Wearable Baby Monitoring Gadget for Parents

Wearable gadgets are not only for adults anymore. There’s a new crop of startups hoping to give parents peace of mind and deliver more insights about young children and their sleeping patterns through wearable devices for babies. Sproutling, a new startup coming out of stealth today, is hoping to raise parenting IQs through a new wearable baby monitor that not only answers the question: ”Is my baby okay?” but also leverages the multitude of sensor data to deliver insights about babies’ sleep patterns and more.

The startup, which is a graduate of hardware incubator Lemnos Labs, is also announcing $2.6 million in funding from First Round Capital, Forerunner Ventures, FirstMark Capital, Accelerator Ventures, Lemnos Labs, BoxGroup (David Tisch) and Shawn Fanning.

Sproutling says that many of the current baby monitors sold are poorly designed with no alerts if the baby is in distress, no real data, and more. Sproutling’s offering comes with a small kidney-shaped wearable, Bluetooth-enabled device, that slips onto a baby’s ankle, a base station, a small camera and a companion app for your mobile phone. The device will not only alert you if your child stops breathing, but will track the child’s heart rate, ambient light level, temperature of the room and of the baby, and more. You access all the information on your phone — and the app will send you an alert in case there are any warning signs with the baby.

Part of tracking the other data besides breathing, such as sleep, is designed to help parents optimize sleep for their children and detect patterns to help children sleep more soundly (i.e. ideal temperature, timing and more). There are features of the app that are parent friendly such as the ability to see the video feed clearly even if you aren’t wearing your contacts.

In terms of design, the actual wearable and camera were designed by the same designers who created the infamous Rolls Royce of strollers, the Bugaboo.

The startup is still in its early days, however, and will likely not ship the system until Q2 of next year. Co-founder Chris Bruce tells us that the vision for Sproutling is to create a variety of devices and services that help use data to raise parenting IQ. This baby monitor is just the first of  a number of smart devices that will be developed.

As a relatively new parent myself, I would have loved to be able to use some of the data from a wearable to help determine optimal sleep patterns for my child. I’m not sure if it would have helped my daughter sleep through the night earlier in her development, but to me as a fledgling parent, knowledge is power.
[via: techcrunch]

Netgear Push 2 TV PTV3000

Android 4.2 Jellybean brought along the concept of Wireless Display through Miracast to the smartphone market. Wireless Display technology lets you directly stream your content on a device to either a TV or Monitor with HDMI input. The Netgear Push2TV is on close lines with Google Chromecast.

Netgear Push 2 TV PTV3000

The Netgear Push2TV is available for US $59.99 and roughly putting it in INR, it amounts to Rs. 3500 which makes it quite a costly purchase. The Push2TV PTV3000 is compatible with Miracast and WiFi Direct.

Design, Build 

The Netgear Push2TV PTV3000 is a small box that comes with a miniUSB port and a HDMI port at the back. The black box has a Netgear branding at the top and a small LED notification light on the front side. On the right side, we have a small button which is used to enable the WPS that has to be used when upgrading the firmware.

Setting up Netgear Push2TV PTV3000

Getting started with the Netgear Push2TV PTV3000 is quite easy. You need to connect the mini USB cable at the back of the device and use the charger given with the device to connect it to the power supply. Then using a HDMI cable, connect the Netgear’s HDMI port to that of the TV. If done correctly, the TV should show that your device is ready.

Once the TV is ready, then you can goto Wireless Display settings on your phone or tablet(Screen Mirroring in Samsung) and enable it. You will find the PushTV device and once connected, you will automatically be able to view the screen of your device on the TV.

The Netgear PTV3000 streams both Video and Audio (support up to 5.1 surround sound) via HDMI offering a total media experience.

Quality

We tried out the Netgear Push2TV PTV3000 with a lot of devices and found that the quality of the streamed content depends on the phone and the content being streamed. We tried it first with Google’s Nexus 4. The UI was sluggish and laggy. Then we tried streaming videos which were also slighty laggy because of lower bitrates and dropped frames. Gaming was very bad because the content being streamed on TV seemed very behind the actual content on the phone, so playing games using the Miracast wouldn’t be the best of options on the Nexus 4.

Then we tried out the PTV3000 with a couple of other MediaTek powered devices – Oppo R819(MT6589) and Gionee Elife E5(MT6589T). In this case, the UI was better and relatively smoother although there were a few lags. In terms of video, it was much better. There were frame drops, but far less noticeable than on the Nexus 4. If you watch the phone and the TV simultaneously (which is not the practical usage scenario), then you may notice a difference in the video content being streamed. However, in the ideal scenario where you will just be watching the TV, the video content seems pretty good. In terms of gaming with the these two devices, there was lag in the gameplay, but games were playable by watching just the TV.

Conclusion

The Netgear Push2TV PTV3000 is an expensive way to stream data from your phone or tablet to your local TV in a wireless manner.

The Handpresso Wild Hybrid Portable Coffee Machine

Handpresso Wild Hybrid

Taking portable coffee makers to the next level, the Handpresso Wild Hybrid Portable Coffee Machine is a must have for coffee addicts. Working much in the same way your bicycle pumps, this little contraption builds 16 bars of pressure by simply pumping. 

Add hot water from a kettle, faucet, or an insulated bottle along with your favorite ground coffee, and let the magic begin. Although it’s extremely light and easy to use, Handpresso did not sacrifice quality with the Wild Hyrbrid, building it to last. Easy to store and easy to transport. That’s all we need to know. Get yours portable espresso machine today from Amazon.

BioLite CampStove Review

BioLite CampStove

New BioLite CampStove, which promised to not only cook your wieners but also charge your smartphone using only firewood. This summer, I had a chance to take one camping to see how it worked in the wild. I took it on a road trip to northern Michigan with a friend. We were planning to camp along the way but it was a fairly civilized trip, with iPads, phones and cameras in tow. It seemed a perfect test bed for the BioLite.

The idea of the BioLite is appealing on many fronts. You don’t need to take along messy, smelly and decidedly “un-green” stove fuel since it burns only wood. It provides guilt-free USB charging of small electronics like your phone, tablet or even a rechargeable headlamp like the Light & Motion I brought along. And tools that have multiple uses are always welcome when camping and this one can boil your water while it’s charging devices. So how did it work?

Ergonomically, the BioLite is well-designed, with its components nesting into each other, and setup was a cinch: the legs fold out and the charging module hooks into place on the side of the mesh burning cylinder. Instructions were easy to follow: Build a small pile of twigs in the bottom of the cylinder (BioLite even provided a starter pack of wood), press the button to start the small fan in the charging unit and drop in a match. This last step is easier said than done. The cylinder is deep and narrow so lighting the wood required a few tries and a quick hand to avoid getting burned. But once the wood caught, the whirring turbine fanned the flames quickly.

Boiling water is as easy as it sounds. The top of the fire cylinder is not huge but was stable enough to set a pot of water on. The design of the cylinder funnels heat upwards, which is effective for cooking, but it also is fairly efficient, without a lot of heat loss that plagues many other kinds of camp stoves. The stove also heats up fairly quickly, depending on the kind of wood fuel you add. It was not long before we had a roaring fire in the cylinder, and the green light on the charging unit told me it was ready to serve double duty and charge a phone. Here’s where some of my complaints started.

Due to the relatively small size of the stove, you can only burn small twigs and wood scraps. This means that, while the stove heats up quickly, it also necessitates nearly constant stoking. Turn your back on the stove for a couple of minutes to set up your tent or fish out another beer, and your fire has dwindled and the charging system shuts down until it gets roaring again. Constant stoking also meant removing my cook pot repeatedly to add fuel. My friend and I quickly learned that running the stove to charge a device requires constant attention. It is not the kind of thing you can set and forget while you set up camp and come back to a charged iPhone for your evening’s Pink Floyd. We started with a completely discharged iPhone and it took about an hour of trial and error and scrambling around the forest floor looking for twigs to get the phone to about 8%.

Given the design of the BioLite, packing up required thoroughly cleaning out the ash and charred remains of the fire before nesting components back together. Even so, the stylish orange charging unit still ended up streaked and greasy with black residue the next time I took it apart.

Despite these gripes, there is something satisfying and magical to hearing that familiar iPhone “chirp” when charging begins merely from a fire in the woods. The key with the BioLite is setting reasonable expectations. A phone is a potential safety device and having a means to charge it even to 8% can mean the difference between an emergency text message and sending smoke signal semaphores from a hilltop. The BioLite will not power your evening’s entertainment, but that is probably a good thing anyway. - gearpatrol

GPS Mapping Powerhouse with Android OS

GPS Mapping Powerhouse with Android OS

1. 4" dual orientation, sunlight-readable, durable mineral glass display with multi-touch interface. 
2. Android™ OS for apps from Google Play™. 
3. 8 MP autofocus camera and 1080p HD video with automatic geotagging, LED flash/torch. 
4. High-sensitivity GPS/GLONASS receiver for better positioning. 
5. 3D MapMerge for multiple maps in 3-D. 

Monterra is a full-featured Wi-Fi enabled GPS navigator that combines our powerful mapping with the versatility of Android OS. Get apps for Monterra on Google Play, including PeakFinder, star constellation charts and ballistic calculator. Or access professional apps such as construction estimators and ArcGIS® to extend your office to the field. The rugged and durable Monterra has the power and flexibility to go anywhere.

3D MapMerge

Monterra is the ultimate mapping tool with custom 3-D mapping. Combine 2 maps, for example TOPO and BirdsEye Satellite Imagery, then view both maps in 3-D. You’ll see rich textures, such as hills, valleys, lakes and forests. Zoom in, pan out and rotate the 3-D map using multi-touch.

Quality Photos

Monterra includes a built-in 8 MP autofocus digital camera that takes vivid, geo-tagged photos for easy return navigation plus a 1080p HD video camera with LED flash/torch. You can download photos and video easily to your computer or for sharing through Garmin Adventures. Monterra has plenty of internal memory plus a microSD™ card slot for up to 64 additional GB of memory.

Powerful Battery, Beautiful Display

Monterra has a state-of-the-art dual battery system. You can use the rechargeable lithium-ion pack (included) or traditional AA batteries — the lithium-ion pack charges when device is connected to external power. Its 4" color multi-touch display uses external light and sunlight in combination with the LED backlight to increase screen brightness. Plus, you conserve power by not having to turn on the backlight.

Get Your Bearings

Monterra has a built-in 3-axis electronic compass with accelerometer and gyro, which shows where youre heading even when you’re standing still (or not holding it level). Once calibrated, its barometric altimeter tracks changes in pressure to pinpoint your precise altitude, and you even can use it to plot barometric pressure over time, which can help you keep an eye on changing weather conditions.

A built-in UV sensor lets you know your exposure level to sunlight so you can avoid sun damage, especially at higher elevations (5% increase in intensity every 1000 ft of altitude) and on bright or reflective surfaces (snow, water, etc). And with its high-sensitivity, WAAS- and GLONASS-enabled GPS receiver, Monterra locates your position with more precision and maintains its GPS location even in heavy cover and deep canyons.

Share Wirelessly

With Wi-Fi, ANT+, Bluetooth and NFC, Monterra lets you share your data, maps, waypoints, tracks, routes and geocaches up to 50 times faster with other wireless compatible devices. Plus, you can share photos and data from field work through BaseCamp or by downloading directly to your computer.

Load Maps and Millions of Geocaches

Add BirdsEye Satellite Imagery (subscription required) and hit the trail. Add Trailhead Series TOPO maps and explore famous treks like the Appalachian Trail and the Pacific Crest Trail. Or, load up your GIS-based maps and go to work.

Monterra can hold millions of geocaches. Download every cache on OpenCaching. Load caches from GSAK. Or use your favorite Android app. All your paperless geocaching features will be there for every cache. Read full descriptions, hints and logs. View cache photos. Filter caches by size, terrain, difficulty and type. Connect to chirp™-enabled caches.

Radio

Never miss vital information (or entertainment) with Monterra’s built-in FM radio and NOAA weather radio with SAME alerts. Get watches and warnings related to your location. Listen with headphones or share with the whole group through the built-in speaker.

Plan Your Next Trip

Take charge of your next adventure with BaseCamp, software that lets you view and organize maps, waypoints, routes and tracks. Create Garmin Adventures to share with friends, family or fellow explorers. BaseCamp displays topographic map data in 2-D or 3-D on your computer screen, including contour lines and elevation profiles. It also can transfer an unlimited amount of satellite images to your device when paired with a BirdsEye Satellite Imagery subscription.

Mount It Anywhere

With an array of compatible mounts, Monterra is designed for use on ATVs, in boats, as a handheld or in your car. Use the automobile mount for spoken, turn-by-turn driving directions, or the rugged mount for your motorcycle or ATV. - garmin

Leap Motion Controller Review

Leap Motion Controller

Few products have generated as much hype as the Leap Motion gesture controller over the past couple of years; none have so miserably failed to live up to their billing. Although it’s posited as a device that allows you to control your PC with the waft of a hand, we found the Leap Motion actually delivered a fist-gnawingly frustrating experience.

In theory, the Leap Motion Controller allows you to navigate your desktop via natural pointing gestures, and to select items on the screen by poking towards them. In our tests, on a variety of laptop and desktop PCs, we did indeed find it just about possible to scroll through the Windows 8 Start menu by waving a hand in front of the screen.

Even with a steady hand, however, we found the onscreen pointer often wobbled uncontrollably, while at other times it was impossible to target items at the edges of the screen, or to locate the pointer at all. And while the Leap Motion Controller theoretically offers multiple screen support, we had the devil’s own job trying to shift the pointer from our main desktop monitor on to a secondary laptop screen. No degree of fiddling with the software’s numerous accuracy and calibration settings resulted in a satisfactory experience.

Another big problem was selecting items. The Leap Motion sensing area is divided into two zones: the “hover zone”, away from the monitor, where the device recognizes gestures, and the “touch zone”, which detects the equivalent of left mouse-button clicks. The invisible dividing line between these two zones is directly above the sensor, but we found we had to dangle a finger in the touch zone for a good couple of seconds for a “click” to be recognized. It’s a slow process, and trying to accurately select a small item – such as a link on a web page, for example – borders on the impossible.

The problem in part is that the Leap Motion Controller is quite a rudimentary device. Whereas Microsoft’s Kinect uses a combination of RGB camera, depth sensor and motorized pivot to accurately track the motion of the user’s entire body, Leap Motion relies purely on two cameras and three infrared LEDs mounted inside a static 3in box.

The problem in part is that the Leap Motion Controller is quite a rudimentary device. Whereas Microsoft’s Kinect uses a combination of RGB camera, depth sensor and motorized pivot to accurately track the motion of the user’s entire body, Leap Motion relies purely on two cameras and three infrared LEDs mounted inside a static 3in box.

The problem in part is that the Leap Motion Controller is quite a rudimentary device. Whereas Microsoft’s Kinect uses a combination of RGB camera, depth sensor and motorized pivot to accurately track the motion of the user’s entire body, Leap Motion relies purely on two cameras and three infrared LEDs mounted inside a static 3in box.

[source: PcPro]

Smartphone Booklet Concept

Smartphone Booklet Concept Designed by Ilshat Garipov

Clutch your pearls because I’m about to say something amazing – nanoparticles! Yes these tiny, near invisible objects can revolutionize the bio medical, optical and electronic fields so designer Ilshat Garipov put pen to paper and came up with the Smartphone Booklet –  a disposable phone as thin as a cardboard made possible by switching from traditional silicon to nanoparticles.

The Booklet unfolds like a pamphlet with each side representing a commonly used application or function. Manufacturers can cut it to any size and once it’s worn out, just recycle it. Don’t worry about private information because everything is served from a cloud. Power is supplied by, SURPRISE, the sun thanks to energy absorbing nanoparticles.

How close is this to reality? Unfortunately not close enough but scientists are working feverishly to find a breakthrough in this field of study so in the meantime hold on to your iPhones, Droids, Galaxies, and Luminas. - yankodesign

Designer: Ilshat Garipov

Sony’s SmartWatch 2 Versus Samsung’s Galaxy Gear

Two Very Different Smartwatches Face Off

Sony’s new smartwatch, which is actually named the SmartWatch 2, has been a known quantity since its official announcement in June at the Mobile Asia Expo in Shanghai, and now the Samsung Galaxy Gear has been itemized by its creators in Berlin at IFA. Meaning it’s time for the two to square off in our blogger arena of champions for a spec and feature showdown.

Sony Smartwatch Specs

• 1.6-inch, 220×176 display

• Aluminum body

• Micro USB charging

• Compatible with most Android phones

• NFC and Bluetooth 3.0 for connectivity

• 3 to 4 days battery under normal use

• €199 ($262 U.S), Ships in late September

• No camera, mic or speakers

Samsung's Galaxy Gear Specs

• 1.63-inch, 320×320 display

• Stainless steel body

• Snap-on, proprietary USB 3.0 charger

• 800MHz Exynos single-core processor

• Bluetooth 4.0 LE

• Compatible with new Galaxy devices, previous gen Galaxy support coming soon

• Around 1 day of use

• 4GB of onboard storage

• $299 

• Ships in September (October for U.S.)

• 1.9 megapixel camera, 720p video recording, speaker + 2 mics

• Gyroscope and accelerometer for workout tracking

The SmartWatch 2 isn’t cheap at €199; in fact, it’s the same price as the newly-reduced 8GB Nexus 4 model. Samsung’s is $299 and much more full-featured, with Samsung managing to pack a whole host of A/V equipment in its device. It also runs a number of Android apps out of the box, which have been redesigned specifically for the watch.

SmartWatch 2 does have NFC for easy pairing with Android devices that support it, as well as more battery life, a better, higher resolution screen, and water/environment resistance that should keep your device protected from general grit and submersion at 3 feet for up to 30 minutes. Sony’s also doing a big push for bringing third-party apps to the SmartWatch software platform, which could help narrow the gap there.

Overall though, as you can see from the list of specs above, there’s not really much of a competition between the two devices in terms of features; but Sony’s SmartWatch 2 has an edge in battery life owing to its much more narrow feature set, and it offers wider support for other Android devices out of the box.

These are two very different definitions of the term “smartwatch,” with the more ambitious vision coming from Samsung. Aside from the steep requirement of apparent (temporary?) platform lock-in, I’m definitely much more intrigued by the Gear, but I also suspect both devices will find a mostly limited receptive audience among consumers.

[Via: techcrunch]

The Sound Pillow for Music Lovers

The Sound Pillow is an incredible breakthrough in personal audio. The plush, hypoallergenic pillow has two virtually undetectable speakers buried inside and engineered for total comfort and great stereo sound. 

Simply plug the pillow’s standard headphone jack into your personal listening device like CD player, MP3 player, iPod, iPhone, sound machine, laptop etc and lay back and enjoy a restful night’s sleep.
And, the Sound Pillow is roommate friendly – you can use the pillow and not disturb your roommate or bed partner.

Want a complete sleep system pre-loaded with the best sleep music available? Then the Sound Pillow Sleep System is for you! It is our latest innovation, earning rave reviews from tinnitus sufferers, addiction recovery professionals and their clients.

The Sound Pillow Sleep System pairs the Sound Pillow with a user-friendly MP3 player pre-loaded with 18 one hour tracks of sleep-inducing binaural music, nature sounds, and white, pink and blue noise. 

The music was specifically designed to slow down the brain, helping you relax, fall asleep and stay asleep. The system is an affordable, holistic solution for sleep deprivation caused by tinnitus, past traumatic experiences, anxiety, addiction, and the stresses of everyday life.

Via: SoundAsleepPillow

HTC Introduces Fetch and Mini+ Bluetooth Accessories

HTC just outed two new Bluetooth accessories. The Fetch is a tag that helps you keep track of your phone and the Mini+ is a miniature companion phone that lets you place voice calls.

HTC might be working on a big new phone, but apparently it also had enough time to crank out two interesting new Bluetooth accessories. The HTC Fetch and the HTC Mini+ are niche products, for sure, but if you’re invested in HTC’s product ecosystem they might be worth a look.

First up is the Fetch (pictured above), which is a small key ring accessory that uses NFC and Bluetooth to help you keep tabs on your HTC smartphone. It brings to mind Nokia’s Treasure Tags. Simply pair your phone to the Fetch, and if you lose track of it, press the button on the Fetch to make your phone ring from a distance of up to 50 feet. 

The Fetch itself can also be triggered to beep when your phone is no longer within reach. HTC claims battery life should last up to six months on a single charge, thanks to Bluetooth 4.0’s low energy draw. There’s no word on availability or pricing, but Clove is listing the Fetch for 29.99 EUR (about $40 USD). And so far HTC has not said whether the Fetch will work with other Android smartphones.

The HTC Mini+  is a bit stranger. It’s a super lightweight device that looks like a miniature feature phone and pairs with your smartphone via Bluetooth 2.1+EDR. It’s the successor to last year’s HTC mini, which shipped with the HTC Butterfly. Basically, the Mini+ allows you to place or answer calls or read incoming text messages via your smartphone’s connection. 

It can also be used as a remote trigger for your connected phone’s camera. And an infrared transmitter allows you to use it as a remote control for your television by download a companion app to your smartphone. On yeah, it also has a laser pointer.

The Mini+ is designed to work HTC One Mini, the Butterfly S and the Desire 200 and 500. It might be able to work with other Android phones as well, but HTC hasn't confirmed this. Again, there is no pricing or availability, though the device is listed for 64.99 EURO (around $83 USD) at Clove.

Via: Gigaom