Startups

We've seen fitness trackers before, but here's one with impressive smarts. The Amiigo can automatically identify more than 100 activities with custom algorithms.

Amiigo is a waterproof bracelet and shoe clip that not only counts how many bicep curls or golf swings you do, but monitors your heart rate, blood oxygen levels, skin temperature, activity level, and the number of calories burned, according to the gadget's crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo.

Sensors and machine-learning algorithms identify the exercise you're performing, and store the data in the device before uploading it to your mobile device. The tech can discriminate between running on the treadmill, for instance, and exercising on an elliptical machine. … Read more

Leap Motion, the makers of the innovative Leap hands-free motion control system, said today that it has struck its first retail partnership, an exclusive launch deal to sell the device at Best Buy.

According to Leap Motion, Best Buy stores and BestBuy.com will begin taking pre-orders in February and selling the Leap sometime this spring. The deal comes on the heels of the company's recent agreement to bundle the device with Asus PCs once it launches, as well as a $30 million B round of funding.

The San Francisco startup's technology is capable of measuring motion with … Read more

LAS VEGAS--The QWERTY keyboard you're using has a basic layout that dates from the 1870s Sholes and Glidden typewriter. Why the heck are you still using it?

If you're always typing on the go, on-screen and compact QWERTY keyboards can be a real pain when writing a critical e-mail, text, or tweet. Florida-based In10did thinks it has an ideal solution with this compact, touch-type micro keyboard with wireless Bluetooth connectivity.

DecaTxt has a completely different key setup than a QWERTY keyboard, and it takes some time to get your head around it. … Read more

LAS VEGAS--If you want to make money off of apps, you must develop for mobile, right? Wrong, says SweetLabs' Chester Ng, who points to his company's success with its OpenCandy project to help developers earn a living.

The problem is both cultural as well as logistical, Ng said in an interview outside the Las Vegas Convention Center. Desktop software, especially on Windows, has a long history of being developed as freeware. But pitching a secondary software purchase to the user during the installation process had been poisoned, he said.

"The problem is that developers don't like the … Read more

LAS VEGAS--Ever since the launch of the Nest in 2011, programmable thermostats have become one of the hottest in-home technologies.

With its Apple-inspired interface and design, Nest gets the lion's share of the attention, but new competitors are hoping to steal some of the thunder. At CES 2013 here, Austin, Texas-based Allure Energy is hoping to join the party with Eversense programmable thermostat.

Eversense, which works on iOS and Android, is meant to give users the ability to automatically control their thermostats, not based on learned behavior, but on what they're doing in real time. The idea, explained … Read more

Square has just extended its partnership with Starbucks a bit further.

The companies announced today that Starbucks customers can now buy Square's Mobile Card Readers in-store at 7,000 locations nationwide. Starbucks is selling the Reader for $10 but will give customers back $10 if they're new merchants or individuals who sign up for Square's service.

Starbucks is a major investor in Square, dropping $25 million into the mobile-payment startup last year. Since then, the companies have been working closely to expand Square's footprint across the U.S. In November, in fact, Starbucks announced that it … Read more

Leap Motion, which created an innovative gesture control technology that measures users' movements to an accuracy of a hundredth of a millimeter, has struck a deal to bundle its Leap device and app store with a series of Asus computers.

According to Michael Buckwald, CEO of the San Francisco startup, the Asus deal -- under which the computer giant will package the Leap device with high-end laptops and premium all-in-one PCs, and pre-install the Leap app store on those computers -- is just the first partnership of its kind. Similar deals with other computer makers, or even smartphone manufacturers, are … Read more

How long does it take a multibillion-dollar technology juggernaut to clone a popular social networking app? The answer: less than two weeks.

I am, of course, talking about Poke, Facebook's clone of Snapchat, the app whose messages self-destruct after 1 to 10 seconds. As many people like to point out, it's perfect for sexting, but there are a lot of other fun and innovative uses for this clever type of messaging.

For all intents and purposes, Poke is almost identical to Snapchat. Snapchat is focused on photos and videos, while Poke adds self-destructing messages and the classic Facebook … Read more

A handful of players -- one of them named Facebook -- have worked hard over the past year to create a new category of business known as social gifting. Facebook saw enough opportunity that last spring it snapped up a startup called Karma and built what became Facebook Gifts -- a way for any of Facebook's billion-plus users to send a gift a friend, whether it's a bottle of wine, an iTunes gift card or an item of clothing.

Square, meantime, added gift cards this month to Square Wallet to help its battle with PayPal. And a … Read more