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Nokia is selling its Health business back to the former owner
Nokia has has entered negotiations to sell its Digital Health business to its original owner, Withings co-founder Éric Carreel. The move is part of the company's plan to exit the consumer market and "focus on becoming a business-to-business and licensing company," it said. The company paid $191 million for Withings back in 2016, but recently announced that it had written off $175 million in goodwill, and would do a strategic review of its wearable businesses.
The best smart scales
By Shannon Palus and Melanie Pinola This post was done in partnership with Wirecutter, reviews for the real world. When readers choose to buy Wirecutter's independently chosen editorial picks, it may earn affiliate commissions that support its work. Read the full article here. Smart bathroom scales do the weight-tracking work for you, no typing or pen and paper required. After more than six months of researching and stepping on and off a dozen scales (a total of 35 hours and more than 550 weigh-ins), we've found that the Eufy BodySense Smart Scale is the best smart scale available today, with an app that's simple to use and a reasonable price.
Withings' wearables will adopt the Nokia name this summer
So long, Withings. The health and fitness brand will be retired this summer as the team adopts the name of its new owner: Nokia. The company's smart(ish) watches, scales and home security cameras will still be around -- they'll simply have Nokia, rather than Withings written on their exterior. The rebrand is unsurprising, given Nokia's ambitions to move into the health tracking and analytics game. Withings was a $191 million jump-start for its HealthKit-style "WellCare" strategy, which involves consumer-facing fitness tracking and high quality data for medical professionals.
PantryChic's Bluetooth ingredient dispenser is for lazy, type-A bakers
Earlier this summer, we showed you a smart kitchen scale that worked with an iPad app to make sure you were adding the right amount of each ingredient to your recipe. At the time, it seemed like the Internet of Things had reached its peak. Jumped the shark, even. Well, apparently even that requires too much effort. Meet PantryChic, an airtight food canister that dispenses ingredients into a digital scale, so that you never even have to break out a measuring cup. All told, if you were serious about your baking (and seriously OCD), you could buy any number of these stackable canisters, and fill each with a different ingredient, like baking soda or brown sugar. Then, when you need one, you attach it to the digital scale, which is pre-programmed to dispense 50 ingredients (meaning, it knows how to convert volume to weight). Oh, and don't worry about pushing any buttons: You can connect over Bluetooth using the PantryChic app, at which point the machine can "see" what recipe you're using and know, for instance, that you need three cups of flour.
Fitbug launches Bluetooth-connected activity sleep tracker and scales (hands-on)
Not to be confused with a similar product, the UK-based Fitbug has unveiled a collection of new connected health gadgets here at CES. The Fitbug orb is button-sized tracker that measures calories, distance and even pace. The pedometer tech inside also monitors your sleeping pattern. Connectivity wise, it can hook up to iOS devices including the iPhone 5, iPhone 4S, iPod Touch (5th generation), iPad (3rd and 4th generation) and the iPad Mini, while Android support will be limited to Samsung's Galaxy S III. There's three sync modes: Push, for instant updates, beaconing means you can send data at intervals throughout the day, or stream data to monitor your pace. It's Fitbug's first device to offer sleep tracking and will monitor your night-time movements like we saw on Jawbone's Up. It launches in white, black and pink and can be housed in a watch strap or its own neck pendant. It launches on Fitbug's own retail site priced at £45 ($73). The Fitbug Wow Bluetooth-enable scales will connect to a similar list of iOS devices, although there's no word on Android compatibility yet. You can monitor weight-loss (or gain) through the company's refreshed website too, and the device will launch in March priced at £70 ($114) or £100 ($163), including the company's Air activity tracker. Follow all the latest CES 2013 news at our event hub.
Withings WiFi scale syncs weight with BodyMedia site, won't let you hide from the truth
Are you using a Withings WiFi Body Scale to monitor your weight-loss efforts? Are you also using a BodyMedia FIT Armband to track your activity and calories burned? Get ready for a body-stat explosion, because now you can pair the two devices to streamline all that info on your progress. Instead of manually entering your weight into the BodyMedia activity manager, just step on the Withings scale and it will be imported into your BodyMedia online dashboard via WiFi. That's all well and good, but it reminds us an awful lot of Fitbit, which sells a less-expensive body scale that integrates with the company's wearable fitness trackers. The full Withings / BodyMedia press release is after the break, but shouldn't you be out running or something?
PSA: Fitbit Aria WiFi scale available now for $130
It's been three months since Fitbit got into the WiFi scale game, but until now Withings has remained pretty much the only option for weight watchers who actually intend to buy one. Now, though, the Fitbit Aria is finally shipping and, just like Fitbit said it would, it costs $130. That's potentially not a bad deal, seeing as how it matches the $160 Withings scale in a few key areas: it tracks weight, BMI and body fat percentage, gives you the option of tweeting your poundage, and can recognize up to eight different users. Like Fitbit, too, it allows you to access your data through a website, or an iOS / Android app. Of course, the main thing the Aria has that Withings doesn't is a fitness monitor to go with it. The Aria is designed to work with the company's Fitbit trackers, which log physical activity, calories burned, stairs climbed and, if you're diligent about data entry, the various meals you've consumed. Since all that information lives online in an alphabet soup of healthiness, it might paint a more complete picture of how fit you are. Then again, you'd have to commit to wearing the Fitbit day in and day out. And, you know, pay $100 for it. Your call.
Fitbit's Aria WiFi scale tracks weight, BMI and body fat percentage (hands-on)
We might never know the untold number of people who bought Withings' WiFi scale for tweeting their daily weigh-ins, but it must have been an impressive enough figure, as Fitbit just announced something very similar. The Aria Wi-Fi Smart Scale tracks weight, BMI and body fat percentage, only instead of sending those nuggets to Twitter, it all goes straight to Fitbit's own site. For people who have never bought any of the company's products, this website will understandably be a revelation, but in fact it's the same place where Fitbit Ultra owners go to see how many calories they've burned. Even if you're a newcomer, the website happens to be quite engaging, though we suspect you'll get the most out of it if you also have a Fitbit tracker to tally your hours spent on the Stairmaster. In any case, we got some hands-on time tonight (sorry, feet-on jokes are lame), and we've got hands-on shots below to prove it.
Withings intros WiFi-connected baby scale so you can tell your friends oh, how they've grown (hands-on)
Withings put itself on the map with its WiFi-connected scale, and though it recently took a detour into blood pressure readings, it's now returning to what it does best: tallying the weight of sweet, vulnerable, crying humans. The Smart Baby Scale is exactly what it sounds like -- a scale designed specifically for infants and toddlers -- and like its predecessor, it organizes all its data in charts that you can read on a PC or iOS device. The scale comes with a baby basket for infants, which you can remove once your little bambino outgrows it. According to the company, the weighing area was specifically designed to be just large enough for babies, but small enough that grown-ups likely won't be able to weigh packages, watermelons and other heavyweight items that might break the scale. Look for it in the second quarter of this year for $179 -- a twenty-dollar premium over the adult version. Check our hands-on after the break. Mat Smith contributed to this report.
Count the beats: Tuning and more with Guitar Toolkit for iPhone / iPod touch
Any musician worth his/her credit knows that accurate tuning is a given. It's a crucial starting point to playing any instrument at home, on the job, in the studio, or on the road, and an embarrassment when it isn't. Some time ago I was doing an unplugged acoustic gig when my regular stomp box tuner broke down mid-rehearsal. I was in desperate need of a reliable tuner, without a music store in sight. Roll on Agile Partners Guitar Toolkit [iTunes link] for the iPhone/iPod Touch at £5.99I had heard about various tuner apps on the App Store, but I was reluctant to try any of them. I could not believe that a tuner on my phone would provide the same accurate and reliable tuning that my current (expensive) tuners could. However, I was desperate, so I took the plunge.Utilizing the iPhone's built in microphone (or the iPod Touch with a microphone headset), Guitar Toolkit's chromatic tuner performed just like using any other quality tuner. It was simple, effective and to my delight, it got the job done. After the gig, upon further inspection, I soon realized that there was much more than just a common guitar tuner in this app. Guitar Toolkit comprises a chromatic tuner, a metronome, a chord section, and a scale section too (practice your scales!!).The chromatic tuner can be used to tune a variety of stringed instruments. By changing the 'mode' selector on the tuner, from standard 6-string EADGBE guitar tuning to 'all notes' tuning, you'll be able to tune almost any musical instrument. Or, you can preselect a particular stringed instrument, from a custom list, for that instruments specific tuning arrangement (guitar, bass, banjo, mandolin, etcetera). If you're feeling creative, why not come up with your own custom tuning arrangement and input it into the tuner for later reference, or choose one from the alternate guitar tuning selection. DADGAD anyone? For advanced tuning, you can alter the standard reference pitch from 440.0 Hz to whatever you'd like (some orchestras play at varying reference pitches). I've used it to tune a violin perfectly, and for all you bass players Guitar Toolkit, using the iPhone's microphone, picks up those low notes as well. There are a few noticeable nice touches here and there. On the tuner, there is the option to alter the display to a 'high contrast mode' for tuning in low ambient light conditions. Also, when the app is open, the power saving/auto-lock features of the iPhone are disabled so the tuner remains usable until you're finished.Short of being able to plug an instrument line directly in, I can't find a fault with the the Guitar Toolkit tuner.
Bebot turns your iPhone into the cutest instrument ever
I don't think I've ever fallen in love with an app as quickly as Bebot. Not only is it a pretty darn powerful synthesizer with an interesting touchscreen interface, but that robot. That robot! He makes you want to play something, anything, with those cute little closed robot eyes and that dashing tux and that knowing smile. If you just want to make funny robot noises, that's easy enough, but for the musically inclined, there's a really surprising amount of features under the hood, including analog filters, a delay/looping effect, chorus and overdrive effects, and even an autotune system. Oh, and because of the multitouch screen, you can play up to four waveforms at a time. In the hands of someone who knows what they're doing, this thing can be really impressive.It's available from a company called Normalware (any app with that robot in it has basically sold me from now on -- there's even a t-shirt of the guy) on the App Store right now for $1.99.
EQ2 Sarnak character creation video how-to
Servers are down for the EverQuest II: Rise of Kunark expansion patch and you can't wait to make your new Sarnak. Now you don't have to wait. Almost.Massively knows you dream of how your new toon is going to look so we are giving you a head start. This 8+ minute video shows all the options in creating a Sarnak at the character creation screen.Horn length, horn angle, head horns, scale patterns, scale colors, nose, chin and jaw shape. You name it, we covered it. Watch it a few times and when the servers come back up, you'll already know what options you want and you'll be ready to play.Keep checking in on Massively for the latest news on EQ2: RoK as well as two more videos spotlighting the unique characteristics of the Sarnak coming your way today.
