Hasta La Gadget!

As more reports of ARM-based Windows and Apple devices continue to fill the airwaves — the latest being reports of a Surface 2 and Nokia’s first Windows tablet, along with upcoming iPhone handsets — the Cambridge, UK-based semiconductor technology powerhouse is pressing ahead with its bigger ambition be at the heart of all connected devices: today the company announced that it is acquiring Sensinode Oy, a Finland-based startup that develops internet-of-things software.

This is a bolt-on purchase: ARM says that for now it will continue to sell Sensinode’s NanoStack and NanoService products to existing and new customers, alongside its ARM Cortex® family of processors and collaborative mbed project.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

ARM’s move to develop for more than smartphones and tablets — the two areas where you are most likely to hear its name these days, specifically in connection with companies like Apple, which designs its own ARM-based chips for its devices — is not a new one.

When its longtime CEO Warren East stepped down last year to be replaced by insider and former engineer Simon Segars, ARM emphasized how it was taking a long-term view of how the company would grow. The implication at the time was that it would be beyond the devices we typically refer to as “mobile” today, to cover cars, ovens and other appliances, factory robots, and really anything that you might need or want to be connected up in your work or leisure life — as the illustration here, taken from Sensinode’s site, shows.

The list indeed is long: “IoT technology can be used in wireless sensors, smart connected appliances, home health applications, and wearable electronics. The technology is also applicable to M2M applications using cellular connections and the new OMA Lightweight M2M standard for device management,” ARM notes.

“We take a very long-term view about our business, and we believe that now is the right time to bring in new leadership, to execute on the next phase of growth and to plan even further into the future,” East said at the time of his resignation.

In that regard, today’s acquisition news is evidence of how this is playing out. ARM projects (via analysts IMS Research) that there will be 30 billion connected devices by 2020. Compare that to the 8.7 billion ARM-based devices that were shipped last year, and combine that with ARM’s existing repution, and you can see why ARM sees this as a clear opportunity for the taking.

“ARM is dedicated to enabling a standards-based Internet of Things where billions of devices of all types and capabilities are connected through interoperable Internet Protocols and Web Services,” said John Cornish, executive vice president and general manager, System Design Division, ARM, in a statement.

You can also see how it’s important for ARM to continue pushing in this development against competitors like Intel, which is also hungrily eyeing up the IoT space.

ARM describes Sensinode as one of the “pioneers in software for low cost low power internet connected devices and a key contributor to open standards for IoT.” Those standards include creating the 6LoWPAN and CoAP standards for low cost low power devices; and contributing to IETF, ZigBee IP, ETSI and OMA standardization efforts.

This is a win for Sensinode because it gives the startup a much bigger platform and audience of developers who might build chips and devices on its technology. “By making Sensinode expertise and technology accessible to the ARM Partnership and through the ARM mbed project we will enable rapid deployment of thousands of new and innovative IoT applications,” notes Cornish.

This looks like it’s only ARM’s second acquisition ever. The first was just as strategic: it was in 2011 of Prolific, which developed nanotechnology software tools.

Let’s not kid ourselves: We don’t control the Internet, the Internet controls us. Any notions to the contrary are foolish at best, but a new Kickstarter project called Circle wants to help families fight back against the Internet’s omnipresence with hardware and software that allows individual control of devices connected to a local network.

Circle isn’t a router, like the Skydog, which was created by the Xerox PARC company PowerCloud Systems and is based on a similar concept. Instead, it’s a network device that can communicate with your router, and with all of your connected devices, offering up a filter between your existing gear and the unfiltered Internet, allowing you to set limitations for kids’ devices based on age, time, ad content and more. You can receive notifications about different types of Internet activity to your own device, too, and get reports about both “negative” and “positive” browsing, Circle claims.

In other words, Circle makes you the NSA PRISM program for your own household, but with a little bit of China’s Great Firewall thrown in the mix. You can schedule timed access to different categories of site, so that Facebook or YouTube time doesn’t get crazy, cut off access temporarily via Pause mode, turn off access once it’s time for bed, and even block ads entirely on devices that your kids use. All of this is managed via an app for iPhone.

Circle says their solution is better because it doesn’t require setting up user profiles or installing nanny software on every individual device, and because it works with your existing router, you don’t need to get an expensive replacement or change any network settings.

The team behind Circle includes Tiebing Zhang, a former network security engineer for the Department of Defense, and Honeywell Wi-Fi control systems engineer, as well as Jelani Memory, an entrepreneur with experience in design, sports, business development and much more besides. Circle definitely manages to look the part, thanks possibly to founder and Product Designer Sean Kelly, but whether it can back up those good looks with performance remains to be seen.

Circle is $150 to pre-order via Kickstarter pledge, with an anticipated delivery date of August, 2014. Nice to see a hardware startup give itself a reasonable amount of time to deliver. The startup is also looking for roughly $250,000 in total funds to make the project work, which will take the working prototype that currently exists and make it production-ready.

Smart pedometers are just the beginning. Sensors of all kinds are emerging to track the way we move, what we do at home and the way we sleep.

Last week, I wrote about a Helsinki-based company called Beddit that ran an Indiegogo campaign for a sleep sensor you attach to your bed. They say it is so sensitive, it can pick up a person’s heart-rate. After making devices like this for medical professionals for a couple years, they are looking at the consumer market with a cheaper product for $149.

They quickly reached their goal of $80,000 in about a week and are looking to tack on more. The company’s pledging to build a web app called Beddit Cloud for backing up and sharing sleep data if they can reach $200,000. The original Beddit already syncs to a mobile app through Bluetooth.

But if they build Beddit Cloud, then a person can automatically upload their sleep measurements to a private web account. This will include visualizations for looking at long periods of sleep data, spreadsheet exports and an anonymous aggregated comparison of your sleep data with other Beddit Cloud users.

They’ll also make the data easily shareable to social networks, putting in some of the social features that are common in more generalized activity trackers like the Jawbone Up. There will also be an open API for third-party apps. They’re planning to have it out by the second quarter of next year if they make this stretch goal.

The GlassUp, an ambitious Indiegogo project that wanted to take the concept of Glass and make it more about passive consumption of content than about privacy-treading recording, video and photography, was in danger of losing a full third of its funding earlier today due to a PayPal rule, but is now on track again after the payments giant reversed its initial decision.

In what was potentially a disastrous development for hardware companies and others that use Indiegogo to fund projects and collect money from backers to help devices enter production, PayPal had at first stated that any backing pledges made via its service would have to be withheld until after GlassUp delivered its hardware to buyers. That’s fine and dandy when it comes to traditional e-commerce endeavours, where a product is generally shipped before someone is charged, but awkward when the whole point is to fund the creation of something that doesn’t exist with money freely offered up front.

GlassUp had managed to raise over $100,000 when it found out that PayPal had locked its account and made a third of its funds (those pledged via PayPal, as opposed to the other payment methods on Indiegogo) unavailable to the creators, which understandable put a bit of a dent in their plans. The project still has some ways to go – it needs $50,000 more in just a week – and it turns out that the PayPal donations were turned off around a week ago, with GlassUp creator Francesco Giartosio finding out only when a prospective backer notified him that his pledged didn’t go through.

PayPal has resolved the issue as of today, and offered the following statement to TechCrunch via a spokesperson:

We looked into what was happening with GlassUp and corrected the situation earlier today. GlassUp now has access to all of the funds that they’ve raised on Indiegogo through PayPal. We think they are developing a fascinating product and don’t want to impede their innovation in any way.

So from PayPal’s perspective, this was a simple screw-up and the company even goes out of its way to commend GlassUp’s “innovation.” But the fact remains that for up to a week PayPal had locked the GlassUp account, meaning it’s not clear where exactly the funding would be at this point had that not happened.

GlassUp could still make its goal by the deadline, but there’s always a chance that future crowdfunding programs face similar difficulties. Perhaps the answer lies in looking elsewhere for handling pledges to these kinds of campaigns, but keeping PayPal off the list of available payment methods would definitely limit the ease with which contributors can offer up funds, so hopefully this issue helps make sure similar problems don’t happen with other projects down the road.

Additional reporting by Natasha Lomas

Thalmic Labs has picked up some heavyweight senior talent in its quest to bring the MYO gesture control armband device to market. Both are ex-BlackBerry, and both bring a lot of experience in the management of a consumer devices company, and in the supply chain for producing said devices.

Thalmic’s newest employees are Mike Galbraith, former SVP of Operations at BlackBerry, and David Perston, former Senior Director of New Product Introduction Outsourcing at the smartphone-maker. Galbraith becomes CFO of MYO, and Perston takes on a role as VP of Manufacturing. Given that arguably the two biggest challenges facing hardware startups are working out finances and managing the supply chain and production process, having some folks with experience in those roles is likely a good thing.

Galbraith comes direct from BlackBerry, which is just the most recent example of corporate shake-up and high-level departures at BlackBerry. BlackBerry just lost three executives last week, in fact, according to a report from the CBC confirmed by the company. As Chris reported at the time, BlackBerry seemed to be framing the departures as part of its aggressive reorganization and turnaround plan, but the recent announcement that it’s looking for suitors as well as considering going private offers good reason to believe top talent is leaving of its own volition.

“What really attracted me to Thalmic Labs was the innovative solution that Stephen, Aaron and Matthew are creating that has the potential to take human computer interaction to a whole new level,” Galbraith offered when asked why he chose Thalmic for his next destination. “I firmly believe there are boundless opportunities with MYO’s unique position within the dynamic wearable computing space.  I was also impressed with Stephen, Aaron and Matthew’s vision for MYO and beyond, in developing integrated solutions to enhance how we engage with things in our world.”

Perston, who left BlackBerry back in 2011 after nearly 15 years at the company, said that his “first love is startups” and cited the team and the product itself as his main motivation for joining. In both cases, it seems clear that Thalmic has gained from BlackBerry’s misfortunes of late.

The new hires and rapid growth of the Thalmic team, which is on track to surpass 50 employees by the end of the year, reflects the unintended bounty that could befall the Kitchener-Waterloo region as BlackBerry continues to struggle. It’s likely there will be a lot of talent injected into the market for the growing startup scene in the area to take advantage of, and that’s something investors are taking note of.