Japan’s Telepathy finally unveils new smartglass, not vaporware this time

SHARE:

telepathy_1217

See the original story in Japanese.

Telepathy Japan, the Japanese subsidiary of Sunnyvale-based wearable device startup Telepathy, unveiled a new product today called Telepathy Jumper. The company will start accepting pre-orders this month, and begin shipping to corporate users in March 2015 and to consumers in summer of 2015.

Telepathy had originally aimed to release the Telepathy One smartglass, but the new product, the Telepathy Jumper, is no more than a shadow of the original concept. It looks like a wearable device rather than a smartglass, and it is connected by a cable to a controller pad.

According to Telepathy Japan President and CEO Kenichi Suzuki, Telepathy Jumper is to be worn from the neck, but only when necessary rather than being worn all the time. But for those who want to always wear the device, the company will provide a supplemental head mounting attachment as well as make its 3D data available so that users can create a customized attachment at DMM’s Tokyo 3D Printing Center.

See also:

Telepathy Jumper runs on Android 4.2 and has Sense-Core Engine, which manages multiple accelerometers and location sensors. So an app running on Telepathy Jumper will not need to receive metrics from multiple sensors respectively, but can receive the ones from the engine in a more contextual way, like whether or not you are standing or the device is in your bag. In this way, developers of apps for the device can decrease development and processing steps.

Telepathy Japan CEO & President Kenichi Suzuki
Telepathy Japan CEO & President Kenichi Suzuki

Based on the concept of co-creation, two apps called Eye Connect and Talent Buzz will be installed in the device as a factory default. Eye Connect allows users to share their visuals via one-click. If a user sets connection privileges to open to the public, a user can share sights with other users upon their connection requests. Talent Buzz is a platform allowing users to share their knowledge, skills, and experiences. It has many business applications such as transferring knowledge about manufacturing processes from skilled workers to trainees, or sharing how to better serve customers at a restaurant.

Regarding opportunities allowing third-party developers to create apps for Telepathy Jumper, the company has decided to disclose an API, but technical specifications like the Android Wear compatibility have not yet been decided.

Our original anticipation for Telepathy’s product was based on the novel design and concept of its hardware mock-up. In other words, the company will be more focused on manufacturing better hardware but rely on community-based activities for app development. Coinciding with the announcement of Telepathy Jumper, the company announced that it aims to provide a total user experience leveraging a combination of hardware, app, and the cloud, which can be highly regarded because they went beyond just developing a hardware product.

telepathy-jumper4

telepathy-jumper1

telepathy-jumper2

telepathy-jumper3