In a previous blog, I mentioned the Yotaphone, a Russian smartphone with two screens: the typical energy-hungry color front screen and, on the back, a power-saving e-ink screen.
Here’s an option called PopSLATE that provides similar functionality in a case for your iPhone. The idea is that there is content that you might want to have constantly in front of you but you don’t want your phone eating your battery. E-ink is great for that; once the image is put on the screen it takes no energy to keep it there indefinitely. This could be useful for things like calendars, to-do lists, maps, boarding passes, etc. It connects to the phone using Bluetooth and can go a week between charges.
This isn't quite as useful as an e-ink display that is integrated into the operating system, but I think it might be useful for travelers. It’s available for iPhone 5s and iPhone 6s for pre-order at $129 (March delivery.)
I saw a similar case at CES from Oaxis, but theirs was just a mock-up (coming soon.) In any case, it looks like there may be enough interest in this sort of thing for some competition. It would be great if Apple made one...
Amazon, known for their automated/robotic warehouses, said they were thinking about drone delivery of packages in 2013. It looks like the huge on-line Chinese store, Alibaba, is beating them out of the gate.
They just announced that they're planning a very small pilot, delivering 450 packets of ginger tea to some parts of Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou within one hour of the order being placed. This test is in partnership with YTO Express, who are managing permits, logistics, etc.
There have been a couple of other small pilots around the world (one in Australia in 2013 and a couple of food delivery pilots at tech conferences), but this one is notable because of the sheer size of Alibaba – they just went through the largest IPO in history last year ($25Billion.)
There are lots of regulations regarding drone use (as well as safety concerns) and these will likely get in the way of such a service here in the US, but robotic / drone delivery inside the confines of plants and warehouses might make sense.
Are there any locations in your facilities where drone inspection or delivery might make sense?
One of the problems with streaming devices like Apple TV, Chromecast and others is that they’re designed for the home user, without some of the features that would make them more valuable at work.
Airtame‘s HDMI streaming dongle is described as the enterprise version of Chromecast – it works with multiple platforms and can be controlled from a single console (for digital media distribution, etc.)
The need for this kind of device is obvious to anyone putting conference rooms together. There are at least a half dozen types of wired connectors involved and competing software versions of similar products.
In addition to making corporate video displays more wireless, you can stream the same content to multiple devices – say for hallway digital media displays.
The competition in this space is very expensive (in the thousands of dollars per unit) so a $150 solution would be a welcome addition to this space.
I've got one on order and will blog about it after I've had a chance to use it.
One surprising thing at CES was the Orchard Supply robotic store assistant, OSHBot. It’s a mobile device that can help you find hardware when you can’t find a hardware associate. Lowes Innovation Labs invented it and has deployed it the Orchard Supply store in San Jose – and they brought some to CES.
The device has voice recognition (in multiple languages) and a touch screen for selecting parts/SKUs. It has a rear screen/kiosk that will show you videos or adverts as you’re following it to the aisle of interest. They create an internal "map" of the store so that they can autonomously navigate, using collision avoidance technology to avoid running into customers and carts, etc. They’re working on object recognition – so you can show it a broken part and it will help identify it and its replacement in the store.
Because of all the noise at CES, you really couldn’t talk to them and because they weren’t in a store, they really couldn’t help find anything. But I could definitely see the potential. Here’s a video demo that shows one in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sp9176vm7Co
I’m going to try to get connected with the Innovation Labs to see if we can learn from each other.
Last month I blogged about an upcoming Intel product called the Compute Stick designed to run Windows for about $150. Now the Raspberry Pi Foundation just announced the release of their newest device and it looks like it will be able to run a version of Windows 10 for $35.
The Raspberry Pi 2 will use the WindowsOnDevices version of Windows 10 (the free version.)
The new Pi is six times faster than the previous model with it’s quadcore 900 MHz ARM Cortex-A7 processor and 1G of RAM. And, while it’s considerably faster, it maintains backward compatibility with the previous models so any software developed for them will work on the newest release. I’ve put my order in and when Windows 10 is available, I’ll blog about it here.
These are great little devices for cheap prototyping - I've developed a proof-of-concept card-reader kiosk that I'll write about in a future blog.
Here’s a link with more information on the WindowsOnDevices program: http://dev.windows.com/en-us/featured/Windows-Developer-Program-for-IoT
One of the advantages of the old Blackberries was that they had a physical keyboard – while I find “swyping” to be more effective than those tiny keys, I still prefer touch typing and often use a Bluetooth wireless keyboard with my iPad. But the keyboard is big and a hassle to carry around.
Here’s an option from WayTools.com that they call TextBlade. It’s portable – it folds up into a rectangular carrying configuration about 4” x 1” x ½”. It has full sized keys (see below) and uses the same QWERTY keyboard layout as most (American) keyboards but, when deployed, it's thinner than an iPhone 6.
The keys have multi-touch capabilities, so that the designers could get multiple characters on each key to keep it small. I think this might take some getting used to, but the fact that it’s spaced like a traditional keyboard might mitigate this issue.
The battery is contained in the spacebar module everything snaps together magnetically. The charge lasts about a month on a one hour charge and the it works with any smartphone or tablet that supports Bluetooth 4 (BLE - most newer phones have this.)
Looks like they’ll be available in February and the company is now taking preorders for $99 – a bit pricey, but it looks really effective.
Microsoft just announced the cheapest way to connect to the internet.
At $30, the Nokia 215 can run apps like Facebook, Twitter, MSN Weather, Opera, etc. It won't be the fastest phone, as it only supports 2G networks. Also, it may not be the sharpest display (at QVGA 320 X 240) but it could be a great phone for emerging markets, competing with the more capable, but more expensive Xiaomi low-end smartphones.
It offers a low-res (0.3-megapixel camera), built-in flashlight, MP3 and FM radio along with Bluetooth, dual-SIM – and it has a 29 day standby battery life.
Should be available some time in the first quarter in the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Europe (no plans to launch in the US.)
If any of my friends in Europe get one of these, please let me know what you think of it!
