target the enterprise space — for example as a portable tool for surveyors, civil engineers, architects and the like — which is due to go on sale at the beginning of 2015.

The tablet, called EyesMap, will have two rear 13 megapixel cameras, along with a depth sensor and GPS to enable it to measure co-ordinates, surface and volumes of objects up to a distance of 70 to 80 meters in real-time.

So, for instance, it could be used to capture measurements of – or create a 3D model of — a bridge or a building from a distance. Or to model objects as small as insects so it could be used to 3D scan individual components by civil engineers, for instance.

Its makers claim it can build high-resolution models with HD realistic textures.

EyesMap uses photogrammetry to ensure accurate measurements and to build outdoor 3D models, but also has an RGBD sensor for indoor scanning.

The tablet will apparently be able to scan an “advanced photogrammetric picture” with up to 4 million dots in around 2 minutes. It will also be able to capture 3D objects in motion. It’s using a blend of computer vision techniques, photogrammetry, visual odometer, “precision sensor fine tuning” and other image measuring techniques, say its makers.

E-Capture was founded back in April 2012 by a group of experienced surveyors and Pedro Ortiz-Coder, a researcher in the laser scanning and photogrammetry field. The business has been founder funded thus far, but has also received a public grant of €800,000 to help with development.

In terms of where EyesMap fits into the existing enterprise device market, Ortiz-Coder says it’s competing with multiple standalone instruments in the survey field — such as 3D scanners, telemeters, photogrammetry software and so on — but is bundling multiple functions into a single portable device.

“To [survey small objects], a short range laser scanner is required but, a short-range LS cannot capture big or far away objects. That’s why we thought to create a definitive instrument, which permits the user to scan small objects, indoors, buildings, big objects and do professional works with a portable device,” he tells TechCrunch.

“Moreover, there wasn’t in the market any instrument which can measure objects in motion accurately more than 3-4 meters. EyesMap can measure people, animals, objects in motion in real time with a high range distance.”

The tablet will run Windows and, on the hardware front, will have Intel’s 4th generation i7 processor and 16 GB of RAM. Pricing for the EyesMap slate has not yet been announced.

Another 3D mobility project we previously covered, called LazeeEye, was aiming to bring 3D sensing smarts to any smartphone via an add on device (using just RGBD sensing) — albeit that project fell a little short of its funding goal on Kickstarter.

Also in the news recently, Mantis Vision raising $12.5 million in funding from Qualcomm Ventures, Samsung and others for its mobile 3D capture engine that’s designed to work on handheld devices.

There’s no denying mobile 3D as a space is heating up for device makers, although it remains to be seen how slick the end-user applications end up being — and whether they can capture the imagination of mainstream mobile users or, as with E-Capture’s positioning, carve out an initial user base within niche industries.

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

Lenovo Just Patented Their Own Version Of Google Glass

As we all know, merely patenting something doesn’t mean it will ever land in stores. However, Lenovo has just filed a basic patent for an “Electronic Device And Sound Capturing Method.” The device, which appears on the USPTO website, looks about as close to Google Glass as you can get without implicitly calling these Lenovo Glasses.

The device is fairly simple. It consists of an audio and video recorder as well as light-pump VOD displays that appear to be from Lumus Labs, a company we’ve covered before. This would turn these glasses into the equivalent of a wearable heads-up display and, thanks to bone conduction microphones in the earpieces, add a method for wireless communication as well.

The patent is very careful to describe this as a recording device rather than a wearable, a move that could ensure Lenovo doesn’t get hit with competitor lawsuits. It also shows how interested Lenovo is in the space. Given that almost everyone is probably building one of these right now, the fact that they patented a high-performance device with as-yet unreleased hardware seems like an bold move. Lenovo still hasn’t cracked the mobile space with any intensity in the U.S. and, except for ThinkPads, the brand is all but unknown. However, no company with any moxie wants to ignore wearables. This is more of the same.

If this shows us anything, it’s that everyone is about to get into the wearables game – and that high-tech glasses are going to get a lot cooler.

window.TechCrunch.loader.on( 'gravity-beacon', function(){ window.tc_loadGravityScript( 'recirculation' ); } );if (!ads.isMobile()) {(function(window,$){jQuery('body').append('');}(this,this.jQuery));}//initialize and attach hovercards to all gravatarsjQuery( document ).ready( function( $ ) {if ( typeof Gravatar.init !== "function" ) {return;}Gravatar.profile_cb = function( hash, id ) {WPGroHo.syncProfileData( hash, id );};Gravatar.my_hash = WPGroHo.my_hash;Gravatar.init( 'body', '#wp-admin-bar-my-account' );});if ( 'object' === typeof wpcom_mobile_user_agent_info ) {wpcom_mobile_user_agent_info.init();var mobileStatsQueryString = "";if( false !== wpcom_mobile_user_agent_info.matchedPlatformName )mobileStatsQueryString += "&x_" + 'mobile_platforms' + '=' + wpcom_mobile_user_agent_info.matchedPlatformName;if( false !== wpcom_mobile_user_agent_info.matchedUserAgentName )mobileStatsQueryString += "&x_" + 'mobile_devices' + '=' + wpcom_mobile_user_agent_info.matchedUserAgentName;if( wpcom_mobile_user_agent_info.isIPad() )mobileStatsQueryString += "&x_" + 'ipad_views' + '=' + 'views';if( "" != mobileStatsQueryString ) {new Image().src = document.location.protocol + '//stats.wordpress.com/g.gif?v=wpcom-no-pv' + mobileStatsQueryString + '&baba=' + Math.random();}}(function (window, $, undefined) {var document = window.document;function loadChartbeat() {window._sf_endpt = (new Date()).getTime();var e = document.createElement('script'),url = ("https:" === document.location.protocol) ? "https://s3.amazonaws.com/" : "http://";url += "static.chartbeat.com/js/chartbeat.js";e.setAttribute('language', 'javascript');e.setAttribute('type', 'text/javascript');e.async = true;e.setAttribute('src', url);document.body.appendChild(e);}$(loadChartbeat);}(this, this.jQuery));
This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

Google Glass Frames By Diane Von Furstenberg Now On Sale In The U.S.

Google has new frames available for Glass buyers, and they’re specially designed by Diane von Furstenberg. These are the chicest Google Glass frames you can buy, for the time being, and they come in multiple sunglass tints, plus a single pair of optical frames in different colors. The designs are all Glass compatible, but you can also get Glass in a bundle with one pair of the sunglasses and one pair of the optical frames for $1,800 all in at Net-A-Porter, which is cheaper than buying them separately.

Google had promised to deliver collaborations with top designers for its Glass program, and this is the first example of that effort. Google created its own optical frames in titanium for the wearable computer, but Furstenberg is the first to put her own label on accessories for Glass, and the launch of the line comes during the Explorer program, before the device has actually had its proper consumer launch.

As of earlier this year, Google now allows anyone in the U.S. to buy Glass through its Explorer program, which is a change from the invite-based system it had been using previously to slowly introduce new users to the beta test pool. Other planned designer launches for Glass include Ray-Ban , Oakley and others via Luxoticca, but the Fursternberg collection is the first to actually ship.

Will these turn the tide and make Glass more generally palatable to a normal audience of consumers? They could help, but I don’t they’ll reverse entirely all the negative sentiment we’ve seen around the device, which is perhaps best summed up by the Daily Show’s uproarious take on the Glass project.

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

Can Upcycled Smartphones Help Stop Illegal Rainforest Logging?

The world has an e-waste problem. And a climate change problem. So it would be fittingly neat if e-waste, in the form of old smartphones, could be put to work combating climate change by helping to prevent illegal logging of the rainforest.

That’s exactly the plan of this Kickstarter project, which will shortly be seeking to raise $100,000 in crowdfunding to turn old Android smartphones into solar-powered listening stations that can detect the noise of chainsaws in real-time and then send an alert (via GSM) to local agencies so they can mobilize and catch loggers in the act.

The San Francisco-based startup, called Rainforest Connection, has partnered with the Zoological Society of London for the project. If it gets funded, the plan is to initially deploy devices that are capable of protecting 200 to 300 kilometres of forest in the canopy of rainforests in Africa and Brazil this year.

If it exceeds its funding goal they’d aim to spread their devices further, and also add additional features — such as the ability for mobile users to listen in on the ambient sounds of the rainforest in real time via an app.

Each solar-powered anti-deforestation device — which is installed way up in the canopy so it can’t be spotted by loggers on the ground — is apparently capable of capturing all ambient sound within 1 sq. km. As well as the distinctive signature of a chainsaw, the algorithms are designed to identify gunshots and sounds of animals in distress — so the devices could also be used to combat poaching.

The startup has previously piloted the system in 2013 in Western Sumatra, and has been talking to governments and NGOs but reckons the crowdfunding route is the fastest way to get enough of its devices into the wild to make an impact.

Most Kickstarter backers won’t need to receive one of these device themselves of course, but RCFx is offering plenty of creative rewards at various price-points — including the usual t-shirt style swag or, higher up the donation chain, the ability to name a hectare of protected rainforest and access to a web portal to monitor data and sounds from your designated area. If you do want to own a device yourself that’s a $600 pledge.

On the tech side, each RFCx device consists of a recycled Android smartphone running a specially modified version of the core OS that’s been optimized for power efficiency, resource management and audio. That’s combined with an array of modified solar panels which are designed to operate under the partial shade of a forest canopy.

The devices leverage a highly sensitive microphone to first capture the ambient sounds of the surrounding area. A connected open-source software API transmits the compressed sound files to a cloud server for analysis. Within a matter of seconds, the audio data is analyzed, at which point any frequency of chainsaws, gunshots, animal distress or other deviating sound triggers an SMS alert to local enforcement officers.

RFCx argues that using audio to monitor protected rainforest areas has the advantage of offering a greater coverage area than camera traps. While satellite imagery is generally only useful for showing deforestation after the fact — rather than providing a real-time system to mobilize an anti-logging intervention in the middle of illegal activity.

Plus, even if authorities fail to act on alerts it points out that the system provides a timestamped record of logging activity which can be connected to local authority action (or inaction) against it — so it could be used to hold corrupt local authorities to account for a failure to act against deforestation, for instance.

On the connectivity front, the system uses GSM to rely alerts back to local authorities and can apparently operate with “minimal” cell coverage. RCFx claims that in its experience GSM coverage is “surprisingly prevalent” in rainforests, especially the areas that are likely to be most at threat from illegal logging. Or which are at the perimeter of where loggers are entering the forests.

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

Tell Me Dave Lets You Train A Robot To Respond To Complex Commands

Sudo make me a sandwich, anyone? A new research project by a computer science team at Cornell University is using human volunteers to train robots to perform tasks. How is it unique? They’re showing robots how to infer actions based on very complex, human comments. Instead of having to say “move arm left 5 inches” they are hoping that, one day, robots will respond to “Make me some ramen” or “Clean up my mess.”

The commands are quite rudimentary right now and focus mostly around loose requests like “boil the ramen for a few minutes” which, with enough processing, can be turned into a step-by-step set of commands. For example, in the video above a subject asks for an affogato, basically coffee with ice cream. The robot has learned the basic recipe and so uses what is at hand — a barrel of ice cream, a bowl, and a coffee dispenser — to produce a tasty treat for its human customer.

We’re not quite at 100% accuracy yet. But, interestingly, the robot performed the right steps 64 percent of the time even when the commands changed and the entire scene was reorganized. “There is still room for improvement,” said the researchers.

“In order for robots to perform tasks in real world, they need to be able to understand our natural language commands. While there is a lot of past research that went into the task of language parsing, they often require the instructions to be spelled out in full detail which makes it difficult to use them in real world situations,” they wrote. “Our goal is to enable robots to even take an ill-specified instruction as generic as ‘Make a cup of coffee’ and be able to figure out how to fill a cup with milk or use one if it already has milk etc. depending on how the environment looks.”

These sorts of skills are of utmost importance in robots. For robots to be truly useful in the field, they have to understand our most banal commands. For example, a mechanic’s helper robot could understand “Bring me a wrench for this bolt” and the robot, through the benefit of video cameras and remote measuring tools, would be able to supply the tool.

Created by Doctoral Students Dipendra K Misra, Jaeyong Sung, Kevin Lee, and Professor Ashutosh Saxena, this is also one of the most nicely designed project websites I’ve seen in a while. Because the team is hoping you’ll play along with Tell Me Dave and teach the robot simulator a thing or two about cleaning up the living room, they’ve created an interactive environment that allows you to train a virtual robot to make food or change the channels on a TV.

The whole project is so whimsical it’s hard to believe that robots like this will soon be taking our Starbucks orders, caring for the infirm, and building our iPhones. I, for one, welcome our ramen-making robot overlords.

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

Google Glass Goes On Sale Outside The US

Ahead of Google’s I/O developer conference, which kicks off this Wednesday, Mountain View has opened up sales of its augmented reality wearable goggles, Glass, to people outside the US.

This follows Glass being opened up to general indifference anyone in the U.S. to buy, not just select invitees, back in April. But this is the wearable’s first international foray.

Specifically Brits with a hankering to stick Mountain View’s voice-controllable heads-up display on their faces can now do so — provided they’re willing to shell out a cool grand (£1,000) for the privilege of becoming a Google-powered human camcorder. Truly there are cheaper ways to weird out your friends.

Glass is up for grabs in the UK via Google Play. It’s still the Explorer Edition – aka the beta version for earlier adopters. Which, in any case, is evident from the crazy pricing. Heck, Glass is more expensive than the Amazon Fire Phone.

UK guinea pigs willing to stump up to have data injected onto a small screen in close proximity to their eyeball have a choice of five colours of Glass plastic – including tangerine and sky — and can also currently get a free frame or shade thrown in by Google. Anything to make Glass look less nerdtastic.

(Also today Google announced the sale of the first designer frames for Glass, by Diane Von Fustenberg — but those fancier frames are only available to buy in the US as yet.)

First to the punch with UK glassware apps include The Guardian newspaper with an app that delivers updates and headlines; music identifier app Shazam; and gamified fitness app Zombies, Run!.

window.TechCrunch.loader.on( 'gravity-beacon', function(){ window.tc_loadGravityScript( 'recirculation' ); } );if (!ads.isMobile()) {(function(window,$){jQuery('body').append('');}(this,this.jQuery));}//initialize and attach hovercards to all gravatarsjQuery( document ).ready( function( $ ) {if ( typeof Gravatar.init !== "function" ) {return;}Gravatar.profile_cb = function( hash, id ) {WPGroHo.syncProfileData( hash, id );};Gravatar.my_hash = WPGroHo.my_hash;Gravatar.init( 'body', '#wp-admin-bar-my-account' );});if ( 'object' === typeof wpcom_mobile_user_agent_info ) {wpcom_mobile_user_agent_info.init();var mobileStatsQueryString = "";if( false !== wpcom_mobile_user_agent_info.matchedPlatformName )mobileStatsQueryString += "&x_" + 'mobile_platforms' + '=' + wpcom_mobile_user_agent_info.matchedPlatformName;if( false !== wpcom_mobile_user_agent_info.matchedUserAgentName )mobileStatsQueryString += "&x_" + 'mobile_devices' + '=' + wpcom_mobile_user_agent_info.matchedUserAgentName;if( wpcom_mobile_user_agent_info.isIPad() )mobileStatsQueryString += "&x_" + 'ipad_views' + '=' + 'views';if( "" != mobileStatsQueryString ) {new Image().src = document.location.protocol + '//stats.wordpress.com/g.gif?v=wpcom-no-pv' + mobileStatsQueryString + '&baba=' + Math.random();}}(function (window, $, undefined) {var document = window.document;function loadChartbeat() {window._sf_endpt = (new Date()).getTime();var e = document.createElement('script'),url = ("https:" === document.location.protocol) ? "https://s3.amazonaws.com/" : "http://";url += "static.chartbeat.com/js/chartbeat.js";e.setAttribute('language', 'javascript');e.setAttribute('type', 'text/javascript');e.async = true;e.setAttribute('src', url);document.body.appendChild(e);}$(loadChartbeat);}(this, this.jQuery));
This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.