Hasta La Gadget!

Canon is said to be working on a new smaller DSLR called the EOS-b (or Kiss X7 in Asia), according to a series of recent reports, including one today from Japanese blog Digicame-info (via Canon Rumors). The new much smaller entry-level body will also come with a new kit lens, a version of the EF-S 18-55 f/3.5-5.6 complete with STM, Canon’s new AF motor that’s designed to reduce or eliminate AF noise when shooting video, as well as produce smoother incremental zoom.

The camera will have an 18 million pixel APS-C sensor with a Digic 5 processor, as well as a fixed 1.04 million dot 3-inch LCD display. The camera overall seems to borrow a lot from the recently released Canon T4i, but it has a much smaller physical footprint, as you can see from the side-by-side comparison pic below.

Some advantages the camera will have include what looks like a new hybrid CMOS AF system with a wider range than the one introduced on the T4i, and it also looks to use the LP-E12 battery pack Canon introduced for the EOS-M mirrorless interchangeable lens camera system it introduced last year.

The big advantages are the extremely small body size, which also weighs around 30 percent less than the T4i in addition to taking up less space. At only 370g body-only, the so-called EOS-b would be a small carry-anywhere camera without the compromises of a mirrorless compact (slower AF, manual focus-by-wire, lack of a true optical viewfinder, etc.).

Canon Rumors says this new DSLR will retail for around $799 for the kit when it debuts in the U.S., which could happen sometime in May. If true, it might be a very attractive option for anyone looking for a cheap and portable entry point into DSLR photography, though Canon’s decision to keep introducing new products into its lineup without really removing any does seem a bit perplexing. Lackluster performance of the too-compromised EOS M might be behind the development of the EOS-b, but it’ll be interesting to see if a super-small DSLR entices them more than a strong ILC competitor.

Back in December, Nike unveiled the Nike+ Accelerator program, powered by TechStars. After going through hundreds of applications, TechStars and Nike selected ten finalists. They will now begin a three-month program and take advantage of the Nike+ API and SDK to develop and release new companion products for the Nike FuelBand or Sportswatch.

The teams will relocate to Portland — next to Nike’s headquarters — where they will exchange ideas and information with mentors, such as Nike’s Vice President of Digital Sport Stefan Olander, founder and CEO of TechStars David Cohen and co-founder of Foursquare Naveen Selvadurai. By being selected, finalists received $20,000 of funding.

Here’s the full list of finalists:

• FitDeck: Digital decks of exercise playing cards that deliver ever-changing workouts for fitness and sports.
• GoRecess: Helps users find, book and review fitness activities.
• Chroma.io: An indie game studio that creates virtual worlds tied to real-world activity.
• CoachBase: Provides a digital sports coaching platform.
• GoFitCause: Leverages fitness data as a means of raising money for charities.
• HighFive: Ad network for health and fitness apps that helps people achieve their goals by rewarding them along their journey.
• Sprout At Work: Provider of corporate wellness solutions leveraging social and gamification tools to inspire employees and empower employers.
• GeoPalz: An interactive gaming and rewards platform for kids and families.
• Incomparable Things: Creates activity-driven fantasy sports leagues.
• RecBob: Offers a platform that makes recreational sports easy by organizing play.

When it comes to creating an accelerator program, there are three key advantages for Nike. Even though the details of the deal with TechStars are unknown, the program is a cheap way to imagine and develop new use cases for the Nike+ product line. Instead of paying 20 to 40 engineers for three months, Nike chose to create an incubator and give $20,000 to each team. It is clearly not a money-losing venture. Nike could even hire some of the participants at the end of the process, without having to hunt for those engineers.

Second, Nike counts on a long tail effect. If one or two teams make an incredibly successful product, it will entice developers around the world to develop for the Nike+ platform. Success stories are a powerful communication tool among developers.

Finally, fostering entrepreneurship is a trendy thing to do. It makes Nike look like an innovative company, not afraid of encouraging new ideas and up-and-coming companies. Entrepreneurship could become a brand attribute to differentiate the company from its competitors, which could drive sales.

TechStars gains a bit of mainstream recognition and press coverage by partnering with Nike. It is a well-known incubator that knows how to create and organize an accelerator program. The Nike+ Accelerator represents a new revenue stream for TechStars as well.

What’s next for the finalists? They are now working hard on their ideas and will pitch investors, journalists and Nike executives during the demo day in June. It will be interesting to see what comes out of the first batch of finalists of the Nike+ Accelerator program.

Samsung is indeed working on a smart watch, the company’s Executive Vice President of Mobile told Bloomberg in an interview today. “We are preparing products for the future, and the watch is definitely one of them,,” Hee told the publication in no uncertain terms, adding that between itself and Apple, the “issue here is who will first commercialize it so consumers can use it meaningfully.”

Hee provided no further details about what a Samsung smart watch would look like, what features it would offer consumers or when it would go on sale, but he did say that the South Korean company has been working on a watch product for “so long,” and patents back up that assertion. Samsung has patents related to wrist watch tech spanning nearly a decade, as Unwired View notes, covering various types of wearable phone designs.

In fact, Samsung has even produced some of its creations, including the S9110, a smartphone in the shape of a watch it actually shipped in 2009. In fact, Samsung created the first-even watch phone back in 1999, when it created the SPH-WP10. That predated the smartphone, of course, but it did indeed ship.

Bloomberg also reiterated that Apple plans to introduce its own smart watch design as early as this year, citing an anonymous source in what is likely a reference to an earlier report that said the same. The report also included information about what Apple’s watch might do, which includes displaying caller information and map data, as well as being able to make calls and track health-related information.

Samsung has created smart watch tech in the past, but this might be another case where Apple takes the tech and leads the way in terms of building a device that actually works with a user’s existing workflow, popularizing the concept before Samsung and others move to follow its lead. At any rate it’s definitely an area of renewed interest for the Korean electronics manufacturer.

Bowers & Wilkin’s Zeppelin speaker is one of its best products, but as times evolve, so does the company and its products. That’s why the British Speaker manufacturer is introducing the Zeppelin Air wireless speaker and the brand new Z2. Not too long ago, B&W released the A5 and A7 speakers, for consumers who are truly wireless. Neither speaker has a dock of any kind, but rather stream music wirelessly through Apple’s AirPlay. But with the A line, B&W realized that, regardless of wireless play or not, people enjoy having a dock on their speaker. “When you walk into your home, the speaker is always in the same place, and we’ve heard from customers that they like slapping their phone down on the dock and letting it charge,” said Brian Devlin. “That way they always know where it is.” Both the Zeppelin Air and Z2 have both wireless functionality as well as iPhone 5 docks.

Zeppelin Air

To start, the Zeppelin Air hasn’t seen much of an update in the design department. And perhaps rightfully so, considering the speaker has one of the more iconic designs in its class among competitors. The Air has been updated with a Lightning dock, and the company even made that dock flexible. Because it bends, you’ll never have to worry about damaging the Lightning port on your iOs device or the dock of the speaker. The Zeppelin Air is available in May for $599.99.

Z2

The Z2 is instantly reminiscent of the Zeppelin Mini, B&W’s shot at a Zeppelin spin-off. Bowers & Wilkins insists the Z2 is not a next-generation Mini, but a brand new product line. Just like the Zeppelin Air, the Z2 offers Airplay streaming, a lightning dock, and B&W’s flexible dock technology. The Z2 comes in a considerably smaller package than the Air, and the dock almost seems invisible until you’re hovering over the speaker. The Z2 is available in April in both black and June in white for $399. Both products are made for the high-end listener, but if you can pick up an A5 or A7 along the way, Bowers & Wilkins will have truly completed its goal. The focus with all new products out of the company is that the music should follow you, and not the other way around.

CircuitLab is coming up on its one year anniversary, and the startup (now part of Y Combinator’s winter 2013 cohort) now boasts 70,000 monthly active users, who run an average of one circuit simulation every six seconds. The phenomenal traction for the electrical-engineering-focused startup has a lot to do with the team offering up a tool that’s both free and particularly well-suited to educational use, and it bodes well for CircuitLab’s chances of helping early stage hardware startups get off the ground.

For CircuitLab, it’s all about taking up a place of primacy at the very outset of the electronics design chain. To that end, co-founders Mike Robbins and Humberto Evans designed CircuitLab to be a web app where electrical design engineers could draw and simulate a circuit without reading a single manual, and without using complicated, expensive legacy desktop software that was completely one-sided. CircuitLab makes it so that engineers can work together on simulations that are accessible via any browser, getting away from the existing practices in place around tools like PSpice, Multisim and LTSpice.

The open nature of the CircuitLab tool has helped it gain lots of early traction with academics and institutions, since it’s a free, accessible standard platform that teachers can use to help electrical engineering students get simulating without delay, and without having to worry about compatibility or platform lock-in. In a phone interview, Evans and Robbins said that they’ve reached out specifically to spread the word among educational faculty, but that they also often hear about the product being picked up in classes based on the recommendations of students.

“Our bigger user base so far has been in academic institutions, and we’re certainly replacing some of the desktop software that gets used in those programs,” Robbins explained. “The most direct problem we’re solving for them is that half of their students now come in using Macs, and the existing tools are ll Windows-only or even weirder software than that, and we’re hearing from Professors they could not support their classroom because everyone’s using different software.”

Getting students on board as a sizeable early user group is obviously a good thing: the current electrical engineering majors will go on to be the working engineers in half a decade, meaning there will be a generation of professionals whelped on CircuitLab and ready to act as evangelists. But in general Robbins adds that CircuitLab is seeing good use in a number of other scenarios, too, often with small pieces of a product that are simulated separately from the larger whole, like a power supply vs. an entire board. Robbins says that’s a “useful place” for CircuitLab to be, likely because it’s so broadly applicable.

CircuitLab has just nailed down a couple of key partnerships with Electronics.StackExchange.com, where it acts as the embedded schematic design and simulation tool, and with the publisher of EE Times and EDN, which is the industry leader when it comes to professional electronics publications. That, combined with the backing and support of YC, put it in a very good place.

Others like Upverter are out there operating in similar territory, but Evans and Robbins say that CircuitLab is targeting an earlier stage of the process overall, and they argue there’s still plenty of room for lots of competitive and complementary players in this space. Given that many of the dominant tools already out there are old and have changed little in the past ten to twenty years, they’re likely right, and their strong early traction backs that up.