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SALT LAKE CITY — Two local products are looking to make waves on the technology scene. A Provo company has developed an iPhone application with far-reaching implications, and two BYU students have developed a product that is more local than at first glance it may seem.
SloPro app
Sand Mountain Studios, based in Provo, has developed an app that takes video at a rate of 60 frames per second — twice the speed of other cell phone or point-and- shoot cameras.
The app includes an editing tool that allows users to set slow motion start and finish points within the video. The tool slows the video to 30 frames per second for a vast improvement in video quality, according to company spokesman Joe Wilson.
"It's an obvious difference," he said. You just have a lot more life in a 60-frame video clip. You see more motion; you perceive more motion."
Wilson said the next release of the app will include the ability to share videos within the app. Unlike a traditional social network, users will not be required to create accounts to follow other users.
"We're not trying to compete with other social networks," Wilson said. "We just want to centralize it so our users can communicate and be inspired by other people's work."
SloPro costs $1.99 and has a four-star rating in the iTunes store. Because the app relies on the phone's hardware, not the software, Wilson said a version of the app for Android phones is still only "under consideration."
"As we grow our user base and get a better feel for that, it's something we'll consider," he said.
BYU students launch Kickstarter project
Two Brigham Young University students have launched a project on crowdsourcing site Kickstarter.
Levi Price bought an iPad when his laptop crashed, but he didn't like any of the iPad cases that were available because most cases are meant to be attached to the tablet.
"I wanted to use the iPad as it is meant to be held, but have something to protect it while it was in transit," he said.
He combined forces with Eric Rea, a business student at BYU, and the two came up with a plan for a minimalist iPad case made with natural, local materials.
"We want to always keep them, as much as possible, local," Rea said. "We're very much about keeping business local, and having good, handmade, real objects that will last a long time."
The Bowden is made of aluminum in the same fashion as the current MacBook Pro, as well as hand-finished hardwood and full-grain leather. The Sheffield is made of milled polycarbonate, wool and hand-finished hardwood. The case of the Sheffield can be used as a dry-erase board, the team found.
"We were showing it to a friend, and he said, ‘Dude, this would be so sweet if it worked as a whiteboard," Rea said.
They bought a dry-erase marker at the BYU Bookstore and found that the material functioned as a whiteboard, with no staining or residue.
"People love the whiteboard," Rea said
Everything will be produced within a 50-mile radius of Provo. Rea said. The aluminum for the cases will be produced by a plant in plant in Salt Lake. The team even tried to find local wool for the product.
"We teamed up with an alpacha farm in Spanish Fork, but they couldn't produce wool in quantities high enough for what we're doing," Rea said. "But that's a big part of what we're doing."
The pair has so far raised $14,000 of their $20,000 goal. If they meet their goal by Wednesday at 12:15 p.m., the $20,000 will fund the first manufacturing run of the products.
