Hasta La Gadget!

Remember the Samsung Galaxy Gear smartwatch unveiled a week ago?

Snapchat certainly does, and the ephemeral messaging app has released an app specifically for the wrist-worn gadget. Called Snapchat Micro, the app lets users send snaps directly from their wrists.

Users can take a picture with the Galaxy Gear’s 1.4-megapixel camera, which is capable of taking 10-second 720p videos. Perfect for Snapchat’s 10-second video limit, AMIRITE?

Within the Snapchat Micro app, users can take a picture, choose a time limit, and decide which friends to send the image to. If you’d like to add a drawing or a caption, the snap will automatically be open on your Galaxy Note phone waiting for your creative additions.

“Our team is constantly looking at ways to reduce the time between our experience of a moment and our ability to share it,” said Snapchat founder Evan Spiegel. “The Snapchat Micro app is an experiment we’re really excited about.”

Snapchat is one of around 70 apps that will be available on the Galaxy Gear smartwatch at launch.

Single-function wearable devices are old-school and a massive waste of potential, according to a new Toronto-based startup called Kiwi Wearable Tech that’s building a hardware device as well as a cloud-based platform for leveraging data gathered from their wearables to build a wide variety of different experiences. The Kiwi team was at the Disrupt Hackathon this year, and built a demo app to show the power of its platform, which translates motion captured by its device into music using cloud-stored MIDI files.

Kiwi co-founders Zaki Hasnain Patel and Ashley Beattie say that the hack can use any kind of instrument that can be made into a MIDI-based output, and that since it works via the cloud, it’s possible for a number of “players” to use Kiwi-based instruments simultaneously for collaborative music creation.

The purpose of Kiwi is to turn its Move platform into something that developers can use to build a wide range of apps – you could have a fitness-tracking app like RunKeeper use it to track your activity, for instance, then use it for monitoring motions during a baseball swing in order to try to derive the optimal body movement for big hits, and then have the same device turn on your connected home lighting system and activate your home theatre when you get home using a series of gestures (in addition to measuring movement, the Kiwi Move can detect things like double taps on this surface and sides, too).

That’s only the beginning, however. Patel and Beattie say that they’re working on ways in which the Kiwi could help with early alerts for health problems – detecting heart attacks in advance, for instance, by keying into early warning sings. Beattie says that current methods make it possible to detect a heart attack up to 13 hours in advance, and that working with developers in the medical community, Kiwi could be able to provide a warning at least roughly 3 hours ahead of time, based on their current research. It’s another example where they’d be relying on the community to take advantage of their platform to advance the possibilities, but it’s an interesting example of what could be accomplished by not limiting wearable tracking to just a single purpose.

Kiwi has yet to ship any hardware, but it has a working prototype, is currently taking pre-orders via its website and plans to launch a crowdfunding campaign on September 24. Kickstarter is their target crowdfunding platform, since its launch in Canada and high-profile makes it a good option for a Toronto-based startup, but says it could consider other options, as well.

Nokia has been rumoured to be preparing a Windows Phone-powered phablet for many months, to expand the upper echelons of its smartphone portfolio and battle Samsung’s Galaxy Note line (the latest of which, the Note 3, was unboxed only this week). Images purporting to depict a palm-stretching handset carrying Nokia’s branding have also cropped up online before now, but today prolific leaker @evleaks has posted a press image in Nokia’s typical style.

The image shows what’s evidently a larger than usual Windows Phone, with enough screen real estate to display 11 x 6 rows of icons (vs the 7 x 4 icons that the 4.5 inch Lumia 925 accommodates). The other notable feature is the gently protruding rear camera which looks to be the same as the 925′s PureView-branded 8.7MP lens — so not, in other words, the 41MP ‘true PureView’ Lumia 1020.

Nokia hasn’t officially confirmed its phablet launch plans, but the pattern of an increasing flow of leaks is consistent with other leaky Lumia launch trajectories (such as the Lumia 1020). It’s certainly no secret that Nokia has been weighing up getting into the phablet space on Windows Phone — and doing so for a long time. Back in February 2012 the company told TechCrunch that it was “looking closely [at the mid-size tablet market] and looking to see whether it will catch on”.

In the event, Samsung has continued building momentum in the category, while smartphone screens generally have inflated in size to try to keep up with the trend for bigger phones.  Meanwhile Nokia has faced an uphill battle trying to sell its smartphones in a market dominated by Android and iOS. Indeed, it’s been such a struggle for the company that, at the start of this week, it confirmed it would be throwing in the towel by selling its Devices & Services unit to Microsoft for $7.2 billion and licensing its brand name for use by Redmond on mobiles and smartphones.

That transaction is not due to close til the first quarter of 2014, though, so Nokia has a few more months of pushing phones ahead of it. The Windows Phone phablet is named in @evleaks’ tweet as the Nokia Lumia 1520 and includes this year’s date — indicating a 2013 launch, which suggests Nokia will be launching the device, rather than letting Microsoft do the honours.

Getting into the phablet making-game — even at this late stage — is one way for Nokia to try to make its devices stand out against the iPhone, which has remained sub-phablet sized, despite Apple increasing the screen size of its current flagship iPhone 5 to 4 inches (up from 3.5 inches). But it’s not going to help Lumia stand out against Android, as many Android OEMs have been ploughing the big phone furrow for some time. As well as the Galaxy Note line (and Samsung’s other phablet brand, Mega), a Nokia phablet would compete with phablets from the likes of Sony, LG and Huawei.

Add to that, Apple continues to be rumoured to be testing bigger screen iPhones – albeit, testing different form factors is simply due diligence in such a competitive market as smartphones. It remains to be seen whether a phablet-sized iPhone will end up going into production — a Reuters report has previously suggested Apple is considering a 2014 timeframe for that. Meanwhile Cupertino of course has its iPad mini and full fat iPad to cover off the larger form factor tablet space in its portfolio (Nokia is rumoured to be lining up a Windows RT tablet too — doubtless on its soon-to-be-phone-owner Microsoft’s instructions).

Returning to the Lumia phablet, at the end of the day, a larger screen is not what Windows Phone needs to lure consumers away from Android and iOS. It needs more developers to make better apps — but with Android dominating market share and iOS still leading on app monetisation there’s precious little reason for developers to prioritise Microsoft’s OS.

And, from the consumer perspective, Windows Phone remains a solution looking for a problem. Android and iOS continue to be successful because of their apps focus and app-centric UIs. Just offering something different is not in itself enough of a reason for choice-spoilt consumers to care at this point — as the failure of Facebook’s Android launcher/app replacer, Home, also underlines.

A Kickstarter project that launched this week wants to put a mic on your wrist, for constant audio monitoring, in a twist on the wearable tech and quantified self movement. The Kapture, as it’s called, pairs with an iOS and Android smartphone app that allows for quick sharing of audio clips recorded by the hardware wristband, which is constantly recording audio to a 60 second, recycling buffer.

The concept might sound somewhat familiar: An app called Heard debuted back in June that records audio in the background, capturing a 12 second buffer by default, or up to five minutes of the very recent past via in-app purchase feature unlocks. The Kapture differs by offering a hardware accessory, which is worn on the wrist, and from which you can flag a clip for saving instantly via a simple tap on the exterior of the device.

The Kapture hardware uses impact-resistant plastic and a silicone strap, with a battery that’s said to last a little over a day. It has a simple multicolor LED notifier, no screen, a vibrating motor and a waterproof, omnidirectional mic built-in. The accessory prototype is connected via Bluetooth 2.1 to your phone, but that’s being changed to Bluetooth 4.0 for production units, and there’s micro USB for charging along with an accelerometer for tracking motion.

Kapture’s founding team includes Mike Sarow, an engineer with over a decade of product manufacturing experience at Procter & Gamble, as well as Matthew Dooley, a marketing guy who knows the right recipe for product placement. The team is seeking $150,000 to get the Kapture off the ground, and is offering backers the chance to get one for a $99 pledge, in either black or white. Different colorways start to become available at the $110 level.

Unlike Heard, Kapture seems quite married to the concept of a set, 60-second audio buffer, so this isn’t going to be a device spies use to make sure they capture every juicy tidbit, and the Kapture folks are positioning it more as a way to make sure those organic memorable moments don’t just fade away into the ether. And the hardware has an advantage over Heard in terms of recording quality and being always in an optimal position to capture conversations.

But there are other issues with the idea, including battery that lasts only a day, as well as building the habit of remembering to tap a wristband thing to record a minute of preceding audio – hardly behavior that comes naturally to anyone. I also can’t help but cringe at the caption on this photo:

The Kapture is an interesting twist on the concept of lifelogging, to be sure, and one that does so with a design that is admittedly not too hard on the eyes, but the truth is that people only have a limited number of wrists and there’s an increasing number of gadgets vying for those, including smartwatches from big-name brands like Samsung. The Kapture is unique in design and interesting in concept, but it’s also quite niche. Still, this might be the best way to exploit sound as a social commodity in the end.

Mobile ad platform Millennial Media has released their latest Mobile Mix report, covering Q2 2013, and the company is changing how things work this time around by changing its “Top 20 Phones” list to a “Top 20 Devices,” and adding tablets into the mix along with smartphones and feature phones. This resulted in Apple going from occupying just a single spot at the top of the chart, to taking three of the top four places, thanks to the presence of the iPod touch and iPad in addition to the iPhone.

Samsung still occupies the number two spot with its Galaxy S phones, which is unchanged from the pervious quarter, and gains some additional presence in the top ten thanks to the appearance of the Galaxy Tab and Galaxy Note in the top 10 list. HTC and Motorola lose some representation on the list, however and Amazon debuts with the Kindle Fire ranking number eight overall for impressions.

Apart from the changes in the Top 20 Devices, the rest of Millennial’s methodology remains unchanged. So Apple taking home 39.3 percent of the overall impressions broken down by device manufacturer, with Samsung following up in second place with 26.1 percent, really does represent a nearly 3 percentage point increase for Apple, and a slight dip for Samsung. HTC falls below LG in fifth place, too so there has been some shift between the quarters, probably attributable to HTC One’s failure to truly do much to impress consumers. The Apple bump is harder to explain, since a refresh is imminent and no new iOS hardware was introduced between Q1 and Q2 2013.

Apple’s share of overall impressions as measured by mobile OS also jumped. The result is an 8 percentage point bump for Apple’s iOS in terms of OS share of overall ad impressions, compared to a 5 percentage point increase for Android. Millennial says tablet impressions continue to grow, so Apple leading that market could be what’s helping iOS increase its share. Android is still growing, however, with both the top dogs the big losers here were Windows and BlackBerry, both of which saw impression share dive. That is completely understandable given the increasing importance of tablets. BlackBerry shed over half its share, for instance, dropping from 15 percent to 7 percent of overall mobile ads served.

Tablets continue to be led by iOS devices, so the iPad is winning out. Android accounts for 44 percent of tablets seen by Millennial’s ads, but that’s actually down just slightly from the previous quarter’s report. Perhaps surprisingly, the Google Nexus 10 saw considerable growth (impressions climbed 51 percent sequentially from Q1) while the Nexus 7 held things steady at 7 percent of all Android tablet impressions. The new Nexus 7 might help that number rise in Millennial’s next reporting period.

Regional growth of specific manufacturers point to Samsung doing something right in specific market segments, with that manufacturer growing its share of impressions in the EMEA region by 13 percentage points from 18 to 31 percent. Apple raised its own impressions just one percentage point to 42 percent during the same time period, but iOS as a platform rose from 23 percent to 34 percent in the Asia-Pacific region year over year, while Android shed 4 percentage points (down to 60 percent overall) and BlackBerry did the same, with Windows falling off the map near completely.

The big change here is in terms of how Millennial presents and counts devices. Tablets now make up a far more important category than feature phones when it comes to mobile advertising, so it’s natural to see those included here alongside those older-style devices. Plus, it does a much better job of showing why Apple continues to dominate overall in ad impressions among mobile device makers than it did previously, when Millennial showed just the lonely iPhone atop the chart as the sole hardware from the Mac maker.