The Lark wristband and its accompanying iPhone app. Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired
Julia Hu is a bubbly, 26-year-old Stanford alum and CEO of a Bay Area start-up. She’s got the passion and product pitch you’d expect from a practiced entrepreneur, but demonstrates a curious quirk you don’t find in a lot of CEOs: She seems well rested.
One would hope so. Hu is in charge of Lark, a silent alarm clock, sleep monitor, and personal sleep coach, all rolled into one. The device itself looks a bit like a watch ensconced inside a lightweight, breathable, perforated band. The band’s hardware interacts with an iPhone app, sharing your nightly sleep habits with the app via Bluetooth when you wake each day.
The Lark isn’t the first wearable device to track one’s sleep patterns, but the system adds a clever coaching element that other sleep trackers don’t include. It’s an important addition, as competing devices tend to smother the user in sleep data, but don’t provide many tools to make sense of the data in an actionable way.
Hu considers the Lark a member of a growing class of “appcessories,” physical devices that interact with mobile apps to provide useful information or enhanced entertainment. Some of these devices track things like heart health. Other trackers similar to the Lark — such as the Jawbone UP and Fitbit — monitor a user’s activity 24/7, from daytime exercise to nighttime slumber, using motion sensors.
The Lark employs what it calls a “micromotion sleep pattern sensor” and, like the Jawbone UP and Fitbit, uses a data-tracking method called actigraphy to measure one’s sleep stages at about 85 to 95 percent accuracy.
All these activity-monitoring devices can provide helpful data in the quest for a better night’s sleep. The conventional wisdom says that once we begin mapping sleep data against the lifestyle decisions we make during our wakeful hours — for example, how much coffee we consume and how hard we exercise — we can begin adjusting bad habits to improve our sleep.
And the same applies to monitoring one’s daytime activity, like how many potato chips we eat, and how many stairs we climb. Personal data analysis can identify potential problems before they get serious, and hopefully save time and money on doctor’s visits and pharmacy bills in the long run.
“What’s exciting about this new category of appcessories is that the hardware can stay the same, but the software is always innovating,” Hu says. In the past, she says, you “had to be a Sony,” anticipating your audience’s desires and delivering a flawless finished product to consumers from the get-go. However, “by having a mobile-connected product, your product can really solve needs so much better,” Hu says. “You can really listen to what the users want and build it for them as software and upgrade continuously.”
Julia Hu, CEO of Lark, proponent of healthy sleep habits. Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired
The Lark debuted in late June, but its app has been revised a number of times, adding greater utility to the system as a whole. In addition to tracking your sleep patterns and gently waking you up with a light vibration on your wrist, you can now provide the app with various data points to begin connecting the dots on which environmental factors affect your sleep.
For example, the Lark can enter the noise and brightness levels of your surroundings, or whether you had caffeine or alcohol before hitting the hay. When you wake up in the morning, you launch the app, and define how well rested you are. From there, Lark uses all its information to figure out what stimuli you should try to avoid.
Hu says the Lark system can also provide information as to why you may wake up in the middle of the night.
“A lot of people don’t realize it’s not always stress that infringes on sleep. It’s actually a little bit of a noise that wakes you up, then your brain can’t shut off,” Hu says. Women, in particular, are susceptible to this: High-pitched noises will wake them up, and leave them unable to get back to sleep.
Women also suffer more insomnia than men, Hu says, though men are far more likely to suffer from sleep apnea, waking up more times than they think they do during the night, and then not remembering the disturbances.
The latest version of the Lark app also includes a feature that was once limited to the $60 “pro” version of the software: an assessment to determine what type of sleeper you are based on the data and information you provide (Lu refers to the data as your “sleep hygiene”). The system pinpoints 12 different types of sleepers. Hu, for example, started out as a “rookie-erratic” sleeper when she first used the system.
It may sound like a gimmicky, Meyers-Briggs-esque personality assessment, but it lets the app provide you with personalized recommendations. Unfortunately, the assessment is an ongoing process, and the free app performs just one week of evaluation.
“I used to sleep at different times all throughout the night, and it gave me really fragmented sleep,” Hu says. She also had a hard time falling asleep. But by following the app’s coaching techniques, she says, she’s now progressed to a “rookie night lark.” A lark, like its avian namesake, wants to be early to bed, early to rise.
Hu still has trouble getting to sleep as early as her body would like, but at least she now falls asleep at a regular time each night. And the iPhone helps in this effort: If you try to stay up past your recommended bed time, the app will prompt you through push notifications to begin winding down.
“Until now, no one had a computer within three feet of themselves at all times,” Hu says of smartphones like the iPhone. “You can track real-time behavior and get feedback that happens the moment you’re making a decision. This allows for real behavior change.”
In this video I discuss the latest status of the i4Siri Port. We have bought a server and are working on implementing the google voice api. (I explain how the api works later in the video). Also Siri does work entirely on the iPod Touch 4G. To read more check: i4siri.com To extract 4S keys follow this: i4siri.com Follow Me: twitter.com and follow @leftyfl1p for updates on the Siri Port twitter.com Official Siri news website: i4siri.com Like on Facebook www.facebook.com Follow iOS4Life: twitter.com Check out iOS4Life: ios4life.com $4.99 Unlimited Cpanel Hosting-http
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We could be seeing Kinect gesture-recognition technology embedded in laptops within the next year. Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com
The ability to control a Windows desktop with a simple hand gesture could become reality sooner than we once thought.
The Daily got a sneak peek at two Microsoft-developed Windows 8 notebook prototypes with built-in Kinect sensors. The system would allow for gesture recognition in portable devices for the first time. The prototypes “appear to be Asus netbooks” and “feature an array of small sensors stretching over the top of the screen where the webcam would normally be,” The Daily reported.
3-D gesture control on a laptop could offer more interactive, Kinect-style PC gaming, as well as new computer interfaces and ways to control one’s notebook.
Microsoft opened up its Kinect SDK to developers in June, and recently said it would be bringing Kinect to desktop PCs in 2012. The Xbox Kinect console itself is already in 18 million households the world over.
Although Microsoft popularized it, the 3-D gesture recognition space is rapidly becoming a hot area of innovation.
Another company, SoftKinetic, is working on similar technology aimed at the notebook market. Using a different technology than what the Kinect currently incorporates, the SoftKinetic system can sense motion as close as 5.9 inches away. And then there’s LG and Samsung, whose upcoming Smart TVs have taken a cue from Microsoft, and will incorporate Kinect-style gesture recognition, along with other forms of interface control like voice control, and touchscreen remotes.
Although Microsoft is demonstrating and testing this technology, finished Kinect-based portable products may not come straight from Redmond, but rather from developers or OEMs.
Windows 8 is set to debut in beta in February. We should start seeing finished Windows 8 products (notebooks and tablets) arriving toward the middle and end of this year.
Forget the large, bulky scanners of the past. Our iConvert Scanner for iPad and iPad 2 Tablets scans hard copies to JPEG files directly to your tablet, giving you instant e-copies of your most important documents. The JPEG files are automatically stored in the picture folder. Great for use at home (old photos, genealogy records, special greeting cards, recipes and children’s artwork), at the office (meeting notes, resumes, renderings, signed contracts) and on the go (receipts, expense reports, business cards and more). The entire scanner is sized to take with you in your messenger bag or backpack.
We could be seeing Kinect gesture-recognition technology embedded in laptops within the next year. Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com
The ability to control a Windows desktop with a simple hand gesture could become reality sooner than we once thought.
The Daily got a sneak peek at two Microsoft-developed Windows 8 notebook prototypes with built-in Kinect sensors. The system would allow for gesture recognition in portable devices for the first time. The prototypes “appear to be Asus netbooks” and “feature an array of small sensors stretching over the top of the screen where the webcam would normally be,” The Daily reported.
3D gesture control on a laptop could offer more interactive, Kinect-style PC gaming, as well as new computer interfaces and ways to control one’s notebook.
Microsoft opened up its Kinect SDK to developers in June, and recently said it would be bringing Kinect to desktop PCs in 2012. The Xbox Kinect console itself is already in 18 million households the world over.
Although Microsoft popularized it, the 3D gesture recognition space is rapidly becoming a hot area of innovation.
Another company, SoftKinetic, is working on similar technology aimed at the notebook market. Using a different technology than what the Kinect currently incorporates, the SoftKinetic system can sense motion as close as 5.9 inches away. And then there’s LG and Samsung, whose upcoming Smart TVs have taken a cue from Microsoft, and will incorporate Kinect-style gesture recognition, along with other forms of interface control like voice control, and touchscreen remotes.
Although Microsoft is demonstrating and testing this technology, finished Kinect-based portable products may not come straight from Redmond, but rather from developers or OEMs.
Windows 8 is set to debut in beta in February. We should start seeing finished Windows 8 products (notebooks and tablets) arriving towards the middle and end of this year.
The i1075 even protects your iPad from a filthy kitchen sink. Photo Charlie Sorrel
The Pelican iPad case does one thing, and it does it very well: It makes your iPad look like a Dell laptop c.1995. Kidding. It also protects the iPad within from pretty much anything you can throw at it.
Pelican is famous for its super-tough camera cases, shockproof, dustproof and waterproof plastic boxes that can protect your gear from a quick swim or even airline baggage handlers. The iPad case is the same, only smaller. It actually holds more than just an iPad. There’s space inside for an Apple Bluetooth keyboard and an iPad power brick (US-only — the non-folding prongs of Euro and British adapters don’t fit).
Once slotted into their custom cutouts, the lid snaps shut and holds everything in place. Almost: The case works with the iPad 1 and the iPad 2, so the slot is a little to big for the thinner iPad. On the plus side, this means that it fits perfectly with the Smart cover in place.
You can also use the case as an impromptu office. Photo Charlie Sorrel
The i1075 case weighs 892 grams (1.8 pounds) empty. It isn’t light, but then it isn’t meant to be. This thing is meant to be bombproof. Once you have clamped it shut, nothing will get inside except for air, via a small purge valve that equalizes pressure.
You iPad will be kept intact during drops of up to three feet, and you can safely float it down the river without worrying. An optional shoulder strap lets you carry it like a purse.
In use, the case is very solid. I had no worries when I took the photos you see here, for example. Everything fits snugly but not so tight you have to pull anything out, and the case can also be used as a mobile office. The iPad slots into an easel and sits up at an angle, and the keyboard can be used with the case on your lap.
I would probably never use it, though. The whole point of an iPad is that it’s portable. But if you work in construction, or are traveling cross-country by motorbike, then it could be ideal. What’s more, it’s a relative steal. The i1075 can be had for as little as $50. This seems impossible in a world where I paid €30 ($40) for a flimsy plastic protector for the rear of my iPad.
This game is teh funz! Want to play me in multiplayer? Add me on Game Center (Juicetra) and follow me on twitter. I will tweet out when I am looking for an opponent! Thanks to Evan for creating the video border and thumbnail! www.youtube.com Check out my NEW WEBSITE: www.Juicetra.com CONNECT Twitter: www.twitter.com Facebook: www.facebook.com Twitch: www.twitch.tv T-Shirts: www.juicetra.com
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at 3:43 PM
Clip of the Day. Daniel Castillo’s iPhone clips, featuring Daewon Song, Manny Santiago, Lil Shmatty, Ronnie Sandoval, Chris Roberts, Mike Maldonado, Jeremy Adams, Chico Brenes, Cooper Wilt, Daniel, Yoon Sul, Jon Fitisemanu, Paul Shier and Vincent Alvarez.
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at 12:52 PM
The Magnus holds your iPad at one angle, and in landscape orientation
It’s hard to see why anyone would spend $50 on this small sliver of aluminum, but design-wise, it has to be one of the best-looking iPad stands around. It comes from Ten One design, purveyor of minimal iAccessories to the rich and tasteful, and it’s called the Magnus.
The Magnus is carved from aluminum, stuffed with neodymium magnets and shod with rubber feet. It sits handsomely on your desk until an iPad 2 gets close, whereupon it snatches it from your hand and hugs it tightly, gripping the iPad’s own embedded magnets. Thus embraced, the tablet seems to float above your desk.
Now, if you own an iPad 2 you likely have a Smart Cover already, which perform the same function and more. Then again, there’s something to be said for a purpose-made stand permanently set up on your desk. And if it’s anything like Ten One products I have used in the past, it’s likely to be very well made. Available now, only for the iPad 2.
CNET TV Video Link: cnettv.cnet.com See what’s new in Apple’s updated iPod Nano, including full Nike Plus integration, new clock faces, and a new home screen navigation.
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at 4:17 AM
