Categories
Automotive Connected Objects

Frizon HUD guides your car with a transparent screen, responds to gestures and speech

Heads-up displays (HUDs) tend to be better than traditional GPS devices because HUDs allow users to keep their eyes straight on the road in front of them while getting navigation and other useful information. A HUD display pops up directly in front of the driver, over the windshield, but doesn’t block the driver’s ability to see the road.

Frizon is a HUD with a transparent, Active Matrix OLED (AMOLED) screen. It auto starts with the car engine and responds to hand gestures and through speech recognition to control the radio, answer the phone and perform other car functions. Users can see all the car’s gauges on the screen without having to look away to the dashboard.

Categories
Connected Objects Kids/Babies Toys

Wordee uses light to help budding wordsmiths master lingo

Technology has never been more prevalent than it is now, especially for the children who, at younger and younger ages, are exposed to more and more of it. But instead of subscribing to the idea that technology ultimately harms childhood development, Tokyo-based JellyWare Inc. wants to embrace it instead with Wordee.

Wordee is an educationally-minded robot that, put simply, draws with light. This unique hook is made possible through Wordee’s use of LEDs that blink in certain patterns that are absorbed by a phosphorescent sheet. This allows the device to “print” out words and phrases that persist for a few seconds before fading away.

Categories
Connected Objects

Weighitz smart scales let you weigh it — whatever it is

The only scale that a lot of consumers own is the one they keep in their bathroom to weigh themselves. However, the clunky design of such scales pretty much makes them useless for weighing anything else –- like food, a pet, mail or a piece of luggage to avoid paying a fee at the airport.

Weighitz are small, modular smart scales designed to accurately weigh pretty much anything in the home, or even certain things outside the home like letters and luggage. It’s water resistant, and its low power consumption and high capacity batteries combine so users rarely have to recharge. When required, the scale can be plugged into the included micro USB charging cable and attached to a computer or wall socket. An indicator will light up when it’s charged.

Weighitz ships in December at future pricing of $25 each or $70 for three. But Indiegogo backers have been able to get Weighitz for pledges starting at $18 for one and $50 for $50. Its makers seek about $32,000 by August 22nd.

This is a handy product, but obviously there are many similar products, including GeniScale, that have come first. The modular design and smart functionality of Weighitz, however, gives it an edge over at least some rival devices. When combined, a set of Weighitz can weigh heavier or more oddly shaped objects. The scale outputs info to the companion smartphone app for unspecified operating systems. When using more than one Weighitz, the app will combine the readings from all the scales into one reading.

 

Categories
Fitness

The Specter brightens up your nighttime runs, one flailing arm at a time

With the rising popularity of nighttime exercises comes a higher rate of accidents. Despite this, many choose not to wear safety gear because they tend to be aesthetically offensive. Therefore, the team at Niports Inc. created the Specter.

The Specter is a lightweight aluminum band studded with LEDs that displays images and messages that can be selected or created using the companion Specter app, perfect for keeping active types visible at night. But the LEDs don’t just display the message themselves. Rather, when the band is moved, it creates a streak of light that forms the image or message using the eye’s penchant for stringing together images — similar to how it does with frames in a movie.

Categories
Connected Objects Pets

PlayDate lets you play with your pets even when you’re apart

Cats and dogs love to play, but pet owners can’t always be home to do that with them because of other commitments, including work and travel.

PlayDate is a remote-controlled ball toy that engages dogs and cats, and records HD video of them playing with it. The pet owner controls the interactive camera remotely from anywhere, via an app on Android and iOS mobile devices. Pet owners can hear their pets through a microphone in the ball and also speak to the pets through a speaker in the ball.

Categories
Food and Beverage

With the Alchema and fruit, it’s always wine o’clock

There’s nothing quite like the revitalizing, crisp taste of a freshly made drink. The problem lies in having the right equipment and time available to create these drinks. While home brewed beer is possible, it’s a lengthy and involved process that most won’t want to get into.

Luckily, when it comes to cider, a jug of store bought fruity goodness isn’t the only choice. With the Alchema, anyone is able to create fresh cider by following a pretty straightforward process. The airtight yet sleekly designed contraption first sanitizes the jug. After, users can throw in their favorite fruits and other ingredients along with packets of yeast in order to begin the fermentation process. In one to two weeks, a pitcher of certified delicious cider is ready for a user’s next get-together. Cider isn’t the only thing Alchema can create. Give it just a week and it can cook up some mead. If time is on your side, throw in some grapes and wait 16 weeks for the ultimate in sophistication: wine.

Categories
Connected Objects

The Like-o-Meter gives Facebook updates the thumbs up

By now, Facebook has become a part of normal, everyday life for 1.7 billion people and businesses around the world, a testament to the company’s original vision of connecting the globe. Still, people who use Facebook fall into two camps: those for whom it plays a very cursory role, and those for whom Facebook is an essential part of their social and professional lives.

For the latter, the idea of more wholly integrating the Facebook experience into their real-world isn’t one that scares them, which is why the Like-o-Meter is a campaign that would appeal to them. It brings the well-known ‘Like’ icon into the real-world, wirelessly connecting to a user’s Facebook account and physically moving its high-quality plastic thumb to signal a fresh like.

Categories
Smartwatches/Bands

The Ticwatch 2 smartwatch responds to your sweet caress

Apple’s foray into the smartwatch market has shown how difficult it truly is to create something that has broad appeal. Of course, style and functionality are critical for this, but so is a more approachable price.

The Ticwatch 2 attacks all this head on, much to the excitement of the true smartwatch believers out there. First off, it boasts a wide range of apps, with more available on its own Ticwear app store. And these apps work in tandem with the many ways the Ticwatch 2 makes available to interact with it. For instance, a double flick of the wrist gesture picks up a phone call, while doing it again ends it. Quality voice control is also prevalent, allow users to query Yelp for a good restaurant nearby or call an Uber. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg: the Ticwatch 2 also tracks fitness, controls music, and even finds a phone if necessary. 

Categories
Imaging Robots/Drones

The Jimble surveillance bot is a pregnant hoverboard that patrols your home

Much to the chagrin of the most ardent futurists, the world is still a long way off from robots being a commonplace fixture in everyday life. Still, that’s not stopping companies from trying their hardest to jumpstart the trend, especially when it comes to home security.

Despite its claim of being the “first”. the Jimble smart moving surveillance robot is another entry in a long line of vaguely similar products offering the protective benefits of a wheeled robot in the hom,  (A quick search on Backerjack immediately pokes a hole in that claim.) Looking a bit like a sawed-off Segway, Jimble doesn’t do anything spectacularly different from other surveillance robots. Like others, it has an HD camera that users can peer into their homes with supplemented by a mic to talk to whoever may be around using Wi-Fi to facilitate a first person view for users on their smart devices.

Categories
Connected Objects Technology

LaserDock lets you beam your own laser light music show

The high of any music event is addictive simply because it’s so difficult to experience that same sort of joy outside of it. On one hand, this makes sense: a true venue built to properly express music is unique. Still, it doesn’t mean some of that feeling can’t be taken home.

The LaserDock is a low-cost laser projector designed to bring the trippy visuals of music clubs and festivals home. It comes with hundreds of built-in visualizers and laser shows that react to music in real-time, creating different patterns each and every time.