Headworx

There's been this 7 Ps rule I tend to follow. Even when it comes to leisure and hobby. In general terms, I'm not entirely sure whether 7 Ps for leisure is a good thing, but I just find so much fun and satisfaction in the preparation process itself that I just can't help doing it... And also... because " a goal without a plan is just a wish " (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry) - efficacy has always been in my blood... I'm planning a vacation trip to Africa next summer, and as it was the case with most of my trips, I'll be taking many pictures. When it comes to photography, I'm a beginner but I love exploring technology and learning. As mentioned in the Photo Musings post, the preparation has already started and it is well on track. As planned, I've acquired two essential pieces of gear: the Nikkor AF-S 80-400mm VR II lens at the Nikon D750 body. It's been a while since I tried a new DSLR - 7 years to be precise , so one can expect a lot of pr...

Last week we got the final certificate for our first OEM consumer product that will be offered by our international distribution partners. The certificate means the assembly lines are clear to start the mass production. The product is a Bluetooth Smart Plug. It is our first complete design of a software - defined physical product. It has everything in it to become a bestseller. And it has been an enormously steep learning curve for us. The reason we've made it to the finish line, was our complete lack of experience at the beginning, coupled with a non-compromise mindset and desire. Otherwise we simply would not start the project, judging it impossible or too difficult at best. So from start to end it took us 10 months (mid February till mid December). Looking at similar Kickstarter projects we see they score a 10 months DELAY on average. Industry veterans say it is impossible to start shipping a hardware product just ten months from the inception. Especially as it requires 3-4...

At Seed we nurture the habit of internal bi-weekly demo days. Teams present their achievements and then we have a happy hour / celebration. And I tell you what: each time I watch the presentations, I am amazed and proud. The things we are doing are extraordinary and they all carry the potential to make an impact. It was no different last Friday, but the event was special. Held at our R&D office in Krakow, it was the first one entirely in English. We have close to 60 people now in the Polish R&D center and we are on a quest to become a truly multi - national organization. The San Francisco office has been active for nine months now and we already have several full time employees in China. Integration of the Team has always been the paramount goal. And neither our US - based nor the Guangzhou - based friends should feel any distance. I know we are setting the bar high, but we want to be a team of A-players. Only this way we will achieve the A-goals. And being an A-player is...

Software alone is no longer hot enough. Hardware is in vogue now. Kickstarter, Indiegogo and other crowdfunding platforms are full of hardware startup projects. Personally I have back a dozen or two over the past 2-3 years. Their track record is very similar. They either completely fail to deliver or take twice the promised time, on average. My experience with hardware tells me now no hardware startup can really commit to a delivery date. Or a precise budget. No matter how hard they are prepared to work. The reason is simple. You never are able to do the hardware completely in hous. You always have to outsource something. Which means you never have a complete control of the execution. And your subcontractors will have delays, your parts will be not what was expected. Then there is the formal testing and certification. Shipping software is easy. Just upload to the application store. To ship the hardware you have to collect all the physical parts in one place, put them in boxes, th...

We've discussed this subject many times ( here , here , here and here ) and I have to say that FINALLY we start experiencing this approach on every day basis. It starts with simple things like a reminder muted on a watch is muted on the phone. But then it goes much deeper and it becomes such a natural joy to use. I have a dashboard - mounted Android tablet in my car (this BTW is the reason I'm not buying a new one, a new car that is!). It beats any factory option hands down. Of course Google Maps is the most used App there. So today after a go-kart racing event for the kids, we wanted to go for a lunch. I entered an address of a restaurant and the navigation kicked off. While driving there I realized I should call them and book a table. The dashboard tablet does not have a voice SIM, so I picked my phone and after clicking the Maps, the destination was already there - on the second device. A single click on a "call" icon and the connection was transferred to m...

We've just had a very successful launch of the Seed Rapid Prototyping Kit . This is a direct response to the overwhelming success of our Seed Smart Module, unveiled just a few weeks earlier. So what exactly is the essence of Seed? In a nutshell, it is a software stack built on top of Bluetooth Smart (BLE). We have always considered Bluetooth Smart a great candidate for IoT and especially for Home Automation. The reasons I have explained already in a series of posts ( here , here and here ). But when we started the Bluetooth Smart project at Seed, we learned the hard way, this technology was very difficult to use it for what we wanted. Bluetooth Smart has been designed for tiny sensors (peripherals) communicating with smartphones (central devices). So building an activity tracker or a bathroom scale that talks to a smartphone application is easy. The sensor wakes up, calls the phone, exchanges data, goes to sleep. The problem with home automation is that we have the event s...

In my last week's post on Google's Material Design and how it is the jewel crown of the mobile first strategy, I touched on the fact the laptop / desktop PC is becoming less and less productive (relatively to mobile). Looking for flights I first use Experia on my phone and sometimes I even do not bother to go to the desktop version. Same for browsing news, especially after the browser based Google Reader is gone now. Not to mention calendars, maps and navigation and continuously growing number of other mobile services. It seems humanity has only limited resources that can be allocated to driving the innovation and they all have gone to mobile. Here is the story that proves my point. I upgraded my desktop experience to 4k (Ultra-HDMI) displays . In my vacation home, in the office and in my winter apartment. Three 4k monitors from three different vendors (Samsung, Iiyama and Philips). Yes I love to experiment. They are all connected to my Lenovo OneLink docks (the greatest...