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We rolled into Detroit this morning and immediately wanted to know what the teams for the Red Bull Creation were up to. But first thing’s first, what’s the surprise theme? [Brian Benchoff] caught up with [Tyler Hansen] and [Jason Naumoff] who filled us in. The theme is “Reinvent the Wheel”.
The seven finalist teams are competing in a live, non-stop build which started yesterday and continues until tomorrow evening.
There are many very cool visual effects for music, but the best are the kind you build yourself. [Ben's] mini LED volume towers adds some nice bling to your music.
[Ben] was inspired to created this project when he saw a variety of awesome stereo LED towers on YouTube (also referred to as VU meters). We have even featured a few VU meters, one very recently. [Ben] goes over every detail, including how to test your circuit (a very important part of any project). The schematic is deceptively simple. It is based on the LM3914 display driver IC, a simple chained comparator circuit is used to control the volume bar display. All you really need is a 3D printer to make the base, and you can build this awesome tower.
See the completed towers in action after the break. What next? It would be cool to see a larger tower that displays frequency magnitude!
We’re a little under a month until the first cutoff date for The Hackaday Prize, and there have been a few questions we’ve been answering again and again: ‘what does ‘connected’ mean?’ and, ‘do I really have enough time to build something for The Hackaday Prize?’ Lucky for you, [Matt] from Electric Imp put together a very short demo of a sample THP entry. It’s a ‘HACKING’ light, kind of like an ‘on air’ light you’d find in a TV or Radio studio.
The idea for the project came from a tweet to [Matt] that seemed simple enough to implement. After grabbing an Imp and a breakout board, a LED, button, and resistor were wired up, with power supplied over USB. The code for the device was simple enough, and the Imp makes it easy to make that ‘hacking’ button tweet and serve a simple web page.
[Matt] pulled this project together in an afternoon, and although it’s not nearly as complex as the 3D printers, CNC machines, and freakin’ tricorders that are also entered into The Hackaday Prize, it meets all the requirements we’re looking for.
Of course, ‘connected’ is a very broad term, and even if you have a project that communicates with LEDs, a serial connection, or even pigeons, it’ll be more than enough to tick that ‘connected’ check box.
There’s still a few weeks until the first cutoff date for The Hackaday Prize, so get moving.
[via Bearded Inventor]
For decades people have used neurofeedback to treat attention deficit disorder. The technology reads brain waves and gives you visual feedback on your calmness.
But within the last year, a new crop of commercial brain-reading devices have taken this once expensive and inconvenient technology and put it into a portable, battery-powered headset (pictured above).
For instance, the Muse headband presents you with a calm ocean scene (via the device’s iOS app) when you’re focused and a stormy scene when it senses brainwaves associated with distraction.
The problem with the current crop of neurofeedback tech is that it doesn’t follow users around; we don’t just want to be mindful when we take time to meditate, we want to be mindful all the time.
Google Glass is the first technology that could clue us into our lack of attentiveness in real time. And this week we got the first taste of how that might work.
User experience company MindRDR has created a Google Glass app that interacts with the brain-sensing Neurosky headset, and you give it commands just by thinking them (video below):
The Neurosky is also a fantastic meditation tool (in fact, meditation through neurofeedback is one of the device’s original uses).
One exciting application I could imagine for the MindRDR tool would be to have it display certain colors in your field of vision whenever your attention wanes. It would be like having your own private Yogi all the time.
Indeed, an upcoming waste-clip wearable, the Spire, will alert users when their breathing becomes erratic. Right now, the Spire only interacts with a smartphone. You have to pull out the device and stare at a phone to do breathing exercises that will bring you back into a calm state. Integration with Google Glass would be far more effective, since the Spire’s instructions would be right in your field of vision.
Google Glass’s application with mind-reading technologies could be a boon to anyone looking to be more calm and focused throughout the day.
Technology has made the world a very (very) distracting place. In the near future, it may also give us the tools to be more mindful and focused.
GUEST POST
The online and mobile gaming industry is an ever-expanding and increasingly viable market for many venture capitalists, including China's Decent Capital. Of the 120 companies in the firm’s portfolio, more than 50 percent are games companies. And Decent Capital is constantly on the hunt for more.
In a recent interview in San Francisco, we talked with Decent Capital's managing director Jonathan Qiu Blumberg about the gaming industry in the U.S., in China, and around the world. We found out why Chinese venture capitalists are looking to make investments in American companies.
To find out more, watch the full interview below:
In the interview, Qiu explains that the gaming industry in America is much different than in China. Currently, the American market has been experiencing a slow and steady decline in the number of new games being developed, and new users being acquired. In China, the industry is still as robust and competitive as ever.
Jonathan tells us that with such a bustling industry in China, even larger firms like Decent Capital have lost out on deals because there is much stronger competition. He explained that the American marketplace offers firms like his more opportunities to invest in the companies and the products that they want to without as much competition from other VCs and angels.
When speaking about the gaming industry, Qiu says that it's not as easy a marketplace to enter as many people think. Competition is fierce, and in order to succeed, he says, you need to have a great product and the right connections.
GamesBeat 2014 — VentureBeat's sixth annual event on disruption in the video game market — is coming up on Sept 15-16 in San Francisco. Purchase one of the first 50 tickets and save $400! 
GUEST POST
When cousins Ben Harris and Eric Ely went skiing together, they would often listen to music as they carved their way down the mountain. But they found it troublesome to take control of the tunes or the volume using the standard in-line remote found on most smartphone headphone cords.
The tiny dongles tend to be hard to use when wearing bulky gloves — that is, if you can even locate them beneath the layers of clothing.
When they started asking other skiers and boarders how they cope with the music control challenge, the answer surprised them. Many of these people had simply given up listening to music while enjoying their favorite sport. They found it was just too much hassle.
That's how two cousins without any prior experience designing, manufacturing or marketing a product from scratch decided to build the GoGlove — a simple Bluetooth controller attached to embedded fingertip sensors. The controller gives you access to the major music playback features of your phone without ever taking your hands off your ski poles. Designed as a thin "inner" glove, the GoGlove can be worn on its own or under any pair of winter gloves.
VentureBeat spoke with founder Ben Harris to get a better idea of how the technology was being designed to stand up to the rigors of action sports like skiing and snowboarding:
"It's been a big focus for us. We're working with a design house to use wire that is essentially able to stretch to a degree. The wire is then sewn into the lining of the glove […] the ability of the wire to stretch impacts durability. [The design house] is making the module waterproof and fully encased and it will go through shock testing."
The other area of concern was having normal finger and thumb contact causing unwanted music operations. To address this, Harris and his cousin developed an "activate" sensor in the middle of the palm. After initial pairing, the glove enters a very low energy sleep state. To wake it up and perform music controls, you must first tap the activate sensor. You then have up to 10 seconds before the GoGlove re-enters its sleep state. Any taps you perform during that 10-second window will extend the window by an additional 10 seconds.
Designed to work out of the box with both iOS and Android, Harris claims the GoGlove is compatible with all of the major music apps such as Pandora, Spotify, Songza etc., including the native music apps on both platforms.
Though the GoGlove isn't the first product to address music control within an active sports context, it might be the most versatile. Burton has a set of gloves that offer similar functionality but it requires one hand to tap buttons on the opposite glove. Plus the gloves are only suitable for winter sports.
The real competition however is BearTek, which makes a line of gloves that use a control scheme very similar to GoGlove’s, involving taps of thumbs and fingers. But there are some key differences that set the GoGloves apart: BearTek gloves must be activated using the opposite hand and finger taps are executed using discrete zones on the first and second finger. The gloves and Bluetooth modules are sold separately, which drives up the price significantly. The cheapest glove+module combo will set you back $250. The modules (their are two varieties) are swappable but they also require a recharge after about 80 hours of use.
The GoGlove, by contrast, uses a Bluetooth LE (Low Energy) module. Though it can't be used to answer phone calls (yet) it can be powered by a much smaller, user replaceable battery that will last for 6 months of daily use. Like the BearTek, Harris and Ely have designed the GoGlove's Bluetooth module to be removable.
This will be useful if Harris and Ely achieve their second, $100,000 stretch goal. This would lead to a second product for warmer weather applications called the GoBand. It brings the same functionality of the GoGlove to a sweatband that can be worn on the wrist and features tappable buttons.
They've also promised to introduce an iOS and Android control app should they reach $60,000. This would let users customize the behaviors of the finger taps and allow Siri integration on an iPhone.
These guys have definitely "tapped" into a great idea, but this is their first attempt at creating a product. Unlike other Kickstarter projects driven by experienced teams, Harris and Ely have been actively working on the GoGlove only since January of this year. Their first prototype, which got its first real world test in March, looked very rough.
Harris and his cousin have no private backers and have sunk "less than $10,000" into the product themselves. Though this is their first commercially available product, Ely is apparently quite the maker and has created products for personal use over a decade’s worth of tinkering.
They've got 25 days to go and are already a third of their way to the $50,000 project goal. If you're feeling adventurous and want to back the GoGlove, there are still over 100 pledges available at the $69 level — the starting pledge point to receive a pair of the GoGloves which Harris estimates will ship in December of this year, hopefully just in time for the 2015 ski season.
Nils Forsblom and his team at Adtile Technologies are extracting the best components of airplane and submarine physics to totally reinvent the mobile ad experience.
“We all know that mobile advertising needs to be dramatically different from current industry standards. Static in-stream ads in vertically scrolling feeds are not the real answer,” the plucky Finland native told VentureBeat (with an endearing penchant for profanity).
Adtile’s founder and chief executive painted an exhaustive and fascinating vision for using micro sensors to help make mobile ads respond to, and even mimic, physical human behavior.
The HTML 5 ads the company creates use the smartphone's GPS, gyroscope, motion coprocessor, accelerometer, and compass to sense body motion.
“When you move, the ad moves too,” Forsblom says.
The mobile ads are fully interactive, somewhat like a video game. They dip, bend, and basically conform to the movements of your body while you’re walking or running.
For example, an Adtile ad might present you with the statement, “Walk 20 feet this way and earn a free coffee!” After the phone detects that you have moved the requisite distance, it delivers a coupon.
Watch:
With rich mobile ads that are actually fun to look at and interact with, a whole new set of mobile ad possibilities might open up for marketers.
“We want to set a new bar for mobile ad user experience and deliver something unique, where there's not always a click required. That's Adtile's core mission. That's why we exist,” Forsblom added.
To that end, Forsblon has minted 17 different patents for his mobile ad software platform.
Adtile’s tech is referred to as an HTML5 motion application creator system.
For now, Adtile’s team is small — just nine people including Forsblom. And, for now, that’s the way he wants it.
Adtile has raised $8 million in venture funding over the last year. Forsblom says his company has an active customer base, but non-disclosure agreements prevent him from naming names.
Word on the street is they’re big and disruptive, however. We note that one of the example ads on the Adtile website says Nike at the bottom.
The company announced earlier this month that it had raised $4.5 million in new funding from undisclosed investors. It also said it will launch a Member Center this fall — an "app store" for ad developers and designers.
Forsblom’s mobile ad software is beyond proprietary. His team spent more than two years honing it before unveiling it to his stealth clients.
Incredibly, Forsblom said it was very easy to build.
Easy to build? Yes, he says, and also very exciting. Everything else, he says, “is really fucking boring.”
Above: Spectrum raised a cool billion
$1 billion.
That’s the amount heavyweight Spectrum Equity amassed for what it’s calling Fund VII. Spectrum initially planned to raise $800 million but loosened its belts after the round was oversubscribed by several hundred million dollars, according to a press release.
Money from Fund VII hasn’t been spent, and the cash was raised sometime in June. Spectrum invests primarily in digital media, software, and Internet startups. The information was in a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed last week, which showed that it pulled in $951 million from 80 investors for the fund, Reuters reported.
Spectrum touts themselves this way in a posting on their website:
“Founded in 1994, we have raised six private equity funds totaling $4.7 billion of capital exclusively focused on the information economy. We seek opportunities to invest $25-$100 million in growth companies with sustainable and defensible business models—strong recurring revenue, significant operating leverage, strong cash flow margins, and franchise customer loyalty.”
“As Spectrum celebrates its 20th anniversary, we are well positioned to leverage our industry depth, dedicated origination capabilities and skill set for both minority and control growth equity opportunities,” said Spectrum managing director Chris Mitchell.
Some of the companies in Spectrum’s portfolio include GrubHub, SurveyMonkey, Finalsite, ITA Software (which Google owns), Net Health, and Ancestry.com, which was sold by its founders to Permira, a private European-based equity fund, for $1.6 billion in 2012.
Spectrum closed its sixth fund in 2010, raising $680 million.
