Breathe in energy and positivity. Breathe out distractions and bad feelings. Envision a calm place and let yourself go there.
Who are you kidding? You’re probably racing to or from work along with hundreds of other people and the anxiety level you feel is indescribably high. You may want to try to meditate or center yourself in stressful situations like these, but never actually remember to do it.
[ See post to watch video ]
This week, I tested two sensors that might help: the $ 99 HeartMath Inner Balance Sensor for iOS and $ 119 Tinké by Zensorium. Each device plugs into Apple’s iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch, and digitally monitors heart rate and breathing patterns, offering on-screen coaching to get you into a calmer zone.
While a traditional heart monitor often just spits out a number, both the HeartMath Inner Balance and Tinké provide feedback as you use them. People who meditate regularly but don’t know whether or not their heart and breathing are reacting to their meditations will get some specific answers with these devices and apps. Both of these free apps offer ways to save results and share them via email or social networks. Using them taught me how to lower my heart rate and steady my breathing.
The HeartMath sensor is the company’s first mobile device after years of working only on computers. One end clips to an earlobe, resembling a Bluetooth headset from afar, and uses an infrared sensor to see blood flowing through the skin and measure heart-rate variability. The other end attaches to an iOS device.
The company suggests spending 10 to 15 minutes with this app in the morning to prepare for the day and 10 to 15 minutes at night to get settled before sleeping. It measures what HeartMath calls coherence—an algorithm applied to heart-rate variability, which the company says can reflect emotional states and stress levels.
In stressful situations, I watched the screen register my low coherence level with a red icon, but I gradually learned how to get into the zone of high coherence, which is represented by a green icon.
I tried this for several days in the morning and at night, and found myself looking forward to my time with the app. I also tried it at different times of the day, including after a quick walk at lunch and while riding the subway home.
The first time you use HeartMath, helpful slides walk you through how the product works. You can switch between several views to focus on during a session: a flower pulsing in and out with your breaths; a shade that lifts and lowers as you breathe; a photo of a waterfall, which you can change to an image you’d like to stare at; or a statistical screen showing heart-rate variance, coherence over time, pulse and a spectrum analysis of heart rhythms. Relevant coaching phrases pop up to encourage you. Some included, “Breathe through the heart area” and “Excellent! You’re in high coherence!”
During setup, I was never asked for my gender or age, but a company spokeswoman said it plans to add these personalized levels later this year. Early next year, the company plans an Android version and a wireless version of the sensor.
The Tinké (pronounced “tink”) by Singapore-based Zensorium is a tiny sensor that comes in white, gray, pink or blue. After downloading its app, I was invited to use it as a guest, or by creating a new account. I tried guest mode and later created my own account, where session scores were saved. Even as a guest, I was prompted to enter my age and gender for a more accurate reading.
I plugged the sensor into my iPad, which made its infrared light glow. On-screen instructions told me to place my thumb over the light, and I waited while Tinké measured either my Zen Index or Vita Index. The Zen Index uses heart-rate variability to quantify stress levels in a simplified manner, according to the company. The Vita Index is a cardio-respiratory score that looks at heart rate, blood-oxygen level and respiratory rate (the number of breaths per minute).
I started with testing my Zen Index, which I did by breathing in time with one of five circle patterns that appeared on the screen, each pulsing at different paces. In just a few minutes, my score out of 99 points was displayed: “Calm, 57/99 points. Doing well. Keep calm and carry on practicing your breathing to improve.” When I tested my Vita Index, my score said: “Fresh, 84/99 points. Looking good! Your heart rate, respiratory rate and blood oxygen level are within normal ranges. Stay motivated!”
Fun factoids appeared on the screen while I used the Tinké sensor. One said, “Did you know? Your right lung takes in more air than your left.” Another said, “Eating fish helps lower your risk of depression.”
I chose a “Shout” icon in the app to share results with Tinké users but I could also share my results via Facebook. Tinké awards badges for activities and gives users extra points when they measure their Vita Index three times daily. There’s a leaderboard of all users, which might motivate people even more.
If you’re curious about your heart-rate variability and the other data that can be gleaned from it, I’d recommend the HeartMath Inner Balance for a comprehensive approach.
Email katie.boehret@wsj.com
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While Canadians got a major NFC payment system through Rogers’ Suretap service late last year, it was largely defined by what it couldn’t do: there was only one platform to use, in only some places, with only one bank. Those horizons are at last broadening, as the carrier just certified a much wider range of phones for Suretap-capable apps. Android at last joins the party with approval for Suretap use on LG’s Optimus G, as well as Samsung’s Galaxy S III and Galaxy Note II. BlackBerry fans also won’t have to cling to older devices now that the Z10 is good to go. More than a few pieces of the NFC puzzle are still missing, of course. Beyond waiting for the apps themselves, there’s no certification for Windows Phone 8 or a broad range of Android devices, and customers still don’t have the freedom to choose their banks or carriers. Still, we’re glad that there will be at least some choice in hardware for future wallet-free trips to Tim Hortons.
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Samsung, LG, Blackberry
Source: Rogers
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If you’ve been waiting to try out XBMC on your Android, it appears now is the time. While beta and nightly builds were already available, the team behind it has finally readied a release it says is “end user friendly,” ready to run on most any device. It achieves that feat by offloading video player duties to another app, in this case MX Player, in order to get around XBMC’s lack of hardware support for many devices. After sideloading the two necessary APKs we were able to get it up and running without any trouble, tossing in add-ins and playing back locally stored media without a problem. There’s a video to go along with the release (embedded after the break) but installing it yourself is probably the best way to get a feel for its video, picture and audio playback abilities.
Gallery: XBMC for Android
Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD
Source: XBMC for Android
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If the regular ol’ S-Pen that arrived inside your Galaxy Note 10.1′s packaging just isn’t cutting it, Wacom is looking lend a hand with its latest offering. The outfit has announced the Bamboo Stylus feel that touts performance similar to a ball-point pen (or S-Pen) for Windows 8 and Android slates outfitted with the company’s “feel IT” pen tech. Of course, this means that these styli make use of electromagnetic signals to interact with devices, differing from their capacitive Bamboo siblings that we’ve seen. Two options are set to arrive on January 7th with replacement nibs in tow and carrying price tags of $ 39.95 and $ 79.95, respectively. The full PR resides just beyond the break should you need a few more particulars before deciding.
Filed under: Peripherals
Incoming search terms:- eimolife
- Bamboo|Tech Meets Blog
New iOS 6.0.1 Untethered Jailbreak Official Visit devteamjailbreak.com Latest Update of iOS 6.0.1 Jailbreak Untethered Apple Software Update iOS 6.0.1 Compatibility: iPhone 3GS iPhone 4GSM Model iphone 4 iphone 4S iPhone 5 iPod Touch 3rd generation iPod Touch 4th generation iPad 3 iPad 2 iPad Mini New Ipad Guide & Instructions Step 1: Then go to devteamjailbreak.com Step 2: Download The Tool by Verification System that you are Human To Download ( Survery) Step 3: Save the iOS 6.0.1 Jailbreak Tool on desktop and Run as Administrator by devteamjailbreak.com Step 3: Follow Ths Instrucitons on the Software and enter in DFU ( Device Firmware Update iOS 6.0.1) mode Step 4: After That Hit the Make it Rain Button and wait to Final step and you see the message. Step 5: Finish! You should now have a fully jailbroken iPhone & iPad & iPad firmware iOS 6.0.1 Video Rating: 0 / 5
Incoming search terms:- ipad 2 6 0 1 jailbreak
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As usual, Apple thought Friday night on a holiday weekend was the perfect time to push some more paper through in its ongoing patent lawsuit against Samsung. According to Florian Mueller of FOSS Patents, after Samsung asked to add the latest iPads, iPhones and iPod touches to its list of claims and the court approved the addition of the iPhone 5, Galaxy S III, Galaxy Note and Galaxy Note 10.1, Apple is trying to put six more devices on the list. Listed in the motion are the Galaxy S III running Android Jelly Bean (but not Jelly Bean itself), Galaxy Note II, Galaxy Tab 8.9 WiFi, Galaxy Tab 2 10.1, Rugby Pro and Galaxy S III mini. As usual, the case will proceed, we’ll wait to hear if these requests are approved by the court and in the meantime, iThings and Galaxys alike will continue to fly off the shelves. Given the season, for now it’s time to be thankful we’re not one of the lawyers spending their day working on this. That leaves us plenty of time for more interesting activities, like hand-to-hand combat against fellow shoppers for the right to purchase slightly discounted items.
Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Mobile, Apple, Samsung
Source: FOSS Patents
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We’ve seen a few apps try to manage the ambitious feat of becoming the journal for your entire mobile life, but a new Apple patent suggests the company may be trying to build that kind of functionality right into iOS at the system level, in a way that keeps track of all your phone events, including when and where they happened. The system could help you recall when and where you took a photo, sent an email, received a phone call or even visited a webpage, and show that to you on a map or in a timeline-style list of events.
It’s an interesting patent with a number of possible practical uses. For instance, it could be used to help a device learn more about the specific habits and patterns of its particular user. If it can establish patterns in their behavior, it should theoretically be able to better predict and adapt to their needs. In the more near-time, and less sci-fi immediate future, the system could also make it incredibly easy for a mobile device owner to quickly search their interaction history and find all the contextual details around a specific event, which could be very useful if, for instance, your wedding florist is suggesting you never made a call changing your order six months ago.
Filters can be applied to the stored data to group events by time, location, application and according to a variety of other variables, so that users can drill down and find exactly what they’re looking for, even if they’re not quite sure what that is. The patent system also describes event databases that can be stored in the cloud, freeing up valuable local storage space on the device. The events logged can even be app specific, since Apple’s patent describes a method to invoke it via API, meaning you could theoretically note every time you posted a photo to Instagram, or read an article in Instapaper, too.
This is an a patent application that, while potentially incredibly useful, we likely won’t see make a public experience for at least a while yet. Users seemed uncomfortable with the fact that iPhones used to maintain a location database to help with location triangulation, for instance, so there would likely be apprehension about such an extensive logging tool, even if designed as a user-accessible feature like the patent described in this system. But it would be tremendously beneficial in cases of device theft, and when working with personal health monitoring tools, budget trackers and other types of journalling applications, especially in a time when the notion of the quantified self continues to have a big influence on consumer hardware and software development.
Short Version
Do you like power? It’s very useful for using all those electronic devices we have. But often, those devices have less power than we’d like them to, especially when we’re traveling or fighting for socket space at a coffee shop or conference. The HyperJuice 2 can provide that power, and lots of it, enough to double the life of a new Retina MacBook Pro, and extend considerably longer the life of other, less power-hungry Macs.
Long Version Features:- Two 10-watt USB ports for high-speed iPad charging (also works with basically any other device)
- OLED display for charge/discharge and battery level info
- Battery designed to be fully user-replaceable
Info:
- 100Wh battery (compared to 50Wh on 13-inch MacBook Air, 95Wh on 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro)
- Price: $ 299.95
- Available: Now (ships in 2 weeks)
- Product page
… like your standard external power reserves and battery banks, but on steroids because it’s designed to extend the battery life of your Mac laptop a significant, non-trivial amount. And it manages that, boosting my Retina MacBook’s battery life to around double, and providing quick access to plenty of juice for both iPhones and iPads. Since this is the sequel, you get two USB ports instead of one for simultaneous gadget charging.
Buy the HyperJuice 2 for…… people who always complain about their battery dying, on any device they have. But make sure they’re at least somewhat technically proficient and willing to get their hands dirty: Apple nixed the MagSafe adapter that used to ship with the HyperJuice, so this one requires surgery if you want it to charge (and not just power) your MacBook’s battery. The kit for converting your MagSafe (not MagSafe 2, mind you, those aren’t compatible) adapter to work with HyperJuice 2 costs $ 49.95, but it does come with some solid wire strippers that are an awesome addition to any gadget lover’s tool kit.
Because…… if you have ever run out of juice at a crucial moment and had no way to get the power back on, you already know this is the greatest gift you could ever receive. Definitely not for everyone at $ 300, but power is a wonderful, wonderful thing that you can’t put a price tag on in some lines of work.
Microsoft’s Research team in Cambridge opened its doors last week to offer a sneak peek at the future. Microsoft has spent nearly $ 30 billion on research and development over the past three years, and this particular lab — consisting of over 100 researchers mainly from Europe — has contributed to Bing, Xbox Kinect, and the functional programming language F#.
Microsoft is now looking well ahead into the future of computing and how user interfaces and the way we interact with machines will change. During an open house, the software maker demonstrated a variety of ways that the company is looking to improve its Kinect sensor and use it for an augmented reality future. From Kinect Fusion, that creates an interactive real-time 3D model…
American carriers love to launch their device lines in bundles, and AT&T just proved the rule in style. Forget the LTE iPad mini — six other devices have shipped in one day, covering just about every category Big Blue offers. Want a Windows tablet? There’s a $ 500 ASUS VivoTab RT waiting for you. Smartphones? HTC’s $ 200 One X+ covers the high-end, while its $ 50 One VX and Samsung’s $ 100 Galaxy Express target the more frugal among us. Even shutterbugs and cutting-edge networkers can pick up a $ 500 Samsung Galaxy Camera or Novatel’s $ 50 MiFi Liberate hotspot. There’s no doubt that AT&T is cramming the channel full of new gadgets in the hopes of scooping up all the Black Friday sales it can, but we’ll forgive the slightly cynical strategy for the sake of a wider device selection.
Filed under: Cellphones, Cameras, Tablets, Networking, Mobile, Samsung, HTC, ASUS, AT&T
PSA: HTC One X+, five other devices from ASUS, HTC, Novatel and Samsung on sale at AT&T originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 16 Nov 2012 22:12:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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