TechCrunch
DexType's Virtual Keyboard Software Lets Leap Motion Owners Type In Mid Air
The motion-sensing Leap Motion Controller, which lets users eschew the traditional keyboard plus mouse combo and interact with their computers via gestures, started shipping to pre-order consumers this week. Apps with Leap Motion support are, as you’d expect, relatively thin on the ground at this point. They include games like Cut The Rope, a Top News app from the New York Times and some creative tools and education apps, to name a few.
Today another app joins the gesture party: DexType gives Leap Motion owners a keyboardless way to type — which could allow, for instance, a doctor to input medical information into a computer without having to wash hands before and after touching a physical keyboard, or a consumer to look up cake recipe details in the middle of baking.
The virtual keyboard works by aligning all the letters into a single string displayed along the bottom of the screen — much like Minuum does with its mobile keyboard software. DexType supports either Qwerty order, or this can be switched to alternatives such as Dvorak, Colemak, Azerty, and Qwertz, or a simple alphabetical order. The Leap Motion user can then type with either a couple of fingers, bouncing from key to key, or using all their fingers if they want a more typical typing/piano-playing style position.
To reduce typos and improve accuracy, DexType’s software apparently includes a “disambiguation algorithm” that looks at the whole group of letters inputted to correct sloppy typing, so the user doesn’t need to be entirely accurate in their virtual key strikes. This autocorrection can be overridden — for instance when the user needs to type usernames and passwords — by using a deeper pressing gesture. While punctuation can be produced by using “chords”, i.e. pressing two keys at the same time in specific regions.
DexType says the software also supports editing via simple gestures, such as a sideways swipe to erase single letters or entire words. While numbers and symbols can be accessed via a separate layout or produced by handwriting recognition.
The DexType app is currently available free from the Chrome web store (after August 7 the free version will be ad-supported, and a premium version will cost $4.99). The virtual keyboard’s creators also plan to release a version of the software for Android smartphones and tablets, due in beta in late August.
Easy Taxi, Rocket Internet's Latin American Hailo, Comes To Africa With Another $10M In Funding
Easy Taxi, a Brazil-based Hailo-like app incubated by the Samwer brothers’ Rocket Internet, is today announcing a $10 million round of funding and plans to tackle a whole new market: Africa, along with more expansion also in Asia and the Middle East. It is starting first in Nigeria, a country of 180 million people and one Africa’s the biggest in terms of economic growth. The announcement follows news from last week in which Rocket Internet itself got an injection of $500 million, specifically to help build out its startups in emerging economies.
Today’s round of funding comes from Africa Internet Holding, a JV between Rocket Internet and 35% owner, telecoms operator Millicom. This is the same pair that backed Easy Taxi with $15 million in June, through another JV, Latin American Internet Holding. That earlier round is being used to expand Easy Taxi in Latin America. So far, Easy Taxi has amassed 1,500,000 downloads and more than 45,000 taxi drivers in markets where it is active, which include Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Malaysia, Mexico, Pakistan, Peru, South Korea and Venezuela.
“We want to bring this success to other attractive markets and we see high potential in many Asian and African countries,” said Dennis Wang, head of international expansion of Easy Taxi, in a statement.
Sacha Poignonnec, co-CEO of AIH, tells me that after Nigeria, Easy Taxi will go to eight more countries by the end of this year, including Morocco, Egypt, Ivory Coast, Ghana, South Africa, Algeria, Tunisia and Angola.
So why Africa? The Samwer Brothers, as we described last week in a rare interview with the press-shy Oliver Samwer, have built out a global operation based around a strategy of taking tested business models for e-commerce startups into untapped markets (“clones” if you want to call them that; Samwer and Rocket obviously beg to differ). Then, Rocket Internet adds more e-commerce startups into the mix to get the most out of the infrastructure that has been put in place. The same goes for Africa and Easy Taxi.
For starters, the Samwers already have a number of businesses across Africa. “The good thing is that we already have operations across Africa. We have offices and entities and all logistics set up, plus we understand the huge potential of this growing market. That’s an important advantage that we have,” says Poignonnec.
Nigeria, he adds, is full of taxi services. They include drivers people hire for full-time work, those who can be hired by the day, and those for short, a la carte trips. The problem, he says, is that these are a challenge for users because of the logistics of the country and reliably calling a driver when you need him (or her). Waiting outside during rainy season to catch cabs, he says, is not an option many people would go for if they had the choice.
This is where Easy Taxi will come in: the company will be launching will both its existing iOS and Android apps, to tap into the country’s growing middle class of smartphone-owning userss to communicate via the app to find driver. It will also be equipping drivers with devices that will be preloaded with the app so that they can get taxi calls and respond back. After a driver is called, a customer will get pictures of how the drivers will look, their car numbers and an alert when that person has actually arrived.
Smartphone penetration is growing fast — some estimate that it will be 50% in a matter of years — but because Nigeria today is still very much one of the emerging markets with a still-low smartphone penetration, Poignonnec says that Easy Taxi will likely introduce a basic phoning service, tapping into its existing call centre infrastructure that was put in place for e-commerce sites like Jumia.
“Everyone will say that Nigeria is a challenging market to operate in, but once you have cracked it, you will crack all of Africa. That is what we experienced with Jumia and other ventures, which already became market leaders.”
In all cases, Easy Taxi is free for consumers to use. The company makes its money by taking a cut from the drivers, who will pay fees on a sliding scale depending on how many rides they give and other factors such as whether they sign up for “subscriptions” with Easy Taxi. Ultimately, Poignonnec says that the fees will work out to no more than 5% of the total takes for rides.
You Don't Have To Love Apple To Use LightSpeed's Retail Software, Thanks To LightSpeed Cloud
LightSpeed, an Accel-backed company offering tools for physical retailers to both manage their business and engage their customers, is aiming at a new audience today. It’s launching LightSpeed Cloud, a new product powered by LightSpeed-acquired point-of-sales software maker MerchantOS.
Until now, the company’s product lineup has been Apple-centric, with software for Macs, iPads, and iPhones. However, LightSpeed founder and CEO Dasilva acknowledged there are merchants who “are not going to replace backend systems with Macs,” which is why Cloud is an HTML5, web-based product that can be used from any computer.
As with earlier LightSpeed products, the company is trying to make retailers’ technology more up-to-date and mobile-friendly. For now, it seems like the emphasis here is on replacing older point-of-sales and inventory systems for “inventory-centric” stores. LightSpeed Cloud (which Dasilva also described as a “leaner” product) lacks some of the features available in the existing version of LightSpeed, like Show and Tell, where retailers can show off products that aren’t available on the selling floor.
Not that LightSpeed is entirely abandoning Apple products. For one thing, even LightSpeed Cloud can be accessed via an iPad app. Plus, the company is continuing to offer its existing tools under the new name LightSpeed Pro, which DaSilva said is the “more visually rich, omnichannel” product that;s particularly suited for retailers who want “the full Apple aesthetic.”
“If I opened a store today I would use Pro, but that’s because I’m going to want to run my back office on a MacBook Pro,” he said. However, not every retailer feels that way, and there are plenty where “the back office is Windows machines.” He added, “We want to be able to say yes to everybody.”
Over time, Dasilva predicted that there will be more “cross-pollination” between the Cloud and Pro products.
LightSpeed is now used in 15,000 store locations, doubling from a year ago. (The MerchantOS acquisition adds 2,000 locations.)
Live From Google's Mystery Announcement With Android Head Sundar Pichai
We’re live from San Francisco’s Dogpatch neighborhood, where Google has asked a couple dozen of us tech-minded folk to join them for the announcement of… something.
What exactly that something could be is still (kind of) a mystery — but we’re here to find out.
Google has kept pretty hush on what to expect, save for one key detail: the event is going to be lead by Sundar Pichai, who you might remember as the guy who took over the Android team after its founder, Andy Rubin, jumped to a new project. With that said, Pichai also leads the Chrome and Google Apps teams…
Will we see the official debut of Android 4.3? The long-rumored new version of the Nexus 7 tablet? Both? Or something else entirely?
The event is scheduled to start at 9 A.M Pacific, but we’ll be bringing you photos and commentary from the scene by way of our liveblog down below, beginning whenever things start to get interesting — so tune in early!
ARTtwo50 Launches iPad App To Help You Find Affordable Art For Your Home
It’s not easy to find original art for your home: Most first-time buyers feel like they’re priced out or are not knowledgeable enough to crack the non-transparent art world. A new startup called ARTtwo50 seeks to change that, with an iPad app that with a simple pricing structure and the ability to preview art in your space before you buy it.
ARTtwo50 was founded by Ethan James Appleby, Patrick Coughlin, Win Raguini, and Brandon Flayler. The original idea came out of a Startup Weekend after Appleby was trying to find art for his wall. But a lack of confidence in being able to find just the right piece, as well as lack of transparency around pricing, stymied his plans to add some original art to his home.
The team started to build an iPad app that would not only let art lovers “see” what a piece would look like in their homes, but also demystifies the pricing model for art. ARTtwo50 works like this: Users take a photo of the wall that they want to hang a piece of art on, pick the size that they would like, and the app suggests art they might like and allows them to see what it would look like in that space.
Users of the app can flip through various works of art to evaluate them. When they find one they like, they can save it for later. The app also provides more info about the artist and the piece that they’re looking at. And it also learns over time the type of art that they like, providing more personalized recommendations over time. It takes into account all users interactions with the art to determine which pieces are most likely to please a customer.
Even so, if users aren’t sure about whether or not they want to buy a certain piece, they can share it with friends to see what others think of the art and possible placement in their homes.
Once they’ve chosen a piece, and it’s time to check out, that’s when things get real interesting. That’s because, in addition to helping users to choose art that they’ll like and will look good in their homes, the startup has also worked to demystify the pricing structure of the art world. All art sold through the app is priced at $250, making it more accessible to people interested in adding original art to their homes.
By making all art available at the same price, ARTtwo50 seeks to make the process of buying and selling art more transparent and accessible. And it took away one of the biggest barriers to first-time art buyers — that is, the fear of paying too much or having buyer’s remorse afterward.
To make that happen, the startup has spent the last six months recruiting more than 500 artists to make their work available on the platform. It currently has about 1,500 pieces available for browsing and purchase, and continues to add more every day.
Many of those artists are students, people who were creating art in various Art Institutes, while others are people who might have 9-5 jobs but like to work on art on the side. In either case, ARTtwo50 is seeking to create a market for emerging and young artists that was previously filled by friends and family.
While pieces might be priced below what they would sell for at gallery shows, the ARTtwo50 founders believe that artists could make more money on some work, simply because their commissions are so much lower than when selling through a gallery. The startup takes a 10 percent commission for each piece sold, while also exposing artists to new potential customers that probably wouldn’t have seen their work otherwise.
In that respect, ARTtwo50 is seeking to solve two problems at once: first, the black box pricing of the art world today; and second, the lack of original art that is hanging on people’s walls.
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