Hasta La Gadget!

The Withings Pulse is the latest device in the personal activity tracker category, and it isn’t a wristband, which runs counter to the latest fad. Instead, it’s a portable rectangle not unlike the original Fitbit devices designed to be carried in a pocket or attached to clothing via an included clip. The Pulse fills out Withings’ line of home health monitoring gadgets, pairing up with its smart scales to deliver info about steps walked, calories burned, altitude traversed and heart rate.

Basics

• 128×32 OLED touchscreen
• 43mm x 22mm x 8mm
• Heart rate sensor built-in
• Micro-USB charging
• MSRP: $99.95
• Product info page

Design

The Pulse is a small package, but as per the old adage, it’s a good thing. It’s not tiny enough that it’s hard to find in your pocket, and yet it’s thin enough that it doesn’t add a bunch of bulk. The rubberized finish means you won’t lose it, and the way the OLED display is invisible when inactive is very cool. It’s got a single button, and touchscreen functionality to let you swipe through previous day totals, and it all works quite well.

The actual pulse tracker on the back of the device is the one break in the smooth exterior (barring the micro-USB port) and that aspect of the Pulse is highly functional, so the fact that it mars the unbroken surface is forgivable. I like that Withings has opted for an external clip that can be removed instead of building one in, as I’d much rather have just thrown the thing in a pocket. And the micro-USB is great, since it means you don’t have to use a specialized cable to charge the Pulse, as you often do with wristbands.

Features

The Pulse has a step counter, calorie counter, altitude meter and distance travelled tracker. All of that is pretty standard among these devices, and about as accurate as you’ll find elsewhere (which is to say not very), but the Pulse also has a pulse sensor and a time/battery indicator, as well as a sleep mode that works in tandem with an included wristband accessory. The wristband is a soft material that’s perfect for sleeping, too, and far more comfortable than the Jawbone UP or the Fitbit Flex.

I’m addicted to the pulse sensor aspect of the device, and in tandem with the Withings Smart Body Analzyer, it really helps paint a more full picture of your overall personal health. The Pulse offers the best value for money of any fitness tracking device I’ve tried so far, and that’s saying a lot.

The Bottom Line

The Withings Pulse is probably the best available option in fitness trackers, but that might depend on how you want to wear one. For wristbands, I’d still go with the Fitbit Flex, but the Pulse is my overall pick. It seems like companies operating in this space are doing a very good job of watching their competitors, gauging the needs of their users and iterating based on that information to improve things overall.

Withings just closed a big round last week, and that’s helping them grow internationally. The Pulse is a key tool in the arsenal the company has to help fuel its growth, and it’s a solid ambassador for the company’s line of devices.

We have seen our fair share of smartphones over the years, and right now, the major players in the mobile operating system arena would be Android, iOS, Windows Phone 8, BlackBerry OS and to a certain extent, the fledgling Firefox […]

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A full set of Nexus 7 2 – aka the ASUS-made reboot of the popular Android tablet – press images have leaked this morning with front, back, and side views galore. This machine is set to appear with a quad-core processor under the hood of a 7-inch display with an upgraded 1920 x 1200 pixel resolution. You’ll find this machine resembling the original Nexus 7 highly.

This device appears to be working with stereo speakers mounted on its back, massive bezels to two sides of display up front, two relatively thin bezels to the other two sides, and an ever-so-slightly upgraded user interface. This points toward an incremental update to Google’s mobile operating system Android, this expected to happen on the 24th of July at a special Google event.

This device is said to be working with a 16GB variant for starters, with 32GB and a possible 64GB iteration well down the line. This refers to internal storage space, while a rather noticable back kick-out slot along the top of this tablet indicates we’ll either have storage expansion with a microSD card slot or will have 3G/4G LTE connectivity with a microSIM card slot right off the bat.

The smallest version is expected to ring in at $229 USD initially, while you’ll find this machine to be working with several pricing structures depending on its carrier – if any carriers step up – later this year. With a landscape orientation indication seen due to the way the “nexus” logo sits at the back of this device, we’re expecting a lot more than a new set of photography abilities – there’s a camera too, mind you!

VIA: Android Police

Nexus 7 2 detailed as press photos leak in full is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2013, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Back at CES we were floored by Samsung’s crazy/beautiful 55-inch curved OLED television. They were an eyegasm of light-emitting diodes with a subtle but enticing cinematic bend. Secretly, we never thought we’d ever see one in real life since they just reek of CES flashiness that never turns into real-life anything. We were so wrong.

Read more…

If you’ve ever wanted to make a cellphone for yourself out of parts from the likes of hack-friendly Aduino, now is the time. Though you’re not going to be winning any beauty contests with this machine’s aesthetic, you’ll certainly be able to feel proud of your construction skills by the end of it all. Say hello to the first home-made smartphone – if you can call it that.

Through Hack-A-Day comes news of this massive lump of an accomplishment, with Instructables making it clear for the public what they’ve got to do to make it all happen for themselves. The most powerful bit of this whole project is the idea that you’ll not need to be an engineering genius to get it all running – it’s relatively simple!

Once you’ve made this oddity, gestures and single-taps to the device’s touchscreen will bring up abilities like texting and simple phone calls. Right-swipes bring you phone calls, double right-swipes bring you back to your home screen. At the moment you’ll be working with a display of the time and date as well as access to text messaging and voice phone calls – but that’s all you need, right?

This system does not yet work with full Arduino Phone Apps access quite yet, but it very well could in the near future. At the moment you’ll also need to have access to a 3D printer to make the case, otherwise the parts should be relatively easy to access through a variety of DIY-parts sources. Have at it!

DIY Arduino cellphone made of off-the-shelf parts is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2013, SlashGear. All right reserved.