Hasta La Gadget!

Given that Google just acquired connected device maker Nest for $3.2 billion, I’m sure plenty of others have now realised that this is the best evidence yet that the smart device space – especially in homes – is really starting to take off. So while plenty have speculated about this next wave there, others are capitalising on it.

Back in September 2011 Evoz, based between the US and Israel, was positioned as a modern baby monitoring (audio and video) system that worked over iOS, working over Wifi, on a monthly subscription basis.

It’s now evolved into a cloud-based platform aimed at any connected devices, and has announced a deal with British Telecom to power the next generation of its home automation devices. It hopes that partnering with large device companies such as Belkin and British Telecom will give it ‘speed to market’.

The Evoz platform focuses on the software behind smart devices to enable functionality beyond today’s gadgets – the ones that only remotely control and monitor – into more advanced functions.

Its platform claims to detect different events in your home (alarms, doorbells, etc.) and do smarter things with that information, such as alert service providers.

Their competitors include Yoics (video streaming solutions to connected devices); Ayla Networks (connectivity solutions for wireless products); Dropcam (Video monitoring, storage and analytics); Nest (valuable data via the thermostat and smoke detector) and Withings (data and services). Then there is connected device platforms which do “IFTTT” style services based on triggers.

But while CEO Avishai Shoham admits their competitors include either cloud platforms or like Nest, largely in hardware, he says “our focus remains software, allowing Evoz to provide comprehensive functionality for data-enabled personalized services for multiple hardware providers.”

The company has previously secured $900k in seed funding, with a round led by Dave McClure and 500 Startups, with additional funding from Initial Capital, David Shen, and Medital.

Radical! In honor of the Macintosh’s 30th birthday, iFixIt has created a tubular video of their teardown of the Macintosh 128K, the original Mac released in 1984 to much fanfare. The system has a Motorola 68000 processor and most of the parts are accessible through the back panel. The best thing? Back in the day, this machine cost $10,000. Given that a modern $35 Raspberry Pi can emulate a dozen Macintoshes at once, it’s amazing how far we’ve come over the past three decades.

You can read the complete tear-down on iFixIt or enjoy the video, transferred from VHS, above. Gnarly!

I’m sorry I used ’80s slang.

Toronto-based startup ShopLocket, an e-commerce platform originally designed to let anyone sell anything from a single item to a line of goods quickly and easily via their existing presence on the web, has been acquired by an unusual suitor: PCH International, the company founded by Irish entrepreneur Liam Casey that has made its name operating as the go-between for major electronics brands and their Asian supply partners and manufacturers.

The exact terms of the deal, under which ShopLocket will continue to operate under as a sub-brand, are undisclosed. “It’s a good deal,” said Casey. “Everyone’s really happy.”

The match seems odd at first, but makes sense in light of recent developments at both companies: ShopLocket, run by TC Hardware Battlefield judge Katherine Hague, recently launched its own pre-order sales platform to help hardware startups capitalize on the inertia generated by crowdfunding campaigns, before they reach the stage where they’re able to sell shipping product. There’s a lot of interest coming out of successful Kickstarter campaigns, after all, but often nowhere for that interest to go as startups rarely have the means in place to continue collecting orders after their crowdfunding drive has ended. Perhaps more importantly, ShopLocket also provides a full-fledged alternative to a Kickstarter or Indiegogo-hosted crowdfunding campaign if a startup was interested in going it alone. Casey said the company “closes the loop” that begins at his hardware accelerator, Highway1, giving startups a complete solution for creation, development and sales of their products.

“I picked them for the passion they have for what they do,” Casey said. “They have a passion for the entrepreneur’s journey and an ability to build an authentic relationship with the community.”

Companies are often interested in building their own hardware Kickstarter projects, Casey told us, but they lack the ability to continuously provide accurate and authentic updates about where products are at in the development cycle, and that’s a huge challenge for these startups. PCH and ShopLocket can use their combined expertise to help on that front, which will hopefully result in stronger, more satisfying crowdfunding experiences for the people actually buying the products.

PCH International has recently shone a spotlight on its interest in hardware startups in other ways, too. The company is showing off the first cohort of its new early-stage hardware startup accelerator called Highway1 at a demo day next week in San Francisco. Highway1 offers classes of around 10 startups $20,000 in seed capital as well as engineering and design advice in exchange for between 3 and 6 percent of equity, as well as the relationships PCH has made with key suppliers in China. It also provides support for later stage companies through its existing PCH Accelerator program.

Casey outlined some outcomes tied to those efforts made possible by the ShopLocket acquisition, like the ability to create exclusive products for people and the chance to provide membership-based early access to particular products created by its startup partners. Since it already has factories “queuing up” to get a chance to work with it, PCH has big advantages on the supply side for those looking to crowdfund hardware projects, too.

The ShopLocket addition to the team provides yet another advantage PCH can offer its new target market of emerging hardware companies, and might be a considerable value incentive for those startups evaluating the worth of its accelerator help. So while it’s still an acquisition that on the surface seems a little out of left field, there remains a clear logic to what amounts to a shrewd strategic pick-up. PCH has mostly been an under-the-radar friend to tech hardware companies in the past, but it could be on the brink of stepping into the spotlight as a major contributor the gadget startup movement that’s been growing for the past couple of years now.

Apple is rumored to be working on an Apple TV successor, planned for release in the first half of this year according to 9to5Mac. The update would be a set-top box just like its existing model, but with improvements to the new OS and additional content types, the report claims. A separate report out today from iLounge says that Apple will introduce native gaming support to the Apple TV, along with direct support for game controllers, which currently only work via connected iOS devices.

The Apple TV is already a gaming box in that it supports AirPlay streaming of game content from iOS devices like the iPhone and iPad. Developers can build experiences that employ the Apple TV in specific ways, too, so that they can provide multi-screen gaming experience to users, as is the case with the Real Racing series. And new controllers that are supported under Apple’s MFI program and the new Bluetooth game controller API provided with iOS 7 (like the new SteelSeries Stratus which goes on sale today) will work with existing Apple TV devices, likewise through the host iOS device.

iLounge claims knowledge of an update that would add game controller support as well as direct game installation on the Apple TV themselves. 9to5Mac, however, suggests only that Apple is building new hardware to replace the current Apple TV, and suggests that a game or app store is a strong possibility for inclusion. 9to5Mac’s own-sourced rumor reporting has a very high rate of accuracy, for what it’s worth.

Apple’s existing method for getting games on the Apple TV, i.e. using connected devices and iOS software combined with AirPlay, has a number of advantages for the company in terms of promoting platform buy-in and halo purchases, and with the iOS 7 Bluetooth controller support, the combination of the two effectively becomes a home microconsole, so it’s unclear how much the company would have to gain by building support for Bluetooth HID gaming hardware or game software directly into the Apple TV. A hardware refresh that updates things like streaming performance or other core parts of the Apple TV experience makes more sense in the context of these reports.

The current Apple TV last received a significant update in March, 2012, so it’s due for a refresh. Rumors of a dedicated Apple television haven’t borne fruit, and don’t look likely to do so anytime soon, but a refresh of the set-top box as an early 2014 launch makes sense in the overall picture of Apple’s hardware update cycle as a way to keep things fresh, since the company tends to favor fall for major announcements on the iPhone/iPad side of things these days.

When contacted by TechCrunch, Apple declined to comment on these reports.

The Zipi is a Kickstarter project that appears humble and almost silly on the surface, but that actually solves one of the biggest problems I have with day-to-day use of earbud headphones. I use earbuds whenever I leave the house, because exposing yourself to the noise of streets and other human beings going about their business is unconscionable, but getting them out of the way when you want to interact with people is a pain.

To solve this, the Zipi adds an around-the-neck strap to any existing pair of earbuds, with a simple magnetic clip-on design. It connects via magnets at the back of your neck, separates easily enough when you want to remove them entirely, and prevents your earbuds from just falling to the ground when you take them out of your ears.

Ordinarily when I remove earbuds on the go, I awkwardly throw them over one shoulder or roll them up and stuff them in a pocket. In scenario one, they almost always sneak off my shoulders and find their way to the floor where I step on them. In scenario two, getting them off and then putting them back on again amounts to a full-scale production, which is extremely annoying if you also happen to be carrying any bags or coffee or whatever.

I can still foresee potential issues with coat collars and other jazz with the Zipi, but it looks favorable when compared with the terrible, unending nightmare that is my current state of earbud cord management. Plus they’re only $6 per unit at the introductory early backer price, and they don’t seem to require any kind of advanced engineering that could cause innumerable shipping delays.

Project creator Frank Cho has a Master’s degree from MIT in AI, as well as a Ph.D. from UC Berkeley in computer graphics, so he’s clearly got a good head on his shoulders. He makes no secret about the fact that the Zipi is his first foray into product design, but he has a realistic timeframe for delivery of early September and a fully functional prototype already built, so here’s hoping the Zipi meets its modest $6,000 funding goal.