Kickstarter Tech Project of the Week: Melon

Want a way-cool tech product before it officially hits the market? This week's pick for our favorite Kickstarter project is a headband and mobile app that quantifies your concentration.

Project Name: Melon: A Headband and Mobile App to Measure Your Focus
Category: Product Design
Goal: $100,000
Currently Funded: $109,397
Deadline for pledging: June 13, 2013

Are you more productive at work when listening to music? If so, does it matter if it's country or classical, with headphones or through speakers? And how do those intermittent workday detours to Facebook disrupt (or improve) your concentration?

Imagine how much more efficient you could be throughout the day if you empirically understood the environmental factors that affect your focus, whether you'd do better to fight through a mental block or break for a coffee.

Melon, a sporty EEG (electroencephalography) headband and companion app, seeks to reveal the answers to these questions. Think of the combo as a Fitbit for your mind. Users put on the headband equipped with sensors and input tags that specify their current activity, environment, behavior, and more. Using EEG and scientific algorithms, the device measures brain activity and displays the user's focus level on the app via a wavering white line. With each activity charted, Melon learns more about what helps and hurts your focus, and the app exposes trends that can help to optimize productivity.

"Melon is about taking invisible information, in this case from your brain, and turning it into something visible and helping change your behavior based on that," says creator Arye Barnehama in the Kickstarter video. When focus wanes, the app can optionally suggest ways to improve concentration, such as taking a few deep breathes or taking a short walk, and then records how the suggestion consequently influenced the user's mental state. The creators encourage people to use Melon in all different settings—while working at the office, doing yoga, or even flying a plane—in an effort to gain insight into day-to-day activities and extend the Quantified Self movement beyond just the physical.

Melon quickly surpassed its $100,000 goal. (In the time it took to write this, the project received more than $20,000 in pledges.) Its $79 early bird pledge has already sold out, but for $99 backers can get a Melon headband (in choice of black or white) plus the app as soon as this November. 

Samsung Tips Breakthrough in '5G' Technology

Samsung said today that it has made a breakthrough in the development of "5G" technology, which will ultimately be several hundred times faster than current 4G networks.

But don't expect to see a "5G" icon atop your mobile gadget in the near future. This is just the beginning, and Samsung said it does not expect the commercialization of the technology until at least 2020.

To make the faster, more bandwidth-intense 5G a reality, networks will need a variety of frequencies, "much like an increased water flow requires a wider pipe," Samsung said. One solution is something known as millimeter-wave bands, but at this point, it is limited to short-distance transmissions.

Enter Samsung, which said it has "successfully developed the world's first adaptive array transceiver technology operating in the millimeter-wave Ka bands for cellular communications." What that means is that Samsung has developed technology that transmits data in the millimeter-wave band at a frequency of 28 GHz at a speed of up to 1.056 Gbps to a distance of up to 2 kilometers.

"The millimeter-wave band is the most effective solution to recent surges in wireless Internet usage," Chang Yeong Kim, executive vice president of Samsung Electronics, said in a statement. "Samsung's recent success in developing the adaptive array transceiver technology has brought us one step closer to the commercialization of 5G mobile communications in the millimeter-wave bands."

Samsung expects its efforts "to invigorate research into 5G cellular communications across the world, [and] trigger the creation of international alliances and the timely commercialization of related mobile broadband services."

The Korean firm is not the only company or group pursuing 5G technology, however. As it pointed out, China established a 5G research group in Feb. 2012, and the EU is investing 50 million Euros to bring 5G to market by 2020.

For now, U.S. wireless carriers are still rolling out their 4G LTE networks. Verizon expects to wrap that up in mid-2013, AT&T has rolled out its network to 209 markets, Sprint has done the same in dozens of markets, while T-Mobile recently kicked off its 4G LTE rollout in seven markets.

Bumping up to 5G, Samsung said, will allow for the transfer of massive files - including HD movies - "practically without limitation," paving the way for services such as streaming 3D movies and games, ultra high-definition (UHD) content, and remote medical services.

PCMag is currently in the midst of testing for our annual Fastest Mobile Networks project. We have drivers on the road all around the country testing mobile networks from coast to coast. For more, check out our results from week one, and follow along with our drivers via @PCMPhones on Twitter.

D-Link Wireless N300 Range Extender DAP-1320

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Pros Excellent signal coverage. Easy setup. Small size for easy placement.

Cons May require setup near router. Wi-Fi network changes may require a reset. Bottom Line D-Link has a new wireless range extender that not only is one of the smallest you'll find on the market, but is incredibly easy to set up and provides terrific coverage.

By Samara Lynn

D-Link has a new wireless range extender that's not only one of the smallest you'll find on the market, but is incredibly easy to set up and delivers terrific coverage. In fact, the D-Link Wireless N300 Range Extender (DAP-1320) was able to sustain the most throughput at long distance of any wireless range extender I've tested. Even better, I tested it not with a D-Link router, but with a competing vendor's router, and the device still worked without a hitch.

Design
The DAP-1320 looks like a power adapter—it's only 2.11 by 1.65 by 1.89 inches (HWD)  with two prongs, and it plugs directly into an electrical outlet. This simple yet powerful piece of wireless technology has just a single WPS button on its side and one LED to show you connection status.

The extender is single-band only, so it won't extend 5GHz Wi-Fi, which is perfectly okay, because it's the 2.4GHz band that can travel longer distance.

Included in the package are a quick install guide and a card that has the extender's default SSID and password as well as the URL to the web-based GUI printed on it.

Setup
The installation guide suggests that best placement for the extender is mid-way between the router and the Wi-Fi clients you are connecting to the router. In my testing environment, that placement proved to be too far from the router for set up. No problem: I performed setup with the extender about 5 feet from the router and then, once the extender was connected, moved it to a more central location.

You can set up the DAP-1320 using WPS or by connecting to the web GUI. I plugged it in and the LED blinked red, turned green, and then blinked amber. According to the device's instructions, when it blinks amber, you should use WPS to pair the extender with a router.

I used WPS and it worked fine connecting to my router. I did not pair D-Link's extender with a D-Link router. I used another vendor's router, the Western Digital My Net N900; I did this purposely, to see if there would be connection issues with another vendor's equipment. There weren't.

Once the LED turned from amber to solid green I had the extender connected. I reset it back to factory settings to see how the manual setup fared. With the manual method, I plugged in the extender, waited for it to turn amber, and then could connect to the extender's Wi-Fi. After connecting, launching a browser automatically opened the extender's web-based connection setup wizard.

The wizard asks if you want to connect the extender to a router via WPS or Manually.  With a manual connection you can select the network you want to extend and can opt to use the extender's default SSID or set the SSID name and credentials to the Wi-Fi network with which you've connected the extender.

That's the setup process—a few scant minutes, and very easy. I do caution that you may have to connect the extender close to your router and then position it where you want. Also, I made a change to my router's settings that disconnected the extender at one point. I had to reset the extender back to factory settings and set it up again. However I did not mind, since setting up the device is so quick.

Performance
Not only can I sing the praises of the device's incredibly easy setup, but it also delivered praiseworthy performance. It extended my router's signal to an area throughput never reaches, a real dead spot that my testing software, IxChariot, typically registers as 0 Mbps. From 150 feet away from the extender, in an environment saturated with access points, D-Link's little extender still managed .4 Mbps of throughput. Yes, that's not even 1 Mbps of speed, but it was enough to browse the Internet—slowly, but reasonably. While the BearExtender PC Long Range 802.11n USB WiFi Booster gave faster speed at a distance of 100 feet, it dropped the signal at 150 feet. Below is a chart comparing the DAP-1320's performance to other wireless range extenders:

Check out the performance comparisons with the DAP-1320

Extended Excellence
The DAP-1320 is one of the best wireless networking devices I've tested from D-Link, and among all of the extenders I've tested, it provided the best coverage. I was also impressed with how well it worked with another vendor's equipment. I'm confident that this little device, which did an impressive job of extending my test Wi-Fi network deployed in a high-rise office building with hundreds of access points all around, will work extremely well for the average home user. D-Link Wireless Range Extender gets a 4.5 out of 5 star rating, and is PCMag's Editors' Choice for wireless range extenders.

New Acting Chair Champions FCC's Spectrum Efforts

The Federal Communications Commission is "moving full speed ahead" to make more spectrum available, acting Chair Mignon Clyburn assured the wireless industry during a keynote speech Tuesday at CTIA in Las Vegas.

In her first speech since assuming the role of interim head of the FCC, Clyburn said the agency has initiated significant spectrum policy innovations over the past four years, and is on track with several creative efforts to bring additional airwaves to the market.

One such initiative is the upcoming incentive spectrum auction, which was approved by Congress more than a year ago, and will offer up broadcast spectrum for mobile broadband use. The effort will eventually allow broadcast TV stations with unused spectrum to sell it to wireless carriers hungry for extra bandwidth.

At this point, the FCC's incentive auctions team is continuing to work on and evaluate all the proposals received during its workshops, Clyburn said. The commission is on track to issue action rules this year, and conduct the auction in 2014.

Beyond the upcoming the incentive auction, the FCC is moving ahead with plans to auction 10 megahertz of spectrum in the H Block, and 55 megahertz in other bands, as required by the Spectrum Act, she said. The commission is also currently promoting ways to share spectrum, such as facilitating small cell technology in the 3.5 GHz band.

She mentioned that the FCC is also working with members of the Commerce Department to ensure efficient use of spectrum. On that front, the Commerce Department is planning to meet in June to complete its recommendations for sharing the 1755 – 1850 MHz band.

"The FCC's wireless agenda remains focused not only on licensed, but unlicensed spectrum," Clyburn said. "I will continue to encourage staff to find innovative ways, to promote unlicensed spectrum use."

She also touted the commission's efforts to expand in-flight broadband connectivity. The agency earlier this month proposed rules that would free up an additional 500 megahertz of spectrum for a new air-ground mobile broadband service, an effort that could "dramatically enhance the quality of in-flight Wi-Fi on planes," Clyburn said.

Joining Clyburn on the CTIA keynote stage this morning, meanwhile, was Mary Dillon, CTIA chair and president and CEO of U.S. Cellular, who moderated a panel on changes and trends in the wireless industry with representatives from Alcatel-Lucent, General Motors, Target, Qualcomm Technologies, and Adobe.

On that front, Dillion said wireless devices are the most important consumer products on the planet, and are "perhaps as vital as food" to many users. She referenced a survey that found that 63 percent of people would give up chocolate before wireless, while 55 percent would drop caffeine first.

"The potential for growth is only limited by our imaginations," Dillion said.

Going forward, the amount of data traveling mobile networks is poised to explode, said Peggy Johnson, executive vice president and president of global market development at Qualcomm. She predicted that in the coming years, mobile networks will need to carry about 1,000 times the data they do today.

Meanwhile, Michael Saylor, founder and CEO of business intelligence software provider MicroStrategy and author of The Mobile Wave, predicted that there will be 6 billion smartphones in use by 2015 and 10 billion tablets by 2020.

Clyburn, meanwhile, steps in at the FCC for Julius Genachowski, who officially stepped down as chairman of the FCC last week. President Obama has nominated telecom veteran Tom Wheeler to replace Genachowski, but Wheeler must first be confirmed by the Senate.

Kickstarter Tech Project of the Week: BRCK

Fancy an African safari? Pledge $10,000 toward this innovative portable hotspot on steroids and you'll be on your way.

Project Name: BRCK - your backup generator for the internet
Category: Hardware
Goal: $125,000
Currently Funded: $61,014
Deadline for pledging: June 4, 2013

Imagine a MiFi mobile hotspot that's as tough as a brick and has multiple options for connecting to the Internet. You've just pictured the BRCK, which hails from the Nairobi, Kenya-based company Ushahidi, originally formed to map reports of post-election violence in Kenya in 2008.

Ushahidi has since morphed into a non-profit, open-source tech company, but its platform carries on the original mission of building tools that improve the way information flows in the world. Ushahidi knows people from San Francisco to Nairobi—especially journalists and aid providers—need to connect remotely, and its motto is "if it works in Africa, it will work anywhere."

Accordingly it's created a smart, rugged device that can connect to the Internet no matter how difficult the situation or remote the location. The brick-shaped BRCK acts as a hotspot for up to 20 devices in range and connects via Ethernet, Wi-Fi, and 3G or 4G mobile phone networks. Thanks to its eight-hour battery, it keeps running even if the power goes out, providing steady connectivity no matter where you are, how you're getting around, or which network is available.

Ushahidi is asking for $125,000 from Kickstarter to proceed with manufacturing. Right now you need to pledge a minimum of $200 to get your BRCK, scheduled to arrive by November 2013.

Ushahidi managed to earn more than 20 percent of its goal in the first day, so funding the full amount looks promising. There's the usual litany of extras such as t-shirts and stickers at various pledge levels, and you can also get a subscription to Ushahidi's CrowdMap platform starting at $300. If you're a high roller with a spare $10,000 burning a hole in your pocket however, the team will take you on safari in Nairobi to "build cool stuff" at their iHub in the center of Africa's "Silicon Savannah."