11–20 of 69 posts
Seems similar in concept as http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/supermechanical/twine-li... but offers a different UI/event-action model and few more integrated services. I wonder if these tiny-sensor-computer makers can come up with a standard so we can remotely control any of them without knowing the specific APIs.
It's interesting to see an incubator-backed startup leveraging Kickstarter. Definitely a pretty cool concept though.
I'm actually confused. I remember Kickstarter specifically saying that they didn't fund startups back when I applied to them.
This is one of those great concepts that has a "this needs to happen" feeling, and it's a matter of who's going to do a great job with it. Looks like Ninja Blocks is on the right track. However, as I think about the concept more, I'm having a difficult time finding a useful case for the concept. I think it's just because I'm not creative enough. So what would you, Hacker News reader, use Ninja Blocks for?
I'm just picturing all the contraptions from Honey I Shrunk the Kids. Automatic pet feeding, for one. On a more useful note, my uncle is a quadriplegic. He was fortunate, in a sense, that he was working when he had his accident, so he has 24 hr attendants. Most wouldn't be able to afford that. There are expensive, proprietary systems that allow him to open doors, turn off lights, etc with a remote, but you could jury…
Very nice concept! And by making them very very easy to use & pricing them accordingly high, they don't really compete with arduino+shields and the like. As they are "open", I wonder if it will be possible to only use their webservice with other devices (arduino etc) by paying a monthly fee.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm just picturing all the contraptions from Honey I Shrunk the Kids. Automatic pet feeding, for one. On a more useful note, my uncle is a quadriplegic. He was fortunate, in a sense, that he was working when he had his accident, so he has 24 hr attendants. Most wouldn't be able to afford that. There are expensive, proprietary systems that allow him to open doors, turn off lights, etc with a remote, but you could jury…
yes, exactly. there are a heap of markets that are expensive to target because they're so small - we're in talks with research labs to do experiment automation,for instance, and their equipment is usually priced in the hundreds of thousands. We're aiming at being the glue: geeks have always hacked their own stuff, this just makes it possible for everyone else to do the same.
I'm a software hacker through and through, and that's where I want to spend my most limited resource. Having some hardware that takes care of most of the heavy lifting in that space is very appealling.
Seems similar in concept as http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/supermechanical/twine-li... but offers a different UI/event-action model and few more integrated services. I wonder if these tiny-sensor-computer makers can come up with a standard so we can remotely control any of them without knowing the specific APIs.
I'm Marcus, one of the developers on Ninja Blocks. We're currently doing Ninja Blocks within Startmate (an Australian accelerator similar to YC).
To answer your question: We're open source so people could take what we've done and build a standard on it.
Cheers,
Marcus
Want to see some serious internet-of-things action? Put Bluetooth Low Energy radios in the next iPhone.
You could sadly do better with an Arduino Mini and a Zigbee, if you had "Hello World" level knowledge of electronics and microcontroller programming. One of the big ongoing issues in this field is that sensor nodes need to be cheap, as you ideally want to have a number of them around. Simultaneously, you need to not be changing batteries all the time. Want to see some serious internet-of-things action? Put Bluetooth…