UTEST company Onyx Motion, makers of an Android wear app called Swish that provides digital coaching for sports like basketball, will appear on CBC's NextGenDen. UPDATED! You can watch the…
TORONTO (Dec. 2, 2014) — The University of Toronto Early-Stage Technology (UTEST) incubator, co-directed by U of T’s Innovations & Partnerships Office (IPO) and MaRS Innovation, has announced its third cohort of computer science start-up companies.
Betakit and Electronic Products &Technology covered this announcement; TechVibes featured Syncadian and Onyx Motion in recent features. The U of T magazine also featured Syncadian and CEO Hanna Janossy in this recent profile.
The five companies and the diverse sectors they target are (scroll for full company descriptions):
Past graduates include Whirlscape, TrendMD, Crowdmark, eQOL and Granata Decision Systems, among others.
Whirlscape, a graduate of the UTEST program’s first cohort (co-managed by MaRS Innovation and the University of Toronto), has launched their little keyboard for big fingers to Apple users.
The software, released to coincide with Apple’s iOS 8 launch, is part of Whirlscape’s larger efforts to develop typing solutions for wearable devices, including smartwatches, Google Glass and other applications.
The Minuum product launch for iOS was covered in TechCrunch, The Next Web and Mobile Syrup, among other tech blogs, and was mentioned in articles dissecting iOS 8’s overall improvements for Apple users (see Yahoo Tech, Mobile Syrup and Digital Trends).
Whirlscape, graduates of the UTEST program, made tech headlines last week by releasing a teaser of Minuum, their one-line, mobile keyboard for wearable devices, running on an iPhone.
The announcement and teaser gif were covered in TechCrunch, SlashGear, MobileSyrup and AndroidGuys, among other tech outlets.
From input, the Minuum blog:
We’ve embraced the design philosophies of iOS to refine Minuum into an elegant typing experience centred around our incredibly powerful autocorrect.
UTEST graduate Whirlscape, makers of the wearable, one-line Minuum keyboard, were recently featured on CBC’s Lang and O’Leary Exchange.
Minuum has also broken the 100 billion pixels mark in screen space saved for its users. Read about it on input, the Minuum blog.
Founder and CEO Will Walmsley was interviewed by Amanda Lang. The footage was also made available on CBC News, and was included in CBC’s weekly summary of the week’s top business stories. Watch the video.
Here’s an excerpt:
Typing on a smartphone is hard enough – imagine doing it on a smartwatch or other wearable device.
A Toronto startup called Minuum is trying to solve that problem with a tiny virtual keyboard.
It’s a downloadable app costing $3.99 that combines a tiny keyboard with a powerful autocorrect that helps you get the message out, no matter how you punch it.
[. . .]“What really drives us to work on this technology is the future potential it has. The core concept is a keyboard that is just one line of characters, which means if you can imagine typing on a line anywhere, that can be a keyboard,” he said.
“Start-up culture is fast taking hold at U of T, with an array of incubators and accelerators providing student entrepreneurs the resources and mentorships required to get their businesses up and running,” writes Ameya Charnalia of The Varsity, the University of Toronto’s student newspaper.
Charnalia’s article focuses on new student-focused incubators, such as the UTEST program, which provide entrepreneurs cash, access to in-house expertise, working space and mentorship to advice their ideas.
It appeared in the same week that recent UTEST graduate Whirlscape released a new demo video showing their Minuum keyboard technology running on a LG G watch, which is also an Android Wear device. The announcement was covered in TechCrunch, engadget, Pocketnow, Android Police, SlashGear, BGR, Mobile Syrup, 9to5Google, and DroidLife, among other tech blogs.
Jeff Cates’ op-ed in the Globe and Mail‘s Small Business/Digital Innovation section on June 19, 2014 argues that incubators have a key role to play in fostering innovation, entrepreneurship and growing new industries in Ontario.
Cates states this is particularly true when incubators when they provide programs and services to help young entrepreneurs succeed.
The University of Toronto Early-Stage Technology program (UTEST), co-managed with MaRS Innovation, is one such program. UTEST is set to announce its third cohort within the next month.
There’s been lots of activity in MI’s portfolio this week (and it’s only Wednesday). Read down for what you need to know about Whirlscape, Crowdmark, OtoSim, and ApneaDx.
Whirlscape launches Google Glass demo videoWhirlscape’s Minuum keyboard nabbed a four-star review from CNET’s editors only days before announcing their technology is now available for Google Glass. Watch the UTEST graduate‘s newest demo video.
Reaction coverage: BNN, the Telegraph (U.K.), WPRO (radio), CNET, Mashable, TechCrunch, Mobile Syrup and Android Central, among various other tech blogs.
Crowdmark named “Most Innovative” at SIIA conferenceThe Education Division of the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) showcased some of the newest and most innovative products in the education technology market, and recognized the best among them as part of the Innovation Incubator program at the 13th annual Education Industry Summit, the leading conference for the K-12 and postsecondary education technology market, held May 12-14 at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco.
From their blog:
Crowdmark was named Most Innovative among more than 50 applicants,
Every six weeks, MaRS Innovation’s marketing and communications manager writes a guest post for the MaRS Discovery District blog profiling MI’s activities or one of our start-up companies. You can read the original post on the MaRS blog.
On Monday, June 17, Whirlscape Inc. released the beta version of its hotly anticipated, tiny, one-dimensional digital keyboard, Minuum: “the little keyboard for big fingers.”
If you follow tech gadget news, you’ve likely read about or even supported the company’s successful Indiegogo campaign, which raised more than US$87,000—over 870% above their modest initial goal of $10,000—from nearly 10,000 supporters who have now become beta users for the product.
The stats don’t end there. By number of funders, the Minuum Keyboard Project’s campaign is in Indiegogo’s top 10 of all time and is ranked No. 2 among all technology campaigns. Over 1.1 million people worldwide viewed Minuum’s original teaser video on YouTube, which the Whirlscape team edited and shot themselves.
TORONTO, Canada (June 18, 2013) — Whirlscape Inc., creators of Minuum, “the little keyboard for big fingers,” today released the Android beta to the nearly 10,000 supporters who funded the keyboard’s wildly successful Indiegogo campaign.
The Minuum Project campaign raised over $87,000 (USD) through the crowdfunding platform between March and April 2013, well past its initial goal of $10,000. Whirlscape promised to release the hotly anticipated Minuum beta two months after the campaign, and has delivered on that promise.
Minuum’s beta launch to its Indiegogo supporters was covered by TechCrunch, TechCrunch Japan and Mobile Syrup. Whirlscape’s technology was also highlighted in a VentureBeat article on the future of typing.
The product was also reviewed on TechVibes and the Android Police blog: “Minuum Keyboard Beta: Good enough to renew my faith in crowd-funded campaigns.”
Minuum is a tiny, linear, one-dimensional touchscreen keyboard that re-imagines the standard QWERTY layout. It frees up mobile screen space while allowing fast, accurate typing. This touchscreen keyboard marks the first phase of the Minuum Project, which seeks to simplify typing on mobile devices—such as smartphones and tablets—and enable typing for wearable technology. The beta release is an important first step towards Minuum’s “type anywhere” future.
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