Thursday
Sep292016

Smart alarm clock promises to regulate your sleep patterns

A new Kickstarter project introduces a smart alarm clock built to help regularize sleeping patterns. It doesn’t focus on tracking your actual sleeping time but more on helping you establish better sleeping habits. Kello only gives you a number of snooze hits per week and once you’ve reached this, you can’t silence the alarm without completely turning it off. The smart clock can even trigger other Wi-Fi-connected devices and have all the notifications pour into your devices once you hit snooze or even turn on the light if you’ve hit your snooze quota.

Aside from lessening your reliance on the snooze button, Kello also has a built-in breathing exercise program to help you fall asleep faster. The process is guided by lights and lasts around 20 minutes or so. You can control this mode and all the other settings of the clock via its companion iOS and Android app. The Kello is expected to ship by March 2017, but this is Kickstarter so you have to be wary, too.

Thursday
Sep292016

Skype on iOS now lets you make calls using Siri

Taking further advantage of iOS 10, Microsoft updated its consumer version of Skype for the iPhone and the iPad. The apps get deeper integration with Siri and now lets you place Skype calls using Apple’s voice assistant without needing to launch Skype first. Incoming Skype calls will also now appear on your screen with an interface that looks almost identical to regular phone calls. The latest iOS version also lets you store Skype details for your contacts on the service right into the contacts app of the operating system. For those using Skype for Business, Microsoft plans to bring the feature in next month.

Source: The Verge

Wednesday
Sep282016

Cathay Pacific and ZIP SIM offer free SIMs to Canadian travelers heading to the U.S.

Cathay Pacific Airways, together with travel SIM card provider ZIP SIM, will be giving away free travel SIM cards with free talk, text, and data plans to select Canadian travelers heading to the U.S. Some of those travelling from Vancouver to New York will be given the SIM with either a three- or seven-day Talk + Text + Data plan with unlimited U.S./Canada calling, global messaging, and 500MB of 4G LTE data.

ZIP SIM offers short-term, contract-free cellular service to travelers in the U.S. and these plans are already preloaded onto the SIM so you just need to select which type of plan you prefer (talk, text, and data or data-only) and insert the SIM when you arrive in the U.S. Both companies plan to extend the offer to other departure and arrival cities in Canada and around the world. 

Wednesday
Sep282016

Apple and Deloitte partner to help companies transform the way they work on iOS devices

Apple CEO Tim Cook and Deloitte Global CEO Punit Renjen meet at Apple's campus to announce a joint effort to accelerate business transformation using iOS, iPhone & iPad. (Courtesy of Apple/Roy Zipstein)

Following Apple's partnerships with IBM and SAP, the company just announced another joint effort with Deloitte, one of the largest professional services firms in the world and the leader in digital transformation strategy.

Apple and Deloitte today announced a partnership to help companies quickly and easily transform the way they work by maximizing the power, ease-of-use and security the iOS platform brings to the workplace through iPhone and iPad.

Click to read more ...