Hasta La Gadget!

The PUC by Zivix is a clever little device that converts older MIDI systems into wireless powerhouses, allowing you to connect to iPads and the like with one small disc of electronics. Zivix, the maker of the Jamstik, is closing their crowdfunding campaign with $28,000 in the bank.

The company has been working on unique musical devices for the iPad for most of the year and are very close to production with both their products. The Jamstik, for example, is nearing production and should begin shipping in a month. The PUC will ship to backers in January.

I saw both products today and I’m impressed with how diligently the team has reduced latency in these experiences. As a semi-competent musician I’m well aware of the problems raised by messy wireless connections and Zivix has done their darnedest to work around the new limitations in MIDI connections imposed by iOS 7.

Motorola’s Moto X is a solid phone, but part of its appeal are the customization options that allow users to engrave things into the back, change the color and even material of the back case and more via the Moto Maker online tool. But that started out as an AT&T exclusive, and remained so until today, when it’s expanding to Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon in the U.S.

Motorola’s customization features are available for phones starting at $100 for a 16GB Moto X on a two-year agreement, but there’s no option yet to use the wood backs Motorola previewed back when it first launch the device. The wood backs are expected to come with an extra $50 price there’s been nothing firm on when to expect those beyond sometime during the end of this year.

The Moto X is actually a strong contender for best available Android phone, despite its cost and somewhat mid-tier specs, thanks to the unique features Google and Motorola have built in, including always-on voice commands that listen and respond when you say specific keywords.

The Moto G, which is assumed by many to be a lower cost version of the Moto X with more middling specs aimed potentially at developing markets, is slated for a November 13 unveiling in Sao Paulo. A leak this morning from Amazon suggest it’ll be a £160 quad-core smartphone, going on sale on Nov. 14 unlocked with 16GB of storage, a 4.5-inch screen and personalized backs similar to its big brother.

Among watchmakers, NOMOS Glaschütte is unique – it’s a relatively young watch company at around 20 years old, but it’s also one of the few in the world to earn the distinction of being a “manufactory,” which means it builds its own movements. That combination results in some watches that are exquisitely crafted, but also relatively affordable (in high-end watch terms, since it’s still nearly $5,000). The Tangomat GMT, a recent introduction and world timer that uses one of NOMOS’ most impressive movements, fits that description perfectly, and is easily one of the best watches I’ve ever had the pleasure of wearing.

Design

The Tangomat GMT features the same clean lines and Bauhaus-inspired minimalism of NOMOS’ mechanical Tangente and other automatic Tangomat watches, with a self-winding NOMOS Glashütte Xi movement. The dial is a cream-coloured affair with slightly raised printed black characters, blued steel indicators and an inset small second subdial with a finely textured radial pattern.

Additional dial features on this watch that are missing on other Tangomat devices are the current city window, and the home time zone display. Both are features associated with the GMT world timer functions of the watch; the city window shows you what time zone the main dial is currently displaying, and the home time zone window on the right hand side of the watch displays the current time wherever you primarily rest your head.

The Tangomat GMT is one of two world timers made by NOMOS, with the other being the celebrated Zürich Weltzeit. Both watches share the same movement, which is capable of keeping time in 24 different time zones, but the Tangomat cleans things up with a city dial that’s mostly kept out of view, save for the display window. The Tangomat is more understated, with cleaner, more mathematical lines, while the Zürich Weltzeit is a bit flashier, and more modern in its angles.

To me, the balance of minimalism, function and a bold, clean face make the Tangomat GMT a nearly ideal watch for general use. It’s perfect for evening wear with the black Shell Cordovan leather band it ships with, but can also work in much more casual settings, and is made even more suitable for everyday use with a brown strap. And of course, thanks to the world timer function, it’s also perfect for travel.

Movement

As mentioned, the Tangomat GMT carries a house-made NOMOS Glaschütte Xi movement, which offers a world timer complication that allows shifting of time zones with a single press of a button on the case. This moves the time forward in one hour increments, and also changes the city displayed in the left-hand subdial. Cities are identified mostly by the first three letters in their name, and you can also set your home time zone using an inset button on the bottom left side of the case, for which NOMOS provides a custom tool (though you’d be okay with a ballpoint pen, should that ever get lost).

Setting the Tangomat GMT is easy enough if you follow the provided instructions, and then it’s remarkably easy to switch between time zones, though you’ll have to do two laps each time to get back to your home city (24 time zones are represented by 24 different cities on the subdial). It may technically take less time to reset your watch each time you land in a new destination, but it’s nowhere near as fun, or as technically impressive. And for a blogger like me, there’s a bonus: you can keep track of the time in a distant city where there might be news or an embargo coming up, while still watching the clock at home on the small subdial to the right.

The NOMOS movement is a technical marvel, but it’s also been finely detailed with an eye to aesthetics. It’s a 26 movement with tempered blue screws, rhodium plating, sunburst finish on exposed metal surfaces and black gold perlage detail. You’d be forgiven for wanting to do nothing but stare at this movement through the sapphire crystal caseback, as it looks amazing, and is again probably the primary selling point of this watch for true watch appreciators. It can store around 42 hours of power reserve from the bidirectional rotor, too, so it’s not just a pretty face.

Bottom Line

NOMOS is a watch brand that seems to tend to attract young collectors looking for a manufactory movement with some fairly unique and modern styling, at a relatively affordable price. This Tangomat GMT, however, should appeal very broadly to collectors of all stripes, but especially to those who spend a lot of time in the air, and on foreign soil. Practically, it’s also handy for anyone who does business regularly with other time zones, but let’s be honest: you’re not thinking about buying a $4,570 watch because you’re a strictly practical person. The Tangomat GMT also promises a lot of delight to anyone who appreciates the engineering effort that went into designing and building its enthralling movement, and that’s the real reason to add this to your watch wish list.

Apple is said to be working on two curved display iPhone models for the “second half of next year,” according to a source speaking to Bloomberg, with a likely release planned for the third quarter, as well as better touchscreen sensors that introduce fine pressure sensitivity for later devices to be introduced after that.

These new iPhones for 2014 would come in 4.7 and 5.5-inch flavors, according to the report, meaning that Apple would be introducing not one, but two different models at the same time, in theory. We’ve seen reports of Apple working on different models of large-screen devices in the past, including one from the Wall Street Journal that suggests it’s been working on different tests of devices with screen sizes between 4.8 and 6 inches. This is the first time we’ve really heard firm information about a possible release date for said devices, from a source as generally reliable as Bloomberg. A Japanese iOS rumor site claimed a September launch for a large-screen iPhone late in October, however, and two reliable analyst sources predict a 4.7-inch iPhone 6 bound for stores in late 2014.

Apple also introduced precedent for doing two models of new iPhone at once this year with the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c, so the idea that it could do so again in the future makes some sense. But two new larger-screened devices at once does seem like a stretch – though if Apple retained an iPhone 5c as its third, budget device and added two more to the mid-tier and high-end range, that might allow it to do so without adding crazy complexity to its product lineup.

The sensor developments are potentially more interesting to those who find the current screen size of the iPhone adequate; true pressure sensitivity (currently, some crude extent of that is possible via the iPhone’s accelerometer) would make drawing and handwriting applications on the iPhone and iPad much, much better. Apple could sell the devices as professional-level artistic devices if it introduces those kinds of features, in addition to just making things better for everyday users who want to jot notes and doodle, for example, or perform minor photo touch-ups.

It’s very early days to make any kind of judgement about the likely accuracy of these claims, but the source gives it some weight. Apple’s iPhone joining the ranks of bigger-screened devices definitely makes sense as a next move for the lineup, but curved glass manufacturing also seems quite expensive at this point for Apple to be considering launching two new devices with that feature at once.

Via 9to5Mac. Photo courtesy MyVoucherCodes.co.uk.

Prefundia wants to help crowdfunding projects get backers before they launch their campaigns. The startup, for startup it is – launching out of U.S. accelerator Boomstartup this summer – has been operating in beta for the past three months, and has just released some early performance data as it opens its doors to the public.

Prefundia said 195 projects have used its platform since June to publicise their crowdfunding campaigns before launch, and it’s claiming that projects using this auxiliary on-ramp to generate pre-launch momentum have been successful 71 percent of the time.

Its site showcases forthcoming crowdfunding projects – offering hosting space for photos, videos and text info on a project in the works. There’s then an option for Prefundia users to sign up to be alerted when the project launches its funding campaign.

It’s a pretty simple idea. But if Prefundia can get decent traction, it could because a useful platform for makers to test their ideas – to see whether a minimalist wallet made of papier-mâché or a plug-in disco-ball for your iPhone is actually worth the time and effort required to try and siphon off some crowdfunds.

“People certainly do use the platform to test viability of projects,” says Prefundia co-founder Daniel Falabella. “Here‘s one we know is using it for that purpose. In fact, we’re developing a component for the creator dashboard which will compare a project’s stats to all others on Prefundia in order to benchmark and give a clearer indication of demand.”

A successful crowdfunding campaign takes a lot more than luck. A great idea, a well-presented project with the right level of detail, and judicious use of social media to promote your campaign are all key ingredients. Timing is also important. And lady luck inevitably plays a part, too. Getting this recipe right is never going to be an exact science.

According to recent data covered by my TC colleague Darrell Etherington, Kickstarter’s average success rate for crowdfunding projects is less than half (44 percent) of listed projects. Indiegogo doesn’t report an official success rate, so estimates vary – from around a third (34 percent), to a mere 9.3 percent if you factor in the projects delisted by the site for failing to raise $500 (albeit Indiegogo disputes both estimates).

Whatever the official success rates for the biggest crowdfunding platforms, there’s still clearly a large proportion of projects that flounder and sink without a trace. And a sizeable chunk of those are probably dead in the water because they deserve to be. For every good idea hitting the crowdfunding trail, there are many more mad-cap crazies running around cap in hand.

Prefundia’s 71 percent success rate may sound impressive, but its data sample is very small. Also, it’s not clear how much money the campaigns were seeking – obviously, as a rule of thumb, the smaller the funding target, the easier it is to achieve.

Prefundia does say that its users have raised $2.5 million since the launch of its platform. Doing a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation to generate a per-project average (assuming that all the projects using its platform went on to attempt a crowdfunding launch) that comes out at just over $18,000 raised per successful project (138 of the 195 total being successful) on average.  And while $18,000 may be all you need to get the ‘revolutionary’ ZipTie to market, tech projects typically need a lot more funds to fly. But of course that’s just a flat average.

Prefundia does single out one example, the gStick Mouse project, which used its platform to help relaunch its project after initially failing on Kickstarter. Second time around the gStick was able to raise $23,901 on the first day, and hit its $40,000 goal on day two. It ultimately garnered close to 4,000 backers and took in almost $130,500 in 16 days.

Early crowdfunding momentum tends to beget more success as projects that raise money quickly tend to attract more attention – both from the media and also from users, being as media attention can help a project bag a slot in the “most popular” categories of crowdfunding sites – which in turn gets it in front of more potential backers, owing to greater visibility on the homepage.

It’s that virtuous circle of kicking a funding campaign off with a big bang which ripples out and generates even more bucks that Prefundia is aiming to engineer. ”Kickstarter’s ‘popular’ algorithm heavily favors projects that gain traction very quickly (see Kickstarter’s ‘popular’ algorithm hacked here), so projects that build a lot of momentum before they launch and then drop it all into their crowdfunding campaign on the first day do much better than those who don’t,” adds Falabella.

Prefundia is free for forthcoming crowdfunding projects to list on, and isn’t currently taking any cut of successful projects, so there’s no reason not to give it a go – apart from the time required to upload a few media assets, etc.

“Monetization plans are on hold until the first quarter of 2014 but will include partnerships with manufacturing brokers, marketing firms, crowdfunding sites, etc – relationships and deals are already tested and inked,” says Falabella.

He names LaunchRock, which offers services for startups such as landing pages where beta users can sign up, as Prefundia’s main competitor but argues Prefundia stands out on merit of its focus being exclusively on pre-launch for crowdfunding projects.

He also argues it has a lower barrier to entry, because there’s no need to buy a new domain to add a project to Prefundia, and claims the platform can drive more traffic to a crowdfunding page “by consolidating all pre-launch pages into a single platform and encouraging cross-pollination”. 

Time will tell on the latter point, since it’s not clear how much traffic Prefundia is pulling in to its own platform as yet. It’s also going to need to keep ramping its traffic up to be able to keep generating the big bangs it promises as more projects land on its own pages. At which point, it may be time for a pre-pre-funding startup to step in.

Or for all the crazy crowdfunding projects to realise they are drunk and go home.