20 Gadgets That Make Your Smartphone Smarter

It’s called smartphone, but is it really smart? After all, most people use the smartphone to browse social networks, listen to music, play games, make memes and upload photos to Instagram. Not much advanced intelligence needed to run those things. However the smartphone is essentially a small computer. You can do pretty amazing things with it including launch it into space as a nanosatellite.

(Image Source: ICEdot)

But that is for dedicated use. In cases where you want to keep using your smartphone for your online activities, you can also set your smartphone to do other things like locate your missing car, lock and unlock your homes, watch your health and contact your relatives if you get into an accident, etc. Check out a few other ways you can make your smartphone smarter, and your life easier. You’ll probably look at your smartphones differently now.

Viper SmartStart

Make the Mercedes-Benz owner envy you, with Viper SmartStart, a device that allows you to perform regular tasks your remote key can do, for instance lock the door, honk the car and release the trunk, all with your smartphone. On top of that, with Viper SmartStart you can even check your vehicle status to ensure it’s safe, and ready to rock and roll. [$149-$399]

Hone

Keys have a special ability to disappear right when you are looking for it. Hone is a Bluetooth device for iPhone and iPod that helps you find your key. The setup is easy – just tie the device to your key and press the Find button on your iPhone. The device will light up and emit a sound to indicate its position. That’s it, smart and elegant. [$49.00]

Lockitron

The Lockitron not only lets you unlock the door with just a touch on the smartphone, but also notifies you when someone is knocking at the door. With the right customization, you can even set your door to unlock whenever you get near the door – no more fumbling around with your house keys especially when your hands are full. [$179.00]

Square Register

Square Register is a revolution that’s disrupting the current old, static transaction system. It takes the advantage of the smartphone’s mobility to let you accept any credit card payment anytime, anywhere. The buyer signs on the smartphone to authorize payment and avoid potential fraud, and the information is encrypted before any processing initialize.

Geode

Geode can convert all your physical credit cards, loyalty cards, and membership cards into digital information. To use the cards, you can transfer the card information to the provided Geode card temporarily. Flick to activate the card, say a credit card, then swipe it through the terminal as normal.
You can also store all the barcodes from your loyalty cards and display it at the back of the Geode to allow for scans. [$159.00]

Tōd

Use these smart beacons, called Tōd, to track the location of your child, a beloved pet or even your car. Get notifications via email or text when they make an unscheduled departure from the compound or if they wander off too far from you. [$32.00]

Pico Genie A100

Heavy projectors are so last-century. I’m going for the Pico Genie A100, a speaker-enabled projector as mini as the iPhone! The outcome is a 60″ viewing area with sound-boosting effect, not to mention that you could carry the Pico Genie 100 around during presentations. But honestly, I think it fits better as a gaming device! [$262.00]

Botiful

Just plug in your smartphone to Botiful, the robot, and you can move it anywhere and communicate with any human using the minimalistic Skype interface. What’s even more fun here is that you can also explore everywhere that your big human body cannot reach with this feet-sized robot. It makes me feel like a god that’s omnipresent, only I’m a little bit mini! [$199.00]

Scanbox

You can use your smartphone to help you scan codes such as QR Codes but even better, you can get a simple, portable Scanbox to stabilize your camera to perform bulk scanning tasks! The Scanbox comes with LEDs that light up from the bottom, providing prominent light sources for the best scanning quality possible. [$15.00]

NODE Chroma

You can call NODE Chroma a real-life Photoshop color picker, as it really is. Place the Chroma on the colored object, and the color will be saved into your smartphone or personal computer with the standard formats of RGB, HEX, CMYK and LAB for your future reference and even comparison. [$149.00]

Sensordrone

Sensordrone is a sensor computer that harvests vital information around your environment, such as air quality, gas leaks, temperature, humidity etc – practically anything that can be sensed! Great for people with jobs that require technical measurements while on the go. [$175.00]

Crash Sensor

Your life will be safer with the ICEdot’s Crash Sensor. All you need to do is mount the device on your helmet before you take off to any of your extreme sports or cross-country races. The device will notify your emergency contacts and send GPS coordinates to initiate rescue attempts should an accident occurs.

Misfit Shine

Misfit Shine helps you track your physical activities on-the-go. Upon equipping it on your body, Shine will track your physical activities and inform you at the end of the day that if your body movements are well enough to keep you fit and shiny. [$79.00]

Health Appliances

While Withings Blood Pressure Monitor helps you monitor your blood pressure intelligently, Medisana ThermoDock checks if your body temperature is beyond dangerous parameters. Your data is stored within the VitaDock app for future reference. Smart health management for smartphone holder! [$158.00, $80.00]

Deeper

I have never imagined that my smartphone can detect fish underwater, but Deeper makes the impossible possible. The magic is made possible by the Friday Lab’s sonar that can detect movement of fish within a 50m radius, and reflects its ‘catch’ on your smartphone’s screen. The best app for tech-savvy fishermen. [$149.00]

Smart Radiation Detector

The nuclear meltdown happened in Japan has raised awareness about the absorption of radioactive materials into the food and water. The Smart Radiation Detector can detect and confirm radiation levels to help you avoid contaminated resources. Medical professionals and rescue team operators could use this when working in nuclear-related disasters. [$100.00]

SkyLight

The SkyLight could connect your smartphone camera to a supported microscope, and let you capture microscope photographs with the option to switch the focal planes with a touch of your finger. [$65.00]

Smart Baby Monitor

After the installation, the Smart Baby Monitor will start sending live streaming audio and video through secure connection. The monitor gets even more awesome with the WithBaby app that let new parents check on their baby via wireless connection. The monitor can even detect your baby’s activities as well as the room’s humidity and temperature. [$352.00]

Wise-Pet

Built to protect your phone, the Wise-Pet doubles as a tech pet, promising 5 different pets possessing 5 different personalities. The app is also built with some educational features, like the video feature that broadcasts fun lessons, or the recording feature that saves up your voiced bedtime stories, and let the Wise-Pet reads out for you! [$20.00]

iPhly

Tired of losing the remote controls for the TV, air conditioner, garage door opener or even your toy car/plane? Store up all your controls in iPhly. With the iPhone/iPod Touch combined, you can steer the R/C car, or swipe it up to throttle up the R/C airplanes, or run your devices all with your smartphone. [$70.00]

original post in hongkiat.com
20 Gadgets That Make Your Smartphone Even Smarter

Increase Battery Life Of Your Smartphone In Simple Steps

How charming it would be if your smartphone doesn’t need charging wherever you go. In today’s smartphone’s technological world, one of the major disadvantage is battery backup of these smartphones. We need certain tips to increase battery life of our smartphone and run it for a long time without any charger.Today, in this article i will show you explain some simple steps to increase battery life of your smartphone and run it without any charger wherever you go for a long time.

Latest gadgets released by major smartphone company like Apple, Samsung and others have common bug. They consume lot of battery and we have to attach them to their charger every time. No matter if you are driving your car, attach them with any car charger, if you are your office, attach your smartphone to any office cable and much more.The tips explained right here will explain you how you can increase battery life of your gadget and run it for a long time.

Increase Battery Life Of Your Smartphone

1. One of the best trick to increase battery life of your smartphone is to check which apps consume the most battery of your smartphone. Check those apps and close them when not in need.If your smartphone has less RAM, try to use only single app at one time or if your gadget has RAM like 2 or 4 GB, then you can easily use multiple apps at single tips without any battery loss. This trick will surely help you to increase battery life of your smartphone and make it run better than before.Closing inactive apps will make your smartphone run faster and increase battery life.You can also uninstall those apps consuming more memory.

2. As you know every gadget in today’s world comes with functions like GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth, 3G/4G and much more awesome features. But all these apps consume lots of battery of your smartphone.To increase battery life, try to switch off GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth, 3G/4G network and try to use your smartphone in as simple way as you can.This method surely helps to increase battery life of your smartphone. You can attach a charger if you need these apps. This trick surely helps to increase battery life of your smartphone.

3. Another trick to increase battery life of your smartphone is to reduce the brightness of screen of your gadget. Reducing brightness helps to increase battery life and make your smartphone run for long time. Set your brightness to automatic and leave. This trick helps to increase battery life and run more time.At night you can reduce brightness to zero and increase battery life.

4. If you are using any android smartphone, you might be aware of live wallpapers and widgets on screen. These widget stops your way to increase battery life.Try to remove any live wallpaper or gadget and use any simple wallpaper instead. Use only important gadgets like time, mail, etc.This trick surely helps to increase battery life of your smartphone.

5. Updating your smartphone and apps you installed in it also contribute to increase battery life of your gadget. Update your version of smartphone and every app you love to use in it. This method works very well to increase battery life of your gadget and run it more smoothly than before.

Increase Battery Life Of Your Smartphone In Simple Steps

10 Things You Didn't Know You Could Do With Your Smartphone

1. Match Paint Colors

Want to paint your walls the same color of green as your throw pillows? What about making your wainscoting the same color blue as yesterday afternoon's sky?
With BEHR's ColorSmart mobile app, you can match the perfect paint color. The app is available for iOS and Android devices.

2. Use Your Phone as a Level

The free iHandy Level app (one of the five tools included in the iHandy Carpenter toolkit), lets you hang pictures, align shelves and measure angles accurately.

3. Start Your Car

The Viper Smart Start app lets you start your car remotely. All you have to do is install the device in your car, and you can warm the engine on a winter morning while you finish your coffee in the kitchen.
The Viper Smart Start is available on iOS, Android and BlackBerry.

4. Measure Stuff Using Your Camera Lens

Tired of pinching yourself on tape measures? Interested in measuring really tall things? There are several apps that can measure practically anything for you through your camera lens.
Check out Smart Measure Pro (linked above) for Android and Dot Measure Pro for iOS.

5. Create Blueprints (or Design Your Dream Room)

You can use your smartphone for high-level design with Mark On Call on iOS. Create detailed blueprints for your project, or mock up that living room you always wanted.

6. Visualize Your Home Using Augmented Reality

In the same design vein as Mark On Call, uDecore lets you view a real room of your house through your iOS device's camera and, using augmented reality, visualize different pieces of furniture and design elements.

7. Monitor Your Heart Rate

Azumio's Instant Heart Rate measures your heart rate after you place your finger on your smartphone screen for a few seconds. The app, available on iOS, Android and Windows Phone, was awarded the Best Health & Fitness App in the Mobile Premier Awards in 2011.

8. Use Your Phone as a Remote Control

Odds are you lose track of your remote all the time, but you probably have your phone by your side at all times. That's why ThinkFlood's RedEye Mini comes in handy. With a small infrared device, you can control several devices from the palm of your hand. Compatible with iOS.

9. Change the Color of Your Lightbulbs

Wouldn't it be convenient to control the brightness and color of your lights from your mobile device? Now you can, with Phillips Hue. The app and "smart" light bulbs let you adjust the lighting via Wi-Fi on your iPhone or iPad, and you can also turn your lights on remotely if you're working late and want it to look like you're home.

10. Program Your DVR Remotely

Do you often forget to digitally record your favorite shows before you leave the house? With Verizon's FiOS Mobile Remote app, not only can you control your cable box with your smartphone, but you can program the DVR when you're away from home. The app is available for iOS and Android devices.

 

original article is in mashable.com

10 Things You Didn't Know You Could Do With Your Smartphone

 

Transforms Your Smartphone Pictures Into Works of Art

Veena Bissram

The Launchpad is a series that introduces Mashable readers to compelling startups. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion.
Name: PicsArt
One-Liner Pitch: An all-in-one photo editor and photo-art community app.
Why It's Taking Off: PicsArt has more editing options than most photo apps, allowing users to develop creative and artistic images.
Photo filters have been a hot topic this week, with both Twitter and Flickr adding filters to their apps -- presumably in an effort to take on Instagram. But there's another photo app out there that also offers a wide selection of filters and a significant community of users.
PicsArt, a free app for Android, offers more editing options than most photo apps to transform your pictures into detailed, professional-looking works of art. It has been downloaded more than 30 million times since launching a little more than a year ago and is currently top photo app on Android. The company is planning to release an app for iPhone early next year, which may just give other photo apps on the platform a run for their money.
With PicsArt, users can choose images from the camera roll on their phone, Facebook, Flickr,
Picasa, Google, Dropbox, or take a new photo with the PicsArt app. Once they have a photo, that’s where all the possibilities begin. They can crop their photos into shapes, change eye colors, add callouts, digital stickers and clipart, or customize their photos using PicsArts’ main features:

• Filters: Choose from a range of filters, including comic, watercolor, sketcher, smart
  blur, oil, popart, paper stencilers, distortions and color splashes
• Masks: Enliven photos with bright and vivid colors and blends
• Corrections: Fix a face, hide blemishes or add a tan to someone’s complexion
• Frames: Choose from more than 50 fun-themed frames from different categories
• Borders: Customize your own borders

Don’t like the way your photo turned out? PicsArt makes it simple to erase all of your changes and start from scratch, or you can use the “Draw” feature to create your own pictures using brushes, shapes and colors.
“PicsArt is a creative tool that empowers people to discover their inner artist,” Artavazd Mehrabyan, co-founder and CTO of PicsArt, told Mashable in an interview. “With so many options and artistic tools, you can never stop working on an image because you are discovering new things all the time.”
After you’re done editing, PicsArt gives you the option to upload your new images directly from the app to a number of social sites, including Facebook, Flickr, Picasa, Twitter, Dropbox, Foursquare, Tumblr, Blogger, WordPress and devianART. You can also add photos to the PicsArt community, which, similar to Instagram, has an ongoing feed of photos from users who you can follow or who can follow you.
PicsArt is self-funded and the business model is to monetize through advertisements within the app.

Image courtesy of Flickr, Manny Valdes and PicsArt

Answer Your Door With a Smartphone or Tablet

Wouldn't it be great to answer your front door with a smartphone? That's the promise of Doorbot, a Wi-Fi-enabled doorbell that alerts you whenever someone pushes its button, sending audio and video to your smartphone.

The battery-operated device installs at your threshold with four screws in a bracket. Once you've downloaded its free app and synced any iOS device or Android smartphone with it, you can see and converse with visitors at your door. The app will alert you whenever the button is pushed.
There's a microphone on board the DoorBot that lets you talk with whomever's visiting you, even if you're thousands of miles away. The camera works at night, too, using infrared technology to allow a clear view of visitors even in the dark.


When someone presses the button on the DoorBot, you'll receive an alert on your smartphone. If you always have your phone nearby (and who doesn't these days?), you'll be able to instantly respond to visitors, or reject them without them knowing if you're home or not.

Continue reading Answer Your Door With a Smartphone or Tablet

Translation Apps fo smartphones

Now language translation apps for smartphones can do much, much more than that old plastic device with the rubbery buttons and one-line display. Many of them let you speak or type a question in English and have that instantly translated into a foreign tongue, which the app can speak out loud or display on the phone’s screen. A response from a local can be translated right back into English for you. A single app may include the ability to translate dozens of languages—more than a backpack full of dictionaries.

I put these promising features to the test by heading into Korean, Chinese, and Japanese neighborhoods in San Francisco with three translation apps—two on the iPhone and one that works on the iPhone or Android phones.

The results were mixed. It’s quicker to use these apps than to look up words in a dictionary or phrasebook, and they can understand complete sentences. But apps with voice recognition don’t always capture spoken words in noisy situations, especially when those words aren’t in English. This made interacting with strangers even more awkward than usual.
I’m still excited about the future possibilities, but for now there’s a long way to go.

SayHi Translate

Availability: iPhone; the company says an Android version is coming in a few months
Price: currently 99 cents; generally $2.99
This is my favorite of the three. It’s the most visually appealing and easiest to use. After choosing your language and the one into which you want your words translated, you press a blue on-screen button, say or type what you need, and let it speak the translation aloud (the words are also shown as on-screen text). The people you’re talking to can then tap a green button and respond in their language, and SayHi will translate that back into your tongue.

The app supports about two dozen languages, including Arabic, Korean, Swedish, and Italian, plus a number of common dialects, and can speak most of these aloud. You can select conversation snippets to share on Facebook or elsewhere, choose a male or female voice for the app, and control how quickly it speaks.

SayHi usually understood what I was saying, as long as I enunciated and spoke at an even pace. But when non-English speakers tried to respond to questions, such as “how do I cook this?” or start their own line of conversation, it generally couldn’t understand their words.

I found that it was often best to say or type what I wanted in advance. Later on, you can always tap on that phrase on the screen and hit “Speak” to play back the translation, or just point it out to the person you’re asking for help. I suspect it might also work better if I asked simpler questions, and, when possible, convinced people to type their answers.

Another thing to keep in mind: While you can see the text of past translations without wireless service, you must have access to a wireless network to get new translations or play existing translations aloud. This could be expensive if you’re planning to use your phone in another country.

 Google Translate

Availability: Android, iPhone, Web
Price: free
The coolest part about Google Translate is the sheer number of languages it knows: It can translate the text and speech of more than 60 languages into spoken and typed words.

In typical Google style, the app is fairly simple to use but nothing fancy to look at. Near the top of the screen are two language buttons; you change them by tapping on them. Between the buttons is a two-way arrow that determines the input and output tongue. You can type words into an on-screen box, or speak them aloud. If you’re using the Android version, there’s also an augmented reality feature that lets you snap an image of printed text, highlight it, and receive a translation.
Unfortunately, like SayHi, Google Translate had a hard time understanding what was said by people I met. And while its translations of what I was saying in English were sometimes understood, a kind Japanese video store employee told me that he really had to think about the meaning of what popped up on the screen because it wasn’t quite clear.

The small two-way translation button also led to mishaps. For example, I’d think it was set for me to speak in English so it could translate to Japanese, but it was actually prepared to translate Japanese to English. It would be easier if the button were larger or more boldly labeled.
As with SayHi, you must be connected to the Internet to use Google Translate for anything but viewing past translations.

Mantaphrase

Availability: iPhone
Price: free for limited version with Chinese and Japanese phrases; $3.99 per language.
Because Mantaphrase forces you to choose from an assortment of preset phrases that are sorted by topic, I thought it might be easier to use than the others. It’s also the only app I tested that works fully without wireless network access.

But I ran into some trouble. The app features a long list of phrases you can scroll through, as well as a search bar and four big topic listings (Commerce, Essential, Directions, and Transport) that are each subdivided into more topics (tap “Transport,” for example, and you’ll see “Air,” “Car & Taxi,” “Train,” and “Bus”) that each yield more specific situations. All these layers quickly got confusing, as I couldn’t always remember where I’d seen a phrase before (you can search within the app by keyword, fortunately).

You can tap a phrase to pull it up on the screen in both English and the language you’ve chosen (Chinese or Japanese are all that it has now, but the company says Spanish and French are coming soon). When appropriate, virtual “yes” and “no” buttons appear for the person you’re trying to communicate with to tap in response. That is clever, but doesn’t account for the fact that strangers may hesitate to touch your phone (they seemed pretty shy with mine). It’s also easy to see appropriate follow-up phrases by tapping the bottom of the screen, or display all the questions you’ve asked in a single conversation by swiping down from the top.

Using the Chinese setting, I got someone to point me in the direction of the nearest drugstore, learned the price of a scarf in a variety store, and was politely denied when I asked if I could pay for groceries with a credit card. But when I tried to get food recommendations at a bakery and at a restaurant, Mantaphrase seemed off its game: both times, the people I encountered suggested a restaurant down the street, thinking I was asking where—not what—to eat.

Rachel Metz

Your smartphone is spying on You

Do you think most people are aware of how much personal information they give their smartphones? Let us know in the comments.

 

image courtesy of Jonathan mcintosh, Flickr