TechCrunch
Move Over Google Glass - GlassUp Is A Less Creepy And Much Cheaper Pair Of AR Specs
Right now Google Glass sits at the apogee of geeky, wearable technology. Last month, interviewing a Glass-wearing Robert Scoble, Newsnight’s Jeremy Paxman memorably debunked it in his opening question as “that thing on your head. ” Getting non-techie people to view Glass as anything other than ludicrously geeky is going to be an uphill fight for Google.
Arguably, though, even more of a blocker to Glass adoption is people viewing the technology as the epitome of creepy, thanks to its built in camera. Sure a digital eye sited at eye-level lets you share a nice view of that mountain you can see from your hotel window. But in more everyday scenarios it also lets you video your fellow humans as they go about their business and that privacy intrusion is inevitably going to cause some friction. Throw in the whole NSA Prism surveillance fallout and stuff like this is inevitable.
Add to that, even though Google has banned (even more creepy) facial recognition apps on Glass’s Mirror API it’s possible to envisage a workaround that leverages Google’s Hangouts feature — which shares real-time field of vision — to get around the bar. Marco Vanossi, co-founder of GeoPapyrus, pointed this workaround out to TechCrunch — and demonstrates how it can be made to work in this video, creating a Hangout with a robot assistant called Dexter that then analyses what the Glass wearer can see.
“You can share your camera view through a Google Hangout and the content in it (people, objects, places, barcodes, qrcodes) can be analyzed and identified,” he tells TechCrunch. “As a result, information can be overlaid on top of it and shown back on your screen. This means that the Hangout app, built and distributed by Google on every Glass device could be used to violate its own privacy rules.”
All of which suggests there may be room for an eyeless Glass-style product which preserves privacy be being receive only — and therefore can’t be accused of spying. Enter GlassUp. GlassUp is a prototype pair of augmented reality specs that does not include a camera. It’s currently seeking funds to start manufacturing on Indiegogo. The glasses are designed to allow the wearer to receive text-based messages and updates overlaid over the central portion of their field of vision — so while they intrude on the wearer’s vision, they can’t be accused of intruding on the privacy of the people around them.
GlassUp’s creators envisage a typical use-case being a pedestrian or a motorbike rider wanting to navigate handsfree and without having to stop every few yards to consult a map/smartphone. Or a tourist wanting to get info about the historical landmarks they are seeing pushed to their eye-line as they explore a new city. Other imagined use-cases include for cooks or warehouse workers needing info as they work.
The device is basically a second screen output for a smartphone, connecting via Bluetooth, that’s worn as a heads-up display. It has a monochrome projector to display text updates, helping to extend the battery life of the device. The creators say they intend to release some apps themselves, but also plan to release an API for Android, iOS and Windows Phone to allow developers to extend its functionality.
Having intentionally stripped back the hardware of GlassUp to remove privacy concerns its creators have also shrunk the cost. The price-tag for the device starts at $299 — considerably cheaper than the Google Glass Explorer’s hefty price-tag of $1,500.
GlassUp’s creators are hoping to raise $150,000 on Indiegogo and have so far managed to reach just over half their goal, with 11 days left on the campaign. However a update on their crowdfunding page notes that they will deliver products even if they fail to achieve their funding goal — thanks to unnamed investor backers. GlassUp is due to go on sale from February next year.
Supertoy Teddy Is The Teddy Ruxpin We All Dreamed Of – A Stuffed Bear With Conversation Skills
A new Kickstarter project seems like the wish-fulfillment of a child of the late 80s or early 90s: the Supertoy Teddy is a stuffed bear you can talk to, just like Teddy Ruxpin, but this one intelligently talks back, rather than just operating via an embedded cassette deck with a fixed number and order of recorded statements. Supertoy Teddy is a robot, with AI-like conversational powers, built by a robotics company in Wales.
The Supertoy’s pedigree is a good one, as Supertoy Robotics’ co-creators Ashley Conlan and Karsten Flügge previously made Jeannie Rabbot, a Siri-like virtual assistant powered in part by Nuance tech that’s available for iPhone, Mac, Android and more. The Teddy inherits Jeannie’s bubbly personality, offering human emotion approximations and totally autonomous speech generation.
Supertoy Teddy uses a smartphone and remote server to do the heavy lifting of processing requests and formulating answers, using a free Android or iOS app to do so. The stuffed bear itself has a zipped compartment to hold the phone and connect it to its internal processing bits. The company says they’ve already built three prototypes, with the last being production-ready, which is why they’re targeting a December rollout for the first backer shipments if the campaign is successful.
Teddy has a mouth that moves, and later on will get more robotic movement in his limbs and other areas, too. The toy can also learn a person’s preferences and change its attitude accordingly, meaning an adult with one could end up with a Ted-like companion, while a kid would get the sweetest bear around. The Teddy can also be a practical help, offering up weather, setting alarms, reading bed time stories, playing music, doing phone calls, sending texts or emails and more.
Out of the box Supertoy Teddy can manage 30 different languages, with planned support in the future for different voices specially tailored to each. The tone of its voice already adapts to different emotions, to make it more lifelike. Backers can get one starting at £42 (around $62 U.S.).
Teddy Ruxpin was the toy we all imagined would actually come alive and talk to us, but Supertoy Teddy looks to be the real fulfillment of that childhood dream. Plus, since it’s designed for kids of all ages, anyone who still remembers Ruxpin fondly can get one, too, and use the Supertoy to help do their taxes or whatever else comes to mind.
Yahoo And Google Are Both Spending Big Money On Acquisition Sprees And What That Says About Their Futures
These days it seems as if a startup so much as glances in Marissa Mayer’s direction, it can expect a bid within 24 hours. There’s been a lot of buzz about Yahoo’s new role as an acquisition hound of late, and Mayer’s attempts to turn the beleaguered giant into a mobile-first company and energize its ranks with young, acqui-hired talent.
But Yahoo isn’t alone in its pursuit of “serial acquirer” status. Highlighted by its blockbuster acquisition of Waze last month, Google has quietly snapped up a cadre of companies as well — and has spent a pretty penny doing it. In its “10-Q” filing with the SEC on Thursday, Google revealed that it spent $1.3 billion on acquisitions during the first half of 2013, with $966 million of that total going to Waze.
While reports had varied on the final purchase price, according to the filing, the acquisition of Waze was “for a total cash consideration of $966 million,” with “$847 million attributed to goodwill and $188 million attributed to intangible assets,” minus the $69 million in other net liabilities assumed from Waze’s books. Though the final number is subject to change, it’s now abundantly clear just how hungry Google was to beef up its social mapping data and prevent it from falling into the hands of its competitors.
On top of its new social mapping prize, Google has made another 15 acquisitions so far this year, shelling out $344 million in additional assets to buy companies like Wavii, Makani Power, Channel Intelligence and DNNresearch. Channel Intelligence represented the largest deal of the batch, with Google paying $125 million to continue its charge on the eCommerce front as well.
With Wavii going for an estimated $30 million and 13 companies still accounted for, we can deduce that Google, like Yahoo, has also been making its fair share of small-ticket acqui-hires over the year. In fact, Google acquired 53 companies in 2012, chief of which was Motorola Mobility at a price tag of $12.5 billion. The rest of its acquisitions cost $1.1 billion.
Notably, Google was in the midst of carrying out this M&A strategy when Marissa Mayer left the company to become CEO of Yahoo, and it’s clearly one that she’s now using to shore up Yahoo’s weaknesses. Yahoo spent most of 2012 wrapped up in internal struggles and attempted board takeovers. Compared to Google’s 53 acquisitions in 2012, Yahoo only made two — both of which took place only after Mayer had taken over.
Since Mayer took the reins last summer, Yahoo has accelerated its acquisition strategy exponentially, making a whopping 18 acquisitions. And, while that’s mind-boggling enough as it is, Yahoo is likely far from calling it quits. As my colleague Alex Wilhelm recently pointed out, Mayer actually has plenty of runway. Thanks to its stake in Alibaba, Yahoo has an ace up its sleeve that’s potentially worth tens of billion of dollars and which can continue to fuel its aggressive M&A strategy.
For many reasons, this is critical if Mayer is to have any shot at turning the ship around. If Yahoo really wants to strengthen its position in mobile and revamp its aging video and media technology, the company has to continue going after outside talent.
Similar Approach To M&A, Different Stories
While Yahoo and Google are both making headlines for the slew of acquisitions they’ve been made over the past year — and them money they’re spending to do it — this shared approach says very different things about what each company perceives as its greatest need (read: deficiency). Yahoo’s biggest problem, at least in the short term, is PR.
In other words, when Mayer took the helm, Yahoo has been spinning in circles for years. They were directionless and basically seen as a has-been company that had lost its relevance in the modern tech industry. By acqui-hiring young talent, Mayer is showing that she’s eager to return Yahoo to its former standing and regain its luster — in part, by make it attractive to younger entrepreneurs but also by updating its product to make Yahoo a destination for younger people in general.
Its billion-dollar acquisition of Tumblr is a prime example: Tumblr’s core user base consists of young people, teenagers and middleschoolers. So not only was Tumblr an opportunity to make Yahoo seem like a cool company for young people and generate more traffic, but it also allows Yahoo to play to its strength, leveraging its ad network to monetize Tumblr’s massive content silo.
Mayer’s approach to M&A is also proving that the company is eager to fix its lagging mail, search and news tools, which have been gathering dust and have been eclipsed by the likes of Google and Microsoft.
Some of these problems will be easy for Yahoo to address and fix in the short term, but they could also create more issues for the company over the long-term. Yahoo is attempting to make a litany of significant, structural changes all at once, making it tough to achieve any kind of real cohesion across its products. It may do wonders for the stock, but it could easily end up being an ad hoc, duct-tape-style solution that leaves the real, infrastructural dangers roiling beneath the surface.
In contrast, it’s taken years for Google to achieve any sort of cohesion across its own disparate products and projects. But its recently embarked on a new, “One Google Era,” in which the company has begun to prioritize collaboration and unification across its properties, which, in turn, gives more meaning to both its M&A and product strategies.
Google’s acquisition of Waze, for example, allows it to add a social layer to its existing mapping and navigation products, strengthening an already formidable arsenal of mobile properties, rather than, in Yahoo’s case, allowing it to start from Square One.
Google is now focused on becoming a big data empire and adding pieces that will help it power its massive cloud services infrastructure and products that are decidedly focused on realtime. This applies across its diverse properties, whether that’s allow people to collaborate and communicate in realtime through Hangouts, Docs or Gmail, search in realtime or navigate in realtime through Google Maps and Waze.
Going forward, Google will begin looking more to acquire and build products that will prepare it for increasingly direct competition with companies like Amazon. One place that Google has been struggling of late is in its eCommerce and shopping, where its ambitions haven’t been met with the usual rewards or dominance its come to expect from its ventures into search, mobile and advertising.
For example, while Google’s dominance in search remains, when it comes to discovery and engagement around products, Amazon has been leaving it in the dust. If Larry Page’s mission is for Google to use its realtime infrastructure to create utilities that are critical to their everyday lives — whether in communication or otherwise — falling behind in product marketplaces is a big problem.
That’s likely why Google is working to boost its marketplace ambitions with products like the rumored “Helpouts,” which could help find a real home for its mobile payment products, like Wallet, and communication product like Hangouts to power realtime commerce. Amazon and eBay have been busy tearing down the walls that stand in the way of buying and selling on the Web. Now Google wants to join the fun, and tools like Helpouts point towards a future in which Google may begin acquiring the kind of talent that can help it to build a real marketplace on top of search and other core products.
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