Hasta La Gadget!

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Bored of quantifying your self already? Why not quantify your pet instead? FitBark is a Fitbit style health tracker for your under-walked canine companion. We’ve covered this (frankly) barking mad gizmo before, back in May, when its creators were exhibiting at Hardware Alley at TechCrunch Disrupt NY but they’ve now taken to Kickstarter to raise funds to get the device out in the wild. Again.

It’s actually FitBark’s second attempt at Kickstarting the gizmo. As Gigaom points out, its creators pulled an earlier attempt at crowdfunding the device in order to rethink the business model, scrapping the monthly subscription fee and opting for a fixed price-tag of $69 via Kickstarter or $99 for general retail.

FitBark are after $35,000 to cover manufacturing costs this time around, and are more than half-way to achieving the target with 32 days left to run on the campaign — so crazy or otherwise, this is one hardware startup that’s pretty much a dead cert for its first manufacturing run-around-the-park at least.

Now I say barking mad but that’s mostly tongue-in-cheek, being as FitBark is not the only health tracker angling for pet owners’ cash. Whistle, a startup backed by $6 million in Series A funding, launched a $99 wearable activity tracker for dogs only last month. There’s also Tagg, which combines activity and location tracking by including GPS in its device. So underestimate the pet-owning dollar at your peril.

So what does FitBark actually do? Attach it to your dog’s collar and it tracks daily’s activity levels, sending the data back to FitBack’s servers when your smartphone is in range, or throughout the day if you purchase a dedicated FitBark base station (and keep you pet penned up at home while you’re out). The latter scenario would allow owners to keep remote tabs on their pet’s activity levels when they’re not at home, but unless you own a mansion (or employ a dog walker) your dog isn’t going to be able to do a whole lot of running around without you. FitBark then crunches all the activity data, offering customisable daily activity goals, and delivering the results back to you via an app. So far, so kinda sane.

At its more barking mad fringe, the FitBark also lets pet owners compare — well, they say “unify” — their own fitness with their dog’s fitness/activity. So yeah, boasting that you are fitter than Fido is apparently a thing now…

FitBark is also the first platform that leverages existing APIs of human fitness trackers to bring you a unified view of your fitness level and that of your dog. From the outset, FitBark will seamlessly receive input from your Nike Fuelband, Fitbit, Withings Pulse, or Bodymedia Fit. We’ll look to expand the list as we learn about new open APIs or partnership opportunities. If you’re not only a devoted dog parent but are also serious about tracking your own fitness, you’ll love this.

Some companies have taken to using Kickstarter as almost a default step in their product pipeline, and New York’s Lomography is one of them. The photography focused company has successfully Kickstarted its film scanner for iPhone, and now it’s looking to fund a throwback portrait lens for DSLRs based on the historic “Petzval” 19th century design.

The Petzval lens was the most popular choice for photos in the 19th century, and produces a unique bokeh (background blur) effect with a very narrow depth of field. They’re pretty recognizable once you see some samples taken with them, and the effect is very impressive when paired with the sensors and imaging capabilities of modern DSLRs.

Lomography’s version would retain the signature visual style but also offer up mounts for Canon EF- and Nikon F-compatible cameras, along with a very bring f/2.2 maximum aperture, which beats the classic Petzval’s by at least a full stop. It also has terrific color saturation and high contrast, according to Lomography, and is very sharp in the in-focus area. Vignetting is also intentionally quite noticeable with the Petzval, for an art-house effect.

The Petzval is unique in its design in terms of being intentionally made to capture a super narrow depth-of-field, which is a key ingredient for portrait photos that really pop. And as an awesome bonus just from an aesthetic standpoint, the new Lomography Petzval will be crafted from brass, just like the original.

Lomography has been making lenses and throwback lo-fi cameras for over a decade now, and the Petzval is ambitious but definitely within their scope. The campaign is seeking $100,000, and has over half of that pledged already. Pre-order backer levels start at $300, though few are left at that price, and there are backer levels at $350, $400 and up after that.

The trend of companies like Lomography that are established using Kickstarter as a way to poll interest for potential products, while also creating a pre-order channel and defraying some of the risk of building something new is great for consumers, since it pairs trusted brands with an innovation platform. Kickstarter gets a lot of flack for projects that don’t deliver as promised, but it could end up being much more successful on this scale, with medium-sized companies looking for wider audiences, than as a money vacuum for early adopters who are loose with their wallets.

Blink has been a Kickstarter favorite ever since it launched one year back, and it seems that such an experience should be repeated once again, where the second outing would see additional features thrown into the mix. Blink happens to […]

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The Japanese were the ones who invented karaoke, where it allowed them to sing their blues away after a particularly difficult day at the office. Well, you might not be a fan of karaoke, but do bear in mind that […]

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