Hasta La Gadget!

Drones are very fun, is something that I recently realized playing with a Parrot AR Drone 2.0 for the first time. But the image on the screen you see from most drone cameras is laggy, pixelated and generally sub-par, even if the camera on your drone itself is capable of recording much higher quality video. Sky Drone FPV aims to improve that, with a new crowdfunded project that will provide full streaming HD video to your tablet or smartphone of choice live from your flying robot.

Drone hobbyists are a fanatic group, and quality is important to any fanatic. The Sky Drone FPV wants to make the lived reality of flying drones more similar to the videos and photos uploaded to YouTube, which often reflect the HD capture, not the actual first person view you’ll see on a device while piloting. It promises to offer 1920×1080 full HD streams at 30 frames per second, unlimited range so long as there is cell tower coverage via 3G or LTE networks, a heads-up display (so long as you have the required circuit board) and 5 megapixel still shots. It also works with just a smartphone or tablet, and requires no additional antennas or gear.

Finally, the feed is encrypted via AES-256 encryption to prevent any spying eyes from taking a peek at your feed, and there’s an HDMI out option to connect to virtual immersion goggles, with Oculus Rift support listed as one of the company’s stretch goals for the Sky Drone FPV.

The project is designed to help wean drone hobbyists and FPV enthusiasts off of their clunky analog solutions by addressing the three big problems of current digital offerings, which include achieving low latency; performing consistently and reliably, and doing so at a cost that isn’t absurd.

Backers can reserve a Sky Drone FPV set for $349, which gets them a kit including a cellular modem, USB hub, cables, a controller, a camera and an AP cable and uBEC. The package also includes the Sky Drone FPV groundstation app, which allows you to control exactly what you see on your screen, configure your HUD and actually view the stream live from your remote-controlled flying device.

The Sky Drone FPV is currently functional on BlackBerry 10 and Playbook devices (yes, the devs used BB as a starting platform, likely because BlackBerry VP of dev relations Alec Saunders is a founding investor) but will be build for Android and iOS too, which is what the funding will help with, as well as refining the still image capture mechanic. The Hong Kong-based team aims to deliver by December, 2013, so you could be flying in glorious HD in time for the holidays.

Hex3, the company behind a successfully Kickstarted pressure-sensitive stylus called JaJa – which got a pretty solid review from my colleague Darrell Etherington last year — has launched another stylus crowdfunding project, called Nota, that’s aimed at making scribbling on a tablet more precise.

The shtick of this latest stick is that it has a very fine tip: 3.7mm no less — which its creators claim makes it less than half the size of “most” other stylus tips. Being so thin allows for greater precision when drawing/writing vs thicker-tipped styluses owing to less distortion of the lines being formed.

Nota also has a more rigid tip than rubber-tipped alternatives, being as its tip is electrically active silicon, rather than squishy rubber to mimic a finger. Ergo, it can be more precise (and presumably doesn’t feel as draggy as some rubber styluses can).

Nota is apparently compatible with all Android and iOS tablet apps, according to its creators. And is powered by a single AAA that can last for up to six months of use.

The project has already passed its $40,000 crowdfunding funding goal with 17 days left to run. The two cheapest early bird pledge tiers have all been bagged so Nota now costs $39 or more via Kickstarter. It’s expected to be shipped to backers in January.

Wacom promised a standalone tablet solution earlier this year, to be revealed this summer, and now they’re revealing not one, but two such devices. The new Cintiq Companion and Companion Hybrid bring Wacom’s pressure-sensitive graphics power to creative pros in standalone devices.

The Cintiq Companion is a Windows 8-powered  tablet that comes in both an 8GB of RAM, 256GB SSD version with Windows 8, and an 8GB of RAM, 512GB version with Windows 8 Pro, both of which have Intel Core i7 processors, and 13.3-inch displays with 1920×1080 resolution. They come with 2 USB 3.0 ports, 802.11n networking, a rear camera with an 8-megapixel sensor and a front one with a 2-megapixel shooter. At only 3.9 pounds, it’s not going to break any backs either, and it runs full Windows graphics apps like Photoshop and Autodesk Sketchbook Pro.

The Cintiq Companion Hybrid is a different beast, with Android powering the tablets when they’re operating on their own, and with the ability to turn into a fully functional accessory tablet when paired with a Windows or Mac computer. Like the Companion, the Companion Hybrid has a 13.3-inch, 1920×1080 display, and 2048 levels of pen pressure sensitivity, as well as multi-touch input. But it’s powered by an Nvidia Tegra 4 processor, comes in either 16 or 32GB flavors, and runs Android 4.2 Jelly Bean. There’s 2GB of RAM on board instead of 8, too.

There’s also a big price difference: The Companion is either $1,999 for the 256GB version, or $2,499 for the 512GB model; the Companion Hybrid is either $1,499 or $1,599, depending on whether you want 16 or 32GB of onboard storage. Both models closely resemble the Cintiq 13HD drawing tablet released earlier this year by Wacom, but manage to also have an entire computer stuffed inside, and built-in batteries that probably also go a long way toward explaining the extra pound and a bit that the new tablets gain on the 13HD.

A lot of creative pros have been lusting after devices like these since Wacom introduced its pressure-sensitive display/drawing tablet combos, and while the appetite has been whetted by devices like the iPad, and the Galaxy Note line of tablets (which Wacom supplies the tech for), there’s been no substitute for a homegrown Wacom solution. It sounds like the Android-powered Companion Hybrid probably will be suitable more for light work while used away from a computer, whereas the Companion can probably act as a digital artist’s only machine. Either way, I think these will be welcomed by digital creatives everywhere when they arrive in October.

Alongside the Companion series, Wacom is also announcing a new pressure-sensitive stylus for iPad so that iOS devotees don’t feel too left out. The Intuos joins the Bamboo stylus, which offers no pressure sensitivity, and has built-in wrist detection with compatible apps. The Intuos offers 2048 levels of pressure sensitivity, which is better than most of its competitors on the market, and connects to the iPad 3, iPad 4 and iPad mini via Bluetooth 4.0. A whole host of apps will be compatible with it at launch when it arrives in October for $99.

Note: The title of this post is an exaggeration. But not by much, and that matters.

The monthly Windows Phone report from the AdDuplex group is out for August, and is essentially a repeat of July’s figures: The Lumia 520 is crushing other Windows Phone handsets, and Nokia is quickly becoming the de facto OEM of the platform as HTC slips.

Nokia moved from 85 percent market share of Windows Phone hardware in July, to 86.9 percent in August. Rounding that to 87 percent, we can say it gained two points in a month. At this pace, Nokia will quickly consume the small slice of the Windows Phone platform that it does not control.

And, as AdDuplex notes, the Lumia 1020 is outselling the also recently released Lumia 928, meaning that, most likely, Nokia’s sales are accelerating. Given that, it isn’t outside the realm of possibility that Nokia could expand the pace at which it grows its share of Windows Phone over the next few months — the Lumia 520 continues to grow in secondary markets, and the Lumia 1020 is attacking the U.S. market with fresh vigor following a $100 price cut.

Who else builds Windows Phone handsets? HTC, sorta. HTC slipped from 11.5 percent market share in July to 9.8 percent in August, which almost mirrors Nokia’s gains. At what point does HTC essentially not matter in market share? Five percent? If so, it’s three months away from that point. That’s before the holidays.

Total Windows Phone handset shipments are expanding. The platform could conceivably ship 10 million units in the fourth quarter. However, unless something dramatic changes in the Windows Phone market, and quickly, those fourth-quarter devices will likely be from the Nokia Lumia family.

Good or bad? That Windows Phone is expanding is catnip to Microsoft, but declining platform support is dangerous. Windows Phone is now more dependent on Nokia’s health than ever before. Therefore, Microsoft’s mobile efforts are fully dependent on Nokia’s action. This is disconcerting, given how expensive and important the Windows Phone effort is to Microsoft.

The argument that Microsoft might buy Nokia did not make sense when it was among a cadre of other OEMs, all bustling to build devices for Windows Phone. That’s all but over as eras go. And that makes Nokia a singular, potential fail-point for Windows Phone. Yikes.

Top Image Credit: Vernon Chan

Nvidia went a little outside of its comfort zone when it built the Shield, a portable gaming device based on essentially stock Android with an integrated hardware controller. I wasn’t sure what to make of it when it was announced: Was it a reference device for potential Tegra partners? Simply a showcase for what its mobile graphics processors can offer devs and device-makers? Or a true competitor to the 3DS and PS Vita, a genuine consumer product with true mass-market appeal?

After trying it out, I can say that no matter what Nvidia’s purpose was in putting together the Shield, I’m glad they’ve done so. More than my 3DS and Vita, this is a portable gaming console I could see myself using for a long, long time, and it is so much more than that.

Features:

• 5-inch, 1280x720p display
• 16GB onboard memory, microSD expandable
• Mini-HDMI output
• Battery life between 5-10 hours, depending on game

Pros:

• Sonic The Hedgehog 4 Episode II pre-installed
• A portable console lots of people will actually develop new games for
• Familiar, comfortable control layout

Cons:

• Expensive at $299
• Requires a GeForce GTX-based PC to do Steam game streaming (no Macs allowed)
• Controller support required for game to work

The Best Mobile Game Console

The Shield is more than just a mobile game console. First, it’s an extremely good mobile gaming console, better than both the 3DS and the PlayStation Vita (both of which I’ve owned). Dedicated big console aficionados might rake me over the coals for saying so, but even with the Shield’s limited initial library, it’s just better already. The games optimized for the device play great, and every game that has controller support works very well, too.

Also, the sad truth is that the Shield has a lot more future potential as a gaming platform than do either the 3DS or the Vita. Android accounted for 178 million smartphone shipments in Q2, according to a recent count by Gartner, which makes for a much larger audience than either the Vita or the 3DS (or both devices combined) currently enjoy. Content built specifically for Shield might not grow to epic proportions, but Android games that have controller support is a class of software that isn’t going to have any problems generating developer interest.

There’s also something about Shield that vintage gaming fans will love: It supports and runs a lot of the beloved Android emulators available, and it does so with panache. Remember, emulation is something you should only do if you own the original cart, but if you do, the Shield is amazing at this.

Doubles As An Android-Powered iPod Touch

The Shield lacks cellular connectivity, but it can do pretty much anything an Android-powered phone can do in terms of using apps and Google services, and the OS is basically stock Jelly Bean. There’s no obtrusive skin (the included Shield app runs like any other, and most definitely doesn’t count as bloatware), with the minor issues that it’s attached to a hefty controller and that it lacks a multi-tasking tray button.

Still, if you haven’t used an Android device and are curious about it without wanting to replace your phone or get a tablet, the Shield provides an accurate idea of what switching would be like. And of course, full Google Play store access means that this gadget also has a much better media and apps ecosystem built-in than anything Sony or Nintendo can manage.

It’s The Best AR Drone Remote

A neat trick the Shield has in its back pocket specific to its Android roots is the ability to control a Parrot AR Drone. It accomplishes this task masterfully, making up for the sometimes-awkward, touchscreen-based control scheme typical of the drone with good old joypads that make it far less likely you’ll smash your drone into a wall. Trying the two methods side-by-side, there’s no question which I preferred: Nvidia could market the Shield purely as a high-end Parrot drone accessory, and I’m sure they’d sell more than a few to enthusiasts who took it for a spin.

It Streams PC Games – But There’s A Big Catch

The Shield has a beta feature that allows it to stream PC games over a user’s home Wi-Fi network via Steam, and it’s incredibly fun to do so. But there’s a catch: you need a GeForce GTX 650 or higher GPU in your Windows 7 or Windows 8-powered PC to get it working. And only a few games work for it currently – mostly those that have a console equivalent because of the button layout, though the pool should expand once the feature exits beta, according to Nvidia.

PC gaming worked very well with the Shield, but the telling thing is that Nvidia had to send out a Windows PC with a compatible GPU for the purposes of review so that I could test it out. Nvidia has built a gaming device that is aimed at gamers, but I bet that the Venn diagram of those prospective buyers who also have optimal setups for PC streaming probably doesn’t show overwhelming overlap.

And while I managed to stream games including Skyrim and Just Cause 2 seamlessly from desktop to Shield (with settings automatically tuned for optimal performance), these games aren’t designed to be played on a 5-inch screen. That makes a difference. More than once I found myself straining to see things that would be easy to spot on a larger display, but the overall experience of playing full Skyrim on the couch while another person watches TV, Wii U style but with better games, was amazing.

Bottom Line

This generation of portable consoles has been a disappointment so far, which is why Nvidia’s surprise decision to enter the fray with an Android-powered alternative is so refreshing. And the Shield is excellent on its own merits, from the quality of the screen, to the battery life that managed around seven hours on average during my use, to the quality and ergonomics of the controller itself. With its HDMI-out capabilities, it’s also a better home Android console than an OUYA, so long as you’ve got a long enough cable.

The price of $299 is as expensive as some more affordable Android phones outright, however, and pricier than the Vita or the 3DS, but for those looking for this type of thing, it’s a small price to pay, on par with an Android tablet. As someone who owns both, believe me when I say that if you’re a gaming fan, you’ll get more use out of Nvidia’s quirky hybrid hardware than a slate running Android.