Dimple

Dimple is a very basic and unique idea in that it adds functionality to the modern world with older technology everyone knows.

Dimples are peel-and-stick buttons for your smartphone. They are NFC enabled so they need no batteries and actually communicate wirelessly with your smartphone. Their purpose is to add mechanical buttons to touch devices.

On a basic level the Dimples are pretty. They don't make a smartphone look gross, unless you plaster them all over it. They are also very simple. They're just 1 or 2 buttons that you assign to particular apps or windows. They're elegant in that respect

But their function is what makes them worthwhile. Dimples can be programmed to open apps, take a picture, or do any number of other things. This is great because in a world that is focused on limiting taps and effort it still takes a click of a home button and then the selecting of the app to take a picture. A Dimple could reduce that to one press. Dimples actually function as a physical shortcut button.

The folks that make Dimples realize that in the touch screen world, the device is a throwback. But that is kind of nice. While the use of a finger on a touchscreen may be more natural to learn, but the experience is offset by having a piece of glass between you and the "button/icon" you are pressing. Its like the difference in experience between an e-reader and book. Dimples help to make the digital world physically interactive, it adds texture and physical feedback to device use while at the same time reducing the effort of getting to certain apps.

Dimples also add a bit of customizability to a smartphone. Now people can tailor the hardware of their device a little, which has never been possible. This concept of physical add-ons that improve the device can be expanded in many different directions other than Dimples.

Overall, Dimples are a great idea that improves our modern glassy world by letting us add our own buttons where we want them.

Rechner Calculator App

Rechner is a a beautiful calculator app. But not only is it a calculator, it also really sets a precedent of how touch screen devices should operate.

Rechner is a predominantly gesture based app. Meaning that in order to add or subtract, instead of having another button to tap, Rechner uses a swipe. This type of interface, is incredibly clean and fluid.

But, Rechner is not perfect. It isn't completely intuitive so there is a small learning curve. And, more complex operations actually require the extra motions of swiping and then tapping.

This app is a great example of replacing buttons with gestures and creating something that is elegant for simple things. But one should be careful, in design, to ensure they are balancing aesthetics and function and always have a clear goal of what they wish to accomplish. Rechner is a great casual calculator for adding something offhand and that is what it was intended to do.

The Tile

The Tile is a new way to find things. It is a a small Bluetooth tag that can be connected to things like keys, laptops, and wallets so that you never forget or lose those items again. Tile which completed a crowdfunding campaign in 2013 will be shipping in the summer of 2014.

The Tile is pretty slick. That is is the way to describe it. It almost looks like a product that would be launched by Apple. It is a sealed tag that does not have battery replacements, (when it dies you buy new ones) and a is a sleek white. A very unobtrusive design, compared to old style keyfinders.

The app itself is nifty. When looking for something users simply pull out their smartphone and use the app to be directed to where the tile is, based on distance from the tile. As you get closer you can have the Tile beep to give its final location. If you forgot an item somewhere, the app records the last GPS location of that item so you can always go back and find it.

But where the Tile app really comes into its own is when something is stolen or completely lost. When this happens the user can mark the item as lost then every other Tile user can basically search for it with their phone. So you essentially create a networked radar to find the lost item. If someone's phone detects the item then you are sent a message as to its last known location.

There is one possibility of Tile that, if it doesn't exist already, (Tile didn't present it in any of their material) should be added. Instead of just helping the user find an item, Tile should stop them from ever being lost. This could be done through a passive mode of when the users phone gets more than some distance away an alert is sent telling them that they are forgetting something. This kind of functionality could keep a lot of flashdrives from being left in computers and keys on tables.

Overall, the Tile is an nifty piece of hardware, and while the software has neat features it needs expanding.

EmoPulse Smile Smartwatch

The Emopulse Smile Smartwatch is one of the few wearables being created that will be able to claim aesthetics as well as functionality.

While not really a watch, but more of a wristband or bracelet, the Smile is not something that someone has to be a geek to wear. Though it may be a bit bulky, its curves and OLED display make it decently fashionable.

Being basically just a smartphone on your wrist the Smile has much of the same hardware, camera, USB, Micro SD, etc. These will help to make the Smile a device that can appeal to a larger range of people since it will be able to take on any number of different tasks and even replace the smartphone. As opposed to most smartwatches, like the Galaxy Gear, which are just smartphone interfaces.

The fact that the Smile simply slips onto your wrist without a snap or band is also a large plus. Easy on and off makes the Smile more of a typical mobile device than just a wearable. This aspect makes the watch and its functions easier to utilize and create a better user experience.

Since the Smile is just now nearing production production we can't comment on function as far as apps and software go. But its ergonomic and aesthetic design thus far seems well thought out and a great addition to the wearable electronics sector.

Project Ara: A Modular Smartphone

Project Ara is a modular phone concept that was started by Motorola and is now being continued as a Google project. The Ara, which is predicted to be selling in a watered down version next year, uses tiles that perform individual functions to create a smartphone that is exactly what the user wants. Want more memory. There's a module for that. Need a better camera? There's a module for that.

The concept is brilliant. Instead of having to upgrade an entire device you can simply swap out individual components. And of course you are able to change the phone to your changing interests.This phone also leaves itself open to hackers, makers, and small companies to create modules for it. This will create a new generation of hardware "apps" that can be used with this phone. It really brings development back from software and more toward the hardware. It can become a hobby to create a module for your phone just as it is to create an app now.

Overall, the design of the Ara is decent. It remains slim like other phones, and its modules are aesthetically pleasing and comfortable. The only issue right off is that the design of the endoskeleton frame limits layout of modules to certain sizes in certain places. This decreases the modularity somewhat, but helps to maintain the the overall aesthetic of the phone. (people can't make ugly phones)

The Ara also adds one more touch of customizability to the phone by planning to let customers 3-D print panels to cover the modules with. These panels can be multicolored and have various textures to suit the user.

In a world with increasing demand for products to adapt to the needs of the user, especially in software, it is great to see that someone is working to add that personalization to the tangible world.

The video below was a promotion to get an earlier modular phone concept off the ground, Phoneblocs

Cycloramic iPhone App

Cycloramic is an iPhone app that allows users to take panoramic pictures. That alone would not make it a TIMD, there are many panoramic picture apps out there. However, the aspect that makes Cycloramic worthy of mention is the mechanism by which it takes the pictures.

Many similar apps have stands that rotate, or that make the person spin around to get the picture. Cycloramic has done something that I have never seen in a phone before. It uses the vibration of the phone itself to rotate it a perfect 360 degrees on any smooth surface. Limitations with the variety of surfaces aside, the idea of using only the vibrating motor to make a phone move in a predetermined pattern, without external mechanics of some kind,  is revolutionary.

Ideas that can come out of this would be things like iPhone pets that move across your coffee table or 3-D scanner apps that move around the object. The ability to harness the simple motor in the phone to get non-random motion is something that has limitless potential. Certainly, it may be much harder to get a phone to move in a path as opposed to rotate. But before Cycloramic it  had never been considered that it was possible to make the motion, caused by the ringer vibration, be precise at all.