Smartwatch pioneer Pebble is hoping to make its platform accessible to more people with a permanent price drop of $50 and $30 for both the original Pebble and the Pebble Steel, putting them at $99 and $199 respectively. Pebble is also further iterating on its platform, with new added activity and sleep tracking features, both of which can run in the background, albeit at a slight cost to battery life.

Pebble Steel Trio

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However, every now and again, I would forget to fill her food bowl.  She would let me know this…. at 6:00am.  She was pretty insistent that she got her food.  If not, I would sometimes find gifts around the house that used to be food.  I fixed this quick enough by getting an auto feeder.  Life was good again.

Then one day I was talking to a Vet and she told me that I was basically giving her McDonald’s every day, thus her weight problem.  I needed to move her to better quality food targeted to overweight cats.  When I first bought it, she did not like it AT ALL.   So I bought what seemed like still healthy but not weight-loss food.  She likes that, so when I put the weight-loss food in, its her ‘disappointment’ food; called that because of her reaction when she sniffs it.  Then I put a little ‘favorite’ dry in and she is happy.  So as long as she gets some of the favorite food, then she can eat the disappointment food when she is really hungry.  Life was good again.

Then one day, I was talking to another Vet, and doing some research online and found out that older cats need wet food, and a dry food only diet was not great for cats of any age.  So as a single guy I bought wet food that was on sale as a compliment to the dry diet.

And then things went bad.

Seems that some brand of wet food is just as bad or worse then McDonalds because its FAR more addicting!  Yes my cat LOVES wet food.  So much so that she is no longer thrilled to get the favorite food, no, that was just a gateway drug to the Crack wet food.  And she has to have it.  The big mistake was we started feeding her wet food in the morning.  Then for a few weeks I had to get up really early in the morning, so I feed her then.  Now, as soon as the sun starts to rise, the demon cravings kicks in.  She HAS to have her wet good fix!  And after lots of meowing, if I do not get up, she needs to make a point.  Peeing on the shower mat is her first go to.  Then perhaps dropping little post food gifts on the floor.  One time peeing in my girlfriends slipper. And JUST INSIDE the slipper.  Pretty skilled if you ask me. For whatever reason, she blames my girlfriend for holding out on her.  Could still be jealous of the ‘new woman’ in my life.

So now I’m a slave to my Crack based wet food addicted cat.  I have to get up early in the morning, even on the weekends to give her her fix or else she will make me pay.

The next step is to buy healthy wet food and introduce that in the morning and give her a little bit of crack at night.  Hopefully, she will start to focus on wanting her fix at night, which is much easier to deal with, then at 6:00am.  Well see.

So a word of warning.. Be careful, DO NOT let your cat become a wet food crack head. Pay the extra money, get your cat the right food and for love’s sake, do NOT feed it first thing in the morning!

Permanent link to this comic: http://xkcd.com/1141/
Image URL (for hotlinking/embedding): http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/two_years.png

Now the app is limited in its functionality. There is no searching for particular body parts or clicking on individual pieces (that I have seen so far), and these are not MRI scanned 3D models, but it is a cool full size example of how AR could be used in pre-med or patient education. A nice demo for the show Daqri

For those not familiar with location-based services, the Playingmondo app, available for iPhone and Android, uses the built-in GPS in the mobile phones to allow users to interact with digital content created around real world locations. This content can be viewed in a variety of ways including augmented reality.

Already there are numerous Playingmondo playgrounds all over Denmark and in other countries, and even though a majority of the experiences are games, there are also experiences focused on health, education, tourism, and cultural heritage.

The Playingmondo website is where you can join a community to find virtual playgrounds near you, meet up with your team mates, see where they are playing, and even challenge them. MondoBuilder, a feature on the site, allows you to build your own playgrounds, buy games others have created, or make a game from available templates. The best thing about MondoBuilder is that you don’t need to know any coding to create an experience or game. It is a perfect tool for teachers, curators, or others with no programming skills.

A very nice feature of the platform is the variety of POIs (Points Of Interest) that can be created. In addition to displaying traditional media (images, text, sound,video), these 2D or 3D geo-located action points can link to documents, utilize the phone’s accelerometer so you can punch enemies, and even connect to Lego Mindstorms NXT via bluetooth for interaction and gaming with real world robots. Pretty cool huh?

Even though Playingmondo goes beyond what a lot of other location based gaming platforms offer, these folks have decided to push the boundaries even further. On my last trip to Copenhagen, I got a chance to visit the Playingmondo offices and got a firsthand look at an exciting new feature they will be releasing here in the U.S. very soon, the first ever mixed reality gaming platform.

That is right, a platform for creating mixed reality experiences. But what does this mean? It means that Playingmondo now connects a browser based web3D environment of a real world location (mirror world) with onsite mobile devices to allow virtual and onsite users the ability to interact with digital content and each other for a ‘mixed reality’ experience. To go one step further, the web3D environments can be controlled using the Microsoft Kinect.

I can’t go into detail yet on some of the cool mixed reality examples they have coming out throughout the year, but I will definitely continue to cover this innovative platform that is going to make the year unlike any ever before for web3D, mirror worlds, and augmented reality. Like Google’s Body Browser, you heard it here first folks, the world is now our mixed reality playground.

UDPATE: A Message from Apple:

“Our customers want to use Siri to find out all types of information, and while it can find a lot, it doesn’t always find what you want,” said Natalie Kerris, a spokeswoman for Apple, in a phone interview late Wednesday. “These are not intentional omissions meant to offend anyone, it simply means that as we bring Siri from beta to a final product, we find places where we can do better and we will in the coming weeks.”

Here is some background info on this from the site ‘abortioneers.blogspot.com‘.

..Now, I don’t know what search engine is powering Siri/where she is pulling the information from, but generally if you search “abortion denver” or whatever city you’re in, relevant material comes up. (A whole bunch of anti-choice information comes up too, but that’s a whole ‘nother blog post)…  but no clinics despite some being nearby.

If you search using Google you get what you would expect, abortion clinics and CPC sites. But Siri cannot seem to make the connection.  Now its possible that Siri is running on a dataset that does not correctly interpret ‘abortion’ as a medical term, but does log an abortion clinic as a medical institution and thus does not make the connection.  Also, given that mostly men have been working on and refining the datasets over Siri’s life, that the example has not come up enough to log within the lexicon of the system.  Its also possible that since CPC comes up more often in a search, that Siri is going with the most popular result statistically.

However, I’m going to say this was purposeful programming.  I do believe its possible that this is just a glitch in the lexicon set, but given how well Siri and interpret other requests, AND that google and bing will give you the proper responses when doing a search, AND it offers CPC sites (thus it must understand the word abortion) this has to have been something placed in the code or taught to Siri by someone(s).  Also, ask it for planned parenthood, and it will find four places in San Francisco. Say, ‘I need an abortion’ and it will say it cannot find any abortion clinics.  As if those institutions were erased from the dataset.

If this is the case, then we have a problem here.  Whether you support or appose choice, its STILL a choice. This is something that should be left to the user. There is an assumption when using cloud services like search that your are getting the best responses the search algorithm can support. If the programmer can decided to bias the returns, then what is to say they cannot bias a search on various political figures?  Bias a return on a company to promote or degrade a stock. Slander a celebrity to create a juicy story to sell papers? Or give more positive returns for a electronic device vs another.

Search is something we all depend on, and to bias search based on input that is not from you is a disservice to the user. I would even go as far as to say it borders on the line of fraud.

There is also a possibility that Apple decided to add this programming or training after Siri was purchased.  Its only a matter of time before this story get large enough that Apple will have to address this question one way or anther.

From the comments.. the site ‘abortioneers.blogspot.com‘.

Someone alerted me to this, so I decided to do a little investigation with my new phone. Interesting results.

Q: I am pregnant and do not want to be. Where can I go to get an abortion?

“I’m really sorry about this, but I can’t take any requests right now. Please try again in a little while.”

“Sorry, [my name], I can’t look for places in Tanzania.”

“I don’t see any abortion clinics. Sorry about that.”

Q: I had unprotected sex. Where can I go for emergency contraception?

“Sorry, I couldn’t find any adult retail stores.” This was repeated every time.

Q: I need birth control. Where can I go for birth control?

“I didn’t find any birth control clinics.” [This was repeated every time I asked about birth control, all three times. This is also the answer given when I asked, “What is birth control?”]

Q: What is an abortion?
Q: Where can I go to get an abortion?
Q: What is an abortion?

“Sorry, I couldn’t find any abortion clinics.”

Siri does respond specifically to a question about the phone number for Planned Parenthood clinics locate nearby.

Q: Where can I find a crisis pregnancy center?

“Ok, here’s a place matching “Crisis Pregnancy Center;” it’s not far from you:” A map to the Amnion Crisis Pregnancy Center in a nearby suburb comes up.

Last month,  Jan Morgan was hit while riding her bicycle training for an Ironman. It was a straight road (no turns or hills) and the sun could not have been in the driver’s eyes. The car hit them from behind at full speed. At first glance you might think this was an accident. BUT Robbie Norton, the woman who hit Jan, got out of the car, looked at Jan, yelled at her for cycling in the road, got back in her car and ran Jan over again. There were multiple witnesses who stopped Robbie Norton by dragging her out of the car.

The problem is, we’ve just learned they do not intend on pressing charges. Reason? The District Attorney, Forrest Allgood, says there are no laws in Mississippi to protect cyclists from this.

Her husband David Morgan and son Sean Dyess would like national attention in an effort to call for cycling safety advocacy.

http://starkvilledailynews.com/node/6137

http://www.nems360.com/view/full_story/13465238/article-Struck-Starkville-cyclist-clings-to-life?

http://www.nems360.com/view/full_story/13538342/article-Motorist-hit-cyclist-twice–report-says?

UPDATE:  the app is now $0.99 in the store and there are two new features.

* Includes walking/jogging mode

* A Visual alert

The app is called Mayday Light developed by Meidad Pariente. The basic premise of this app is to monitor the phone GPS and accelerometers to detect non standard moment. For example, if you are doing 30mph, then suddenly drop to near 0 mph in a non linear manner, it would alert you for 1 min and if you do not respond, it will send out 5 emails with your position.  You can check out the video at the end of this post for a demo.

If the algorithms are set up correctly on this app the odds of a false alarm are pretty unlikely, however for a motorcycle rider, it may be a bit harder to detect.  If you are riding, and say slide out from a turn or wet payment, 1 of two things will happen; you will slide to a stop, or you will tumble to a stop. If you tumble I’m guessing the app will detect this.  If you slide, then this could look like a quick stop as far as the phone is concerned.  Video at the end of post. I have no intentions of testing this.   More from the creator….

When “MayDay Light” is activated on the user’s iPhone, it samples the onboard GPS and accelerometers to monitor the velocity and acceleration of the vehicle it is driving in via a simple but effective algorithm, and which can detect the characteristic indications of an accident with little chance of a false alarm.

As soon as “Mayday Light” detects that that an event has occurred which could be an accident, it sets off an alarm which will operate for 1 minute, during which time the automatic reporting can be reset thus preventing unnecessary nuisance accident emails.  After the minute has elapsed, the email messages with the pre-prepared text will be sent to the email addresses which have been prepared in advance by the user

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwJ76ts4sCY

… and his source here….

Here is more info from the press release…

iBike Dash CC Features:

• 50 power-based and Heart Rate (HR) zone workouts.
• Includes ANT+ speed sensor with optional sensors for cadence and HR.
• User customizable touch screens display cycling information in color with unique graphics and animation.
• Features easy-to-read large fonts with back-light display for night-time viewing.

·         iPhone’s GPS, map, and weather capabilities operate seamlessly with the iDash, greatly enhancing the rider’s experience.

·         Power-based indoor trainer feature.

·         Bike odometer.

• Calendar feature keeps track of weekly cycling stats, including calories, miles and speed.

·         HR Zone dial presents cycling exertion in an extremely intuitive manner.

·         Easy-to-follow, on-screen instructions and instructional videos.

• “Phone Booth^TM” dashboard/case houses circuitry, keeps out water and absorbs shock.
• Easy to install, use, and move from bike to bike.
• No need for calibration.
• Allows seamless hands-free calls using your iPhone and Bluetooth headset with no interruption to ride data collection.
• Allows full use of touch screen, even while wearing cycling gloves.
• A rechargeable/replaceable spare battery can be housed inside the “Phone Booth” to extend the operating time of your iPhone/iPod touch.

·         Compatible with all ANT+ speed, cadence and HR sensors.

The iBike Dash CC is available immediately for iPhone and iPod touch, priced at $199 MSRP for the basic version and $329 MSRP for the advanced version with additional features (including cadence, HR, calorie measurement, battery and charger) through the Apple Store at: http://store.apple.com/us/product/H3828LL/A or Velocomp at: http://www.ibikesports.com/ibikestore.html.  iBike Dash CC includes the holder, mount, wireless speed sensor, iBike app for iPhone or iPod touch, and iBike software for Mac and Windows desktop computers