Awesome Stuff: Life Never Sounded So Good... On The Go

from the speakers,-speakers-and-headphones dept

• First up, there's the Yaba Portable Speaker & Guitar Amp by PLX Devices. We've seen tiny speakers (that use whatever surface they're on) to create bigger sounds before, but the Yaba at least appears to have a pretty cool design that seems quite small for the level of sound they seem to suggest they're able to get out of it. It's tough to tell how well it really works in action unless you can see it in person, but conceptually, it looks cool. The fact that there's a version that can double as an absolutely tiny guitar amp seems quite cool for guitarists as well. Could definitely see plenty of uses for a device like this. It only just launched, but seems well on its way to hitting the goal. Early bird pricing at $39 sounds like a great deal, though they (not surprisingly) sold out quickly.
• But what if you've got some big old speakers around? How about easily turning them into portable speakers that play off of your mobile phone via Bluetooth (or regular line-in jack)? That's the plan for The Vamp, a tiny stylish box that can connect to any old speaker magnetically, providing both the connection and power. Even if you don't have old speakers around, the project's creator Paul Cocksedge notes that you can pick up old speakers for just a few bucks these days, since they've become somewhat obsolete. And yet here's a neat way to bring new life to old speakers. Cool idea. This one is still decently below its target, but it seems likely that it will get there in time.
• Of course, who uses speakers any more? These days, it's all about the earbuds. And that's why the last "awesome stuff" item this week is The Elroy. I'll admit, it took me a little while to understand exactly what this was, but basically it tries to combine the wireless flexibility of bluetooth with the general convenience of typical earbuds. That is, uptop, it's like a normal earbud setup (in fact, it sounds like you can use your own earbuds if you'd like), but about 1/3 of the way down a normal cord length, they just connect to a little bluetooth gadget which wirelessly communicates with whatever devices you want. So... no long cords getting in the way. Plus, it acts as a magnetic holder for the earbuds, which means no more dealing with tangled wires. And the phone features will even pick up / hang up as you detach / attach the earbuds to the unit. The thing that I can't fully get past is that the device itself still looks a little dorky -- not unlike bluetooth headsets, but now clipped to your shirt somewhere. The project describes it as "a piece of electronic jewelry" which sounds like a stretch. Also, it seems a bit on the pricey side for the benefit it provides -- but clearly lots of people disagree with that assessment, as it's quickly shot way past its target goal.

Filed Under: awesome stuff, crowdfunding, headphones, speakers

Awesome Stuff: Rethinking The Mouse (Finally!)

from the crowdfunding-picks dept

• First up, we have the EGO! smartmouse, which does a whole variety of things to try to take the concept of a computer mouse further. Beyond regular mousing, and being able to work in 3 dimensions, rather than just 2 (yes, you can lift it up and gesture with it in the air), it also can easily authenticate and switch to different computers on the fly, even bringing files along with it. On top of that it can act as a remote control or a gaming controller. Some of these features we've seen elsewhere, but pulling them all together in one device seems pretty impressive.
  
  
• Why does a mouse need to always sit next to your keyboard? What if it was wrapped around your finger? That's the premise behind the Mycestro. As someone who spends a lot of time moving my right hand between the keyboard and the mouse, there's something quite appealing about being able to keep my hands in one position and still be able to use the mouse. You can see the details in the video below. Like the EGO! mouse above, this is also a 3D mouse, recognizing gestures to move the mouse, but it also lets you click and scroll with your thumb. It's difficult to describe without seeing it in action, so check it out.
  
  
• Finally, we have another Kickstarter project that ended yesterday without hitting its goal. I debated if we should still include it, but it definitely seems to fit with the theme. It's the Mauz device that clips onto an iPhone to turn the iPhone itself into a mouse. Like both of the above examples, it enables 3D gestures, but also has a lot of flexibility in terms of features that can be used on the screen. I'm somewhat surprised that it failed to reach its goal. This seems like the kind of Kickstarter project that would take off.
  
  

Filed Under: awesome stuff, crowdfunding, input, mice, mouse

Crowdfunding Picks: Throw Trucks With Your Mind & Other Cool Control Interfaces

from the thinking-forward dept

1. First up is a game by Lat Ware, called Throw Trucks With Your Mind! And, yes, the name is quite descriptive (Lat jokes that we should imagine a world in which Call of Duty Gears of War is called "Hide Behind Chest High Walls," since he appears to prefer games to be named after their key concept). Lat was able to stop by our offices yesterday and let me try it out, and the game delivers what it promises. I did, in fact, get to throw some trucks with my mind, and it's pretty awesome. Lat has hooked up an off the shelf NeuroSky EEG device (which you can buy for about $80) to the game he's developing, and there are different actions that you can perform in the game based on how focused you are and how calm you are -- the two things measured by the NeuroSky. Moving around and selecting what telekinetic power you have is done via the keyboard. But staring at a truck and launching it at your enemy to crush them is an amazingly satisfying experience. You can also do other things like lifting, pulling, super jumping and "slow falling." As a fun test, Lat effectively has you jump off a cliff, and you fall slower if you remain calm, but if you get excited you fall faster and die. It's an interesting mental battle to try to keep yourself calm just as you start to fall faster and faster off a cliff.
   
   I've read some of the discussions online about TTWYM elsewhere, and some were concerned about how much fun the gameplay could really be, and let me just say that there shouldn't be any concern. After I tested it out for a bit, I called in someone else who works here, and we got to throw trucks at each other with our minds for a while, with the person more focused and more calm person winning. It's an interesting mental battle of wills when you're trying to kill your colleague by being the most calm. The game itself can handle up to 32 people at once, either over a LAN or the internet.
   
   The game itself is just the very rough pre-alpha version, built on the Unreal Development Kit. But the goal of the Kickstarter project is to bring in a team of kick ass video game artists to turn it into a very different visual experience that's much more whimsical and fun (there's some mockup art on the Kickstarter page). You can buy the NeuroSky device independently or one of the tiers includes one, but you do need it to play the game -- which may limit the number of folks who can play it early on. As of right now, the game is about half funded (to the $40,000 Lat is seeking), but it's definitely one of those things that feels like it's from the future, and gets you thinking about all the cool stuff that's going to be possible before very long, even if this example just involves using your mind to fling giant trucks at your friends.
   
   
2. Okay, move past that ability to throw trucks with your mind, and start thinking about controlling your computer with simple gestures, and then check out the MYO device, which has been generating a ton of attention mainly due to its amazing video highlighting how a simple arm band can create all sorts of useful gesture controls. For about a year, there's been a lot of buzz about Leap Motion's cool gesture control device, but the MYO may be equally as intriguing, supposedly recognizing different muscle movements in your arm to allow you to do things very easily. Since it's a wrist band, it can hook up to desktop machines, but also mobile phones or (eventually) something like Google Glass. The possibilities are pretty limitless.
   
   When I first saw the video, one of the first things I said to someone was that I was amazed MYO hadn't gone the Kickstarter route, as it just has the feel of a Kickstarter project. However, they apparently decided to go it alone, and it's working. The MYO website lets people pre-order the device for $149 and, within a few days, they claim to have received over 10,000 orders, or $1.5 million. Not bad.
   
   With both of these first two items, there are quite reasonable questions that can be raised about execution. Cool demos are one thing. Consumer-ready production is a different sort of challenge. I'm very hopeful that these two companies will succeed, but even if they end up not making it, just the fact that these kinds of offerings are being designed and built (by smaller teams, rather than giant multinationals) is really quite encouraging. We're about to enter a very interesting era concerning just how we control the electronic devices around us. The Microsoft Kinect and the Nintendo Wii were just the warmup round. A ton of innovation is about to appear in this space.
   
   
3. Finally, after those first two items that feel totally revolutionary, this last one might even feel a bit mundane (perhaps I should have put it first on the list!). But, it certainly caught my attention as soon as I saw it: It's the Almond+ Touchscreen WiFi Router / Smart home Hub from Securifi. Check out the video first: Almond already has a quite successful (and hugely popular) touchscreen wireless router, but this takes it up a notch by also adding in a smart home hub, and making the whole thing beautiful.
   
   This caught my attention for a couple reasons -- one practical and one inspirational. First, on the practical side, I'd actually just been exploring some of the latest in home automation. My house has an electronic door lock with a punch-button code, courtesy of its previous owner, and it's really handy, but a little simplistic and clunky. It can only store two codes, and we're constantly replacing the batteries. So I recently went looking around to see if the technology had advanced much in the past few years and, lo and behold, it appears that there are a growing number of "smart home" door locks that look similar but have a bunch of other cool features, such as the ability to receive email or text alerts when someone opens your door, or (much more useful) the ability to "schedule" codes to give people limited access, even from far away. But, for that to work, you need both the new door lock and a Z-Wave controller, which adds up in price. However, the Almond+ (beyond looking awesome) includes both a WiFi router and both Z-Wave and ZigBee support. And all that for less than the cost of just about any Z-Wave hub on its own. Just the Z-Wave part of this makes it really tempting for anyone interested in exploring the home automation field.
   
   The second reason it caught my attention was that it got me rethinking the home router a bit. My current WiFi router is shoved in a closet, where it belongs, because it's an ugly box with blinking LEDs. But the Securifi guys have turned the home router into something that looks really good and is the kind of thing that people would be proud to display out in the open. As we move towards a world where we have increasingly connected systems and devices, it strikes me as an interesting idea to actually make the central router/hub devices look good from a design standpoint -- because historically that's almost never been a part of the goal. As such, it makes me wonder how we'd treat our devices differently when we're not ashamed of them, but happy to display them.
   
   The Almond+ has already far surpassed its goal on Kickstarter, but still seems to be going strong.

Filed Under: awesome stuff, crowdfunding, gesture control, innovation, mind control, routers