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Your source for hardware insights.
April 29th, 2016
Products
The Hair Dryer That Costs as Much as Your Smartphone
Dyson’s first-ever hairdryer, the Supersonic, is expensive, attractive, and packed with technology, like an air multiplier feature, a digital motor, and heat sensors. Plus, it’s apparently beyond the audible range for humans, so you can blow-dry in the early morning hours without getting yelled at by your housemates. Although, your dog might be really agitated.
Roll-Up Hydration
Minimal Design Company has crafted a water bottle out of silicon that can be rolled up and stored when empty, to the delight of backpackers and air travelers alike. + Eight feet of paracord and a flint firestarter add to its usefulness.
Your Ant BFF
Antbo is an Arduino-based robot that’s programmable with Scratch, the Arduino IDE, or Whendo. Broadly designed for kids, parents, educators, or just robot geeks, Antbo looks like, well, an ant, but you can control it with your smartphone, paint or Bedazzle it, and add customized parts.
+ Kids learn to code at a USC-hosted robotics workshop.
+ Computer Scientist and director of the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at MIT Media Lab Mitch Resnick talks about why we need to teach kids to code.
A Beautiful New Home Controller
Senic, a new hardware and software company, released Nuimo this week, a wireless controller for your home that controls music, lighting, temperature, and more, via familiar gestures, like swiping and tapping. We can only hope that someday, playing air guitar will magically turn on your stereo.
Hang the Moon in Your Living Room
Even though NASA opened up the astronaut application process this year, let’s be honest…most of us won’t get to travel to the moon. So why not bring it to your house with MOON, a 1/20 size moon replica that is part art piece, part science exhibit? A ring of LED lights revolves around the sphere, illuminating the correct face of the moon and recreating the lunar phases as seen from Earth, based on topographic data from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.
Industry
Nokia Puts Weight Behind Withings
Nokia is acquiring French wearables and health company Withings for $191 million, as a way to continue to move forward as a consumer brand after Microsoft’s 2013 acquisition of its phone division. Withings will become a division of Nokia Technologies.
Not Area 451
Google is developing an in-house startup incubator called Area 120 to retain top talent. Teams will pitch their ideas, as they would to any incubator, and can receive funding to work on those ideas or create a new startup company.
A Bite out of Apple’s Revenue
Apple reported its second quarter earnings, noting a decline in revenue for the first time in thirteen years. Its stock value decreased by 8%, but the company still has $233 billion in assets, and Apple Music grew to thirteen million paid subscribers, so there’s still every likelihood that things will improve in the third quarter.
+ Makerbot laid off its entire manufacturing force and announced a decline in sales revenue.
Traffic School for Drones
NASA successfully tested its drone traffic management system, launching 24 drones from four test sites around the U.S. and tracking them using the UAS Traffic Management tool (UTM). NASA engineers also monitored each drone individually. NASA will use the test data to refine its system and track larger numbers of unmanned aircrafts flying in a wider variety of locations. Now, if only we could get NASA to handle local commute traffic…
The Remote Work Trend Continues
Virtual teams are becoming even more commonplace than they were in 2015, when Fast Company predicted the ways in which businesses would model themselves after the way freelancers work. Forbes.com lists the 125 companies in the U.S. where all or most employees work remotely, according to FlexJobs. We’re pretty confident that more people working in their pajamas is a solid move toward world peace.
