3-D pens! The Veronica Mars movie! This weird speaker thing! Kickstarter has brought so much joy into our lives since it founded in 2009. Now, however, products from the site will be even easier to hoard: Amazon has officially partnered with Kickstarter to bring 300 projects to the retailers crowd-funding portal, Launchpad.
“We’re thrilled to collaborate with Amazon Launchpad on creating a new path for those projects to be discovered, experienced, and loved," Kickstarter CEO and Co-Founder Yancey Strickler.
Currently, the portal mostly features gadgets, books, home goods, movies and board games. There's quite a range, from this totally inconspicuous posture fixer featured on Shark Tank to gluten-free banana flour. Some of it looks odd, but then again, as Amazon points out, there's already a proven market for these products.
"Working with Kickstarter is a great way for us to hear directly from customers what products they care about, since they truly hold the power to bring these products to life," Amazon Vice President Jim Adkins said.
The collaboration is the next step for Amazon's Launchpad program, which debuted about a year ago. Its goal was next-level crowd-funding — to connect interested venture capitalists with eager innovators. Since then, Amazon claims it has worked with over 100 leading venture capital firms, startup accelerators, and crowd-funding platforms, and launched more than 1,000 startups. It sure helps that they have Amazon's audience, with roughly 188 million visitors a day.
"Our goal is to enable them to reach Amazon’s hundreds of millions of customers and to overcome one of the biggest challenges any startup faces — bringing their product to market successfully," Adkins said.
3-D pens! The Veronica Mars movie! This weird speaker thing! Kickstarter has brought so much joy into our lives since it founded in 2009. Now, however, products from the site will be even easier to hoard: Amazon has officially partnered with Kickstarter to bring 300 projects to the retailers crowd-funding portal, Launchpad.
“We’re thrilled to collaborate with Amazon Launchpad on creating a new path for those projects to be discovered, experienced, and loved," Kickstarter CEO and Co-Founder Yancey Strickler.
Currently, the portal mostly features gadgets, books, home goods, movies and board games. There's quite a range, from this totally inconspicuous posture fixer featured on Shark Tank to gluten-free banana flour. Some of it looks odd, but then again, as Amazon points out, there's already a proven market for these products.
"Working with Kickstarter is a great way for us to hear directly from customers what products they care about, since they truly hold the power to bring these products to life," Amazon Vice President Jim Adkins said.
The collaboration is the next step for Amazon's Launchpad program, which debuted about a year ago. Its goal was next-level crowd-funding — to connect interested venture capitalists with eager innovators. Since then, Amazon claims it has worked with over 100 leading venture capital firms, startup accelerators, and crowd-funding platforms, and launched more than 1,000 startups. It sure helps that they have Amazon's audience, with roughly 188 million visitors a day.
"Our goal is to enable them to reach Amazon’s hundreds of millions of customers and to overcome one of the biggest challenges any startup faces — bringing their product to market successfully," Adkins said.
Who out there is excited for a new Windows 10 Mobile phone? Did your eyes just light up and your heart skip a beat? You're in the very small minority that cares about Windows 10 Mobile then.
For some reason, the Japanese company NuAns is kick starting a Windows 10 Mobile phone. It would be a great idea if Windows 10 Mobile was relevant at all, but it's not. With only 0.7% of the worldwide smartphone marketshare as of Q1 2016 (that's worse than the 1.7% ending Q3 2015), according to Gartner, the mobile platform is as a good as dead.
Even Microsoft knows it, which is why we're seeing the company pivot towards providing its excellent apps and services on iOS and Android instead.
The dream of carrying just your Windows 10 phone and using Continuum and a dock to transform it into a desktop PC was an idealistic pursuit, but ultimately one nobody cared for. Each of us is a multiple device person with each device serving a different purpose.
With so little marketshare, and more importantly, such a puny selection of apps, you have to wonder what NuAns is thinking with its campaign for the NEO phone. The company's asking for $725,000 to produce its phone, but who the heck is going to buy it?
The niche guy you say! Well, of course, Windows 10 Mobile is a niche — not by choice, but by Microsoft's own failure.
Like a thick old Nokia Lumia smartphone, the NEO isn't competing with the ultra-thin flagship iPhones and Android phones on the market.
IMAGE: NUANS
As a phone, the NEO is decidedly midrange. It has a 5-inch HD display (1,280 x 720), Qualcomm Snapdragon 617 processor, 2GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage (expandable up to 128GB via microSD card), and a 3,350 mAh battery. On the back is a 13-megapixel f/2.0 aperture camera and on the front is a 5-megapixel f/2.4 aperture camera. Yeah...not exciting. But at least it has a reversible USB-C port!
Instead of performance, NuAns is banking on customizability. The NEO has two back cover panels that are interchangeable and the company hopes to sell a variety of different materials for each cover (i.e. wood, plastic, leather, etc.). There's even a cover with a slot for storing cash or credit cards.
IMAGE: NUANS
Don't want to buy their cover panels? No problem. The company's planning to make the designs available for users to 3D print for themselves.
Not to totally poo-poo over NuAns — I applaud them for taking this risk — but they are almost certainly destined for failure.
Windows 10 doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell of gaining popularity and catching up to iOS and Android.
The NEO phone is something Windows phone fans needed years ago. And even if it had launched then, it's questionable if it would have found any success at all seeing as Windows Phone 7 and 8 were flops as well.
To NuAns, I say good luck. There are still 38 days left to the NEO phone's campaign and the company's already received more than $37,000 in crowdfunding at the time of this writing.
Who knows, maybe the phone will get funded and the few people who backed it for $399.99 (early bird special) will be able to enjoy a device that has swappable panels.
SINGAPORE — Getting massaged all day by a jacket you can wear sounds like an insane genius idea.
It's just crazy enough to have won Tware, the Singaporean startup behind the AiraWear jacket, more than 1,000 backers and $150,000 on Kickstarter.
We got our hands on the latest prototype of the AiraWear jacket, which Tware says has undergone improvements since the earlier version it showed at CES.
The jacket is basically a regular hoodie with an inflatable vest zipped into it. The vest has six protruding plastic nubs located along both sides of the spine, from shoulders to lower back — the typical back-massage zones.
IMAGE: TWEAR
As the vest inflates behind each accupressure point, the nub presses into your back and shoulder muscles, mimicking kneading fingers.
The jacket's fleece conceals the nubs beneath.
IMAGE: VICTORIA HO/MASHABLE
The hoodie pairs with an app that shows you which parts of the jacket are inflating to exert pressure. You can slider controls to adjust the intensity.
For such a simple design, the jacket's massage feels surprisingly decent. I like my massages strong, and on maximum strength. The AiraWear was powerful enough to work out some painful spots along my lower back.
IMAGE: VICTORIA HO/MASHABLE
That said, the AiraWear isn't perfect yet. Its nubs move in and out as the air pads behind them are inflated and deflated, but they can't make circular motions the way an actual massage therapist, or some other massage devices, can.
The mechanism isn't capable of vibration — a function common on many massage chairs — but Tware said it may build that into a future model based on requests for it.
A button on the hoodie lights up when it's synced and ready to go.
IMAGE: VICTORIA HO/MASHABLE
The jacket also works best if you sit in a chair with a back during use, so your body weight can help push the nubs into your muscles.
And even though the jacket is touted as a discreet massager you can wear at your desk, when inflated it does give you kind of an unflattering, Hunchback-of-Notre-Dame look. It also makes audible hissing noises as air is pumped in and released during the massage, making it much less likely that we're going to be enjoying secret massages during boring work meetings.
Still, it's a smart idea that will likely find more than a handful of satisfied buyers. Tware says the jacket will eventually list for $249. Its battery lasts for about three hours of use and is chargeable by micro USB, so massage addicts can hook it up to a portable charger and use it all day.
Before it made the AiraWear, Tware also produced a vest targeted at children with autism, which tightens around the wearer to simulate the feeling of being hugged. The company says it has sold some 600 of those jackets globally so far.
SINGAPORE — Another day, another player in the iPhone clip-on lens game. But one Singaporean startup took more than three years to perfect its premium lens, and it's ready to show us what has taken so long.
At the heart of DynaOptics' design is its oval lens. It's rotationally asymmetrical — which the company says is a first for a mobile phone lens.
Asymmetrical lenses have been used in specialty photography for decades, and are often touted as providing better edge-to-edge sharpness by "fitting" over the image sensor, or film.
Using this principle, DynaOptics claims its new Oowa lens' oval shape matches the iPhone's rectangular sensor better, thereby producing a clearer and more distortion-free picture.
That's the idea, at least. But it's expensive and complicated to manufacture, said DynaOptics co-founder and CEO Li Han Chan, who dropped by Mashable's office to give us a test run.
Imagine a potter's wheel. Making a rotationally symmetrical lens means the cutter drops down to a fixed point as the lens beneath is rotated. But cutting an asymmetrical lens requires far more precision in where and when the cutter is applied to the glass.
Chan said 80% of the company's effort has been in developing the machining software platform to make its mobile lenses at scale and reliably.
More than three years later, DynaOptics has finally got its clip-on, and it's trying to bring the Oowa set to life on Kickstarter — the same platform that helped launch Oowa's main competitor, Moment.
A week into its Kickstarter campaign, the Oowa is closer to a reality, with more than $46K pledged toward its $50K goal.
For now, the lens will only be available for iPhones, because it is mapped onto the iPhone's sensor for better image quality, Chan said.
We tested three lens clip-ons, and here's what we found
Mashable tested the Oowa's 2.5x zoom lens against three others: A generic competitor, the Olloclip and the Moment.
Here's a photo taken on an iPhone 6S with no lens attached.
IMAGE: MASHABLE
Here's a close-up on that same test pattern photo using a $30 no-brand lens. The edges are horribly warped, and show colours separating on the test pattern.
IMAGE: MASHABLE
Here's the Olloclip test. We see slight warping and obvious softness at the corners, but it's better than the no-brand lens.
IMAGE: MASHABLE
And here's the test using the Moment. This one maintains a relatively distortion-free image and is sharper at the edges than the Olloclip, but blurriness is still visible. No colour bleeding on the corner dots.
IMAGE: MASHABLE
Lastly, the Oowa. The test pattern is distortion-free, as with the Moment, but is sharper at the edges, and the borders of the black dots are crisp.
IMAGE: MASHABLE
Close-ups
Here's a 100% crop of the corner of the no-brand lens, showing red and blue colours bleeding into the dot because the lens isn't focusing the light properly on the spot.
IMAGE: MASHABLE
This is from the Olloclip. The circle's shape is maintained, but you can see slight bleeding of reds and blues in either corner.
IMAGE: MASHABLE
Here's a crop of the Moment's shot. You get some colour bleeding still, while the shot is relatively sharp in the corners.
IMAGE: MASHABLE
Finally, the Oowa's crop. All black, no colour bleeding, and clean borders indicating a sharp shot.
IMAGE: MASHABLE
Tests like these matter, because in real life, away from test patterns, bleeding colors can do some nasty things to your pictures.
In the shot of the trees below, taken with an unnamed competitor's lens, you can see purple fringing — also known as chromatic aberration — around the edges of the leaves. It's caused by the lens failing to focus the different wavelengths of light on one spot, resulting in some colours being exposed separately.
IMAGE: DYNAOPTICS
DynaOptics wants to give your future phone built-in optical zoom
It's worth noting that Dynaoptics didn't start out making lens clip-ons. Nearly four years ago, Chan and co-founder and CTO Kelvin Cheo pitched the idea to build optical zoom directly into mobile phone lenses. They want to do this using Alvarez lens technology, creating lenses that can move sideways instead of in and out, to accommodate the flat-phone form factor.
It's a lofty goal, and the team needed to prove to investors that they could do this at scale.
"So the Kickstarter [for the Oowa clip-on] is a showcase of what we can do, and will provide some early revenue for the team," Chan said.
The lens clip-on scene is fairly niche, appealing to "iPhoneographers" who want just a little more from mobile phone photography than the average consumer. Entering this market pits the Oowa against popular contenders like Moment and the Olloclip, with new premium lenses likes Fellowes' Exolens, which just came out with Zeiss clip-ons for the iPhone.
Chan admitted that it's a bit of a gamble committing the Oowa to the current 1/3" sensor that the iPhone has been using since the iPhone 5S. However, she said the sensor is "not likely" to change for a while, at least not in the forthcoming iPhone 7, so the Oowa should have reasonable longevity in the market. The Oowa will retail for $85 for either the wide angle or zoom lens, or $150 for the set of both. By comparison, the Moment sells for $180 on Apple, and the Olloclip is listed at $80. The Exolens is on Amazon at $100 for one lens, or $130 for two.
But you might see optical zoom becoming native in phones over the next couple of years. DynaOptics is currently in conversation with phone makers in China, and is targeting an early 2018 rollout of a built-in mobile lens. If you want the Oowa's benefits without the need for an accessory, you'll just have to wait.
Six months after the release of the Pebble Round, Pebble is back with a new lineup. And because its Pebble, you know it’s launching on Kickstarter.
Fifteen months after raising $20 million for the Pebble Time on Kickstarter, the original smartwatch maker is back with the Pebble 2 and the Pebble Time 2. It’s also launching a new non-smartwatch product called the Pebble Core.
The Pebble 2 is being billed as the company’s “most affordable” smartwatch, with a focus on fitness. The design is reminiscent of the original Pebble — though the sides are a little more tapered and it feels thinner.
Like the original Pebble and the Pebble Time, the Pebble 2 has an e-paper display and weeklong battery life. It’s also waterproof up to 30 meters and it has a built-in microphone for notes and voice replies. It will retail for $129 when it ships this September, but Kickstarter backers can buy in for $99.
IMAGE: PEBBLE
When I asked Eric Migicovsky, Pebble’s CEO, if this was Pebble’s take on the Fitbit, he smiled. He also pointed out that Fitbit is increasingly getting into Pebble’s territory by becoming more watch-like.
This is true, but something tells me that the $129 price point will make some interesting competition for buyers who want the benefits of a fitness tracker, but also want to be able to summon an Uber on their wrist.
Like last year’s record-breaking project, the Pebble Time 2 is Pebble’s attempt to compete with the Android Wear/Apple Watch crowd.
The Pebble Time 2 is about the same physical size as the Pebble Time, but its screen is 50% larger. It’s also higher resolution, with 80% more pixels.
The battery life is rated at 10 days and it has a built-in heart rate monitor and microphone. Pebble isn’t bifurcating the Pebble Time/Pebble Time Steel lines this year, and is instead one model. It’s available in stainless steel, black and gold.
The Pebble Time 2 will retail for $199 when it ships in November, but you can get it on Kickstarter for $169.
Pebble Core
The Pebble 2 and Pebble Time 2 are cool, but the most interesting Pebble product is the Pebble Core.
IMAGE: PEBBLE
The idea, Migicovsky says, is to decouple the smartwatch experience from your phone.
“Sometimes when you go out running, you don’t want to take your phone,” he tells me. “You just want to run and listen to Spotify.” Enter the Pebble Core.
A tiny, square-sized object that fits on a keychain, the Pebble Core is a screenless device that can decouple some of your phone needs from your watch.
The device can stream Spotify (and store playlists for offline playback) and it has a built in GPS. It also has a built-in microphone that lets you capture voice memos.
It has 3G and WiFi and you can send emergency text messages to family or friends at the tab of a button. It can also be programmed to work with Pebble apps with one tap.
It charges wireless using the Qi standard and is rated for a battery life of 9 hours for playing back music and using the GPS.
And although the Pebble Core works great with a Pebble, a Pebble isn’t needed. If you wanted to go running with it as simply a Spotify playback device, you could do that. (It has a headphone jack or syncs to your Bluetooth earbuds).
Running on Android Core, the Pebble Core is programmable and Migicovsky thinks this could be the type of product that gets developers mojo running, similar to the AWS Dash Button.
I don’t know how broad the market is for the Pebble Core – but I do like the idea of a non-smartwatch wearable that is programmable. Plus, with a built-in microphone, you can imagine a future Alexa/Google Home style voice interaction system.
The Pebble Core is $69 on Kickstarter and will sell for $99 when it ships in early 2017.
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