The worlds first family robot, sophisticated sleep monitors and a glass that measures your calorie in-take, all part of the new 'tech round-up' article on BritWit. Which such a tech forward focus on the 'wisdom posts' side, it felt only right to get a little gadget action packed into the weekly line-up. So here we go. Get ready to learn a little more about what will soon be available to buy and maybe (or definitely not) in your home!
Sense
Changing The Way You Sleep
Sense is a kick-starter project that seemed to go off the charts when its original $100k raising goal turned into a whopping $2.4 million. The product itself comes in two parts, a little chip that you put in your pillow and a wonderfully designed sphere that you place on your bedside table. The chip in your pillow senses your movement, which is able to pick up your restlessness and determine how deeply or lightly you are into your sleep cycle. The sphere is able to detect temperature, background noise, light and many other variables that could affect your sleep during the night. It will tell you whether your room is too hot or too bright so you can fix the issue and adjust your room to the ideal sleep setting you need. Once Sense feels the sleep environment is ready, it will flash green so you know. All of the information is collected and projected on an user-friendly app interface, so you can hear the noise that woke you up in the middle of the night, see the temperature that made you restless or figure out if it was the steet light turning on that interrupted your cycle. The final feature that stands Sense out from the crowd is its smart alarm. Upon setting a period of time in which you'd be happy to get up, Sense will automatically wake you up when you are at your lightest sleep cycle point, so that you don't have to feel grotty - you can just get up and start your day feeling fresh.
Jibo
The World's First Family Robot
It sounds pretty exciting and to be honest its kind of cute, but it also comes across a little creepy too for reasons I'll get onto in a minute. Firstly, the good stuff. Jibo is able to send and receive messages from anyone in your phone book, he'll read them to you and you listen to/send exactly what you say in return. He's an answering machine, telephone, camera, diary and storyteller all in one, but opposed to just having a quick 'ding' like you do on your phone, he'll actively tell you out loud what's on the agenda. Want to video chat with family far away? Jibo does that too, he even has the ability to turn around 360 degrees which the call receiver can control, meaning whoever is talking will be focused on without you having to lift a finger. Another cool trait of Jibo is his artificial intelligence. He will pick up on your habits and learn them, whether that means turning the heating on or off at certain hours of the day, ensuring the lights are switched off or even ordering you take out when you get home after a long day, he does it all.
Now to the creepy part. Despite all of Jibo's awesome characteristics and functions, I'm always a little skeptical about having a high resolution movable talking camera present around not only myself but children, every living second of the day and night. In an exaggerated example, if someone were to hack into your home network they may be able to see what Jibo see's and to me that sounds a little too creepy for comfort. Nevertheless the idea is awesome and it truly seems to be the first of its kind to be able to perform on such a level!
Vessyl
Change The Way You Drink
Let's face it - the increasingly health conscious society we live in isn't going to go back to its old ways anytime soon, which is why products like this seem to popping up more and more. Continuous technological advances allow us to streamline data between a huge spectrum of gadgets, so it was only a matter of time before something of this nature came to the market. Vessyl in simple terms is a sleek and sophisticated drink flask that measures what you've drank during the day, as well as components such as calories, sugars, fats and proteins. Once you pour in whatever you're drinking, Vessyl's technology is able to determine whats inside, whether its water, beer, soda or coffee. Mark One, the company between Vessyl also realize that not every drink is meant to be from a flask, so a manual input is available via the app for instances such as a glass of wine or a shot of tequila. Tracking the data in real time, Vessyl automatically syncs over a WiFi network to show a visual representation of what you've been drinking, your calories, fats, proteins, sugars and more on its app - so you can keep a healthy lifestyle.
Well, thats all for this week, stay tuned for more of the latest gadgets on the scene next week!