Oculus Rift + Head Tracking = The Ultimate Drone Experience

What happens when you strap a stereoscopic camera onto a drone and transmit the video feed directly to your Oculus Rift? A pretty amazing experience, that’s what!

Several students from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology recently finished a term project dubbed Oculus FPV. In it, [Erik Hals], [Jacob Prescott], [Mats Svensson], and [Mads Wilthil] succeeded in combining virtual reality, a head mounted display, and a UAV for a great result.

Drones with cameras are the next big step in search and rescue, remote inspection, and many other use cases in other environments that are typically inaccessible for a human to poke around. What we really like about this project is they also mounted the stereoscopic cameras on a gimbal, allowing for full head movement — this means the pilot can “park” (read “hover”) his drone in remote locations, and then look around, without having to worry about performing complex aerial acrobatics to get the right camera angle.

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen something like this done, but at least the hardware has gotten quite a bit smaller!

[Thanks aRez!]

Filed under: drone hacks, Virtual Reality

Roll with Dicebot, the Tweeting Dice Roller

[David] modernized a 1920′s dice rolling game to bring us DiceBot, a twitter enabled dice rolling robot. DiceBot started with an antique dice tin. The original tin was human controlled. Pushing a button on the side of the tin would spin the bottom, rolling the dice.

It’s a bit hard to push a button from across the world, so [David] added a small motor to spin the tin. He connected the motor to a simple L298 motor driver chip, and wired that up to a Raspberry Pi. The Pi runs a few custom Ruby scripts which get it on the internet and connect to the Twitter API.

Operation is pretty straightforward. A tweet to @IntrideaDiceBot with the hashtag #RollTheDice will cause the Dicebot to spin up the dice. Once things have settled, DiceBot captures an image with its Raspberry Pi camera. The dice values are checked using OpenCV. The results are then tweeted back, and displayed on DiceBot’s results page.

For more DiceBot, check out [David's] flickr stream.

Filed under: Raspberry Pi

I2C From Your VGA Port

VGA, DVI, and HDMI ports use Display Data Channel (DDC) to communicate with connected displays. This allows displays to be plug and play. However, DDC is based on I2C, which is used in all kinds of electronics. To take advantage of this I2C port on nearly every computer, [Josef] built a VGA to I2C breakout.

This breakout is based on an older article about building a $0.25 I2C adapter. This adapter hijacks specific lines from the video port, and convinces the kernel it’s a standard I2C device. Once this is done, applications such as i2c-tools can be used to interact with the port.

[Josef] decided to go for overkill with this project. By putting an ATmega328 on the board, control for GPIOs and LEDs could be added. Level shifters for I2C were added so it can be used with lower voltage devices. The end product is an I2C adapter, GPIOs, and LEDs that can be controlled directly from the Linux kernel through an unused video port.

Filed under: tool hacks

Analysts impressed with Amazon’s Fire Phone, but the high price may be a problem

Image Credit: Mark Sullivan/VentureBeat

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SEATTLE — IDC analyst Tom Mainelli asked the right question before the start of Amazon’s launch event for the Fire Phone this morning here in Seattle. Will the Amazon phone offer enough to get people to give up their iPhones and Android phones?

“Will the Amazon phone offer enough to get people to give up their iPhones and Android phones?” Put like that it seemed like Amazon had a steep hill to climb indeed.

Cool, but is it enough?

I asked Mainelli the same question when I talked to him after the event. He didn’t come away from today’s unveiling with the sense that the Fire Phone is an immediate threat to Sony’s and Samsung’s market shares.

“I don’t think it’s enough — yet,” Mainelli said. “But they don’t have to get it exactly right the first time,” he said. Mainelli says Amazon will keep improving the phone with each new version.

The head movement-tracking and 3D graphics Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos showed off in his lengthy demo this morning looked impressive. But when I actually tried the phone for myself this afternoon, I found the head movement tracking to be less a part of the real experience of using the phone than I thought. I found myself tapping and swiping on the screen more than I was moving my head around to navigate.

Here, too, Mainelli is hopeful. He points out that Amazon released an SDK for developers today, and it may be up to those developers to make apps that are more creative about exploiting the head tracking and 3D imagery capabilities of the new phone.

A good ‘vending machine’

The most important factor of the the new phone’s success, according to Gartner mobile analyst Tuong Nguyen, is whether it provides a good place to buy and consume Amazon products. He give Amazon high scores here.

“Amazon has a very strong ecosystem and they have brought that ecosystem to this phone,” Nguyen told VentureBeat Wednesday. “In this sense they have set a bar and a standard that the rest of the device industry will need to meet to be successful.”

Some people I talked to here were pleased and a bit surprised that Amazon sourced very good hardware and components for the phone.

So was Nguyen: “I was surprised on the hardware. No apologies necessary here. I think the hardware is robust and that technophiles should be happy. I think it is solid hardware technophiles should be happy.”

The cost problem

But that hardware is fancy, and expensive. The cost of the sensors and cameras and 3D screens shows up clearly in the price of the product. Nobody’s saying that the announced prices on the Fire Phone are good deals.

A $200 price tag on a 32GB phone with a two-year contract certainly isn’t one of the phone’s selling points. That price is as much as any high-end phone from Apple or Samsung.

Amazon’s Bezos said in an interview that the phone is packed full of killer, cutting edge technology, but he declined to say whether his company would make a profit on the phones.

IDC’s Mainelli believes Amazon will make money on every phone sold. AT&T may be pitching in some subsidy money as well.

The high price point may end up dooming the Fire Phone, at least until the price starts coming down.

Current Analysis analyst Avi Greengart was also a bit taken aback by the pricing, especially because the phone is meant as an enabling device that will spur users to buy Amazon products, digital and otherwise. One would think that Amazon could afford to discount the phone and make the money back on increased sales of books, games, apps, movies and music.

"If you're Amazon your telling people 'you've just bought a vending machine, now go buy stuff,'" Greengart told me immediately after the event this morning.

Greengart isn't completely sold on the 3D functionality, either. "They are mainly promoting the 3D technology with this phone, but other than the mapping functions, it's not immediately clear if the technology is really useful, or just cool," he said.

Lighting a ‘Fire’ under handset makers

In order to lure iPhone owners to the Fire Phone, Bezos needed to prove to the world today that his company had made a device that is leaps and bounds ahead of the competition in ease-of-use and functionality. If consumers don’t see it that way, the Fire Phone will be just another expensive 3D phone.

But wait. Pull back and take a broader view of the whole thing, Bezos and company have definitely brought some new ideas to the party, and that might push other players in the industry to innovate better and faster.

"It is always great when a new company enters the market as it provides a fresh look on a true and tried product,” says Recon Analytics founder Roger Entner in an email statement to VentureBeat.

Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN), a Fortune 500 company based in Seattle, opened on the World Wide Web in July 1995 and today offers Earth's Biggest Selection. Amazon.com, Inc. seeks to be Earth's most customer-centric company, where cu... read more »

Shasta confirms new $300M fund

Image Credit: Shutterstock

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How does someone follow an investment homerun such as Nest? For Shasta Ventures, the answer is to raise another fund and continue investing.

Today, the venture capital firm confirmed that it has raised its fourth fund, of $300 million, its largest to date.

This new fund will focus on first and early second rounds, the company told VentureBeat via email. The firm is focusing on connected device technology, software, and consumer businesses.

The firm has previously invested in companies such as Nest, Nextdoor, Spiceworks, Lithium, Zuora, Crittercism, Adometry, Flywheel, Mint, Dollar Shave Club, TaskRabbit, and Whisper, among others. With its previous fund, the firm invested in a total of 26 companies.

Shasta Ventures’s investing team includes cofounders and managing directors Tod Francis, Rob Coneybeer, and Ravi Mohan, managing director Jason Pressman, and partner Sean Flynn.

Shasta Ventures was founded in 2004 and is based in San Francisco and Menlo Park, Calif.

Shasta Ventures is a venture capital firm specializing in early stage companies. It seeks to invest in technology based and technology enabled companies with a focus on consumer services, business services, software, technology applica... read more »

The creator of the world's first learning thermostat, Nest Labs is focused on reducing home-energy consumption. The Nest Learning Thermostat learns about you and your home to automatically turn itself down when you're away, guide you... read more »

Adometry, Inc. provides scoring, auditing, verification, and attribution metrics to optimize results for online advertisers, agencies, publishers, and ad networks. Tracking billions of impressions in real-time, reporting on where they ... read more »

Crittercism, based in San Francisco, California, is the world's first mobile application performance management (APM) solution. The company's products monitor every aspect of mobile app performance, allowing Developers and IT Opera... read more »

Rob Coneybeer Managing Director, Shasta Ventures Rob Coneybeer brings deep experience in building semiconductor and networking companies to Shasta Ventures. Prior to co-founding Shasta, Rob was a General Partner at New Enterprise Ass... read more »

Tod Francis Shasta Ventures Tod Francis has more than 20 years of experience working with marketing and consumer driven companies. Since 2004, Tod has been a managing director of Shasta Ventures where his investment focus is technolo... read more »

Ravi Mohan has focused his entire career on the software business, with five years in operating roles and eight years investing in companies at Battery Ventures. During his operating career, Ravi built transaction-processing systems at... read more »

Jason Pressman Partner Get Flock Jason Pressman focuses on investment opportunities in the technology-enabled services and software sectors for Shasta Ventures. Prior to joining Shasta Ventures, he was the fourth employee at Walmart... read more »

Sean Flynn, Partner at Shasta Ventures, invests across the consumer internet and enterprise software sectors, with a particular interest in mobile-focused technologies. He serves on the board of online video software platform ZEFR, pay... read more »

This iPhone app could cut costs & save lives, & major hospitals are already using it

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It’s the phone call everyone dreads: Mom had a stroke and was rushed to a nearby hospital. A nurse performs an EKG and other diagnostic tests, then contacts your mother’s cardiologist — who is at a medical conference and unable to review the test results.

Someone has to decide what happens next. If she needs immediate surgery, the operating theater (at a different location) must be reserved. The medical device team has to order the appropriate stent. While the hospital awaits word from the cardiologist, surgery center, and medical device team to coordinate her treatment, your mom’s health is at risk.

Now consider medical consult 2.0:

The nurse uses surgical app DocSpera to send the cardiologist a video of the EKG and a summary of the other tests. The cardiologist reviews the EKG while at the conference and decides your mom needs surgery, stat. The cardiologist sends a surgeon the diagnostic information, and the surgeon confirms that a carotid angioplasty must be performed within the next eight hours. This information is passed to a surgery center to identify an operating room. The info also goes to a medical device representative to ensure the correct stent is on its way.

Instead of wasting an entire day exchanging voicemails or faxes, health caregivers share vital data between themselves within minutes, in a HIPAA-compliant format.

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READ MORE: Health apps could be heading into a HIPAA showdown

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In a medical system involving high-end surgical and procedural specialists, working collaboratively is essential, especially when there are multiple institutions involved.

“We’re addressing a market that affects a huge number of professionals working in a hyper-segmented environment,” said DocSpera SVP Kojo Appenteng in an interview with VentureBeat.

“You can’t simply send someone a text message about a patient, because it violates HIPPA (patient confidentiality).”

The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based DocSpera offers a secure communication and collaboration platform that allows surgeons and their care teams to discuss complex cases, determine preoperative plans and schedule surgeries, and share case information — including x-rays and videos — with a verified network of colleagues and medical device industry representatives.

Founded by orthopedic surgeon Ken Trauner (a serial entrepreneur who previously co-founded Invuity and Bespoke Innovations) and former Yahoo executive Sy Fahimi, DocSpera has been embraced by the medical community.

Since its launch in late 2013, DocSpera has signed up more than 1,000 surgeons across 450 institutions, including Kaiser, the Mayo Clinic, the Cleveland Clinic, the Hospital for Special Surgery, and UCSF. The American Association of Hip and Knee Society (AAHKS) recently signed with DocSpera as its exclusive partner for case collaboration.

“The data we’re gathering will be invaluable in improving patient outcomes to ultimately reduce cost,” says Appenteng. In a health care landscape undergoing rapid change, that’s welcome news.

The startup, operating under the moniker Compliant Innovations, just secured its first institutional round funding to support growth. The amount was unspecified, but investors include Life Force Ventures and Attractor Ventures.

Live: T-Mobile partners with Rhapsody to launch ‘unRadio’ music service

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SEATTLE, Wash. — At the Paramount Theater in Seattle, T-Mobile has just announced that it has partnered with Rhapsody to create a new music streaming app called UnRadio.

The new service differs from other streaming services in that it allows users to replay and skip tracks as much as they want. The app is available for free to T-Mobile’s unlimited LTE plan customers. For everyone else, the app will cost $5.

Earlier in the evening T-Mobile announced that it will give away music streaming so that its customers will no longer run into data limits or overage charges because of music streaming.

The new concession applies to popular music services Spotify, iHeart Radio, Rhapsody, Pandora, iTunes Radio, Samsung Milk, and BeatPort.

T-Mobile also announced that it will loan consumers an iPhone 5S to test drive its wireless network for seven days.

As part of that program, it also introduced the “Seven Night Stand” challenge, a campaign in which consumers participating in T-Mobile’s test drive can tweet about their experience “cheating on their carrier” to potentially win prizes. “The more you confess, the better your chances of winning prizes,” the company said.

The new program will start this Monday.

T-Mobile is doing its best to show that it’s the outsider, the underdog, the rocker, the rebel. CEO John Legere entered the building here in a spotlight with screaming fans (young T-Mobile employees) and super-loud music.

Legere began his remarks by welcoming the press to the event. Then: “Hope you got the goody bag, you’ll find a doobie right next to the energy drink.”

The "Un-carrier" had scheduled its own press event down in Los Angeles on the same day as Amazon’s Fire Phone event in Seattle. So T-Mobile relocated its press event to Seattle, leading some to wonder if the two events were somehow related. They were not.

All this is happening as Sprint and T-Mobile are talking seriously about a merger to compete with market giants AT&T and Verizon.

T-Mobile’s Wideband LTE network is producing speeds in the wild of 147 megabits per second (mbps) downloads.

T-Mobile customers use 69 percent more data than Verizon, Legere claims, and 100 percent more data than an AT&T customer. Why? because T-Mobile has 70 percent more spectrum per customer than Verizon.

Yo’s digital nudges are the new ‘pokes’ — and possibly the new notifications

Image Credit: Shutterstock/Sylvie Bouchard

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“Adults” might still be grappling with the idea that their kids are absolutely content to send spontaneous pictures and videos to their friends as one of their primary means of communication. But that’s not stopping even simpler apps from surfacing — and even grabbing some money.

Meet Yo, an app whose entire function is to send a “Yo” to your friends — and that’s it. If texting is cooking a meal from scratch, then Yo is getting a single bagel delivered.

What’s more, it just bagged $1 million in seed funding from co-founder Moshe Hogeg’s angel fund.

Sure, you’re likely in shock right now, wondering why that elaborate robotics startup you’ve been working on for years — years! — has yet to get a single penny from anyone who’s not your mother or spouse, yet this app whose entire existence is built around sending a two-lettered urban greeting is now $1 million richer after launching less than three months ago.

But what if we assume that raising funding means that Yo has gotten some traction, a.k.a. users and engagement?

Like it or not, many of today’s smartphone users want want easy — even lazy — communication, and they seem to want Yo. According to the company, it already has 50,000 active users who have sent almost 4 millions “Yos” so far.

Yo is a like a “poke,” that long-forgotten Facebook feature that was useful when you just wanted to nudge a friend but didn’t really have anything to say. Or when you were bored and loitering on Facebook. Or if you were lazy and typing actual words was too much work.

"Sometimes going into an app, typing out a message, all of that takes way too long. The beauty of Yo lies in the fact that this simple message can mean anything, it all depends on the context of the conversation," Or Arbel, chief executive of Yo, said, in an official statement.

"Whether you just want to say 'hi', or 'where are you?', or even 'I love you' – Yo is the easiest and fastest way to do it. Of course, it's also one of the most fun apps you'll ever use,” he added.

So is Yo a sign that we are getting lazier? Is it a sign that we don’t care to express anything more elaborate to the people we communicate with?

Or is it a sign that we just love dumb colorful apps because they’re shiny, new, and easy to use, and we get bored really fast?

Could be both. But it could also be a sign that at the end of the day, we want to feel connected to other humans, and sending someone a nudge and getting an acknowledgement in return actually helps, even just a little bit.

And Yo may actually be onto something here, as it now has an API, which could potentially reinvent notifications as we know them, turning them into something that feels a tiny bit more of a social connection. This means that Yo users can send and receive “Yos” from services such as blogs, sports teams, online stores, and so on.

A “Yo” from your favorite soccer team because it just scored is much more fun than a bland notification, isn’t it?

Yo was founded by Or Arbel and Moshe Hogeg, and is available on iOS and Android.