At this point we pretty much all know what phishing emails look like and we’re resigned to the fact that we didn’t win the Micronesian lottery. We also know that we can’t buy a machine to instantly enlarge our sexual organs no matter how much personal information we provide. It was tough but we all came together in the mid-2000s and wised up.
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We hate to say this, but the KIRF market is often a good indicator of how popular certain devices are, hence the plentiful fake iPhones and Galaxy phones in China. (Meanwhile, MediaTek is shamelessly cashing in as it ships its SoCs to those cloning factories.) Now, we’re not saying the HTC One doesn’t have any clones, but most of those we’ve seen weren’t very convincing — they were either of different sizes or had very poor build quality. But we eventually stumbled upon a pretty good fake in Huaqiangbei.
The offending device is pictured above on the left. Externally, it bears a disgustingly strong resemblance to the real deal thanks to the same 4.7-inch screen size, the same curved back, the same micro-SIM tray, the same dual-soft-key layout and even the same metallic chamfer on the front. But if you look closer or touch it even, the tell-tale signs start to show up. See for yourself in the gallery below — the fake One is to the left or on top of the real thing.
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, HTC
This morning brought news of the RETRAKT pen hitting $72,000 on Kickstarter. RETRAKT is a nice-looking pen made of aluminum that looks a little bit like a part that fell off of a space ship. But $72,000 raised? For a pen? What gives?
I think pens, in this case, are a fascinating case study of the value and danger of crowdfunding. I decided to explore what exactly was going on with these instruments and how they can help folks who are looking to crowdfunding for products or, if they are ambitious, to fund projects.
My search quickly led to this seemingly dormant site dedicated to pens on Kickstarter. The creator, a developer named Sean, explained he’s working on new features and is going to add reviews and discussion of pens not on Kickstarter. “Our site/twitter feed is still in its infancy but has begun to generate a good following and response in short time. We’re even starting to hear about projects that haven’t even been launched on KS yet!” he wrote.
I found 185 live and mostly-funded pens on the site compared to 81 iPad cases and 164 iPhone cases. There are a mere 111 Arduino projects. Obviously this represents funded or open projects and isn’t representative of the entire gamut (Kickstarter tends to reward failure with anonymity) but why do so many pens survive?
First, we have to understand the fascination with writing instruments. While I usually only need a pen when I mark up a take-out menu before I order, there is a subset of the Internet that goes batty for nice writing instruments. There are Japanese pen obsessives, pen porn (not really), and even a $6,000 pen designed by Sylvester Stallone. Pens are a commodity item that have been elevated to a collector’s item and item of obsession, on par with high-end watches in terms of items that are very expensive, make little sense to outsiders, and can be either garish or beautiful (or, if you’re Sylvester Stallone, both).
As a watch guy I understand the allure of fancy pens. It doesn’t make much sense, to be sure – fountain pen makers items that have been reduced to penury by commodity Bics and we’re never going to go back to blotters and India ink.
“I think pens have become popular on Kickstarter for a couple of reasons. In the case of the Karas Kustoms projects, they are handmade in America, which is a very hot commodity at present,” said Ana Reinert, editor of The Well Appointed Desk.
“I also think that there are so few options available for a good pen at a decent price at present that we office monkeys are willing to help fund projects to give us what we want. Pen options at present are at the two ends of the spectrum — cheap plastic and hideous looking from the local big box office supply store or high-end and well over $100 on the Mont Blanc, Waterman, etc end of the spectrum. A small run, highly-crafted pen in the $25-$80 range is an affordable luxury for people and it gives them something beautiful and functional,” she said.
Pens, in short, are easy to buy because they are small and often, when not clad in diamonds and pearls, fairly inexpensive. You can trust that a pen maker will stay true to his or her word because it’s not that hard to mill a tube, stick some ink into it, and add a spring. As Brad Dowdy at Penaddict writes, “there are worse addictions, right?”
Clearly pens offer a template for success. The key, then, is to set a low enough price point for popular adoption while grabbing a niche interest. I’ve supported card games, Arduino boards, and metal wallets on Kickstarter and I’ve been consistently pleased with the resulting projects.
You should also be wary of scammers, especially in these niche areas. While I couldn’t find a pen scam, I did find this wild tale of a disgraced watchmaker trying to sell watches from a company called Montrex. To a person familiar with watches the pieces are obviously of low quality and the torrent of exciting verbiage on the page reinforces the fact. Then the lady doth protest too much, it’s most likely she’s lying.
When dealing with niche products like pens there can often be levels of nuance the average user doesn’t see. Perhaps the pen is simply a rebadged model from Alibaba? Maybe it’s a copy of another item? “Investing” in a $20 pen isn’t a huge expense, but it pays to be wary.
Finally, we learn that crowdfunding is the long tail of manufacturing. Whereas there are rarified pens near the front of the pack then a massive number of commodity pens further along, these pens appeal to collectors and fill specific aesthetic and functional needs. The same goes for any project. However, the key is finding your place on that long tail.
In the end, pens are easy to sell because they’re not dangerous. If a project goes belly up, you’re not out hundreds. It seems, also, that pen fans are a bit more trusting of the manufacturers. After all, the simple fact that someone is taking an interest in their hobby/obsession is an important point. There is money to be made in niche products for niche users and crowdfunding is definitely the way forward for fans of board games, writing instruments, odd electronics, and the like.
There are hacks out there which transform the original Macintosh into an aquarium, or the original iMac into a pet bed. But those require that you have an actual computer shell you’re willing to part ways with. Here’s another fun design that looks like an old Macintosh, but it doesn’t make you tear apart a vintage computer.
The MaCool is a thermal insulated carrier that looks like an original Apple Macintosh. It’ll keep cold drinks cold or hot food hot, and holds up to 8 drink cans and ice. As an added bonus, it’s guaranteed never to eat your 3.5″ floppy disks.
Here’s an amusing clip of the creator of the MaCool bringing it in to the Genius Bar for repair:
You can pledge to order the MaCool insulated cooler over at Kickstarter for $59(USD).
The microwave is the lazy hungry man’s best friend. Developer Nathan Broadbent went and modified his oven to become even more lazy user-friendly. His Picrowave oven is voice-activated, reads bar codes, can be taught how to cook a particular item and more.
Broadbent used a Raspberry Pi to smarten up his oven. He even rewired its touch panel and made a new interface for it. The thing is, he doesn’t need to use the new panel, because he made the oven understand voice commands.
He also made an online database containing instructions for cooking. The instructions are tied to bar codes, which are read by a scanner that Broadbent connected it to his oven. In short, all he has to do is scan an item and the microwave will find out how to zap it from the database using Wi-Fi. If it’s not there, Nathan can just add an entry. He also made an online interface so that he can control the oven from a website, even from a mobile device. Finally, the oven can also tweet when its done cooking.
If only 3D printers were that easy to use. Head to Broadbent’s website to see how he made the Picrowave.
[via TechCrunch via DVICE]
Motorola’s secretive Moto X smartphone has been spotted in its fair share of photos (leaked and otherwise) this past week, but there are only so many thrills to be derived by looking at still images. The folks at Ausdroid got their collective hands on a short demo video from Canadian wireless carrier Rogers that affords us our best look yet at what Motorola’s first post-acquisition phone brings to the table when it comes to software.
One of the earliest and most persistent rumors about the Moto X (or the X Phone as it was known) was that the device would always be listening for voice commands. The Rogers video confirms that is the case, and that the command “OK Google Now” is all it takes to rouse the phone and prompt Google’s proactive data surfacing service. Curiously, yet another leaked video shows another Moto X reacting to the “OK Moto Magic” command instead. At this point it’s tough to say if the change in activation commands is a regional software difference or just a holdover from earlier stages of development.
Also onboard the X is a new visual notifications scheme that doesn’t rely on an embedded LED — the video notes that “information quietly appears” on the display in the form of icons that seem to help users differentiate, say, Facebook messages from standard texts. Users can also fire up the X’s camera by vigorously whipping their wrists while holding it, though it’s unclear whether or not we can redefine that action to launch different applications. Once the camera is up and running, users can tap anywhere on the screen to snap photos, or hold their fingers down to enable a burst mode of sorts. It strikes me as a much savvier approach to operating a camera than what Google does in stock Android Jelly Bean, and hopefully those tweaks make the leap from Moto exclusive to stock Android staple.
Curiously absent from the video is any mention of the customization options expected to be part of the Moto X experience. Canadian customers can pick up a black or white X starting in August, and I suspect those in the U.S. will be able to pick up their non-tweaked models from multiple carriers around the same time. As it happens, engravings and colorful plastic backs may not be the only design choices Motorola will leave up to its customers — AndroidAndMe’s Taylor Wimberly (who’s had a generally solid track record with Moto X reports) says that wood trim may also be an option when the device launches this summer. Really, the only thing this torrent of leaks hasn’t turned up yet is a price tag, but at the rate things are going I wouldn’t expect that last tidbit to stay a secret for too much longer.
I know what you’re thinking. This chatroom is dumb. Why would anyone reveal the thing they’re trying to hide? First of all, you’re so afraid of it precisely because you know you can’t hide it. Second of all, if you just reveal it here it’ll be out there on your terms and you can stop worrying about it. This is a cleansing process. And third of all, it probably doesn’t matter
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Welcome to The After Math, where we attempt to summarize this week’s tech news through numbers, decimal places and percentages.
Welcome to this week’s After Math, with Nokia and T-Mobile both holding New York-based events for their future plans. The US carrier continued to roll out its Magenta-hued LTE service across America, while Nokia finally revealed the long-rumored (and often-leaked) Lumia 1020, which brings its high-megapixel-count sensors to its Lumia line — a true PureView Windows Phone. All this in numerot (that’s Finnish for numbers), right after the break.
Filed under: Cellphones, Wearables, Mobile, Nokia
Salutron has just announced their Move C300 activity tracker, where this particular device would see the incorporation of leading edge science, technology as well as design which will set a whole new standard in activity trackers. The device itself is capable of capturing, holding and wirelessly transmitting health-related data to Bluetooth smart-enabled devices, where among them include smart phones and tablets. It does seem as though there is a revolution in health, fitness and wellness as the LifeTrak Move C300 jumps aboard this particular bandwagon, bringing along with it the most advanced, fashionable, and durable device that is capable of easily and accurately track one’s daily activities. Hey, if it is supposed to be an everyday device, does it mean that it is waterproof? Good news for those who asked, as the answer is a resounding “Yes!”
Considering it comes with a comfortable and waterproof design, it does not matter whether you are at the office, at home, exercising, or swimming, there is no more reason for you to manually track your heart rate, distance, calorie burn and steps taken ever again. It is stylish and easy on the eyes, and a snap to use, allowing you to integrate the LifeTrak Move C300 into your lifestyle without batting an eyelid. There will be a full display right on your wrist as well as an open API platform, paving the way for universal integration to some of the most popular health and fitness apps, so that you remain motivated to achieve your goals.
All it takes is just a touch of a button, and you will be able to check out your daily and weekly progress in order to remain on track with personal goals without breaking the bank. Some of the key features of the LifeTrak Move C300 include Bluetooth Smart Connectivity, ECG Accurate Heart Rate thanks to its patented S-Pulse ECG accurate heart rate, automated tracking that keeps track of all-day calorie burn and step tracking, advanced calorie tracking, dynamic distance calibration, and enhanced step filtering among others, coming in a wide array of band colors to reflect your personality. The Move C300 will retail for $59.99 a pop.
Product Page via Press Release
[ Salutron introduces the LifeTrak Move C300 copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]
The Moto X, Google and Motorola’s heavily advertised
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