Founded by ad agency man Tom Evans, BleepBleeps is a new London-based startup that’s creating a range of cute, kid-friendly, connected (or IoT-styled) devices to help with the job of parenting. Inspired by the “simple geometric shapes of kid’s building blocks” and Japanese vinyl toys, with a nod to the Italian kitchen utensil brand Alessi, the company is targeting design literate and tech-savvy parents (and their kids) with multi-coloured hardware, paired to a smartphone and accompanying app.
The first of those out of the gate, via a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign, will be “Sammy Screamer”, a motion detector that can be placed on a door, in a bag, or on a child’s buggy, for example. Should it detect motion, a push notification is sent to your smartphone and the device itself lets out a scream.
“Sammy” has a magnetised back and loop fixing, and is powered by Bluetooth LE for up to 50 meters range. Early backers who pledge $65 or more can bag the device and iOS app, including worldwide shipping. The company intends to raise a minimum of $20,000 on Kickstarter to help fund production costs.
The “Sammy Screamer” motion detector isn’t the first product of its kind, no doubt, but BleepBleeps is, I suspect, all about the brand’s positioning. And, perhaps, the product road map is where BleepBleeps gets more interesting. It promises to span the gamut of parenting, from conception, birth, looking after your baby, and raising your child.
These will include “Tony Tempa”, a digital ear thermometer, which will relay your child’s temperature reading to your smartphone. The supporting app will also benchmark the reading for safety and provide tips on how to bring your kid’s temperature down.
BleepBleeps also plans to manufacture a GPS bracelet to track your child’s location; a small ultrasound scanner that lets them see your unborn baby on your smartphone; a male fertility tester; an ovulation tester; and a baby video monitor. Each planned device has a face, a name, and a unique bleep bleep sound when activated, hence the BleepBleeps name.
The UK startup is thus far bootstrapped. Along with founder and Creative Director, Evans, the team includes Niall Mccormack, who is said to have been a technical lead for Nike’s Nike+ Fuelband.
Google is taking the fight to hackers by increasing the rewards it hands out to researchers who flag vulnerabilities in the company's products. Its security reward program now covers additional services including Chrome browser apps and extensions that the company has developed and branded as "by Google." Researchers who report vulnerabilities can grab between $500 and $10,000, depending on the permissions and data involved in an extension where bugs are discovered, said Google's Eduardo Vela Nava and Michal Zalewski in a blog post.
