Month: November 2016

Categories
Connected Objects Personal Transportation

The Immotor GO is the Tesla of e-scooters

editors-choice-300x96The first and last miles of every commute are usually the most annoying, making any solution for them worth looking at for those sick of them.

The Immotor GO is a new entrant into this segment, billed as a smart e-scooter — and smart it is. This folding, three-wheeled e-scooter sports a wide range of design perks and smart functionality that make it unlike much else on the market. Starting up top, users will find an intelligent display (with Bluetooth connection status, charging status, remaining distance, headlight status, total distance, and cruise control status), easy-to-use controls for acceleration and braking, a SIM-based integrated GPS module, a built-in Bluetooth speaker, and LED headlights — and that’s all just in its handlebars! 

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Categories
Imaging

Daisho, in a dash, transforms your camera gimbal into shoulder rig

Motorized gimbals have significantly improved camera stabilization. However, gimbals are often difficult to use and too cumbersome for real-world film and video shooting.

patent-claimedDaisho is a 90-degree clamp that overcomes such issues, converting a gimbal into a lightweight shoulder rig to stabilize cameras while shooting. With the patent-pending clamp, people shooting video can now convert virtually any gimbal on the market into an ergonomic and lightweight stabilizer, making it easier to take difficult shots. Daisho has also been designed to accept industry standard 15-mm rods and uses standard M5 bolts – an apparent indication that it’s compatible with at least most gimbals on the market.

Daisho starts shipping in November. Future pricing isn’t provided. But Kickstarter backers can order one for a pledge starting at $78. Its makers hope to raise $27,000 to cover the cost of Daisho production by Nov. 26.

Camera gimbals have become a growing product category and it is indeed often a chore to use at least some of them. Therefore, there is a clear market for Daisho.

 

 

 

 

Categories
Connected Objects

Say Bonjour to easier mornings with this smart alarm clock

It seems like every day, a new idea for a smart assistant hits the crowdfunding circuit, and for good reason: The utility of having one in the home is only growing with their expanding abilities.

While the Bonjour Smart Alarm Clock is one of these, what sets it apart is its use of artificial intelligence to learn a user’s routines and habits, integrate itself with smart home devices, and be totally controlled using nothing but conversational language. The device is designed to be used in the bedroom to facilitate an easier morning routine. By simply asking it, users can get an update on the weather, traffic, and news, control products like Hue lights and Nest thermostats, and even play music through Spotify.

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Categories
Cell Phone Accessories

Selfie Feet lets your leg go toe to toe with selfie sticks

Depending on who you talk to, selfie sticks are as popular as ever or on their way out. The Quin Media Group has its feet firmly planted in the latter idea with its Selfie Feet.

Contary to its name, Selfie Feet is actually an elastic band with a magnetic button that wraps around a person’s foot. A similar button is then attached to the back of a smartphone and like that, the two can connect. The result does away with the need for selfie sticks or a person’s own hand, instead relying on the foot to get the best possible angles for the best possible selfies.

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Categories
Maker/Development Robots/Drones

Root programming robot helps STEM knowledge branch out

editors-choice-300x96With the world becoming increasingly modernized, the importance of having children engage in the principles of programming as early
as possible has skyrocketed. And while it’s easy to see the financial benefits of that exposure, what’s more important is the analytical and critical thinking it develops in those young minds. This is why the Root was created.

Root is a Roomba-looking robot that focuses on teaching both kids and adults valuable programming skills. The robot itself can attach itself and navigate walls or just wander about on the floor and is equipped with a variety sensors for coders to play with. The Root’s companion app has three levels. The first has a graphical interface that non-readers can use to learn basic concepts of events, sequences, loops, states, functions, priorities, timing, program stepping and debugging.

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Categories
Connected Objects Safety

RoboRanger serves as your personal safety device

Portable safety devices can come in really handy when there is an emergency. But many of them require being tethered to another device or Bluetooth connection to a smartphone, which a lot of consumers –- especially senior citizens – don’t often have.

RoboRanger is a water-resistant personal safety device that features a loud, 130-decibel alarm, around-the-clock monitoring, and friends/family notification. It also has a standalone connection to 911 and provides 24/7 coverage virtually anywhere in the world, its makers say. Plus, it connects directly to GSM and GPS without a smartphone or other device. It requires one simple motion to activate during an emergency situation: users just have to pull its pin and that will activate the alarm and transmit the user’s exact location to a professional 911 response team.

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Categories
Kids/Babies Robots/Drones

Behind its cute smile, the Plobot teaches tykes to program

The idea of teaching young children about the nuances of programming logic is quickly becoming more commonly accepted. Doing so benefits all types of skills, from visualization to problem solving, and help children confront the challenges of a rapidly developing world.

The Plobot is another in a long line of completely physical programming toys created to help children explore the world of progamming world in a very tactile way. Created by NYU robotics professor Rudi Cossovich and ex-Google engineer Sean Purser-Haskell, does away with syntax and computer screens while still educating children about algorithms, loops, conditionals, and more. Command cards are core to the Plobot experience, with each representing a block of code. Kids can tap or swipe them on Plobot’s head to string them together and create a program the robot follows, with the play card serving as an execute function.

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Categories
Lighting

Helium smart light uses machine learning to light up the home

Smart lights are undoubtedly cool. What’s not is the time spent digging through a light’s companion app for just the right setting, or having an assistant like Siri or Amazon’s Echo misunderstand a user’s command to turn one on or off. The Helium machine learning smart light is trying to get rid of the fuss for a smoother smart light experience.

Helium is three things in one: A machine learning connected light bulb, a night shift feature light, and a Wi-Fi extender. Its machine learning capabilities take into account time, location, weather, proximity and behavior to make it context aware. This results in lights turning on by themselves when entering a room, for example, and shifting to a bright white light during work hours for increased productivity or a warm white light right before bed for to better adhere to the body’s internal rhythms.

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Categories
Video Games

The Smach Z portable gaming PC is the chosen one

The dream of any hardcore game: A handheld gaming PC powerful enough to play AAA titles. With the Smach Z, that elusive dream has finally come true.

The lightweight portable device looks like a cross between a laptop and an old-school Sega Game Gear, but with all the functionality and power of a gaming PC. The Smach Z comes in two versions: A regular version and a Pro version. Both share an AMD Merlin Falcon CPU clocked at 2.1GHz, a Radeon R7 GOU clocked at 800MHz, a 6″ 1080p touch screen, an accelerometer, gyroscope, a Wi-Fi module and five hour battery life, but differ on RAM, internal memory, and the presence of a front-facing camera for Twitch streaming and a 4G LTE connection. (The regular version sports 4GB of RAM and 16GB of storage, while the PRO ups its to 8GB and 128GB.) All together, this unassuming device can play almost any game on Steam at high to medium settings, including the latest AAA titles.

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Categories
Robots/Drones

The Roboming’s sleek design can’t hide lack of functionality

The robot revolution is well underway, but it’s still a long way off from the stuff of science fiction books, TV and movies. For now, robots like the Roboming Fellow are filling the gap between the inevitable, more advanced creations — and does a fair job at doing so.

The Roboming Fellow is a small but sleekly designed robot built for companionship, light home security, and pets. Its calming blue LED light and pan/tilt capabilities almost give the device its own personality, so that a user’s voice commands are not only met with them being carried out but with a little nod and shake as well. Roboming can also scan and create a map of the home, useful for navigating to a user or for patrols when a user is gone.

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