Sensors are quickly becoming a category of external hardware gadgets unto themselves, and Slovenia-based CubeSensors is creating a set that essentially monitors your living space to provide you with aggregate data about noise, temperature, humidity, light, air quality and more to provide clues about how your environment might be affecting you and those around you. CubeSensors are small hardware cubes that pack a bevy of sensors within, at just 2-inches long, wide and tall. They’re powered by an internal rechargeable battery, so that they don’t need nasty plugs to work, and they stream their data over Wi-Fi to a cloud-based dashboard to track information and provide it to users in real-time. They can be set to provide alerts, and the data can either be made public or set to private access for keeping it within the household. The info collected by the CubeSensors, which ship in a starter pack with either two or three devices and a bridge to link them to your home network, can be viewed through a single app that resides on a user’s smartphone. The Cubes can be set to send alarms when certain conditions are met, like when noise or temperature reaches a certain level, and you can view historical data to track the effectiveness of any methods you take to change the influence of environmental factors. Each sensor includes an accelerometer, a thermometer, a barometer, an air quality meter, and a humidity sensor. They’re being sold with the pre-order model that has become popular for hardware creators, with the MYO armband and Lockitron being two recent similar examples. The difference here is that CubeSensors is asking for $10 up front as a down payment, whether your order the $249 starter pack with two cubes, or the $349 pack that comes with four. CubeSensors CEO Ales Spetic says that $10 is fully refundable, however, and the startup did win the Best Hardware award at this year’s Launch Festival. This kind of environment monitoring devices aren’t entirely new: Russian startup Lapka offers sensors that contain similar detection capabilities, which we saw at CES this year. But the unobtrusive wireless design, with a system that’s expandable to accommodate a variety of different types of environments is very interesting. There’s also the possibility that the data gathered by the CubeSensors could eventually be made to integrated with other devices and apps, adding to the dream of a sophisticated connected smartphone.
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Just days after Bloomberg ran a report claiming that AT&T would release BlackBerry’s long-awaited Z10 smartphone on March 22, AT&T has issued a statement confirming that launch will indeed go forward as reported. Prospective BlackBerry owners will have to shell out $199 for the Canadian company’s new flagship and (for better or worse) sign a two year contract. In the event that you absolutely need to have one (a sentiment that our own Darrell Etherington didn’t share in his full review), AT&T will kick off the pre-order process starting tomorrow, March 12. This makes AT&T the second of the three major U.S. wireless carriers to announce availability for the Z10 — T-Mobile announced late last week that its business customers would be able to get their hands on the device starting today, though it remained decidedly mum when it came to general consumer availability. Verizon on the other hand is widely expected to push BlackBerry’s Z10 out the door sometime in April, and Sprint has decided to focus solely on the QWERTY keyboard-packing Q10 (see our hands-on impressions here). With any luck, BlackBerry will see a surge of U.S. customers joining the fold shortly, but the experience they’ll be treated to upon arrival may not be as complete as they would hope. There’s no question BlackBerry 10 plays home to some neat concepts and impressive UI flourishes — I’ve grown quite fond of fiddling with the demo Z10 the company graciously handed out en masse at its launch event — the distinct lack of certain popular applications that has forced some developers to take matters into their own hands. The tepid app environment (sideloading notwithstanding) could leave some curious consumers cold on the platform as a whole, and that’s exactly what RIM can’t afford right now. Then again, this just leaves room for upstart developers and entrepreneurs to make their mark by targeting a segment of the smartphone market that’s currently underserved, so BlackBerry 10 may hit its stride soon anyway.
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Apple has been working on the iPhone since long before it hit the market in 2007, and today a new developer prototype has come to light that shows how it might have looked if they’d rushed it to market earlier. The 2005 internal prototype is pictured in photos obtained by Ars Technica, from an unnamed former Apple employee. The prototype iPhone doesn’t look like an iPhone as we know it at all, aside from the fact that it boasts a rectangular screen. The device is 5″ x 7″, closer to the current iPad mini than anything else, which is 5.3″ by 7.87″. It’s also two inches thick, which is around the depth of six iPad minis stacked, but that was necessary for including all the ports the iPhone prototype had on board. Yes, ports. The early iPhone design had a USB port, Ethernet and serial. They weren’t included so that you could hook up to your dot matrix printer – Ars’ source says the development team was simply making the gadget as easy to work internally with as possible in its early, pre-release form. The unit itself was designed completely around helping the internal team refine the product; a large display also makes it easier to work with. But back then everything was up in the air, meaning it was still arguably a real possibility that the iPhone could have shipped with wired Internet on board. Ars notes that the chip used in the prototype is the older, slower antecedent of the Samsung-made ARM design used in the actual first iPhone, so the partnership was in place long before Apple went into full-scale production. Apple co-founder Steve Jobs said in 2010 that Apple actually worked on the iPad before it ever began work on the iPhone, so it makes sense that an early prototype for an Apple phone would largely resemble the Apple slate that would later follow. And in basic engineering terms, it’s easier to work big before working small. And even though they never would’ve shipped it, it’s funny to imagine that Apple was making phablets long before Android OEMs were stretching the limits of what sized device can comfortably be termed a “phone.”
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The Samsung Galaxy S IV is being announced later this week at a special event, but we’ve already seen plenty of leaks regarding the flagship phone’s hardware, but now there’s a new one (via SammyHub) that claims to depict the phone in the flesh, giving us an idea of what it could look like. If these leaks are accurate, the GSIV changes little from the previous generation and Galaxy Note II designs. Posted to a Chinese forum, it’s still very possible that these are images of another yet-to-be released Samsung device, or simply elaborate fakes, but if that’s what they are, then they’re very well done. The images show a Samsung-branded phone with a 5-inch display, a metal look band surrounding the phone, and what looks like slightly textured front and back surfaces. The rear is a glossy white, the slab has rounded rectangle edges, and the screen looks to extend closer to the bezel than in any previous Samsung handset, meaning it could manage not to have grown that much in terms of physical size despite the larger display. The leak fits with reports that the Galaxy S IV will retain its plastic outer case, and agrees with other recent rumors about software and internal specs, since it’s shown to be running Android 4.2.1, has a 1080p displays, runs 2GB of RAM and offers a 13-megapixel camera. The CPU numbering also suggests that it has a Samsung Exynos Octa chip on board as previously reported. Samsung has been known to epically troll its fans, as it did last year with a disguised version of the Galaxy S III which was covered in an outer case that hid its true design. We could be seeing that sort of thing again, but this leak looks much more convincingly like a shipping device, not encased in any disguise. Regardless of whether it’s the real thing or not, we’ll find out for sure what Samsung’s latest flagship looks like on Thursday.
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Philips Hue is a lighting system that changes the definition of what your standard home lighting setup is, and now there’s an official developer program for the innovative Wi-Fi-connected bridge and bulbs, so that third-party apps and hardware can pick up what Philips has started. To be clear, people have developed apps for the Philips Hue system already; we covered one two Hue hacks just last week, including an iOS app that turn your Hue home lighting into a dance party, and a software add-on for Minecraft that changes your ambient lighting to match the day/night cycle in the world building game. But those, and other Philips apps to date, have been built mostly by developers who are reverse engineering their own solution. Philips recognized that devs wanted to do different things with the Hue, and decided to help them out, by opening up an official developer program, complete with an SDK for iOS developers, and APIs that allow both software and hardware makers to take advantage of the Hue’s connected features. The official tool means that developers can depend on it as a stable channel through which to build Hue integration into their products. Hue uses the ZigBee standard for home automation, which means that they can talk to each other, as well as motion detectors, connected thermostats, connected appliances and more. The new developer program will mean that hardware makers using these standards can build in Hue-compatible features, so that the lights can be triggered by various actions. You could have a specific light recipe come on whenever you open the door, for instance, or when a thermostat is set to specific climate setting. Other potential uses of the developer tools include apps for amateur and professional photographers, which could help them optimize lighting for a shoot with a simple app attached to a device with light level detection capabilities. Philips also plans to release future features around geo-fencing, scheduling and other smartphone sensor capabilities that could expand what developers can do with them. “We’re now at a point where there are already about 10 applications that have been shared and built from the unofficial developer community for new applications around Hue,” explained George Yianni, HUe System Architect in an interview. “Now what we want to do as Philips is we actually want to help and grow and encourage this community, and give them tools and proper documentation. Also, we want to give them commitment that this is the API and we’re going to support it and it won’t change overnight.” Yianni says that’s been the big roadblock stopping bigger developers and companies from creating apps and accessories for Hue so far. Specifically, it’s been holding up hardware development, he says, and that means you can probably expect to see some big names start to integrate Hue into their own lines of connected home devices. The developer tools will be available free to anyone who wants to create applications and devices that connect to the Hue system. Philips will also continue to work on expanding the Hue line, Yianni said, with new lightbulb types to follow soon. With new third-party investment in the Hue ecosystem, as well as more from Philips itself, it’s about to become a lot more than just a different kind of lightbulb.
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LovePalz, the virtual sex gadget designed for long-distance couples, has finally set a launch date for both its products and Web-based control center. On March 29, you can get your hands (and other parts) on Hera and Zeus, the two devices designed by Taipei-based company Winzz. The titillating wireless gadget has been generating buzz since announcing pre-orders in September. Winzz says that they received over 5,000 pre-orders within two months, back when the LovePalz set of two devices was available for $94.95. Now that the pre-order special has ended, each piece, called the Hera and the Zeus, are available separately for $189. Despite the higher price, Winzz reports that they have sold 1,800 items since February 28. Lovers can control their LovePalz devices during a cybersex session by using the LovePalz Web site, which also has a mobile version. A spokeswoman told me that the company is still working on launching a LovePalz iOS app, but progress has been delayed because of the App Store’s restrictions on selling adult-themed content. The Hera resembles a dildo, while the Zeus is like a sleeker, high-tech version of the infamous Fleshlight. (The names are interesting because although ancient Greek deities/husband-and-wife Zeus and Hera were often separated by long distances, that’s because Zeus has off having sex with everyone in the universe besides Hera). Both toys have multiple pressure and speed sensors that work without buttons and allow partners to feel what each other is doing to them in real time. The devices are waterproof, rechargeable, and are engineered with an air pump and automatic piston. Why, you ask? Well, the air pump means the Hera toy can “get bigger when you are bigger,” as the LovePalz Web site puts it, and the air pump allows the Zeus to “tighten up.” The company ensures users that it has tested the air pump many times to make sure “the speed is ideal and stops when it’s getting too tight,” so there will be no news headlines screaming “LovePalz, the genius of penis explosion.” The LovePalz’s painstaking engineering sets it apart, but there have certainly been other virtual sex toys. The Virtual Hole and Stick set (yes, that was its real name) was designed back in 2007 as one of the earliest “teledildonics” products. Web site HighJoy bills itself as “the premier online destination where you can find the necessary tools that allow you to control another’s personal massager over the Internet.” Other virtual sex toys have been a bit more one-sided, like the RealTouch, which allows users to interact with porn.  
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Electrostatic interfaces – systems that make your fingers “feel” textures on a smooth metal plate – have been around for a long time. They haven’t quite caught on because the sensation is a little creepy and it’s not quite foolproof. However, a researcher at Disney Research in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Olivier Bau, has created a unique system that creates these sensations on any surface using a special wearable system that actually controls the electricity sent to nerves in your skin. His Revel project is an example of this technology in action. An object is treated with a special paint and then a “generator” attached to the body. As you move your finger along a surface, the system changes the way the surface feels to the touch and can recreate ridges, etched lines, and other sensations. It’s the first step in true universal interaction with objects. Bau also discussed other projects in the works including one in Tokyo that allows you to create invisible physical objects by controlling the muscles in your hand. That’s right: you could pick up an invisible chess piece and your fingers would freeze at just the right spot so it would feel like you’re holding something sold. Bau now lives in Los Angeles but is continuing work on the “invisible” for Disney’s research arm. I asked him if he had to wear mouse ears at work and he very demurely refused to answer.
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document.getElementById('wpcom-iframe-form-1709c95a27ee6a1b32811ff6e89b0893').submit(); After I shelled out something like $200 for a Kinect bundle that I ended up shoving in a closet, the team at 4tiitoo may have finally given me a reason to dig the thing out. The Munich-based company recently kicked off a Kickstarter campaign to let Kinect owners control their PCs with little more than some subtle glances, thanks to a $50 add-on they’re calling the eyeCharm. But first, a bit of back story — 4tiitoo is the company behind NUIA, a software suite that makes it possible for PCs to interpret eye movements and staring as valid inputs. 4tiitoo has shown off a slew of applications that have been modified to accept this new kind of input, from eye-tracking versions of games like Angry Birds and perennial geek favorite Minecraft to utilities like VLC Media Player. So far, though, those eye-friendly apps have mostly been demoed with pricey hardware courtesy of the Swedish camera buffs at Tobii. They’re not exactly meant for consumer use, so crafting a reasonably inexpensive add-on for a popular console accessory is a rather savvy move. Speaking of the add-on, the eyeCharm itself is actually rather modest — it’s essentially a large plastic clip that sticks onto the Kinect to provide “the necessary optics and special infrared illumination” to properly track people’s eyes. Once the included setup software has been run, users can attempt to navigate Windows 7 or 8 (Windows 8 and some of its touch-tailored UI elements seems to be easier to deal with), or fire up some of the included NUIA-enabled apps that backers get as part of the deal. More importantly, all but the cheapest backers get access to the NUIA SDK, so they can (hopefully) get cracking on the next generation of eye-tracking PC apps. 4tiitoo is looking to collect a total of $100,000 in funding and is currently hovering just under $10,000 in contributions after two days. I’ll be the first to admit that Microsoft’s original vision of full-body gaming is one that hasn’t yet been fully realized, but the Kinect has emerged as an intriguing tool for developers and entrepreneurs alike — startups like Personify and Disrupt Battlefield alum Kinobi were quick to embrace the technology, and Microsoft has sought to nurture those Kinect-centric ventures. If some particularly sticky rumors hold true, the next Xbox will be so reliant on the Kinect concept that an upgraded Kinect will come with each console, so 4tiitoo’s vision for reshaping how the masses interact with computers could become a reality sooner rather than later.
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Meet Google’s “talking shoe” that aims to translates movement data in witty messages to users and their friends. The concept apparel, showcased at the search giant’s swanky SXSW Interactive headquarters, is part of a new arts project, “Art, Copy, Code,” aimed breathing a social, life-like experience into everyday objects. “If standing still was a sport, you’d be world champion,” the trash-talking shoe projects on a monitor hanging over a rainbow-colored obstacle course, after it senses I’ve been standing still. At a distance, users seem a tad pathetic trying to trigger positive feedback from the shoe. But, when I strapped it on, I felt oddly compelled to impressive my new automated coach. Combining coaching (even robotic coaching) made lifeless data unexpectedly motivational. Essentially, it’s Richards Simmons in shoe. In case critics think this is another one of Google’s flights of profitless creative fancy, Arts Copy Code is deliberately about improving advertising. “It’s explicitly aimed at how translating how Silicon VAlley thinks about technology into how creative agencies thinks about advertising,” says project lead, Aman Govil. Brands such as Nike, who outfit professional athletes with health-tracking shoes and bracelets, could broadcast their spring training performance in realtime. Rival athlete’s apparel would literally trash-talk one another automatically. It’s still (very) early days for the arts project. The talking shoe (and shoe strap) concept was developed through a grant to electronics agency, Yes Yes No. Google plans to open up the project to more everyday objects in the near future. One hypothetical use-case, imagines Govil, is an alarm block that sends snarky messages to co-workers if users have to hit the snooze on their alarm clock more than 3 times. There’s been heightened attention to research that quantifies how much our friends affect our weight, success, and personal life. University of San Diego Political Scientist and Connected author, James Fowler, found that having an obese friend can significantly increase people’s chances also having their own set of marshmallowy love-handles. It’s no secret a spirited friend can get us up at 5am for a morning run as much as they can tempt us into finishing their plate of fries. Health startups have attempted to “gamify” good behavior by encouraging users to share personal goals with friends. Nike+ Fuelband, for instance, shares users exercise habits with their friends on the personal social network, Path. This project attempts to remove the barrier presented by current products. The social aspect has always required one extra step of human effort. However fast a 1-word message of encouragement could take to type about a friend’s morning run, the minor inconvenience is enough to seriously limit engagement. This new automated personality seems to have a place, especially when we’re all too busy to be personal. Currently the project is just a concept. There’s no need to jump over to the Google Play store and find the buy link. But Google Glass was just a concept at one point, too.
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Bre Pettis, founder of 3D-printer manufacturer MakerBot, announced their first desktop 3D scanner, the Digitizer, at a SXSWi keynote today. Pettis was coy about availability or final design but instead was focused on making a splash at the event. “We’re excited to put ourselves out there with the announcement. I have a tradition of announcing things at SXSW. I don’t think there are many actual physical products announced at SXSW, so it’s special,” he said. Officially called the MakerBot Digitizer Desktop 3D Scanner, the device will work in concert with the MakerBot printer to complete the constellation of services MakerBot offers. For example, you will be able to scan an object and print it immediately on a MakerBot printer. According to today’s release, the design shown at SXSW is a prototype and there is no launch date slated although Pettis said it would be available “this Fall.” Pettis, for one, is excited. “It’s a natural progression for us to create a product that makes 3D printing even easier. With the MakerBot Digitizer, now everyone will be able to scan a physical item, digitize it, and print it in 3D – with little or no design experience.” “It’s going to be another pathway for people to make 3D models,” he said. UPDATE – I’ll be posting live photos from the event. The scanner uses two lasers to map small, breadbox-sized objects and a webcam to create a digital model of any object.
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Sonos is a wireless audio company that makes solid – albeit comparatively expensive – audio hardware. Setup is drop dead simple – to add a component you simply press one or two buttons on the new device and everything “just works” and the remote control UI, refined over most of the past decade, has a cult-like following. You can create different audio zones around your room and play different music in each one or enter party mode and turn your house into a massive disco. In short, Sonos makes whole-home audio easy. So what of this new Playbar, a long sound bar that sits above or below your television and connects to your system via a single optical cable? This new device has nine speakers built-in, six midrange and three tweeters, and works with Sonos’ SUB subwoofer and Play:3 mini speakers that can act as satellite surround sound speakers. To use the Playbar you need at least a Sonos Bridge – the central device that talks to all Sonos devices – and an iOS or Android device. Setup requires you to connect the Playbar to your TV (or receiver) via a single optical cable. You then plug in the power and you’re set. It also has an Ethernet port, but Sonos has excellent QOS control via wireless and I’ve never had a problem with streaming. The $699 Playbar can be mounted above or below your TV – a built-in accelerometer senses the direction – or you can put it on a TV stand. Unfortunately, this reliance on a single optical cable is both good and bad. If you don’t have a receiver and connect all of your devices directly to your TV, you’re golden. If you have a receiver, however, setup is a bit more difficult. I set my receiver to output HDMI audio as well as video and turned it down all the way. The TV, then, does all of the audio output via optical and your receiver becomes little more than a switch. You can control the Playbar’s volume with your TV remote or the Sonos app. The app also bears some discussion. The Sonos app breaks your sound system into different rooms and nearly everything is managed through the app, including the addition of more speakers to the system. You can add music services and grab multiple songs from multiple services – an album from your own collection, a few songs from a shared drive on your network, and maybe a playlist from Rdio – and play it as a queue. You can save queues (playlists, really) and all of the audio manipulation, including control of bass and treble, are done in the app. With the addition of the the Playbar, the app adds a “TV” input that allows you to control the volume of the Playbar remotely. How is the audio quality? A single Playbar will make your TV sound better (although that’s usually not hard). I was able to turn up the sound on action movies and get a few solid whomps out of the soundtrack as well as hear clear and distinct dialog, which was actually an improvement over my current 5.1 setup. Your results may vary, but I didn’t get much out of the “simulated” surround sound these speakers advertised but I was pleased with the sound overall. Music playback over this speaker – because, using the Sonos app, you can beam services like Pandora and Rdio as well as your own collection through the Playbar – was clean and nuanced and these were an excellent replacement for the pair of stereo speakers I usually used to listen to music. Current Sonos users will be pleased to note that this system does replace the Play:5 or Play:3 speakers, whether you have paired them in stereo or are simply using a single unit. You could, for example, remove a pair of Play speakers and simply use this to play TV audio as well as your music. The Playbar is that good. I saw no discernible difference in using this vs. the two Sonos speakers I already had in the room I was testing this gear in. The Playbar also answers another home audio prayer – the promise of true wireless 5.1 sound. While the Playbar technically isn’t a center-front right-front left setup, by pairing this with two Play:3 satellites (Play:5 units don’t work) and a sub-woofer, you’ve got a very nice wireless 5.1 system. The Playbar really shines in this setup, which, in the end, will cost you $1,996 to set up, including the Playbar. The Playbar paired with the sub-woofer, for example, really opens up the audio considerably while the satellite speakers – which require all of five minutes to setup – are almost magical in their simplicity. For folks who have pulled wire under or across walls and floors, this setup is a godsend. At the bare minimum I’d recommend the Playbar and the Sub. If you want to spring for the Play:3s in the back, you won’t be disappointed. Better (or at least more bass-heavy) soundbars can be had for about as much as the Sonos system. However, if you’re already familiar with the Sonos system, this is probably your best bet. It completely replaces any Play speakers you already have (allowing you to stick them in another room) and paired with other Sonos gear it really sounds great. If you’re new to Sonos, you may not want to start here. Sonos truly shines in music playback and there’s nothing like setting all of your speakers on party mode and creating a soundscape that would normally take you hours of setup and wire management to pull off. The Playbar, then, seems like a device for folks who want to Sonosify their whole home and it’s understandable why they created it. However, it’s not a good introductory device unless you’re in the market for a solid sound bar with a few very cool features. If you’re only looking for music playback, a few Play:5 speakers and maybe a SUB are a good place to start. Can you get better sound out of equally or more expensive speakers? Potentially. However, the added value of complete control of your music and TV audio is a huge plus. The Sonos system shines when there are a few speakers going at once and if you’re looking for a true wireless surround sound system, look no further. If you’re simply trying to replace the wonky speakers built into your TV, however, the Playbar faces tougher competition but stands firm against similarly-priced soundbars. It is well worth a look when considering living room/TV audio systems.
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That problem where you’re meeting someone for the first time, maybe to pick up something you bought through Craigslist? Google Glass can help with that. A new app designed for Google’s upcoming smart-mounted computer will be able to identify people based on what they’re wearing. The so-called InSight project (via 9to5Google) is funded in part by Google and developed by University of South Caroline and Duke University researchers, and uses a smartphone app to develop a clothing-based digital fingerprint to help identify strangers. The app would let users like sellers on Craigslist, or members of online dating sites, or anyone meeting someone for the first time create a profile of themselves using their smartphone camera, and shots from various angles. InSight would then piece together a virtual profile of that person based on what they’re wearing, which could then be used by Google Glass to make a positive ID when that person comes within range of its visual sensors. It’s very sci-fi, it’s very cool, and best of all, it’s very accurate: in tests so far the researchers behind the project have been able to get a positive match 93 percent of the time. The system uses clothes because it provides more visual signals at a distance to help with identification, and also because it keeps a user’s identity more or less private, since all they have to do is change clothes in order to not be identified by the same person’s Google Glass application in the future. But it could be refined to help with prosopagnosia, otherwise known as face blindness, and that’s where Google Glass’s therapeutic potential really starts to become apparent. Prosopagnosia may affect up to 2.5 percent of the world’s population to varying degrees, according to a recent study, so while rare a system that corrects it could still have a significant impact. InSight, or technology like it, could help by identifying people based on their facial characteristics and keeping a stored database of people know to the Google Glass wearer, so that they can ‘recognize’ faces thanks to information provided through their heads up display. The same kind of tech could also help with visual agnosia, a disorder resulting from strokes that can render a patient incapable of identifying everyday objects. And for more quotidian uses, it could work in tandem with language learning software to help learners identify the world around them in their target tongue. Google Glass may not be something consumers can buy quite yet, but it’s already showing that it could have plenty of applications beyond just acting as an extension of your smartphone.
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Question: How do you attract a key youth, mobile-first demographic to your social network and get them to increase engagement? Answer: Partner with an OEM handset manufacturer to create a powerful yet reasonably priced branded device with all your software already on board. Facebook looks to be readying a follow-up to the HTC Status, a mid-market smartphone it released with a dedicated Facebook button in 2011, and a new leak shows off its specs. Over at Unwired View, noted leakster Evleaks claims to have obtained a recent list of HTC Facebook phone specs (from a source with a proven track record, unlike another recent Evleaks discovery), and they confirm earlier leaks on the same, with some improvements for the better. The HTC Facebook phone, codenamed the “Myst,” will reportedly have a 1.5GHz dual-core MSM8960 SoC processor from Qualcomm, along with 1GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage, which isn’t expandable. It’ll have a 5 megapixel rear camera, and a 1.6 megapixel front-facing shooter, if the stats are correct, and will run Jelly Bean 4.1.2. The screen won’t be overly massive at 4.3 inches, with 720p resolution and 320PPI pixel density, but it should be a good-looking device regardless, with near-Retina resolution. That’s good for showing off Facebook’s upcoming News Feed redesign, which is hitting mobile platforms as well as the desktop over the course of the coming months. The HTC/Facebook collab should ship in the U.S. by sometime this spring, according to Unwired View, complete with Facebook software onboard, including the app for the network itself, Facebook Messenger, and Instagram. It’s not like the apps aren’t popular enough already, but a relatively inexpensive device with the software already onboard is a way for Facebook to target directly the market where it needs to start seeing more growth. The handset doesn’t seem to be too far below top-tier devices based on these specs (with the exception of that camera, which could use HTC’s Ultrapixel tech to still deliver solid photos), so if it’s priced right it could be a boon for both Facebook and HTC.
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BlackBerry’s top brass eagerly danced around the issue of a U.S. launch date for its new Z10 smartphone during its grand BlackBerry 10 unveiling, but the folks at Bloomberg may have shed some new light on the Canadian company’s plans. Bloomberg reports that AT&T is preparing to release the BlackBerry Z10 on March 22, though AT&T has been unsurprisingly quiet on the matter. If other recent reports hold true, AT&T’s Z10 won’t be by itself for long — it’s been said that T-Mobile is gearing up for a mid-March Z10 launch of its own (though a leaked carrier roadmap has the launch pegged for later in the month), and Verizon Wireless is expected to push its version out the door sometime in April. On the other hand, Sprint has chosen to skip the all-touch Z10 entirely, opting to carry only the QWERTY keyboard-packing Q10 later this year. With general interest in BlackBerry waning over the past few years thanks to some ambitious competitors, RIM has its work cut out for it if it wants to make another splash in the United States. If comScore’s most recent mobile market share report is to be believed, BlackBerry devices only account for 5.9% of the U.S. smartphones in use (down from roughly 7.8% in October 2012). Granted, RIM still seems to have a better handle on things than Microsoft and its Windows Phones, but a solid domestic launch could see the company solidify its position as the third major mobile OS. Of course, part of BlackBerry’s continued resilience has to do with its performance in developing markets, and CEO Thorsten Heins recently shed some light on the company’s plans for shoring up its positions there. According to a recent Q&A with Bloomberg, Heins and the rest of the company don’t intend to take on low-cost handset manufacturers like ZTE and Huawei, which have made significant inroads not only in China but India and parts of Africa as well. Their major draw is their ability to churn out reasonably robust, sub-$100 Android smartphones, and that’s the sort of game BlackBerry doesn’t seem eager to play. “This is not BlackBerry,” Heins said, adding that this year would see the release of multiple LTE-enabled BlackBerry 10 devices “geared towards those price bands where people need to be.” While the company could surely pick up some points for churning out low-cost, no-frills hardware in the right markets, its current approach seems to be doing well for now. The company has already released the Z10 in India, and despite the fact that the device costs Rs 43490 (roughly $794) Heins says the Z10 was sold out within two days.
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document.getElementById('wpcom-iframe-form-3b9dd1f1cd7858a3a44131595c19a625').submit(); The Philips Hue lighting system is pretty neat on its own – it lets you control lighting in your house from your iPhone or iPad, adjusting bulb color and brightness remotely via your Wi-Fi network. Ambify is a new app from Stuttgart, Germany-based developer Kai Aras that makes the connected lighting system even cooler, by plugging it into a media player app on the iPhone to automatically generate real-life light shows from your own iTunes library. Ambify connects to a Hue bridge, and applies algorithms to the audio played back from your library via your own iTunes playlists in order to create real-time visualizations using Hue bulbs, altering color, brightness and the rate of change in time with the beat to create a club-like display without any complicated programming or control systems involved. The system works with both Philips Hue lightbulbs, and with Living Colors and Living White lamps, when those are connected to the Philips bridge. As you can see in the demo video, depending on how extensive your setup is, the effect can be pretty stunning. The app is $2.99, which is way cheaper than any other kind of complicated professional sound and light management apps you might get to pull off this kind of display. The Philips Hue isn’t cheap in terms of the cost of getting the base system ($200), but Ambify goes to show that you can do much more with the connected lighting kit than initially meets the eye. A Mac version of Ambify is also planned for release soon. Just yesterday, Romain covered a Minecraft hack that uses the Hue to mimic the in-game cycle of day and night, in order to provide a more immersive experience. Developers have clearly only begun to scratch the surface of what you can do with Hue, and there’s likely lots more exciting stuff on the horizon.
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For a company making a difficult switch from creating software to building hardware, Robocat is making very good early progress. The Danish startup’s Thermodo smartphone thermometer accessory hit its original Kickstarter goal of $35,000 in just seven hours yesterday, and is now at over twice that amount, with pledges still flowing in. Robocat accordingly announced some stretch goals this AM, in a manner that makes me think this is one of the best-engineered Kickstarter projects ever. The stretch goals for the Thermodo include a $125,000 level, where Robocat will turn their affection more squarely to Android. The thermometer was always going to be compatible with Android devices through third-party developers, but the team will make the official Thermodo companion app Android-compatible if funding hits that level, and will ensure that Thermo, the startup’s existing app, will also work with Thermodo on Android. At $250,000, a new colorway comes into the mix, with a red option available for all backers who pledged $25 or above. And finally, should the project exceed $500,000 in funding, everyone will get an aluminum Thermodo. Robocat is currently offering an anodized aluminum level, but that will remain special as the other levels will have only black, white and red as color options. The stretch goals look artfully planned to have been ready to go based on Thermodo’s early success, and that’s why I applaud the project’s design. Robocat went into it knowing exactly how much they needed to get the production line rolling, and asked for only that, but then were ready with upgrades designed to capitalize on the fact that it might be a hit with backers. Individual pledge levels are low, and the overall target looks very achievable, so backers are naturally less skittish about putting down their money since there appears to be little risk. Expect Thermodo to reach most, if not all of those tiers in its stretch goals. Which will add up to a huge amount of actual devices to ship when it comes time to deliver. That may be the most interesting part of the whole project: watching how a software company handles mass production of a hardware accessory.
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It’s hard to find a compelling use case for the Philips Hue. But Jim Rutherford and his son hacked the wireless LED lightbulbs to be in sync with the day/night cycle in Minecraft. It creates an immersive setup and is actually useful as creepers start appearing at nighttime. In Minecraft, 24 hours go by in ten minutes. It’s therefore fairly easy to program the Hue to progressively change color. But Rutherford had to find a clever implementation to sync time between the game and the light. He developed an iPad app to adjust the position of the sun or the moon in the sky according to the game. You just have to pan your finger across the screen. Then, the app handles the interface to the lightbulb. You can see how it pans out at the end of the video. At $199 for the Philips Hue starter pack, it sure is an expensive accessory. Only the existing Hue owners or hardcore Minecraft players should consider replicating this setup. Rutherford said that he will release the app in the App Store so that everyone will be able to enjoy Minecraft’s virtual sunset. For now, you can have a look at the source code.
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Google’s new Chromebook Pixel is a curious device. While its beautiful, seamless hardware nearly justifies its $1,299 price tag, the Chrome OS (which only offers access to a limited pool of third-party apps and Google products, plus the Internet) does not. In the specs department, both John and I are impressed. The Pixel has a 12.85-inch 2560 x 1700 touchscreen. To be exact, that’s 4.3 million pixels (not 4.1 billion, like I mentioned in the video). As MG points out in his review, the touchscreen is truly beautiful. I find myself longing for it at this very moment, while I type this out on my MacBook Air. The Pixel powered by an Intel Core i5 processor, and comes with 1 terabyte of free storage on Google Drive over three years. If you prefer, Google is also coming out with an LTE-capable version of the Pixel soon, which will come with 100MB/month for two years courtesy of Verizon. And boy is the Pixel a beauty! It’s possible that the Pixel is one of the best looking laptops I’ve ever set eyes on, and John seems to agree (albeit less enthusiastically). The main obstacle between the Pixel and two flies is how caged-in the user will eventually be. If you use all Google services, exclusively, then please don’t hesitate to pick up the Pixel. However, if you’re fond of Skype or Microsoft Office or TweetDeck, you’ll find yourself quite displeased the moment you realize you can’t download any of that. Of course, Google has its own answers for those services with Docs, Hangouts, Drive, etc. But we all have our preferences, and no one likes to feel restricted while at the computer. As we move toward life entirely in the cloud, the Pixel will become increasingly relevant. For now, however, you either need to adore Google products exclusively or be ready to install Linux.
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Apple’s iOS is consolidating its grip on the enterprise market and taking share from Android, according to customer data from enterprise file sharing and hybrid cloud storage company Egnyte, which offers cloud back-up and storage services for a mix of customers, from large corporates with thousands of seats to SMEs with just a handful. Of course different enterprises have very different needs and requirements when it comes to mobile devices. Take a look at governments, for instance, and you’d be convinced BlackBerry is still killing it. But as a snapshot of the mobile OSes being favoured by different sized companies, mostly U.S.-based (80% of the data, with the other 20% pertaining to European businesses), this data is an interesting subset to add to the pile. The data, shared directly with TechCrunch, covers 100,000 of Egnyte’s paying customers over the last year and a half+, tracking which OS they are using to access its services on mobile devices and also splitting out iPhone and iPad use. The numbers look strong for Apple, with the iPhone especially growing its proportion of users since the second half of 2011 to-date — perhaps helped by the halo effect of iPads arriving in the enterprise and persuading business folk to trade their BlackBerrys for iPhones. Egnyte’s data doesn’t specifically refer to BlackBerrys but does show Apple taking share away from Android. “Apple seems to have at least temporarily won the hearts and minds of business users with its products accounting for about 70% of our traffic,” Egnyte told TechCrunch. In Q3/Q4 2011, Egnyte’s data shows the following device breakdown — giving iOS a 68% majority of Egnyte’s enterprise user-base: iPhone 28% iPad 40% Android 30%  (phones and tablets) other 2% In 2012, the iPhone grew its proportion, while the iPad’s very sizeable share shrank to below a third — suggesting iPhone usage cannibalised iPad usage to an extent. Overall, though, Apple’s percentage rose to 69%: iPhone 42% iPad 27% Android 30% (phones and tablets) other 1% Egnyte has also scraped some early data for Q1 2013, which shows both iPhone and iPad usage rising — this time apparently at the expense of Android phones and tablets, which had previously held a steady share of 30%. There is also no sign as yet of a Microsoft enterprise mobile resurgence with its Windows Phone OS (the ‘other’ catch-all category doesn’t yet figure in the 2013 data). Apple holds a whopping, ‘Pacman-shaped’ 78% share of the user base as of Q1 2013: iPhone 48% iPad 30% Android 22% (phones and tablets) Egnyte’s data on enterprise users’ preference for iPhones tallies broadly with data from mobile device management company Good Technology, covered recently by CITEword. Good reported even higher percentages for iOS — with nearly 77% of devices activated by its corporate customers in Q4 2012 powered by iOS, up from 71% in the fourth quarter of 2011. Good also found Android’s enterprise mobile shared declining, dropping to 22.7% in Q4 2012, down from 29% in Q4 2011. (It also tracked a 0.5% rise for Windows Phone.) Returning to Egnyte’s data for 2012, almost a fifth (19%) of the Android traffic was generated using a Nook tablet — so despite the iPad’s popularity with business users, some enterprises are evidently not immune to the lure of using cheaper tablet hardware. The company also breaks out wi-fi access by device for 2012. It found that 40% of iPad sessions occurred over wi-fi, while just 31% of iPhone sessions did — suggesting the iPhone still prevails as the device of choice in the most mobile situations, ie when users are moving around a lot or aren’t in range of a wi-fi network (perhaps because businesses have purchased wi-fi only iPads to keep ongoing costs down). Egnyte speculates that smartphones are fractionally quicker to begin using than tablets, typically sitting within easy reach, so tend to be the device of choice for viewing files on the fly, with users waiting for a more comfortable environment before getting out the tablet to do some editing.  ”Overall, tablet use in the corporate marketplace hasn’t been as high as we would expect, but… we think this may be more due to people’s love affairs with their phones, than for any lack in the capabilities of a tablet,” the company said. Commenting generally on the data, Egnyte told TechCrunch: While initially iPads dominated our use, iPhones have taken over.  2011 use showed the iPad accounting for 40% of our usage, in 2012 iPhones are now 42% of usage, and Android has remained constant at about 30% of use. There are two interesting points here, first, Apple seems to have at least temporarily won the hearts and minds of business users with its products accounting for about 70% of our traffic. This is important because it’s a flip flop from the days of old, where Apple products were rarely seen in the corporate landscape.   It’s also an indication that when BYOD rested control over what devices consumers used from IT, they overwhelmingly chose an easy to use product that focused on UI and usability, perhaps even at times over depth. The second interesting point is that while tablets are certainly hot, iPhones are driving most of the traffic. This may be due to the fact that the iPad doesn’t replace a laptop yet as the corporate device of choice, but try and take a business person’s smartphone away from them, and you may not have a hand left.  Smartphones are a must have, and we suspect that since people are already checking email on such a phone while they are working remotely, it’s an extra step to get out and bootup your tablet, so if you have a great phone app that does the same thing, just use it to view your files. Most editing we think still happens on the laptop/desktop.  This ‘on the go’ access is further confirmed by the fact that only 31% of iPhone sessions occurred over wifi, that means over three-quarters of access happens via cellular services.
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Now that it’s spent some time trying to navigate the gap between churning out PC accessories and actual, honest-to-goodness gaming computers, the folks at Razer have seen fit to look for some experts for guidance. To that end, Razer announced earlier today that it has appointed entrepreneur and former VoodooPC founder Rahul Sood to serve as advisor to the company’s board of directors. While Sood’s recent turns as GM of Microsoft’s Bing Fund angel fund/incubator and as head of Microsoft’s new global startups group have a strictly entrepreneurial bent, he’s no stranger to the sorts of issues that Razer (and CEO Min-Liang Tan) are facing. If anything, he seems like a natural fit for the role given his own experience crafting a business out of game-centric hardware — his first venture, VoodooPC, operated as a high-end gaming PC boutique of sorts before being acquired by HP in mid-2006. His recent endeavors have taken him away from his roots as a champion of PC gaming performance, but Sood still seems to look at the PC gaming space with some degree of fondness. In a statement released by Razer earlier today, Sood noted that he saw the company as “the spiritual successor to [his] previous work at VoodooPC,” a sentiment he first expressed publicly after spending some time with Razer’s pricey Blade gaming laptop last year. Frankly, Razer could use a bit of guidance. After carving out a name for itself as a proprietor of popular gaming mice and keyboards, it’s relatively newfound zeal for peculiar computers took some by surprise. While the Blade gaming laptop soon gained a rabid following for its no-compromise approach to gaming portables, the company is now looking to make another splash with its Razer Edge gaming tablet. Tablets and high-end gaming are two things that have arguably never gone well together, and Sood’s experience bringing these sorts of enthusiast devices to market could be a big boon for Razer.
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3D printing company Shapeways had a banner 2012 — it locked up a $6.2 million Series B last year in a round led by Lux Capital, and established a full-blown factory in Long Island City. And it’s hoping to make the process of designing and printing physical knickknacks even easier this year. The plan? To inspire developers to create a slew of new design apps that hook into Shapeways’ printing and shipping workflow. To that end, the company officially released a new dev portal and REST-based API to developers and 3D-printing buffs earlier today. For the uninitiated, Shapeways is essentially the cross between a 3D printing firm and a consumer-facing marketplace. Artists and designers who upload the digital blueprints for their wares to Shapeways can simply have them printed and shipped to them for their personal enjoyment, but they’re also able to set up shop and list the finished product(s) alongside a slew of others in hopes of making a sale. The new API features some much-needed modifications like finer-grain controls when uploading models and the ability to generate real-time prices for models regardless of the materials and finishes desired, but the release speaks to a greater focus on apps as a means of creation. “Apps are now a first-class entity on Shapeways,” said representative Elisa Richardson, who also noted that the company has plans to better showcase those apps going forward. While the new API was only formally released this morning, Shapeways teamed up with a handful of developers during a private beta period to get a feel for what was possible using the API. The early results are rather nifty — a web app called MixeeMe allows users to design tiny Mii-esque avatars that can be printed and shipped, while TinkerCad acts as a full in-browser object-design tool that hooks into the API to pass along completed designs for printing. With the API (and the apps that will eventually tap into it) Shapeways is clearly pushing to bring 3D printing to the mainstream. Part of its approach is to play up its consumer-facing side — Richardson also noted that the team is dedicated to showcasing the company’s “marketplace and manufacturing platform” with this launch. Not a bad move, especially considering that Shapeways has been treating some of its sellers rather well. Shapeways notes on its official blog that the platform’s 8,000 shop owners made “nearly $500,000 in profits” last year, and CEO Peter Weijmarshausen told Forbes recently that he expects to see the first Shapeways millionaire some time next year. That said, Shapeways isn’t without competition — players like Cubify have marketplaces of their own (though arguably Cubify’s main focus is on selling its own 3D printers), and upstarts like Azavy are gearing up to throw hats into the 3D-printing ring.
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The proportion of web traffic coming from tablets has pushed past smartphones for the first time, according to Adobe’s latest Digital Index which has tracked more than 100 bil­lion vis­its to 1,000+ web­sites worldwide, between June 2007 to date, to compare which device types are driving the most page views. The monitored markets are the  U.K, U.S., China, Canada, Australia, Japan, France and Germany. While the difference between smartphone and tablet traffic is marginal — with tablets accounting for eight per cent of the measured page views and smartphones seven per cent — the growth in tablet page views is impressive, especially considering how new the category is (the first iPad launched in April 2010). Of course both mobile device types still account for a fraction of the total share of page views when compared to desktops/laptops — which accounted for 84 per cent of the page views, according to Adobe’s data – but both are taking a growing share, and tablet growth is on an especially steep trajectory: Adobe attributes the rise of tablet page views to how well-suited the form factor is for web browsing, with the most obvious attribute being tablets’ larger screen size vs smartphones (albeit, that gap is closing as some tablets shrink and some smartphones swell). On average, Adobe found that Inter­net users view 70 per cent more pages per visit when brows­ing with a tablet com­pared to a smartphone — so tablet users are doing more leisurely (and presumably leisure time) browsing. While there is a good spread of different activities across both tablets and smartphones, Adobe’s index indicates that online shopping is a particularly popular activity for tablet users. Retail web­sites receive the high­est share of tablet traf­fic across all indus­tries, according to its data, while auto­mo­tive and travel shop­ping websites also get a “sig­nif­i­cant share” of tablet traffic: Writing on its digital index blog, Adobe adds: We’ve been keep­ing a close eye on how quickly tablets have taken off. Just ayear ago in Jan­u­ary we uncov­ered that vis­i­tors using tablets spend 54% more per online order than their coun­ter­parts on smart­phones, and 19% more than desktop/laptop users. Dur­ing the past hol­i­day shop­ping sea­son we saw that 13.5% of all online sales were trans­acted via tablets. And last month before the Super Bowlwe learned that online view­er­ship via tablets dou­bles dur­ing big sport­ing events. Now we know that not only is tablet traf­fic more valu­able in terms of ecom­merce and engage­ment, tablets have also become the pri­mary device for mobile browsing. The U.K. leads Adobe’s Index for tablet page views, with the U.S. second: All coun­tries tracked saw their share of traf­fic from tablets dou­ble over the course of 2012 — a trend Adobe expects to con­tinue through 2013. It added that some slight dips in tablet share in certain countries in November were down to PC traffic surging, rather than tablet page views dropping:
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document.getElementById('wpcom-iframe-form-4ffd57b78d093645d2c1bf1afc24b3f1').submit(); Danish startup Robocat has built a lot of software for Apple’s iOS devices, but today the company is branching out with the launch of a new hardware accessory for the iPhone, iPad, and Android devices. It’s called Thermodo, and it’s a very small hardware thermometer that fits in your device’s headphone jack, and transmits real temperature data for use in apps. The Thermodo hardware has a passive temperature sensor, housed in an audio jack and protected by a small cylindrical end cap that only extends around a quarter of an inch out from your device. It doesn’t need its own power source, and it transmits weather data as an audio signal that can be picked up by your phone and translated into the corresponding temperature on your phone via an API, which the company will first use in a dedicated Thermodo companion app for iOS, as well as in two of its previously released apps, Haze and Thermo. The Thermodo works offline, indoors and out, and comes with a carrying case keyring to make sure you don’t lose the tiny thing when it’s not in use. Robocat says that eventually, any device could potentially support Thermodo, including Raspberry Pi, Macs, and Arduino-based gadgets, thanks to the company’s open source SDK. I talked to Robocat founder Willi Wu about the project, and why it came to be in the first place. He says the company branched out from its core focus on mobile weather apps based on feedback from users. “The idea Thermodo is actually based on an indirect request from our users,” he explained.” We received several one star reviews because our users wanted the feature of measuring the temperature themselves right where they are. Currently the iPhone does not support any access to any temperature reading within the phone nor is there a dedicated sensor for this purpose. We wanted to attack to this problem anyway and came up with the most simple solution we could imagine, Thermodo.” While other devices like the Square credit card reader and the Jawbone UP fitness band use the headphone jack as a way for accessories to communicate with smartphone devices, Wu says that Thermodo is fundamentally different in its approach. That opens up plenty more possibilities for how the company could use the tech in the future to create other kinds of sensors, he says. “Thermodo is not translating sounds to data like Square or other softmodem-based products,” he said. “It turns out that we can apply this method to all kind of applications. What we do is converting the temperature into an electrical impedance and this impedance is determined by what we call the “Thermodo Principle.” Now we can convert all kind of things into an electrical impedance, like for example wind speed, pressure, brightness and so on.” Wu says Robocat’s technical lead is already measuring his resistors and capacitors in this manner, and that the company is experimenting with some of these alternate sensing capabilities already. Eventually  Thermodo could have a number of sibling devices to gauge just about everything under the sun (including the sun’s brightness). Thermodo is looking for just $35,000 in funding, and pre-order pledges start at just $19 for a single Thermodo unit. This is a project that will hit its goal quickly, and I can’t wait to see what comes next from Robocat’s new hardware focus.
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There’s very little to be said about this viral video except that it’s a cute rendition of what will happen for maybe the first two weeks after Google Glass is launched. In fact, I suspect it will almost be impossible to get away with this stuff once Glass hits its tipping point as potential dates will be wary of your motives when you blurt out “Google Jennifer Swanson” before sipping your latte. Imagine this dystopian future: You enter a bar on a date, spend a little time in awkward conversation, and then, bored, both of you end up staring at the readouts near your corneas, oblivious to each other. The birth-rate will fall. There will be anti-Glassites who snatch these things from people’s faces and there will be Glass-free zones where orgiastic explorations of the human animal will take place with reckless abandon for you will finally be free. Free! Men and women will be reduced to zombies, wandering aimlessly as texts scroll past their eyes like flies on a dead cow’s face. Slowly, surely, our major cities will descend into lethargy and a group of Luddites will arise to fill the vacuum. The Glassites will be pacified by porn piped right into their heads while the rest of the world – the dreamers, the drinkers, and the astigmatics – will take the reins. One day a nuclear dirty bomb, built using instructions found on the Internet by a Glassite who was vaguely upset with his score in Angry Birds Glass, will destroy most of the Northeast, and Glassites will descend into rabid madness as the media hubs of the world grind to a halt. With no more Reddit or BuzzFeed, Glassites will wake up from their slumbers, their atrophied bodies limp as old spinach. But by that time it will be too late. The anti-Glassites will rule the world, their Amish-like refusal to take up technology their only protection against the tyranny of Mother Google. They will rebuild civilization in their own image, which means there will be a lot of board games and barbecues. Or maybe Glass will end up like the Segway – kind of cool, but vaguely useless. Who knows? What am I? A mind reader?
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Sometimes the best Kickstarter projects are the simplest ones. Lumio is a lamp masquerading as a beautiful hardcover book with a wooden finish. To turn the lamp on, you open it up. To turn it off, you close. It’s equal parts simplicity and ingenuity. Lumio came into being when architect and designer Max Gunawan was trying to design a modular home that could fit inside a compact car. When Max realized he didn’t have enough funds to build a working prototype, he decided to use the his built up expertise somewhere else. “When I decided to pivot and translate the concept into a folding lamp, it was a natural progression to use the form of the sketchbook as a way to package the lamp,” says Max on his Kickstarter page. “That’s how Lumio was born.” An LED powers the Lumio, which can last up to 8 hours when fully charged. The cover comes in dark walnut, warm cherry, and blonde maple options and is also embedded with magnets that allows you to easily attach the Lumio to metal surfaces. Gunawan has raised over $400,000 on his Kickstarter page, shooting well past his original $60K goal. You only have a few more days days to pledge and nab a Lumio for yourself, so if you want one I’d suggest you get going now.
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