Have you ever thought how great it would be to fly, only to look up, and see the dangers of wires, tree branches, and street lights in your way? (Ah, then I’m the only one.) The point is, there’s a lot over our heads, all the time. So for this week’s Shooting Challenge, shoot straight up.
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There are almost as many ways to monitor your fitness these days, as there are ways to get fit. While most hardware trackers come with their own solution to present your (hard-earned) data, some users prefer to keep it elsewhere. If that happens to be MapMyFitness, then good news — there’s full two-way sync for Jawbone UP, as well as Nike FuelBand support. Jawbone’s UP has had API hooks with MapMyFitness for a while, but now workouts etc. can be pushed in either direction, so all those steps can be viewed online (though not your sleep, or manually logged workouts). It’s a similar story with FuelBand, while the Nike+ app and watch have played nice with the services, the wearable was notably absent — until now. Set up is easy, just head to the import section of your account and link them up. Sadly, so easy, you won’t earn any fuel points.
Pixar fans who want to tie the knot really should have something like these awesome engagement ring boxes to help seal the deal. You want to make sure they say yes after all – and every little bit helps. You can’t ask a girl to marry based on just your dashing good looks and knowledge of every Star Trek episode, right?
These awesome custom engagement ring boxes were made by TheModelMaker to look like WALL-E, the house from UP (sans balloons), and a toy chest from Toy Story 3.
How could anyone say no to a ring delivered in one of these amazing creations?
[via Geekologie]
Jawbone announced today that its app for UP, the company’s movement-tracking wristband, is now available as a free download for Android on Google Play. The $129 UP was previously only compatible with iOS. The wristband can also now be purchased in European Apple stores, and will be made available in Asia and Australia next month.
“We are excited to expand the UP community by introducing support for Android, 11 new languages for iOS, and product availability in more than 25 additional countries around the world,” said Travis Bogard, Jawbone vice president of product management and strategy, in a statement.
When coupled with its app, the UP wristband allows users to track their sleep, movement, food, and mood. Apple Stores in Asia and Australia will begin carrying the gadget next month, along with other retail locations in Europe, Asia, Australia, and the Middle East.
While Android users can now use Jawbone UP, the company says it currently has no plans to release the UP app to BlackBerry 10 or Windows Phone.
There’s no better motivation than public humiliation, err, community support. Which is why Jawbone’s extending its Up band’s social circle to encompass the likes of Facebook. Previously, Up users could only share their dietary, exercise and sleep habits with other registered users, but now that feed will also extend to a user’s Facebook Timeline. The company’s also ushered in a few tweaks for its Sleep alarm, now offering the ability to set specific wakeup alerts or configure Smart Sleep timers for 30, 20 and 10 minute windows. The update’s live in the App Store today. So, if you’ve been dying to share your physically fit and / or gluttonous ways with a much larger audience, well, now’s your time to shine.
Jawbone has been making real progress on the software for its tentative steps into wearable technology like the Up bracelet, but it’s safe to say there’s some room to grow. The company might just feel the same way in the wake of two key acquisitions centered on app interfaces and design. It just bought Massive Health, best known for its crowdsourced food app The Eatery, and Visere, a design house recognized for its work on both hardware and software. While Jawbone hasn’t yet outlined its plans beyond scooping up the “best talent” for app development, Massive Health expects to maintain its namesake focus — it doesn’t see much work on Bluetooth audio in its future. However things shake out, it’s clear software is about to play a larger role for our ears, wrists and beyond.
Filed under: Wearables
Source: GigaOM
Second chances are rare in the tech world. Unless you’re one of the big boys — say a Samsung or an Apple — one spectacular failure is enough to doom a product line or even an entire company. Just ask Gizmondo, 3D Realms, Helio, Palm, Netscape, DivX, Sega… the list goes on and on. All it takes is one mistake and a hyped device or marquee company can end up as little more than a nostalgic Wikipedia entry. After last year’s debacle with the Up, we thought Jawbone might give up on the fitness market entirely. In case you missed the drama last holiday season, here’s a quick recap: within weeks of launching, the Yves Behar-designed motion-tracking bracelet simply stopped working for many customers. We even had two units fail during the course of writing our original review. It quickly became apparent that the problems were not just widespread, but near ubiquitous. Up was pulled from the shelves, customers were issued refunds and Jawbone went back to the drawing board.
We have to hand it to the company for quickly taking ownership of the problem and cutting checks to the unfortunate souls who ponied up $100 to buy one. But, while seeing a company readily admit failure was a pleasant surprise, we were even more shocked when Jawbone didn’t simply cancel Up entirely and cut its losses. Instead it tracked down the root issues — water permeability, flexibility and a barebones app — and redesigned the bracelet from the ground up. The basic functionality and aesthetic choices are the same, but the materials, the iOS data logger and actual internal assembly are all completely different. Unfortunately, all these upgrades mean last year’s $100 bust is this year’s $130 shot at redemption. And the real question is, even if it works, is the Up something you’ll want or need?
Continue reading Jawbone Up review (2012): a reboot and a shot at redemption
Last night we reported about Jonathan Trappe, a man who’s hoping to fly a tiny balloon-tethered house across the Atlantic ocean. But his Up-inspired planning would probably have been a lot easier had he access to this online calculator that lets you know exactly how many helium filled balloons you’d need to hoist your home. More »
We’ll forgive you for mistaking Jonathan Trappe for Carl Fredriksen of the Pixar movie UP. Like Fredriksen, Trappe is a “cluster balloonist” who likes to fly around the world with a bunch of balloons. He’s attempting to cross the Atlantic Ocean soon. More »
I’ve had most of the week to wear the $129 Jawbone UP and I thought I’d offer a few impressions for those unsure which model pedometer to buy. I’m a Fitbit man myself because I’ve gotten used to moving the minuscule dongle from pocket to pocket and I have only lost one in my travels. But – and this is a big but – I could be convinced to move over to Jawbone if they fixed a few niggling problems.
The UP, if you’ll recall, is a bracelet that senses your movement. This can be used during the day to see how much you run around and during the evening to see how well you’re sleeping. You can also log your food intake and mood, thereby giving you a fairly good picture of your calorie I/O and general state of being.
It holds a about a week’s charge in a package about as big as a bangle bracelet and there’s a single button to switch from day to night mode. It’s clad in rubber and is waterproof. It also has a silent alarm that will wake you gently from your slumber and a slacker alert that buzzes during a certain interval to remind you to leave your nest of sloth and walk around a little.
What else is different about the new UP? Well, Jawbone completely redesigned the innards, ensuring that no water can get in and that the constant pressure of taking it off and putting it back on wouldn’t break the connectors, chips, or battery. The changes are almost entirely internal but ideally this one will be far more rugged than the previous version.
Now here’s the rub: unlike the $99 Fitbit One and other devices, you sync it by plugging it into your cellphone’s headphone jack. There’s a little cap that covers the jack (which will, at some point, inevitably fall off and be lost) and a USB dongle that you use to charge it with a laptop. You don’t really interact with the UP on a desktop, which works well enough, but I’d love a way to sync wirelessly. Presumably the size of this device – and it’s surprisingly tiny – prevents that from being an option, but it could be a dealbreaker for some. There is, sadly, no external indicator of steps walked so you’re mostly in the dark when it comes to ambulation.
For others, slipping the thing off, popping off the cap, and plugging into a phone isn’t that hard. You don’t have to do it every day (but you’ll want to) and the app is cool enough that you can forgive it some of its drawbacks.
But with so many other devices on the market, why this one? Well, simplicity is a factor. This doesn’t look like a nerd device. It could actually masquerade as a piece of jewelry, provided you’re into rubber. The UP is also quite accurate, matching the Fitbit One almost exactly each time I checked it. In other words, it works.
I also like the reminder feature, which works a bit better than Fitbit’s quiet calm. A buzz on my wrist helps me get up and walk around a bit, which is a great thing.
In the end which is better? I’m not sure. These things are constant reminders of our failure as biological organisms. I do enjoy the UP’s simplicity but the Fitbit, with its stair sensor and comprehensive online interface still keeps me coming back. I’ll wear them both – I’m a dork like that – but I suppose the rule of thumb is simple in this case: if you tend to lose tiny things a lot, buy the UP. Otherwise, weigh the merits – price being one – and see which features you’ll use the most. There is sadly no one clear winner, but the surfeit of choice is great for folks living the quantified life.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
