Comments Off on When You Say Jump Vert Says How High VIDEO INTERVIEW1LikeLike 2,747
One of the coolest startups we found at Eureka Park as part of CES 2013 last month was a startup called MayFonk Athletic and their app called Vert. It’s kind of a fitness app combining a piece of Bluetooth enabled hardware with a smart device app. However, Vert is specific to one thing, and that is jumping.
Vert uses a sensor that easily attaches to a person’s body (as seen in the video below), and is able to measure how high someone jumps. Whether they are jumping in basketball, doing jumping jacks, gymnastics or a workout infused with jumping Vert keeps up.
On the app side it’s able to measure, track and analyze all of the data provided from the device. With the right exposure it’s something that many basketball teams will want to take advantage of.
The Fort Lauderdale based startup is creating their own market, separate from the other fitness based measurement devices and apps.
Check out the video interview below. For more info visit
Comments Off on Footmarks Is Using A Software & Hardware Based Platform For Location Based Engagement0LikeLike 4,381
Seattle startup Footmarks is looking to change the way location based engagement is done for businesses both big and small. They consider themselves a social engagement platform that is based on two patent pending technologies.
The first technology is a piece of hardware called the “Smart Connect Device” this device is a low powered Bluetooth device that works within 400 feet of a smartphone and the battery lasts for two years.
Using this device in your car will enable the end user to receive a stream of localized, real time deals as they approach a business on the road. By combining the device’s technology along with the users social profile, they can receive offers from businesses that are relevant to them. For instance if you were say a golfer and you were passing by Mike’s Super Golf Warehouse, the store could alert you of a deal as you approach.
Another use for the device is through digital billboards. Footmarks hopes to have their technology work in tandem with digital billboards so that the billboard can show an add relevant to a mass of users within 1500 feet. If the demographic profiles of those users approaching the billboard suggested that they were between 35-54 the billboard could show an advertisement for an Elton John concert. Or if the bulk of users passing were 21-35 year old mom’s, you may see an ad on the billboard for Chuckie Cheese.
So of course we had to ask why this technology would trump existing geo-fencing technologies that are currently available on smartphones. According to Footmarks, their technology is scalable up and down whereas geo-fencing technology out there today is to a rather large area.
The company insists that they could set the radius for Footmarks to say 200 feet. That way a department store could have multiple Footmarks set up by department. When the user passes the shoe department they could get one offer, and then turn around and get an entirely different offer in the juniors department.
According to a report on NPR just yesterday, more and more retailers are looking to embrace in-store mobile technologies a growing fad in today’s evolving retail landscape.
Check out the video below to hear about the other things Footmarks has in store for their late Spring 2013 launch.
The biggest startup conference in the US is this weekend, find out more here.
Comments Off on Interview With Mark Cuban Backed Techstars Grad Condition One VIDEO0LikeLike 4,639
Condition One is a New York Techstars graduate that closed a $2.35 million dollar round back in October, led by Mark Cuban.
Academy award nominated photographer and videographer [Danfung Dennis]has seen his work in Newsweek and the New York Times. He’s been hailed for shooting some of the best war footage ever seen. That’s in part because Dennis has found a new way to capture more of what we see in video.
Humans actually see a wide range of things in their peripheral vision and then adjust based on what’s interesting in their range of vision. Video isn’t that way. Video can actually see what’s shot straight on, but then, because of the way us humans see, it doesn’t feel as natural.
Dennis has created Condition One to capture and share things that typical video misses and includes a 180 field of vision. Condition One is software that takes that warped 180 degree footage shot with a fisheye lens and then translates it back into a clear flat image that we see. It’s somewhat like the Lytro that lets you shoot out of focus photos now and focuses them in later.
Even with Shark Tank, people know that Mark Cubanisn’t typically an investor at seed stages of the game. However, in addition to the Maverick’s Cuban’s other large business is HDTV which was just rebranded as AXS TV. This is where Condition One makes a lot of sense. Cuban’s AXS TV is known for it’s live concerts and events. Condition One’s technology is perfect for capturing events and putting them into a better viewing perspective.
Nibletz co-founder Nick Tippmann got to interview Condition One at Eureka Park as part of CES 2013 last month in Las Vegas.
Comments Off on Jhoombox A Set Top Box That Sings!0LikeLike 2,467
Washington DC startup Jhoombox has made the Android based set top box a lot more fun. In addition to doing the things that most set top boxes do, like provide access to Netflix, Hulu and a slew of other web based services, Jhoombox has a full featured Karaoke system as well.
Jhoombox’s combination of hardware and software is like a Pandora for karaoke. Some of the features include the ability to record your karaoke sessions and quickly upload them to YouTube. You can also collaborate with other Jhoombox users on the net and sing duets and group songs over the internet.
They came up with the idea because people love to do karaoke and a set top box is a way to bring all the content to one centralized location. Karaoke singers now have a library of hundreds of thousands of karaoke songs at their fingertips.
The company has been working on Jhoombox for the last year and held a private beta in the fall of 2012. They plan on launching to the public, first with a Kickstarter campaign in the spring of this year.
Jhoombox is fun and innovative and you can find out more at jhoombox.com
Comments Off on Holografyx A New Way To Display For Brands And Marketers0LikeLike 3,790
A few weeks back when we were at CES 2013 we saw a nifty new startup from Canada called Holografyx.
Earlier this month we brought you an interview we did with Russian startup Displair. Their technology created a multi touch display in thin air, which could be the wave of the future.
Holografyx is also doing something cool with display. They’ve created a way to holographically super impose text and other graphics on top of wares that are being displayed in a show case. Towards the end of the video you can see exactly what I mean. While it’s definitely not as earth shattering as Displair the technology provides yet another way for marketers to show off to customers.
They also have an interesting franchise model to push their “360 cube” show case system to market.
Check out the video below. For more info visit holografyx.com
Comments Off on Styku Has Created An Online Virtual Fitting Room Using Microsoft Kinect VIDEO INTERVIEW0LikeLike 2,602
Los Angeles startup Styku has done something rather innovative utilizing the Microsoft Kinect platform. Using four Kinect sensors, Styku has created a way to do a full body scan and create an online fitting room.
According to the company you can actually use just one Kinect at home but to get the most accurate measurements you can go to a retail partner that has their technology installed and have a body scan done. From there the magic happens.
On the back end Styku takes the body scan and matches it to a stores inventory to show you exactly what sizes they recommend for you. In shopping for clothes, size can actually be a mystery. Women and men can go into one clothing store and have one size selected and a different store which has clothing cut a little smaller or a little bigger and have a totally different size recommendation.
Styku combines the inventory and specifications from a stores entire inventory, with the exact measurements garnered from the body scan, to offer the exact fitting size.
Comments Off on Tech Tips A Great Alternative To Styli For Tablets And Smartphones0LikeLike 2,661
Last year at CES 2012 we saw a North Carolina startup called TextRings in Eureka Park. As you can tell from our narrative we weren’t very impressed and if they’re still in business they’ve had minimal to no traction as far as we can tell. The problem they were trying to solve is still a big issue however they were trying to solve it with rings that looked like you would find them in the treasure box at the dentists office. Couple that with the astronomic cost of entry and it was destined to earn our “least favorite startup” of Eureka Park in 2012.
Fast forward to 2013 and we got to meet Sri Vellanki. Not only has Vellanki had a pretty distinguished career to date, she’s a beautiful young woman entrepreneur and she’s from Montana. Here Montana startup called Tech Tips, is similar to Text Rings in that she is looking to solve the problem of input on smartphones and tablets, specifically for women.
Tech Tips is a product that fits on the finger tip, rather than in a ring format, and allows a natural extension to ones fingers for the specific purpose of input. Strokes are more natural because they feel natural. It’s almost like using your actual finger for the input.
Naturally when we first arrived at the Tech Tips booth we were surprised to see something similar to Text Rings, but I can assure you that this is definitely a much better product with a great founder.
But in the infamous words of the late great Billy Mays… That’s Not All!
Vellanki has a second product she is just now introducing as well. This product is called Nano Nails. Think acrylic nails that are made with the same kind of coating that’s in those gloves we use for our smartphones and tablets to input data, draw pictures and navigate.
After talking to several women the reaction has been “That’s Awesome”. Both solutions function better than a stylus and certainly better than Text Rings, check out our interview below and for more visit Tech Tips and Nano Nails here.
Comments Off on PulseWallet The Mobile Wallet Startup We Knew Was Coming. Video Interview0LikeLike 4,313
With companies like Google, Paypal and now Isis looking to become the mobile wallet company of choice, there are already new technologies popping up that will make those three alternatives look archaic if executed correctly.
New Jersey startup PulseWallet is ready to challenge the big companies that are pouring millions of dollars into their mobile wallet products with the touch of a finger. PulseWallet’s technology will allow users to keep their wallet information protected and then ready to use via their own finger.
In this video interview they tell us that it’s not a finger print technology but rather biometric security. When the user couples their own finger with a four digit pin, it’s an easy, safe and secure way to pay. Forget using your phone as a mobile wallet with NFC or QR codes, PulseWallet tells us that the future of payment technologies is here.
Imagine going to a gas station or a restaurant and just using your finger to pay.
We got to interview PulseWallet founder Matt Saricicek the cofounder of Pulse Wallet in Eureka Park at CES 2013 earlier this month. It seems this team is onto the future of mobile wallet technology, before the big boys even have their systems in full use.
Comments Off on gDoc Has Binders Full Of Docs, CES 2013 Eureka Park Interview0LikeLike 2,983
This UK startup called gDoc has binders full of docs. There Windows based platform allows users to create virtual electronic, cloud based binders that keep docs, pictures and other files grouped together in project binders. Within the binders themselves, and just like physical binders, users can make tabs and sections so that big projects can be easily organized.
The team behind gDoc came up with the idea when their product guy was working on a huge project and couldn’t easily keep all of the documents and files associated with the project in one place. Now three years later the company is set to launch in a beta later this month and to the public in the spring.
They have an extremely easy pricing structure, $10 gets their user 10 binders for life. Users can change the binders around, dust them off and use them again or if they need more binders they can simply shell out another $10 to get new binders.
Binders within gDoc can easily be synced to cloud based storage options like DropBox and shared with others to work and collaborate on the same project.
Nibletz co-founder Nick Tippmann got a chance to interview the guys with gDoc at Eureka Park at CES 2013 earlier this month. Check out that video interview below.
Comments Off on R360UND Is The Ultimate Go-Pro Companion Video Interview At CES 20130LikeLike 2,501
Adrenaline pumping, action sports videos have taken a new place in the active sportsmans life thanks to things like Go-Pro. You could spend months watching GoPro videos on YouTube. You’d see people climbing mountains, surfing big waves, ski-ing, ski jumping, sky diving and more. But even with the best technology, and all the best Go-Pro accessories, a barrel roll looks like a barrel roll on video.
What if you wanted to capture more?
What if you wanted to see how much you were actually rolling, or how high you had actually jumped?
R360UND (Rebound) is a sensor technology that allows the use to take amazing readings while they’re participating in extreme sports. Whether it’s down hill skiing, sky diving, ski jumping, or any other fast paced adrenaline pumping activity, R360UND is the device that you need to compliment the awesome video you took with the GoPro.
The R360UND device can attach to your helmet, snowboard, skis or whatever else you want to attach it to and it captures all the motion. The device can tell how high up you are, where you are, what motions you did and what actions your snowboard or skateboard did. You can then take that data and overlay it on your action video which helps tell a much clearer story of what you just did and it’s great for bragging too.
Check out our co-founder Nick Tippmann’s video interview with Paul from R360UND below.
Comments Off on Display Moves To Thin Air With Russian Startup Displair: CES 2013 Video Interview0LikeLike 1,969
Imagine a world where you could just walk right up to something and right before your very eyes in the open air was a display. No monitor, no projector, just a display in the air. Now imagine if it was a multi-touch point display. You’re not far off from visualizing Russian startup Displairs, display technology.
As you can see in the video with our co-founder Nick Tippmann, the Displair unit is showing the hit game Fruit Ninja right in the middle of the air. The best part is you can actually use your hands to slice the fruit right in the middle of the air. It’s like some awesome step into Kinect or Nintendo Wii-verse technology.
The founders of this Russian startup see the potential in 4 dimensional game play. They also see the technologies potential in advertising and marketing. They had impressed some of the people from Coca Cola who stopped by their booth at CES’ Eureka Park last week.
Displair could display virtual Coca Cola water falls and create interactive games far beyond any consumers wildest dreams.
This is just the type of technology and startup that CEA was looking for when they set up Eureka Park last year. We saw some other wild tech this year as well like Tactus, a micro fluid technology that makes tactile keyboards just morph up from the screen of a smartphone or tablet device.
Check out our video interview below with Displair.
Comments Off on 3D Printed Audio Startup Goes Lord Of The Flies Style At CES 20130LikeLike 2,761
A California startup called Simply Amplified has created a product that amplifies sound from your smartphone or music player without any moving parts, wires, batteries or electricity. In fact it takes the same principles for amplifying sound that you may find in a conch shell. The company has even designed some of their unique speakers to look just like shells.
As you can see from the video below all you do to amplify the sound from your device is simply set it into the shell like frame and listen as the sound comes out the larger opening.
All of the Simply Amplified speakers are designed to look fashionable on any table or shelf where they’ll pull double duty as wireless, non electric amplifiers and as conversation pieces.
Simply Amplified calls their amplifiers Symphony Shells and we really haven’t seen a product quite like it. But what does it sound like? It was just as clear as some of the BlueTooth connected speakers we saw on the main show floor at the LVCC.
Comments Off on This Amazing Hat Called Cynaps Lets You Hear Music From Your Phone Through Your Head0LikeLike 3,155
We saw the most amazing hat at CES 2013 in Eureka Park. The hat is called Cynaps and the startup that created it is called MaxVirtual.
Cynaps, uses bone induction technology which when connected to a smartphone or other music player, lets you actually hear the music through the vibrations in hour head. No headset, no earphones and no earbuds required. The sound is conducted directly into your inner ear through vibration.
Our cofounder Nick Tippmann was able to try the Cynaps out and says that it sounds just as good as headphones. The company spokesperson that we interviewed said that it’s perfect for anything requiring headphones. You can listen to music, watch movies, even take a call or skype with the Cynaps hat.
There are a couple buttons built onto the brim that allow the user to end and start calls and playback.
The South Carolina startup is already up, running and selling the Cynaps hat for $60 here.
Cynaps offers a new level of safety when it comes to hands free operation. While you’re hearing the sound coming through your inner ear with the vibration, you can still hear other sounds as well. The main sound source becomes the focal point but if you were driving or biking with your Cynaps hat on you would be able to hear a car horn or other important noises.
Check out Nick’s interview with Max Virtual Below:
Comments Off on Hundreds of Broken Headsets Lead To Chicago Startup RockRah CES 2013 Interview0LikeLike 2,375
If you’ve been a smartphone user for the past few years than you probably have something in common with me, and that is a junk drawer filled with earbuds. Some earbuds are frayed. Some don’t work in the right ear. Some don’t work in the right ear. Some have cords that are too short. Then there’s the other problem of losing ear buds. I’ve lost plenty of pairs of $30 Apple earbuds in my time.
A Chicago startup called RockRah is trying to solve that problem.
While there were plenty of iPhone cases and plenty of earbuds and headphones at CES 2013, in fact enough to bring reporters to near nauseam, they didn’t combine the two like RockRah does.
RockRah has fashioned a smartphone case that has retractable earbuds built into the back of the case. The housing for the case houses the earbuds so they don’t get lost, or tangled up. You have your earbuds right there when you need them and then when you don’t need them they retract right into the case. Kinda smart huh?
RockRah has been in development for about a year now, and it looks like they’ll actually make it to market in the next few months.