Video cameras acting as an express lane to YouTube are gaining in popularity. First there was the Flip, now comes the VHoldr.
(Credit:
Twenty20 Corp.)
The VHoldr is smaller and pricier than the nifty Flip Video camera, but it sets itself apart by enabling hands-free operation. The VHoldr is a ruggedized, weatherproof video camera that is palm-size, but intended to be worn and not held. It's meant to capture video on the go, say, while you're speeding down a snow-covered mountain, bouncing over mountain bike trails or engaging in any other extreme sport of which you'd like to see the video footage. There's no live element to it, but the video is easily uploadable to the Web (hopefully) after editing.
There's a single button that turns the camera on and begins recording, a lens that rotates 180 degrees, and a variety of mounts for the unit. Once video has been recorded, a USB cable sends the video to a PC, where VHoldr software will allow users to edit and upload footage directly to VHoldr.com, the video-hosting site for users, or YouTube.
Founder Marc Barros created the company in a schoolwide business-plan competition he entered with two others while undergraduate students at the University of Washington. After winning third place, their company, dubbed Twenty20 , made helmet camera attachments for camcorders out of their Seattle garage, which they sold to their fellow extreme sports enthusiasts.
The latest incarnation isn't available until December, but Barros was showing it off to investors and journalists at this week's TechCrunch 40 conference, a showcase for start-ups. The new version will sell for $350 and be available through 400 retailers.
Here's a useful concept: say you're really sick of dealing with your phone's tiny keypad to type in text messages. What if you could simply say what you wanted to write down, and have the tool fill it in for you? Yap is a new service that's trying to fill that need with their new mobile phone client. It's aimed at teens, who the company claims 66% of text while driving. Yap will read off your friend's responses, meaning you don't have to pay attention to what they're writing. The service works both ways, so your friend who has it installed could theoretically have an asynchronous text-only conversation with you too.
In addition to the text app, Yap throws in some integration with popular Web services like Amazon, Digg, Wikipedia, eBay, Facebook, Google News, AOL search, Flickr, Google Photos, Twitter, and Orbitz among others. You can simply say a search term, and it will convert it into a written search query on the correct service right on your phone's browser. The one for Twitter is especially cool since you can just say your status update, and it will convert it into a live Tweet.
The company is planning to support its service through "real time advertisements" which will pull context from your conversation, and serve up relevant ads. Their example showed a conversation about coffee, wherein the app pulled up a link for listings of Starbucks nearby. The service is still in private beta, and launching at this morning's TechCrunch40 conference.
Related: Highly useful: CallWave transcribes your voicemail
Each of these messages came from text-to-speech conversion from Yap. No more typing on your tiny key pad.
(Credit: CNET Networks)
- prev
- 1
- next
