Our SDK for Android, iOS, Windows and OS-X gives your applications the ability to "see" other nearby devices via WiFi, Bluetooth, Bonjour, Cellular and NFC. We call it a Proximity Platform and it takes iBeacons to the next level.
We are proud to announce a huge accomplishment from our engineering team today. From our March launch of the SDK for Android and iOS, we have debuted our massive 2.0 update, along with support for every commercial operating system. That's right, from your laptop running OS-X or Windows, to your mobile phone or tablet running Windows Phone, iOS 6, 7 or Android. You can now develop "machine to machine" aware apps on any platform you develop to.
On Android, we are pleased to announce an experimental scanner for Bluetooth LE, released with Android 4.3 or SDK18 if you're into that nomenclature. In addition we have a new Bonjour Network Service Discovery scanner. It is rewritten from the ground up so the Android platform can see your Apple devices and some servers or printers on a network.
Based on developer feedback, we have also repackaged the SDK into a single Android library project to make it even easier for developers to add NewAer to their applications. We have also lowered the latency for newly connected devices with improved scanner logic.
We are pleased to release a new list change notification APIs that makes it even easier to write applications for Android with the NewAer platform and have completely rewritten our sample applications to take advantage of all these new features. Check out the included example code for more details.
We also haven't been slacking on the iOS SDK, which for the first time has features ahead of their Android release equivalents and compatibility with the upcoming iOS 7. On iOS we are very excited to release APIs for peer to peer messaging between applications. These are the first steps on our roadmap to making NewAer not just a discovery platform, but also an inter-device communication layer. We have also improved the background scanning of Bluetooth LE and Bluetooth Bonjour devices.
A big THANK YOU goes out to our growing developer community for the continued feedback on our work. Now show us what you've got after you get the code at www.newaer.com/signup
At the VentureBeat Mobile Beat conference we did a behind-the-scenes interview and demo of our Kiosk marketing solution. The writer Dylan Tweney makes some great analogies to the movie Minority Report, which used visual recognition to identify Tom Cruise as he walked down shopping mall corridors.
We've seen this technology, using a live video app to identify your name in real-time on the iPhone, from our friends at Face.com (now purchased by Facebook and the technology shelved) which could have used a content system to deliver an ad to those faces identified.
As cool as the movie is, there is no way to opt out of the sci-fi eyeball identification technology that Hollywood employed. We believe that using a device's radio waves, emitted form most every transmitting gadget these days was the right path to take, as these could be turned off at-will by the participants.
So will you opt into more information as you react in a "heads up" manner, not buried in your phone in the real world?
Our Kiosk story from VentureBeat. We are not in the business of pre-crime, but pre-purchase and buying intent. Say you encounter some "smart ads" the next time that you are at the mall - will you opt-in for more information? Or will you remain head down, buried in your phone while the rest of us are in the real world? Lets make things interesting at retail!
In this short video from Intel shot at the VentureBeat mobile conference, we talk about the mobile phone being a "guide" to nudge you when something relevant to you is nearby.
Showrooming is a negative verb for bricks and mortar retail today, but having something we are interested in alert us, then give the ability to inspect tacitly is a benefit that many find invaluable.
Rather than keeping your head buried in your phone, our technology leverages radio signals in the environment into interactions that you will benefit from. Think of it as the ultimate ice breaker for your life... The NewAer SDK enables any device to become aware of its environment and facilitate such interactions.
The NewAer team continues to charge forward as we debuted our newest product, Kiosk, to a full house of nearly 1000 attendees at Venture Beat's MobileBeat 2013 Innovation showdown. Built as an iPad application on our SDK leveraging next generation BlueTooth Low Energy (BTLE), it automatically displays custom messaging to visitors in retail stores, restaurants or public spaces. The application also contains an engine able to push coupons via Passbook to customers within a store, simply by recognizing a guest's phone in their purse or pocket.
Here's why we're excited: think of this as the inverse of showrooming, when customers search for products online when inside of a store. When our technology is applied, consumers are reached on a unique and personal basis. Even better, this can be done with existing content management systems that host merchants may already employ. The possibilities to fundamentally alter the customer experience are endless. Remember when Tom Cruise walked through the futuristic mall in the Hollywood movie "Minority Report," and the advertisements spoke to him via visual recognition? We're already halfway to living in that world as the plethora of security cameras in use today could provide such a service, but no-one would be able to opt out. NewAer technology uses the unique radio waves from a smartphone or wearable devices to allow users of the service to opt-in to such personalized messaging. Overall, the VentureBeat conference was very well attended and collected some of our peers in the enterprise and mobile data spaces. We sat in a panel with members of Intel Labs, EasilyDo, and the Basis watch to explain the onslaught of data that will come from the "quantified self" or wearable data revolution currently at hand. More ambient data means more automation or decisions you can make to better yourself. And that is not a bad thing to keep you engaged in the real world, versus looking down at apps on a screen. In the Venture Beat story from the panel on the abundance of sensor data they quip: "Ultimately, the panelists saw more potential for improving consumers lives with more data, rather than just becoming another headache. Particularly hopeful was Dave Mathews, chief executive of NewAer, who built an entire business around the inherent potential of sensor data." So what are you waiting for? See what our SDK can do and innovate with us!
We are so proud, so happy and a little tired after amazing brain opening sessions and late nights at the MLOVE Confestival in the Schloß BeesenstedtCastle.
Right as we went on-stage for our Internet of Things panel with friends from Microsoft and Rambus we were able to announce that Fierce Wireless had honored us with an award as one of the top companies to watch out for in the Internet of Things space.
As devices "broadcast and beacon" their bits, our proximity platform enables any app developer to detect and communicate with them, and make changes in the cloud or on the device itself using our SDK and API action engine.
Our thanks go out to the Fierce team for believing in our vision, and we congratulate all of the other winners who brought their own FIERCE into the modern mobile age!
Archived WSJ coverage of the press release and Fierce Wireless story are archived below.
This year at the Cellular Telephone Industry Association's annual conference, the Internet of Things was the spotlight buzzword. NewAer sat on two panels along side huge companies like AT&T, Verizon and Cisco to give our take on the IoT topic. The first was with CTIA and the second with Fierce Wireless, a group that covers the industry.
After the question of "what are these things" we agreed they are sensors for heart rate monitors, wearable technology like the Nike Fuel Band and FitBit which collect data and exchange as low-bitrate devices. For communication, they can attach to the Internet themselves via WiFi or "leach" off of a companion device to mostly push data to a website or device where their data can be visualized. Some examples like Google Glass use WiFi when they are inside of a space to communicate directly, and use Bluetooth when they are only near a mobile phone. This got me thinking about all of the "things" on the Internet since the dawn of the commercialization of the network. The first “Internet Things” in the early 90’s were computers
boasting dial-up modems, requiring monthly recurring payment for text access. AOL and Compuserve
then brought the masses online in a hosted format with text and pictures
similar to what we understand the Internet to be today, albiet much slower and with low-resolution graphics and postage stamp video. There was no shortage
of concepts to explore the power of the web, from Microsoft's purchase of WebTV
(making your TV an Internet Thing) to free PCs subsidized by virtual ads that
plastered display frames while people surfed. The progeny of this work appear
today as miniature devices, dubbed IoT. For the purpose of my life's work, IoT
is a small device that leeches onto a larger device via Bluetooth LE, WiFi or
other low-power feeds like Zigbee to gain access to the Internet to push or
pull data via a smartphone app or web database.
You may sense some deja vu, and you're right; a big idea from a
small Texas company explored the leeching gadget concept way back in
1997. (That's pre-DVD, pre-flash drive and even pre-camera phone. The
digital cowboys of Digital:Convergence worked with Forbes and Wired Magazine to
launch the world’s first IoT device, the CueCat. This LED-glowing, feline-shaped,
any-barcode-reading gadget was mailed to each publication’s subscribers, or
could be picked up from any of the then-7,200 RadioShack locations. Its
purpose: interactivate anything with a barcode, or geek speak for “scan the
barcode on a magazine or product and be delivered to a website.” This was
a truly magical experience then. Remember, Google was just a garage project
that was helping you “feel lucky,” Yahoo was the primary method of online
research as a human curated directory, and “web portals” were the big idea at the time. There were software applications that could achieve similar results with USB
cameras, which were again accessories, but this was the first widely deployed
device whose clear purpose was to bring instant Internet from any household
good....as long as it retained its barcode.
Many stories have been written about this device as a failure, a
has-been, a waste of a strategic investor’s $205 million dollars – however, not
a single VC was harmed in the fundraising, as strategic partners found great
value in driving further content from their physical product reach. In fact, it
was more than a dozen years ahead of itself. Today, smart phone cameras decode
the same barcodes that this device read – ISBN, UPC, EAN - plastered to
products for the retail supply chain. NFC is still a dream, RFID is used only
by the supply chain industry and the QR code is arguably a failed marketing
attempt outside of Japan. And probably
failed in Japan now. One bright spot: I'm addicted to the magical experience
Shazam provides around music, partially because it reminds me of the NBC launch
of CueTV, our attempt at audio decoding in the era of “Must See TV." But I digress down a memory lane.
We attempted to build an operating system for the Internet with
audio and visual codes that we called Cues, as the stimulus to enable the
actions. Audacious as it seems, the technology and patents created are
still being used today, albeit inside of Android and iOS phones as software vs.
our hardware, feline approach.
So if the iPhone has rendered so many secondary gadgets like GPS
receivers obsolete, and iPad or Android tablets have taken the retail steam out
of portable DVD players and digital picture frames, why do so many IoT gadgets
appear on crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter so often? Why do similar 'relics'
continue to captivate consumers and investors when Wall Street believes they
should catch dust in the garage?
The answer is two-fold. First, despite what marketing campaigns and
current habits tell us, we do not want to, and will never want to carry a phone
with us all the time, like when jogging or working around the house. Devices
like the Nike Fuel Band or Fitbit collect data from our movement while awake
and our patterns of restlessness as we sleep. They're developed with design in
mind, and they're far sexier than strapping a smartphone to your wrist. Or putting Glass on your face.
Second, we technologists dream of a more-than-smart house like the
Jetsons'. For me? I want the front door
to unlock as I approach... my Nest thermostat knows I'm inside earlier than
normal and turns the air conditioning down to a lower temperature without my
body triggering a motion detector...and I want the convenience to extend outside
of my house as I park my car at the airport for the fourth time in as many
weeks. I don't worry about remembering where I left my car, because my car will
remindmy smartphone
where I parked it.
All of these devices have WiFi, Bluetooth or cellular radios, each
of which depend on pairing and communication technologies. I believe the next
evolution of the Internet of Things will be built upon a discovery,
and our team has a framework to make it happen.
In 2010 our team at NewAer, built an open, hackable engine to power
those automagic actions above. We make wireless devices aware of another
device. Our SDK can reside in iPhone applications or on laptops or Android tablets,
enabling them to become “IoT aware.” It’s a scripting language to empower
applications, networks or devices to become intelligent with an easy framework
for developers to code upon.
Our partners and investors are Alcatel-Lucent (the original Bell
Labs), Deutsche Telekom (operating worldwide as T-Mobile) and Intel Capital,
whose proceeds from their chip fabing company Intel likely powers the
smattering of computing devices around you at this moment. These companies see
us as a next generation network enabler to let devices reroute end points on
networks.... like ringing your mobile phone calls on your conference room
speakerphone when you're mid-meeting, or beginning a movie on your television,
then finishing it on your tablet as you leave the house thanks to WiFi or
Bluetooth 'fingerprints' changing, and the devices reacting to the new
environment.
Our team is building our own showcase of next generation
applications to help share any content to a device nearby, automate actions in
a smartphone and prevent people from losing their stuff. We believe devices
should be truly smart when they become IoT aware.
For us, a day living among the Internet of Things looks like this:
I urge you to think about proximity over location- we're a mobile
society and someday soon, fixed geographies will be trounced by elastic
location. Lets build the future of IoT today.
We are a week away from the Techcrunch 2013 Disrupt Hackathon where we are sponsoring a $2k prize for the best developers that use our proximity SDK. If you are considering using GPS location based service APIs, we'd like for you to take a look at our platform which consumes less power and is more accurate than GPS inside of a space, as high-resolution peer to peer discovery of devices.
At the recent LAUNCH Hackathon, where we debuted our SDK, team NewAer was on hand to help developers who used the platform and also get some great feedback from those using it. We have made and deployed subtle improvements over the past few weeks, but for Disrupt, we are adding some significant features that we are excited to pre-announce.
Here's a list of what's new on NewAer:
New Features for Android:
Cell Tower Scanning, set rules when you get or leave a tower (1000's of feet away)
WiFi Bonjour Scanning, allows you to see Bonjour devices (on the local network)
New Application Key Callback API, allows you to handle app key check failure gracefully
New Group API, allows you to easily group devices and rules (for clustering of signals)
New Features for iOS:
Devices now have signal strength measurements where applicable (BlueTooth LE)
Independent enable/disable of scan and advertise by device family (BT, BTLE, Bonjour, WiFi AP)
Improved low-power consumption for all device families
New register application interface & callbacks - removed popups
Sending events for developer to decide on messaging
Bluetooth LE devices are now subject to a moving-average window on strength (eliminates chaotic behavior with signal strength)
Better guarantee/handling of unique advertising names
Report new devices instantly; report lost devices after de-flapping
Of course both versions get the usual various stability fixes, performance improvements, and some bug fixes. Due to limitations of the different OS, we strive to make the releases on-par between platforms. You will see that our adding things like Bonjour to Android and signal strength to iOS is an example of such.
At the LAUNCH hackathon, (where we kicked off our SDK) we were honored and surprised by the creative projects that came out of the event. Some of our favorites were Sample Around, which won $5000 for a food sampling app that leveraged our proximity engine. The "one I could use daily" was from the team at 85, who created an iPad menu app which noticed when you came back a second time to a restaurant and after welcoming you, gave you the ability to order the same thing again, or try something new based upon your last purchase! A delightful idea!
Register to be a NewAer Developer and lets see what you've got to top those concepts!
