You might also remember that a couple of those laptops managed to stand out from the crowd — including Hewlett-Packard’s Envy Spectre 14, which goes on sale today.

Showgoers were abuzz about the glossy, Gorilla Glass-coated Spectre — despite the fact that at almost four pounds, it weighs slightly more than some other ultra-thin, Intel-driven Ultrabooks. At $1,399, it’s 20mm thin with a 14-inch screen, supports up to 256 gigabytes of storage and boasts up to nine and half hours of battery life. It also has a backlit keyboard and “proximity sensors” that light up when a user is approaching the laptop and, naturally, it has HP’s Beats Audio built in.

Another notable feature is that it incorporates near field communication technology, like the kind we’ve been seeing in mobile phones for quick, one-tap payments. HP says that the NFC tech in the Spectre, which is built into the left side of the palm-rest area, will be compatible with NFC-enabled Android phones.

So, how will it work, exactly?

After downloading the HP Touch to Share app from the Android Market, Spectre owners that have an NFC-enabled Android phone will be able to transfer URLs from the Android phone to the Spectre using NFC. For example, if you’re browsing the Web on your phone, you can then tap your screen and transfer that page to the laptop’s Web browser.

You can’t currently share photos, music or other media this way, an HP spokesperson confirmed. And while NFC is often associated with e-commerce, that’s not the usage we’re talking about here. (Since the laptop isn’t a payment terminal, you can’t, for example, browse Amazon.com, see something you’d like to buy, open up a wallet app on your phone and tap the screen with your phone to pay.) But it is a way for smartphones to “speak to” the laptop without using wires or cloud apps.

The NFC market for mobile is expected to grow dramatically over the next few years, with IHS iSuppli forecasting 544.7 million NFC-equipped cellphones to be shipped by 2015 (from 93.2 million last year); it’s likely that we’ll see this tech coming to more devices outside of mobile phones and tablets.

Nintendo, for one, recently said it plans to bring NFC to its long-awaited Wii successor, where it will be used to transfer gaming data.

So HP and Lenovo have added some features to their Ultrabooks to set them apart from all the ultra-noise.

Lenovo's IdeaPad Yoga

The Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga is named as such because of its flexibility. The 10-finger touchscreen has a full range of motion at the hinge, so when fully folded, the laptop turns into a 13.3.-inch tablet. And it can be propped up in tent mode — or, in this case, downward dog. I could see this being useful for entertainment viewing at home, as well as in small spaces, such as on an airplane.

Other laptops have shown this range of motion before — remember the Dell Inspiron Duo? — but adding this feature to a super-slim, touchscreen Windows 8 laptop is a nice touch.

The Yoga’s cover is solid aluminium; it measures 16.9mm thick and weighs 3.1 pounds. It is, of course, powered by an Intel Core processor, with 8 gigabytes of RAM and a 256GB solid-state drive. Lenovo claims the battery lasts up to eight hours.

Since the IdeaPad Yoga runs the upcoming Windows 8 operating system, the laptop likely won’t be available until the second half of the year. A representative for Lenovo said the company hopes to price it around $1,300.

Gorilla Glass is what makes the HP Envy Spectre 14 stand out. The ultra-thin, chemically strengthened material is what coats the exterior and the wrist rest of this laptop, giving it a sleek, reflective look — albeit one that needs to be wiped with a cloth pretty frequently.

HP's Envy Spectre 14

Yesterday at CES, someone lamented to me, regarding the Envy Spectre 14, “But it’s so heavy.” Weighing in at almost four pounds, the Spectre is a bit heavier than other Ultrabooks, but for comparison’s sake, the 13-inch version of the “regular” HP Envy notebook is just about the same, at 3.68 pounds.

The Spectre is 20mm thin, has a 14-inch screen and Intel Core processors, and supports up to 256GB of storage. It also boasts nine hours of battery life, versus Lenovo’s eight. The Spectre also has a backlit keyboard and proximity sensors which detect when a user is approaching the laptop and light up the keys in advance. And it has HP’s Beats Audio built in.

Another interesting feature of the Spectre is that it’s NFC-enabled; theoretically, users can share data from an NFC smartphone by tapping the phone against the Spectre.

The HP Envy Spectre is expected to launch in early February, and will cost around $1,399.

Neither of these Ultrabooks have DVD slots, but the HP Envy Spectre 14 has an expandable Ethernet port, USB 3.0, HDMI and Mini DisplayPort, while the IdeaPad Yoga has USB 2.0 and 3.0 ports, an HDMI port and an SD card slot.

A fun side note about the HP Envy Spectre 14: A company representative says HP actually first displayed a prototype of this Ultrabook last fall, during New York Fashion Week. But it was a “bejeweled” version, with Swarovski crystal designs by Marchesa, and fashion-focused reporters barely batted an eye at the thing. Who knew they were missing one of this season’s biggest CES trends?

(Images courtesy of Blogeee/Flickr)

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Asana, the high-profile group collaboration start-up founded by former Facebook execs, is moving out of private beta after a year, and will launch to the general public.

Currently in use by thousands of users at hundreds of beta companies, Asana said it will now put its efforts at tweaking the product to a wider test.

In Sanskrit, “asana” means “sitting down,” and refers to strong but relaxed postures in yoga, presumably so frustrated workers can achieve a digital form of nirvana.

The product can be used for free by teams of fewer than 30 users.

“Our beta users have helped us in shaping our prioritization in the workspace,” said Asana co-founder Dustin Moskovitz.

Moskovitz said that the company — which raised $9 million in venture funding two years ago, and $1 million before that from Benchmark Capital, Andreessen Horowitz and angel investors — is not in need of more funds and will not yet release a paid product.

Co-founder Justin Rosenstein added that one future direction will be the growth of the mobile application arena for Asana, which already has offerings.

Here are some screenshots of the Asana offering:

When there are discounts involved and only 24 hours to decide whether to buy, Americans are more likely to purchase pole dancing classes over gym memberships. They also opt for Mexican food more than sushi, and lasers rather than waxing for removing unwanted hair.

At least that’s what LivingSocial found after studying the four million daily deals it sold in the U.S. during the second quarter. The Washington, D.C.-based company, which is the second-largest provider of online deals in the U.S. after Groupon, segmented the vouchers into four broad categories: Beauty, food/dining out, fitness and entertainment.

LivingSocial said its most active members are based in its home town of Washington, D.C., but are also represented in California, New York, Texas and Florida.

Within the fitness category, yoga was by far the most flexible form of exercise, having sold 92,242 vouchers, followed by boot camp with 27,073 deals sold. But pole dancing beat out gym memberships for third place, with 19,972 vouchers sold versus 16,125 gym memberships.

The most popular beauty service is massage, with 154,085 selling in the second quarter. At that rate, massages outsold the top-selling item from each category. Within beauty, manicures and pedicures came in second, but sold less than half as many.

Mexican restaurants topped the food category, selling 107,159 vouchers, followed closely by pizzerias. Sushi restaurants came in third, selling 50,491.

In the entertainment category, golf shot to the top of the charts with 60,628 rounds sold (which translates to 1,091,304 holes, LivingSocial says). Boat cruises floated into second with 46,665 sold, followed by theater, wine tasting and cooking classes.

In contrast, Groupon revealed in its IPO filing that it offers roughly 140 different types of businesses, services and activities that fall into six broad categories. The following chart shows the percentage of deals offered worldwide across these categories in the first quarter of 2011:

As it gets ramped up for a wider launch, Asana, the high-profile workplace collaboration start-up founded by top former Facebook execs, has hired former SolarWinds product strategy exec Kenny Van Zant in a “COO-type of role.”

Van Zant, who will be Asana’s first business-side hire, has also worked at a variety of tech companies, including Cisco.

Co-founders Dustin Moskovitz and Justin Rosenstein remain at the top of the leadership at the productivity software company, which–perhaps in keeping with its yoga-style name–does not have official titles.

But Van Zant will essentially fulfill the COO role, focusing on bringing Asana to the enterprise market in a socially-fueled, “bottom-up” approach.

“We now have a great product and are ready for our next phase of bringing it to the market,” said Moskovitz, in an interview this afternoon with BoomTown. “While Justin and I continue to work on product and engineering, Kenny will be the driver of that launch.”

Specifically, in a blog post today, Moskovitz wrote:

“Kenny will be leading functions outside of product and engineering, and serve as a key driver for Asana’s marketing and corporate strategy.”

Asana, which is aimed at helping people work on projects together in groups, is now in private beta.

It tackles the often unexciting, but very large and problematic, workplace collaboration and communications software market.

In Sanskrit, “asana” means “sitting down” and refers to strong but relaxed postures in yoga, which presumably means the product will help frustrated workers achieve a digital form of nirvana.

The San Francisco-based start-up, which has raised $9 million in venture funding from Benchmark Capital and Andreessen Horowitz, now has 15 employees.

Asana had previously garnered just over $1 million in an angel round, which included a spate of Silicon Valley bigwigs.

Still, it has not, thankfully, received the intense hype of other innovative start-ups from former Facebookers–hello, Quora!

That said, many who are using Asana think it will make a huge splash as it is rolled out and attempts to bring consumer-style tools to the workplace.

There are, of course, a range of companies doing this in different ways–from Jive to Yammer to LinkedIn and to a variety of cloud-based enterprise efforts by Google and Microsoft.

In an interview, Van Zant said the time was ripe for big changes in the way enterprise-aimed products were bought and sold.

“I will be focused on selling our enterprise software product from the bottom up, rather than targeting the CIO,” said Van Zant. “It is clear the world of enterprise is being impacted by consumer behavior.”

While he does not start until Monday, Van Zant speculated that Asana’s free product offering will remain, with a premium version to come.

Benchmark’s Matt Cohler, who made the Asana investment for the firm and is on its board, said the time is right for such businesses aimed at enterprise transformation.

“Kenny wrote the book on this at SolarWinds,” he said. “The consumerization of the enterprise isn’t going to happen–it already has.”

Here is a demo video Asana put out in February of an open house, as well as the blog post from Asana on the Van Zant hire:

Asana Open House from Jerry Phillips on Vimeo.

Justin and I are excited to welcome Kenny Van Zant as the newest member of the Asana team. Kenny will be leading functions outside of product and engineering, and serve as a key driver for Asana’s marketing and corporate strategy.

Until now we’ve focused primarily on developing the Asana product into the best of class solution for task management and project execution. Encouraged by positive feedback from the early adopters in our beta program, we’re now preparing for the company’s next phase–bringing this technology to the rest of the market–and we can’t imagine a better partner than Kenny to drive this strategy and build a strong organization to support it. At SolarWinds, Kenny helped pioneer the bottom-up distribution model for selling software and SaaS into enterprises and small businesses–a sales approach we plan to develop further at Asana. This experience, together with an almost uncanny overlap of values, made it clear that Kenny is the right fit.

While finding Kenny concludes a long search for the right leader of Asana’s business operations, we are continuing to grow the team, looking for passionate designers and engineers to join us in our common purpose: using software to help groups of people work together more effectively.

–Dustin

Kenny Van Zant is a technology entrepreneur with leadership experience in start-ups and public companies. Kenny was most recently the SVP and Chief Product Strategist for SolarWinds (NYSE: SWI) from 2006-2010, where he was responsible for products, marketing, and corporate strategy. At SolarWinds, Kenny helped pioneer a disruptive business model for selling software and SaaS into the enterprise and SMB segments from the “bottom-up,” using inside sales, online marketing, free products, and a loyal user community. Based on a unique combination of growth and profitability, SolarWinds enjoyed a successful IPO in May of 2009.

Prior to SolarWinds, Kenny was the EVP of Marketing and GM of the Communications BU for Motive (NASD: MOTV) and the co-founder and COO for BroadJump (acquired by Motive), where he managed the company’s growth from start-up in 1999 to over $60M in revenue and 350 global employees within 3 years.

Kenny has a BS in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin.

This week, I’ve done the dirty work for you: I’ve amassed a collection of vital details about the three most popular systems—Microsoft’s (MSFT) Xbox 360, Sony’s (SNE) PlayStation 3 and Nintendo’s Wii—so that you can get a handle on what each offers and what it will cost you.

Nintendo Wii

Nintendo recently dropped the Wii’s price, for the first time, to $200 from $250. The Wii Console comes with a controller, an additional controller called a Nunchuk, and the Wii Sports game, which includes baseball, tennis, golf, bowling and boxing. It holds 512 megabytes of flash memory, but you can increase this by inserting SecureDigital memory cards. It also accepts high-capacity SD cards, or SDHCs, of up to 32 gigabytes.

The couch-potato world of videogamers was shaken up when the Wii, with its motion-sensitive remote control, was introduced about three years ago. Users can play Wii Golf, for instance, by swinging the remote like a golf club. In September, Nintendo added to its lineup a $20 remote-control accessory called Wii MotionPlus that was designed to add more precision to game motions. I tested this snap-on piece and found that it did make the Wii’s motions feel more realistic. But it works only with Wii MotionPlus games—and there are only six of them; 10 more are planned for 2010.

Wii encourages users to move around in more ways than just waving a remote: Its Wii Balance Board, which comes with the Wii Fit Plus game in a $100 bundle, works like a digital exercise step. It records the body’s weight shifts and movements for activities from yoga to wake-boarding.

The Wii accesses the Internet and lets users compete online against others. About 655 packaged games are available for between $30 and $50. Also, you can use pre-purchased Nintendo Points to buy and download about 150 WiiWare games and over 325 titles from the older Virtual Console library. Each game costs between 300 and 1,500 points, or between about $3 and $15.

WiiConnect24 can send messages from one Wii to another over the Internet, as long the two users exchange “Wii numbers.” Users can also surf the Web with Wii’s Opera browser. But beyond this, no other Web features—like downloadable movies, social-networking applications or streaming music—will work on this system.

Parental controls can be set on the Wii to restrict kids from using the Web browser, playing games that have a certain rating or communicating online.

Microsoft Xbox 360

Microsoft recently stepped up its game by adding features to its $200 Xbox 360 that make it well-rounded rather than strictly geared toward serious gamers. People who buy the Xbox LIVE Gold membership, for $50 a year, get applications for Facebook, Twitter, the Last.fm music-streaming service, online multiplayer game play, video chat, Netflix (Netflix subscription required), photo sharing via the Xbox, and movie or photo “parties” that allow users to watch a movie simultaneously with seven other friends.

Xbox LIVE Silver membership is free and includes basic features like voice and text chat, as well as access to the Zune video library’s 20,000 TV shows and movies to buy or rent. The Xbox also allows media-streaming over a home network. To wirelessly connect to the Internet on your Xbox, you’ll need to buy a $100 Wi-Fi adapter. By contrast, the Wii and PlayStation 3 have built-in Wi-Fi.

Anyone who owns a Microsoft Zune media player can buy a TV show or movie and download it to an Xbox or PC as well as the Zune. Zunes can be plugged into the Xbox to play music, as can Apple (AAPL) iPods.

The base Xbox comes with a wireless controller and 512 megabytes of memory. For $100 more, the Elite Holiday Bundle includes a 120-gigabyte hard drive, headset, wireless controller, and two games: “LEGO Batman: The Videogame” and “Pure.” More than 1,200 games are available for the Xbox, mostly costing between $29 and $60. About 350 of the games can be downloaded from the Xbox LIVE Arcade (costing 400 to 1,600 points, or $5 to $20) or the Games on Demand library.

Microsoft confirmed plans to introduce Project Natal, a system that lets people operate games with gestures and body movements rather than remote controls. Natal will work with all Xbox 360 consoles. Microsoft won’t confirm a date.

Family settings let parents control whether their kids play games online and with whom they play, as well as the ratings of the games. A Family Timer regulates how long kids play.

Sony PlayStation 3

Sony’s PlayStation, like the Xbox 360, is designed with serious gamers in mind. Its base version costs $300 and includes a 120-gigabyte hard drive and a DualShock 3 wireless controller; $50 more buys a version with a 250-gigabyte hard drive. Both systems can be upgraded with any standard 2.5-inch hard drive. The PlayStation is also a Blu-ray disc player.

Like the Xbox, the PlayStation 3, or PS3, now offers extra features, but these features are all included in the PlayStation Network, which is free (not $50 yearly like Xbox LIVE Gold). These PlayStation Network extras include Netflix (NFLX) instant streaming, a Web browser, photo slide shows, the ability to stream media over a home network to the PS3, a Facebook application that shares game information with friends and the PlayStation Network video-delivery service, where users can purchase 2,400 high- and standard-definition movies and 15,000 TV episodes.

The PS3 and the PlayStation Portable, Sony’s portable gaming device, are married in many ways. A new feature called Blu-ray Portable Copy lets users make a free standard-definition copy of some Blu-ray movies for transfer to a PlayStation Portable. Remote Play lets people stream media files from the PS3 to the PlayStation Portable in Wi-Fi hot spots or remotely turn the PS3 on or off using the PlayStation Portable. Movies and TV shows from the PlayStation Network can be transferred to either system, so you can start a movie on a big-screen TV and finish it on the PlayStation Portable; the same can be done for games.

About 400 games are available on Blu-ray for the PS3; these cost between $30 and $60. More than 150 titles, costing between $3 and $40, can be downloaded directly to the PS3. Sony confirmed that it will release a motion-sensing controller, but it hasn’t set a date.

Parental restrictions for the PS3 include the ability to restrict games, DVDs and Blu-ray discs with certain ratings. Parents can also limit monthly spending or Web browsing.

Games: A Cheat Sheet

Here are some of the key differences among three popular videogame systems.

Email: mossbergsolution@wsj.com

Write to Katherine Boehret at mossbergsolution@wsj.com

Corrections & Amplifications

Xbox LIVE Gold costs $50 a year. A previous version of this story incorrectly stated in the second reference to the price that it costs $50 monthly. Also, the Xbox 360 can be connected to the Internet via an ethernet cable for free, as well as via Wi-Fi. A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that connecting your Xbox to the Internet would require the purchase of a Wi-Fi adapter.

This week: A virtual visit with, some questions for and a few pertinent stats about Matthew McNeely and Sprout, the build-it-yourself Flash tool that lets anyone create customized Web site widgets.

Who: Matthew McNeely

What: VP of Engineering, Sprout.

Why: Sprout is a Web-based, WYSIWYG Flash editor that allows individuals and businesses to build customized content that can be embedded on their own sites. Sprout’s creations (known as “sprouts”) are also frequently incorporated into social media campaigns.

Where: Sproutinc.com (corporate bio); San Francisco, although Matthew says the team is “truly distributed,” as he lives in New Hampshire (analog); Facebook Fan Page (Yes, you can write on its wall); @Sprout (Twitter).

Who else: Slide; SlideRocket. But, “not too many that focus on branding the way we do.”

Five Stats You Won’t Find in His Facebook Profile

Worst Job: I grew up in Indiana, and, in the summers, I would de-tassel corn.

Has a Geek Crush on: I’m gonna get letters from all my Apple (AAPL) friends for saying this: Bill Gates of Microsoft (MSFT).

Gadget of the Moment: I finally got an iPhone, but I got it for $50, refurb.

Tech Wish: I wish I could build a sprout for my iPhone, but that means it would need to run Flash.

Fails at: I’m not a very good communicator, and every once in a while I catch myself closing up and not communicating with the [Sprout] team the way I need to.

Bio in 140 Characters

Shares a hometown w/James Dean. Picked corn until he got his first computer. Was a software engineer/consultant before moving to Sprout.

The Five Questions

What does Sprout bring to the table that others don’t?

At the most basic level, it’s about the speed. Before Sprout, you really needed to understand Flash and the sort of movie metaphor that it puts out in order to use it. Now, it’s much faster. If you know PowerPoint, you can use our product.

We also have a big push in the social networking space. That’s unique to us. If you are looking to put out a really rich media campaign on a social network, there’s no better service. You can also change things on the fly. Someone in the ad department can say, “Hey, this ad isn’t working.” And you can change it in five minutes, and it’s back up.

Who isn’t using Sprout, but should?

I can think of two examples. One would be, say, a yoga instructor who was also tech savvy. She could build up a quick shell of a Web presence with Sprout and sell it to other yogis who just want to give classes, but still have a nice, clean, updated Web site.

The second thing would be a porn sprout. That’s one industry that could really benefit from our technology, but just hasn’t yet. I mean, imagine, video clips and little libraries. We’ve seen some slightly suggestive things come across the bow, but no one has really gone all the way yet. I really hope you print that.

[EDITOR'S NOTE: A Sprout spokesman wanted to make sure readers knew that McNeely was kidding here, of course. Sprout's terms of service forbid such a use of its technology.]

Is there a formula for an attention-grabbing Sprout widget?

It’s different in every industry. Overall, a little animation and really good-looking graphics help. But, when it comes to engagement, we do have some idea.

It has to be contextually relevant [in the social media space], your friends should be fans of this Facebook page [for it to become popular], stuff like that. I mean, with good design, you can get someone like this guy from Des Moines who has basically cornered the market on real estate widgets.

Who should buy Sprout?

You mean besides Google? Seriously, though, we do work with Google (GOOG) quite a bit, and I’d love to see us become the small- to medium-size business ad-building tool for them.

Most real geeks have memories where they saw something new and said to themselves, “Dang, I love living in the future.” What’s yours?

My brother and I got this old North Star computer at this garage sale or something, and I programmed through the night to get this thing to predict, you know, randomize lottery numbers. I never won anything, of course, but I was just so enamored by it.

That kinda got me hooked into the notion that you can work on something and lose yourself in it.

The In Living Color Interview

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20091204/almost-famous-sprouts-matthew-mcneely/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20091124/asana-gets-9-million-no-its-not-yoga-stance-its-a-new-start-up-from-former-facebookers/ http://allthingsd.com/20091124/asana-gets-9-million-no-its-not-yoga-stance-its-a-new-start-up-from-former-facebookers/#comments Tue, 24 Nov 2009 18:00:07 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=21017

Yet another goofy Silicon Valley name did not prevent Asana–the workplace productivity software start-up founded by former Facebookers Dustin Moskovitz and Justin Rosenstein–from nabbing $9 million in funding from Benchmark Capital and Andreessen Horowitz.

The round, which was announced today, will be used to turbocharge Asana and its small team, who are aiming at the very dull and unexciting but very large and problematic workplace collaboration and communications software market.

In Sanskrit, “asana” means “sitting down” and refers to strong but relaxed postures in yoga–so presumably, Moskovitz and Rosenstein are trying to help frustrated workers achieve a digital form of nirvana.

Former Facebooker Matt Cohler, now at Benchmark, will have a seat on the Asana board. Asana had previously raised just over $1 million in an angel round, which included a spate of Silicon Valley bigwigs.

In an interview today, Rosenstein said that solving the “friction of communications” in the workplace by innovating via “information transparency” was Asana’s goal.

But, said Rosenstein, “We are not taking existing tools and porting it over the to Web…but rethinking how people can productively work together.”

He added: “We want to change the way you manage information and how you keep everyone on the same page…there are tons of misses here everyday in the workplace and it is death by 1,000 cuts.”

Moskovitz said he was always trying to solve such issues at Facebook, the social networking site he co-founded and where he once was CTO.

Ticking off a variety of workplace collaboration tools he employed, including some newer Web-based ones such as Yammer, Moskovitz said, “We could not find any easy solution, because there is not any one that answers all your issues.”

The pair said they had working product that was being used internally at the company, but would not say when one would be released publicly.

Finding one would obviously be a magic bullet, said Benchmark’s Cohler.

“This is a really big existing problem that no one has solved,” he said.

Here’s the press release:

Asana Announces $9 Million in Funding from Benchmark Capital and Andreessen Horowitz

11/24/2009

The challenge of groups of people working together effectively is fundamental to human endeavor, but the state of the art falls far short of real efficiency. Despite advances like email and wikis, the friction and overhead of communication remain acutely painful to organizations large and small. Group leaders spend an enormous portion of their time trying to keep everyone on the same page, and knowledge workers struggle daily with inadequate, disparate tools to wrangle the information they need to do their jobs.

The technical hurdles to building the right system to address these problems are immense, and the design challenges subtle and complex. The Asana team has thought deeply about these problems for many years, in leadership roles at some of the world’s best software companies. We are undertaking an ambitious project to tackle them with a vision that reimagines the way people manage information, to speed up knowledge work and communication by an order of magnitude. This is not another enterprise application suite, nor is it an ajaxification of existing desktop software concepts; it is a new kind of software product, built for the Web from the ground up, with a focus on speed, collaboration, and ease of use.

To help us build the company, we’re bringing in Benchmark Capital and Andreessen-Horowitz. The partners at these firms bring a tremendous amount of experience building companies and helping entrepreneurs reach their goals. Benchmark is leading the $9 million round of funding, and Matt Cohler, with whom we already have a close, trusting relationship, will have a seat on the board. Andreessen-Horowitz is the only other VC firm participating, and we’ve already started enjoying the benefits of Marc’s and Ben’s great wisdom.

We plan to use the funding most immediately for growing our team. We’re currently mobilizing a group of world-class peers, and looking for passionate engineers and UI designers to join us. We need people to help us tackle some of the hardest software engineering and computer science problems, including developing a ground-breaking programming system that decimates the time required to build a web application end-to-end.

“When you look at the sheer talent, vision and ability to execute that Dustin and Justin demonstrated at Facebook and Google, you know something big can happen here. In addition to being two of the world’s best engineers in their own right, they have an extraordinary ability to rally teams around a vision like very few people can, and they are putting together a world-class team of people at Asana. This is a company with limitless potential.” –Matt Cohler, general partner, Benchmark Capital

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20091124/asana-gets-9-million-no-its-not-yoga-stance-its-a-new-start-up-from-former-facebookers/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20080514/when-you-want-your-own-virtual-trainer/ http://allthingsd.com/20080514/when-you-want-your-own-virtual-trainer/#comments Wed, 14 May 2008 00:01:00 +0000 Katherine Boehret http://solution.allthingsd.com/20080514/when-you-want-your-own-virtual-trainer/ Nintendo’s Wii made its mark as the fun system that got gamers and non-gamers alike off their couches to play tennis and golf with motion-sensing controllers. On Monday, the company will introduce an accessory that encourages users to take exercising with the Wii even more seriously: Wii Fit and the Wii Balance Board.

The Wii Balance Board measures shifting weight.

For the past eight days, I’ve been stretching, crunching, yoga-posing and even running using this $90 package from Nintendo (NTDOY.PK). Wii Fit is the title of the disc that comes with the Wii Balance Board, a sturdy platform on which you perform your routines. The two are used together for various types of yoga, strength training, aerobics and balance games, which involve the Wii game system’s “Miis” — on-screen representations of yourself — that interact with trainers and other virtual characters. Sensors in the Balance Board detect a user’s weight, body mass index, balancing skills and positioning during activities, and the Wii Fit program keeps track of this information, providing tips on technique or weight loss. Wii Fit and the Balance Board must be used with the original Wii system, which costs $250.

I’ve grown fond of using Wii Fit and the Balance Board because it holds me accountable for my weight and balance skills. I learned fitness and health tips from a small, animated image of the Balance Board that jumped around on-screen — such as the fact that people who cross their legs while sitting are more likely to have back problems. And after a few days of using the system, I could feel a difference in my muscles.

For those used to 30-to-40-minute workout sessions, the Wii Fit programs may seem lightweight, since activities last for only about three to five minutes each. To unlock longer activities or additional strength-training repetitions, you must first do them a handful of times in their short versions, which can be frustrating. Nintendo says this is designed so that average users don’t feel intimidated, but I felt like some of the activities ended just as I was getting into them. Almost all activities involve actually standing on or touching the board.

Motivation is a key element in the Wii Fit programs. An on-screen graph tracked my progress, and I “stamped” each calendar day to show that I had exercised. Each minute of activity added a point to my Fit Bank, and enough points unlocked new activities; Wii Fit includes over 40 altogether. On-screen instructors demonstrated and joined me during yoga and strength-training exercises, congratulating me when I held my balance or noting that I stopped mid-exercise.

A daily body test measured my weight and body mass index against those from previous days and challenged me to two short balance tests, which changed daily. After, I was told my Wii Fit Age, a number reached using my actual age, BMI and performance on the balance tests. On good days this number was a couple of years below my real age, but it drifted upward when I was given harder tests, sometimes reaching 13 years older than my actual age.

Top: Wii Fit charts fitness progress over time, including body mass index and weight. Yoga (middle) and balance games like Ski Slalom (bottom) mirror board movements.

More than one person can use the system and profiles can be password protected. Friends can use the Balance Board under someone else’s profile; the system notices weight changes and confirms that it’s alright to continue.

The Balance Board measures roughly the size of a step used in step aerobics classes, and uses the same technology that gauges the weight of airplanes. These sensors expand and contract when someone stands on the board, measuring weight, and where and how that weight is shifting on the board. This works out of the box with four included AA batteries. Its power button can be nudged on with a foot, turning off automatically after five minutes of non-use.

I started with basic yoga, attempting the half-moon pose. I opted for a male instructor who told me that this position helped improve posture and digestion. He briefly demonstrated the position, and we got started on the actual session, which lasted two minutes. A large, on-screen circle that expanded and contracted illustrated when I should inhale and exhale as I held positions. I tried the Warrior, Tree and Sun Salutation positions throughout the week.

In the strength-training section of the program, I liked the Single-Leg Stretch exercise, which involved standing on the Balance Board on one leg and holding the other leg off the ground, bent up toward my chest. I slowly extended this bent leg out and in, while moving my arms and trying to maintain my center of balance. This exercise started at six repetitions, but increased to 10 reps as I improved; 20 reps are the maximum.

I tried the Torso Twists and Rowing Squats, but had a lot of trouble with Push Ups and Side Planks (modified push-ups), because I’m not good at push-ups. To my surprise, my trainer didn’t notice when I couldn’t finish the session. I got my best score on that exercise, clearly a flaw in the system.

During yoga and strength-training exercises, an on-screen red dot marked where my center of balance was detected, and I was encouraged to try to keep that dot within a highlighted area. After the exercise, a diagram showed where my weight had shifted, and I earned better rankings when I distributed weight evenly.

Aerobics were more fun, including hula hooping. I rotated my hips and I leaned forward so that my on-screen cartoon self could catch hoops thrown over my head by other characters. The Balance Board tracked the number of times I rotated my waist around in a circle. One aerobics activity that didn’t use the board was Basic Run, which requires users to put the Wii remote in a pocket or hold it while running in place for time intervals measuring three, five or 10 minutes depending on the pace. This mode is designed so users can either watch other runners on-screen or tune into television while running as Wii Fit tracks your progress. An aerobics activity called Basic Step was like Dance Dance Revolution: on-screen footprints showed where and how to step next — on and off the board.

Balance Games were fun — but hard. I tried a bunch, including Soccer Heading (where you pretend you’re the goalie), Ski Slalom and Tightrope Walk, and was surprised by the sensitivity of the Balance Board. But the more I played, the better I became at controlling my balance.

I brought the Wii and Balance Board with me to my parents’ house last weekend, but most people will do best to keep this board in one place since it weighs 10 pounds.

When I stepped onto the Balance Board at my parents’ house in a room with wall-to-wall carpeting, the system thought I had lost 13.4 pounds since the day before. I stepped off and tried this measurement again a few minutes later, but was told I lost another 4.6 pounds. However, when I returned to my own home with the board on an area rug on hardwood flooring, the system showed I “gained” 16.1 pounds. My weight at my own house was on the mark.

Some of my relatives jokingly saw this instant weight loss as a reason to buy a Balance Board, but this made me question the system’s accuracy.

Nintendo solved the mystery: The carpeting in my parents’ house, which I mistakenly thought was similar to the area rug in my house, must have been touching the bottom of the board, therefore transferring my weight onto the carpet and away from the board. Four circular “feet” come with the Balance Board to elevate it, solving the problem.

When the Wii Fit system thought I lost or gained a lot of weight in one day, it was concerned and offered tips for healthier fitness. In the case of the supposed weight gain, I was asked to think about why I might have gained weight, then had to select an answer from a list of reasons why, including Late Dinners, Night Snacking and Not Exercising. The system gave health tips related to the reasons.

Users’ outside exercise can be accounted for in the system. I added the time I spend playing tennis each week and this information plugged into a graph to illustrate fitness activity over time.

The idea of having a virtual trainer and a way to set weight-loss goals while tracking progress could be truly valuable for people in need of motivation without the expense and/or hassle of going to a gym. If you’re looking for a fun way to get in shape, the Balance Board will do the trick. Like the Wii, its activities encourage all sorts of people to use it, marking yet another smart move from Nintendo.

• Email mossbergsolution@wsj.com

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