GADGETS

I want to share with you three amazing and useful gadgets.

The first one is UV SunSense. This is a bracelet that detects your sunscreen level. When you use the sunscreen, apply some on the bracelet. When the band fades to light pink, it is recommended to reapply sunscreen on your body and on the band. If it fades completely it means you had enough sun!

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Sometimes we don’t realize we need sunscreen, bad thing! The skin has memory, and although it seems a simple burn, with time  become age spots, wrinkles or something worse. It is therefore important to protect us and especially children. Putting a bracelet on our kids can aware them that it’s important to be protected.

Here's the official website where you’ll find all the information. And here you will find the website of Spanish dealer. You can buy it online, sold in packages and the price is quite affordable.

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Secondly here we have the Halo Belt. It is a LED belt ideal for cyclists. It is designed to make cyclists more visible when are driving at night.

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The light is vivid and it seems to be an effective and comfortable object.

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They also make bags with LED light too.

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The belt works with a thermoplastic polyurethane optic fiber. Powered by two small batteries and can change the light intensity. There are different sizes and costs approximately 85 USD.

Here's the official website.

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The third one is Lumoback. It’s a device that monitors our body posture throughout the day and night and tells us about using a vibration on the phone. It's a kind of belt that we can wear when we sit in the office, at home, sleeping, walking or running.

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Surely it’s strange to wear it all day, but can be useful for people who need to correct acquired bad habits.

Here is the official website and a couple of videos to see how it works.

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LUMOback from andrew chang on Vimeo.

LUMOback from andrew chang on Vimeo.

And that’s all

Marina

COMPARING TABLETS

I guess many of you already know the iPad mini, a small and versatile tablet that has caught the attention of many users. Now it can be found in stores with the following versions and prices:

16GB 329 €, 32GB 429 € and 64GB 529 €.

 

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People demands became real, and the iPad mini was released as a smaller tablet, which can be hold up well with one hand and cheaper than the original.

There are many people who say that there is no real competition against Apple, but since the beginning of 2012 there are two devices that should be considered: the Nexus 7 and Kindle Fire HD. These 7-inch tablets offer an unbeatable price with excellent Android system. But Apple didn’t stay behind and released the iPad mini. It is more than a smaller version of the iPad, this is a device redesigned completely getting a really great result.

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The smooth beveled side of the screen has two purposes: less metal and glass, and therefore less weight, and ensures that the screen can be touched and slid with only a finger when you're holding it with one hand.

It includes stereo speakers at the bottom that despite don't produce a perfect sound, it easily fills a small room in a very satisfactory way.  

The screen doesn’t have the pixels per inch to be considered Retina. However, the screen is still much better than many others.

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Some other characteristics:

Fontal Face Time HD camera offers video recording at 720p and able to get images that reach the quality of 1.2 megapixels.

The screen resolution is the same as the iPad 2, it’s perfect for most apps.

The new Lightning connector saves space and allows faster upload and sync.

Weight is very important to choosing a tablet, because we have it many hours in our hand. In this aspect the iPad mini is very competitive in front of other tablets.

If you hold the device with your thumb over the edge, the system will not recognize the accidentally touches on that side of the screen, assuming you use your thumb to hold it. But if you touch the screen with the same thumb it will function normally.

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This is the Nexus 7. And below there is a picture where you can visually compare the two tablets.

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This is the Kindle Fire HD, with a photo that compares the three tablets.

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Let's do a comparative table to have a more clear the difference between the three tablets.

We might say that the iPad mini is small enough to take a photo on the street without feeling ridiculous, and comfortably to read a magazine.

Hopefully this post will help you a bit to choose your tablet.

 Font: iCreate nun.36

Marina

SPECIAL LIGHTS

If we want to personalize our homes we have several things to think of: furniture, curtains, chairs, sofas, cabinets... and we must also consider the lighting.

Many times we don’t think about lights until the end of decorative process, but the truth is that light it’s an important thing in each room or atmosphere.

Things like the size of the rooms, natural light, guidance... are basic qualities that you should look at your home.

For those who want to go further and have considered all this aspects, I want to show you two interesting items/technological gadgets.

The first one is HUE. HUE it’s a light bulb that turns on or turns off, regulate the intensity, or change color according to the taste or the intentions of the consumer.

Only with changing your light bulbs for HUE bulbs and using a WiFi device, you can send an order to the bulb. All orders are sent from the mobile phone, computer, or tablet using an application available for Apple and Android.



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You can choose colors and intensities from a wide range of preferences, and even can choose the color of light touching a picture of our personal album.

It's a bit difficult to explain, so take a look at the following video and you will understand better. It’s funny to see how it works!

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The second kind of light is one of those things that can facilitate you existence but you can live perfectly well without them. It’s that kind of things that we call "a whim".

It’s a light, made by Philips, (the WAKE UP LIGHT) to be placed in the bedside table. It’s connected to the phone, and it turns on very slowly in order to have a more pleasant and soft awake in the morning.

I put here some photos, but on their website you can find a video that shows the process much better!

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And I let you another video.

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So  now you know  how to have a pleasing awake and how to decorate your house in a thousand of different ways!

Marina

EXTRA MOTIVATION

I see people running everywhere. Now, in addition to cars, motorcycles, bicycles and people walking, you can be run over by a  runner wearing tights and headphones running at top speed, listening "motivating" music and breathing the city car fumes. And while I’m seeing them I wonder where I lost my motivation. I've tried several times  but I've failed!

For those lucky enough to have carried this adrenaline virus, here are some accessories that are going to extra motivate you for sure.

Nike + FuelBand is a new fitness tool by Nike. The big advantage is that the battery lasts up to 10 days! It can make running much more interesting and fun.

It has an accelerometer, a sleep follower and nutrition info. It gives your challenges in synchrony with the mobile application and shares your achievements with your friends.

Watch more about it:

Fitbit, a gadget that uses an accelerometer to count steps, determines the quality and quantity of sleep and has an altimeter to measure the stairs climbed up. All data is synchronized to the web, so you can view and analyze the statistics of your goals. The price is $ 100.

Fitbit Zip from Lightshow Creative on Vimeo.

Jawbone UP is a new gadget similar to Fitbit in many ways: it has the accelerometer, the sleep follower and application of nutrition. It also has a similar cost: 129 USD.

 

But Jawbone has a slight advantage, you never forget it, because you always wear it on. And one of the best properties is that the battery lasts about one week.

You choose ;)

Marina

FUN RECHARGE

Some time ago I saw this craft on Internet and I thought if I ever found the right materials it would be easy to do it, and it would be fun too!. A few days ago, in IKEA and by chance I saw this pot of tiny plastic pieces. It’s a game for children, but I thought this material could be wonderful to do my craft!

As you can see it consists in decorating the charger phone cable. In my case, over time, my charger cable has changed from a bright white to a dull gray... and I wanted to give it a new look, fun and original.

With small pliers I cut the side of each plastic and put it round the cable.

The result is this. Lovely! Isn’t it?! You can make thousands of color combinations and change as often as you want. This one is very feminine, I admit it :P

But it’s obvious you can do a thousand different versions!

Now I have a lot of mini plastics! But the material is cheap and I can use it for other things.

Hope you like it and try doing it!

Marina

DON’T YOU HAVE THE IPHONE 5 ?!

The brand new iPhone 5 it’s been in stores for some weeks (yes, I’m late). For those like me, who don’t have much idea of the difference between iPhone 5 and the previous edition (besides the fact that iPhone 5 it’s thinner and taller), I will explain what Apple people tell us about the differences.

It’s 7.6 mm thick (18% thinner than the 4S), weighs 112 grams (20% lighter than the previous version). The resolution is 326 pixels per inch, like the previous device: it’s the 'Retina' display. And what ‘Retina’ means? It means that this display has much more resolution, so you can’t see the pixels of the screen. Think about when you approach very close to you TV screen, there you can see the pixels, but in the iPhone ‘Retina’ screen it’s impossible to see the pixels. So I think, why they don’t call it ‘No Retina’?! ;)

The creators say that with this new size we can see one more row of icons.

However you should know that applications designed for older iPhones will not be rescaled to the new screen, so we will see them with two black bars at the sides of the screen. So, why this? It seems we are going back, that's not improving the phone! Wrong impression! The improvement is in the new proportions 16:9 (wide 16 times and 9 times high), a standard of video, that will let us watch videos in entire screen without black stripes.

Another important development is the operating system iOS6, which is incorporated, but does not include the Google maps (what!!? Apparently Mr. Google and Mr. Apple are not friends).

The new model also includes a data connection "ultra fast" but that does not work in Spain because our Telefònica (the Spanish data supplier) friends are still trying this technology…

And it has a new processor, Apple's A6, which is twice faster and 22% smaller than its predecessor.

There are also changes in the camera: it still being an 8 megapixel sensor, but is 25% smaller and include more features. A new way to photograph, "Dynamic low light" would do more good pictures without using the flash, and other enhancements such as a more intelligent filter that improve image quality. Generally, photos are captured 40% faster (that's good!). The iPhone 5 also incorporates a panorama mode for taking panorama pictures (cool! I look silly with the Dermandar app, spinning like a robot ...)

The charger cable, also has changed: Apple replaces the current (30-pin) connector for a smaller one (9-pin), called the ‘Lightning’. This makes old accessories obsolete, but the company sells an adapter. Please! And why this change???!! The good news is you can connect the cable  on both sides, without having to find the connector draw.

Other improvements: the voice calls, the new iPhone includes 3 different microphones, one in front, one behind and one below, and a noise cancellation system.

Once you have this little preciousness, you need to think about how protect it from crashes and scratches with a case.

Well, once I've reviewed the iPhone 5 improvements, I leave you some pictures of covers and cases. Choose one and be fashion!

Here is Plegit, from Quirky, that produces this fantastic case. On their website you will see in detail this original idea. This case allow us to change some parts and have different colors, saving the phone against scratches at the same time.

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Society6: There are 100 pages of cases! Drawings, images, colors...!

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Looking for something thin and lighter? here you have Reveal case. Beautiful, and effective

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OVRMLD Molded Case it's flexible but hard, good protection and modern design. 

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Organic Wool Sleeve is a case that you can find on Etsy. It’s made of felt, I have one like this, done by myself!!

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DODO iPhone Wallet it’s a case that looks like a wallet. The  DODO designers make very beautiful objects for smartphones and computers.
 

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And the last one, Reveal Case, with this kind of cases, with textures, colors and prints like this! 

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Oh! I wont miss this one!! wear condoms on the wallet it's over! :) This is Playa Case.

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If you know something more about iPhone 5 and you want share it with us, please, let us know!!

See you soon!

Marina

BYE BYE ROAMING

Today a technology post!

I want to talk to you about Tripneter. Tripneter is a technological solution designed and developed by three young engineers from Barcelona. It is a device designed for travelers and foreign tourists who want to have Internet on their Smartphones without suffer the roaming bills. For a fee of 4.99 Euros per day, tourists have 250 MB connection to operate throughout Spain.

The truth is that the first thing any tourist does when his plane arrives at the airport is turn off their mobile data system, so this three engineers offer to the consumers the possibility to rent minirouters for 5 Euros per day without any contract.

And they have succeeded! During the past summer reached 300 contracts per month.

Consumers can reserve their device via web (indicating the address of the hotel where they stay), or directly rent it in the stand of Barcelona Tourism in Plaça Catalunya square.

When I read news like this I realize that there are always solutions for everything, so there are people creating, doing and succeeding!

Find more info here.

Marina