PRESS RELEASE for release on Friday 1st August
The World’s first ‘lossless’ digital audio music players housed inside natural and sustainable Amazonian beans and nuts from Colombia launches on Kickstarter on the 1st August 2013. The venture provides a new income stream to Colombia’s indigenous population and raises funds for major Colombian charity, Natura Foundation. From inside the pod comes…iBean and iTagua, precision-manufactured and crafted digital marvels, made in South America.
30 July 2013, The iBean and iTagua, the world’s very first digital audio music players, designed using sustainably gathered, whole natural botanical casings from the Amazon Rainforest, are launched on Kickstarter, the funding platform for creative products by London-based Cybotanics Ltd. in just one week. They are the first in a series of products within the company’s portfolio that will be launched over the next year. The first two products are manufactured in Seoul, Korea with final assembly in Bogota, Colombia.
“No two products are alike, each and every iBean and iTagua digital music player is a natural botanical wonder, skillfully fused with a cutting edge digital audio heart. Every single product is an individual work of art sculpted by nature.” Says Jim Campbell, Managing Director of Cybotanics Ltd. Cybotanics is the first company worldwide, ever to do this without using any modern plastics or metals for the main fabric of their range of consumer products. They have taken the direct opposite approach to existing mass produced consumer electronic products and the incredibly tactile, hand finished players are ethically sourced and assembled in Colombia providing new opportunities and revenue stream from materials readily available in tropical South America.
Each 2GB or 4GB music player is a meticulously crafted and engineered digital audio device that delivers ‘lossless’, CD quality music at a much higher bit-rate than conventional music players, all housed in a naturally beautiful and truly original form. Lossless compression reduces a file’s size with no loss of quality. Digital ‘APE’ is a form of lossless compression.
Here is our launch video https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2010536330/610458210?token=fd632cf3
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For further information please contact Jim Campbell on +44 (0)1208 368 351 or Mobile +44 (0) 7866 422 145 jim@cybotanics.com
Notes to editors
Cybotanics Ltd – www.cybotanics .com
The company name is an acronym of ‘Cyborg’ (short for ‘Cybernetic Organism’ -a being with both organic and cybernetic parts), and ‘Botanical’ (referring to its plant origin.) Cybotanics combine cutting edge electronics with naturally-grown whole botanical entities, such as giant tropical beans and nuts. The end result is a tactile and beautiful digital electronic product like nothing seen before.
Cybotanics Ltd is a London-based company that is engaged in the manufacture of digital consumer electronics using whole natural botanical casings from the tropical forests of Colombia. iBean® & iTagua® are being launched on the Kickstarter ‘crowd funding’ platform on the 1st August 2013.
The company is currently in discussions with artists and music labels for future products to be preloaded with exclusive music content. (to be announced)
(Kickstarter is a funding platform for creative projects. Everything from films, games, and music to art, design, and technology. Every project creator sets their project’s funding goal and deadline. If people like the project, they can pledge money to make it happen. If the project succeeds in reaching its funding goal, all backers’ credit cards are charged when time expires. If the project falls short, no one is charged. Funding on Kickstarter is all-or-nothing.)
What is the nut that iTagua is made from?
The Nut- Tagua (Vegetable Ivory)
The Nut- PHYTELEPHAS Family: Arecaceae (Phytelephas Aequatorialis Macrocarpa) The Tagua is actually a kind of palm nut, it has become referred to as ‘Vegetable Ivory’ because of its internal colour and working properties which are almost identical to elephant ivory, from which its latin name derives.
It was previously used to make buttons before the advent of plastics during WW2. The principle use today is for jewellery where the plant based polymer is cut and machined into any shape and then dyed vibrant colours for fashionable necklaces and bracelets.
Cybotanics has developed a proprietary way of machining and assembling these products in a way that keeps their original form but allows manufacture in mass production. Our products are hand-assembled and finished to an exceptional standard in Bogota Colombia by the country’s largest tagua nut fabricator.
What is the bean that iBean is made from?
The Bean – ENTADA GIGAS Family: Fabaceae (Leguminosae Mimosoldea) Known as ‘Sea Beans’ these gigantic seeds come from pods which grow up to four feet in length. The measure about 5cm across.
These seed pods are transported naturally by river and can eventually be washed out to sea, landing on a foreign beach and still successfully germinating even a year after falling from the tree.The iBean has a shell that, when dry, is like a natural polycarbonate and is incredibly resilient. It’s strength has even baffled scientists from NASA.
• Each product is made from beans and nuts that are sustainably harvested from the forest floor without any harm to the tree or vine from where it came. We have implemented a co-operative scheme to help rural people gather these raw materials in a fair trade way.
Ethically sourced and helping a local Colombian charity
Cybotanics is proud to be working with Colombia’s foremost conservation charity. Profits from the sale of iBean benefit Natura. The Natura Foundation is a non-governmental organisation (NGO) created in 1984 with a mission to help conserve the biodiversity of Colombia and the search for alternative sustainable use of natural resources. http://www.natura.org.co/
Why is the sound quality so much better than an iPod?
iBean® and iTagua® use a new form of music compression in lossless CD quality form (APE-Monkey’s audio). The devices also play normal MP3 files. http://www.monkeysaudio.com/ Unlike traditional methods such as MP3, OGG, or LGT that permanently discard quality to save space, Monkey’s Audio represents bit-for-bit copies of music. That means it always sounds perfect – exactly the same as a CD. Even though the sound is perfect, it still saves a lot of space (think of it as a beefed-up Winzip™ for your music). The other great thing is that you can always decompress your Monkey’s Audio files back to the exact, original files. That way, you’ll never have to recopy your CD collection to switch formats, and you’ll always be able to perfectly recreate the original music CD.
