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Displays Input

Touchjet Wave transforms your TV into a touch screen device

Tablets may never have a large enough screen to please some users. That’s especially the case when using a tablet to view a widescreen movie that begs to be seen on the largest screen possible.

Touchjet Wave is a new device that adds touch screen control and Android apps to any TV that has a screen from 20 to 80 inches large. The device clips onto the TV and gets connected via the TV’s HDMI port. An HDMI cable is included, along with a stylus. Touchjet Wave uses infrared technology to track finger movements and taps across the TV screen.

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Imaging

Photokite Phi is a drone that’s kept on a tight leash

Lots of people are excited about the potential of drones for package delivery ad other lofty tasks, but today one of the key applications is fancy camera work. Don’t be fooled. It takes a lot of work and expertise to make an autonomously one-shot music video masterpiece.

Indeed, the hardest part of drones is not getting them in the air but controlling them. That’s the inspiration for the Photokite Phi, an action cam-carrying drone that is meant to be tethered. In effect, it is something of a flying selfie stick. This doesn’t mean, though, that the Phi doesn’t have its charms. For one, like a folded kite, it’s relatively portable, folding into a cylindrical case. Its soft propellers minimize the potential danger from even the tethered ride going awry and its leash winds into the body of the device. It can also be controlled via wrist gestures.

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Connected Objects Health and Wellness

Lumma sorts and dispenses pills, reminds you to take your meds

editors-choiceFor those who need to take a daily pill or want to consume a daily multivitamin, keeping track of their medication is not a big deal. But as they age, many people have to deal with multiple prescriptions of drugs taken on many different schedules. That can be particularly challenging for seniors who experience memory lapses.

patent-claimedOne of the most ambitious and flexible consumer products to tackle the problem of medication management, Lumma is designed to sit on a counter top. It can sort and dispense a month’s worth of up to 12 different kinds of pills and its dispensing chute has been designed to accommodate a pill box for trips. Using its touchscreen, companion app, e-mail or text, it can remind users to take their medications at the appropriate times and set off alerts when they miss a dosage.

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Connected Objects

OrbMi uses a voice messaging app to reinvent the answering machine

As smartphones have continued to eat into the sales of landlines, voice mail has become the main way that voice messages are retrieved from phones. But once upon a time, the answering machine was a physical device, one that used cassettes just as the tape-based Walkman laid the foundation for the flash memory-based iPod nano.

The team behind OrbMi wants to recreate the experience of listening to voice messages that arrive without remote notification on one’s own schedule with a glowing half-sphere. Like the answering machines of yore, it must be plugged in. But unlike those devices, it doesn’t have to be anywhere near a phone or phone line. That’s because messages are sent to the Wi-Fi device over the Internet using a companion app.

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Input

Passfort is a tiny touchscreen that tackles password headaches

Passwords are one of the banes of modern technology. They’re hard to create and harder to remember, particularly given it’s wise to use a different inscrutable random combination of letters, numbers and symbols for every online account.

Passfort is a portable device with a tiny screen that resembles those awful little digital picture gadgets that populated drug stores years ago.  However, it is even more appropriately at home on a keychain. The device can store up to 100 accounts and associated passwords and enter them via USB or Bluetooth. That makes it broadly compatible with Macs and PCs, as well as Android and iOS phones and tablets. Passfort itself is, of course, password protected and its content encrypted. One can choose either a PIN or a from a series of images on its small square touchscreen From there, the device acts a bit like a Bluetooth keyboard, sending the characters for the account and password for whatever Web site or app you swipe to on its display.

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Connected Objects Sleep

Bedjet 2 cools, heats beds to the rhythm of the night

As anyone who’s tried to get comfortable during a sticky summer heat wave or gelid winter frost knows, temperature is an important component of nighttime comfort. Indeed, we’ve already seen sleep monitoring projects that include monitoring temperature along with other factors such as noise and ambient light. But while these products can help you understand if the temperature is keeping you awake, they can’t do anything about it.

patent-claimedThat’s no obstacle for Bedjet v2, earlier versions of which have already seen Kickstarter success and Shark Tank failure. Designed by a former NASA engineer, Bedjet uses a noise-dampened blower to adjust the temperature during the nightly horizontal excursion. The result is, to quote the campaign, a “magical event in your bedding.” Stealing a page from the Select Comfort air mattress (the Sleep Number guys), it can service each side of a bed independently to match personal preference.

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Smart Home

The Grail sniffs out carbon monoxide, shuts down furnaces

Carbon monoxide (CO) detectors are among the most important devices that consumers can buy for their homes.

patent-claimedThe Grail is a new patent-pending CO and gas detector that allows users to shut down their furnaces from outside their homes if CO or gas leaks are detected. It can also be used to activate lights and sirens, and shut down an electrical breaker. The plan is for the Grail to ship in March and for it to cost $129-$149 at retail, although the first 100 Kickstarter backers can get one for $75. Its maker is looking to raise $200,000 by Aug. 28.

There will probably always be consumers looking to buy a CO detector. The Grail’s maker says that what sets it apart from rival devices is that it’s the first one offering the same capabilities with UL certification at an affordable price. There have, of course, been many CO detectors before this, including the Air Mentor, and it’s not clear if The Grail’s features and pricing combination will be enough to hook many consumers.

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Connected Objects Cycling

LIVALL connected bike helmet blings out your ride

For far too long, bike helmets have been left in the closets and basements of homes all across the United States despite how effective they are stopping at preventing all types of injuries. The reason? Most would mention how bike helmets much besides make them look silly, a sorry excuse now that the LIVALL Bling Helmet is here.

The LIVALL Bling Helmet is a bicycle helmet that features Bluetooth connectivity alongside a two sets of LEDs and a three-axis gyroscope, all in an effort to improve communication and safety for cyclists everywhere. Bluetooth connectivity in conjunction with a built-in mic gives riders the option to to walkie-talkie other members of the group, take calls from others, or just ride along to music from the smartphones.

A dual set of LEDs, up top and on the back, ensure other members of the riding group, pedestrians, and motorists all have a good idea of where the cyclist is, while the three-axis gyroscope sets off an SOS alert and contacts help when the cyclist is thrown off due to an accident. All of these features are facilitated with the Bling Jet handlebar controller working in tandem with the LIVALL app on iOS or Android.

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Music Networking

Back to the Backers: mBox multi-room music system

After failing to reach its Kickstarter goal of raising $40,000 AUD last year, the Australia-based maker of the mBox multi-room music system is now giving Indiegogo a try with a new campaign for the product. But he’s opted for an even more ambitious goal of raising $50,000 by Aug. 27 this time.

MBox can send music wirelessly throughout a home to any Bluetooth, Airplay or Universal Plug and Play/Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA)-compatible speaker. The chief selling point remains that users aren’t locked into a proprietary technology and can create a multi-room audio system with speakers they already own. Included with each mBox system are two devices: an mBox hub that can be used to connect any wireless speakers and an mBox mini that will connect any wired speakers to the wireless mBox network.

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Connected Objects Health and Wellness

Nicotrax connected cigarette case helps you to kick the stick

Even though smoking is the leading cause of preventable disease and death in the world, millions still do it every single day. Most of these people know how to quit, too, but it’s been proven that simply knowing how to doesn’t make it any easier. In any case, most solutions deal with the chemical dependency created by a smoking habit while ignoring the social and mental aspects that also contribute, making it very difficult to truly quit.

Nicotrax is aiming to give smokers a lot more support with its Bluetooth-connected cigarette case. Its Bluetooth-connected cigarette case tracks cigarette use over time with the accompanying iOS or Android app. Each time one is taken from the case, it relays information about the time and location taken along the people the user was with, all in an effort to identify unknown triggers.

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