Vaavud Raises $375K To Tame The Wind With Your Smartphone

A Kickstarter success has just closed its seed funding round, raising $375,000 to continue its work of measuring the wind using a network of smartphones with a low-cost, electronics-free hardware accessory combined with a mobile app. Danish startup Vaavud‘s new funding comes from a group of angel investors, and according to Vaavud CEO Thomas Helms, it’ll help them expand at a faster… Read More

Tappy Fit Channels Flappy Bird Addiction Into Fitness Motivation Using Fitbit Data

A new game out now on the App Store features mechanics virtually identical to those found in viral hit Flappy Bird, but with a key twist – the game can be made easier through sheer physical effort. Using the Fitbit API, developer Aaron Coleman built-in a variable difficulty engine that allows you to redeem steps counted during a day in exchange for in-game rewards, like wider gaps between… Read More

Hoop Tracker Basketball Smartwatch Provides Automatic, Real-Time Shot Tracking

Playing basketball is fun, but I am bad at it. I might be less bad if I used the Hoop Tracker smartwatch, which is designed very specifically for basketball, unlike most wearables that aim at a more general audience. The new Kickstarter project promises instant analysis and tracking of your shots, including three-point, free throw and field goal percentage, as well as more standard stuff like time… Read More

AirSnap Helps You Take Beautiful Group Selfies By Pairing Two iOS Devices

How many times have you stepped out of the group to click pictures, feeling left out as others posed? Or have there been instances when you’re jostling to get back for a group picture after setting the timer of a camera shutter? While there is Samsung NX Mini, which comes with an LCD screen that flips 180 degrees for taking selfies, it still requires users to make adjustments in the frame.… Read More

Leap Motion Lays Off 10% Of Its Workforce After Missing On First Year Sales Estimates

Leap Motion won a lot of buzz early on for its motion controller, which is designed to make it possible for users to interact with their computer through gestures alone. The early buzz and pre-order interest led to a lot of growth, with the company swelling to 120 employees at its peak. But disappointing reviews when the hardware actually shipped took some of the wind out of the startup’s… Read More

Stir, A Kinetic Desk Startup From An Ex-Apple Engineer, Raises $1.5M Led By Tony Hsieh’s Vegas TechFund

As the world continues to see more and more everyday objects become “hardware” controlled through operating systems and internet connectivity, an ex-Apple engineer called JP Labrosse is hoping to take that principle and combine it with elegant design to transform the prosaic world of office desks. Read More

SmartMio Offers Athletes Wearable Muscle Stimulation Controlled By Your Smartphone

Athletic wearable devices are not anything new, but a new product launching today on Indiegogo has a different take from the myriad activity trackers out there: The SmartMio connected sports muscle stimulator is designed to bring so-called electronic muscle stimulation (EMS) to enthusiast and professional athletes in a small, convenient and smartphone powered package. The SmartMio consists of two… Read More

Augmedix Raises $3.2M To Make Google Glass Standard Kit For Future Doctors

Google Glass is facing some challenges in terms of public perception and an ongoing debate about its role in the public forum, but it has some potential in specific realms that could be very exciting, apart from its ability to be a huge consumer success. One such application is in medicine, and startup Augmedix just raised $3.2 million to help show how Glass can be useful to doctors. The round… Read More

Oculus Rift Gets A New $350 Developer Kit Which Improves On The Crystal Cove Prototype

Oculus has unveiled a Rift development kit to replace the first-generation one it stopped selling just last week, and the $350 developer hardware ups the game considerably over its predecessor. The new system is up for pre-order on the Oculus website now, and it’s based on the Crystal Cove prototype shown off by the startup at CES earlier this year. That means it adds a depth-sensing camera… Read More

Sulon Launches The Cortex Developer Kit To Start Building Holodeck Gaming Software

Virtual reality is bound to be a part of the future of gaming, and Toronto-based Sulon Technologies is debuting their own take on this exciting space at GDC in San Francisco. Their Cortex gaming platform is a fully immersive gaming experience, that turns any physical space into essentially a holodeck, using a spatial scanner, a processing unit, and a visor mount that plugs into any smartphone to… Read More