May 31
May 30
To say SmartThings‘ Kickstarter campaign was a success is an understatement: the Internet of Things outfit, which offers a clever array of home automation sensors, routers and smartphone apps, raised more than $1.2 million (over four times the company’s original goal), nabbed over 6,000 backers and quickly sold out of its first batch of kits. Naturally, the company isn’t stopping there — it’s making good on its goal of providing an open-source platform for developers, as it announced the availability of its Developer and Inventor Toolkit. Now, interested parties can create and develop their own SmartThings, and can collaborate with like-minded folks to come up with even more ways to take advantage of the platform. Additionally, it supports several types of wireless standards, such as WiFi, Bluetooth, ZigBee and Z-Wave, giving it interoperability with various home automation systems.
As a refresher, SmartThings connects a large number of household items — appliances, automatic door locks, thermostats, humidity sensors, presence sensors, power outlet switches, IR remotes, secret bookcase doors and plenty more — to a central router which then can be controlled through a smartphone app. Thanks to the openness of the platform, the number of use-case scenarios is rather significant, which certainly makes it more appealing to users. If you’re interested in learning how to get started, head below to the press release and go here to get the whole enchilada of information.
Filed under: Cellphones, Peripherals, Mobile
May 29
One space company is looking to change the way space exploration works. Planetary Resources, the company that also wants to mine asteroids, has come up with the idea of putting a telescope into space and allowing folks like you and I to control it in a way. You’ll be able to send a picture of yourself into space, as well as take photos of planetary objects for yourself.
The telescope is called ARKYD, and it’s looking to become the world’s first crowd-funded space telescope. The company is looking to raise $1 million by essentially selling the opportunity to have people send a picture of their own up into space, as well as the opportunity to control the telescope and take photos of planetary bodies of their choice.
The ARKYD’s primary goal is to mine asteroids, but the company is planning to launch multiple ARKYDs into space over time to accomplish this. The first one that will head to space is the ARKYD 100, which is the one that will be in the hands of Kickstarter backers. We’ve seen this telescope before, which was shown off as a prototype last year.
For $25, you can take a “space selfie,” which includes sending a picture of yourself up into space. The picture will be shown on a LCD screen mounted on the telescope and a camera arm will then take a photo of the screen with the Earth in the background. It sounds a little cheesy, but we know space nerds will gobble it up like tiramisu.
Higher pledges will allow for the ability to use the ARKYD to take a picture of anything you want in space using the telescope’s main camera module, in space or on Earth. Essentially, the more money you pay, the more you can do with the telescope, including the opportunity to spend more time taking photos and such.
We’re not sure if the $1 million goal can be reached, but we’re optimistic. Already there are over 1,000 backers who have pledged over $125,000 at the time of this writing, and there’s still 32 days left to go. Planetary Resources says that they’ll be launching the telescope whether they reach the goal or not, but the Kickstarter campaign simply gives them the chance to let regular folks get in on the action.
Crowd-funded telescope looks to take selfies into space is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
May 29
Insert Coin: Planetary Resources ARKYD space telescope will take your selfies from space in 2015
Posted in: Today's Chili
We’ve seen the Arkyd 100 telescope before, Planetary Resources’ impressively small asteroid-hunting machine that offers performance matching any on-earth scope (yes, even the really big ones on the tops of mountains) in a package that’s about the size of a quarter keg of beer. Its length of 425mm fully deployed (16.7 inches) is absolutely dwarfed by Earth’s current great orbital scope: the Hubble Space Telescope, which is 13.2 meters (or 43 feet) long. The space shuttle cargo bay could carry a single Hubble into orbit. If it were still operating, it could take a thousand Arkyd 100 scopes in a single shot.
But, of course, it isn’t still operating, which is perhaps partly why Planetary Resources is looking for $1 million in earthly support. The extra-orbital mining company has turned to Kickstarter to raise a little early funding and to help get its first fully functional Arkyd 100 scope into orbit. If you jump in early, you can get your face in orbit too — well, a picture of it anyway. More details after the break.
Gallery: Planetary Resources ARKYD
Filed under: Science
Source: Kickstarter
May 28
After launching in 2009, Kickstarter announced today that they have hosted over 100,000 projects on the website, with a little over 42,000 of them being successfully funded. As for how much money has flowed through the crowd-funding website, a staggering $631 million has been collectively pledged from the 100,000 projects that have been launched so far.
Kickstarter announced the milestone via Twitter, linking to further statistics, including the numbers for each category on the website. Music, and Film & Video are the most popular categories, with over 20,000 launched projects each. The Publishing category comes in a distant third place, with only 11,600 projects.
The Games category had over 5,000 projects, with Technology garnering just over 2,300. We’re surprised by these numbers specifically, as we assumed that technology and games would be a bigger part of Kickstarter, but it was on the contrary, as Technology had one of the lowest numbers of launched projects on the site, right beside Comics and Dance. Of course, though, the Pebble Smartwatch stands out as one of the highest-funded projects in the website’s history, bringing in over $10 million.
However, the Games category brings in the second-highest amount of funds with almost $135 million in pledges from game enthusiasts. Back in March, the Games category on Kickstarter passed the $100 million mark, so in just two months, $35 million was brought in for Game-related projects on the crowd-funding website.
These statistics reveal that almost 44% of Kickstarter projects get funded, which is certainly a higher percentage than I expected. Either way, if you’re thinking about starting your own Kickstarter campaign, it looks like you’ll have a little lower than 50% chance of succeeding, which aren’t excellent odds by any means, but it shows that it certainly isn’t easy to get your idea funded.
Kickstarter surpasses 100,000 projects, $631m in total pledges is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
May 28
Zortrax! Drukarko moja! Ty jesteś jak zdrowie. The Zortrax (yeah, really) M200 is a $1,899 3D printer made in Poland that will be shipped internationally by a team of crack Polish engineers and designers. It has a 7×8 inch build plate and can print objects of up to 488 cubic inches. It prints ABS and Nylon and has a specially treated plate so you don’t need to lay Kapton tape down before you build.
The best thing? As the creators note, it comes in a “slick, aluminum” case “that just works.” “It really ties your office space together,” they write. Finally: a 3D-printer company that is thinking about the Feng Shui of your crib. Best of all, this guy makes it for you:
All kidding aside, it’s interesting to see this sort of crowdfunding project coming out of Europe, let alone Poland. The company that created the Zortrax is called Gadgets3D and has headquarters in Poland and Hong Kong. They seem to have a great deal of experience in RepRap kits and the like, and this is their first foray into a fully functional 3D printer for less than $2,000. That they’re taking a chance on the world stage – and that they’re nearly funded – is a testament to the power of crowdfunding sites.
Should you consider the badassedly-named Zortrax vs. something local like Makerbot? I’m not certain. However, if you want a bit of a deal, want to support the Polish motherland, and like your 3D printers to smell like kabanos, this might be the model for you. You can check out the Kickstarter project here.
May 28
May 28
Google Glass, Meta Wants Your Milkshake! …Do Consumers Want Either of Them?
Posted in: Today's Chili
Google Glass fever and upstart Meta’s rapidly financed US $100,000 Kickstarter campaign indicate #1. impending altered reality market maturity, or #2. everything new remixes the old, but still the geeks sing “Ohhhhh look, shiny!”
Google Glass: Loudest Voice in the Room
In development for several years and announced way back when, Glass finally got to developers and the geek elite about two months ago (for US $1500, plus getting oneself to a mandatory orientation meeting thingy). Glass is a kind of hybrid between a head-mounted display and augmented reality (AR) prosthetic outfitted with the internets. Really, if you’re reading Akihabara News you’re probably already hip, but if not there’s a search engine very ready to help you. Big G overlord Eric Schmidt indicated last month that a consumer-ready Glass product is about a year away. Realistically, at this point it’s unclear whether Glass is expected to be a viable consumer product or more of a proof-of-concept development platform.
Meta: Quickly Kickstarted, High-Profile Team Assembled – Working Man’s AR?
If you saw last year’s sci-fi short film “Sight” or the YouTube sci-fi series “H+,” you’re already hip to what Columbia University’s Meron Gribitz & pals are aiming for with Meta. While Glass is more of a HUD with some AR, Meta is less with the acronyms and more what the name suggests: information about information, i.e., Meta hopes to overlay manipulatable imagery/data on the physical world, augmenting real reality and projecting virtual reality (VR) artifacts that you can fiddle with in real time.
For now, Meta has a slick video, a prototype, a crack team of engineers and advisors including professor Steven Feiner and wearable computing advocate guy, Steve Mann, and financing to get their dev kit into dev’s hands. To its credit, Meta does seem to aim less at generalized gee-whiz gimmickry and heads-up automated narcissism, and more toward the getting actual work done.
Asian Alternatives:
First: POPSCI, very well done. The image on the above left melts one’s technosnarky heart.
In typical form, China has assimilated and excreted: the Baidu Eye is their Glass clone. There’s no indication of plans to bring it to market, so maybe they just wanted to say “Ha, ha, we can, too!” Or maybe they just wanted to do research and ride the Glass hype, which is understandable. But China, dude – might wanna think about doing some original stuff someday soon. That lack of intellectual capital is going to sting when “Designed in California” meets “Made in the U.S.A. With My 3D Printer.”
Over here in Japan we’ve got startup Telepathy One pushing a Glass-looking, but as they openly declare, not Glass-like AR headset (above-right). While technology writers rhetorically speculating as much in a headline makes for good Search Engine Optimization (other adjectives include: disingenuous, blithe, lame), rather than compete with Glass, Telepathy One is focusing on social networking & multimedia – but they too are clearly attempting to catch the contemporary current of AR hype – which is understandable. And hey, even if Telepathy One flashes and disappears, that fact that the phrase “Japanese Startup” can be used without the usual preface of “Why Aren’t There Any…” is a positive thing.
Okay Then, It’s Almost Doable – But Still…
Indeed, the apps, core software, computational capability, and the ubiquitous-enough network connectivity essential for decent AR are quickly ramping up. Along with innovative concepts like the AR/VR mashup Eidos Masks, alternatives to and more advanced versions of the above devices will likely continue to crop up. In fact, the never-even-close-to-being-vaguely-realized promises of VR are also showing signs of decreased morbidity. So…
We Actually Want It vs. They Want Us to Want It
Glass, the engine of the current VR hype machine, is of course conceptually nothing new, but it has the word “Google” in the name, so people are paying attention. Of course even Google gets ahead of itself from time to time (Buzz? Wave?), but lucky for them selling ads pays well, and they’ve got a boatload of cash to pour into whatever sounds cool. Millions have benefited from Google’s side projects and non-traditional ventures (Gmail much?), but the expectations leveled on Glass are… perhaps a bit much. Suffice it to say, Google absolutely nails search and software and web apps, but thus far big-G’s hardware projects have but limped.
But if we’ve got the cash, that probably won’t stop us! The soft tyranny of the tech elite is the ability to ring a shiny bell and then watch the doggies line up to pay. Luckily, actually useless products, products produced with too much hype, products produced with too much variety, products out of touch with the people who ultimately finance their creation – no matter how awesome they seem at first blush – they will fail. Hard. (Note: Sony, if you’re here, please reread the last sentence!).
Until AR & VR technologies can out-convenience a smartphone, shrink into a contact lens, dispense with voice controls and the confusing non-verbal communication of fiddling with a touchscreen on your temple, i.e., until such devices can move beyond relatively impractical novelty, it’s unlikely they’ll amount to much more than narrowly focused research and demonstration platforms.
This is to say, along with inventing Google Glass, the search giant might also want to invent something for us to like, you know, do with it. Or maybe that’s not fair – so to be fair, one can concede that no new technology is perfect at 1.0, and any awesome innovation has to start somewhere…
Maybe it could start in 1995. Ask Nintendo about that.
• • •
Reno J. Tibke is the founder and operator of Anthrobotic.com and a contributor at the non-profit Robohub.org.
Props to io9 and Meta’s Kickstarter and Meta (but come on guys, tame that website – autoplay is really annoying). PopSci article/image; Watch the augmented reality-themed “Sight” and “H+” by clicking on those words.
May 27
A lot of the gadgets that help people monitor and track their physical health focus on providing feedback related to physical activity for use with tracking workout data and energy expenditure during the day. Now, a new Kickstarter projected called the W/Me band wants to leverage similar data sources, but with the goal of providing a more holistic picture of wellness.
The W/Me wristband is based around a sensor that monitors your body’s automatic nervous system, providing feedback on body activity that you may not be at all aware of, including breathing patterns and heart rate, to let you know about automatic reactions you may be having that are detrimental to your state of health or physical wellbeing. Then, with rhythmic breathing exercises, the idea is that you’ll be able to correct these negative patterns and improve your general health and mood for the better.
The W/Me project is different from most activity tracking in that it takes a very specific goal of managing breathing and describing a user’s mental state. It provides readings for agility score and ANS (autonomic nervous system) age in addition to a general description of your mental state, which provides information that tells you both how good you might be at dealing with stress, and how old your nervous system is, independent of your actual biological age.
The wristband will have Bluetooth 4.0 connectivity, as well as an LED readout that can provide information independent from an attached smartphone. It advertises a full week’s worth of use on a full battery charge, and also has a built-in USB connector for charging. It uses a built-in heart rate variability sensor, combined with the company’s own algorithms to arrive at its various readings, which can be displayed either on the band itself or on a companion app.
Whether or not you believe in the science behind this, this is a clear growth market for quantified-self devices. There’s plenty of opportunity to explore the intersection of these devices and alternative theories of medicine and wellness, so it’ll be interesting to see if these kinds of gadgets can help bring health- and self-monitoring tech into the mainstream.
May 25
Connectify Switchboard ditches original server plans, is available now for $90
Posted in: Today's Chili
Remember that Connectify Switchboard Insert Coin we featured just over a week ago? Well, we’d like to say we’re sorry to hear it’s been canceled — but we’re not. Why? Because a high amount of interest from people preferring to use their own computers as servers, has resulted in a change of plan. The result is that the product is available right away, and will no longer use cloud servers. This change means the need for investment has gone, evaporating the need for Kickstarter, too. This also means you can use the service as a private VPN, and always appear as if you’re surfing from your home PC — along with that speed-boosting channel bonding tech, of course. To sweeten the deal even further, if you purchase access to the beta program now ($90), then you’ll get lifetime updates and support. After the beta, the price rises to $100. Better fire up that those internet connections, stat.
Filed under: Desktops, Networking
Source: Connectify
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