Baby
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Sproutling's new wearable tracks your infant's sleep patterns
Baby wearables. With the boom in fitness trackers, you must've seen them coming, right? Now, a pair of ex-Apple and Google employees has launched the Sproutling baby monitor, a device the company likens to Nest in terms of design and simplicity. Unlike the Withings Baby Monitor camera, however, it's meant to be worn around your baby's ankle. That way, it can monitor parameters like heart rate, skin temperature and body movement, while also tracking the room's temperature, humidity and light levels. All that data is sent to a smartphone app, which crunches it to create simple notifications. For instance, it can tell you whether her heart rate is higher than normal, if she's sleeping on her back, if it's warmer than ideal in the room or whether she's now awake and not in a good mood.
A tablet so intuitive even a baby can use it
"Hang on guys, just let me check my Facebook notifications and then we'll get to that weird green bean paste you keep trying to feed me." [Photo credit: Steve Paine]
Samsung's Galaxy S5 doubles as a baby monitor, if you have a Gear watch
The Galaxy S5: powerhouse smartphone, fitness guru... baby monitor? Yes, you read that right. SoyaCincau has learned that Samsung's jack-of-all-trades Android flagship includes a "baby crying detector" mode that uses the phone as a listening station. If your child is upset, the GS5 sends a vibrating alert to your Gear watch (needed for the feature) that urges you to come to Junior's aid. You probably wouldn't want to lean on the detector too often -- Samsung certainly doesn't think it's a wise idea, as you can see from the massive legal disclaimer pictured here. Still, it could come in handy if you don't have a dedicated monitor and occasionally want to keep tabs on your tyke while you run around the home.
Think an iPad seat for your baby is bad? You've only scratched the surface
I've been doing my best to ignore the outrage over the Fisher-Price iPad Apptivity Seat since I started seeing it pop up on social networks for one simple reason: I knew full well that the people freaking out over this particular product had no idea what kinds of iPad/iPhone-compatible baby products were actually being sold out there. Allow me to take you down the rabbit hole, after which you'll see the Apptivity Seat as one of the most easily excusable of the bunch. Exercise for your baby... with a dose of ADD Another entry from Fisher-Price, the Apptivity Gym, features adorable plastic toys hanging down for your baby to play with -- you know, like baby toys have done for decades. Oh, and there's also an iPhone holder embedded in the center of it to encourage your young one to ignore the actual physical toys that would provide said exercise. Logic. An adorable stuffed animal with an iPhone embedded in its chest Fisher-Price is really on a roll it seems, as this "Laugh and Learn Puppy" is equal parts fluffy stuffed animal and Apple smartphone. Ignoring the fact that having a hard plastic case around a metal smartphone pretty much negates the whole point of a stuffed animal in the first place, this toy will guarantee that your child will ignore every other toy that doesn't also include a technological component. OK, Fisher-Price isn't even trying anymore This "Laugh and Learn iPhone Case" doesn't even try to be anything less than a colorful, overly bulky iPhone case disguised as a kids toy. Want your baby to give up any hope of playing with actual toys ever again? Just give them your iPhone, apparently. Potty training with a dose of iPad Yeah, it's not just Fisher-Price that's doing this kind of thing: The "CTA Digital 2-in-1 iPotty Seat" is about as obnoxious as it gets. When it comes time to teach your young one how to go to the bathroom like a grown-up, you should probably get them started on everyone's favorite potty pastime while at the same time ignoring any and all important parental guidance or motivation. It's worth noting that while the Apptivity Seat has gotten absolutely destroyed in the Amazon reviews section since the web caught wind of it, the rest of these products are rated quite highly (with far fewer overall reviews). If we're going to decide that children half a year old shouldn't be spending their time tapping away at an iPad screen (and no, they shouldn't be; stop it), we should at least keep these things in perspective.
And so it begins: Royal Baby App hits App Store
Future PLC puts out some incredible titles: MacLife, PC Gamer, T3 and dozens more. But being a publisher, they're always looking for new stuff to sell, so if it had to be anybody, why not them? The company has just released the Royal Baby App that, you guessed it, is dedicated to the impending arrival of Kate and William's as-of-yet unborn child. There hasn't been this much excitement in the air about a birth since a baby supposedly came into the world in a manger more than 2000 years ago. And not just here in Britain. In America, people lap up Kate and William baby news like it's a hot fudge sundae in Death Valley (and I'm an American living in London, so it's okay for me to make fun of people on all sides of the pond about this). So what does the app get you? Pictures, of course, of when the most privileged child on the planet arrives. Plus all the news you can take about someone else's child, which, ironically, seems to be contradictory to what one would expect considering that most people profess to loath seeing too many pics of their friend's and relative's kids on their Facebook feed. Royal Baby App: Kate and William's birth celebration is a free download with several in-app purchases.
Google celebrates the Manchester Baby and the birth of computer memory (video)
As part of its efforts to promote the unsung heroes of computing history, Google is celebrating the Manchester Baby's 65th birthday. Despite the cutesy nickname, the Manchester Small Scale Experimental Machine was the first computer to use electronic memory rather than punchcards for programming, heralding the software revolution. The secret was in the Williams-Kilburn cathode-ray tube, which could store a (then) staggering 128 bytes worth of data. Of course, that's not much by modern standards, but given that the 5-meter machine weighed in at over a ton, we still think it could take your fancy laptop in a bar-room brawl. If you're curious to learn more and hear the immortal quips of Professor F.C. Williams, head on past the break for the video.
Withings Smart Kid Scale tracks your baby's weight
Withings makes a popular line of wireless body scale products that let users record and track their weight on their iOS devices. Recently, the company has brought another product to market that targets parents. The Withings Smart Kid Scale is a child-sized body scale that sends weight readings to the Baby Companion app via WiFi or Bluetooth. The app allows you to track your child's weight progress, see where your child fits with the average weight of children his or her age and allows you to track the child's nutrition as well. I found the Baby Companion app lacking on several fronts. First, it took more than a dozen tries to get the scale to pair with the app and even then, a connection was hit or miss. The app's UI seems too convoluted as well. It's trying to be too many things and those that just want an easy way to see their baby's weight data might be put off by all the bell and whistles. The scale itself was little better. I'm a fan of Withings' body scales because their design is top-notch and the company uses sturdy, high-quality materials. The Smart Kid Scale, on the other hand, is mainly plastic and feels cheap. A nice thing about it, though, is that the scale comes with a detachable tray, so you can lay you infant down in it to take a weight reading, but as your baby grows, you can continue to use the scale as a stand-on unit until your child reaches the ages of between 6 and 8 -- when they typically go over the 25kg / 55lb scale max. So is this scale something parents should buy? I brought the scale over to friend's house who has children and I let them use it. While they said it was nice, when I told them the price was US$249, they told me the value-to-cost ratio wasn't worth it. I would agree -- the scale prices most parents out. It's too much money for something that doesn't offer much more than a normal scale does. After all, once your child outgrows the baby tray, why not just have them stand on a regular bathroom scale?
UCSD's robot baby appears, is happy, sad, a little creepy (video)
Development on the UCSD's Diego-san has been underway for several years and now the robot child is read for his first home movie. The bot is being constructed to better understand the cognitive development of children, with a camera behind each eye recording (and learning from) human interactions around it. There are 27 moving parts in the face alone and Diego-san is able to replicate a whole gamut of emotions -- and give us shivers as he does. We've got some unerringly realistic footage right after the break.
Tinkermite replaces the wooden barnyard shape puzzles of yore with a tablet (video)
When we were young, our favorite toy was slotting the right trains from Thomas the Tank Engine into a wooden shape puzzle, but times have moved on since then. Now, Jacob Sullivan wants to give those baby toys a 21st century makeover, eschewing personified trains for teaching kids the inner workings of your Tablet PC. The Tinkermite comes with Camera, WiFi, CPU, Memory and Battery "modules" that you fit into the slots, while on the flip side there's a magnetic drawing board for doodling. The project's accepting your cash on Kickstarter, we're just worried about what'll happen if your kids mistake your $500 slate for their $50 toy and get a crash course in how these devices are really constructed.
5 tips for playing WoW with a baby on your chest
Seems like a lot of WoW Insider has spontaneously had a baby recently. OK, not spontaneous. A child isn't the sort of thing that creeps up on you. There's warning, is what I'm saying. You have time to plan. And that time's pretty important, because once your bundle of joy is in this world, things get a whole lot more complex. Like playing WoW. I'm obviously not one of those folks who say you have to quit your gaming life the second you have a child, but there are some fairly realistic adjustments that need to be made. Long nights of hardcore raiding are probably off the menu for a little while, and screaming hate-filled obscenities at that cheap rogue who just ganked you for the 50th time is right out. But, still, playing WoW is possible -- it just takes a little finesse. As I'm writing this now with my own little bundle of snot, poop, and adorableness, I wanted to share to the prospective parental audience what I've already discovered. I am by no means an expert, but this is the stuff I wish someone had told me before I logged in with a 7-pound baby on my chest.
WoW Moviewatch: Together
I'm back! Thanks to Adam and Dawn, who covered the hallowed halls of machinima while I was gone. Since it's going to take a day or so for me to get my legs back under me, we're doing something wildly different today. Together is so wildly different that it's from a different game! For various reasons, this song is a perfect tribute to my healthy and happy wife and girl, so I'll ask you all to forgive me a day of sentimentality. It's hard to believe I just proposed a handful of years ago (seriously, thanks, tuskarr!), and now we have this lovely girl. Here's to the hope that everyone gets to experience their joy. Interested in the wide world of machinima? We have new movies every weekday here on WoW Moviewatch! Have suggestions for machinima we ought to feature? Toss us an email at moviewatch@wowinsider.com.
Baby robot Affetto gets a torso, still gives us the creeps (video)
It's taken a year to get the sinister ticks and motions of Osaka University's Affetto baby head out of our nightmares -- and now it's grown a torso. Walking that still-precarious line between robots and humans, the animated robot baby now has a pair of arms to call its own. The prototype upper body has a babyish looseness to it -- accidentally hitting itself in the face during the demo video -- with around 20 pneumatic actuators providing the movement. The face remains curiously paused, although we'd assume that the body prototype hasn't been paired with facial motions just yet, which just about puts it the right side of adorable. However, the demonstration does include some sinister faceless dance motions. It's right after the break -- you've been warned.
Toddler-friendly Vinci Tab II makes its way to online retailers
Though already available through Amazon and SkyMall, the Vinci Tab II -- who we met in a previous life -- has found its way to WalMart.com and is moseying to other e-tailers such as ToysRUs.com, Diapers.com and YoYo.com next month. The Vinci carries a 7-inch (800x480) display, a 3-megapixel camera, 1.2GHz Cortex A8 processor, 8GB of intenral storage, a microSD card slot, runs Android (flavor unspecified) and is touted as the only tablet certified for child safety. The tab also supports three levels of premium educational apps and includes a few samples, interactive storybooks and animated music videos for your rug rats to work their noggins.While the slab's first incarnation lacked WiFi to minimize radiation exposure to little tykes, the latest iteration can pack WiFi for those who'd rather not update apps via microUSB. Interested in keeping your young'un busy? You'll be set back $249 for a WiFi model or $199 if you forgo wireless connectivity -- a hefty drop from its predecessor's $389 starting point.
Withings Baby Monitor makes its official, expensive US debut
The Withings Baby Monitor has already been available in the UK for sometime now and recently made a splash over at the FCC. Now the iOS accessory is finally for sale here in the good ol' US-of-A, for the rather staggering price of $299. That's right, this sensor-packed web cam probably costs more than your handset. Then again, that $20 set of audio-only monitors you picked up at Walmart can't keep you abreast of the temperature and humidity in your child's sleeping quarters or let you watch your newborn sleep with the aid of a night vision mode. You can get the associated WithBaby app for free in the iTunes App Store now. The only question is, whether or not you love your baby enough to spend $300 on an iPhone accessory. We won't judge you either way. Check out the PR after the break.
Withings Smart Baby Monitor drops through FCC's chimney
Baby monitors. If you're in the market for one (er, congrats) and you run an Apple-flavored household, then this Withings device looks sufficiently over-specced for your needs. It's been out in the UK for a couple of months already priced at £269 ($425), and judging from the FCC filing it's coming to the US too, where it'll face sibling rivalry from the likes of Samsung, Evoz and the Exmobaby bodysuit. The base station fixes to the side of the crib, hooks up over WiFi or Ethernet, and streams audio and three-megapixel video (with night-vision mode) over the web, so you can access it via the iOS app using 3G or any good internet connection -- not only when you're within range of your router. It's even said that if you turn the mic's sensitivity right up, you'll hear the sounds of your old life, calling to you.
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.
Holiday Gift Guide: iPad apps for the home
Welcome to TUAW's 2011 Holiday Gift Guide! We're here to help you choose the best gifts this holiday season, and once you've received your gifts we'll tell you what apps and accessories we think are best for your new Apple gear. Stay tuned every weekday from now until the end of the year for our picks and helpful guides and check our Gift Guide hub to see our guides as they become available. For even more holiday fun, check out sister site Engadget's gift guide. My iPad spends most of its time at home. I don't travel very often, and the 9.7-inch tablet is too large to throw in my bag while I run a quick errand. That's OK; the iPad may not trip the light fantastic, but it is my faithful companion at home. I, like many others, use the iPad while I'm cooking, watching television, or sitting on the couch. If you are gifting an iPad or want one for your coffee table, then you should check out my list of favorite iPad apps for the home. GoodPlayer (US$2.99) Good Player is a jack of all trades when it comes to video. It's a movie player, downloader and streaming media player which supports AVI, Xvid, Divx, DAT, VOB, FLV, WMV, MKV, MP4, RM, RMVB, AC3, HTTP, FTP, RTSP, MMS, SMB, MMSH, MMST, RTP, UPnP and UDP. I use it to stream media from my ReadyNAS, and it works exceptionally well. IMDB (Free) IMDB, the Internet Movie Database, is an excellent app for movie buffs. I use it all the time to look up actor information, cast lists, plot information and more. It covers old movies, current flicks and upcoming films. iBooks (Free) iBooks is an app from Apple that'll let you download and read eBooks from the iBookstore. It's perfect for reading on multiple devices as your bookmarks, notes, and last read page are synced wirelessly between all your iOS devices. Netflix (Free; service costs $8 per month) The Netflix app will let you stream movies and TV shows from Netflix's vast catalog. The UI was just redone, and the updated app looks even better than before. The app also tracks what you have watched and syncs this information between devices. I have an Otterbox case with a built-in stand and use Netflix all the time. Flipboard (Free) Flipboard is a magazine-style reader app that pulls content from your social networks and RSS feeds. It has a beautiful interface and is terrific for catching up on the news while sitting on the couch. Epicurious (Free) Epicurious is a cooking app that pulls its recipes from professional chefs and well-known cookbooks. The app has 30,000 recipes from Bon Appetit, Gourmet, Self, and other professional chefs and cookbooks. The app lets you save recipes to a favorites list and then add the ingredients to a shopping list when you're ready to get cooking. The app also has social media support so you can share your favorite recipes with Facebook friends and Twitter followers. Allrecipes (Free; $4.99 for the Pro version) Allrecipes is an online website that's filled with user-submitted and user-reviewed recipes. The iPad app taps into those recipes by letting you search for recipes by course, cooking method, or prep time. You can then filter the results by rating. If you're an Allrecipes member, you can buy the $5 pro version and sync your online recipes box to the iPad. It's an excellent, all-around app for finding new recipes. The Professional Chef by the Culinary Institute of America ($49.99) The Professional Chef is a reference guide for anyone with a passion for cooking. The app provides information on ingredients and how to buy the best quality when shopping. There's also cooking guides and video tutorials that'll show the best way to prepare and cook your ingredients. The photographs are stunning and the videos are professionally made, which makes its high price justifiable. Bento ($4.99) Bento is a free-form database app that'll help you keep track of anything and everything. You can use Bento to create a home inventory, keep a list of books, track the progress of home improvement projects and more. The possibilities are endless. Shopping apps (Free) Many people use the iPad to shop from the comfort of their couch and retailers are noticing. Major retailers like Walmart and Target have iPad apps; even smaller online shops like Newegg have joined the iPad revolution. Houzz Interior Design Ideas (Free) Houzz is an Interior Design app that'll help you remodel your house. It has over 200,000 high resolution photos that are organized by style, room and location. You browser the photos and choose the styles that you like. When you're done, you can show your ideas to an interior designer and bring them to life. Zillow (Free) Zillow's for the homeowner who's looking to buy or sell a house. The iPad app lets you search for a region and browse all the houses and land that are on sale. You can view the listing details including the price, taxes, number of bedrooms, number of baths and so on. It's an excellent resource for anyone in the market for a new home. Landscaper's Companion for iPad - Gardening Reference Guide ($4.99) The Landscaper's Companion for iPad - Gardening Reference Guide is the definitive guide to plants, tress, shrubs and bushes. The plant guide contains sun requirements, water usage, and growth characteristics for over 8500 plants. There's also 9,000 pictures, so you can see what the plant will look like when it's fully grown. Photo Measures ($4.99) Photo Measures is an app that'll help you keep track of measurements around the house. It lets you take a picture of your house and mark it up with measurements. If you need a new curtain, just snap a photo of the window, write in the measurements and save the doc for future use. It's perfect for your own work around the house, and is handy for creating plans to bring to a contractor. Best Baby Monitor ($3.99) Best Baby Monitor lets you use two iOS devices as a video baby monitor. You can connect the two devices using WiFi or Bluetooth. One device stays in the room with the baby, and the other (most likely the iPad) is with you. You can listen to audio and watch full screen video of your child's room. If it's night, you can turn on the flash to get a better view of your child. Photo by flickr user bfishadow (cc)
Exmobaby links up with AT&T, lets you keep tabs on sleeping babes
Ask any parent of a newborn what they miss most and they'll almost always mention sleep. That particular baby-borne exhaustion can take an even greater turn for the worse if said rents happen to be worrywarts. But wouldn't it be nice if bleary-eyed Moms and Pops could outfit those fussy babes with bio-monitoring pajamas and catch up on Zzzz's? It's not as far-fetched as it sounds. Exmovere's already introduced tech along those very lines and, now, the company has AT&T as a partner to push its Exmobaby onesies forward. The transmitter-equipped pjs work by collecting critical data from sleeping tots -- like heart rate and temperature -- that can be sent as alerts to phones, tablets and even PCs running the appropriate software. There's no launch date announced for the washable scifi duds nor has pricing been set at this preliminary stage, but chin up -- those night sweats should soon be a distant memory.
To a one year-old, a magazine is an iPad that doesn't work
While we're waiting for our iPhone 4S's to get delivered (or activated), I thought this would be a good time filler. It's a one-year-old baby who seemingly understands the touch user interface of the iPad (even when it is upside-down), but becomes confused with a magazine that doesn't respond to her taps and swipes. It's a cute video, but also shows just how intuitive Apple's touch interface is when a baby can understand it immediately. The video was posted by Jean-Louis Constanza, head of Orange Vallée, the skunk works for telecom company Orange.
Evoz Baby Monitor lets you spy on your kid from anywhere your iPhone gets a signal
Worried that your bundle of joy might get up to no good during your weekly Hatha class? Not with this monolith by his bedside, he won't. It's called the Evoz Baby Monitor and it takes its job very seriously. All you have to do is place this WiFi-enabled device next to Junior's crib, download Evoz' app on your iPhone and the monitor will automatically provide you with alerts (via text, e-mail or phone call) whenever your kid cries. Once you sync this watchdog with your phone, you can even use it to remotely listen in on your prince, just in case he utters his first words while you're out on the links. Best of all, the system isn't restricted to a fixed range and promises to work in any area where you've got cellular coverage -- whether that be in the backyard, at the gym, or at Child Protective Services. Evoz won't start shipping the Baby Monitor until October 4th, but gravely concerned parents can pre-order one now for $120, at the source link below. Otherwise, just crawl past the break for more information, in the full PR.
