Saturday, May 31, 2014

Gadget watch: Camping, cycling, cars and cameras

Film or digital? Campfire or BBQ? Car or bike? Cable or wireless?

No matter which way you swing, this week's gadgets have you covered. iPhoneographers can enjoy the Shoulderpod hand grip or slip the new iPad Olloclip onto their Mini or Air, and film nuts can get instant satisfaction with the new Lomo Instant Camera.


Camping? Take it easy in the giant Meriwether tent or go survivalist with the Blastmatch fire-starter. You can even choose how to arrive at the site, with accessories for your car or your bike. Happy traveling!



Charlie Sorrel is the Reviews Editor here on Cult of Mac. Follow Charlie on Twitter at @mistercharlie.


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Friday, May 30, 2014

Meet Stayblcam: This gadget keeps your phone steady while you shoot video


It's pretty easy to notice when someone has recorded video with shaky hands. Now, a Seattle entrepreneur wants to help fix that problem with an affordable new stabilization gadget that helps people shoot professional-looking video.


Port Orchard, Wash. native Eskil Nordhaug just launched a Kickstarter for StayblCam, a portable device that reduces shakiness for people taking video on smartphones, GoPro's and other cameras. The StayblCam lets you shoot smooth video from as low as one inch off the ground to as high as three feet above your head.


It's relatively simple to use, too. Smartphones can slide into a firm grip, or a 1/4″ tripod mount screw-in can be used for cameras weighing up to 300 grams. The device itself is made from hard impact-resistant polymer plastic and measures 10 inches when in its compact mode.


The StayblCam is controlled by a gyroscopic grip action handle, which allows for a full range of motion while using one hand. Nordhaug notes that currently available stabilizers are bulky, expensive, and were built for use with bigger DSLR cameras or handhelds.


The Kickstarter campaign has already raised $14,322 of a $35,000 goal in just a few days. It'll cost you $74 for the StayblCam itself.


The Gadgets and Gear We Loved Most This Month


Moto E Need a spare smartphone? This one's just $129 off-contract. The new Moto-E from Motorola comes with a nearly unblemished version of Kit Kat, a dual core processor, and a high resolution 4.3-inch display with Gorilla Glass. It's also damn near indestructible. It's water resistant, which is great, and you can literally throw this thing on the floor without breaking it (we did). Motorola also offers a variety of custom colored backs to trick it out. But look, while the specs are okay, the thing we love about this phone is that it's cheap. Cheap smartphones are the most exciting thing going right now. They're the future. They're going to bring the world online. And they also even can serve as a decent backup device in case you lose or break that flagship.-Mat Honan


Photo: Ariel Zambelich/WIRED



Schiit Magni + Modi When it comes to hi-fi audio outfits, Schiit (pronounced like you think it is) is refreshing for a number of reasons. For one thing, the California-based company makes extremely affordable, high-quality headphone amps and discrete DACs-those things that convert your music's raw digital bits into an analog audio signal. The two guys running things, Jason Stoddard and Mike Moffat, also happen to be hilarious. Seriously, read any of the product descriptions or FAQs on their site and try not to laugh. I've owned the Modi ($99) USB DAC and Magni ($99) headphone amp for close to a year now, and they've become an indispensable part of the daily routine. Named after Thor's two sons (Schiit has a thing for using Norse mythology naming conventions), both are small enough to keep on my desk here at work. I connect the Modi to my laptop, plug some nice cans into the Magni and bask in the beautiful sound they produce. The Magni delivers 1.2 watts of power into 32 ohms, which mean it'll drive just about any headphone.-Bryan Gardiner


Photo: Ariel Zambelich/WIRED


Metal Cats I am eternal. I walk the night. I am the reaper of souls and the keeper of...tiny widdle kitty cats? Maybe it's black magic, but something undeniably special happens when you take musicians from bands like Cattle Decapitation and Abcess and photograph them with their feline friends. Oakland-based musician, jewelry maker, and photographer Alexandra Crockett did just that for her new book, the appropriately titledMetal Cats ($13). Inside, you'll find fuzzy fellows like Fatneck, Prickily Pear, Gozer, and Keekeebutt-all being snuggled by their Metal scene masters. The photos range from candid to hilariously staged, and once you start paging through the book, it's nearly impossible to put down. Even better, a portion of all sales goes to no-kill shelters around the West Coast. So pick up a copy yourself. Satan commands you!-Bryan Gardiner


Photo: Ariel Zambelich/WIRED


Une BobineThe 24-inch Une Bobine iPhone charging cable ($35) is a Silicon Valley reimagining of The Indian Rope Trick. It hovers straight up in the air-Newton be damned!-like a metallic serpent. And once you place your iPhone on top, there it will stay without toppling over. As it turns out, having your iPhone floating at eye-level is great for a number of things: hands-free FaceTiming, hands-free video-recording, and hands-free book-reading, to name a few. And if you connect the other end to your computer's USB port, the magical Une Bobine will also charge and sync your phone. You can even buy it with an optional Car Kit ($5 more), which lets you hook it up to your windshield or dashboard to hold your phone in place for long, GPS-assisted drives.-Pranav Dixit


Photo: Ariel Zambelich/WIRED


Mission Workshop Stahl Short I've made no secret about my love for Mission Workshop's bags. Even before I lived in the Bay Area, the San Francisco company impressed me with packs and sacks that anticipated the needs of urban cyclists. Then I tried their shorts ($139) and realized that I'd been the one selling them short. Turns out that their bags are just the beginning. Point blank: I've never worn shorts that felt this good on the bike and looked this good on my legs. The fit is perfect; trim without looking skinny, with an inseam that's neither frat-boy long nor hipster-doofus short. The fabric stretches amply to handle riding stance without feeling even remotely spandex-y. There are just enough pockets to feel capacious while remaining streamlined. Are they cheap? Not unless you're the type who regularly drops four figures on dress shoes. But wearing them every morning on my commute-and keeping my actual pants fresh for work-turns them from an extravagance to a godsend.-Peter Rubin


Photo: Ariel Zambelich/WIRED



Photo: Ariel Zambelich/WIRED



Photo: Ariel Zambelich/WIRED



Photo: Ariel Zambelich/WIRED



Photo: Ariel Zambelich/WIRED



Photo: Ariel Zambelich/WIRED


One of the best parts of our jobs here at WIRED is that we get to test all the new things as soon as they come out. But we often only get a few days to play with something before having to write about it. That can be difficult-getting a clear assessment of an object's worth when you have to crank out a written review in less than a week. Some products only show their true colors after several weeks, months, or years to experience them, live with them, play with them, and wear them. That's what we've gathered here-things we've been testing and love, or the stuff from our lives that we own and never want to let go. This is the gear we want to take everywhere. This is the stuff we want to cook breakfast for. These are the things we love.

Gadget Freak Review: Charge Your Smartphone 92% Faster; USB Flash Drive ...

This Gadget Freak review looks at a USB multimeter with an integrated OLED display to charge your smartphone rapidly. Then we look at the first USB Flash drive that allows connection through the Apple lightening connector.


We also look at one of our vintage Gadget Freaks -- an analog camera built and assembled with laser-cut and 3D-printed parts.


Charge your smartphone 92% faster



The Legion Meter is a USB multimeter with an integrated OLED display that increases the speed at which your smartphone or tablet charges by up to 92%. Created by PLX Devices, this plug-and-play device comes in two modes of operation, Apple and Android. The device 'converts any USB port to optimize the charge speed by signaling your mobile device to safely draw the maximum amount of charge possible,' according to its Kickstarter page.


Once the multifunctional device is plugged into a USB port, you can simply set the device you are charging, and the Legion Meter will automatically accelerate the USB port up to the maximum amount of power it can safely supply. The device also includes an ultra-accurate multimeter to read voltage, current, power, and watt hours.


The Kickstarter campaign has drawn more than 5,000 backers and more than $200,000 of pledges, demolishing the $10,000 funding goal. The first backers should receive their Legion Meters in October.


USB flash drive for portable Apple devices



The iStick is the first USB Flash drive that allows connection through the Apple lightening connector. The device allows you to move data between your computer and any Apple device with a lightening connector -- iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch. With the iStick, your data is never sent through a third-party server, so it is kept safe from hackers.


Available in a variety of storage sizes (8 GB, 16 GB, 32 GB, 64 GB, and 128 GB), the iStick can hold movies, music, and documents that may not fit on a portable device. You can access the files anywhere because an Internet connection is not needed to access your stored data.


The retail price starts at $129 for the 8 GB version and increases with the storage size. You can grab yours for a discounted rate if you contribute to the device's Kickstarter campaign before June 17.


Analog camera built from 3D-printed, laser-cut parts



Marin Davide designed, built, and assembled an analog camera with laser-cut and 3D-printed parts. This a real camera -- with lens, shutter, sonar autofocus, and touch control -- controlled by a microcontroller.


The design is modular. Magnets hold the main parts together, making it easy to open and assemble the camera. Photos can be taken on photosensible paper and developed at home.


To follow up on this camera, Davide plans to build a paper tray that lets users load multiple sheets. Then he plans to work on a camera that can develop its photos inside the camera box. The result should be a real instant camera.


Do you have a Gadget Freak project you would like the world to see? Send a brief description of your gadget and a photo to Assistant Managing Editor Lauren Muskett.

Check out the Best of Gadget Freak -- Volume 2 Technology Roundup here to see some of the best gadgets that your peers have created.


When you are finished, be sure to check out the Best of Gadget Freak: Vol. 1.


Related posts:


Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Gadget lets you create your own 3D printing filament

OmniDynamics

3D printing has such a wide range of applications, and it's certainly becoming more accessible, but there's one thing it has in common with its inkjet sibling: print material ain't exactly cheap. So wouldn't it be great if you could make your own?


There are solutions out there for the home use, but they are few and far between, like Reprap's instructions for building your own, or the Filabot, which costs at least $649 for an assemble-your-own kit. Enter Strooder -- a much more affordable option.


Created by a team in the UK called OmniDynamics, the Strooder is able to convert cheap plastic pellets into PLA and ABS filament for your 3D printer. In fact, the team is working on support for other kinds of household plastics -- meaning that you could even melt down, say, plastic bottles. As the device currently stands, you could use it to recycle your failed print jobs (so long as you cut it into chunks that can fit into the feed hole).


It works in a very simple fashion. Plastic pieces are poured into the hopper, which has a capacity of about a litre. The hopper feeds the plastic into the machine. Inside, a heating element will melt the plastic, and a simple screw conveyer mechanism smooths it out into an even filament, which is extruded from the machine in one of three different thickness gauges, where it cools and hardens.


OmniDynamics

The potential benefits are fantastic. You can mix pellets for your own custom colours, and even mix various types of plastic for different degrees of hardness. And, to take the hard work out of chopping up your own plastic, the team is also working on a grinder that you could simply pop your pieces into on one end and get pellets out the other.


And the team has worked hard to make sure anyone can use it.


'The overall aim for Strooder was to create a high performing product, that also has a design which fits in a multitude of environments, ranging from workshops, to home offices, and even schools. A key difference of Strooder in comparison to other filament extruders, apart from its stunning looks, is its user friendliness,' OmniDynamics wrote.


'Strooder has a 2.4-inch colour touch display preloaded with all the relevant extrusion settings for ABS and PLA plastic. This enables even the most novice of users to extrude to their hearts content! For the more experienced user, all of these preloaded settings can be edited, and there is also a manual setting for extruding with non-preloaded materials.'


At the moment, the Strooder is being offered as a reward for a minimum pledge of £199 (approximately $333) on Kickstarter, but check it out quickly -- it's selling fast.


Samsung Announces Simband, a Wearable Health Gadget You Can't Buy

The Korean electronics giant launches an experimental platform for next-generation digital health

When Samsung announced on May 1 that it was holding a health-related media event in San Francisco on May 28, everybody assumed-reasonably-that it wanted to get some news out before anything health-related which Apple might announce at its WWDC keynote on Monday. But it wasn't clear what that news might be.


As it turned out, Samsung announced a new health wristband-but not one it plans to sell anytime soon.


Instead, it's calling its Simband an 'investigational device' which will help it meld sensors and other electronics with software and services to create future digital health technology. And rather than being yet another proprietary device such as the company's Gear smartwatches, Simband is an open platform which Samsung hopes other companies will embrace.


Samsung briefly showed off a Simband during its onstage presentation, but didn't provide vast amounts of information about the device. It looks much like already-extant smartwatches, with a square case and a large color touchscreen, and it packs Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and sensors for measuring factors such as heart rate and oxygen level. Some of the electronics are embedded in the band, giving the engineers responsible for the gadget more space to work with, and there's a snap-on external 'shuttle battery' which lets you recharge the band without removing it from your wrist. (At the event, Samsung Electronics president and chief strategy officer Young Sohn listed 24/7 wearability as one key goal for future devices.)


Along with the Simband, Samsung talked about SAMI, a neat acronym for a tongue-twister of an initiative: Samsung Multimodal Architecture Interaction. SAMI is a cloud-based service for storing the data collected by a gizmo such as the Simband; like the band, it's an open platform, and Samsung emphasized that consumers stay in control of any information that it stores.


The company says that it'll make the Simband available to developers later this year, and is already envisioning future versions with sophisticated capabilities-such as a blood glucose monitor-which would make sense to build in once the technology allows. Consumers won't be able to buy a Simband, but the whole idea is for it to help lead the way to health wearables with mass appeal.


The most interesting thing about Simband is the fact that it's open. That surely sets it apart from anything Apple might do which is even vaguely similar. It's a major move for Samsung, too, which would love to be thought of as an world-class innovator rather than an extremely successful copycat.


It also reflects the company's recent ramping up of its presence in Silicon Valley. Samsung has already opened an innovation center there and announced plans to invest $100 million in startups. As part of Samsung's announcement today, it also said that it's working with the University of California at San Francisco on digital healthcare and has $50 million to invest in companies working on next-generation health technologies.


If Simband and SAMI catch on and provide the foundation for an array of devices and services from multiple companies other than Samsung, what the company announced today could amount to a sort of Android of health-a universal platform shared by almost everybody who isn't Apple. However, it's way too early to come to any conclusions about whether there's a real chance of that happening.


It's an intriguing idea, though. And there's nothing mysterious about Samsung wanting the world to know about the Simband right now, before Apple gets into health-not afterwards, when it might smack of me-too-ism.


Canadian Government to Allow Airline Passenger Gadget Use During Takeoff ...

Well, here's an issue I didn't realize needed fixing. In a press release issued this week, the Canadian government has announced that passengers flying inside of Canada will soon be able to use their electronic gadgets during all phases of a flight. That includes takeoff, landing, and every moment in between. It's important to note that this does not mean passengers will be allowed to use transmitting functions.


This change, which is made possible through an exemption to the Canadian Aviation Regulations, means that passengers will soon be able to work or play whenever they please on flights in Canada. It strikes the appropriate balance between safety and passenger comfort that Transport Canada and airlines always strive to achieve.

Prior to this change, passengers have had to put their gadgets away until the seat-belt light was turned off after takeoff, and about five or so minutes before the plane's landing. Allowed gadgets include smartphones and tablets, cameras (we'd assume without a flash), and electronic games (PSP, Nintendo DS, et cetera). Devices with transmitting functions must use airplane mode.


Inside Air Canada's 787 Dreamliner

Now, that all said, in order for passengers to have this freedom, the airline must adhere to certain safety standards and can confirm that people using such devices during all segments of a flight would not be a distraction to flight safety.


In looking around the Web, it seems that Canadian airlines won't be the first to have these freedoms. In the US, some airlines have been able to decide on their own whether or not devices should be put away during takeoff and landing, and sometimes, experiences differ even when dealing with the same airline.


Nonetheless, this is an interesting development.


Tuesday, May 27, 2014

Lincolnshire victims of cold


Lincolnshire Trading Standards is running a competition to win a gadget that can crush cold-calling - if you report a scam that you have been a victim of or nearly fell for.


A trueCall machine worth £120 is up for grabs if you report a scam to Trading Standards by Friday June 6.


The machine uses the Caller-ID service from your network to identify callers, zap any nuisance caller who disturbs you and works on all home phone lines - even those with broadband.


It comes as the county council service is urging more people to report scams to help prevent residents from being duped.


Last year, 352 county residents reported a scam, although many more may have been caught out.


From the reports, the ones that generated the most complaints include scammers falsely claiming they work for a PPI company, a bank, a major computer firm or a solar panel business.


There has also been an increase in copycat websites that can easily trick consumers into thinking they are ordering a new passport or renewing their driving license on an official website.


Tim Dawson, Principal Trading Standards Officer, said: 'Scammers keep coming up with new ways to deceive unsuspecting residents, especially the elderly and vulnerable, into thinking it's their lucky day.


'The scams may seem very sincere and appealing but it is important residents know how to spot these scams, which would normally leave you out of pocket.


'There is no shame in falling for a scam - it is fraud carried out by organised criminals. Please report it to us and help us to keep residents money in their own pockets.'


Top tips for spotting a scam:

* If it's too good to be true, it probably is.


* You can't win a lottery you haven't bought a ticket for.


* Genuine companies don't ask for money to give you a prize.


* You shouldn't ever feel pressured to make a decision straight away.


* You shouldn't have to give bank details over the phone.


For more advice on how to avoid scams click here

Are you a gadget hoarder? Survey says it's likely


What do you do with your old electronics? If you're like most Americans, you've probably stashed them away in a drawer or the back of a closet.


Doing this is called 'gadget hoarding' - and it affects 68 percent of Americans, according to a survey by the online electronics marketplace, Usell.com.


The website says you're a gadget hoarder if you've owned a device you haven't used for two years or more.


Richard Holmes told the Grand Forks Herald that he's owned a Betamax VCR and an RCA video disk player since the early 1980s and has cellphones dating back 10 years.


'I'm an electronic hoarder,' Holmes told the newspaper. 'If it's made of transistors and silicone, I've got to have it and keep it forever.'


While most people may not save electronics as long as Holmes, the survey did find that 70 percent of Americans have multiple gadgets they haven't used in the past three months.


Usell.com says it's usually a combination of guilt and laziness that leads to gadget hoarding.


'People feel guilty throwing them away because they had value once, and there are a lot of environmental effects of dropping them into the landfill,' Nik Raman, uSell's COO and co-founder, told the Grand Forks Herald. 'And people don't really want to go through the effort of a Craigslist or eBay listing.'


Fifty percent of those surveyed said they keep their old gadgets because they don't know what to do with them. CNN has some tips on how to go about getting rid of your old electronics. Among them:


- Selling them on websites like Craigslist, eBay, Amazon, among others. - Trading them in for credit, which can offer a better deal than selling them. CNN says websites like Amazon, and stores like Best Buy, Target and GameStop offer trade-in programs. - Donate them for some good karma. Local schools, Goodwill and other organizations can benefit from old laptops and other electronics. - If your device is too old to sell or donate, it's time to recycle it. Most counties offer options for electronics recycling, which keeps dangerous chemicals out of landfills - just be sure to recycle any batteries separately. Stores like Best Buy, Office Depot and Staples also allow in-person electronic dropoffs, while some manufacturers have mail-in options.


Hennepin County offers free electronic drop offs, but only at its Bloomington location. Ramsey County also lists several options for residents on its website.


Bake.A.Dish kitchen gadget bakes plates and bowls made of BREAD

Daily MailBake.A.Dish kitchen gadget bakes plates and bowls made of BREADDaily MailIs this the future of kitchenware? This odd kitchen gadget banishes the arduous chore of washing up after meals - because it bakes edible plates and bowls. The clever machine makes kitchenware out of bread using a top secret process that can hold any ...

Tips for Crafting the Perfect Out

WiredTips for Crafting the Perfect Out-of-Office EmailWiredSummer is once again upon us, and chances are, you've got one or more trips planned. While you may be tempted to keep your phone in your pocket, ever-ready in case of a work emergency, resist that temptation. Instead, set up an out-of-office reply for ...

The gadget with a conscience: How Fairphone crowdfunded its way to an ... - TechRepublic

Content


This is the html that we pulled from the URL. It’s been sanitized, so it will only contain safe tags.





Right now, you're nowhere. Tomorrow, your aim is to persuade consumers that they shouldn't buy an iPhone, or a Samsung Galaxy, or any number of well-known smartphones.


How can you do it? Can it even be done?


You've got to think about the hardware itself -- the specs, the materials, the look and feel of the handset. You've got to find someone to build it, someone you trust. Then there's the OS, of course, maybe with a custom UI on top too. Then there's the question of after-sales -- the helpdesk, the support, the marketing. You've got to handle the finance side of things too, taking payments for the devices and taxes, making sure you're on the right side of the law in all the countries where your customers are.


For the likes of Apple and Samsung, making all that mobile hardware is the matter of thousands of employees and years of work.


Imagine instead undertaking the whole enterprise with a tiny team, and no partners, and a brand no one's heard of. And you have to get all your customers to pay up, in full, for their phone before they've ever seen a working prototype of the handset, let alone another model on the shelves. And, you've got to do all that while making sure your device is as ethical as it can be, and as transparent as you can make it.


That's the situation Amsterdam-based Fairphone found itself in when, in 2010, it launched a plan to make its own socially conscious smartphone and sell it across Europe.


SEE: Photos: Making the world's first fair trade smartphone


In the beginning


The company started life as an advocacy group, initially aiming to raise awareness among Dutch consumers and telcos about the issue of conflict minerals in mobile devices and then subsequently about the sustainability of mobile supply chains as a whole.


Raising awareness is one thing, but sometimes a little skin in the game is what's needed. In order to make the issue of fairness and sustainability in the mobile industry more tangible, the decision was taken for Fairphone to enter the mobile market proper.



Its first toehold came when Fairphone was accepted by Bethnal Green Ventures, a London-based accelerator that takes on tech startups with a social conscience, in 2012.


By moving from being an NGO to a phone manufacturer, Fairphone was aiming to get a better insight into the mobile supply chain. By being part of it, the organisation hoped to get more of an idea about why the supply chain was the way it was, and then work out how to change it for the better from the inside.


'It was scary. We had a team at the time that had never made a phone before. The team, including myself, had never done any hardcore commercial business before, and we were still a startup -- so starting a company, approaching the market, setting up all the systems, the logistics, that was all a first time thing for us,' Fairphone CEO Bas van Abel said.


In January last year, it became a social enterprise, a startup with a handful of staff and the ambition to build a fairer phone -- a device that put the social aspects of mobile hardware front and centre, that opened up the mobile supply chain, and that would be funded purely by the public.


Rather than seeking funding from or operators or others in the mobile industry, Fairphone went directly to end users, asking them to pay for their devices up front, with none of the usual discounts for signing up to a two-year network contract or trading in their old device that carriers usually offer.


Almost a year ago, Fairphone opened up its crowdfunding appeal, seeking 5,000 people willing to pony up €325 for a mid-range Android device, with no specs that would catch the eye of a technophile. Its primary feature was a social message that exceeded other phones.


While the odds were stacked against Fairphone's success, three weeks after pre-sales opened, the company not only hit its self-imposed 5,000 target -- the amount of sales needed to pay for the first down payment to the manufacturer -- it reached 10,000. And that's when the fear kicked in.


'When we sold the 10,000 phones, that was the point where it really became real,' van Abel said. 'Before that, we were a campaign. We did have a lot of advisors that could help us with it, but still it was a bold statement to say 'we're going to make a phone'. After the crowdfunding campaign, I kind of panicked.'


Even for an established smartphone maker, negotiations with suppliers can be an elaborate dance where both parties seek to gain as much of the upper hand as they can. For a new player like Fairphone, there were additional difficulties -- not only did the company have to find a supplier, they had to convince them to take on a company they'd never heard of with a business model that was far from commonplace.


'We did have a lot of meetings in China with the factory,' van Abel said. 'You can imagine, you go to a factory and you say 'we'd like a cellphone, we'd like 25,000 of them, and we don't have any money yet, but it will come'. And the Chinese businessmen were like, 'Erm, OK. What exactly is your proposition?''


'It was just me with my bank card and my internet banking, putting the card in the reader, and then finding out you cannot transfer more than €250,000 in one go.' Bas van Abel, Fairphone CEO


Nevertheless, Fairphone found a Chinese contract manufacturer, GuoHong, to take up its order -- a company willing to take a risk on a startup with what seemed an unconventional business model. With a desire to break into international markets, GuoHong signed on the dotted line, even if 'breaking into Europe' was initially a matter of a few thousand phones. Fairphone signed a memorandum of understanding with the factory, agreeing if Fairphone managed to raise the money, the project would go forward.


Once the company hit double its initial target, Fairphone's CEO found himself staring down the barrel of millions of euros in the company bank account, and thousands of expectant customers waiting for their devices.


'Once we had the money, we had to go forward. But as you can imagine if you have €3.5m in your bank account from 11,000 people, I kind of panicked,' said van Abel. 'The first reaction you have is to refund all the money, close down the operation. It's too much responsibility.'


It took van Abel a month to work up the courage to press that button and send the money onto GuoHong. Only when he did, he found that a single push was not enough.


'We don't have a financial department. It was just me with my bank card and my internet banking, putting the card in the reader, and then finding out you cannot transfer more than €250,000 in one go. Then it was me pushing the button several times because I wasn't able to transfer the money in one batch.


'It felt like the panic had settled at that point, I felt comfortable with it, and it was almost like a relief,' said van Abel.


With the vital button pushed -- and pushed, and pushed -- manufacturing could begin.


The Fairphone design


Rather than go for a handset of its own creation, Fairphone chose a reference design from GuoHong's owner A'Hong. A small team with a small budget simply couldn't hope to design its own handset from scratch, and initially approached suppliers with the view that only two key changes were made -- conflict-free tin and tantalum from Congolese mines would be used.


But as the relationship developed, the phone strayed a little further from the reference design, with the hardware brought more up to date in order to make sure the device could compete -- adding a scratch-resistant screen, a faster processor, and a better image sensor, for example -- so buyers wouldn't feel like they had to make a choice between a decent phone and something with a social conscience.


'It had to work. I think that's the ugly truth of hardware development -- we are victims of always wanting updates, always wanting to be at the top of the wave, and that's something that's difficult to change, so we had to be there in the market with an interesting offer,' Miquel Ballester, Fairphone's head of product, said.


While choosing a reference design normally means using suppliers the manufacturers already has relationships with, Fairphone wanted to make further changes to the roster of companies whose products would end up in its phone.


In order to make the transition to new suppliers as easy as possible for the factory, Fairphone would help by sourcing potential suppliers. 'We did a lot more work ourselves,' Ballester said.


In one case, Fairphone became a components buyer itself -- sourcing its chargers from a company called Salcomp, which makes products that have a low power consumption when left in the socket.


Other changes were made with sustainability in mind, such as using a post-consumer polycarbonate housing, for example. Before it entered production, Fairphone had considered the idea of having a recycled plastic case, but was unsure if that would be possible.


Word of the project spread to Samsung Chemicals, which approached Fairphone informally and offered the company its plastics to experiment with. That experiment later led to Samsung's post-consumer recycled plastics making its way into the case.


That's not the only way that Fairphone's larger competitors made the company's life easier, however. Due to the size of Fairphone's production batches, it had to rely on other mobile makers placing similar orders to get its own device made.


'I think that's the ugly truth of hardware development -- we are victims of always wanting updates, always wanting to be at the top of the wave.' Miquel Ballester, Fairphone head of product


Fairphone's screens, made by LG, come via one of its suppliers who has to place a minimum order of 100,000 to get the screens delivered. Fairphone's few thousand wouldn't make much of a dent in that, so it has to hope that another handset maker takes a shine to those screens at the same time, too.


'What you do is you wait til someone orders the same screens, then you piggyback. Right now, with the production of this phone, we're piggybacking a lot on other orders, or we wouldn't be able to produce it,' van Abel said.


After the enthusiastic initial response from consumers, Fairphone decided to up its order with GuoHong by a quarter -- from 20,000 phones to 25,000.


The factory management were watching the orders rack up along with Fairphone's execs. 'They looked at the website, and they asked me several times 'Is it really real that people have paid?' For them it was impossible that people had paid for something we still had to produce, and that we were were taking the risk on the one hand, and that people were taking the risk on something that wasn't there yet on the other,' van Abel said.


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Workers' welfare


From the the beginning, the company had wanted to make sure worker wages were reasonable. But because of the size of the order, simply offering higher wages for those assembling the device wouldn't be of long-term benefit to those at the factory -- too few of the factory's workers would be involved, and given how small the order was, the wage increase would only be for the few short weeks it would take to build the entire run of devices.


The idea of a worker's welfare fund was hatched -- a scheme whereby Fairphone would stump up an extra $2.50 per device made at the factory on top of the normal production costs, and the factory would do the same.


'The idea emerged quite organically,' said Bibi Bleekemolen, impact development at Fairphone. 'At first, we had the idea of paying out a bonus, more or less, to the people that worked on the phone itself. Then we started thinking with some NGOs and labour unions, and we discussed that wasn't really a fair way of benefitting the workers in the factory, because you only benefit one production line -- another production line standing two feet away from them, doing the same job only for a different phone, would not receive that.


'We basically quickly decided in order to really benefit workers at the factory you have to give them some sort of ownership about the spending of that fund. What do they themselves think is fair to do with that kind of money?'


The $5 extra raised on each device ($2.50 from Fairphone and $2.50 from the factory) is put into a fund -- a separate legal entity to the factory -- with the workers then able to vote on how the money should be spent.


When it first began negotiations with A'Hong, much of the initial discussion was around the social aspects and transparency of the project, rather than the hardware itself. The worker welfare fund, for example, had to be a central part of the talks from the get-go, to make sure it would form part of the contracts.


Despite the prospect of paying staff more, the factory was open to the scheme. 'We were all surprised by how quickly they were interested in and adopted the idea,' Sean Ansett, Fairphone's chief sustainability officer, said. In electronics manufacturing, where staff churn is high, manufacturers are always on the hunt for new ideas to keep workers from moving on.


'I think in general, the management understands [the fund] and they understand the value, but on the other hand, workers probably don't get the deepest value of what we're trying to do. If we're talking about accomplishing the goals of fairness or responsible manufacturing, they probably don't get the detail as much, but they feel 'Okay, someone is trying to help me get more pay'. It's a good start from there. It's a good opening way for them to see what we're actually trying to do,' Mulan Mu, Fairphone project manager, added.


In the case of Fairphone, any significant growth automatically threatens the work the company is doing by putting as yet uncalculated pressures on its suppliers.


The governance structures that will underpin the scheme are still being set up, and this month workshops began to let the staff know more about the fund and how it will work. It will also cover how workers can stand for election to the board that will manage the fund's use -- a board that will be composed of individuals from the factory's shop floor, its management, and Fairphone.


In a country where trade unionism is something of a monoculture, the fate of worker representation is mixed. Nonetheless, trade union representatives have been involved in the set up of the fund, and the fund will offer a way for management and staff to get around the table in a different way. The fund will offer training for workers to identify and formulate needs, as well as guided discussions between management and staff.


While wages for production workers in China vary, the base wage is around $170 per month, with extra bonuses based on performance, or related to holidays, on top. From the first run of devices, around $125,000 has been put into the fund, and more will come in from the second batch of devices later this year.


Whether it's used to boost wages temporarily, to establish a training program, or just to throw a massive party, as long as it's not illegal, what happens to the money will be decided by the staff.


'If they decide that urgent wages is the most urgent thing they want to address, that's OK.


We have at least given them some experience and some awareness in worker interests, in collective bargaining, and identifying needs, and for us that's the most important,' Bleekemolen said.


Working with operators


For most phone makers, mobile operators are the keys to the market -- offering discounts on hardware when consumers sign up to long term contracts, getting their sales teams to push devices to corporate customers, and putting marketing collateral in retail shops have always been understood parts of how manufacturers sell their devices.


Such agreements are common for the Apples and Samsungs of this world, but even smaller companies can strike such deals. Take Finnish smartphone startup Jolla's recent agreement with local operator DNA for example.


But it's that power that the operators have to make or break a handset that means Fairphone has been keeping them at arm's length until recently.


Earlier in 2014, the company did a small deal with KPN -- the biggest mobile operator in Fairphone's home market of the Netherlands -- which saw the carrier take one thousand Fairphones. It's also in talks with Deutsche Telekom, the German mobile giant with operators across Europe, as well as UK carrier Vodafone, which has similar pan-EMEA interests.


And while an operator can mean a just-add-water helpdesk for a manufacturer, Fairphone is keeping support all in house for now, fielding the hundreds of messages that come in each day itself, with repairs carried out by a third-party service centre.


It plans to keep doing that for the foreseeable future -- an aim that's aided by Fairphone's emphasis on repairability. It has a replaceable battery, for example, a piece of kit most mainstream manufacturers had removed years ago. It's also working with iFixit to help consumers with repairability.


However, there's a natural limit to when that helpdesk will grow beyond what the eight Fairphone employees tasked with support duties can handle.


'We're involving the operators a lot into our next steps. We know at a certain point we want to work with them to make the scale possible, because direct sales of 25,0000 phones -- I don't even want to think about it. Then you get to 'We need a bigger helpdesk',' van Abel said.


The ideal would be to get to the situation where an operator such as Swisscom would take care of the repairs customers need and handle their support queries, and Fairphone would just arrange shipments of spare parts on a regular basis.


No one in a business, even a business with a social mission, approaches the company with anything other than growth as an aim. However, in the case of Fairphone, any significant growth automatically threatens the work the company is doing by putting as yet uncalculated pressures on its suppliers.


'We're being very conscious of how our ramp-up time and phone practices can impact overtime and those issues [at Fairphone's Chinese supplier], which is often what happens in ramp-up,' Ansett said. 'While technically it can be manageable at 25,000 or 30,000 phones, we might run into more complications when we build to scale. That's something we have to be more conscious of going forward.'


'There should be a discussion so people should be able to judge for themselves if Fairphone is fair enough or not for them.' Bas van Abel, Fairphone CEO


At the moment, because the devices are in batch production, Fairphone staff are able to be present at all stages of production, but once its supplier's factory starts continuous production, it may not be able to have representation on site all the time.


The legislation governing working practices in the country are far from bad, but practices in factories often fail to live up to what the law stipulates.


Fairphone's project manager, Mu, is on site while the phone is in production, working to ensure that factory staff stick to their mandated 10 hours a day and that production goes smoothly.


The two go hand in hand, according to Mu, with operational hiccups often behind the overtime that workers are called upon to do. If delivery of components needed for a device doesn't turn up on time or there's a quality issue that means some parts will need to be reassembled, the customer's deadline can't be put back to accommodate that. Instead, typically workers will have to work longer hours to make up the lost time.


With the same time pressure as any other manufacturer -- Fairphone's customers were waiting for delivery -- the startup asked the factory for more resources to verify that the materials and components going into the device were up to snuff, while Fairphone representatives did similarly on the supplier side in an effort to prevent issues cropping up down the line.


After the passing of the Dodd-Frank Act in 2010, some tech companies decided to stop using minerals from the Democratic Republic of Congo, a war-torn country that contributes a lot of minerals used in mobile hardware. The legislation brought in an obligation for SEC-registered companies to verify the source of the minerals in their supply chain and if they're in conflict zones, in the DRC or neighbouring countries, to demonstrate what action they're taking to ensure the mines they're using aren't in the control of armed groups.


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Conflict-free minerals


Fairphone, however, decided to stick with supplies from the country, working with the Conflict Free Tin Initiative and Solutions for Hope. It did so knowing that sourcing its tantalum and tin from the DRC could mean using mines with poor working conditions or child labour. Many other tech companies have opted to use minerals from conflict-free areas like Australia, which means they meet their Dodd-Frank obligations, but has caused the bottom to drop out of the mineral market in the DRC, which is unlikely to lead to an easing of conflict in the region.


'We said, we're going to join initiatives that put economic perspectives into the region, otherwise people will join the militia because they don't have any work any more,' van Abel said.


The situation 'is not black and white', he added. 'There should be a discussion so people should be able to judge for themselves if Fairphone is fair enough or not for them -- [basically] if they're going to invest in something that will create a lot of improvements, but it's not there yet.'


For minerals in the current generation of Fairphone, only two (tin and tantalum) are conflict free, out of a possible four -- a fact that its detractors haven't been shy to point out, along with the canard that the company, like similar initiatives, are trying to solve problems caused by people buying mobile phones by encouraging people to buy more mobile phones.


As interest in the company and press coverage grew, so did expectations for the product. 'It kind of exploded in terms of people's perceptions of what we could do,' said van Abel. 'People's expectations were so high and they were getting higher every moment, because we had ambitions. We still have lots of ambitions, but the reality is that you can only take little steps as a startup. I'm not saying in the impact of what we can do through the industry and that's done through the statement people make, through the campaigns, is little -- but on the real phone, on the interventions you can do, and changing a whole factory into a fair factory, that's not possible.


'We had published our vision on where we wanted to go to gradually step-by-step but that step-by-step end goal had already become a reality to a lot of people, and that put a lot of pressure on the team -- a team of not even 10 people at that point.'


Gold for example had been one mineral that the company had hoped to use a fair trade version of in its phone, but the economics got in the way. Gold is used in tiny quantities in the printed circuit boards (PCBs) of smartphones, and for a tiny company like Fairphone, that tiny amount is tinier still -- perhaps in the region of 100g or 200g in total. To keep the fair trade gold traceable, the machine that makes PCBs -- which run 24 hours a day normally -- would have to be stopped, and cleaned out, and the fair trade gold added in. Fairphone would have to get its PCB maker to effectively shut down its production lines that make hundreds of thousands of PCBs a year -- causing costly downtime -- while the traditional gold was swapped for its fairer counterpart. Perhaps unsurprisingly, no supplier willing to halt and restart production for such a small order was found.


'We have at least given them some experience and some awareness in worker interests, in collective bargaining, and identifying needs, and for us that's the most important.' Bibi Bleekemolen, Fairphone impact development


The nature of fairtrade certification is changing, and in the future a compromise looks set to be found. Instead, Fairphone will share the fairtrade love using a mass balance system -- where the quantity of fair trade gold that would cover all of Fairphone's order is fed into the system without the stopping and cleaning process. The gold may not end up in the company's devices -- it could be used for any PCB the factory prints -- but it ensures that an equivalent amount of non-fairtrade gold is taken out of the system overall.


However, the company is more hopeful that fair-trade gold will be used in the next device, scheduled for release in 2015, and it's already struck up relationships with organisations to get the supply chain in place ahead of that.


Further on down the line, it hopes to expand the the amount of conflict free and fairly traded minerals that are included in the phone -- beyond gold, fairly traded or conflict free tungsten and cobalt are likely to be next on its agenda. In the case of cobalt, for example, Fairphone had already collaborated with the charity Actionaid, which has done some feasibility work on a fairly-traded cobalt scheme. However far more work -- and time - lies ahead before the supply chain is as well developed as that for tin and tantalum.


Fair software


Software too has been put under the microscope with regard to its fairness.


Fairphone hopes to eventually allow other operating systems to be ported to the phone, and has been in talks with the likes of Mozilla and Ubuntu on the subject.


Currently, Fairphone's ODM GuoHong has access to the development environment for MediaTek, the chipset supplier for the phone. The ability to port other OSes to Fairphone devices will come when Fairphone secures a development licence itself directly from MediaTek.


The two companies are already in discussions on the matter: while Fairphone's CEO says it's a matter of not having enough resources rather than a lack of enthusiasm on MediaTek's part, some in the the developer community have been rather unforgiving about the wait. Nevertheless, van Abel remains hopeful that it can be done if not for the current generation of device, then for its successor due in 2015.


Meanwhile, Fairphone OS, while based on stock Android Jelly Bean, has been updated by software house Kwarmecorp to include additional elements such as better information on battery usage, and the 'Edge Swype' - a function whereby favourite apps are hidden and can be brought to the fore by swiping from the right. It also includes the 'peace of mind' feature - a 'conceptual exercise' where users can turn off all incoming notifications and, apparently, be left in peace. The OS and its widgets have been open sourced, and the source code is available on GitHub, proprietary MediaTek code aside.


So far, Fairphone has taken over €7m, shipped over 25,000 phones, and is planning a second manufacturing run in 2014 that will see it put 35,000 more devices in consumers' hands.


'Besides the numbers, the really great thing was that it showed exactly why we started Fairphone: to show people do care about this stuff, that people were ready to make a statement that was more than just buying a phone. They bought an idea,' van Abel said.


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Sunday, May 25, 2014

Gadget Rewind 2007: Aliph Jawbone


In the years before texting's domination of smartphones, the mobile-toting masses relied heavily on headsets and earpieces to stay connected. These people would often be seen shouting crazily into the air just so they'd be heard over environmental noise. That's about the time Aliph arrived with a solution with its first Jawbone earpiece. It sported military-tested noise cancellation and bone-conduction sound tech, as well as clean styling from designer Yves Béhar. The first wired iteration showed up in 2004, offering an alternative to the 'business basics' style that was typical of mobile headsets at the time. It wouldn't be until 2007's Consumer Electronics Show, however, that Aliph would give consumers a redesigned and colorful wireless option with the release of the Bluetooth-enabled Jawbone.


The Jawbone's marquee feature was its ability to reduce ambient noise and transmit clear speech through its use of bone conduction. This nub rested against the wearer's cheek helping to detect speech and assist the device's noise-cancellation tech in deciding which other sounds to squash. While it reportedly worked like a charm, eliminating traffic, crowd and weed whacker-like machinery noise, some claimed it still fell victim to heavy winds. Many users were also annoyed that the volume buttons served to control other settings, thus complicating the interface. But, overall, it proved to be a comfortable fit and definitely served to enable those who would wear it all day long -- even at the dinner table. Newer versions of the headset continued to be released over the years and in 2010, Aliph branched out from the Bluetooth-enabled earpiece market with the launch of a portable speaker called the Jambox. It was a move that then prompted the company to drop the 'Aliph' name altogether and rebrand itself entirely as Jawbone. That shift toward a broader focus on audio was a curious turn of strategy for Jawbone. The company primarily known for its noise-cancellation technology was now in the business of making boomboxes -- devices specifically engineered to pump out the stuff its earpieces canceled out.


Did you own an Aliph Jawbone? Add it to your Engadget profile as a device you had (or still have) and join the discussion to reminisce or share photos of your device with other like-minded gadget fans.


'Tile,' The Gadget That Makes Sure You Never Lose Anything Ever Again, Is Now ...


Imagine never losing anything you care about ever again: your keys, your wallet, your favorite leather jacket.


Imagine tapping into a large group of strangers to help you track down a stolen bike.


After months of hype, a company called Tile has this week started shipping a device that can help you do just that. (You can buy Tiles here.)


Just attach the $25 device to an object, and your smartphone will find it for you, up to a range of 50 to 150 feet.


It's not the first such gadget. But what makes this one different is that it's also a social network of sorts.


If your lost jacket isn't in some mysterious corner of your home, you can ask all other Tile App users to watch for it. If they get near it, their phones will beep and they can alert you to the jacket's whereabouts. That's why its creators, Mike Farley and Nick Evans, call it 'the world's largest lost and found.'



In 2013, Tile made news for being the most successful campaign to use open source crowdfunding software 'Selfstarter,' on its own website to raise funds.


It blew by its $20,000 goal in minutes, and raised $2.6 million from close to close to 50,000 backers.


After the funding campaign closed, pre-orders still rolled in. By the end of the year, the company sold more than 450,000 tiles to 125,000 people, it said.


Tile got even more attention when Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak ordered some of the devices.


Woz was invited to visit the company and he even posed for a photo, which went viral on the 'net.


In late 2013, Evans appeared on the CNBC reality show 'The Power Pitch' where startups convince VCs to invest. Panelists Byron Deeter, of Bessemer Venture Partners, and David Wu, of Maveron, both did, for an undisclosed amount.


And interest in the gadget still hasn't wavered.


A few days ago, Ross Mason, founder of hot enterprise startup MuleSoft (which raised $130 million in venture investment) tweeted about Tile.


Mason tells us he dabbles in some Angel investing, specifically 'Internet of Things' (IoT) startups, companies making Internet-controlled objects.


Great conversation with Bill York of @TheTileApp. I was already excited about Tile and now my mind is buzzing with the possibilities #IoT


- Ross Mason (@rossmason) May 21, 2014

Even Tile's YouTube video has had over 4 million views.


Friday, May 23, 2014

Move your car! MetroMile's in


If you own a car in the city of Chicago, then you're familiar with the bright orange signs that pop up tied to trees and poles every month so on residential streets. They indicate a street sweeper is coming and, especially in Chicago's more crowded neighborhoods, they often kick off a mad scramble to get your car out of the way right when available parking in your neighborhood has been cut in half. The other option is to pay a fine.


A two-year-old innovative auto insurance startup called MetroMile, though, has come up with a nifty iPhone app that may not clear your street sweeping tickets, but will warn you that they're coming. MetroMile has developed an after-market car accessory called the Metronome that plugs into your car's onboard diagnostic port and effectively adds connected car features to unconnected vehicles.



MetroMile's Metronome plugs into the on-board diagnostic port of your car (Source: MetroMile)


Every time you park your car, Metronome drops a pin on a map, which it then correlates with data it takes from city streets and sanitation departments (it only works in Chicago and San Francisco as of today, and its app is available on iOS for now). When a street cleaning is scheduled it sends your phone an alert 12 hours ahead of time, and another hour before the sweeper comes if you still haven't moved your car.


There a lot of companies offering plug-in connected car gadgets, ranging from big outfits like Delphi and Audiovox to startups like Automatic, Zubie and Mojio. All of them are linked to smartphone apps and offer different combinations of features like tracking your mileage and car's location, rating your driving and diagnosing problems when the check-engine light comes on.



MetroMile stands out in this crowded market for two reasons. The first is the street sweeping feature, which is what I hope will be the first of a new generation of car apps that don't just connect your car to the web or your phone, but also tap into the larger infrastructure of a smart city. Our future cars won't just know when the sweeper or a road crew is coming to our blocks; they'll also know if the streets in the neighborhood are safe for driving after a snowstorm. They won't just take data from the cloud, but will contribute data drawn for their sensors as well.


The other notable thing about MetroMile is that it's free. It's not charging for the Metronome device or the app, and there's no monthly subscription fee. MetroMile makes its money selling insurance as one of the new breed of pay-by-the-mile underwriters. The company claims it can save the typical driver up to $400 a year in premiums. The service is still in beta, and at least for now, you don't have to buy MetroMile's insurance to get its gadget gratis.


And don't forget to move your car.


Related research

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?Subscriber content comes from Gigaom Research, bridging the gap between breaking news and long-tail research. Visit any of our reports to learn more and subscribe. Why the meta manager matters for the connected car CES 2013: disruptions and disappointments from consumer tech's biggest show Analyzing the wearable computing market By Kevin Fitchard

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Kif Leswing

Thursday, May 22, 2014

Credit card


A credit card-sized gadget is to be handed to people with dementia to help prevent them becoming one of the tens of thousands of adults with the condition who go missing across the country each year.


It has been estimated that every year more than 40,000 people with dementia get lost for the first time.


Around 800,000 people nationally have dementia and more than 15,000 of those are in Surrey*, where plans have been unveiled to test a device using a GPS system similar to those found in motorists' sat navs.


It allows a route by bus, train or on foot to be plotted and if the user strays, relatives immediately receive an alert on their smart phone or computer with a link to a Google map pinpointing the person's location.



Families can also be alerted if the person goes beyond a specified boundary and can receive text message updates at regular intervals.


Surrey Telecare Service, which is made up of the county council and the 11 boroughs and districts, will give people with dementia the opportunity to test the device shortly. The trial was unveiled to coincide with national dementia awareness week.


Surrey County Council's Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care Mel Few said: 'The county council is always ready to embrace innovation to improve care.


'One of the most common concerns for families of those with dementia is that their loved ones often get lost after becoming confused and disoriented.


'This device offers people with the condition more freedom to go about everyday life while also giving relatives peace of mind that their loved ones aren't going to get lost on the way to the shops or on a bus journey.'


A battery, SIM card and an integrated chip help the device function and there is a USB connection for charging. It is made by Finnish company Navigil.


For more information about the county council's network of advice and information centres to help people spot the early signs of dementia visit the authority's website.


* That figure is set to rise to 19,000 by 2020.


Gadget of the Week: ChargeKey, the charging cable for your key chain


Our Gadget of the Week series is all about showing you cool stuff to make your life easier, make you laugh or simply blow your mind. Today, we're sharing ChargeKey with you, the charging and data cable, which goes wherever you go, because it attached to your key chain, meaning you'll never be without a cable again. Unless you lose your keys. In which case you have bigger problems.


ChargeKey sits on your key ring, just waiting to save the day. / © AndroidPIT What is ChargeKey?

ChargeKey is nothing more than a conventional USB to microUSB cable for making the connection between your phone and PC, in which a large part of the actual cable has been eliminated. What remains is a microUSB connector, a USB connector on the other end and a short, slightly flexible rubber connector joining the dots. The little bend on the micro-USB end ensures that the connector isn't in the way of your keys so you can attach the ChargeKey to your key chain. This clever little curve also allows you to read from your device when it is connected to your PC or laptop.


It's not going to revolutionize your world, but it will become a go-to solution in no time! / © AndroidPITHow does it work?

This question hardly needs any explanation. The micro-USB connector plugs into the destination smartphone, the full-sized USB end connects to your laptop computer, a USB hub, a portable power pack or the like. Once connected you can charge or start transferring files. Secret functions do not exist, and power switches or other buttons are absent too. ChargeKey offers no surprises, just a perfectly crafted utilitarian solution to a common problem. ChargeKey is about 6.5 cm long and no longer than an ordinary key. For iPhone users there is also a ChargeKey: on the manufacturer's website you can order a version with Lightning connector.


ChargeKey is flexible, rugged and always there when you need it. Just don't lose your keys!. / © AndroidPITWhat's so cool about it?

ChargeKey is a great solution to a well-known problem. Everyone knows the scenario: you want to upload something to you smartphone, transfer data to your laptop or just need a quick top up charge while you're working but you don't have the necessary cable or charger nearby. We all seem to have plenty of bundled up microUSB cables - somewhere - but never where we need them when we need them! ChargeKey is the solution, meaning you always have one handy (much like my bottle opener key ring!). Due to its small size too, it's hardly even noticeable on your key chain and is rugged to boot. The only drawback: the connecting cable is very short, so there might be the occasional situation where you have to leave your phone dangling from a socket. But it will be charging!


You can pick up ChargeKey from the manufacturer's website for 29 USD. It's not cheap, but at least it'll be there when you need it.


What do you think of ChargeKey? What other clever little gadgets can you recommend?


Wednesday, May 21, 2014

Scotsman gadget review: Stellé Audio Pillar

ScotsmanScotsman gadget review: Stellé Audio PillarScotsmanTHE clamour for attention in the crowded market for premium Bluetooth speakers means that if a product is to catch the eye, its design must offer something different and compelling. With its sleek, cylindrical shape and brushed bronze aluminium finish ...

Gadget Watch: Jins Meme glasses monitor tiredness


Featuring homemade electronic gadgets, the latest in development boards (Arduino, BeagleBoard, Raspberry Pi, etc), examples of cool design, and the latest and greatest (and most shiny) consumer gadgets.


Don't drive tired, and maybe these glasses could help identify the issue. It is claimed they can measure your tiredness levels and alert you to signs of incipient sleep. (At last, some really useful wearable tech.)


Thanks to damngeeky.com for flagging this one. The sensors involved include a three points electro oculography sensor, a three-axis acceleration sensor, a three-axis gyro sensor.


The company, Jins Meme, writes:


The proprietary three-point eye potential sensor is capable of detecting eye potentials while maintaining a traditional eyeglass form.


The sensors and battery are designed to fit neatly in the ends of the temple pieces.


Using Bluetooth 4.0 smart, compatibility is promised with MacOS, Windows, iOS, and Android. How are they powered? A rechargeable lithium-ion battery is installed.



Note that they are not available yet, and you could only pre-order them. Guarav writes:


This eyewear comes in a range of choices from normal glasses to sunglasses for summer days. The classic eyewear form is called Wellington, intellectual looking glasses as Half Rim and the Sunglass range signifies the fashionable teardrop range.


The glasses are all set to debut in 2015 in Japan at an estimated price of 70,0000 Yen which is around US$685.


Read the full article '

Meme basic specification


Weight and size

Weight: About 36g (Wellington model with dummy lenses)


Battery / hours of use

Battery: Rechargeable lithium-ion battery installedHours of continuous use: 8 hours (16 hours using the headband)


SensorsThree points Electro Oculography sensor * Three-axis acceleration sensor Three-axis gyro sensor * Patent pending Supported OSs

Anticipated to be compatible with Mac, Windows, iOS, and Android


Supported languages

Japanese, English


Communications

Bluetooth 4.0 smart


Buttons and connectorsMicro USB charging terminal Power button Light

*Specifications as of May 13, 2014. Specifications subject to change.



[Via LikeCool]


Previous Gadget Watch entries:

Tags:acceleration sensor, glasses, Jins Meme, rechargeable lithium-ion battery, wearable


Related posts

Tuesday, May 20, 2014

Google's Robots Are Solving the Biggest Problem in Modern Photography


We have become a society of documenters, holding our phones up at every available moment, shooting at anything that moves, or anything that holds still. But what do we do with all these pictures? Often, the answer is nothing. The things we do share are often just snapshots. One picture. Maybe two. But not experiences. Our lives get lost in the ever-scrolling streams of social media. We are a society of documenters that produces surprisingly little documentary.


Google correctly recognizes that the worst part of modern photography is figuring out what to do with all the pictures we take. And now it's doing something for you with a new feature for Google+ Photos called Stories.


'There are products that think of photos as files, and there are products that think of photos as photos,' explains Google's Ben Eidelson, a product manager for Google+ Photos. 'But what we're trying to do is think of photos as moments. This is a moment in your life that you want to do something with.'


Stories is a new Google+ Photos feature that automates photo album creation. It collects your photos and videos into natural groupings-like a weekend trip you took to the mountains, or a child's soccer game-clustered around out-of-the ordinary moments. Then it builds a narrative for you around those clusters of photos, almost instantly and without any action on your part.


If you have Google+ auto-backup turned on on your iPhone or Android, it does all this automatically. You'll wake up Monday morning and there's an album of your pictures from the weekend waiting for you. And if you've backed up your photos from your computer to Google Drive, or to Google+ Photos, it will go in and backfill your old pictures too (as well as any new ones you continue to add). It is effortless, and more than a little amazing.


When it dove into mine, it was able to correctly recognize and label trips back to 2003-it sussed out that I was in Luang Praband, Laos in one example, and that I was in Singapore and Malaysia in another. It did all that without my having to give it any location data-I wasn't using a smartphone at the time and hadn't even labeled any of the pictures. But Google knew exactly where I was.


That's because Google is looking at three sources for location. First, it's just checking geotags embedded in the pictures you take. If you have location turned on for photos in iOS or Android, or are using an SD card that captures where you are, this is really easy. Flickr's been automatically mapping photos for years based on that. The second is harder. It uses your phone's Google location history (if you're feeding that to something like Google Now, for example) and cross-references that with your pictures. And the third method is just banana town.


Often, Google knows what you're taking pictures of. This is especially true of frequently photographed landmarks, which it can then use to place you on a map. Think of the way Google Image Search works, or how you can search your Google+ photos for bicycle and see every image you've taken of a bike-even if you've never labeled them. It applies that same technology to Stories to help generate albums.


Plucking photos taken more than a decade ago out of the past and telling you where they were taken is the kind of thing it's hard to imagine anyone other than Google doing. You can either view it as really cool or really creepy or a little bit of both. But I will say that it's remarkably impressive.



In fact, Stories is one more example of why Google Photos is the best photo management software out there for the average smartphone owner. If you take a lot of pictures with an Android or iOS device, and aren't using Google+ auto backup to organize them, you are missing out.


Google's basic idea is that photography is far more than just capturing the picture. Yet everything that comes after hitting the button to suck up a moment in time onto a sensor is too hard. If you take a lot of pictures-and almost all of us do these days-sorting through them to find the best ones can be tedious and time consuming. And then there's the presentation layer. Google thinks it's been too hard to build anything immersive without putting a lot of work into it. And finally it believes photography is of the moment-you want to be able to share things immediately. Your pictures from this weekend are interesting now in a way they won't be next month. And so with Google+ Photos, and Stories in particular, it's trying to do all this for you.


Of course, there is a self-serving intent in all this-because it works best when you really feed the beast. Your Stories will be better when you give Google more data-when you let it know where you are, upload your pictures to it by the thousands, and help it learn who your friends and family are, and what their faces look like. And all that data helps it know you better. The better it knows you, the better it can serve you an ad for something you may actually want to click on and buy.


It's easy to see how it's getting a lot of contextual data from photographs just by looking at the albums it can build. One of the albums Google automatically generated for me was from a trip I took to Las Vegas. There's a cover photo with a title I added, (initially, it was just listed as a trip to Las Vegas in January), which then jumps right into SFO, where we see my colleague Christina Bonnington eating breakfast at SFO. That was the first photo I took that day, and it really was the beginning of a trip. To Google, this is basically the first photo in a cluster, and the logical place to start. It also can tell-because it knows where my phone was at the time-that it was taken at the airport, and that I left on a trip.


There's a time stamp, and a connective line that prompts me to scroll sideways. The next screen is a map link that animates a dotted red line, showing my flight to Las Vegas. Next up, we're in the Las Vegas airport, at CES badge pickup, and then inside a car where I had a Garmin product demo. And then we see something pretty interesting-it's a circular photo of the Encore, along with a place marker-tapping on it takes you to Google Maps, and a link to the Google knowledge card where you can see more information on the hotel. It automatically adds these to Stories, and they do a great job of putting your photos in context. They make you want to explore.


Likewise, the user interface is inviting. It feels alive, especially on tablets. As you scroll sideways, pictures bounce into view. It has an elastic quality to it that responds to the movements of your hands across the screen. If there are videos or animated GIFs-which Google Photos also automatically generates-these get embedded as well, giving the Story an even more animated quality.



There are some definite hiccups. You can really see these in the places it automatically includes. For example, a lot of the events that take place at CES are held at the Mandalay Convention Center, but Google tagged me at the Mandalay Spa. Instead of putting me at the LVH, another CES venue, it has me at the Las Vegas Country Club. It also thought I was at the Wynn Golf Club for some reason, which I never was (as far as I remember), and then there's the place marker for Winchester. The default image for Winchester, Nevada is, apparently, a bunch of butts. Granted, these seem to be bronze butts, so it's art? But they remain butts nonetheless and I'm not sure many people want butts in their moments. Naturally, you can edit and delete any of the moments Stories drops in automatically, but to me the butts really illustrated the perils of allowing robots full control of your memories.


Still, even with the missteps (which are easily corrected), Stories are exquisite. This is Google doing what it does best: organizing all the world's information in a very literal sense. It's taking your past, putting it together into a narrative, and rescuing it from the tyranny of file folders.