Hasta La Gadget!

If you’re a single woman with male friends, you’ve heard it a million times: “So, are you guys dating or what … ?” I’ve gotten this question about Josh, my childhood bestie who’s basically my brother. About George, the friend who dated so many of my friends that he and I were just never gonna go there. About Tim, my former co-worker with whom things were always simple and delightfully platonic. Then there are a handful of male friends with whom it hasn’t always been so clear-cut, but we’ve settled comfortably into friendship without benefits anyway. It’s rom-com gospel that “men and women cannot be friends because the sex part always get in the way.” But in my own life, the purported wisdom of When Harry Met Sally has never really held true. Sexual tension has never been the chief barrier to befriending straight men.

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Back in June after the first reports based on Edward Snowden’s leaks were published, President Obama boldly defended the NSA spying programs. He even called them "transparent." But boy oh boy have the folks over at the NSA let him down on that count.

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As a quantified-self junkie and a huge slob, I enjoy attaching all manner of electronics to my body. That’s why I was excited about the LUMOBack. It’s basically a position sensor that you strap around your waist – under your clothes – and use to measure your posture and sleeping positions. It is, in a word, amazifuriating.

First, I think we all honestly need this thing. After years of being hunched over a keyboard, most of us look like Quasimodo’s tanned cousins. We could also try standing up a little more and maybe get out of the house once in a while. The LUMOBack helps on all these fronts. First, it buzzes when you slouch. Then, with the help of an iOS app, it tells you how many steps you’ve walked and how many times you stood up during the day. Future versions of the app will nag you more specifically, reminding you to stand every thirty minutes or so and offer more detailed feedback on your posture. There’s even a posture score that rates you compared to the average LUMOBack user. A little man turns from orange to green on your iPhone screen when you’re sitting up straight, allowing you to fine tune your posture. In short, it’s pretty amazing.

Even though it can do all that, however, I’m about to throw this thing into the East River.

I would, if given the opportunity, love to punch this green guy in the face. He buzzes at me almost constantly. To be fair, my problems with the LUMOBack stem from my own poor posture. See, once you begin using the device you attempt to overcorrect. Move a little too far to the back and the green figure that represents you standing with perfect posture turns sad and orange. Then you get a buzz. Then, 11 seconds later, you get another buzz. Then the LUMOBand forgets about you for a while. And then it buzzes again. It’s like the scene in Ghostbusters when Bill Murray zaps the dude even though he’s getting most of the ESP cards right.

This is wildly annoying after a while and I tend to rip the LUMOBack off my body and, later, sheepishly strap it back on like a cowed Logan’s Run prisoner. Then it buzzes when I’m standing straight. Then it buzzes at me on toilet. Then it buzzes at me when I’m trying to fix a ceiling fan. Boom. Off it goes, into the river.

The LUMOBack means well. If you sit all day – I mostly stand these days, thankfully – then the LUMOBack might be just the thing for you. Seeing the little dude bent over and sad is impetus enough to straighten up and stand up once or twice a day. As an exercise help mate, however, you’re left wanting. I’d love for the device to help me maintain posture during squats, runs, and push ups but for the most part it’s not designed for that. The sleep positions are fun but not as helpful as, say, a Basis band. I’d also love to see a desktop representation of my crooked spine so I don’t have to unlock my phone, but that’s not yet available.

Obviously this is LUMOBack 1.0 and I’m willing to hand it to the creators – they made a very usable, very simple product that addresses a problem that we all have. Will it cure backaches? Probably not, but it will allow far more self-awareness in terms of posture and body positioning while we spend our long hours at keyboards, mice, and consoles. It is frustrating, to be sure, especially if you’re a pre-scoliotic mess like myself. However, it’s important.

If you’re a quantified self fan, the LUMOBack can be another weapon in your probably already impressive arsenal. At $150 it’s kind of a single-use item (until the software gets better) so you’d better really be interested in your lower back if you strap this on. If you’re worried that you’re not standing up enough, however, then you can probably just set a timer or something and just sit up straighter. To paraphrase Dr. Steve Brule, it’s for your health, dummy. It’s not hard! Just please don’t buzz me again, LUMOBack. Please?

If you’re carrying a smartphone or driving a modern car, you’re a potential probe, and Nokia would love to unlock your location for its HERE Maps services. The company already has its own gathering programs in place yet, for all its gigabytes of daily data, Nokia’s HERE 3D mapping car is only one part of […]

I guess you can say that a particular device, especially if it happens to be one of your flagship models, fails to make the cut when it comes to its build quality, surely a furor among your user base is going to arise. Well, we have here the Sony Xperia Z Ultra that also goes by the model number C6802, and while it has rolled out for just a few weeks already with bouquets being heaped on its display, not all is as rosy as depicted. Apparently, there does seem to be a small number of Sony Xperia Z Ultra owners who complained about its defective display, with most the problems recorded and uploaded onto YouTube for all and sundry to see.

It all begins with the Sony Xperia Z Ultra being unable to turn the screen on when one presses the power button. Sure, the backlight might be turned on, but the screen itself will still remain blank. This is not a Sleep of Death (SoD) issue that tends to happen among Android powered devices, though. It is also said that select owners of the Sony Xperia Z Ultra see green lines whenever they try to “wake” the device up via the power button. So far, no known fixes have been discovered, although some swear that installing the latest build version 14.1.B.0.475 will solve the issue, with some refuting that statement. Hopefully Sony Mobile will be able to come up with a fix, and soon!

Some Sony Xperia Z Ultra Owners Complain Of Wonky Displays original content from Ubergizmo.