No Batteries Required
How many of you have had your phone battery die on you just halfway into the day? I bet most of us do. As technology advances and becomes more integrated into our lives,our dependance on technology also increases. From just being able to call or text on our mobile phones, we are now able to do a million and one things on our phone – from texting to shopping online to even tracking our health. However, these things also drain the battery. Fast. The issue of short battery life has thus spurred many companies to constantly think of solutions, and those ranges from solar panels to having portable charging ports. However, these awkward and bulky devices may be a thing of the past. Researchers at University of Washington have created a new wireless technology called Ambient Scatterlight – which basically converts existing wireless signals into both a source of power and a communication medium. Simply put, it enables two battery-free devices to communicate. This is such a breakthrough discovery, and we can’t wait for a battery-free day!
Read more: No Batteries Required: New Wireless Technology May Power Range Of Mobile / Wearable Devices
Self-tracking with children
Self-tracking can be fun, and with so many apps being created, there are no lacks of apps for anyone. For families, it can be extra fun to share this joy with your kids. This is especially great for working parents who might be away from the kids for the majority part of the day. Self-tracking can be a great bonding activity to do as a family, and also offers an opportunity to know each other better. Watch this video on one dad’s data adventure with his children in the past year and the many creative ways they are playing with self-tracking.
Get motivated with Human
How many of you have made a promise to start exercising, but never got around to doing it? More often than not, we lack the motivation to start. For some of us who have never really exercised in our lives, the starting can be a really daunting and trying period. Even after starting, we can get discouraged because we are simply lacking in stamina and strength. (Especially if you compare yourself to others). However, we all gotta start somewhere. This is where Human comes in. The concept is really simple – To get us moving at least 30 minutes or more. This app is aimed at the casual user, who wants to get healthy but wants something that doesn’t set the bar high. While the difficulty level can be adjusted later in accordance to your improved stamina level, this is a great tool for those of us who wants to kickstart a healthier lifestyle. So, let’s get started together! A little everyday goes a long way!
Read more: Human’s new quantified self app aims at mere mortals , Fitness startup Human emerges from stealth with its iOS app to get you moving 30 minutes a day
Try something new for 30 days
On the same motivating note, is there something you’ve always meant to do, wanted to do, but just … haven’t? Well, the next 30 days are going to pass whether you like it or not, so why not think about something you have always wanted to try and give it a shot for the next 30 days? It does not have to be a big task like going sky-diving or training to be a masterchef. It can be simple – like riding to work or taking a picture a day. According to Matt Cutts – “Thirty days is just about the right amount of time to add a new habit or subtract a habit — like watching the news — from your life.” While these tiny tasks may not amount to much, it can aid in self-confidence and also make our life more memorable. So, for the month starting September, let’s get out together and start living our lives! We think this can also be a great challenge to take up with our Memoto camera! So have a great week ahead and tweet us at @memototeam as you go along this 30 days challenge!
Read more: Matt Cutts: Try something new for 30 days
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4 Comments
Human sounds like *the* perfect companion app to Moves!
🙂 Moves is awesome!
@Priscilla: I have used Moves since January. It’s unobtrusive, elegant, and extremely intelligent: It tracks my movements accurately even when GPS reception is weak – simple GPS loggers would always run berzerk and tell me I’d run zigzag. It recognizes different types of movements, i.e. walking, running, transportation, and so on, very well with the exception of bicycling – but it’s easy enough to correct.
I’ve tried Human the last couple of days and it’s completely useless IMO. It relies on GPS only, making tracking much less accurate, especially in buildings, tunnels, and in the woods. It doesn’t identify changes in movements correctly: Saturday, I drove 10 minutes in a car and then walked 35 minutes in the woods. At the end, it told me I had been walking for 55 minutes (don’t know where those extra 10min came from), and since it didn’t see the change in pace from driving to walking, I could only set the whole 55 minutes to driving
In my opinion GPS logging is only reliable if coupled with other sensors like the accelerometer. Otherwise the results are just too random. Simple pedometer-only apps like Striiv work much better than GPS-only apps. And talking about Striiv: It does the same as Human, and so much more. Striiv has been my companion app to Moves for months (Moves for logging, Striiv for motivation), and Human is simply no competition.