Kick Start Your Heart

So I’ve been doing all these blogs based on the site ‘Kickstarter’ so I figured “…why not do it on ‘Kickstarter’ itself?” So, here I am about to talk to you about a site. Stay with me, I swear this is cool. I’ll start with a little bit about the company; it was started kind of recently in 2009. The whole purpose of this site/company is to help people who want to fund literally anything. I’ve actually seen people fund a pizza order. But, that’s not what I’m going to talk about. Today, we learn about the important things.

This site has funded many cool things such as the products I have blogged about previously. Recently there was a phone by Ubuntu wanting 32 million dollars to be funded. Cool thing about that is by funding it you literally get an exclusive phone that only gets sold to those who funded the product through ‘Kickstarter.’ Unfortunately, I don’t think they made their funding goal so that brings me to the next topic at hand. Good thing about this, or bad thing if you’re trying to get funding, is that if the company doesn’t reach their funding goal then all of the money that you donated doesn’t get taken out of your account. Basically, it’s like nothing ever happened. So, you don’t have to worry about losing money and being screwed as a funder.

What I’m getting at with this is that ‘Kickstarter’ is revolutionary; it is a great starting platform for companies. Even if you have just a small little idea you can bring it here and if enough people like it you will finally see your dreams come true. Alright, that line was pretty cheesy but I figured I’d end it on something like that...I lied, I’m ending on a question. What would you invent if you had the chance? 

(source: http://www.kickstarter.com/)

More Than Meets The Eye

You're all excited thinking I’m going to talk about transformers or something like that right? Wrong. I'm going to talk about a watch that not only tells time but ...links up to your phone through Bluetooth. I'll give you all a second to gather up the bits of your brain from the roof because that just blew your mind right? All right, probably not. Realistically in this day and age that’s probably not that surprising but, hey, I thought it was pretty cool when I heard about it.

                On to the actual product; the metawatch. It looks kind of like a regular digital watch; grey face so that you can see the numbers and all that jazz. But, this watch not only tells time but can give you updates from your phone such as: displaying incoming texts, answering phone calls (you still need to talk on your phone though; this isn’t some James Bond talk to your watch kind of deal), has widgets so you can have stuff like weather and battery life on your watch screen, and display just about any notification you’re getting. Pretty cool right? Well, yeah, you are right. You’re also a very sweet person because you took the time to actually read this far. Enough jibber jabber, on to the next cool feature. It comes in 2 styles so far, one being a rubber sports watch called the Strata. It is all one piece, so no interchangeable band. On the bright side, this watch has a water resistant rating of 5 ATM; which is 50 meters (165 feet) compared to the other watch which doesn’t seem to even have a rating that I can see on the site. The other watch they feature is called the Frame. It is more of a dressy type watch; metal body with silver outlining it. Interchangeable wristbands as well, but, other than that and the water resistance, same idea.

                Next topic at hand! So this baby has 6 buttons around it, they’re used for: light, music (supposing you have a compatible music program, mainly talking to android users as iPhone uses iTunes….I think anyway), Status/ version of the watch, universal back button/ last call or text, cycle through screens, and lastly menu and toggle settings. That part was kind of boring but knowledge is power or some cheesy line like that.

Closing this off; this watch was also on kick-starter a few years ago which seems to be a recurring theme with my blog; deal with it. I actually own one of these watches and have to say it is really cool but some set backs are that you have to charge it about once every 3-5 days roughly. Obviously this depends on how popular you are….I mean how many notifications you are receiving. This wraps up my post for today. So I'll end it with a question: would having a watch like this encourage you to look at your phone less?

(Sources:http://www.metawatch.org/)

The NFC Ring and All It's Wonders

        Today I present to you the NFC Ring, NFC Stands for Near Field Communication. Snore fest already, sorry. So basically what this is, it is a ring that stores information. From passwords on the private side (inside of your finger) to cool websites and contact information on the public side (That part of your finger that connects when you fist bump someone. I think it's called the front.)

Now for the topic at hand, the ring itself. I ordered this through the site I mentioned in my previous post called “Kickstarter”. Basically, I didn't actually order it but instead I just funded enough money so that I was rewarded with the ring. The ring comes in many different colours and styles such as in the colours silver, black, or blue. The inlays of the ring come in a wider variety of colours that range from almost any colour to interesting styles like wood effect or white and black carbon fiber. There’s even an option to leave it completely transparent so you can see all the mechanics behind it.

Alright so on that topic; the mechanics of it all. Grab an energy drink or coffee this is going to be dry. Basically as I mentioned earlier there are 2 sides, private and public. There is said to be 2 microchips on each side. So, you can hold 2 passwords on each side depending on the size of the file, obviously. We can't store a whole movie on something that small.....yet. The main reason I wanted this ring was because it was compatible with my phone. My phone is able to transfer data through NFC to other phones and now this ring just through tapping it against it. One example is say you are out at a party, club, or some social event, you want to exchange numbers or contact information with someone. All you do is store it on the public side and if someone has another ring you can just fist bump and the data is transferred. This also works when transferring to a phone I am just unsure if it transfers back yet due to this product still being in the development stage. I thought this was really cool because as you can tell I am very fascinated with technology.

I think it's about time to close up this post because I have been kinda rambling about all the technology stuff and half of you probably didn't make it to this part of the post. So to close this up I say check out “Kickstarter” because there are a lot of really cool projects that need funding and without people donating to fund these projects we are missing out on many cool developments in technology. This product is not yet out so keep your eyes peeled for its revolutionary change to wearable jewellery. Lastly one question for all of you. If you could have any type of jewellery with this kind of technology what would it be?

(Sources:  

http://nfcring.com/

http://mclear.co.uk/ 

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mclear/nfc-ring)

Ode To Technology

Welcome to my blog about all things technology! 

        My name is Jason Doriat, but, I usually go by Jay. I’m a bit of a nerd when it comes to this kind of stuff. I’m always trying to have the best knowledge on the newest gadgets that come out. There are many reasons that I wanted to create a blog like this; technology has taken a huge leap in the past few decades and especially in the past few years. We went from having to use a phone that was attached to a cord to make a call to the almost complete extinction of landlines altogether simply because we are now connected by the hip to technology all around us. I mean, the next generation is going to look at that symbol on your smart phone and wonder what it is! 

        But, that’s enough about just phones. I have loved technology from an early age; from watching my dad build our very first computer and watching him play videos games because they were too “graphic” for me all the way up to building my very first computer not long ago. It has just been something that I’ve always been very involved in. 

        Now, back to my blog. I am going to be talking about lots; from new gadgets, to inventions I have donated money to using that handy new website called “Kickstarter”, to just about anything with a microchip in it. Hopefully I will not bore you or start rambling about the finer details such as specs, how small the microchip is etc. Point being: I hope you enjoy my posts and keep coming back for more! Thanks for reading.