Hasta La Gadget!

The Apple TV could finally be getting a developer SDK that would allow third-party apps to appear on the platform, according to an analyst note from Jefferies analyst Peter Misek today. The note cites channel checks as the source of the info that Apple will hold an Apple TV-related event in March, at which time it may introduce an SDK for “iTV” development.

Misek also predicts that there will be an actual hardware Apple television set launching later in the year, around September or October, meaning Gene Munster isn’t the only analyst singing that particular tune. But so-called iTV or no, the possibility that Apple will finally open up its set-top box to developers the way it has done with the iPhone and iPad is exciting.

But we’ve been here before. The Apple TV has always seemed ripe for a third-party developer SDK, ever since it originally launched back in 2007, and especially once the second generation model came out in 201o. It was even running a version of iOS when the little black model debuted, which seemed like a guaranteed sign that it was only a matter of time before we’d see Apple do the same thing they’d done with the iPhone: unlock the potential of the platform with an SDK and developer program.

Instead, what we actually saw was Apple roll out third-party apps with various updates, one or a few at a time, carefully gating access to the platform. As to why it would do that, there are a few reasons, but I’d guess that at least part of it has to do with Apple’s ongoing efforts to negotiate content deals with major providers including networks and film studios. Move too quickly to unlock the platform, and you risk incurring the enmity of content distributors who want to have a say in who has access to a channel. Those old media giants probably aren’t too comfortable with a Wild West App Store-type vibe making its way to the living room, especially when it has the popularity and install base of Apple’s iOS users.

In a roundabout way, there are already apps on the Apple TV, and not just the native ones Apple has given golden approval. AirPlay means most apps can mirror their content from an iPhone, iPad or iPod touch to the big screen, and do so with a high degree of fidelity, for the most part. But the difference is akin to when Apple originally said that third-party developers can build apps for iPhone, but they’d have to use the web browser to do it. There’s a lot you can accomplish, but it’s not the same as if the apps were operating natively on Apple TV itself.

So how likely is it that this time we’ll actually see Apple open things up? If it is planning a full television launch, an App Store ready to go and populated with content ahead of time would help it greatly, but that depends on Misek’s sources being right on both counts. Misek has been hit or miss when it comes to Apple rumors in the past, but he did get pretty close on iPhone 4S details ahead of its launch back in 2012.

Smartphones may be invading pockets and purses across the world, but AOptix may soon bring those mobile devices to some far-flung war zones. The Campbell, Calif.-based company announced earlier today that it (along with government-centric IT partner CACI) nabbed a $3 million research contract from the U.S. Department of Defense to bring its “Smart Mobile Identity” concept to fruition.

The company kept coy about what that actually means in its release, but Wired has the full story — the big goal is o create an accessory of sorts capable of attaching to a commercially-available smartphone that can capture high-quality biometric data— think a subject’s thumb prints, face/eye scans, and voice recordings.

At first glance, it really doesn’t sound like that tall an order — smartphones are substantially more powerful than they were just a few years ago, and that’s the sort of trend that isn’t going to be bucked anytime soon. That continual improvement in terms of horsepower certainly can’t hurt considering how much data the smartphone+sensor combo is going to have to continually collect and transmit, and the company confirmed to Wired that the end product will feature an “intuitive interface” that should ensure that any soldier who’s owned a modern phone should be able to pick it up very quickly.

AOptix hasn’t publicly committed to one mobile platform over another just yet, but building a sensor device to interface with an Android device seems to be likely option at this point. After all, the U.S. Department of Defense is no stranger to Google’s mobile OS — it gave Dell’s rather awful Streak 5 tablet the go-ahead for governmental use back in late 2011. More recent reports have shown that the DoD is has also responded favorably to the notion of iPhones being used around the Pentagon, but I suspect that acquiring a fleet of Android devices for use in the field wouldn’t be quite as expensive as buying iDevices en masse. Couple the cost-argument with the highly open nature of Android development (something that could come in handy when crafting the sort of software necessary to power this whole thing).

If the notion of the DoD moving to embrace consumer tech is a little surprising though, you may just have to get used to it. Deputy CIO Major General Robert Wheeler noted in an address at this year’s CTIA MobileCon that the Defense Department’s mobile strategy involves sourcing innovative, mass-market solutions to existing issues so expect to hear more of these sorts of deals in the months and years to come.

AOL (owner of TechCrunch) today is taking one more step to build out its content empire: it has officially confirmed the acquisition of technology reviews site gdgt — first reported by TechCrunch nearly two weeks ago. Gdgt itself is announcing the news on its own site, and a spokesperson from AOL has also confirmed the news to TechCrunch directly.

Financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed, but we have heard that the deal was in the high seven figures, and that there was another — higher — offer from another company, but that gdgt’s co-founders, Ryan Block and Peter Rojas, went with AOL because it was a better fit.

It seems poetic that the future of a company so deeply embedded in the Internet’s past would hinge upon amassing properties that so vehemently chronicle its future. The deal will see Ryan Block take on a bigger role at AOL, where we have heard from sources that he will become head of product for AOL Tech Media. He will report to Jay Kirsch, and will take some of the learnings, technology and sensibility — and staff — that he and Rojas have brought to gdgt and apply them across AOL’s portfolio of tech sites.

In addition to TechCrunch, those sites include Engadget (which Rojas founded and Block used to edit), TUAW and Joystiq. In other words, the acquisition will give gdgt much greater scale for its product.

With AOL’s tech portfolio heavy on blogs and news, gdgt will be bringing complementary content in the form of a huge database of gadget information, created with the aim of “improving the buying experience,” in the words of Block.

The move lets the two founders come full-circle and, for those who ever wondered, provides more color on why they left in the first place.

“We didn’t leave Engadget (or AOL) because we were unhappy, we left to do gdgt because at the time it was tough to build something that was clearly not editorial,” Block told me. “That’s obviously changed, and we’re excited to be able to continue to invest in and grow gdgt, while also bringing a lot of the stuff we’ve built to the rest of AOL Tech.”

The move is not entirely out of the blue. Peter Rojas — who will stay on running gdgt as well as take on a role as executive editor-at-large at Engadget — notes that gdgt has been working with Engadget (and some other publishers, via a WordPress plug-in) via its Databox for about 15 months now. That automatically pulls data from gdgt’s product database into a module at the bottom of posts, similar to how TC pulls in data from Crunchbase.

AOL, via AOL Ventures, had been one of gdgt’s strategic investors prior to this announcement, along with True Ventures, Betaworks, Spark Capital, Lerer Ventures and several angel investors. In total it had raised $3.72 million.

The move is key for AOL, in that it gives the company another way to bring in traffic to its existing portfolio of news sites, and it also, by way of gdgt itself, increases traffic across the network.

And, the fact that gdgt focuses on the buying experience should not go unnoticed. At a time when companies like Facebook and Google are making an effort to derive extra revenue streams from e-commerce to supplement their bread and butter of advertising, it makes sense for relative Internet dinosaur AOL — which last week reported its first return to revenue growth in eight years — to explore this area, too.

Here is the official announcement from gdgt:

We’ve got some big news: we couldn’t be more excited to announce that gdgt has been acquired by AOL!

As you might recall, last year we started a fruitful partnership with the fine folks at Engadget toprovide structured product data to their site. We got to talking further and realized that gdgt, its team, its technology, and perhaps most importantly its DNA, were a natural fit for the world-class lineup of tech sites. Well, one thing led to another, and here we are. We honestly couldn’t be more excited about adding gdgt to what is easily the most powerful, influential group of technology media brands in the world.

Where we go from here
Over the last year, gdgt has only become increasingly more robust and refined, and we’re only getting started. (Related: have you seen all the great stuff we’ve been doing lately, like aggregating video reviews?)

At AOL, gdgt will only continue to grow and evolve as the best premium destination for purchase intelligence, recommendations, user reviews, shopping data, and community-driven content about personal technology. gdgt’s product database (still arguably the best around, in my highly biased opinion), community (ditto), and core technologies will serve as a crucial foundation for all kinds of great new products and services we’ll be building in the coming months.

Our event series will also expand, shall we say, as we pair up with the Engadget team on our 2013 nation-wide tour. Stay tuned for details there, too.

What this means for your data
As you might expect, over the coming months we’ll be transitioning our operations to our new parent, as well as adopting their Terms of Service and Privacy policy.

It should go without saying that we continue to completely respect your personal data and privacy, as we always have. For example, AOL has never asked us to hand data over any user for any untoward uses, so gdgt users’ email addresses aren’t going to wind up on some random mailing list after the dust settles. Makes sense, right? AOL isn’t acquiring gdgt to drive away our users. Nor would we let them.

However, we still totally understand if you don’t want your profile data to join us on this new journey. If that’s the case, starting later today (and through March 15th, 2013) just head over to your account settings to mark your account profile data for deletion.

No action is required, though! If you don’t do anything, your profile will remain intact, and we’ll just keep doing what we do to make gdgt the best possible gadget reviews and community site around. Also, the next time we see you we’ll totally give you a high five.

Roll the credits
It’s obvious, but we owe this great outcome first and foremost to the amazing team of gdgt employees, each of whom took a chance on us and stuck around to see things through. They know that all this stuff is much harder than it looks, and gdgt simply would not exist if it weren’t for their boundless passion. As founders, Peter and I are extremely grateful for the work they’ve done.

It’s also impossible to talk about gdgt’s existence without mentioning the enormous trust and faith placed in us by Tony Conrad at True Ventures, Jason Calacanis, and Mo Koyfman at Spark Capital, and our many other ridiculously smart investors like John Borthwick at Betaworks, David Lee at SV Angel, and Ken Lerer at Lerer Ventures (just to name a few!). I feel like most startups would (and should) consider themselves extraordinarily lucky to get to work with even one of those folks.

Finally, we’d like to thank Jay Kirsch, Tim Armstrong, Ned Desmond, Tim Armstrong, Tim Stevens, and all the folks at AOL who believe in our product, our team, and our DNA. We honestly couldn’t think of a finer group of folks to come work with, and we’ve got big plans together. Come watch what happens!

If I was a betting man, I’d bet that HTC was carefully trying to engineer some buzz around its new flagship Android smartphone for the U.S. market, the HTC One we’ve seen leaked plenty of times before. And now, the company has put together a promo page with a countdown timer for its February 19 event in NYC, which all but gives up the goose ahead of an official unveiling.

The page offers a special bonus whenever the timer ends in a “1″, flashing the number in green, which is itself a pretty solid indication that we’ll see a phone called simply the “HTC One” when it’s unveiled next week, but it also offers glimpses of an actual device every time it hits that count, too. These are ultra-zoomed in looks with a blurred filter effect, but it’s still fairly easy to get an idea of what parts of the phone, including the side edge, rear and front case might look like. It’s not surprise that in general, what HTC is showing off resembles very closely what we’ve seen in the latest leaks, including the rendering of an HTC One with the screen published this week.

So why is HTC showing off so much ahead of time? Basically, because that’s what you do when you need to generate a lot of early hype, and that’s exactly what HTC needs right now. The company has always been among the top Android OEMs in terms of quality, in my opinion, but as its recent financial results prove, that has failed to help it really catch fire in the U.S. market. The HTC corporate slogan of “quietly brilliant” is sadly all too appropriate, but its promotional efforts with this device seem to indicate the company is aware it needs to make a more vocal splash.

Of note in the new, it looks like we might see a handset with more metal involved in its construction than most Android devices, possibly with some chamfered edges like on the iPhone, and there’s also one segment that focuses on what’s clearly a camera lens. If HTC’s rumored “Ultrapixel” camera is also real, the company could be using that as one of its key differentiators. I’d love to see a company deliver something truly exciting on the mobile camera front, because while a lot of OEMs including Nokia and BlackBerry have been talking up cameras as key components of their hardware, I’ve yet to see a recent development that really merits the pre-launch buzz.

Nike may not be planning to release an Android companion app for its activity-tracking FuelBand, but rival Fitbit is eager to make sure that health-conscious Droid owners are well taken care of. To that end, the company pushed out a new version of its Fitbit Android app that finally brings Bluetooth 4.0 sync support to Samsung’s Galaxy S III and Galaxy Note II.

It’s sure to be welcome news for Android-devoted owners of the Fitbit One or Fitbit Zip (the forthcoming Flex wristband is supported too), but let’s face it — wireless sync support for two smartphones may seem a little underwhelming. Still, it’s certainly a step in the right direction, especially considering just how widely those particular Samsung handsets are.

As more than a few people pointed out the other day, Android-powered devices make up a huge chunk of the global smartphone market and basically ignoring all those users like Nike has is a course of action that seems awfully silly.Even so, Fitbit’s slow rollout is rather telling — while the company has said that it will work to bring wireless syncing to more devices in the weeks and months to come, ensuring a smooth and timely sync experience doesn’t really seem to be a one-size-fits-all process.

Even Fitbit representatives acknowledge that this most recent version of the app isn’t exactly perfect. Apparently, the development team still thinks of this release as something of a beta since the sync process still takes a little longer than they would like. Sadly, my Fitbit has disappeared into the wilds of my desk drawer, so I couldn’t see how long it took for me personally, but those of you with all the prerequisite hardware may as well give it a shot.