Friday, January 2, 2015

Touch Sensors

Murata and Elliptic Labs Promote Innovative Touchless Gesture Capabilities

December 30, 2014

SAN FRANCISCO, CA --Touchless gesture interfaces powered by ultrasound can now be developed quickly thanks to a sales partnership between Murata Electronics and Elliptic Labs in which Murata’s sales team will be able to promote and demo Elliptic Labs' products to OEM customers around the globe. Since Elliptic Labs’ software for ultrasonic touchless gesturing works on Murata’s ultrasonic transducer, potential customers will see first hand from the Murata sales team how touchless gesture capabilities can benefit mobile products. It gives consumer electronics manufacturers a solution that makes "innovation at scale" a reality.

“We have been seeing tremendous interest in our technology, especially for our recently launched Multi-Layer Interaction (MLI) capability, which makes it easier to interact and navigate on portable devices (see video)," said Laila Danielsen, CEO, Elliptic Labs. "Our partner Murata has developed tiny, low-powered transducers especially suited to small, portable products that need less power consumption. Murata is an important partner for us. Together, we can deliver strong customer support and high-quality products to OEMs everywhere.”

According to Mr. Yoshikazu Chigodo, Director of Sensor Products Division at Murata Electronics, “Murata shares Elliptic's vision for creating state-of-the-art products that enhance the way people interact with consumer electronics. We are excited to show the newest technology to OEM customers to inspire them with new solutions for mobile devices. Forming a sales partnership with Elliptic will benefit our customers, the tier-one OEMs who want to deliver innovation at scale in a competitive market driven by a demand for cutting-edge products.”

For more details, visit:
http://www.ellipticlabs.com
http://www.murataamericas.com

Really like the things that MuRata is doing.

Thursday, January 1, 2015

misfit

Jawbone

fitness wearables

In 2015, Software Eats The Wearable World

Posted yesterday by Kunal Agarwal (@kunalcagarwal), Elliot Loh (@Loh)

Editor’s Note: Elliot Loh is a founder and partner at the San Francisco startup studio The Giant Pixel Corp. Kunal Agarwal is an entrepreneur in residence at Giant Pixel.

2014 will be remembered as the year that wearables leapt into the Silicon Valley mainstream. Tech giants like Apple, Google, Microsoft, Intel, Qualcomm have taken notice and poured money and resources into developing their own offerings.

Earlier players like Fitbit and Jawbone announced multiple new products and a host of promising startups (Athos, Atlas, Misfit, etc.) have emerged with innovative offerings.

With the momentum of these dollars and product releases, its no wonder industry analysts are predicting the wearable movement to be “the next big thing”. Credit Suisse estimates the market could be $50 billion in 5 years, and Morgan Stanley claims the wearable market could reach $1.6 trillion in value.

Those of us closer to the leading edge know that in their current state, wearables have next to no chance of attaining these lofty predictions. The big ugly secret of the current wearable market is that over a third of users who own a wearable device stop using it within 6 months. Certainly, price and the lack of design aesthetic contribute to this lack of retention. However, the main culprit is that despite manufacturers’ claims that these are “smart devices” most wearable products aren’t intelligent at all.

Granted, there’s a certain novelty consumers feel when they are first able to track the number of steps they take in a day, their sleep patterns, or heart rate. But after some time, the lack of any meaning or insight attached to the data means it just becomes another graph to view. Consumers don’t want data dumps — they want actionable information. This is why a wearable soon becomes just another gadget left in the drawer.

[Despite] manufacturers’ claims that these are “smart devices” most wearable products aren’t intelligent at all.

In 2015, the wearable market will reach a critical inflection point where it will gain mass market adoption (close to 20% of adults will have one by EOY – double the 10% seen now) and set itself on massive growth trajectory for the next 5 years. This key moment will hinge less on innovations in hardware, and more on the software and networks that make sense of all that data emitted by the devices. To succeed, wearables must expand from feeds of information to recommendations and other actionable health knowledge.

By now the pattern of platform companies, APIs, and independent developers is clear. We should expect Apple HealthKit, Google Fit, and similar efforts by Jawbone and Fitbit to drive innovative applications to combine personal fitness data with expertise in exercise, nutrition, and even sleep and relaxation to efficiently move participants towards better health. Done well, the result should be a democratization of what has historically been a privilege for those that could afford gym memberships or personal trainers.

Imagine a user with a specific goal – looking their best before a reunion, or competing in a race. Using a wearable device and software intelligence, they can now understand how and when they should be exercising, how to adapt sleep patterns to get better results, and how their nutrition habits affect performance. Imagine further an athlete wearing smart clothing that allows coaches to monitor their fatigue levels and muscular exertion. The coach now has real-time data that allows them to modify their training regimens to ensure peak performance when it matters.

The possibilities are endless and the amount and sophistication of data – and the interpretation of that data – will continue to grow. In this regard, wearables are no different than any other hardware category that rapidly expanded after attaining a smart software layer: networking, the personal computer, and most recently mobile phones.

CES will be starting so I want to go over what we have so far...

CES Press Release

2015 International CES to Host Largest Ever “Internet of Things” Showcase

More than 900 CES Exhibitors Will Share Products, Services and Technologies That Connect Everyday Devices to the Network

Arlington, VA – 12/29/2014 – The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA)® today announced that the 2015 International CES® will feature the largest ever showcase of products, services and technologies that make up the “Internet of Things” (IoT), with more than 900 exhibitors planning to share innovations that harness the power of the network to connect everyday devices. Owned and produced by CEA, the 2015 CES is the world’s gathering place for all who thrive on the business of consumer technologies, and will run January 6-9, in Las Vegas, Nevada.

“The ‘Internet of Things’ is the hottest topic in tech right now,” said Karen Chupka, senior vice president, International CES and corporate business strategy, CEA. “It’s all about the opportunity to connect everyday items like cars, home security systems and kitchen appliances to networked devices like PCs and smartphones for greater control and management of our everyday lives. We’re excited that the 2015 CES will bring together all of the companies and products that are making this a reality.”

The Sensors Marketplace will highlight one of the key technologies that is enabling the IoT. Exhibitors participating in the marketplace include eyeSight Mobile Technologies, Logbar and QuickLogic Corp. In addition, the Smart Home Marketplace will showcase a smarter, more efficient home accelerated by smartphones and tablets interacting with a myriad of connected objects and devices, from basic security systems to connected lighting systems. Some of the 2015 CES exhibitors expected to showcase IoT technologies include Bosch, Lowe’s, Konnect Labs, iDevices, Muzzley and Blinksight among many others.

2015 CES keynoters Boo-Keun Yoon, president and CEO of Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., and Brian Krzanich, CEO of Intel Corp., are expected to share their insights on IoT innovations. Other CES conference programming will also explore the future of this trend with the following sessions:

Privacy and the IoT: Navigating Policy Issues
Manufacturers and policymakers discuss steps that each can take to build consumer trust in devices and applications while preserving creativity and the flexibility to innovate. This panel will feature opening remarks from The Honorable Edith Ramirez, chairwoman of the FTC.
1-2 PM Tuesday, January 6
LVCC, North Hall, Room N254

The Impact of the Internet of Things
Experts will discuss the impact of IoT products, including what application areas are going to have the biggest adoption or change.
2:15-3:15 PM Wednesday, January 7
LVCC, North Hall, Room N261

The State of the Internet of Things
Part of the Research Summit conference track, this session will explore where the Internet of Things stands today and what its defining trends suggest about the road ahead.
3:30-4:30 PM Wednesday, January 7
LVCC, North Hall, Room N253

The 2015 CES will feature more than 3,500 exhibitors unveiling the latest consumer technology products and services across the entire ecosystem of consumer technologies

A snip from the cc...

We are scheduled to initiate production shipments of our ArcticLink III S2 programmable sensor hub solution during Q4 to support the launch of an innovative wearable device by our first customer, a new Japanese OEM.

Read more: http://www.nasdaq.com/aspx/call-transcript.aspx?StoryId=2622215&Title=quicklogic-s-quik-ceo-andrew-pease-on-q3-2014-results-earnings-call-transcript#ixzz3Nac5QPS2

No I have no idea what this is but I did post 2 for consideration....

Logbar

http://logbar.jp/

Logbar's Ring Kickstarter Lets Users 'Shortcut Everything'

Epson..In Japan and trying hard for their new move into wearables.

http://www.digitaltrends.com/wearables/epson-runsense-and-pulsense-fitness-trackers/

We believe we will initiate production shipment of our ArcticLink III S2 next quarter to our second customer. The S2 will be used in a wearable device that will be introduced by a leading smartphone manufacturer that has strong brand name recognition.

I'm very proud to announce that we were ahead of what I thought was an aggressive internal algorithm development schedule. I'm even prouder of the fact that top tier smartphone OEM recently informed us that our predominant algorithm is delivering best-in-class accuracy that is height, gender, and stride agnostic.

Andrew Pease

We believe we have the most complete sensor hub solution in the market. We have the lowest power and the most flexible hardware solution available. We have best-in-class sensor algorithms. We have comprehensive silicon and algorithm roadmaps. We have an engagement model and tools that enable OEMs to integrate any combination of QuickLogic OEM or third-party algorithms in our sensor hub platform. We have all the necessary software drivers to be processor and sensor agnostic. We have a complete valuation environment for smartphones.

We have multiple reference designs and a valuation kit for the wearable market. We have a sensor qualified vendor list that expands all major sensor types and suppliers. And we have embedded programmable logic that enables OEMs to integrate functionality from discrete components into a single chip solution. In closing, I'm extremely pleased with the progress we've made towards realizing our strategic objectives, and I firmly believe that, they will lead to significant new product revenue growth in 2015.

Do I have anything of value that others don't have....

Maybe, maybe not. I have read tons on the ecosystems, who bought who and the value of those acquisitions. I know how many jobs have been filled at QUIK and what they wanted and that informed me of where we are headed. Subjective probabilities are just that- if you don't read a LOT and just know it for yourself- you have no subjective probabilities and have to make decisions in some other fashion.

I got to think over an important allocation to NOD.OL and read a lot about that. (I didn't do it as it not a mispriced bet) ( Thanks for the help RC) Yes, they are going to win the race, but everybody knows it.

I know long term holder are more than winded, but most don't read about the adjacent possible and hence simply cannot see what is happening. Values do exist beyond the metrics that financial houses use and that is what the adjacent possible says similar things in the ecosystem are worth. So it may be a tug of war, there are the 20% of float shares short.

Those folks are off set by others, who may go to the CES and look for an investment in wearables, or the IoT and decide that QUIK is a vehicle for that. They don't care about the past history- so in that sense any dots that help tie QUIK more openly into the rich coral reef of sensors/fusion, wearables, IoT, SoC, Smartphones will help shift the subjective probabilities toward investing in the biz.

Onward to 2015 and this is just the best time of the yr. with CES and the MWC.

For casual readers the biggest change for QUIK over the past 12 months has been the major investment in hiring hard to get algo chefs. Many posts on this blog have related to this fact and

the allocation was excellent execution and I will sleep well at nite knowing that team is working as many hrs as needed to get it done, when it needs to be done.

The best dot that may turn out to be much bigger than considered at first?

PEEL, when Alibata talks the doors just open up. :-)

As we move forward and see what actions and thoughts come in on QUIK as an investment, or alternative investments in this, or other sectors I will put this up for reading.

C. Munger on the choices we have to make.

http://can-turtles-fly.blogspot.com/2009/08/charlie-munger-stock-market-as-pari.html

The model I like to sort of simplify the notion of what goes on in a market for common stocks is the pari-mutuel system at the racetrack. If you stop to think about it, a pari-mutuel system is a market. Everybody goes there and bets and the odds change based on what's bet. That's what happens in the stock market.

Pari-Mutuel Betting System

I'm going to be quoting extensively since it is important to get the thoughts from the source. I hope this doesn't violate some fair-use law or something. (As is usually the case on this blog, all bolded or highlighted text within quotes are by me. I made some slight edits with spacing.)

What is a pari-mutuel betting system? It is a betting system that is used in horse racing, among other activities, which involves pay-offs based on the total pool. An important element of it—this is what I found important for the stock market—is that the odds change based on the bets. Here is Charlie Munger introducing the concept:

Everybody goes there [horse track using pari-mutuel betting system] and bets and the odds change based on what's bet. That's what happens in the stock market.

Any damn fool can see that a horse carrying a light weight with a wonderful win rate and a good post position etc., etc. is way more likely to win than a horse with a terrible record and extra weight and so on and so on. But if you look at the odds, the bad horse pays 100 to 1, whereas the good horse pays 3 to 2. Then it's not clear which is statistically the best bet using the mathematics of Fermat and Pascal. The prices have changed in such a way that it's very hard to beat the system.
And then the track is taking 17% off the top. So not only do you have to outwit all the other betters, but you've got to outwit them by such a big margin that on average, you can afford to take 17% of your gross bets off the top and give it to the house before the rest of your money can be put to work.

Many will prefer the less risk of the gud horse )(NOD.ol)and the 3/2 payout.
Some will think they have a mispriced bet and go with the 100 to 1 horse. (* QUIK)

After reading and studying here is the dilemma we( our SAT Bfast club) faced.

Nordic Semi- A very important bit and piece in the coral reef. Many with this expertise have gone, CSR-

Qualcomm Acquires CSR To Accelerate Its Growth In IoT

Quintic-

NXP To Acquire Quintic's Wearable And Bluetooth Low

CEVA Acquires RivieraWaves

etc.

I want to own this business. But it has about a 1 billion market cap. Over 10 x valuation of current Bluetooth Smart sales. But the wave is also very large.

Vs QUIK.

clearly Nordic is priced as the good horse and will pay

the good horse pays 3 to 2

QUIK

the bad horse pays 100 to 1,

a very good mental process here

Then it's not clear which is statistically the best bet using the mathematics of Fermat and Pascal.

Think it over for yourselves and put the $$ down.

Tuesday, December 30, 2014

This is homework for me for '15. I need to review this one over and over as it does not sink in so well.

The Kelly Criterion.

The half Kelly compared to the Full Kelly.

Some links of info are too complex and some too focused on poker.

I like the background story here

http://home.williampoundstone.net/Kelly.htm

Kelly died tragically young, of a brain hemorrhage at the age of 41. He was by then the head of Bell Labs' information coding and programming department and the author of several patents. Kelly has one further claim to fame. In 1961 Kelly and colleague Carol Lochbaum demonstrated a new voice synthesis system by making a recording of their machine singing the song "Daisy Bell," better known as "Bicycle Built for Two."

It has to do with allocation and that as the odds change( subjective probabilities that get substituted for a frequency table) so should the bet. Here is the part that I need to review..
Full Kelly
the simple formula 2x the probability-1= the bet ( allocation)

the half Kelly

The half Kelly bet has some interesting mathematical properties. For risk management purposes, the nice property is that it cuts your risk of temporary loss (i.e., volatility) by a large amount while reducing your return expectation only a little. The other important property of the half Kelly bet is that it gives a large margin of safety in the risk estimate. If you are off by a factor of two on your risk of loss estimate, a full Kelly bet will reduce your return expectation to zero. But a half Kelly bet will leave you with 2/3 of the return expectation. Not surprisingly, underbetting is far, far safer than overbetting.

With the full Kelly bet, your probability of temporary loss is a linear function of the amount of loss. For example, you stand a 90% chance of losing 10%, an 80% chance of losing 20%, a 50% chance of losing 50%, etc. Not many investors are comfortable with the prospect of a 50% probability of losing 50% of their money. With the half Kelly bet, your probability of temporary loss is a quadratic function of the amount of loss. For example, you stand a 81% chance of losing 10%, a 64% chance of losing 20%, a 25% chance of losing 50%, etc.

Your expected gain with the half Kelly bet is reduced by 25%. For example, if your expected gain is 40% with the full Kelly, it is 30% with the half Kelly, if your expected gain is 30% with the full Kelly, it is 22.5% with the half Kelly, and if your expected gain is 10% with the full Kelly, it is 7.5% with the half Kelly.

Commentary; Don't beat yourself up if your allocation to a bet was NOT set for the maximal gain ( Full Kelly) as a half Kelly is pretty darn good.:-)

It's been a good yr. since I thought I had need of this info, so thats a good feeling also.

http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?_mc=sm_eet&doc_id=1324982&image_number=1

Commentary, consider that wearables are one subset of the IoT. If you pass the processed sensor data to bigger compute power in the data centers something will happen. Value may be created for the ecosystem and for the user. Those who can do this, ie they have the platforms in place, will have the more interesting wearables.

Slideshow

Nick Flaherty

12/29/2014 01:00 AM EST
8 comments

NO RATINGS

This year has seen the software at the very highest point in the Internet of Things stack -- analytics -- becoming tightly coupled with the embedded devices at the edge of the network, leading to many different approaches and providers. Being able to monitor and use the data that comes from the Internet of Things is a huge potential challenge with different providers using different architectures and approaches, and different chip and equipment vendors teaming up in a range of different ways.
Click on the image below to begin the slideshow.

Wind River at the edge enables Intel analytics

Intel's analytics have previously only really been available from its Edison microcontroller nodes, but it is now opening up with the launch of Wind River's Edge server. The Wind River Edge Management System platform is designed to integrate with analytics platforms, such as Intel Analytics, and is also open on the device side with the used agent technology. It has been integrated with the WR IDP/Intel Gateway platform (Moon Island) and is designed to be easily extended to support many other devices meeting similar requirements. The agent technology has already been ported to various Intel Galileo and Arduino developer kits, as well.

Monday, December 29, 2014

Homework on the wearable Rings....

We've already seen rings that unlock doors and mobile devices, show thetime, act as a mouse or display notifications from a connected mobile

A gesture ring.

the Ring from California-based Logbar aims to take finger wagging to the next level. Featuring Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) connectivity, the Ring is designed to allow control of mobile devices and home appliances, make electronic payments and even type text in mid air with a wave of a finger.

View all

Designed to be worn on the index finger, motion sensors embedded within the Ring identify the gesture being made by said finger once the device is activated by tapping the touch sensor on the outer edge of the ring. This allows the wearer to perform everything from simple up and down motions to change the volume of a paired device, to writing letters in the air to compose text messages. Using GPS and Apple's iBeacon technology, the Ring can also be used to make payments at stores and restaurants with a tick gesture.

Logbar is also establishing a "Ring Store" that will house apps compatible with the device, with the company releasing an open API/SDK to encourage third parties to develop apps for the device.

Logbar raised 880,998.00 on kickstarter....

http://logbar.jp/news/

Pretty darn cool. They are in Japan.

Third time’s the charm? Japan’s Logbar to ship Ring control device on October 9

NEWS

LogBar
ring

by Yuki Kai on 2014.10.3

Ring is a device worn on a finger that gives users the ability to control and interact with other devices. Logbar, the company behind the device, announced that it will start shipping the Ring on October 9.

See also:

The company attracted some $880,000 in funding from more than 5,000 backers via aKickstarter campaign. They had planned to start shipping the device in July, but postponed the date to August. The schedule was postponed once again to September as they changed the device’s design and added a button.

The company’s e-mail to the Kickstarter campaign backers on September 29 states that the shipping date is now set for October 9. However, the date is the actual shipping day, so the Ring will probably reach the backers’ fingers by late October.

QUIK, sensor hubs and the "adjacent possible"