Hasta La Gadget!

A year ago the guys at Nomad released a small, portable USB cable for iPhones and micro USB devices. Now they’ve launched the ChargeKey, a super-small “cable” for charging your device via any USB port.

The ChargeKey connects to your actual keychain and fits into any USB port. You can then charge your phone or device via USB power and, when you’re done, simply place the ChargeKey back on your keychain.

They launched their new product at TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco.

The team is offering pre-orders of the charger for $25 and they’ll be shipping on November 30th. The creators liken the product to a “jumper cable” for your phone, allowing you to charge from any USB port. Team-member Noah Dentzel told us that he charged his phone via a USB port on the back of a TV at a bar, which is a pretty cool way to grab a little juice while getting juiced.

Two very important events went down this week. The first was Apple’s iPhone announcement, which we covered thoroughly (and perhaps exhaustively). The second was TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2013, which was particularly off the chain thanks to appearances from Evan Spiegel, Marissa Mayer, Mark Zuckerberg, as well as an amazing Hardware Alley showing on Wednesday.

We discuss this, TechCrunch writer Greg Kumparak’s birthday, and more on this week’s episode of the TC Gadgets Podcast, featuring John Biggs, Matt Burns, Jordan Crook, Chris Velazco, Romain Dillet and myself, Darrell Etherington.

We invite you to enjoy our weekly podcasts every Friday at 3pm Eastern and noon Pacific. And feel free to check out the TechCrunch Gadgets Flipboard magazine right here, as well as the TechCrunch Droidcast.

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Intro Music by Rick Barr.

It’s hardware day here at Disrupt SF and this morning’s sessions kicked off with an interview with Nicholas Woodman, founder and CEO of action camera company GoPro. Woodman discussed how the GoPro evolved from being a wrist-mounted prototype he came up with on a surfing trip to today’s hugely successful clip-on-anywhere lens that can capture the action from a variety of perspectives.

With the current hype around wearables that trajectory is especially interesting, not least when you consider eye-level wearables like Google Glass. Asked whether GoPro is working on a Google Glass style product, Woodman suggested that while the company is looking at the space it’s more with a view to thinking about how to interoperate with those type of devices, rather than making a dedicated pair of GoPro Glasses itself.

“I think what’s going to be exciting is you’re going to see more of these products working together,” said Woodman. “You already see it with GoPro and smartphones and  people often ask me are you afraid of the smartphone? And the answer is no — the smartphone is helping our business because it’s killing traditional cameras… which is opening up retail shelf space for GoPro and opening up consumer dollars for GoPro.”

GoPro is clearly (yet) another device that’s tapping into the snowballing trend to augment and extend the smartphone user experience with a variety of additional hardware sensors. Sure, it’s not a wet-behind-the-ears hardware startup just coming up on Kickstarter — GoPro started out around 2004 — but as auxiliary connected hardware with something extra to offer it’s also positioned to benefit from the ubiquity of smartphones.

Woodman argued that he sees a similar potential for GoPro to work in concert with any commercial Glass type products that emerge in future. ”GoPro is used in a totally different way to a traditional camera, and then beyond that the smartphone makes for an incredible video remote control for a GoPro right?” said Woodman. “Now I can preview and control my GoPro with my smartphone, playback my videos and share them directly from the smartphone. Never needing to hook my GoPro to a computer.

“And then you think of things like Glass and what not — a Glass-like product become terrific heads-up hands-free remote control devices for the GoPros and I think it’s just going to become more and more enabling and you’re going to be able to use your GoPro in even more versatile ways thanks to these complementary products.”

Asked what it would take for Google Glass to become a serious competitive to GoPro, Woodman said he could envisage Glass-style products owning the first person perspective in future but stressed that’s just one aspect of what GoPro does.

“I think that devices like Glass are going to do a terrific job of capturing your first person perspective. And that’s what people first think of when they think of GoPro,” he said. “But go and look at the content that you see being created and shared with GoPro. And look at the perspectives that are making up the content and you recognise that this first person view is one of hundreds of perspectives, thousands of perspectives. That’s really what GoPro’s all about: enabling this versatility.

“GoPro’s the world’s best selling camera because of this versatility — because it isn’t a one thing for one person. And it’s also the world’s best selling camera for professional production companies on a volume basis because of what it enables you to do. So then you recognise that — that GoPro’s strength is in its versatility — and then you pull back out to a Google Glass and while you recognise that that is very good for that purpose it doesn’t lend itself well to the world of GoPro.”

That said, Woodman said the company is not feeling complacent about potentially having a Mountain View sized competitor, in the not too distance future. ”We’ve very careful to be very appreciative for the success that we have right now but also we still wake up sacred every morning. You know we’re smart but we’re not that smart. Fear drives you a lot harder than success does,” he added.

Backstage Interview

Founder of smartwatch startup Pebble Eric Migicovsky took the stage at Disrupt, interviewed by our own John Biggs. He addressed head on the recently revealed competition from smartphone giant Samsung, and talked about what Pebble does that no other competitors out there have necessarily nailed down, and why he thinks their approach will continue to prevail despite mounting interest from top-tier, established hardware makers.

Migicovsky said that everyone seems to be ignoring the reason that Pebble was a success to begin with, which mainly has to do with identifying use cases for a wearable device. He argued that a smartwatch should “flow into the background” of a user’s life, and that the way to convince people to put one on is to show them how it can be useful to their life, but at the same time essentially become a background process, rather than something that requires major changes in how you live on a daily basis.

Asked directly about competitors, Migicovsky was quick to point out that OEMs have been making smartwatches for years, including Samsung, LG, Sony, Motorola and many others. Once again, he argues that all those companies are ignoring the reasons that people are interested in smartwatches to begin with – they want something that will “mesh into your life,” have long battery life, and not have to be babied and coddled for fear of getting it wet or inadvertently smashing it up.

The overall vision for the Pebble is one of a “thin client,” Migicovsky says. “We think the best computer you have is the one sitting in your pocket,” he argues, referring to the smartphones most of us now carry. Those have great screens, touch input, 3G and 4G connectivity and more. There’s no need to replicate that, but instead the real opportunity is to build a control device not only for that phone, but for other connected devices in your life, too. He mentioned wrist-based thermostat control, as well as connection with bike sharing terminals, and pointed to the RunKeeper integration as a perfect example of how they envision Pebble slotting into people’s lives.

For those who haven’t tried it out, RunKeeper’s Pebble integration replaces the screen when you start the app and start a run from your phone, showing you distance travelled, pace and more. Ideally that’s how Pebble would work on a much broader basis, becoming contextually the most appropriate tool for whatever you’re doing, whenever you’re doing it.

That’s why when Biggs asked him about Pebble 2.0, or what the next-generation device would look like, Migicovsky demurred and said it’s the same hardware you currently have on your wrist. Software is the next stage for Pebble, he contends, with the ultimate aim being partnering with developers to build out that ecosystem and help Pebble work with plenty of sensor and new apps to become a more generally useful tool for any given context.

Migicovsky also dodged a second attempt to get details of next-gen hardware when Biggs framed a question in light of Apple’s rumored iWatch. The Pebble founder wouldn’t speculate as to how Pebble might have to change to compete with an Apple wearable, and reiterated that software is the future. Of course, it’s never good policy for a device maker with something currently on shelves to talk about next-generation products, but for now at least, Migicovsky and Pebble seem to be all about developing the software ecosystem to explore the full potential of what they’ve already built.

Backstage Interview

What do you get when you put a pair of board gaming geeks who have worked at NVIDIA, Google, LucasArts, and Ubisoft together in the same room? It probably looks like Tangible Play, debuting at Disrupt SF.

Founded by Pramod Sharma and Jerome Scholler this lean startup aims to mix augmented reality, animated graphics, and audio with traditional board game elements. While this idea isn’t new, Sharma believes his team has created something special.

“In terms of social mission – we really think that we are connecting people through games,” he said. “Every time we demo our product to anyone, we hear that its super-cool. I think part of this is uniqueness and simplicity of the product.”

Sharma worked at Google in the book scanning project and spent eight years managing search and infrastructure. Scholler shipped Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter and Force Unleashed 1 and 2 for the 360 and PS3. He also built front-ends for Android. They’ve raised $350,000 this far from a team of angels. The company was part of the recent Stanford’s StartX accelerator group.

They launched their product today at TechCrunch Disrupt.

“About a year ago, the idea started when Pramod realized that his daughter has a lot of physical games / toys with very limited play lifecycle, while the iPad has unlimited entertainment power. We asked ‘How can we bring the long lasting engagement of iPad games to physical games?’” said Scholler.

“Something magical happens when you can grab things in your hand and can have a shared play experience,” he said.

After a bit of experimentation, Sharma used his computer vision experience to build a working prototype that could use the iPad camera to recognize objects and help play games. Scholler designed the game using his experience at Google. The game requires a very simple stand with a little cap that sits on the top of the iPad. The cap contains a mirror which allows the camera to see the playing surface and interact with the physical world.

The games are fairly simple. The box contains a set of parts – blocks, letters, and the like – and the app scans the playing surface for the objects. Each game can recognize certain shapes and, in the case of the word game, you spell words with tiles that you place in front of the iPad. The game app instantly recognizes the letters and displays them on the screen.

“The big innovation of tangible play is the elegant design of iPad accessory and extremely sophisticated computer vision / AI software that works with the accessory. It basically enables the development of whole new category of apps. We decided to focus on games right now but in future it will enable all sort of applications,” said Sharma.

The game will launch with two titles, a word guessing game and a puzzle game called Tangram. In its first incarnation the pair watched a mother and daughter play the world guessing game for an entire hour. They knew they had a hit.

“Our current focus for the project is to launch these two games and then open up the platform,” said Sharma. Once these titles gain a bit of steam, it will be fascinating to see Candy Land powered by robots or Connect Four that watches you in your sleep.

If you’re interested in signing up for the beta, head to www.tangibleplay.com.