Hasta La Gadget!

Activity bracelets and other fitness gadgets are a great way to get motivated to get into shape. Instead of relying on paltry humans, your love for gadgets will keep you running when the lactic acid starts to settle into your legs! Well, that might still be a pipe dream, but check out Lark’s latest release. It’s kind of like a minimal version of the Nike+ FuelBand.

The LarkLife will track your activity, from sleep patterns to food intake using a bracelet and a mobile app. For now, this will work only with iOS devices. It’s not waterproof, but splash-resistant, and has a pedometer inside to count your steps. It will be able to measure how long you sleep and how long it takes you to go to sleep. There’s a vibrating alarm built-into this band as well.

Just like other bracelets, you have to manually enter your food intake, which is a bit of a downer in my book, but the band uses Bluetooth Smart to automatically sync with your iPhone. It can also tell whether you’re running or walking, meaning that the app will log workouts even if you forget to enter them. The device will dish out advice during the day and reward “good behavior” with badges. It’s available for pre-order from Lark for $150(USD) and will be available before the holidays.

Many of the 3D printed products we’ve seen are for commercial purposes, prototypes or toys. But as the technology matures and becomes more affordable, we’ll start seeing more products that us ordinary folks can appreciate and more importantly use in our daily life. Objects like this 3D printed pair of headphones.

The headphones were made by John Mabry of Teague Labs, who wanted to see if he can create a functional object that can be 3D printed and then assembled without any tools. He called the headphones 13:30 because it took 13 hours and 30 minutes to print its components. That’s a hell of a print job, but I wouldn’t be able to make a pair of headphones even if I had 13 months and 30 days.

Mabry posted the files and instructions on Thingiverse. The components are meant to be printed on a Makerbot Replicator, which is certainly not a mainstream product, but is also a long way from an entire factory filled with machines and craftsmen.

[Teague Labs via Engadget]

3D printers will definitely change everything, especially as they become widely available. You’ll eventually be able to print everything from toys to car parts to body parts to food with this technology. Aiming to bring high-quality 3D printing to more people, the Form 1 3D printer looks pretty cool and it’s currently being crowdfunded through Kickstarter.

The laser-based printer is capable of great precision – with layers as thin as 25 microns (0.001 inch.) This results in professional quality models without those lumpy ridges typical of cheap desktop 3D printers. Because of its printing process, a small amount of hand-finishing is required to clean up excess plastic residue, but the finished models are worth it.

There seems to be a lot of demand for affordable, high quality 3D printers. The Form 1 hit $1 million after 50 hours on Kickstarter, and has raised about $400,000 in the last four days. Almost 1,000 backers already have committed to buy the printer. I know, I’d like one in my place, too. The first two levels have sold out, so you’ll have to pledge $2,699(USD) to get yours.

The project still has 23 days of funding left, but the company will likely sell out before the funding period is over.  To avoid shipping constraints, FormLabs plans on stopping funding at $2.8 million, so that everyone can receive their printers in a timely fashion in the Spring of 2013.

[via TechCrunch]

It’s pretty common for big groups to go out and eat together, and then split the tab afterwards. But the process of splitting up the bill can be pretty tedious, since someone usually has to break out the calculator (or calculator app) and add up the amount that each person has to pay.

But not with the Go Dutch Bill.

It’s a billing system that automatically churns out split-able (is there even such a word?) receipts so each member of the group can just grab the tab with their order and pay for it accordingly. It’s an extremely fun and novel concept, even though we’ll probably never see it come to light because it might be pretty complex to apply in practice.

But I’d love to be wrong on that one because this concept is totally awesome.

Go Dutch Bill was designed by Szu-Yu Liu and is up for the 2012 iF concept design award.

[via Yanko Design]

After watching the Woody Allen classic, Sleeper for the 1000th time, I assumed that we’d all have cold, impersonal robot butlers in our homes by now. Well, it turns out that one of the main challenges for robo-butlers is their lack of ability to carry items on a tray without spilling them.

The issue is that keeping a tray horizontal during movement will result in easy spills when moving quickly. Thankfully, the guys at Willow Garage are working on a solution.

By developing a set of balancing motions that minimize lateral force on the object, PhD student Tobias Kunz of Georgia Tech was able to get a PR2 robot to handle delicate objects on a tray, and glasses full of liquid without so much as a spill.

With a PR2 selling for $285,000 to $400,000, I’m still not sure we’ll have robot butlers serving us martinis any time soon, the same technique can be used to help industrial robots carrying delicate objects on trays, or open containers of liquids. If you happen to have a PR2 robot lying around, you can test out the movements on your ‘bot using the path trajectory files here.