The notion that the wristwatch has fallen out of favor among smartphone-reliant youth is apparently a fallacy, as a Kickstarter project to fund a modern timepiece accessory called the Pebble has raised nearly $10 million with a week still to go. (It’s funding goal? $100,000.) Indeed, the booming crowdfunding site has facilitated a wave of indie technology product development leading to several innovative new gadgets, including those below.
Digital Bolex: The ubiquity of the digital video camera has afforded the everyman the ability to test out the director’s chair, but as evidenced by about 90% of the content on YouTube, most people are more interested in capturing images like the antics of their cat than crafting thoughtfully framed narratives. For more serious filmmakers, the appealingly retro Digital Bolex may become a fundamental tool in their aesthetic arsenal. The first consumer-oriented “digital cinema camera” shoots raw images rather than compressed video, meaning that the filmmaker can alter the color and white balance, contrast, and more, without spoiling the quality of the imagery. Aaaand action!
Innovative gadgets and accessories designed to maximize people’s non-waking hours give those who burn the midnight oil new ways to feel rested despite limited slumber time. More recently, though, sleep technology has extended to encompass a new type of shut-eye product: the dream control app. These dream weavers purport to get sleepers through the night in ways never before thought possible.
Yumemiru: The Yumemiru (translation: “see the dream”) iPhone app puts people in the proverbial director’s chair when it comes to their dreams. Before going to sleep, users can essentially script the images they’d like to see while sleeping, from among eight different fantasy scenarios (including, ‘flying in the sky’, ‘romance’, and ‘becoming rich’) designed to stimulate the astral plane. Users run the app in their phone’s background, where it plays sounds programmed to trigger the specified illusion. Of course, the app’s roots lie in advertising—it was created by Japanese agency Hakuhodo’s Future Technology Works department—so don’t be surprised if you awaken yearning to buy something random.
Sleep tracking, calorie counting, outfit monitoring and fitness recording are just a few of the ways people have been utilizing life-tracking technologies. Designer Nicholas Felton even developed a life-tracking app that turns mundane daily activities into beautiful visualizations. Now, new happiness-tracking apps are emerging to help people recognize and record their good moods in order to potentially capitalize on the elements influencing them.
Happstr: Finding a ‘happy place’ has never been easier, thanks to Happstr. Developed during a SXSWi hackathon, the app aims to spread positivity among friends. As one of its creators explained in an interview with The Atlantic, “There are studies that have shown even a third degree friend with a higher happiness level improves your own happiness by 6 percent.” To put the statistic into action, Happster users check themselves in during their happiest moments. Similar to Foursquare, an icon pinpoints their locations on an interactive map, which can be tracked over time. It also displays check-ins from other nearby users, encouraging people to share the exultant moments happening around them.
Just as the ways that we shop have undergone dramatic alterations over the past decade (think online auctions, cyber sales assistants, and flash sales), the retail transaction is poised to see tremendous transformations in the years ahead as well. Not everyone is comfortable with the idea of digital wallets quite yet, but with more merchants and consumers alike looking to ditch clunky cash registers and doorstopper billfolds, the technology is evolving.
PayPal Here: Square has become a vital tool among small business owners who operate between the online realm and the real world, whether it be by running a flea market stall or making guest appearances at curated retail events. Looking to capture that expanding mode of entrepreneurship, PayPal recently launched a competitor. Called PayPal Here, the credit card-swiping smartphone attachment, designed in an au courant triangular shape by Yves Behar-helmed firm Fuseproject, works with a companion app to do the work normally done by a cash register. Besides processing financial plastic, the app can also issue invoices and can even, through photos of checks and credit cards, process payments minus the magic triangle.
The line between the digital and physical worlds continues to blur, as evidenced by the buzz surrounding 3D printing’s ability to transform computerized renderings into tangible objects. And, since people are now reliant on technology for most everything they do, the one-dimensionality of analog products is leaving them, well, a bit flat. However, several new devices are designed to change all that by giving new “life” to formerly inert objects.
Twine: There’s now an easy way to know if one’s dog is snacking in the shoe closet or if the laundry is done. Twine is a new device that enables everyday household objects to tweet, email or text alerts. The 2.5 inch square box contains an accelerometer, temperature monitor, moisture sensor, and other external sensors that recognize surrounding activity. When it’s plugged in, it automatically recognizes a corresponding online application and reacts to what the sensors are “seeing” in real time. By setting up rules based on a menu of conditions and actions, users can go about their lives without having to worry about, say, a flooded basement.
