Monday, October 20, 2014

Fitbit's new wearable looks like a watch, crams in GPS and a heart rate monitor

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/10/19/fitbit-surge-leak/

It's been a while since we've seen a new Fitbit product, but according to a leak obtained at The Verge, that's because the company's been working on something a little special. The Fitbit Surge is a "fitness superwatch" that houses two must-haves for serious running types: GPS tracking and a heart-rate monitor. Crucially this would mean the wearable can monitor your activity without having to haul around your smartphone. (The likes of the Galaxy Note 4 or iPhone 6 Plus aren't all that well-suited to a jog in the park). The leaked marketing materials also suggest it will priced at $249 and will still be able to monitor all the less intense calorie burning done on stairs and your commute to work. Borrowing from the smartwatch category, the Surge is also promising smart notifications for calls and texts, as well as music controls. According to The Verge, the watch is rumored to launch in three colors (black, slate and tangerine) in the next few weeks, likely alongside the pair of more lightweight Charge fitness trackers - also leaked in marketing materials. C'mon guys, tighten up that security. We've reached out to Fitbit for more.

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Source: The Verge

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Google gives you the tools to build apps for Android 5.0 Lollipop

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/10/19/android-lollipop-developer-tools/

Android 5.0 Lollipop on the Nexus 6, Nexus 9 and Android Wear

The official Android 5.0 Lollipop upgrade for your phone may be weeks away, but Google has delivered all the ingredients for you to make Lollipop-ready apps. The search firm has released both the finished Lollipop developer kit and a fresh batch of stripped-down Android test releases for Nexus 5 and 7 devices. There's also a new round of Material Design guidelines and assets to make sure apps look at home in Google's flatter aesthetic. This won't help much if you just want to try all the whiz-bang features, but you'll definitely want to hit the source links if you're a software creator.

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Via: Matias Duarte (Google+)

Source: Android Developers Blog

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Dyson tackles the humidifier, kills water-based bacteria with UV light

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/10/20/dyson-hygienic-mist-humidifier/

In a launch presentation in Tokyo, Japan (apparently the company's favorite place for new product launches), Dyson tackled the surprisingly sketchy hygiene issues that come with more typical humidifiers. To prove how gosh-darn better Dyson's Hygienic Mist humidifier is, the company's microbiology team (which of course it has) incubated water with bacteria to see how a typical humidifier transmits that to a room. A selection of agar jelly plates grossly demonstrated how that bacteria spreads around a room. However, in an early comparison, with the same concentration of bacteria in the water, Dyson's test humidifier, with UV light cleansing the water, knocked out 99.9 percent of the bacteria -- the current model manages this in three minutes. The device launches in Japan in early November, priced at 60,000 yen (roughly a hefty $560) and we've got the rest of the engineering details after the break.

Naturally, the new product tries to dovetail in the company's know-how from other families: Dyson's folded in its air multiplier technology too (making the design pretty similar to its fan), expanding the range compared to rival humidifiers. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it also doubles-up as a fan in the summer. The air itself is also measured by an intelligent thermostat, keeping the air "comfortable", according to Dyson's Tom Bennett, and consistently adjusting its output accordingly. There's a three-liter tank, which can apparently ensure 18 hours of air-based moisture. It's beneath this reservoir (where the water mills around) that the UV light does its trick, squashing bacteria inside before it's taken up and sprayed as a mist across the room. It's also qualified for the "quiet mark" in the UK, benefited from Dyson's acoustic know-how. It barely makes a hiss. There's no word on roll-out outside of Japan just yet, but it looks like Dyson is working to ensure all that R&D pays off.

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Sunday, October 19, 2014

Article: Convergence In The Internet Of Things Is Priming The Tech World For A Major Cultural Shift

Editor's note: Artyom Astafurov is the chief innovation officer at DataArt and co-founder of DeviceHive. To anyone who is tuned into the tech world, it should not come as earth shattering news that machine-to-machine (M2M) technology and the Internet of Things have hit a major convergence point i...

http://techcrunch.com/2014/10/18/convergence-in-the-internet-of-things-is-priming-the-tech-world-for-a-major-cultural-shift/?ncid=rss

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Article: Disney rendered its new animated film on a 55,000-core supercomputer

Disney's upcoming animated film Big Hero 6, about a boy and his soft robot (and a gang of super-powered friends), is perhaps the largest big-budget mash-up you'll ever see. Every aspect of the film's production represents a virtual collision of worlds. The story, something co-director Don Hall ca...

http://www.engadget.com/2014/10/18/disney-big-hero-6/?ncid=rss_truncated

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