Hasta La Gadget!

There are a number of wearable devices on the market these days which can monitor your activity when you exercise, but they’re all pretty much glorified motion sensors, which extrapolate your activity level based on movement. Now, a team of engineers from MIT is working on a new kind of wearable sensor which could not only monitor motion, but vital health statistics.

The Amiigo wearable sensor is not only capable of detecting movements and gestures, but also your heart rate, blood oxygen levels and skin temperature. All of these data points can help you monitor the effectiveness and safety of your workout routine. In addition, the Amiigo monitor is waterproof, so it can even go in the swimming pool, making it a great gadget idea for triatheletes and winter sports buffs.

The device will come with two sensor components – one worn on the wrist, the other clipped onto the shoe. A companion smartphone app will track all of your workouts and physical activities in detail, as well as enable competition and sharing with friends. A set of proprietary discrimination and machine learning algorithms can even discern exactly what sort of activities you’re partaking in and record these automatically. For instance, it could identify the difference between a bicep curl and a pull-up.

The guys behind the Amiigo also plan on offering an SDK for the device, which would allow for the creation of custom software which could leverage the data from the sensors – whether for other fitness or health applications, or even for gaming.

The Amiigo will be launching a crowdfunding campaign at the end of October, and you can sign up to be notified about it over on their website.

Lytro isn’t done extending the usefulness of its light field camera just because we have manual controls. Another update due by the end of the year will take advantage of that focus-independent sensor to allow a parallax-based 3D effect in photos: invoke a ‘full’ focus in reviewing shots and you can start poking around the scene in a limited way without having ever touched a dual-sensor camera. Appropriately, we’re also getting support for examining photos on 3D monitors and TVs that emphasize the added depth. The promised features come hand-in-hand with Lytro’s immediate availability in Hong Kong, where 8GB blue and gray cameras are selling for $3,888 HKD ($502 US) and the 16GB red model goes for $4,688 HKD ($605). Check out our Chinese crew’s eyes-on look at the parallax effect in a video after the break.

Continue reading Lytro camera getting parallax effect and 3D display support, lands in Hong Kong (video)

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Lytro camera getting parallax effect and 3D display support, lands in Hong Kong (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 18 Oct 2012 17:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Verizon has been granted a couple more smartphones from the likes of Motorola and Google here with the massive battery-toting DROID RAZR MAXX HD right alongside its near-identical brother the RAZR HD (without so much MAXX). The difference between these two devices is just about as slight as it could possibly get – the MAXX has twice the internal storage (32GB instead of 16) and a giant 3,300mAh battery instead of the 2,530mAh unit the standard HD has. The weight and thickness are absolutely negligible – even when you’ve got them both in your hands it’s difficult to guess which is which, believe it or not.

The max is 0.37 inches thick and 5.54 oz (157 g) heavy while the smaller of the two is 0.33 inches thick and 5.15 oz (146 g) heavy. Have a peek at these photos to see how small that difference really, truly is. It’s as if Motorola is playing a joke on us – but the differences are there, and that battery is indeed in there with that much extra power. NOTE: We’ll be doing an extended battery test over the next few days on the MAXX HD as well – stay tuned for that!

You’d be well off taking a peek at our DROID RAZR MAXX full review to understand how these two devices are going to work for you, and make note of this fact as well: their software builds are the same. They’ve got the same version of Android, the same Motorola additions and tweaks, and the same apps. There’s no software differences between these two devices.

Remember also that Motorola has made it clear that they’ll be bringing each of these RAZR devices (including the DROID RAZR M as well) up to Jelly Bean very, very soon. That means Android 4.1 and a bit of the new Google Now system as well. The MAXX HD and the HD will be on sale at Verizon immediately if not soon nationwide as well – head out and grab one!

Motorola DROID RAZR MAXX HD hands-on vs RAZR HD is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

These lamps are just as much about the bulbs as they’re about the wooden fixtures. Created by German designer Herr Mandel, the geometric pieces are supposed to showcase their light source, sort of like a picture in a frame. More »

Over the years, I’ve seen more than a few remote-controlled toys that use the iPhone or other smartphones as their controller. Several of these little devices have come from a company called DeskPets. DeskPets is back with another cheap remote controlled toy that uses Android or iOS devices as the controller.

The new toy is called the CarBot and it is available in four different colors including red, blue, green, and yellow. Each of the different colors operates on its own infrared code allowing up to four of the cars to be used at one time. The car features a battle mode that lets players challenge each other and even fire virtual rockets at each other to take down their opponents.

The CarBot also has a maze mode that allows players to set up a maze for the toy to navigate precisely. It also has a personality mode with sounds and lights as well as a mute button for noiseless play.

The little CarBot is able to race at up to 2 feet-per-second, and recharges using an integrated USB connector. It takes 40 minutes of charging for about 15 minutes of play. The CarBot can be purchased now at Brookstone, Best Buy, and Toys “R” Us stores for $29.99 (USD).