Hasta La Ideas

News: two European companies have launched rival Android-powered smartwatches at the Baselworld watch fair in Switzerland, bringing voice calls as well as email, video, camera and apps to devices worn on the wrist.

Dutch company Burg and Italian brand I’m both used Baselworld, the world’s leading luxury watch fair, as a launchpad for their digital devices.

Burg founder Hermen van den Burg described the reaction to his product as “amazing” and added: “Everyone thinks this is going to change the watch industry”.

Burg launched Burg 17 (top image), which runs on the Android 4.0 operating system and features a 1.54 inch screen. The company claims it is the first ever fully-functional Android-powered smartwatch.

The product offers a host of features including a voice recorder, a 2 megapixel camera, Wi-Fi and GPS. It contains a SIM card, so can be used as an alternative to a mobile phone, and will retail for €389 when it goes on sale in July.

Meanwhile I’m launched I’m Watch (above), which offers similar features to the Burg 17 but lacks a SIM card, so must be paired via Bluetooth with a mobile phone to receive calls and browse the internet.

The product runs on Android-based software called I’m Droid 2, which the company describes as “the world’s most advanced smartwatch operating system”.

Wrist-mounted devices have been generating a lot of excitement lately, with rumours that Apple is developing an iWatch and the Pebble smartwatch breaking the record for Kickstarter funding last year.

“People are aware of smartwatches because they’ve heard that Apple is developing one, but when people see we already have a smartwatch with Android and a SIM, they don’t believe it,” said van den Burg.

He added: “Smartphones are getting bigger and bigger. People are afraid they’ll lose or break them. Now you can leave your phone at home.”

Users can remove the SIM card from their phone and put it in their smartwatch when they go out, van den Burg said, or buy a second SIM card for their watch.

Van den Burg added: “Android is much easier to use than [Apple’s] iOS. Android is what people use around the world”.

See all our stories about watches and all our stories about wearable technology. See Dezeen Watch Store for a selection of the world’s best designer watches.

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“leave your phone at home” appeared first on Dezeen.

It’s been just over seven months to the day since the Morpholio Project debuted their Trace app to much acclaim. By January of this year, they had added several new tools for designers beyond the original audience of architects, and now, just a few months later, they’re pleased to announce a suite of new tools that constitute a major release. “The App Store’s number one portfolio app re-imagines the portfolio as a design utility, moving it into the fast, flexible, at-your-fingertips device era. The project seeks to advance the ways that creatives access, share, discuss, and get feedback on their work from a global community of users.”

By combining production and presentation software with web-enabled tools for sharing and critique, the app offers a fully-integrated platform for production and collaboration. To hear Morpholio’s Anna Kenoff tell it, “Aside from making design production easier, we wanted to know if better tools could make it smarter by integrating the wisdom of crowds and capitalizing on the power of the touchscreen to capture feedback.”

To achieve this, Morpholio had to become very sophisticated about all the ways that designers communicate—not just through language, but most importantly through their eyes and hands. Over the past year, the team of architects and programmers has collaborated with experts from various disciplines to build a robust design-centric workspace that could be used by anyone—from fashion designers to photographers, architects and automotive designers, even tattoo artists. It builds on research into human-computer-interaction to deliver innovations like a tool for image analytics called “EyeTime” and virtual “Crits” where collaborators can share images, and comment on each other’s work via notes or sketches. Human behavior data-mining is essential to offering these forms of powerful feedback, letting you know how your followers are interacting with your work.

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Sometimes innovation is about coming up with new ways to do the same old chore. For example, if you need to access files from your portable Hard Drive and transfer them to a USB key, then you need to route it through the Laptop or PC. Without PC is a device that eliminates this step; it features a touchscreen that facilitates easy transfer of files from the Hard Drive to the USB.

Without PC is a 2013 iF design award – concept design entry.

Designer: Dongwook Kim

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(The USB Drive was originally posted on Yanko Design)

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News: researchers at the University of St Andrews in Scotland have rearranged the letters on a split-screen keyboard to almost double users’ typing speed on a tablet.

The KALQ keyboard for touchscreen devices rejects the usual QWERTY layout in favour of placing vowels on the right side of the keyboard and most consonants and most first letters of words on the left.

The key to optimising a keyboard for two thumbs is to minimise long typing sequences that only involve a single thumb, say the researchers. Experienced KALQ users learn to keep both digits moving so that while one is tapping a key, the other is moving towards its next target.

After only 10 hours of training with the KALQ keyboard, researchers found that testers were able to type 37 words a minute compared with the average 20 words a minute on a QWERTY touchscreen device.

Project leader Dr Per Ola Kristensson, a lecturer in human computer interaction at St Andrews, said: “The legacy of QWERTY has trapped users with suboptimal text entry interfaces on mobile devices.

“However, before abandoning QWERTY, users rightfully demand a compelling alternative. We believe KALQ provides a large enough performance improvement to incentivise users to switch and benefit from faster and more comfortable typing.”

The St Andrews team plans to release KALQ as a free app for Android-based smartphones and tablets next month, and users will be encouraged to tweak the layout of the patent-free keyboard however they like.

Earlier this year, BlackBerry’s head of design Todd Wood told Dezeen that the smartphone maker’s latest touchscreen keyboard will eradicate the “embarrassing” mistakes common on rival devices – see all technology news on Dezeen.

We recently reported on a transparent computer that allows users to reach inside the screen and manipulate content with their hands – see all computer design.

The post New keyboard layout promises to
increase tablet typing speed appeared first on Dezeen.

by Dora Haller A sweater that checks your mood, lace made of strawberry roots or a dress that uses wood as textiles: the third edition of the Futurotextiles exhibition in Paris presents the intriguing alliance of…

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