The FunBox is a bedside alarm clock but it’s also a widget-running Chumby, which means it’ll let you check your twitter feeds, load up a track on Pandora or do other inappropriately stimulating activities right before catching some Zs. The device has just passed through the FCC and its paperwork reveals a 3.5-inch (possibly resistive) touch screen, a 454MHz processor, 1GB DDR memory, SD card slot and a USB port for an external drive. We couldn’t tell you price or availability at this stage, but with top smartphones increasingly coming with night dock accessories the FunBox is hardly likely to find a guaranteed perch beside our pillow.

Still awake? There’s a Chumby FunBox app for that originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 01 Oct 2011 00:38:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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In case you are in quest of protecting your belongings and your loved ones, you must take into account hidden spy cameras. These are glorious for answering lots of questions you may probably have concerning what in actual fact goes on once you’re away, from maintaining a tally of your baby’s nanny to discovering out pilfering at your workplace.

Hidden spy cameras are designed in such a way that they combine in with the surroundings, making them nearly undetectable, in particular to people who have no idea to look them. The vast majority of individuals visiting your house or workplace would under no circumstances assume to search for one, and even when they do, they will under no circumstances locate them except they know exactly where you could have hid them. Several individuals behave very differently after they know cameras are actively keeping track of them; however, a hidden digital camera enables you to to show the behaviors that occur whilst individuals think that no one will detect.

In the mean time, most clandestine cameras are wi-fi as well. Not simply does this make them simple to conceal in an odd place, nonetheless it as properly makes it an awesome deal simpler to put them precisely the place you would like them. You do not have to be anxious on running wires throughout the room, or concealing the wires once you’re ready. Hidden spy cameras present one of the most versatile dwelling surveillance methods decisions to be had. Mounting them is straightforward; you may conceal them in speakers, in a pen stand, or as properly in an alarm clock. Daily use items make straightforward hiding locations for the hidden cameras obtainable at present. Hidden spy cameras are amazingly minute; together with several that soak up each the camera and the DVR in a single piece, as an alternative of a camera transmitting to a receiver positioned in one other place. These digital devices are simple to make use of and supply several hours of video recording at a time.

Hidden spy cameras have a lot of makes use of, which a regular security camera wouldn’t be appropriate. If in case you have children, then it’s best to have a hidden camera to maintain a watch on your little one’s nanny and as effectively to watch your kid’s actual conduct. Everyone knows that kids act another way with grown-ups round, in particular if the grown-ups are their parents. With a hidden digicam in your home, you will make out if they are behaving, as they need to be or not. There are a number of different immense makes use of for hidden cameras within the house. You’ll be able to watch over babysitters, pets, and as properly, a spouse who you believe is being adulterous. Really, these cameras are a wonderful selection anytime you might want to know what is going on behind your again; however do not want your close watch to be noticeable.

This kind of hidden spy camera is just not solely purposeful at home but in addition at office, such a digicam will help you expose a colleague probing your desk. For industries, hidden cameras are a really useful tool to maintain a watch on their workers. It’s mostly a wonderful solution to expose stealing and different acts performed by employees who believe that no one is looking at them. The advantages of hidden spy cameras are almost infinite, making them an excellent safety selection for the home, workplace, or industry. Miniaturized, compact, and simple to cover, hidden spy cameras can expose any individual in the immoral act; all without letting him make out you are looking.

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While many of us figuratively feel like we sleep with our iPhones, I’ve been literally doing just that for the past few months, testing a variety of sleep monitoring and maintenance tools. Here are some resulting recommendations for getting a better night’s sleep, thanks to some third-party hardware and software.

Zeo Personal Sleep Coach 9

With the Zeo, you wear a headband to bed each night that communicates wirelessly with an alarm clock base. The band determines your “optimal” wake period within a certain window of time. The data is stored on an SD card, which you must then upload manually to Zeo’s website after each night.

While it was nice to know the quality of my sleep and how often I woke, uploading the data each morning was cumbersome and I’d frequently forget to do it. The headband was very uncomfortable and would often slip off. After a few weeks, I had to return the unit since it was completely useless to me, but at least it came in handy for benchmarking other devices (yes, at one point I had no less than four devices attached to me during sleep).

Best use: Hard to find one, unfortunately.

BodyMedia Body Sync 9 plus .95 a month

This device is primarily a weight loss monitoring tool you wear 24 hours a day, seven days a week, taking it off only to recharge and shower. You wear this device near your tricep on your upper arm, and it’s about the size of a iPod nano. It monitors how much time you were in bed, but doesn’t take into account how restful that sleep was and doesn’t have an alarm function. Unlike other devices, you don’t have to set it. It’s always watching you and syncs via Bluetooth.

After wearing it during a work out, I was able to figure out the optimal time to exercise in the evening so that I’m not too “revved” up before bed. I’d monitor my metabolism in real-time and figure out how many hours it took for my body to go from calorie burning mode to relaxation mode. I also liked knowing how many calories I burned while sleeping.

This device isn’t cheap, and the monthly monitoring adds to the cost, but if you want to see how sleep (or lack thereof) impacts your weight loss goals, this is a great product.

Best Use: Sleep monitoring in conjunction with weight loss.

Lark 9/9 w/ coaching

The Lark is a wristband you wear while sleeping. It comes with its own charging station that also serves as an iPhone stand, although you can also charge it using any mini USB cable.

The Lark monitors your sleep to analyze how many times you woke and how “restful” the sleep was. It gives you a rating such as fair, poor, OK and good. For an additional charge, you can pay for sleep coaching, which will use the results to suggest better sleep habits. The Lark is unique in that instead of initially waking you up with an alarm, it vibrates silently. This enables you to wake yourself without waking your sleep partner and the rest of the house. My spouse was quite pleased with this and so was the dog. If you don’t awake from the vibration, the iOS app will use a failsafe alarm sound to wake you “gently” with the sounds of birds tweeting.

During testing, I often found the vibration rather jarring, and sometimes more disturbing than the actual alarm. I felt like someone was shaking me awake as if there were some kind of emergency. Over time I got used to it and learned that vibration meant it was time to wake up, but still was caught off guard some mornings. Sleeping with the device on was no problem. It was quite comfortable and felt like I was wearing a watch.

The failsafe alarm sound wasn’t changeable and on occasion I didn’t always hear it. While the coaching was interesting, it was hardly worth the extra in my opinion. The advice wasn’t personalized, but simply took aspects of my sleep and offered suggestions (even some contradictory ones).

The iOS app wants to be in the foreground at all times, which made it difficult to use music apps such as Ambiance. If another app presented a notification while sleeping, it was confusing to get the Lark app back to alarm mode. If you want to snooze the alarm, you can’t set a specific time but are given a menu of choices in five-minute intervals.

Best Uses: Waking up without disturbing the household, nominal sleep monitoring and suggestions.

Wakemate .99

Wakemate has had a long rocky road to market: constant delays, hardware defects in initial release and buggy iOS apps. Luckily, the device seems to have overcome its difficult beginning and is now stable and reliable.

The Wakemate is a small Bluetooth USB device wrapped in a fuzzy terry cloth band that you wear around your wrist to sleep. It doesn’t vibrate like the Lark, but simply records your sleep movements and then uploads them to your iOS device and the Internet when it’s time to wake up. The iPhone (or iPad) stays safe on your beside table.

Wakemate’s unique feature is that, similar to the Zeo, it claims to monitor your sleep patterns and wake you up at an optimal time in your sleep cycle. I didn’t experience any perceived benefits from this, but did notice that the Zeo and Wakemate woke me generally at the same time. Wakemate’s iOS app allows you to customize the ringer to a song or one of its selected melodies. The default alarm was quite pleasant and not the blaring klaxon of the typical alarm clock nor the too-gentle sound I experienced with the Lark. Since it wakes you at an “optimal” time, you can’t snooze the alarm. It forces you to get up plain and simple. Personally I liked that rigidity.

Sleep result numbers were nearly identical to that of the Zeo. The “sleep score” was within 10 percent, and I felt it accurately recorded my wake and sleep times. Even though I might be in bed more than I thought, I realized a lower sleep score meant a lack of quality in my sleep. The app gives you the ability to tag your sleep in order to analyze patterns such as what you ate or drank before bed or your stress levels. You can even post your results to Facebook and Twitter.

During my test period I was disappointed with all the device problems and the manufacturer was very slow to respond. Although there was a known defect in their product, they still required owners to pay the shipping back to manufacturer. One mistake can be safely ignored, but I did see a pattern of problems and sincerely hope they get their house in order because I really liked the product.

Of all the devices I used, this was the most economical. A one time investment of covered the device and there were no subscription fees to continue using it. Of course, that could change and the device isn’t usable without the app.

Best Uses: Detailed analysis of sleep patterns.

What will I be sleeping with now on? The Wakemate now has a trusted position in my bedroom. The times I forgot to charge it, I truly missed the analysis. I do like the Lark for those times I have to wake up extra early and don’t want to disturb the house. Who says I have to sleep with just one?

Disclosure: Bodymate, Lark, and Wakemate provided samples and service for this review.

Related content from GigaOM Pro (subscription req’d):

• A Media Tablet Forecast, 2011 – 2015
• A Global Mobile Handset Platform Forecast, 2011 – 2015
• The Future of Workplaces

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It’s a familiar face, sure, but there’s a key ingredient thrown here that’s been lacking on JBL’s prior iDevice docks: AirPlay. We’re still waiting (and waiting) to see if Apple’s going to expand its licensing program to allow third-party vendors the ability to toss in AirPlay video streaming, but for now, JBL’s taking advantage of what’s out there. The On Air Wireless AirPlay speaker dock — which is shipping today to Best Buy and Apple Stores after being teased a few weeks ago — is now good and official, enabling consumers to wirelessly stream their iTunes library from Macs, PCs, iPhones, iPods or iPads right to the dock. Aside from a rather unorthodox design (which should go a long way to dispersing jams in a 360-degree fashion), you’ll also find a color LCD, digital FM radio, an inbuilt alarm clock, DSP technology and a proprietary adapter that enables it to be worn as headgear at your next rave. We’re guessing that final bit makes the 9.99 price tag entirely more palatable.

Continue reading JBL ships AirPlay-enabled On Air speaker dock, charges stiff premium for wireless luxury

JBL ships AirPlay-enabled On Air speaker dock, charges stiff premium for wireless luxury originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 11 Apr 2011 09:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Meet any seasoned techie, and they’ll likely spin whimsical tales of computing’s early days, and the challenge of finding a practical use for a device with seemingly limitless potential (you know, like feeding your cat while you sleep). A new product from SparkFun promises to bring this old-school awesomeness into the smartphone age: introducing IOIO (pronounced yo-yo), a breakout box that enables any Android 1.5+ device to control electronic circuits from within Android’s applications. Designed in collaboration with Google, Spark’s PCB connects to your phone over USB, working its magic through a Java library that hooks into your apps. This DIY paradise will begin shipping in a few weeks, and can be yours for .95 on pre-order. We’ve already witnessed some clever mods with IOIO, and when it sent a real alarm clock ringing, we couldn’t help but smile. Crack one yourself after the break.

Continue reading SparkFun intros IOIO for Android, a hack-free breakout box to get your mind spinning

SparkFun intros IOIO for Android, a hack-free breakout box to get your mind spinning originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 10 Apr 2011 04:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Are you one of those people who lies awake for hours trying to getting to sleep?

Do you toss and turn for hours each night trying to seize just a few idyllic hours in dreamland before the alarm clock wakes you from your forty winks?

If the above sounds like you then read-on as I have a highly original and entertaining solution for you.

And now for the best news of all! It isn’t chemical-based. It’s not illegal. It’s not addictive. Sounds too good to be true doesn’t it?
What is this magical cure for insomnia?

It is the wonderfully enjoyable world of old time radio.. Once I explain a little bit more about old-time radio you’ll understand just why it is so amazingly effective.

One of the reasons many insomniacs struggle to get to sleep is that their mind is too active and can’t reach a restful state. For example, they might be replaying what happened at work that day. It could be worrying about events, past and present. It might be fretting over something coming up. It could be worrying about a loved one or a relationship that has gone bad. There are a thousand reasons and these will vary from person to person.

That’s where old-time radio comes in with a wonderful solution.

The old-time radio shows of the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s quickly take your mind off of whatever is bothering it. Do you remember when you were a young child and your parents would read to you. It is just the same.

You might scoff at this non-scientific solution, but don’t. Give it a try and you’re likely to discover for yourself how effective it is. Before you can count five sheep, you’ll be zzz’ing away.

There are many reasons why old-time radio shows from bygone days are far better than listening to things such as talk radio stations, news radio or even conventional audiobooks.

Firstly, old radio shows have an innocence that makes them like an audio version of chicken soup for the sleepless.

Secondly, the storylines of these radio shows are not too complex and so give your brain a chance to relax.

Thirdly, old radio shows are not dissimilar to meditiation. The brain struggles to hold two thoughts at the same time, so if your mental energy is taken up by the radio show you are listening to, then there’s just no room for worry about events at the office, or other mental distrations.

Fourthly, a typical old time radio show is just thirty minutes long. If you nod off half way through (which is the objective) it’s easy enough to pick up where you left off.

Finally, old-time radio offers something for everyone. It doesn’t matter whether you enjoy a thriller, a slushy romance, a family drama, a comedy or a brain challenging game show. There is just so much to choose from.

So, if you have tried everything and are still finding yourself tossing and turning all night why not give it a go. Get your hands on a selection of old-time radio shows today and put them to the test when you go to bed tonight. What have you got to lose.

Oh, and we can’t forget the one massive benefit over the usual insomnia cures. If these wonderful old time radio shows don’t cure your insomnia at least you’ll be entertained all night.