Sphero's BB-8 with Force Band comes on Force Friday

Just in time for Force Friday, Sphero extends its ties to Lucasfilm with the newest addition to its Star Wars line-up: The Force Band, to be available in stores this Friday, September 30th.  

Like a Jedi Knight, you can control your BB-8 app-enabled droid with just a wave of your hand and enhance your abilities with Force Training. Use the band by itself to complete Combat Training, or collect digital holocrons in your environment through Force Awareness. Fulfill your destiny and become strong in the ways of the Force. Force Band costs $99.99 and works with the original BB-8 Sphero. The new Battle-Worn BB-8 and Force Band Special Edition Set costs $249.99 and is availability at Best Buy Canada.

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.

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

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.