A Wiimote turned on its side makes for a perfectly serviceable controller when plowing through retro games from the Wii Shop Channel, and the Classic Controller isn’t bad either, but I wouldn’t call either of them an ideal solution. On the other hand, ThinkGeek’s new Super Famicom controller for the Wii manages to come pretty damned close, especially if you’re a gamer who spends your time steeped in the past. Thankfully, unlike the controller this thing was modeled on, there’s no need to plug it directly into the Wii. Instead, the $20 add-on plugs into the bottom of a Wiimote so it’s simple enough lean back in a beanbag across the room and blow through some Actraiser. It probably goes without saying that not everyone will appreciate this thing’s sheer lack of ergonomics, but remember — the original Super Famicom/Nintendo controller was crafted back in the early 90s, and still manages to put its boxy predecessor to shame. Nevertheless, you had best look elsewhere if you’re looking to play some more recent games, as using a D-Pad to control movement in three dimensions rarely ends well. My only regret? That ThinkGeek doesn’t have a version emblazoned with the purple and lavender hues of the Super Nintendo. Now that Nintendo fanatics have another bit of hardware to add to their collections, maybe ThinkGeek will finally get around to building that NES-esque Bluetooth mobile gaming controller they promised us earlier this year.
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Sonos has just gone really deep (get it?) with their new Sonos Sub, a wireless subwoofer that connects to any Sonos system and adds just a bit more oomph to the musical proceedings. The sub costs $699 and offers (according to the press release) “thick layers of bottomless sound that let you hear and feel the weight of every chord, kick, splash and roll.” The woofer connects with the AMP, ZonePlayer 120, ZonePlayer 100, the PLAY:5, and PLAY:3. It doesn’t work with the CONNECT/ZP90/ZP80. The Sub will launch on June 19. via Sonos Blog
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Sprint’s launch plans for the HTC EVO 4G LTE were ruined last week when shipments of their shiny new Android handset were held up by United States Customs, but we’re hearing that they may been hitting doorsteps and store shelves sooner than expected. According to Sprint, the devices are now currently sitting safely in Sprint’s warehouses and are expected to start trickling out into the world “on or around May 24.” And rest easy, you faithful pre-orderers — the world from on high is that you’ll still be getting your devices first. In case you’re new to this little shipping snafu, shipments of Sprint’s new EVO (along with those of their AT&T-based cousin, the One X) were prevented form entering the country thanks to an exclusion order handed down by the International Trade Commission. The entire convoluted story started last year, but here’s the tl;dr: Back in July, HTC was found by ITC judge Carl Charneski to have infringed on one of Apple’s patents — specifically, it involved recognizing a particular structure within a set of data and binding it to a particular action. Sounds pretty dry, I know, but if your phone lets you directly a call a phone number by touching it in an email, you’ve seen the patent in action. At the time, HTC stated that they were working on fixing the offending UI flourish, and part of the holdup for customers was apparently because the phones were being spot-checked for compliance. With Sprint’s EVO shipments said to be on the move once more, now the question becomes whether or not shipments of AT&T’s One X are as well. I’ve reached out to AT&T for confirmation one way or the other, and I’ll be updating the post as I hear more.
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Incident took the stage this afternoon at TechCrunch Disrupt NYC and debuted the gTar. It’s safe to say that they are already a major contender for the Disrupt Cup. The startup wowed the crowd with their iPhone-powered teaching guitar. The judges loved it. The crowd loved it. And most importantly, fans turned to the startup’s Kickstarter campaign where funding took off like a rocket. Prior to hitting the stage, the gTar had raised just a touch above $10,000. Now, almost exactly two hours after their Disrupt debut, their Kickstarter funding (a.k.a. pre-orders) is north of $42,000 and rising fast. The gTar seems to hit home with most people who see the demo. It promises to take away the massive learning curve associated with playing guitar. With a progressive learning mode, the gTar essentially reinvents guitar lessons. Besides that, experienced players can rock out to the gTar’s synthesized instruments or simply play around with its LED fretboard. There is a real chance that a hardware startup will win Disrupt NYC this year and that’s very exciting.
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Imagine for a moment that you are sitting in your front yard in a lawn chair, sipping lemonade while attempting to read the latest news on your WiFi-only iPad. You’re just out of range of your WiFi signal. Your neighbor’s signal is super strong, but that selfish hooligan didn’t leave it wide open for you to leach onto. Relax. Depending on where you live and who your service provider is, you may be able to use your neighbor’s hotspot regardless of his futile attempts to lock it down someday soon. A consortium of cable companies (Comcast Corp., Time Warner Cable Inc., Cablevision Systems Corp., Bright House Networks LLC and Cox Communications Inc) have agreed to enable the sharing of WiFi hotspots at a grand scale, creating a large region of available signal, in select markets in the U.S. According to the Wall Street Journal, a single hotspot name and sign on scenario will be used to make it easier for consumers to log in and use available spectrum to surf. It will be a perk for paying broadband account holders in the consortium, but certain providers like Time Warner will let you pay as you go if you like. I assume there will be measures in place to prevent people from consuming all of the available bandwidth of someone else’s node, but they haven’t explicitly laid out how or when throttling will occur. [via WSJ]
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The gTar by Incident is disruption defined. It takes the guitar, an instrument with a steep learning curve, and adds a bit of digital wizardry in the form of an embedded iPhone to make learning dramatically easier. The company brags that their modern take on the guitar allows for three levels of difficulty, rather than the traditional single really difficult one. But thanks to the iPhone and a clever app, this $500 electronic guitar essentially teaches users the ins and outs of the instrument. The startup recently turned to Kickstarter to raise $100,000. However today they gave the crowd at Disrupt a musical treat — a demonstration at Startup Alley. And the device seemed to work as advertised. Click to view slideshow. After docking an iPhone in the guitar’s body and loading the app, the neck comes alive with a series of interactive LEDs along the fretboard. In Easy Mode, these lights illuminate in sequence with the teaching app, showing the user which string to play. Medium takes it up a level by forcing the player to use the frets and the strings. However, the gTar’s Smart Play function only plays the correct string. Thanks to sensors rather than traditional pickups, the guitar will only play the appropriate string. But, as the user improves, the guitar does away with some of the nanny features, allowing the user to have, for better or worse, full access to the guitar’s musical capabilities. The Free Play mode allows for even more options, letting the player turn the guitar into a wide-range of instruments thanks to its iPhone core. The gTar seems to have all the right goods to disrupt a space as old as string instruments. This could be the high of Disrupt NYC talking, but it feels as if this could be, or perhaps lead to, the guitars for the Guitar Hero generation.
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On Friday May 18th, Apple filed a motion for a U.S. preliminary injunction against Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1. This follows a ruling by the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (Northern District of California), siding with Apple on the question of whether Samsung is in violation of an iPad-related design patent (U.S. Patent No. D504,889). According to Foss Patents, the source of this story, the request could be valid and is likely to be upheld. Samsung has until May 25th at high noon to respond. (OK not really…about the high noon thing). What does it mean though? Will the Galaxy Tab 10.1 disappear from U.S. shores if Apple emerges victoriously with their injunction? Not necessarily. First of all, let’s remember the sheer scale of Samsung. They have the legal and financial fortitude to at least see this thing all the way through. Secondly, a valid ruling doesn’t spell the end of the line, but more likely a technical redesign. However this could definitely affect revenues because of necessary manufacturing changes but it doesn’t mean a Coup De Grace on the line. Foss paints the picture as more of an embarrassment for Samsung. [via Foss Patents]
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Comcast announced Monday that it will make its newest set-top box available in Boston over the coming weeks, with a rollout planned across the entire country later this year. It’s also introducing a mobile app to control the set-top box from the iPhone or iPad. The new set-top box comes after several years of development. Comcast has been working hard to develop a new set-top box that would take all of the smarts out of the box and put it in the network, essentially allowing the cable provider to launch new services and update the new features without having to totally rewrite applications or push out new firmware. With the X1, all the processing is done in the network. That will give Comcast the flexibility to quickly test and create new apps for customers, without having to worry about how outdated its set-top boxes are. It will also provide more personalized features, such as allowing customers to see which shows their Facebook friends are watching. The new X1 iOS app will improve navigation on the set-top box, allowing subscribers to use the virtual keyboard to search through all the live and on-demand channels more efficiently than using a traditional remote control. Users can also filter by genre and interact with other social media apps. Anyway, here’s how cool I think this thing is: I haven’t been a cable subscriber for at least a year and a half, but I might just have to sign up again, just to try out the X1. So bring this thing to San Francisco, Comcast, and I’ll pay for cable TV again.
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This week we recorded live from the show floor at Disrupt NYC. We sat through 24 hours straight of hot-rod hacking at the Hackathon and now we’re preparing for the main show and, most important, the brand new Hardware Alley where we’ll have loads of great hardware start-ups for you guys to check out. In this episode we talk about Disrupt, the new EVO 4G LTE, and the rumors of the four-inch iPhone. We also talk about the “thumb touches anywhere on the screen” iPhone chestnut, how good the battery life is on some Android phones, the late night Nerf wars at the hackathon, and my horrible sausage fingers. Tune in today and look for another episode next week from the show floor.
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Teaching kids – especially little girls – about electronics is a hard job. First, there’s the electricity. Then there’s the sense that soldering, wiring, and lining up LEDs is considerably less fun than watching Tangled. This project, called Roominate, aims to change the way girls think about electricity. The kit consists of a set of tiny furniture with built-in wires and switches. You can wire up your dollhouse however you like, adding lamps and switches. $49 gets you one regular room and $95 gets you a “duplex.” One Roominate Kit includes: 2 wooden walls, 1 wooden floor, interchangeable wooden building pieces to construct at least 3 pieces of furniture, 1 complete circuit, and assorted decorations to get you started. A Deluxe Decoration Pack includes: tons of additional decorations so that you can adorn your creation over and over again! They’ve hit $13,000 of a $26,000 target and it it helps little girls think more clearly about science and electronics, I’m totally backing it. The project ends on June 16 so there’s still plenty of time to slowly replace the Barbie Dream House with a decidedly more DIY dollhouse. Project Page
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My set ritual before going to bed each night is as follows — turn out the lights, plug in my iPhone, take off my glasses and attempt vainly to nod off. Step two in that process can be a bit of a crapshoot in the dark, but the folks at Scrap Pile Labs have recently kicked off a new Kickstarter campaign for a product called the CordLite that just may come in handy. As the name sort of implies, the CordLite is a dock connector cable for iDevices that, well, lights up thanks to a pair of forward-facing LEDs. It’s a very simple concept, but the thoughtful execution is what make this project worth keeping an eye on. Perhaps the niftiest thing about the CordLite is how you actually fire up those lights — the dock connector’s aluminum body is entirely touch-sensitive, so the lights engage whenever someone goes to plug in the cable. Meanwhile, a pair of indicator lights run along the top of the dock connector so there’s never any confusion as to which side is up. Pledging $25 locks you in for one of the first CordLites to roll off of the assembly line, so you’d best shell out the dough if you’re interested — after the Kickstarter campaign ends, the price will jump up to $35. Not a bad deal for night owls, especially considering that Apple’s own dock connector cable is nearly $20 without a single frill to go with it. Though the CordLite is Apple-only for now, Android users shouldn’t feel too left out. The team also has a light-up micro-USB cable in the works, though I suspect we won’t be seeing those out in the wild for a little while yet.
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“Entering terminal count autosequence. 60 seconds to engine fire. #DragonLaunch,” Tweeted Elon Musk as his space company was less than a minute away from
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While, arguably, you’re not going to convince many kids to give up their Topps or Pokemon cards for these things, it’s nice to know they exist. They’re 3D Printer trading cards featuring some of the best 3D printers in the world. You got your Makerbot Replicator, your UP! Printer, and your Printrbot Plus. You got stats on there, a little trivia, some pricing information and then you can trade with your friends (“Awwww man, I need that Reprap clone!”) You can check them all out here or see them in person at Maker Faire in SF this week. Sadly, they’re not actually printing these things but if they did I’d totally buy a pack. The impetus? They came to creator Shawn Wallace in a dream: I had a dream that I found a box of 3D Printer Trading cards from 2012 at the Seekonk Speedway Flea Market. When I awoke I realized that might be a good way to introduce some of the 3D printer makers who will be exhibiting at the Maker Faire Bay Area next week. I’ll be posting these all week in no particular order; collect them all!
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Is The Avengers worth your money? Do the disc-blasting Nerf guns leave a welt? How do you pull a Pebble and reign in $3 million on Kickstarter? In this week’s TC/Gadgets webcast, we answer all this and more. John and Matt argue over the value in one of this summer’s tent pole movies, The Avengers. John finds it boring, while Matt thinks “it’s fun for everyone.” And while I can’t say I’ll be buying a ticket to The Avengers any time soon, I can say with great certainty that I’ll be at one of the opening day showings of Prometheus. Who doesn’t love space, right? The gang also discusses Nerf’s disc-blasting guns, and how they may or may not be used at this weekend’s Disrupt Hackathon. Last year we saw a raucous group of hackers start an all-out war with bungee darts. None of the TC editorial staff was injured (nor were the hackers), but this year we’ll at least have some Nerf Vortex and Vulcan guns slung over our shoulders. You know… Just in case. In the words of the recent Game Of Thrones trailers, “War is coming.” Finally, but likely most importantly, Matt, Chris, John and I offer up some tips as to what we cover on Kickstarter. Matt is done with iPad cases, and though I echo the sentiment, I’ll probably be more willing to make exceptions than he. John prefers the “little tweaks” to things we already use and enjoy, like the automatic bike light that knows when you’re moving. I encourage a strong video, as marketing is a huge driver of any business. But the geeky stuff has its place too — Chris thoroughly enjoyed the electron microscope project that significantly reduced the cost of looking at really, really tiny things.
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Say you’re a misanthrope and you’re afraid of humans. What to do? Well, you could cower in the dark when people ring your doorbell or you could laugh derisively at their smug faces in the screen of your iPhone. I’m going for the derisive laughter. This DIY Arduino project involves a simple circuit, a webcam, and a few API calls to PushingBox to enable a truly enjoyable derisive experience. The system works by pushing images grabbed by the webcam through PushingBox to an app like Prowl or Pushme.to. When the doorbell is pressed, it sends a serial signal to the Arduino board which in turn notifies the various services. The webcam picture then gets sent over to you so you can decide whether to let whoever is outside in. It’s probably a little more complex than it needs to be, but if you’re totally into watching the world pass you by it’s a great solution and a fun weekend project. Project Page
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In this first installment of Gadget Of The Week I decided to try something a bit different. Rather than focus on some obscure cellphone or wonky laptop, I decided to take on one of the biggest questions in the average small and home office: which juicer should I buy? After trying a number of juicers – and investing in a few – I’m pleased to report that the Omega J8006 is definitely worth the investment. I am what they call, in the medical literature, a fat and lazy blogger. There’s nothing I love more than scarfing down cookies as I sit at my computer. With that in mind (and inspired by Brian Lam’s article at The Wirecutter), I decided to try my hand at juicing. I began by picking up the $99 Le’Equip model which uses a swiftly rotating blade and an ejection system for squeezing the juice out of almost any fruit or vegetable. The price was right – under $100 for a fairly sturdy juicer is good – and the reviews were excellent. I also tried the Breville models but those didn’t support the juicing of greens as readily. Obviously there are more (this dude made 290 videos featuring all of his favorite) but I was going for the lower end. Before we get ahead of ourselves, it’s important to understand the various aspects of juicing that are important to the average consumer. There are multiple types – the Le’Equip is an ejection system that uses centripetal force to push out the juice out of a spout. Then there are masticating juicers. These juicers either use a worm gear or two larger gears to chop food into finer and finer bits. These bits are then smashed to render the juice. They move much more slowly than ejection systems and, in turn, work a bit more efficiently. What does juicing do for you? The science is still out (and many nutritionists state that juicing isn’t much better than eating a bunch of vegetables and the process removes much of the fiber, rendering the juice less biologically useful) but I personally find that after a big glass of kale, cucumber, and maybe a lemon or apple, I’m less hungry and less inclined to sit at my desk idly snacking on Bugles. I would never eat, say, a head of kale by itself. Juicing takes the tedium out of veggies. Working with the Le’Equip was quite enjoyable although it tended to spray pulp out of its back end and spit juice out of the top. The speed of the blades – while excellent for rendering juice – didn’t allow for much control. That’s when the Omega came into my life. This massive, heavy juicer – more a home motor than a real juicer – takes it slow and steady. You feed veggies in, they’re slowly masticated with the thick, 80RPM rotor. As the food moves through it is chopped up and squeezed out into a plastic cup while the pulp falls into another cup. Clean-up is simple. You take the juicer head off, move it to the sink, and uncouple all of the pieces. Then, with some soap and water, you can just rinse off the four pieces and clean the metal screen. You can also run the gear through the dishwasher. The device also makes nut butters and can extrude pasta. You can even use it as a slow food processor. The bad news? At $299, you’re really going to have to be into juice to pick this thing up. However, compared with the swiftly moving and messier “cheaper” models, I’m very pleased with the 8006′s performance. If you used this in an office, for example, you’d have considerably less to clean up and the system is far more durable than other machines I’ve seen. No one wants to clean up a scrim of flung orange pulp off of the kitchen wall, which is why the 8006′s slow-moving auger is a much better choice. Has juicing helped me lose weight? Not yet, but here’s hoping. Does it make me feel a little better and less inclined to eat junk. I think so. And anything that can keep my fat face out of a bag of M&M-laden Chex mix is the thing for me. Click to view slideshow.
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Yeah, it’s not $99 and it’s refurbished but it’s still a TouchPad. The tablet was once heralded as an iPad killer. Now, I’m not sure if it could even kill a Notion Ink Adam in a head-to-head sales battle. But still, thanks to an honestly smart move from HP, the TouchPad and webOS is valuable to some in the development community. But you better act fast like previous TouchPad offers. This deal is up on Woot, where the Amazon subsidiary only has a limited number of items. The price is $195 for a 32GB WiFi TouchPad — not a bad deal for a slightly bulky tab capable of running Android. HP debuted the TouchPad as a true iPad competitor when it hit stores last summer. But for $500 it was a tough sale even though it was a capable device. Consumers apparently agreed as HP killed the product after just 49 days and eventually cleared out the remaining stock with a $99 firesale. Since then, HP released webOS to the open source community and essentially gutted the departments. This Woot sale might be the last time you can grab an HP TouchPad.
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This is the age of thinking thermostats and, not to be outdone by a well-known circular model, hardware startup Ecobee has released the Smart Si. It is a smart thermostat with small color screen and a web interface so temperature wonks can update their heating models on the fly. The Smart Si is not quite as sleek as the Nest but offers more accessible settings – think of this as the Linux to Nest’s OS X. The web interface allows you to see your home’s current status, set a vacation profile, and view reports on your system’s performance including HVAC and heater usage. The system pulls in weather alerts as well as alarms from your home system and you can chart and graph all of your performance parameters. Arguably, I doubt many will get very intense with this stuff, but it’s definitely available. Ecobee has been around since 2007 and the introduced one of the first Wi-Fi-enabled thermostates. This is their effort at building a high-end thermostat but the company has plenty of experience in the space. The company also recently announced wireless Smart Plugs that allow you to control electronics in your house using the ZigBee networking standard. The Smart Si costs $220 and is available now for pre-order. Product Page
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HP is reportedly going to be announcing massive layoffs next Wednesday. Conflicting reports state somewhere between 25K and 30K jobs, between 7% and 8% of HP’s global workforce, could be eliminated in an effort to absorb losses from decreasing demand for the company’s products and services. The cuts could happen over the next year, rather than a mass layoff, according to AllThingsD who also state that the total number is still undecided. Wall Street is reacting positively to the news. HP’s stock price dropped shortly after the news but quickly recovered and started climbing with word of the restructuring. During the writing of this post, the stock price dropped slightly but is still up for the day. If true, this is the latest of new CEO Meg Whitman’s drastic changes within HP. When she took over for Leo Apotheker, she nearly immediately announced that HP would not spin-off its PC division, the Personal Systems Group, as Apotheker once considered. Instead, Whitman’s team combined the PSG with the profitable Imaging and Printing Group. The layoffs will reportedly be announced alongside HP’s quarterly earnings. Whitman will, at least per AllThingsD, deem the layoffs as necessary to make much-needed investments. Rather than just cutting people, the company will cut its workforce and then reinvest across the company. This comes as HP is struggling to regain its dominant position in the PC and services world. While still on top per the numbers, competitors, including Apple, are racing forward with hot products. This is something that Whitman previously acknowledged to the company, predicting that Apple might surpass HP this year, but 2013 will be the year HP employees can once again celebrate — except for the 30K about to get pink slipped.
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At a J.P Morgan conference held in Boston on Wednesday, Netflix CFO David Wells said that the company was looking up and, more importantly, customers who cancelled the service because of the Qwikster rebranding, plan repricing, and subsequent poor PR are now returning. The company drove users away due to a considerable price hike on its cheapest disk plan – from $9.99 to $15.98 – as well as its ham-handed decision to split the company into a streaming arm – Netflix – and a disk-in-the-mail arm – Qwikster. Wells said: We think there’s room to grow, but the improvements in retention and our growth in Q1 and Q2 since Q3 and Q4 of last year make us feel pretty good. Rejoined or folks rejoining the service still remain about a third of our new subscribers that are coming in. Even streaming-only subscriptions, who should not have faced an impact, reacted to last year. We think that’s a result of the negative PR, the swirl that was around the brand and the company will dissipate over time. We even saw that in Canada, which you could argue should not have seen it. Netflix pricing is currently set at $7.99 a month for one DVD (not Blu-Ray) disk out at a time a month and $16 for unlimited streaming and one disk. The steady return of disgruntled customers is a testament to the breadth of Netflix’s streaming selection and general economic improvements.
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For some inexplicable reason, Nintendo and Toyota have teamed up to turn the Nintendo DS into a navigational remote control, thereby allowing drivers (although I hope passengers do most of the fiddling) to set their routes using their game consoles. The service, called Kuruma de DS lets you see map and destination info as well as tour information as you drive through town. The service slightly gamifies the experience by adding a POI saving option. The compatible Toyota Smart Navi system costs about $3,000 while the game itself costs $92 – quite a bit of cash to simulate the map screens in Super Mario World. The DS connects to the car via Bluetooth and includes quiz games and delightful Mii characters who show you around town. via 4gamer via Kotaku
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If you are looking for Piano or Rhodes-like feel for serious playing, Samson’s Carbon 49 USB MIDI Controller may not be right for you. However, if you need a keyboard for some light playing or sample triggering, why not keep the expensive Kronos at home and bring the Carbon 49 out for the dangerous outdoor gigs that require expendable equipment? (I have seen many an expensive keyboard dragged end over end behind a golf cart after a show, or dropped or had beer spilled all over it while it was being underutilized at a gig as a mere MIDI controller). Don’t get me wrong, the Carbon 49 — originally announced at NAMM but available May 15 — is a decently constructed keyboard controller and it comes complete with the usual on-board tools of the MIDI trade (modulation wheel, pitch wheel, data knob). Most importantly, it’s fairly portable and can use a laptop or even an iPad (not included) for both its MIDI brain and complete power supply (which makes for light travel). That’s a pretty great feature actually! The thing about the Carbon 49 I like the best is the price point. At $89 it’s inexpensive and I think it plays pretty well for that price range! Pros Price – $89 Integrated iPad stand Dedicated Transpose and Octave buttons, classic Pitch Bend and Modulation wheels Velocity-sensitive keys Shift key adjusts up to 14 performance-related control parameters Features traditional MIDI out, sustain-pedal input and USB connections Cons Not trully weighted keys, which could make it hard for more serious or sensitive playing 49 keys…you would have to balance portability with your playing needs iPad Camera Kit connector not included Bottom Line I liked it. It’s inexpensive and worked right out of the box for me with both my MacBook and my iPad. It’s a decent option for playing or sample triggering. More info at http://www.samsontech.com/
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Ogmento is a gaming company dedicated to the creation of high-quality augmented reality games. Although AR games aren’t that rare – the 3DS does a few quite well and there are a number available on mobile phones – Ogmento is focusing on higher-end experiences. The demo above shows how they’re able to track targets in real time and, with a few button presses, have a tank fire into a crowd of luminaries including Will Wright and Bruce Sterling. The company currently sells an AR game called NBA: King of the Court. The tank game, above, is a prototype. The company is using a number of cool rendering technologies to make the AR experience more compelling. For example, the tank game includes an “x-ray” feature that will fill in space that is destroyed in the game, creating engrossing gameplay. “This is the first time in history of mobile phones a technology like SLAM (Simultaneous Localization and Mapping) is running in real time and in parallel to high-end rendering and reconstruction of the physical space,” said CEO Ori Inbar. “SLAM is a technique typically used by robots and autonomous vehicles to build up a map within an unknown environment (without a priori knowledge), while at the same time keeping track of their current location. It is now being understood in game play environments where the computer can drop in digital assets that understand their physical environment including surfaces, walls, etc.” Inbar and his co-founder, Brian Selzer, have experience in gaming and augmented reality. Selzer worked with Fox, Activision, EA, and Marvel creating online and mobile content. The company raised $7 million Series A in a round led by Chart Venture Partners with participation from CNF Investments, Robert Bosch Venture Capital, and other private investors. As this demo shows, AR is more than just greasy kid’s stuff. Although it’s really hard to see where the space is headed, it’s clear that games like this one become more interesting once the entire environment becomes fully mapped and trackable. The added x-ray fun is just gravy.
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If you’ve ever wanted to swing a magic wand around and make things happen (besides encouraging the cool kids to give you a swirly, that is), here’s your chance. A new game on Kickstarter called Incantor promises some real-live olde timey majicke fun for your iPhone. Built by a Rhode Island company, Movable Code, the game will allow you to cast spells and plan tactics by waving your wand around. The wand is actually a motion control device with haptic feedback and you can “shape” spells in the air to cast them. You can also use the wand to lock onto targets on the screen. The designers include Nicholas Napp and Kevin Mowrer, formerly head of R&D for Hasbro. Mowrer is also a noted designer and artist while Napp was an “external technology scout” for Sony Ericsson. They have been working on the product for over a year and it’s very close to completion. A pledge of $100 gets you a wand and a copy of the iPhone game. They’re about $6,000 into a $100,000 funding request. “The premise is magic made real. It’s a game you play in the real world with a smartphone, a magic wand and your friends. We are aiming to bring the gaming mechanics of an MMOG and the strategy of a trading card game into the real world,” said Napp. Hopefully we’ll have a hands on with this thing shortly so dry your hair off and stay-tuned.
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When Dish announced their new ad-skipping tech, response was fairly muted. Sure it was some cool technology – the experience is seamless in that you notice maybe the first second of a commercial and then a little notification pops you over the commercials entirely – but TV execs are reportedly upset by Dish’s unilateral decision. Fox’s Peter Rice said it was “a strange thing to do” and NBC is still evaluating it. However, what is really interesting is that Dish decided to go ahead with the service at all. The system works because Dish is currently recording all prime-time network content onto its Hopper DVRs. This content consists of all of the big shows – Grey’s Anatomy, Parks and Recreation, etc. – parceled out and ready to watch. The consumer doesn’t even have to set a reminder. The content is just there. This is amazing news for broadcast TV. It allows a few unique things to happen. First, it ensures content discovery is forefront in the consumer’s mind. When you roll into the ABC channel, for example, you might want to watch your favorite ABC show (that I can’t think of any ABC shows off the top of my head is a testament to the problems broadcasters are facing right now, but that’s a different post) and you pop into the ABC folder. There, next to your favorite show, is another show that’s gotten great ratings or at least good word of mouth. There are a couple of episodes saved so it’s easy to just drop into the show without any problem. Imagine if, a few years ago, Lost or another huge, sprawling epic drama was available online immediately after it aired. This sort of episode saturation is a new paradigm for TV watching, one that even time-shifting advocates didn’t foresee. Second, it ensures that every show will get a fair shot and, more important, broadcast shows will be seen in a different, more “premium” light than cable shows. As it exists today, the service only works for prime-time broadcast networks. You can always pop over to HBO GO and the like, but what about the rest of those reality shows like American Pickers, Real Housewives Of Reseda, American Gothic Skull Pickers, and Man Vs. Food Vs. Wild? If you want to view the entire season at once, you’re going to have to figure out some alternative source. Now we come to the ad skipping. Considering Dish’s Hopper is a win-win for broadcasters and consumers alike, what’s the problem? Dish tried something new and made the unilateral decision to programmatically simulate what consumers are doing anyway. Clearly the networks see this feature as going just a bit too far. Obviously everyone with a DVR skips over commercials. It’s a given and it’s the way things work now. However, for Dish to formalize the process programmatically is a wild move. It’s akin to a movie theatre allowing folks to vote on whether the audience will see those inane pre-feature ads and previews. I personally believe the value given by making entire seasons available immediately far surpasses any damage ad-skipping could do. By recording every single prime time TV episode, Dish creates fans. These fans will eventually watch that broadcast content live and maybe watch previous episodes in the ad skipping interface. For TV execs to even consider this technology to be bad for the media is evidence of an unnuanced and calcified worldview. But, then again, what else is new?
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