This Week On The TechCrunch Droidcast: Samsung's Galaxy Glut, Nexus Price Cuts, And HTC's Next Step

TechCrunch » Gadgets

This Week On The TechCrunch Droidcast: Samsung's Galaxy Glut, Nexus Price Cuts, And HTC's Next Step

Is it Wednesday already? It must be, because we’ve got yet another edition of the TechCrunch Droidcast to carry you through the rest of your day (or least the next half hour). This week it’s just Darrell Etherington and I shooting the breeze about the goings-on in the Android world, but there’s plenty for us to dig into.

Samsung has a new tablet for kiddies and confirmed it’ll show off the Galaxy Gear smartwatch next week for starters, and Google has just priced its 8 and 16GB Nexus 4s to move. Meanwhile, poor old HTC may be trying to put together a mobile operating system of its own so it can make some inroads into the Chinese market (and hopefully secure itself a future).

Throw in a bit of Kobo talk (at Darrell’s insistence, being Canadian and all) and a few off-topic moments at the end of the show to tear apart Nintendo’s downright ridiculous 2DS handheld, and you’ve got this installment of Droidcast in a nutshell. Interest piqued? Take a listen below and subscribe to the podcast in iTunes if you’re picking up what we’re putting down.

We invite you to enjoy weekly Android podcasts every Wednesday at 5:30 p.m. Eastern and 2:30 p.m. Pacific, in addition to our weekly Gadgets podcast at 3 p.m. Eastern and noon Pacific on Fridays. Subscribe to the TechCrunch Droidcast in iTunes, too, if that’s your fancy.

Intro music by Kris Keyser.

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UniKey Founder Talks About The Future Of Access Control Ahead Of October Ship Date

TechCrunch » Gadgets

UniKey Founder Talks About The Future Of Access Control Ahead Of October Ship Date

The UniKey Kevo has been a hot topic for the past year, its touch-triggered unlocking amazing the likes of investors, TV shows and retailers alike. The auto-lock system first appeared on an episode of “Shark Tank”, and shortly thereafter received a round of funding which brings the company’s total to $2.75 million.

We caught up with UniKey founder Phil Dumas at the ff Venture Capital office (ffVC is one of UniKey’s investors) to chat about the device being a pre-order and how to deal with competition.

But first, let’s clear up what exactly the UniKey Kevo does just in case you missed it. The Kevo uses Bluetooth 4.0 to identify you before unlocking your door, just with a touch. Unlike Lockitron, which can allow users to remotely lock and unlock their door, Kevo doesn’t support that function but rather focuses on proximity and convenience. Kevo users never have to reach in their pocket or wallet.

The company has a partnership with Kwikset, one of the largest lock manufacturers in the U.S. so that installation is quick and easy.

“We’re not the first company to unlock a door with a phone,” said Dumas. “But we are the first company to make the experience so much better than a traditional key. All you have to do is touch the lock.”

But what if you lose your phone? Well, Kevo is set up to let you log in through the web app or on a different device to gain access. Each Kevo also comes with a fob, with extra fobs available for $25 each.

Eventually, Unikey will move into other spaces, including automotive, air travel, professional settings, etc. to ensure that, one day, you’ll be able to throw out all your keys. There is also potential for Unikey to partner with home control and home automation companies in order to trigger certain events in the home based on a door locking or unlocking.

For now, however, the company is getting through its pre-order phase. If you’re interested in the $219 Kevo, you can pre-order at Amazon, Newegg, Home Depot, and Build.com. Shipping begins in October.

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Nintendo Reveals The Hideous $130 2DS, Will Cut Wii U Price To $299

TechCrunch » Gadgets

Nintendo Reveals The Hideous $130 2DS, Will Cut Wii U Price To $299

Nintendo wants to compete with cheap tablets more than ever, but just not the way you think. The company will release a new version of the 3DS — the Nintendo 2DS, which has a tablet-esque form factor. As the name suggests, it is a 2D-only handheld console compatible with 3DS and DS games. At $129.99, the 2DS is $40 cheaper than its sibling. The company also announced a $50 price cut for the Wii U on September 20, ahead of the releases of the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

While the 3DS is doing well, it’s another story for the Wii U. As of June 30, Nintendo reported 3.61 million sales. As a reminder, in July 2007, seven months after the release of the Wii, the company was selling 1.8 million consoles each month. Now, Nintendo wants to compete on price to stay relevant.

But the console still lacks games. Many third-party publishers, such as Electronic Arts, Activision and Ubisoft, will only release their games on the Xbox One and PlayStation 4. The PlayStation 4 will cost $399 and the Xbox One $499.

Nintendo probably thought that launching the Wii U a year before its competitor was the right move to get a head start. But it is hard to convince existing Wii owners that the Wii U isn’t just a tiny upgrade with a tablet-like controller. The name of the console itself doesn’t help. It finally is an HD console from Nintendo, but it’s hard to communicate about the number of pixels on a screen.

With the 2DS, Nintendo finally built a gaming tablet. It could have a certain appeal to parents who are hesitating between a cheap Android tablet and a Nintendo handheld console, but the form factor doesn’t seem very practical for gamers, and especially children with tiny hands.

Available on October 12, the 2DS will retain the same features as the 3DS, except its main feature — the 3D display. It has the same stylus, Wi-Fi and comes with a 4GB SD card. While $130 is cheap, 3DS games are still more expensive than iOS or Android games. But you won’t find Mario on your iPad.

As Nintendo suggests in the 2DS promo video, the new console is “a handheld gaming system from Nintendo like you’ve never seen before.” Everyone can agree that Nintendo is right on this one.

An earlier version of this article misstated the price of the 3DS. It is $40 more expensive than the 2DS ($169), not $50.

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FABtotum Is A Hybrid 3D Printer, 3D Scanner, Cutter, Miller, Engraver Maker's Machine In One

TechCrunch » Gadgets

FABtotum Is A Hybrid 3D Printer, 3D Scanner, Cutter, Miller, Engraver Maker's Machine In One

FABtotum is an all-in-one 3D printer, cutting, milling and engraving box of tricks which supports additive and subtractive manufacturing processes so you can both print and cut to create design prototypes/objects. It also incorporates a 3D scanner function for cloning real-world items to duplicate and remix. If all that sounds too good to be true it currently is, because the Italian startup behind this hybrid maker device is looking to raise a chunk of cash ($50,000) on Indiegogo to get the machine to market. The startup is also seeking investors alongside their crowdfunding campaign, having been privately funded since 2011. They are, however, well on their way to meeting their crowdfunding goal — with more than a month of the funding period still left to run.

“Most of the 3D printers out there allow a single direction: from a digital model to a printed part,” explains one of FABtotum’s two creators, Marco Rizzuto. “Those devices are also limited in flexibility and professional use since not everything can be done in polymers, even prototypes. We think that allowing people to scan objects with our hybrid 4 axis technology allow a seamless interaction between physical and digital models. You may pick an object and fax it to a friend, he can print it straight out or make some changes in any free or professional modelling software. You may use the subtractive capabilities of FABtotum to carve foams, PCB milling or other activities that designers, engineers and makers in general can integrate in their design workflow or hobbies.”

There’s some inevitable complexity in a multi-functional manufacturing device like this — so it will be a while before the average consumer is hankering for this type of hybrid. In the meantime there’s likely to be plenty of appetite among small businesses that need to make design prototypes, and makers wanting a more streamlined workshop. As one measure of appetite, in just over a week FABtotum’s Indiegogo campaign has raised more than $38,000 from 60 public backers.

Rizzuto names the main direct competitor devices to FABtotum as Microfactory’s workshop-in-a-box hybrid machine, and Aio Robotics 3D-faxing Zeus printer — due to land on Kickstarter next month — but says FABtotum will be undercutting both rival hybrid machines on price, and will also support customisation via third party “heads” so users can expand its capabilities to suit their needs.

The FABtotum supports laser scanning (for speed) and Z probing (for high res) 3D scanning methods. Its fused filament fabrication 3D print function offers Z precision of p to 0,47 microns. Build area volume is up to 210x240x240mm.

FABtotum’s makers are offering a $699 pledge price for a mechanical kit to convert an existing 3D printer to their hybrid, or $999 for the full FABtotum machine in kit form for self assembly. All early bird pledges of $849 for the full FABtotum machine (fully assembled) are gone — full price is now $1,099.

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Google Just Killed The Best Thing About The Chromecast (For Now)

TechCrunch » Gadgets

Google Just Killed The Best Thing About The Chromecast (For Now)

Google’s Chromecast is a curious beast because it’s incredibly cheap and does exactly what it promises, but that hasn’t stopped from developers from (what else?) trying to make the $35 dongle even more useful. That’s exactly what esteemed Android dev Koushik Dutta did — earlier this month he reverse engineered the Chromecast to create an app called AllCast (nee AirCast) that let users stream stuff not just from their browsers, but straight from their Android smartphones too.

Sounds pretty great, right?

Well, thanks to a recent update pushed out by Google, AllCast doesn’t work anymore. To hear Dutta tell the tale on Google+, this was probably a calculated move to ensure that only Google-approved content providers could play.

Heads up. Google’s latest Chromecast update intentionally breaks AllCast. They disabled ‘video_playback’ support from the ChromeCast application.

Given that this is the second time they’ve purposefully removed/disabled[1] the ability to play media from external sources, it confirms some of my suspicions that I have had about the Chromecast developer program: The policy seems to be a heavy handed approach, where only approved content will be played through the device. The Chromecast will probably not be indie developer friendly.

Dutta’s tinkering with Chromecast didn’t end there — he managed to bake Chromecast streaming support into the popular Cyanogenmod custom Android ROM in early August, though to my knowledge the feature hasn’t yet been pushed into nightly builds. In fairness though, none of Dutta’s distributed work has been built using Google’s still-in-beta Cast SDK, so there was always a chance Google could muck things up for Dutta and devs like him.

When Dutta released the first beta version of Allcast, The Verge’s Casey Newton pointed out that Google would likely put the kibosh on it. After all, Google could easily score some points with major content providers by closing off parts of the Chromecast system that would allow users to stream illicitly obtained media to their televisions, or at least show that it’s committed to controlling its ecosystem. It’s a bummer for would-be Chromecast buyers looking for ways to get more out of the HDMI dongle, but Google never said that the Chromecast would be open in the way that Android is. I’ve reached out to Google to see if they want to weigh in, and will update this post if I hear back from them.

UPDATE: A Google spokesperson just replied with the following comment.

We’re excited to bring more content to Chromecast and would like to support all types of apps, including those for local content. It’s still early days for the Google Cast SDK, which we just released in developer preview for early development and testing only. We expect that the SDK will continue to change before we launch out of developer preview, and want to provide a great experience for users and developers before making the SDK and additional apps more broadly available.

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BlueStacks' GamePop Subscription Mobile Console Gets 5 New Dev Partners, Bringing Library Value To $200

TechCrunch » Gadgets

BlueStacks' GamePop Subscription Mobile Console Gets 5 New Dev Partners, Bringing Library Value To $200

The Ouya Android gaming console is already out, but its competitor from BlueStacks is picking up steam in the development phase. The subscription-based GamePop and GamePop Mini will have titles from five top new developers at launch, the company announced today. Those include TinyCo, Animoca, Game Circus, Creative Mobile and Nevosoft, and together they represent over 340 million downloads on the Google Play store as of right now.

GamePop’s entire value proposition is dependent on the fact that it can offer gamers access to a rolling catalogue of 500 premium games for a monthly subscription price of just $6.99, so being able to sign up devs with big-name hits is a key success factor for BlueStacks. And according to BlueStacks and its partners, this is also an opportunity for previously mobile-only game makers to explore the TV and home console market, which is a potentially lucrative shift.

“Support from the developer community is like air,” BlueStacks CEO Rosen Sharma explained in a email to TechCrunch. “Without it, you can’t get users, as people will have never heard of the apps. We feel very fortunate the community is lining up behind GamePop so strongly.”

Previously, the GamePop team announced that HalfBrick, Glu, COM2US and OutFit7 would be offering titles on its platform, locking down some of the most successful mobile games and apps available on Android. There still hasn’t been a major studio like EA or Gameloft announced as a partner, however, which could hurt its chances of being taken seriously by the gaming community.

As my sometime partner in crime Chris Velazco pointed out on yesterday’s TechCrunch Droidcast, game library is a key concern for any device, and the Nvidia Shield, which in some ways competes with the GamePop and the Ouya thanks to TV-out capabilities, faces problems in that regard despite major publisher backing.

There’s no question that game choice will be key to the GamePop’s ability to woo customers, especially when asking for a regular, monthly commitment. A stable of solid Android developers who’ve proven their ability to attract downloads can help, so today’s announcement is good news for those rooting for the concept, but true marquee titles are going to be the key to success here, since the entire concept is based around turning casual gamers into something a little less casual and a little more invested.

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This Week On The TechCrunch Gadgets Podcast: Ubuntu, Omate, Digitizer And A Gold iPhone?

TechCrunch » Gadgets

This Week On The TechCrunch Gadgets Podcast: Ubuntu, Omate, Digitizer And A Gold iPhone?

The Ubuntu Edge may have been the most successful crowdfunding campaign in history, but that doesn’t mean it made its goal. Meanwhile, yet another smartwatch joined the fray this week, coaxing John’s money out of his wallet by being just a tad “smarter” than the rest. Makerbot released a scanner this week called the Digitizer, which lets you scan objects to then print them, but we’re not sure we’re down with the high price tag. And last, but certainly not least, we all pretty much agree that a gold iPhone will make its way into the world come September 10.

We discuss all this and more on the latest episode of the TC Gadgets podcast, featuring John Biggs, Matt Burns, Jordan Crook, Darrell Etherington, Natasha Lomas and Romain Dillet.

Enjoy!

We invite you to enjoy our weekly podcasts every Friday at 3pm Eastern and noon Pacific.

Click here to download an MP3 of this show.

You can subscribe to the show via RSS.

Subscribe in iTunes

Intro Music by Rick Barr.

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Google Exploring Location-Dependent Security Settings For Smartphone Unlock

TechCrunch » Gadgets

Google Exploring Location-Dependent Security Settings For Smartphone Unlock

Google has a patent application published today (via Engadget) that would make the standard system of unlocking a device much more intelligent, using a smartphone’s built-in sensor to change your security settings on a sliding basis depending on where the phone finds itself. This would allow a user to make it easier to unlock a phone while in the comfort of their own home, while making it more difficult when the device is in a public place.

The invention is clearly designed to make it harder for a stranger or unwanted intruder to access your phone and its data when it may be easily lifted from your pocket or bag while in transit or at a public location like a cafe. In the end it’s a convenience feature, more than a security one, since the most secure option would be to use the most intrusion-resistant method of screen locking available at all times. But making things easier to access at home makes a lot of sense, in terms of decreasing friction and potential displeasure with the general user experience.

The patent as described also contains a provision that would allow for a third authentication method to be set for a second so-called “familiar area.” This would allow for a number of different possibilities, like setting different levels of security for home, work and the rest of the world, for instance. It’s a handy and noteworthy wrinkle in the patent app, since it could also make it possible to essentially set up a specific security profile required in professions where on-site security of data and mobile devices is paramount.

There are a lot of ways this could potentially be useful, in fact, and it’s one of those context-based features that Google seems to be focusing on with Google Now and recent updates to apps like Keep. In the future, you have a different phone depending on where you go, and that’s something most of the tech giants seem to be working on.

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Chrome 30 Beta For Android Brings WebGL And New Swipe Gestures To Mobile, Easier Search By Image To Desktop

TechCrunch » Gadgets

Chrome 30 Beta For Android Brings WebGL And New Swipe Gestures To Mobile, Easier Search By Image To Desktop

Google today launched the latest beta of Chrome for desktop and Android. This release marks the first time Chrome for Android supports WebGL by default. Previous versions of the beta for Android already made WebGL the standard for rendering interactive 3D and 2D graphics in the browser, available behind a flag. It’s now enabled by default on all mobile devices that feature a relatively high-end GPU, including those found in the Nexus 4 phone and Nexus 7 tablet.

While virtually every modern desktop browser already supports most aspects of the WebGL API (with the exception of Internet Explorer, which will support it in the next version), mobile browsers have mostly lagged behind. While the BlackBerry 10 browser, Opera Mobile and Firefox for Android now support it, the mobile web is only now starting to catch up with WebGL. iOS for Safari still doesn’t support it, but the popularity of Chrome on Android will likely give more mobile developers the confidence to start experimenting with it.

If you have a compatible phone, give WebGL a try with this demo.

New Swipe Gestures

Google is also bringing a number of new swipe gestures to Chrome. You can now, for example, swipe horizontally across the top toolbar to switch between tabs and drag vertically down from the toolbar to enter the tab switcher view.

With today’s update, Google is also introducing the device motion part of the Device Orientation API in the Chrome for Android beta channel. That sounds pretty dry, but it allows developers to get information about the device’s acceleration and rotation rates. This feature has long been part of the API, but it looks like Google only got around to implementing it now. You can give it a try here.

The only other major new feature for developers is support for the MediaSource API in the beta channel for devices running Jelly Bean or higher. This, Google says, makes it easier to enable adaptive streaming and time-shifting live streams in the mobile browser.

Chrome Apps are also getting some goodies in today’s update, including APIs for webview.request and media gallery write and download support. Chrome Apps, Google says, will now also be able to use Chrome Web Store managed in-app payments.

Chrome 30 Beta For Desktop

The desktop version isn’t getting too many new features, but Google is now making it easier to search for a given image right from Chrome. Just right-click on any image on the web, select “Search google for this image” and see Google’s search results within a second.

The other interesting new features on the desktop is support for the WebRTC Device Enumeration API, which allows users to switch between microphones and cameras (just like in Skype) without having to restart the WebRTC call.

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The Pavlov Poke Shocks You When You Use Facebook Too Much

TechCrunch » Gadgets

The Pavlov Poke Shocks You When You Use Facebook Too Much

Do you spend too much time on Facebook? Why not administer non-lethal shocks to your body when you click over to your News Feed! Two Ph.D. candidates at MIT, Robert R. Morris and Dan McDuff, did just that when they realized that they were spending over 50 hours on the service per week combined, and the results – and questions their project raises – are quite interesting.

“The shock’s unpleasant but it’s not dangerous,” said co-creator McDuff. However, they do hurt. The system watches your actions and sends a signal to an Arduino board that, in turn, administers the shock. Over time the user will tend to avoid Facebook and/or rock silently in the corner, quietly weeping. The system uses a specially wired keyboard rest to send the pain.

Did it work?

“We’re not sure,” said Morris. “To be truly effective, many shock exposures are probably needed. Proper conditioning procedures should be followed. Sadly, we found the shocks so aversive, we removed the device pretty quickly after installing it. Anecdotally, however, I did notice a significant, though temporary, reduction in my Facebook usage.”

The pair also created a less invasive version of the system by using Amazon’s Mechanical Turk to ask strangers to call the Facebook user’s phone and tell them to get off Facebook. The results, at once frightening and hilarious, are far less painful than the shock treatment. Callers would read off prepared scripts that berated the Facebook user for using Facebook.

You can look at the entire project here and even download the plans and scripts. Morris said that Facebook is as bad as cigarettes (to a degree.) He writes:

All too often, people assume they use a given technology because they want to and because it is in their best self-interest. Unfortunately, this assumption does not align with how these technologies are designed. Sites like Facebook are crafted on the basis of something called engagement metrics, which measure the number of daily active users, the time people spend on the site, etc. Unfortunately, these metrics are not designed to assess well-being. A product can have incredibly high engagement metrics, and yet be extremely bad for its users (cigarettes, for example).

Facebook is junk Internet – it’s not good for us, it’s pleasant but vaguely dissatisfying, and it makes us feel good for a short while and then bad for the rest of the day. This project, as tongue-in-cheek as it is, addresses some important issues that all of use face in our online behavior and, more important, makes us reconsider just why we’re visiting Zuckerberg’s Timesink every few hours in the first place.

“While this whole project is intended to be somewhat of a joke, we believe a serious discussion is needed about how communication technologies are designed,” said Morris.

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This Week On The TechCrunch Droidcast: SHIELD Me From These Idiots, I Want A Wacom And Google's Now Octopus

TechCrunch » Gadgets

This Week On The TechCrunch Droidcast: SHIELD Me From These Idiots, I Want A Wacom And Google's Now Octopus

Midweek, we’re here for you! Our hump day tradition of the TechCrunch Droidcast continues into its third episode with your host Chris Velazco, myself and special guest Romain Dillet delivering some worldly charm.

This week, we’ve got some new Android-powered hardware to discuss, including the Nvidia Shield portable gaming console and Wacom’s new Cintiq Companion Hybrid combo Android tablet/PC or Mac drawing tablet. Both niche devices, but good examples of what Android can do when it isn’t just being used for phones or tablets.

We also get into Google’s native app strategy, prompted by the Keep update that came out today. Is Google Now the future? Are all apps destined to become features of that on-demand, contextually aware service? Spoiler: We have no idea.

We invite you to enjoy weekly Android podcasts every Wednesday at 5:30 p.m. Eastern and 2:30 p.m. Pacific, in addition to our weekly Gadgets podcast at 3 p.m. Eastern and noon Pacific on Fridays. Subscribe to the TechCrunch Droidcast in iTunes, too, if that’s your fancy.

Intro music by Kris Keyser.

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Apple Will Ship Both A “High-End And Low-End” iPhone In September, WSJ Reports

TechCrunch » Gadgets

Apple Will Ship Both A “High-End And Low-End” iPhone In September, WSJ Reports

Apple is going to ship new iPhones next month – two different new variants, including a “low-end” and a “high-end” variant, according to a new Wall Street Journal report today. At this stage, we’ve seen lots to suggest that Apple would indeed announce two versions of the iPhone at its rumored event on September 10, but the WSJ makes it a pretty sure bet.

The WSJ doesn’t get into specifics about what we’ll see from new iPhones, but it’s likely that we’ll get the iPhone 5S, which would follow in the footsteps of the iPhone 5 with a metal body similar to the previous design (with a new double-flash for the camera and higher specs), as well as an iPhone 5C with a rear plastic case in multiple colors (likely very similar to the leaks from Sonny Dickson (source for image above) we’ve been seeing recently). I’d say both the names are subject to change, but the material details are essentially a known quantity at this point.

We also know that there will almost certainly be a new gold colorway for the iPhone 5S, as reported by TechCrunch this weekend and confirmed by AllThingsD earlier today. A ship date of later in September would also be in keeping with the timing of previous iPhone launches, where hardware typically hits consumer shelves a maximum of two weeks after the announcement.

Two new iPhones at once would seem to represent a new level of difficulty for Apple’s supply chain, but frequently-accurate analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said earlier today that Apple could replace the iPhone 5 entirely with the iPhone 5C (or whatever it ends up being called), making it likely that a lot of the production processes from that device would be shifted into place for the low-cost variant.

Apple’s event will likely have company in terms of announcements from rival Samsung, so expect a busy September all around.

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BotObjects Vows To Put A 3D Printer In (Almost) Every High School

TechCrunch » Gadgets

BotObjects Vows To Put A 3D Printer In (Almost) Every High School

BotObjects, an intriguing 3D printing outfit that builds real, full-color additive prints out of multiple colored plastic filaments, has announced that they will offer free printers to select high schools in the United States and the UK.

High Schools can register at the BotObjects website in late August. Between 150 and 200 classrooms will receive a suggested curriculum, a ProDesk3D printer, and a 3D design package designed specifically for students.

“After we’re done giving away the freebies, we’ll reduce the price of the ProDesk3D by 65% only for high schools,” said Martin Warner, co-founder of the company. “We envision schools having up to seven of these in a lab that will create what hopefully is a computer room for the future.”

The education initiative will begin on August 23 and then be available in the UK in November. They will ship the ProDesk3D in October, in time for back-to-school season. Schools will get a continuously updated curriculum for the machines as well as yearly updates for the study guides and software.

“It’s away to really get fast penetration,” said Martin. “I think it’s going really accelrate things in the 3D printing space.”

The printer itself is quite unique in that it uses a cartridge of multiple colored filaments as well as a standard “base” color. It is best at producing color gradients and can create 25 micron prints using a mix of five separate colors to create separate bands of color. Theoretically it could also print full color objects with a bit of design trickery. You can see it at work here.

Inexpensive color printing has always been a dream in the 3D printing world and it seems like Martin and his partner Mike Duma may have it licked. It will be particularly interesting once kids get their hands on these things and start creating – and learning – in ways deemed impossible only a few years ago.

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