carrot
Latest
Engadget Daily: Facebook tackles anonymity, Vaio post-Sony, and more!
Zuckerberg and Co. are in hot water regarding the social giant's real-name policy, but it looks like all the outcry may have paid off. Well, sort of. Read on for Engadget's news highlights from the last 24 hours, including Facebook's purported anonymity app, Vaio's new hybrid tablet, a magical product called Carrot, and more!
Introducing 'Carrot,' the next major disruption from Silicon Valley
In our ongoing quest to bring you the absolute freshest tech news, we stumbled onto something truly magical and revolutionary this morning. It's called "Carrot," and it's poised to disrupt everything you think you know about technology. Are you ready? We're not sure you're ready. Here's hoping. As detailed in the beautiful, carefully shot intro video, Carrot is a wireless vegetable. By its very nature, no two Carrots are alike. Its creators point out that it "works seamlessly with all your favorite apps [appetizers]," and they "can't wait to share it with you." We've yet to go hands-on with this tipping point of a product, but rest assured we'll have one up just as soon as Fresh Grocer drops off its daily deliveries. Head below for the full intro video, or maybe just eat some vegetable soup.
CARROT fit 2.0 wants to you exercise, meat bag
OK, flabby human. It's time to get fit. Last February we reviewed CARROT fit, the judgmental fitness app from CARROT. As we said last time, its methodologies aren't for everyone. The app uses humor and motivational ribbing to get you moving. I think it's funny, especially when my electronic fitness overlord tells me to kowtow before Cthulhu (do a push-up) or asks, "Who else is going to eat all that food?" CARROT fit version 2.0 adds the 7 Minutes In Hell workout. There are 12 exercise to start with, and you can purchase an additional dozen via the Exercise Booster Pack for US$1.99. When you begin a workout, the app's "ocular sensor" monitors your progress and guides you from exercise to exercise. Soon you'll be kowtowing to Cthulhu (push-ups), marking your territory (squats) and escaping an elite squadron of killer ostriches (running in place). All the while CARROT fit provides one-liners and other...motivation. As you progress you unlock more goodies like a weight tracker, a calendar so you can keep track of your workouts and even extra rest time (yay!). You'll need it, meat bag. There are 17 locked rewards in all. There's a new profile, too, which can keep you motivated and on track. Like I said, this app might bother some folks. I think it's fun and definitely motivating. The workout isn't easy and I'm only using the introductory exercises. Best of all, you only need a wall, a chair and "...a bucket in case you throw up" to get in a good workout. Version 2.0 offers a lot of great changes. Now go and make a great change in your body! Or CARROT fit will get angry. And you won't like her when she's angry.
CARROT Fit uses the stick to whip you into shape
I've long been a fan of CARROT To-Do for keeping me motivated with my daily list of "things I must do today." Our review of To-Do is here, but the basic idea is that the app's "AI construct" gets mad when you don't check in or accomplish tasks. While being berated, overall, isn't a good thing, sometimes you need a kick in the butt to stay on task. That same mentality was infused in CARROT Alarm, and you can read our review here. Now comes CARROT Fit (US$1.99) to help you lose weight by tracking the ups and downs, and reacting accordingly. As someone who juggles a lot of responsibilities, the CARROT To-Do app been a lifesaver in keeping me focused by reminding me in humorous but angry ways that I still have tasks to complete. Fit is a weight loss app based on this same premise: that fun, funny, grumpy programs might motivate us to achieve our goals. As Erica noted in our review of To-Do, these methodologies aren't for everyone. While I find them funny and motivating, some may find them off-putting. Also, while weight tracking is one way to track health, it is by no means the only way. This review won't go into all that, as I'll just focus on what Fit does. Design Overall, CARROT Fit is clean and simple, offering only what you need when you need it. During setup you're treated to some cute animation and, frankly, somewhat teased a bit, not unlike the promo video below. Carrot's distinctive blue color scheme and "ocular sensor" (the large circular eye over your avatar) continues in Fit. The simple "infographic" style illustrations and animations throughout are brilliant little touches that will amuse you. If you leave the app open for a bit, your little avatar will start doing pushups! When you open the app you'll have three options: Record your weight, check your logs, or access a menu with settings. The basic design makes the utility easy to understand. Yet there are little surprises in the design, like the About CARROT section, which makes a joke with a winking robot. These give the app a true sense of character, which I think helps the psychological buy-in to using CARROT to keep you motivated. Functionality Carrot's daily weigh in time can be set to your liking, and it will remind you. If you miss a day, Carrot will get mad at you, perhaps even turning red. But entering your weight is as simple as my former go-to weight tracking app, Weightbot. Unfortunately, Weightbot has no character. Carrot has kept me in check, however. To record your weight you simply tap the large logo and type it in -- decimals included. You can, in settings, input your height and gender to get a BMI, and thus see how over/under you are. Now here's where CARROT's personality comes into play. If you gain weight, it will get mad at you. It may blow steam, "shock" your avatar, but either way the displeasure is made known. The animations are funny, and sometimes make me want to gain a little just to see it get mad. When you meet your goal, however, you are treated to a shower of confetti and a ribbon! The Log of your weight is simple but useful. A chart up top tracks your progress, including weight goals. Below that you can see current weight, losses/gains, goals, BMI and how many days you've been tracking. You can also dive into the raw data for a day by day accounting. All of this looks great and is easy to understand. There's no tilting your device to see your data differently, it's just there. Conclusion, and a note on fat-shaming Unfortunately, in a Good Morning America appearance this week, the creator of CARROT, Brian Mueller (who I interviewed here), had to defend his clever drawings and animations, which some have called "fat shaming." The developer has created a fun, motivational app. It's not for everyone, but I think it hits on some of the motivators needed to keep you in shape. That said, if you have body issues or take offense easily, or if you have had an eating disorder it's likely best to try another tool that is more neutral and clinical. If this offends you, CARROT Fit is not for you. As for me, I'm overweight. For my height, my BMI is basically in the danger zone. If something "shames" me in the privacy of my own home to motivate me to get healthier, then guess what? I'm happy to use it. That means it is doing the job it was designed to do. But then, I haven't struggled with this my entire life. Again, if you think this could be problematic for you, Fit isn't the app for you. Anyway, if you are just looking to track your weight and need a reminder and some motivation, CARROT Fit is a lot of fun. It's a lot more fun than pretty much every other weight tracker out there. It is much harder to level up than other CARROT apps, however, as at day 6 (since it launched), I'm still on level one. I'll report back in about a month to see if the longer I use it, the more I'm able to change my habits. Because that's what this is: A habit-changing app. And it's a great one. Buy it here and get healthy!
Introducing the TUAW One-to-One podcast, with first guest Brian Mueller
I'd like to introduce a new part of the TUAW family, our One-to-One podcast. This series will feature one host and one guest; focused on a particular topic, yet unafraid to weave into tangential traffic. Our first guest is the developer behind Carrot To Do, Carrot Alarm Clock and Recur. You can read our review of Carrot here and the alarm clock here. Brian Mueller walks us through some of the challenges in making Carrot, and how restrictions, limitations and a learning curve helped make it the great app it is today. We aim to deliver at least one episode a month, two if it's a particularly wonderful month. Best of all, each episode is less than 30 minutes (aiming for less than 20, honestly), so you don't have to dedicate half your life to listening. Listen through the web player embedded below or direct download the MP3 here. We'll post the iTunes link as soon as it is available.
Daily iPhone App: Recur! takes the to-do list and turns it around
Recur! The Reverse To-Do List is a list-maker app that turns things around by keeping track of the things you've done instead of the things you need to do. Created by the developer behind CARROT, Recur! lets you create a to-do list for the things that you've done. You can track anything from exercises to the number of books you've read. The app is basic in its features and allows you to add to the counter every time you complete a task. There is no history tracking for each task, so you can only see the timestamp from when you last completed a task. You can also set an alarm to remind you to do the task again. Recur! integrates into the CARROT To-do list, which is handy for those who use that app to track their to-do list. Recur!, though, is not CARROT-enabled and does not have the personality of its list-tracking cousin. Recur! hit the App Store earlier this week with a US$0.99 price tag. It's worth a download if you are a CARROT user or are looking for a basic to-do tracker. If you want something a bit more robust to track how often you complete a task, then you should check out an app like Daily Goals.
Daily iPhone App: CARROT alarm clock uses mild forms of torture to wake you up
CARROT, the beloved personality in the popular CARROT task manager from Brian Mueller of Grailr, is now the star of an alarm clock app that berates you into waking up on time each day. The new CARROT alarm clock is a minimal app with a whole lotta personality. You get a glimpse of what you are in for when you first open the app and you are greeted with a curt "Hello, meat bag" as you're chastised for clicking on the wrong part of the screen. CARROT Alarm is a basic alarm clock with a good-looking, gesture-based UI. It supports one alarm at a time. You set the time for the alarm by sliding your finger up and down the screen until you reach the correct time. As you drag your finger, the time changes in 15-minute increments. You can also tap directly above or below the time display in the center of the screen to adjust the time in 5-minute blocks. Tapping once on the time in the center will let you see the current time and a second tap will show you the alarm. This is handy if you need to set an alarm for 10 minutes from now and you are not sure of the exact time. After you select your time, you can turn the alarm on and off by dragging the big blue alarm button to the left or the right. When the alarm is on, the blue button turns into an alarm clock. It's an easy, visual way to tell whether the alarm is set. Once the alarm is set, you leave the app open, place the phone down on your desk or nightstand and wait. When the alarm goes off, you are woken up by various pleasing sounds and music. Depending on how deep you sleep, you may have to turn up the volume on your phone as the audible part of the alarm is a bit subdued. Once you're aware of your surroundings, you can turn off the alarm by completing your daily chores, which require you to tap, pinch and / or shake your device. If you need some extra ZZZs, you can hit snooze and grab 10 minutes, but I'll warn you --- CARROT won't be happy. When that snooze alarm goes off, CARROT will yell at you, and your daily chores will be harder. The yelling is pretty tame, but it's definitely geared toward adults. There are no obscenities, but some of CARROT's angry wake-up chants, like "Death, Murder, Kill," for example, are not appropriate for children. CARROT Alarm clock is an entertaining way to wake yourself up each morning or alert yourself during the day. It's the abusive drill sergeant that many of us need in our lives. The alarm music is a tad soft for my tastes (I always pick the obnoxious "Alarm" sound for my alerts), but not everyone needs a blaring alert to wake themselves up. The daily chores to turn off the alarm are challenging enough that they wake you up, and the fear of an angry CARROT makes you think twice about turning on that snooze. It's quite effective at waking you on time. You can check out CARROT Alarm in the iOS App Store. It costs US$0.99.
Meet CARROT: the game-ified to do list
CARROT (US$0.99) is essentially a game with delusions of productivity. In fact, it was initially pitched to me as a utility app with "personality." That's problematic because it's not really all that useful. What it is, though, is silly fun with occasional side benefits of getting things done. I hand-picked the screen shot that goes with this post to reflect my "aha" moment. It's when I finally realized there was no way this app was actually interested in helping me organize my life and work. Once I relaxed and let go, CARROT was able to win me over with its charm and superb design. Your tolerance for Kawaii (かわいい, namely, that which is "lovable," "cute" or "adorable," according to Wikipedia) will influence how much you love or hate this app. CARROT is, frankly, twisted. It's basically GLaDOS as digital personal assistant. Your job is to keep it pleased, by finishing assigned tasks and keeping your work in order. I made sure to add "Buy cake and hire grief counselors" to my CARROT to-do list. The following video demonstrates the app in action.
Flameseeker Chronicles: What's your golden carrot?
On the Sunday of the most recent beta weekend for Guild Wars 2, I found myself trying to figure out precisely what incentive my friends and I might have to go through the explorable mode of dungeons before we hit level 80. The question arose, in a roundabout way, because there's not a tremendous amount of XP available (you spend more time killing fewer things), which makes sense if you're a developer trying to discourage players from entering a dungeon they have no intention of completing in order to farm experience, but it left us wondering whether we'd feel compelled to participate in explorable mode dungeons as we progressed through the game. The point of the matter is, unless you're well and truly enamored of the armor attainable through a specific dungeon's tokens, there might not be much empirical motivation to get through a repeatable dungeon. This stood out to me because so much of the game's reward structure is so clear and well-designed. Although I'll certainly never make the claim that the game will please everyone, or even that ArenaNet's fine folks are trying to please everyone, it is evident that they're building in support for a wide variety of play and reward styles.
Intel shows off Oak Trail-based Android Honeycomb tablets, confirms Android Market support
At a time when ARM and Android are dominating the mobile computing world, Intel's only just starting to catch up with some green robot-friendly prototypes, like these Oak Trail-based 10-inch tablets at Computex 2011. Starting from the left we have the Intel Green Ridge, Foxconn F150, Quanta QXZI, an unnamed Compal device, Intel Marco Polo 2, and Intel Carrot. Sadly, Intel wouldn't give the names of the ODMs behind its own reference tablets, so your guess is just as good as ours. With the exception of the Gingerbread-powered Foxconn slate, these were all running on Honeycomb 3.0.1 OS -- well, we say running, but just barely. As you'll see in our hands-on video after the break, most of the devices were struggling to keep up with the launcher animation, and needless to say, Intel wasn't keen on letting us test video playback on them. We also noticed that Android Market was missing on the prototypes, but Intel assured us that it'll be available on the final products, and that current Android apps are already supported by Oak Trail. In terms of build quality it left much to be desired, though this is forgivable at a trade show; it's the software that we're concerned with. From what we've seen here at Computex, Android on Oak Trail is far from ready, so it'll be interesting to see if Acer can actually pull off a July launch for its rumored Oak Trail Honeycomb tablet. Update: OK, our in-depth hands-on video is finally working. Check it out after the break. %Gallery-124843%
The Soapbox: The selfish gamer
Disclaimer: The Soapbox column is entirely the opinion of this week's writer and does not necessarily reflect the views of Massively as a whole. If you're afraid of opinions other than your own, you might want to skip this column. It happened a couple of months ago. I was in a remote area in Lord of the Rings Online when another player -- the only other player in this small zone -- sent me a tell. "Can you help me? I need to finish this quest, and I keep getting killed in this cave." Honestly? My first instinct was to say no. It had been a busy day, and I was sitting down to a brief, 20-minute session that would be my only chance to get anything done until tomorrow. I was hoping to knock out a couple quests of my own, and I really didn't want to log out without accomplishing something with that character. So I responded and declined to help, which he took in good humor. Then it hit me what I just did. In a social online game, I'd refused to help someone who blatantly asked for it, all because I was being self-centered. So I sent him another tell. "You know what? What the heck. I'm sorry; I was having a me moment. Let's do this." And so we did. It was fun, and I logged out 20 minutes later without having advanced my character but feeling as though I accomplished something substantial even so. It was at this moment that I started to realize just how MMOs have conditioned me to be as selfish as possible -- and I made a promise right then and there that I'd start fighting back against that conditioning. I didn't want to be a selfish gamer any longer.
Riding Crop stacking and the mount speed limit
Leatherworkers who've hit 350 have been doing some brisk business making and selling the Riding Crop, a new trinket that increases mount speed by a whopping 10%. The previous +mount speed items combined (Mithril Spurs, made by Blacksmiths and attached to boots, the Carrot trinket from a ZF quest, and a glove enchant), added up to only 9%, and some players were excited that with the crop included, they'd see a full 19% speed bonus.Not so, says Drysc. By decree of the devs, the biggest mount speed bonus items can grant will be 10%, which means the Riding Crop does not stack with any other items (keep that in mind before you spend a ton of gold on it). It's meant, says Drysc, as a space and time saver more than anything else-- don't carry around three items when you can carry around one.Of course, as alert players point out, there are class speed buffs that will stack with Riding Crop-- Crusader Aura is one for Pallies, and I'm sure commenters to this post could come up with more (I thought that Aspect of the Pack would, except that AotP doesn't stack with mounts at all, so of course it doesn't stack with the Riding Crop). There are probably even those among you who wonder why any more than a 10% buff even matters for getting from place to place, but for some players (especially those in battlegrounds), every second spent on a mount counts.
