Treviso, Italy and London, UK – May 16th, 2013
BERG AND FABRICA ANNOUNCE ‘SANDBOX’
- A global collaborative prototyping and research program
BERG, the London-based creators of Little Printer, are excited to welcome Fabrica, the Benetton Group’s communication research center based in Treviso, Italy, as the launch partner for Sandbox – a collaborative research and development program for the prototyping and creation of a new generation of connected products and services.
Sandbox is a global program for academic and industry partners, based on BERG Cloud, the world’s friendliest and most complete Internet of Things and connected products platform. Sandbox comprises a campus-wide BERG Cloud network, dev boards, and product invention workshops enabling each partner organisation to prototype and develop their own connected products.
From their Italian headquarters, a seventeenth century villa restored and enlarged by Tadao Ando, Sandbox will allow Fabrica to work with their own researchers, partners and clients to prototype connected objects, spaces and experiences, as media, arts, government, retail, healthcare, community, built environment and other sectors continue to be transformed by communications technologies.
Dan Hill, CEO of Fabrica said “Sandbox is a unique opportunity for Fabrica’s researchers to imagine and prototype how these new connected objects and spaces will begin to radically change the way we live, work, play, organise and communicate. Going beyond the hype around ‘smart cities’ and Internet of Things, we are layering these technologies over our wonderful building to create a unique, open demonstrator – to help both us and our clients understand what it truly means to live and work with these exciting possibilities.”
As BERG opens Sandbox up to more partners over the summer, each is able to opt to share their experiences and insights with each other via quarterly round-tables. Partners are actively encouraged to show-and-tell their work and experience, and potentially collaborate together on connected products which make use of BERG Cloud.
Matt Webb, CEO of BERG said “Sandbox is a unique global collaborative effort that will link the sharpest and most inquisitive creative minds with BERG Cloud the friendliest and most complete platform for connected products.”
This collaboration with BERG recognises once again Fabrica’s role in exploring new approaches and possibilities in the creative use of technology, confirming the long tradition of interactive projects developed by the centre since its foundation in 1994.
– ENDS –
Download images of Fabrica and the BERG Cloud Dev Kit from http://cl.ly/0g0D3s0x433v
-About BERG-
BERG have been developing products for the future since 2003 from their base near Old St at the heart of the cluster of tech and product companies around Tech City and Silicon Roundabout.
BERG’s first connected consumer product Little Printer, launched to great acclaim in December 2012 and was recently shortlisted in the Design of the Year competition at the Design Museum in London.
BERG Cloud is the world’s friendliest and most complete Internet of Things and connected products platform – a secure, stable and extendable operating system, hardware platform and developer tools, making it as easy and cost-effective to develop connected products as it currently is to develop for the web.
www.bergcloud.com
-About FABRICA-
Fabrica is the communication research centre of Benetton Group. It was created in 1994 with the aim of combining culture with industry and offering young people from around the world an opportunity for creative growth and multicultural, multidisciplinary interaction.
Fabrica invites young artists and designers to its centre, offering them a one-year residency and providing them with a training opportunity and a wealth of resources and relations, by working on real projects for a wide range of clients. The young researchers develop cultural and social communication projects in the areas of design, visual communication, photography, interaction, video, music and publishing, working with Fabrica’s full-time faculty.
www.fabrica.it
-For further information:-
BERG
Mark Cridge
Ph: +44 7968 592550
mc@bergcloud.com
FABRICA
Angela Quintavalle
Ph: +39 0422 516209
angie@fabrica.it
London, 18th April 2013
BERG announces release of the BERG Cloud Dev Kit
BERG are excited to announce the launch of the BERG Cloud Dev Kit, the easiest way to prototype and build digitally connected consumer products, lowering the cost of invention and accelerating time to market.
The BERG Cloud Dev Kit should be the first choice for all makers, hardware start-ups and consumer product companies as the easiest way to quickly prototype and produce connected products for the home and business. BERG Cloud is perfectly suited to a one-off prototype, as the backbone of your next Kickstarter project, and finally as the platform powering your product when you go to market.
Matt Webb, CEO of BERG (@genmon) said, “The BERG Cloud Dev Kit is the latest step in our mission to make developing connected hardware products as easy and cost-effective as developing for the web.”
Twitter UK (@twitteruk) are the first company to make use of the BERG Cloud Dev Kit to quickly create a connected product.
#FLOCK is a unique and very limited edition set of connected cuckoo clocks, the first of which will be awarded to a trusted Twitter partner today, Thursday 18th April, at the #Twitter4Brands event at Tate Modern.
Each #FLOCK is wirelessly connected using the BERG Cloud Dev Kit, which enables the configuration and control of the birds’ behaviour to happen in the Cloud, with remote choreography via a Twitter account. Retweets, ‘@’ messages and new followers will all affect the clock in different ways.
The BERG Cloud Dev Kit comprises two Dev Boards and one Bridge.
Each Dev Board is compatible with both the Arduino and Raspberry Pi, delivering out of the box access to our suite of secure BERG Cloud OS services including messaging, user management, claiming and Web API access.
Find out more at: http://bergcloud.com/devkit
Download photos of #FLOCK here: http://cl.ly/2N1c2v0G0s2H
Watch Twitter’s video on YouTube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Haq4oP3B4rE&feature=youtu.be
Download the press release (PDF)
London, 30th November 2012
BERG, the London product invention and design studio, began shipping the hugely anticipated Little Printer, a smart printer for the home, to customers. Little Printer scours the Web on the owner’s behalf, assembling their interests into delightful, personalised miniature newspapers, printed only two inches across.
With content uniquely customised for each user, and the easy Little Printer publishing platform, publishers can reach users directly in their homes in an inventive and highly engaging form.
Little Printer content partners include the following:
- The Guardian – News headlines: The latest news, customised according to interest, delivered precisely when the reader wants
- Google – Integration with Google Tasks: Schedule a daily to-do list. Subsequent print-outs are updated as tasks are completed
- foursquare – Friend and location data and recommendations: If you’re heading out for the evening. schedule Little Printer to deliver a timely list of your friends’ locations just before you leave. Or get regular restaurant recommendations based on your location
- Arup – A collectable mini-series publication, cataloguing Arup’s renowned building projects such as the Sydney Opera House and the London Zoo Penguin Pool
Other publications include daily weather reports, horoscopes, and puzzles. Weekly birthday reminders, handy for keeping on the fridge or in the user’s wallet, are printed from Facebook. Other brands working with BERG on publications include The Times (London) and the BBC.
The second production run of Little Printers will begin shipping in July 2013.
Press release: Little Printer pre-orders, 14 August 2012 (PDF)
Read the launch announcement: 29 November 2011
Download the Publisher’s Handbook (PDF)
For press and media enquiries please contact us. For images, logos and further information about BERG, please see the links to the right.