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Connected Objects

The Like-o-Meter gives Facebook updates the thumbs up

By now, Facebook has become a part of normal, everyday life for 1.7 billion people and businesses around the world, a testament to the company’s original vision of connecting the globe. Still, people who use Facebook fall into two camps: those for whom it plays a very cursory role, and those for whom Facebook is an essential part of their social and professional lives.

For the latter, the idea of more wholly integrating the Facebook experience into their real-world isn’t one that scares them, which is why the Like-o-Meter is a campaign that would appeal to them. It brings the well-known ‘Like’ icon into the real-world, wirelessly connecting to a user’s Facebook account and physically moving its high-quality plastic thumb to signal a fresh like.

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Smartwatches/Bands

The Ticwatch 2 smartwatch responds to your sweet caress

Apple’s foray into the smartwatch market has shown how difficult it truly is to create something that has broad appeal. Of course, style and functionality are critical for this, but so is a more approachable price.

The Ticwatch 2 attacks all this head on, much to the excitement of the true smartwatch believers out there. First off, it boasts a wide range of apps, with more available on its own Ticwear app store. And these apps work in tandem with the many ways the Ticwatch 2 makes available to interact with it. For instance, a double flick of the wrist gesture picks up a phone call, while doing it again ends it. Quality voice control is also prevalent, allow users to query Yelp for a good restaurant nearby or call an Uber. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg: the Ticwatch 2 also tracks fitness, controls music, and even finds a phone if necessary. 

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Categories
Imaging Robots/Drones

The Jimble surveillance bot is a pregnant hoverboard that patrols your home

Much to the chagrin of the most ardent futurists, the world is still a long way off from robots being a commonplace fixture in everyday life. Still, that’s not stopping companies from trying their hardest to jumpstart the trend, especially when it comes to home security.

Despite its claim of being the “first”. the Jimble smart moving surveillance robot is another entry in a long line of vaguely similar products offering the protective benefits of a wheeled robot in the hom,  (A quick search on Backerjack immediately pokes a hole in that claim.) Looking a bit like a sawed-off Segway, Jimble doesn’t do anything spectacularly different from other surveillance robots. Like others, it has an HD camera that users can peer into their homes with supplemented by a mic to talk to whoever may be around using Wi-Fi to facilitate a first person view for users on their smart devices.

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Connected Objects Technology

LaserDock lets you beam your own laser light music show

The high of any music event is addictive simply because it’s so difficult to experience that same sort of joy outside of it. On one hand, this makes sense: a true venue built to properly express music is unique. Still, it doesn’t mean some of that feeling can’t be taken home.

The LaserDock is a low-cost laser projector designed to bring the trippy visuals of music clubs and festivals home. It comes with hundreds of built-in visualizers and laser shows that react to music in real-time, creating different patterns each and every time.

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Categories
Smart Home

VOME gives Siri a bunch of outlets around your home

It’s 2016 and the smart home “revolution” is well underway. Unfortunately, that revolution fizzled out as soon as it started. The problem isn’t a lack of devices — look anywhere online for connected home devices and discover a glut of dual-syllabled hubs and plugs for anything you may need — but rather a lack of standard tying them all together. This was the problem at the very beginning, and it continues to be a problem now.

Mark Van Der Spuy’s VOME home automation system tackles this problem by piggybacking off of iOS. Specifically, Siri and Apple’s foray into home automation with HomeKit. The VOME system itself is comprised of a 4-Way Control Unit that any dumb object can be plugged into, allowing anything from lamps to curtains to coffee machines to be controlled simply by issuing voice commands to Siri.

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Categories
Cell Phone Accessories Connected Objects

Avoid yodeling by keeping in touch with the BONX Grip instead

Many outdoor sports like biking, climbing, and rafting all have an inherent element of danger. And while effectively communicating helps groups of enthusiasts avoid disastrous situations, there’s been a glaring lack of easy-to-use communication systems for these outings.

Now there’s the BONX Grip, a rugged, hands-free Bluetooth earpiece designed to facilitate group chats in the name of increased safety while climbing cliffsides or shredding fresh mountain snow. The BONX Grip works in tandem with a companion app that sports a simple UI. With it, users can easily start a chat session, later using their voice alone to facilitate the voice chat. Large mute and volume buttons on the BONX Grip itself augment the earpiece’s functionality.

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Health and Wellness Robots/Drones

Pillo lets you rest easy about taking your pills

Forgetting to take one’s pills can lead to major health problems, especially when those medications are for life-threatening health issues including heart disease.

patent-claimedPillo is a connected pill-dispensing robot that recognizes individuals in the family and helps people of all ages to better manage their health. In addition to dispensing medication, it can answer users’ health and wellness questions and connect a person directly with healthcare professionals. Because Pillo has been designed to be intelligent, its functionalities grow as it learns about the user and his or her family.

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Categories
Connected Objects Television

Lightpack 2 lets your TV bask in the afterglow of ambient lighting

Ambient backlighting can add another level of immersion to one’s experience while watching a movie or playing a video game on the TV.

patent-claimedLightpack 2 is an HDMI pass through kit that provides ambient backlighting for TVs. It follows the Lightpack lighting system that the same manufacturer, Wooden Shark, successfully received funding for on Kickstarter in 2013. The big difference between the two products is that the earlier device was designed for computer monitors.

The new product has four HDMI inputs to connect all of one’s media devices, including game consoles, to the TV. Lightpack 2 controls an LED strip that contours to the back of a TV and can also include a Pixel accessory, a wireless LED-based lighting module that is placed on the wall or elsewhere. Lightpack 2 uses patented algorithms to process the input video signal. All that is required for setup are a power source and an HDMI connection. Lightpack 2 can also be used as an intelligent lighting system even when the TV is off. Mood lighting can be set with the companion Lightpack app for Android and iOS devices.

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Categories
Music

Isolate yourself in the ambience of reduced sound

Despite the best of intentions from earplug manufacturers, they’re doing it all wrong. Instead of products that block sound in a way that’s still enjoyable, they usually muffle sounds. While this might help with a significant other’s snoring (and then, not even by much), absorption like thi will result in distorted sound in the high and mid frequencies, and little to no reduction in bass frequencies. This imbalance is stressful and tiring.

patent-claimedAfter its first successful Kickstarter last year, Flare Audio set their eyes on what they say as an outdated piece of design. By replacing the traditional materials used for most earplugs (plastics, silicones, and foams) with a piece of aluminum or titanium, the company created the Isolate. The micro earplugs are tipped with a proprietary foam material that adjusts to a person’s ear canal for a snug fit, its metal core reaching deep within the canal. This allows the Isolate to block noise from entering the ears and attenuate all frequencies, essentially turning off the ears to direct noise.

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Technology

Hybrx hybrid PC combines Android functionality, PC productivity

Smartphones and tablets have stolen a lot of the thunder from PCs in recent years. But many consumers still feel the need to have a computer in addition to their mobile device, in large part because productivity functions including word processing are much easier to do on PCs. Convertibles offer a good hybrid solution, but can be a little costly.

Hybrx is a sub-$100 Remix OS 2.0 laptop made by Azpen Innovation that uses an Allwinner A64 Cortex A53 64-bit quad core processor running the Android Lollipop 5.1 operating system. The slim laptop has an 11.6-inch screen with a 1,366 x 768 HD LCD display. It’s been optimized to run multiple programs and files at the same time without slowing down the laptop. In addition to promising high energy efficiency, it also offers system boot-up within seconds, according to Azpen. Hybrx also supports H.265/H.264 4K video decoding with 4K HDMI output. Hybrx starts shipping in September at about $140 for a 1-GB RAM version with 16 GB of flash memory and about $180 for a 2-GB RAM version with 32 GB of flash. Azpen hopes to raise $75,000 by Aug. 4.

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