showstoppers

Santa Cruz techies get to CES the hard, fun way

10 February 2018 by Steve Blum
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Four thousand companies brought their products to CES last month, but only one was brought by its product. A five person team from Santa Cruz – Jane Campbell, Elai Dankner, Nicola Hopwood, Cade Vlacos and Christian Shaw – rode 300 miles from Palm Springs to Las Vegas on a Onewheel+ XR, the new, extended range version of Future Motion’s single wheel, electric powered board.

“It was the most epic journey I’ve ever done”, said Campbell. “You feel so free.… More

Old tech gets a hot new makeover at CES

14 January 2018 by Steve Blum
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It seemed you couldn’t walk down an aisle at CES without seeing an electric bicycle, or an electronic accessory for the human powered kind. Like the Wink Bar, which took top honors at the Showstoppers LaunchIt pitchfest, held the day before the show formally opened.


Wink Bar.

The Wink Bar, developed and sold by Velco, a Paris-based start up, was declared the best of the twelve new products pitched in rapid fire succession to a panel of four judges with deep experience in venture capital and entrepreneurial enterprises.… More

Big brother, small ball and connected cars at CES

13 January 2018 by Steve Blum
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CES 2018 marked a turning point in the consumer electronics business. For the first time, the big companies talked more about services than products. This shift has been long in the making – it’s why the organisers no longer refer to it as the Consumer Electronics Show – and 2018 was the tipping point. It was all about connected home products, with long neglected categories like kitchen appliances and washers and dryers suddenly taking center stage.… More

Apple will take augmented reality to the next level today

12 September 2017 by Steve Blum
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Reality augmented by instant info.

Augmented reality – AR – will take a big step forward later today when Apple launches iOS version 11. It includes ARkit, which is Apple’s new platform for running augmented reality apps, instantly putting the technology onto more than 300 million devices, as soon as the iOS update is downloaded.

At least, that was the hot gossip yesterday at the Mobile World Congress Americas trade show in San Francisco. It’s always risky to take Apple rumors at face value, but AR companies at the show are taking this one seriously.… More

FINsix Dart universal power adaptor works great, when it works

3 September 2017 by Steve Blum
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From pitch to product, with some bumps in the road.

It’s not often I have the pleasure of actually using a product that’s made it from the fundraising stage all the way to the open market. One of the top finishers at the 2014 Showstoppers LaunchIt beauty pageant, held during the Consumer Electronics Show, was FINsix, which was pitching a small, universal power supply for laptops and phones. It took second place, largely, it seemed, on its personal appeal to the judges who, as I noted at the time, had a “gleam in their eyes as they thought about trading two power bricks for one that’s barely bigger than a plug alone”.… More

Simpler hubs evolve as smart home ecosystem gets more complex

7 January 2017 by Steve Blum
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Doesn’t look complicated.

Smart home hubs made a bit of a comeback at CES this year, with several companies showing second generation products. One company, Wink, leaned in to the self install market with a relatively inexpensive new device that’s intended to be simple and seamless to set up, and incorporates lesson learned from its first generation. Another company, Carrier, rebranded an existing hub as “Cor” and leveraged its existing distribution channel to go after the big system sale end of the market.… More

Cleverpet wins CES Launchit competition with electronic game hub for dogs

6 January 2016 by Steve Blum
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Click for the obligatory cute puppy video.

An electronic game for dogs won top honors yesterday at the Showstoppers Launchit competition for startups at CES. Cleverpet is basically a canine version of the old Simon game combined with an automated feeding station that dispenses a little bit of food when the dog hits the correct lighted pad. It gives dogs something to do when they’re locked up in an apartment all day while the rest of the family is at work.… More

Open standards and clear consumer branding will be the cure for CES home automation confusion

18 January 2015 by Steve Blum
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The new good housekeeping seal of approval.

There were plenty of home automation hubs at CES, as it turns out. The first home automation products out of the gate, at the pre-show press events, were primarily one-off gizmo-and-app combos, but the usual suspects eventually showed up.

Lowe’s Iris system was prominent in a demo smart home built on the show floor. Nexia had a presence too. Both have a similar business model: sell a hub and support it through a cloud server for $10 per month.… More

Electric vehicle creativity is built around new business models at CES

17 January 2015 by Steve Blum
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You wouldn’t mistake it for a McLaren, though.

Connected cars were everywhere at CES this year. A hot looking set of wheels was the platform of choice for showing off cutting edge technology. Plenty was written about it and there’s not much I can add. But very few of those vehicles – only 2 that I saw – were innovations in and of themselves.

Gogoro is an electric scooter that’s built around a swappable battery system.… More

Enplug wins the Eureka Park pitchfest at CES

5 January 2015 by Steve Blum
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A company with an interactively focused digital signage platform was the best of the bunch at this afternoon’s Showstoppers Launch.it competition at CES. Enplug CEO Nanxi Liu was the first of 11 entrepreneurs who gave a 5 minute presentation telling why they should be funded, and then took 3 minutes of questions from a panel of angel investors. At the end, the panel voted LA-based Enplug the winner.

Second and third place went to Israeli companies – VocalZoom and SwitchBee respectively.… More