smartdevices
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Amazon's Experience Centers let you try out Alexa in a home setting
Amazon announced today that it has opened a number of Experience Centers across the US. In eight cities, those interested in getting a hands-on look at how Alexa works and what a smart home has to offer can visit select Lennar model homes that are fully equipped with Alexa-enabled smart devices. "We wanted customers to experience a real home environment that showcases the convenience of the Alexa smart home experience, great entertainment available with Prime and Home Services," Nish Lathia, general manager of Amazon Services, said in a statement.
iOS HomeKit bug exposed smart locks to unauthorized access
Apple has another security issue to deal with. As 9to5Mac reports today, Apple's HomeKit framework has a vulnerability that allows unauthorized access to connected smart devices like locks and garage door openers. Apple has already put in a server-side fix that rectifies the issue, but the fix also disables remote access to shared users. Apple says that the reduced functionality will be restored with an iOS 11.2 update next week.
Roomba maker iRobot plans to sell digital maps of your home
While iRobot may have originated as a bomb-disposal robot maker at MIT in 1990, the company is probably better known as a robot vacuum company. So much so that it has taken to suing competitors like Bissell and Hoover, who sell their own robotic vacuum cleaners. The Roomba craze may not be as popular on the internet anymore, but iRobot reportedly has a new strategy in place: providing Roomba-gathered maps of your home to other smart device makers.
Intel's new chips are for smart cars and the Internet of Things
Intel has been investing in IoT for years, playing catch up to compete with companies like Qualcomm that got to the market early and saturated it with their chipsets. But a declining PC market pushed them to make more drastic moves, cutting 12,000 jobs back in April to refocus on IoT and data centers, which made up 40 percent of their revenue last year. Continuing that commitment, today Intel announced two new Atom processor lines: the E3900 series for connected devices and wearables along with the A3900 for smart auto apps.
Smart sprinklers only water your lawn when it's thirsty
Putting your sprinklers on a timer system is probably the best way to avoid under-watering your plants -- but the "set and forget" mentality isn't the most economical. What if it rains during the week and you forget to turn the timer off? Now you're wasting water and drowning your lawn. A company called ETwater thinks it has a better automatic solution: a smart sprinkler that only waters your lawn when it actually needs it.
The Ora-X smart headphones include a flippable AR display
Google Glass was, by all accounts, a spectacular flop in the eyes of potential consumers. Now, another company hopes to succeed where Google has failed by incorporating an AR display into a device people are far more familiar with: over-ear headphones.
Smart pedals will track your stolen bike for $149
Back when we saw Connected Cycle's smart bike pedals at CES in January we were pretty impressed by its plan to track activity and location; now you have a chance to get in on the action. The outfit's smart pedals recently hit crowdfunding site IndieGoGo where the campaign has already hit 171 percent of its funding goal. Since we last saw them, the duration limit on included data plans has been lifted for backers and CC is working on design modifications so the pedals accommodate "standardized" foot straps.
China becomes the world's top smart-device market
China is one of the fastest-growing markets for smartphones in the world, and here's some data that further reinforces that trend. According to mobile marketing firm Flurry, China has now overtaken the US to become the top smart-device market in the entire world. The country been moving up on the US, which has almost reached a population limit in terms of customers with smartphone and tablets. Last month, the two regions were matched up, and this month China has surpassed the US total, with no sign of slowing down. Flurry says that given that the population of China is so much larger than the US, odds are that country will be the main market for smart devices for a long time. It's also important to note that these figures include all smartphone devices, which means both iOS and Android. But Apple's clearly known this day was coming for a while, given all the work the company from Cupertino has been putting into building up its market overseas. Apple's goal will be to take advantage of this new top market as best it can.
Texas Instruments brings sci-fi tech to life with DLP (hands-on video)
We've come across a number of DLP-based pico projectors over the years and while these products are getting smaller, brighter and higher resolution, it's the integration with other devices that's really captured our imagination. Samsung's Galaxy Beam, which we reviewed last year, merges a 15-lumen nHD (640x360) DLP-based pico projector with a Galaxy S Advance. More recently at CES 2013, Texas Instruments announced its new Tilt & Roll Pixel chip architecture and demoed a handful of other DLP-equipped products live on our stage, including 3M's Streaming Projector and Smart Devices' U7 tablet. The company recently invited us to play with some of these devices and to show us other applications in areas such as 3D printing, 3D scanning, optical research, medical imaging and even automotive. Some of this DLP-equipped tech, like the Interactive Center Console, shows where we're headed in the near future -- other products, like Christie's VeinViewer Flex, exist today but remind us of something right out of science-fiction. Take a look at our galleries below, then join us after the break for our hands-on video and more info on these devices.
Insert Coin: SmartThings wants to connect your dog, mailbox and kitchen cabinets to the internet
In Insert Coin, we look at an exciting new tech project that requires funding before it can hit production. If you'd like to pitch a project, please send us a tip with "Insert Coin" as the subject line. Sometimes you just can't remember if you turned off the toaster oven before leaving the house. Sitting at work, you might wonder, "is my house burning down?" or "should I go home and check?" You could run home, of course, or you could just link that croissant cooker up to the internet and switch it off from your phone. SmartThings promises to let you do just that, offering a system that connects everyday physical objects to a cloud-based control center. The project aims to provide users with a bevy of end-devices -- automatic door locks, thermostats, humidity sensors, presence sensors, power outlet switches and more -- that connect to a router-like SmartThings hub. From here the user can easily see and control these devices on the SmartThings mobile app. That alone would be pretty handy -- but the SmartThings team decided to take it a step further by building SmartApps, that is, applications for further customizing how SmartThings devices (and the user) interact with the every day objects they're attached to. The platform is going to remain open, too, allowing owners and developers to build custom applications to fit their needs. Better still, the project is on a tight time line, and aims to put its product in backer hands by December -- of course, it'll have to reach its $250,000 Kickstarter goal first. Check out the team's pitch after the break, or hit up the source link below for more details.
Broadcom's got a WICED game it plays, to make smart devices feel this way
Broadcom wants you to fall in love with its BCM 4319 WICED (Wireless Internet Connectivity for Embedded Devices) platform -- a weeny 802.11 a/b/g /n WiFI module that can be added to any device that uses a microcontroller. Jimmy one into your fridge, digital camera or aircon and it'll find its own way to the cloud. With instant networking for kit like this, doctors could monitor patients vital signs, your holiday snaps could find their own way online and, most importantly of all, you can make sure the kids aren't fiddling with the darn thermostat again.
Smart Devices announces R7 e-book reader to a world in apathy
It's a fact of life: Every company gets into e-readers sooner or later. Therefore, Smart Devices has surprised no one by announcing that it will be branching off from its usual MID fare to launch one of its own. The R7 sports a color LCD (no E ink for these folks!), 7-inch (800 x 600) resistive touchscreen, buttons, and some form of storage (presumably). How's that for vague? We do know one thing, however -- seeing as how the company has been peddling the same functionality with its MIDs forever, and seeing as how the budget e-reader is the new budget mp3 player, this thing better be either really awesome in the specs department, or really really cheap.
Smart Q7 reviewed, deemed fairly useful for fairly basic tasks
The folks over at UMPC Portal have gotten a hold of the SmartQ 7 internet tablet for a nice, long review. The MID, which has a 667MHz Samsung ARM S3C6410 CPU, 128MB of RAM, and 1GB of flash memory, seems to handle its basic tasks -- MP3 playback, light browsing, PDF viewing, and viewing / editing documents fairly well. It also apparently has a pretty great battery life, and can stay juiced in standby mode for over three days. The tablet (which is somewhat reminiscent of the yet to appear in the wild CrunchPad) does, however, have plenty of drawbacks -- a touchscreen that often responds incorrectly, limited RAM and storage, and a bunch of other limitations we're used to associating with MIDs in general. There's a video highlighting some of the SmartQ 7's apps after the break; hit the read link for the full review.
SmartQ 5 MID scores itself Ubuntu, a ridiculously low price tag
The SmartQ 5 from SmartDevices just took itself from me-too MID of the millisecond to a quite interesting value proposition. The touchscreen device, which features a 4.3-inch 800 x 480 screen, is now running an ARM-friendly Ubuntu distro, and has been given the low, low pricetag of 899 Chinese Yuan, about $132. Sure, it'll probably never surface Stateside, especially not for that price, but it's a good demonstration of what a little bit of decent ARM hardware and a popular Linux distro can do when they work together, hand in hand.[Via iTech News Net]
