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Cool wearables, home tech showcased at IFA [Computing] [Times of India]
[September 15, 2014]

Cool wearables, home tech showcased at IFA [Computing] [Times of India]


(Times of India Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) The IFA or Internationale Funkausstellung Berlin (aka 'Berlin Radio Show'), which ran between the 4th and 9th of September, saw the unveiling of many new gadgets and gizmos. We pick the best new 'wearable' and 'home' tech that was showcased there.



Lighting If future tech seems too far-fetched, then the Philips Hue Beyond will help throw some light on what it holds for us. It's fitted with two rows of LED lights that can be individually controlled via an app (for Android and iOS devices). Apart from dimming the lights, you can choose from 16 million colours to set your room's ambience to be lit up with warm or soothing hues.

Home sensors In case you don't like the idea of replacing your hardware with a web-enabled alternative, you can use Sen.se's Mother and its Motion Cookies.


Just affix the Cookie in the right place (on a wall, toothbrush, school bag, pill box) and assign its role from a tablet. The Sen.se Mother (the dolllike device), which connects to your home network, collects data from the Cookies and sends notifications and reports to a tablet. A detailed dashboard will inform you if grandfather forgot his meds, whether your 7-year-old brushed his teeth, and even when your teenager returns home from school.

You can add more Cookies to the Sen.se family or you can simply re-assign their roles, making them reusable and highly adaptable.

Food processor While the Taurus Mycook Touch does what all food proc essors do, it also comes with built-in Wi-Fi and a 7-inch touchscreen. When connected to the internet, you can browse Mycook's online recipe book, use the assist mode to watch video tutorials and follow the step-by-step instructions.

Mycook Touch also lets you customize recipes to your preferences, create a shopping list and share it with others. Besides, the touchscreen will give you all the infor mation you need ­ weight, temperature, motor speed, etc ­ about the ingredients inside the processor.

Glasses Not content with just slapping a smart watch on your wrist, Samsung and Sony also want you to sport their eyewear.Samsung Gear VR ­ a pair of virtual reality goggles ­ connects via a microUSB connector to the Galaxy Note 4 to immerse its wearers into a 360-degree environment. The headset is equipped with a 5.7-inch Quad HD Super AMOLED (2560x1440px) display that gives users a 96-degree field of view, while its built-in sensors constantly detect head movements to create an illusion that the wearer is actually right in the middle of a virtual world.

Sony's SmartEyeglass, on the other hand, is more akin to the Google Glass. The prototype unveiled at IFA features a heads-up display as well as an inbuilt camera. The Eyeglass will be capable of displaying alerts on its projected screen ­ and will also house technology that will track the user's head movements and motion to create a desired augmented reality effect.

Vacuum cleaners The quest for a clean home continued with new and improved vacuum robots.

The Dyson 360 Eye robot uses a top-mounted camera to map its surroundings and has tank-like treads to move over different surfaces. Samsung's Powerbot VR9000 has a bunch of sensors that help it avoid obstacles. It's fitted with proprietary wheels that are broad and raised, to pass over wires without getting entangled in them. While the Miele Scout RX1 employs a "systematic navigation system" to clean a room in parallel tracks as opposed to a criss-cross pattern used by most bots. The Scout uses a gyro-sensor to monitor changes in direction, a digital camera to scan the ceiling, seven IR sensors on the front, and three bottom-facing sensors. Together they help the vacuum bot maximize room coverage, prevent collisions and falls down a flight of steps.

Watches Samsung and Sony have been at it for a while now, but at this year's IFA, a whole bunch of manufacturers unveiled their own `smart' watches.

Samsung's Gear S is now a full-featured 3G and Wi-Fi-enabled device ­ complete with a SIM slot ­ that can make and receive calls, display messages and be connected to GPS even without a phone. Then there's the Sony SmartWatch 3, the Moto 360, the Asus ZenWatch, LG's G Watch R, and Alcatel's Wave, which all run on the Android Wear OS and can be paired with smartphones to give you alerts ­ including weather and flight infor mation ­ on your wrist.

Among other fea tures, these devices will allow you to store and play music, help you locate your misplaced smartphone, use your handset's camera re motely , mute incoming calls, can be used as a remote con trol and time manager when making a presenta tion, and even act as a wellness device with its built-in heart monitor and pedometer.

Then, for the style conscious, there's the Meta M1 by Frank Nuevo, the same superstar designer who conceptualized the range of Vertu luxury handsets. Unlike the others, this gadget can be paired with both, iOS and Android smartphones ­ and comes with its own range of apps that lets users customize the watch faces and notifi cations sent to their wrists.

Ah yes, these also tell the time.

Jewellery But not all wristwear unveiled at IFA was pure gadgetry. Samsung announced a Swarovsky-encrusted edition of its Gear S, while Intel tied up with international design house Opening Ceremony to unveil MICA (My Intelligent Communication Accessory).

The bracelet will be available in two designs ­ one style will feature black watersnake skin, pearls from China, and lapis stones from Madagascar, while the other will feature white watersnake skin, tiger's eye from South Africa, and obsidian from Russia. Both will sport a curved sapphire glass 1.6-inch touchscreen that will allow its wearer to stay connected via SMS, meeting alerts, and general notifications delivered directly to the wrist "with additional features and functionalities to be revealed at a later date".

(c) 2014 Bennett, Coleman & Company Limited

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