Use your heart to simplify your life

The last IoT device from this series, after Kapture and Inteliscope, is the Nymi Band, a wristband that uses your unique cardiac rhythm to authenticate your identity, allowing you to wirelessly take control of computers or smartphones, open doors (car, house, hotel etc), check into flights, pay and so much more. No more credit cards, no more keys, no more remembering long passwords or going through all the trouble of checking in-  Nymi and your heart will do that for you! 100% secure!

Be a real shooter

We continue the presentation of cool IoT devices started yesterday with Kapture with Inteliscope, the device which  transforms every amateur shooter into a professional one. Used for hunting, in the army or for paintball or airsoft, Inteliscope uses your smartphone to zoom in up to 5X on the target, record a shooting and share it with your friends. See the presentation video below for more information and stay tuned for tomorrow’s post on another must have IoT device.

Get back the last 60 seconds of your life!

Check out  Kapture, the device which will save the last 60 seconds of your life just by a simple tap, after the conversation actually passed. You can then listen to the recording on your smartphone and trim it, name it, share it and tag it.  And if you are a fashion lover, like the ones described in our previous posts, there’s no need to worry: it comes in different colors so you will never be in the radar of fashion police.

Your Experience - Enhanced

The Internet of Things has effected and will continue to effect many facets of life. My colleagues have mentioned several including sleep, food, and fashion to name a few - yet it is this holistic experience of the Internet of Things in it's entirety that has the power to transform our experience of the world altogether.

The applications can be found in several industries, but the one's I find most interesting are the applications within the entertainment industry. For example, attendees at a concert might be able to pre-order pictures of the show, or of themselves in their seats, from cameras in the arena. Live video of fashion runways from the model's point of view could be streamed to smartphones. Mixing customer data with information available to event organizers could also be applied in highly practical ways, such as alerting concert goers to the nearest fast food stand or the bathroom with the shortest ques. The applications are endless, and done so that no one ever attending a concert feels like this anymore...

One example of this type of technology is in boxing. Many people saw the Floyd "Money" Mayweather vs. Manny Pacquiao fight. Until the last minute it was unclear who won. Debates raged on after the match as well. How many punches did Mayweather actually land? How hard were they? Was the matched fixed from the beginning? Imagine the entertainment experience uptick if the data below were available for viewers and boxers... No more uncertainty, one clear decisive outcome, may the best man win..

So we know that there is great potential for the Internet of Things to be better embedded into the entertainment experience. Which area of entertainment would you like to see the Internet of Things having the biggest impact? Give us your thoughts by clicking here.

Internet Connected Hangover

Who amongst us has not gone a little hard at a party, had a few too many drinks and passed out?

Even if your friends aren't as creative as the guy's above (or you've been partying alone), and, after passing out, you don't wake up covered in marker, or missing eyebrows, the hangover alone will ruin your day.

What are we going to do about it? Stop drinking all together? NO!!!!!

Thankfully, MIT Media Lab have come to our rescue. An MIT student, Dhairya Dand - having gone WAY too hard on a night out and woken up in hospital - has developed internet connected ice cubes that flash red when you've had too much to drink. This invention is surely going to save lives.

This blog has previously discussed on how we are now connected to the internet in the fields of fashion, sleep, driving, food and sex. They all make rational sense. But now edible internet?

Go home internet connected things, you're drunk.

The kitchen of the future. Available today.

Nowadays everything is getting connected. Even ice cubes, condoms and diapers.

But what about the kitchen? We all know that old grandma recipes are the best and everybody claims to be good at executing them. But I’m sure that a little geeky help to improve the outcomes and save time would be welcome, right?
Let’s cook a special dinner the IoT way.

Ingredients first.
How beautiful it is when you have bought everything for preparing lasagne except the most important one: lasagne.
With the Neo Smart Jar this will be just a nightmare of the past. Not only it keeps track of which and how much you have at home of each ingredient, but it also takes care a placing an order on Amazon Fresh for you.

Now, let’s add the tomato sauce. Wait, was it 100 or 200 grams? And that’s to me looks as too much oil…
Sounds familiar, right? Well, now you can forget about this hassle. Get yourself a Get Drop Scale.
Not only it will guide you step-by-step through the recipe, but will also detect errors.

Ok. I know. Real cooks don’t weight ingredients. But they do care a lot about pan temperature to get that nutty flavour. Should I remind you of that lousy, pale, steak you had at home yesterday?
Meet SmartyPan:

And if you prefer to have your T-bone BBQ style, iGrill will manage to get it to the point.

Perfect. We are now ready to eat our special meal. Take a fork, please. But not the century old piece of cutlery. The Hapi one. Not only it checks your calories intake, but also the way you eat, to help you stay fit.

Lastly, your old cookbook may also need a refresh. Let’s call IBM’s Watson for that.
Seriously. Never thought about a “Vietnamese apple kebab”? It did. And it has just published its first recipes collection.

Please, hurry up to try it. Because in the near future your fridge will probably decide that butter isn't welcome in this house.

Why does IoT matter to me?

We live in a incredibly connected world already so how does the Internet of Things continue to revolutionize the way humans interact with technology? The answer is very simple: it changes everything. Humans have fantasized for years about home automation and now the future is finally becoming a reality.

Big tech companies such as Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and IBM to name a few, have invested truckloads of money to be able to deploy IoT technology to the consumer. For example, as my colleague Francesco mentioned in his post, Amazon's Dash service allows a user to re-order more detergent, soap, paper, etc with a press of a button which, sends the information directly to Amazon and the product will be delivered straight to your home. How many times have you had to run out of the house just to get essential supplies that you forgot to buy? Exactly. Well just imagine a world where you never run out of toilet paper or run out of milk for your favorite cereal.

 

So what's exciting to me about IoT? Only the best thing in the world: Sleep. Did you know that humans spend about a third of their life sleeping, that's almost 25 years under the sheets! Fact.

Unfortunately, at this time, there aren't many companies competing in this important segment. The most promising product out there is Luna which wants to turn any bed into a smart bed. Imagine a bed that you can control the temperature with your smartphone and can communicate with your smart thermostat - Nest - what temperature to set when you're sleeping to ensure maximum sleep time. I'm already excited!

So what does the future hold for a comfortable sleep? In the not too distant future, there will be a single bedding ecosystem that records your sleep patterns, monitors heart rate, sets the thermostat ideal for sleep, locks your door, and wakes you up automatically to your favorite song. Then you have the pillows and sheets. These are not smart at all although there was a company who promised to have sheets that snap together with the duvet cover which would at least eliminate the need to make your bed everyday. 

And if you are badly missing your significant other for bedtime, there is even a product for that! It's called Pillow Talk and it was designed so you can feel (through a heartbeat sound or soft glow) that your long distance partner is sleeping next to you. However, there is one slight disadvantage to this product - you might creep out your friends..

Here's to a good sleep!

What Should I Wear Today?

For women “What to wear” can be the toughest question of the day, or the night before…. And lets be honest… sometimes you just want to repeat the same outfit that you wore before because nobody saw you. It was 20 years ago that the movie Clueless showed us this amazing software that helped you decided what clothes you should wear today.

Today, you can find apps that can help you with the process (but still not as cool as the one for clueless)

ClosetSpace

One of the cool features of this app is that it provides you with outfits according to the weather

It also links with your Google Calendar, so that you can know what you wore on a specific day. One of the selling points of this app is the discounts offered by ClosetSpace’s partners which include: Glam Squad and Rachel Zoe’s mobile Covet Fashion.

My Dressing

At the beginning it might take time to capture a picture of all your clothes, but once you do, this app allows you to combine and organize your own clothes into collections.

There are more similar apps out there that can guide you and make this process simpler, can help you to stay on style, and more importantly let you share your outfits because now days its all about sharing in social media.

But I can stop thinking about Cher’s Closet…..

 I was looking to see if maybe there were projects related to the internet of things because we now value our time more and finding what to wear can be a time consuming decision, and I will just love to have a program that could recommend me what to wear today according to today’s weather, event type, and more

Connected Closet

This closet is connected to the weather, and as soon as you open it the hangers that contain clothes that you can wear according to the weather will light up. Then you will make your first selection, and only the items that can match your outfit will stay light up. This takes in consideration that your hanger knows exactly what article of clothes are in it. So now we are talking… This is definitely closer it to the Cher’s Closet that I have been wanting for 20 years.

PHILIPS IntelligentWardrobe

Even though it is just a patent, this patent will make our everyday life choices easier. This intelligent wardrobe management system will show the user the options that they have for that day. Another feature of this closet is that you can record the meeting or occasion that you will be wearing this outfit to, and record who has attended the event, and this intelligent wardrobe management system will make sure that you do not repeat the same outfit.

Hopefully... We don't have to wait more years to be able to get Cher's Closet