Hasta La Gadget!

Before this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, I issued a challenge: I wanted makers of wearable tech to prove to me that the time had come for this category of gadgets. What I was seeking was irrefutable proof there was wearable technology out there demonstrating enough clear and immediate benefit that consumers would flock to it in droves.

That’s not what I found.

Which is to say that nothing I found at CES offered up the kind of ‘love at first sight’ that I had with my first iPhone (an iPhone 3G), my first smartphone of any kind. The smartphone needed no additional argument beyond itself to prove its worth: no discourse on market trends, no explanation of how it will appeal to specific niches, no apologies about its current limitations. Of course smartphones had their doubters, as will any new tech, but simply using a good one was enough to convince most of their worth.

Not so with wearables. CES 2014 was a veritable explosion of wearable tech, with major companies including LG (the Life Band Touch) and Sony (the Core) both debuting activity trackers at the show. Many others also added their respective hats to the ring, including JayBird (the Reign), Garmin (Vivoki and Vivofit) and GlassUp (plus a slew of other Glass-type eyewear). At best, however, each of these devices only edged forward the potential of the wearable space; at worst, they represent a descent into a major growing area of concern with the category.

The new Sony and LG devices serve as the best examples to articulate the inherent problem in wearable tech. The category isn’t popular with OEMs simply because it looks to be a new area where people are willing to spend money – it also represents a tremendous opportunity to continue the kind of consumer behavior tracking and analysis begun with smartphones.

Smartphones have proven a veritable treasure trove of data about the people who use them, and that data is immensely useful in developing a product pipeline, and in attracting content and marketing partners. Sony’s Core is designed not just to track fitness, but to provide a log of essentially every connected AND real-world activity a person undertakes throughout the day. In the right (wrong?) hands, it could provide a near-perfect profile of the average day of actual consumers, which is the kind of data portrait that makes marketers weak at the knees.

That’s why Google created Glass, in case anyone was wondering. The search giant’s first and still most influential success was targeting ads at users based on expressed intent (search ads). Arguably, everything it’s done since then has been designed in some way to gather more info on its users for a more complete picture of what they’re looking for (Android, Google+ are just a few high-profile examples). Wearables is simply the next evolution, and that’s why we’re seeing everyone chase that carrot, rather than any especially huge market opportunity in terms of consumer appetite.

It’s telling that the most impressive wearable at CES for me was a mostly aesthetic iteration of an existing product. The Pebble Steel is the Pebble I always wanted to begin with, though the underlying software and feature set remains mostly unchanged. In fact, my existing Kickstarter edition Pebble never left my wrist during the show, providing a tether to our coverage team which proved superior to any system we used previously. I think it’s telling that Pebble has never positioned itself as a monitoring or logging device, in the context of the argument above, and that may have a lot to do with its continued success.

I still think there’s a lot of potential in the wearables market, but to explore that potential fully, device manufacturers need to at least couch their salivation over the data vein they have to power to break right open in a very convincing veil of consumer concern. Especially now that the Snowden whistleblowing has shed additional light on the value of our privacy, wearables need to concentrate on showing consumers what they offer, rather than just providing a list of what data they keep track of.

Top image courtesy Richard Stevens 3 of Diesel Sweeties. For the full comic, check out his Medium blog here.

Meet meMINI, a wearable videocamera that’s currently seeking $50,000 in crowdfunding on Kickstarter to help you save the best bits of your daily life for posterity without having to record everything and then edit the footage for highlights.

Wearable life logging cameras are nothing new, even if the idea of walking around with an all-seeing digital eye recording your daily life (and therefore other peoples’ too) still raises eyebrows. Whether it’s GoPro for adrenaline junkies, helmet cams for police or cyclists, or Google Glass for, well, Robert Scoble’s personal shower time, the hardware kit to capture your unique-snowflake first-person perspective on everyday life is already out there.

But — privacy issues aside — there are some problems with existing lifelogging tech. Not least, the too-much-data issue. Those cameras that take a record-it-all approach introduce the tedious and time-consuming problem of sifting and editing the reams of data generated to pull out the gems.

Those bits of hardware where you selectively record your bits and bobs (so to speak), a la Glass, mean you’re inevitably going to miss some cool stuff — i.e. when you don’t manage to shout OK GLASS RECORD THIS SHIZZLE NOW fast enough.

Well meMINI’s makers reckon they have a neat solution to all these problems. Their wearable camera prototype records (and deletes) a continuous video loop until the moment something cool happens. At which point you press a button on the front of the device which tells it to save the last recorded loop — allowing you to capture that cool thing that just happened — just after it happened.

The size of the video loop that meMINI buffers will apparently be configurable to between five seconds or up to five minutes of past time, depending on your preference. The finished product will also include two RAM chips to ensure there’s no disconnect between when you press the record it button and when the hardware can start recording.

Now, depending on your perspective, all of this is either insanely cool, or rocketing off into a dystopian future where we are all inescapably tied to our transgressions, humiliations, failings and faux pas since these events can be forever recalled from the great all-seeing buffer in the CCTV-strewn sky, and replayed ad infinitum (until we are truly, truly sorry).

Mostly, though, meMINI’s awesome/terrifying qualities will depend on how slick its tech is. And, right now, the current prototype is very far from a smooth operator. It’s also rather large and heavy for something you’re supposed to wear on the front of your t-shirt – although its creators say part of the reason they are taking the crowdfunding route is to finesse and “dramatically” miniaturise the tech. (Exactly how small they are hoping it will end up is unclear.) 

The protoype also didn’t work as intended when I tested it. And the hardware button on the front felt like it wanted to fall off. Or fall in. But hey, crack open its two plastic halves and meMINI’s messy electronic guts, hacked together with glue and bits of metal, spill out. This is cutting-edge hardware, Kickstarter-style. So really, it’s a bit harsh to judge its creators for taking a DIY development approach.

It is worth noting that we’ve seen this sort of buffer recall ability before — for audio in app form, with the likes of Heard, for instance. And, even more pertinently, in Looxcie, a lifelogging camera with a retroactive recording feature that’s out in the market already.

So MeMINI is not the first mover here. And it’s not planning on shipping its hardware to backers until June — assuming it hits its funding goal (although that’s looking likely with, at the time of writing, more than $35,000 pledged and still 26 days left of its campaign).

MeMINI’s makers are promising a three-hour battery life for their camera, which is an hour longer than the Looxcie 3 will apparently give you. However the meMINI is currently a lot bigger and heavier so that extra juice may well add substantial additional heft to carry around vs the 1.3-ounce, 1.5cm-thin Looxcie.

MeMINI is designed to be attached through your clothing via a magnetic backplate, which doesn’t sit too well with its current size and weight — with the prototype dragging at thinner fabrics (yet the magnet requires fabrics that aren’t too thick to ensure a secure fix). So meMINI’s makers really do need to pull off a dramatic miniaturisation trick for this to be a comfortable wearable for everyday situations.

A smaller and lighter meMINI stuck in the middle of your t-shirt would also probably look less intimidating at the breakfast table, as you film your kids goofing around.

The meMINI will offer 1080p HD video recording, vs the Looxcie 3′s 780p. But it is more expensive, with a early bird Kickstarter backer price-tag of $150 (or $170 thereafter) vs $100 for the Looxcie 3. Plus, you have to wait til June (at the earliest) to get it — giving Looxcie a chance to work on uping the resolution of its range in the meanwhile.

Add to that, the Looxcie 3 is generally more fully featured, with the ability to simultaneously live stream and record content, live-stream directly to Facebook, and snap still photos. But meMINI’s makers look to be focusing on the retroactive recording feature — along with a cloud service that you can opt to save clips to — which isn’t a bad thing in itself.

If they can make a retroactive video camera that’s really simple to operate, with just the one big button to press, that could appeal to more mainstream users.

Judging by the current state of the prototype they do have a way to go to get to ‘effortless operation’, though.

One of the best parts of CES are the devices that companies show off that are more or less conceptual, and may or may not ever even get made. One such gadget is the Toshiba 5-in-1 tablet, notebook, media player, drawing slate, etc. It’s sleek looking in pre-production solid aluminum, and also has a lot of potential as a flexible hybrid with a form factor that’s tailor-made for Windows 8.

As explained by Toshiba, the device isn’t yet ready for production, though it does exist as a fully functional prototype. And really it isn’t too far off from existing devices like the Lenovo Yoga line of notebooks. But this Toshiba concept has some unique elements, like the dockable keyboard which is usable on its own with any other Bluetooth-enabled hardware, and the battery that lives in the display for fully independent tablet-style usage.

Windows 8 is a bit of an odd duck for many PC OEMs: It’s not something that necessarily works with traditional device designs including notebooks and desktops, and yet it’s also an OS that’s made to take advantage of existing Windows software, which isn’t optimized for touch-based interfaces.

It’s rare that concept devices displayed at CES make it to market fully intact, but Toshiba’s got something good going on with its industrial design, as well as the basic concept behind this 5-in-1, so hopefully it doesn’t get too watered down before hitting store shelves.

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It was about this time last year that Tactus — the company behind the amazing disappearing touchscreen keyboard — really started making a name for itself. So what does a buzzy company do to top its previous showing at the world’s biggest consumer tech show? In Tactus’ case it quietly showed off yet another potential game-changer, so we met with Tactus CEO Craig Ciesla on the CES show floor to dig into what the team has been working on.

If you’ll recall, the past few months have been interesting ones for Tactus. The Fremont, Calif., company linked up with Synaptics to cobble together a reference Android tablet and it just recently locked up a hefty Series B round to help it flesh out its relationships with new and existing OEM partners working to embed Tactus tech into their wares.

As it turns out, they’ve been working on some kooky (not to mention awesome) hardware prototypes, too. Ciesla brought one such device for us to peek at, and should it reach production, it could potentially solve one of Tactus’ biggest hangups.

You see, Tactus’ big deal is all about licensing its disappearing keyboard tech to other device manufacturers, which means that all the tablets currently floating around on the market are tablets that Tactus can’t make money off of. In order to fix that, the team whipped up an impressive 3D-printed case prototype within the span of a month that adapts that screen keyboard tech to existing devices. When it’s lashed onto a device (in this case, an iPad mini) the Tactus case pushes fluid into a series of vessels nestled in a thin layer that sits atop the tablet’s screen. The end result? A keyboard that can appear and disappear at will and work on any device.

The case has the sort of rough edges you’d expect a prototype to have, but there’s no denying that seeing a fluid-filled keyboard up and running on an iPad is tremendously cool. Because of the aftermarket nature of the case, there’s no way to coax the keyboard into appearing through software, so a slider on the side controls how much fluid gets pushed into the screen.

Neat as this is, Ciesla was eager to remind me that Tactus has no desire to craft and sell these sorts of devices under its own name. He expects the first batch of Tactus-enabled gadgets to hit the market toward the middle of the year, and with any luck, some smart OEM will bite the licensing bullet and crank these cases out for the masses soon.

Samsung debuted a couple brand new Android tablets at CES this year, both of which are being positioned as “Pro” versions of its existing Note and Tab line of devices. The slates do indeed offer some features aimed more at enterprise users, but they also feature a UI that’s dramatically different from a stock Android experience.

The Galaxy NotePRO is a 12.2-inch tablet with Samsung’s S Pen and 2560×1600 screen resolution, and the TabPRO comes in 12.2, 10.1 and 8.4-inch sizes, and also offers a 2560×1600 screen on the top-end model, as well as on both of the smaller screen devices, which is amazing considering you’re cramming more pixels into a smaller space. Each runs Android 4.4. The NotePRO and TabPRO models are powered by an Exynos 5 Octa processor for Wi-Fi and 3G versions, and the Snapdragon 800 2.3GHz processor for the LTE editions.

But the really impressive thing about these new tablets aren’t found on a specs sheet; instead, it’s the new Magazine UX, which reimagines the basic home screen of an Android tablet with a design that has more in common with Windows Phone or even individual apps like Flipboard. There’s also a Multi Window mode that allows users to play with up to four different windows of separate active content on the same screen. In practice, it results in an experience that feels very unlike using any previous Android tablet, and while I didn’t spend quite enough time with it to make any final judgement, I did enjoy the cursory experience I did manage to get with the gadgets.

Samsung is going to bring the NotePRO and TabPRO devices to market sometime in Q1, 2014, and there’s no official word on pricing yet, though SamMobile has pegged them ranging between $389 and just under $900 depending on spec loadout. These are a curious breed of devices, and ones that could potentially take on Microsoft’s Surface and Windows 8 tablet offerings, so it’ll be interesting to see what kind of impact they make once they do launch.