Karaoke has a new best friend, and its name is LTE. At CES, TouchTunes and Verizon Wireless unveiled its new digital jukebox with a networked Karaoke feature, allowing bar and restaurant patrons to not only pull their favorite songs out of the airwaves but sing along to them as well. No DJ necessary – you reserve your performance slots and pick your songs on a smartphone app, adding another mobile element to the mix. Verizon is not responsible for the heckling you receive when you miss the high notes (or the low and middle ones, for that matter).

Verizon had a few new LTE smartphones to show off at CES, but at the show it seemed absolutely determined to inset its new network’s tendrils into as many non-phone devices as possible. We already know about the connected car, but here are a few of the more interesting examples:

• Diebold showed off a concept ATM, which uses 4G connectivity not only to authorize transactions, but send detailed diagnostic and trouble reports to the companies that maintain the cash machines. The enhanced connection even allows those companies to fix non-mechanical problems remotely. The ATM could be stuck anywhere, requiring only a power source to operate and it could even call security if a suspicious character starts fiddling with it. Now if only Verizon could figure out a way to send the actual cash over the airwaves…
• In addition to the Karaoke jukebox, TouchTunes showed off its forthcoming LTE-connected photo booth, which not only allows you to capture your evening of drunken debauchery in still images, but also instantly share those images on Facebook and Twitter before the inevitable feelings of shame kick in.
• Alcatel-Lucent’s ng Connect and VisionMax demoed an LTE-connected shopping kiosk that will use near-field communications to pull up a 3D avatar loaded into your phone. You can then dress that avatar up in the different outfits and accessories available at that store. Assuming the avatar is a reasonable facsimile of your body type – sorry, no centaurs – you could get a general idea of what you would look like in the store’s clothes without actually trying them on. You can even use Vidyo’s HD video conferencing technology to connect to on-call fashion consultant who will praise you on your impeccable fashion sense.
• Verizon even embedded LTE into a VGo robots, allowing its booth workers to talk up CES attendees remotely using VGo’s remote telepresence capabilities. Many of the robotic assistants available today link to the network through Wi-Fi, which works great if you happen to be in range of an access point. Verizon is betting that these remote physical avatars will want a broader range. Maybe they won’t go to lunch with the boss, but they can at least make it to the water cooler for office chit chat.

Microphone image courtesy of Flickr user LifeSupercharger
Avatar image courtesy of Flickr user Winter Jefferson

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It might look like something out of MJ’s Billie Jean, but this colorful LED array won’t be under moonwalking foot — that is, unless the party gets crunk. This colorful grid is actually a table top, brought to you by way of TI’s MSP430 microcontroller, and it knows how to get down. The table is made up of 128 frosted glass cubes, each apparently capable of emitting 16 million colors. Its creators also produced a special beat-detection software, that could very easily have your furniture outshining the bumpers and grinders at your next party. If you’re looking for a little extra something from your coffee table, you can find full build instructions at the source link below.

Continue reading LED coffee table busts a multicolored move (video)

LED coffee table busts a multicolored move (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 30 Jul 2011 03:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Continue reading Starbucks rolls out mobile payment app for Android users, java junkies

Starbucks rolls out mobile payment app for Android users, java junkies originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 15 Jun 2011 06:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you’ve been watching our liveblog of Eric Schmidt at D9, you’ll know that the Floyd’s Coffee ad above isn’t just a mockup — this evening, the Google chairman announced his company’s Groupon-like Google Offers service will launch in Portland, Oregon tomorrow. We’ll also see it in San Francisco and New York City this summer, delivering daily deals directly to our NFC-equipped Nexus S smartphones.

Google Offers rolling out in Portland, Oregon immediately, SF and NYC this summer originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 31 May 2011 23:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The news pushes Visa into the growing market for mobile discounts, which is getting crowded with everyone from Groupon and Foursquare to eBay and Yelp working on driving local transactions via mobile phone. But the news highlights where the competition in this space is going.

We’ve already seen discounts offered to people who check-in to certain locations. But we’re now moving to more targeted offers by taking into account more information than just location. That’s going to be the key for local discounts to matter to consumers. Just offering up a generic discount based on location isn’t going to be enough. Offers will have to be tailored to a user’s tastes, the time of day, even sometimes factoring in the weather and other data. This is what will make mobile offers resonate.

That’s why the Visa announcement is interesting. For Gap shoppers who sign up, they can get offers pushed out to them when they make a purchase on their Visa card. Gap, or other merchants who participate when the program goes national soon, can decide to push out an offer based on not only a zip code, but they can single out recipients by time of day, spending habits, what kind of merchant they just shopped at or anything else Visa can offer the partner based on its records of the customer’s spending habits.

This could open the opportunity for a merchant, who has already signed a customer to the Visa program, to offer real-time discounts that speak to what the user is doing at the moment. If someone just bought gas in the morning, there’s no need to offer a similar coupon for gas. But how about an offer for coffee or breakfast? That’s what Visa can bring to the table: this history of purchases, along with the ability now for other merchants to leverage that in real-time.

This is where the market is going to go thanks in part to the growing ability to crunch huge amounts of data in real time as well as an emerging willingness to share more information from consumers. As mobile discounts for local businesses start to fly, it will be offers that have some sense, some intelligence on the user, which will have a better shot at getting noticed and used.

Thinknear, a startup that’s part of TechStars’ first New York class, is one example of how more intelligence can go into offers. The company is working on a system for merchants that allows them to push out discounts based on a number of factors, not only on location, but also time of day, weather, even local events. Though the system is more focused on helping merchants bring in business during slow periods, it shows how intelligence and data can help refine offers to make them more effective.

Groupon’s purchase of Whrrl also shows others are moving in this direction, trying to add more intelligence into local offers. Groupon is launching a mobile deals app called Groupon Now, which delivers time-based discounts based on a user’s location. Whrrl’s technology will likely go into helping match up discounts to a user’s tastes.

Dennis Crowley, founder of Foursquare, alluded to this need for better targeting at the Where 2.0 conference when he said he’s looking ahead to when Foursquare can use the time of day and a person’s immediate travel history to determine if that person hasn’t stopped for lunch and is ripe for a lunch coupon.

This may all sound a little invasive, but people are increasingly getting used to sharing their location, especially when it means getting something valuable in return. Retailers, location-based services and discount providers will need to tread carefully but I think the more relevant the offer and the more they make sense to a user in the moment and place they’re in, the more likely they’re going to find success.

Related content from GigaOM Pro (subscription req’d):

• The Near-Term Evolution of Social Commerce
• How to Reach Mobile Shoppers This Holiday Season
• Facebook Remained Social Media’s Chief in Q3

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