Flower Power
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Parrot Flower Power review: Can technology give you a green thumb?
Sure, you've heard of the connected home, but what about the connected garden? If you're someone who manages to always kill your plants, Flower Power, a new gadget from Parrot, might sound like just the thing. The $60 Bluetooth-connected device aims to turn your black thumb green by sending you daily push notifications about your garden's health. The small sensor can provide up-to-the-minute reports that can ensure everything from your potatoes to your petunias are getting exactly the right amount of sunlight, water and even fertilizer. So, is the tiny gadget what your garden needs?
Parrot's Flower Power monitors plant's environment, sends data to the cloud
For a company that usually makes Bluetooth audio products and quadcopters, this sure is a weird product coming from Parrot, but we dig it (pun intended). The French company has announced its Flower Power at CES, and as you can probably guess from the name, 'tis a smart sensor that you can insert into a pot to monitor the plant's environmental variables: sunlight, humidity, temperature and fertilizer (but no acidity?). The data is sent to the cloud via Bluetooth Smart for analysis before coming back to your mobile device, and you'll be able to look up Parrot's "library of thousands of plants" for the extra care for your herbal friends. No price has been announced for the Flower Power just yet, but it'll definitely be out at some point this year. Update: Official video added after the break. Update 2: During our stage interview, Parrot CEO Henri Seydoux confirmed that that the Flower Power can also measure the soil's pH level, so all is good. Update 3: The pH detector has been removed from the final specifications. Sorry folks. Follow all the latest CES 2013 news at our event hub.
30 years in Apple products: the good, the bad, and the ugly
Has it really been 30 years since two buddies named Steve sold off their prized possessions (Woz's HP calculator and Jobs' VW van) to raise money and launch a company? Has it really been 30 years since the two Steves, tired of selling blue boxes, built the Apple I and began selling it for $666.66? Yes, it has, and if you don't believe it, just compare Jobs' hairlines from '76 and today. And while the company has become known for many things, from its groundbreaking GUI to the iTunes Music Store, we know Apple has always been a hardware company at heart. So here's to you, Apple: the good, the bad and, yes, the ugly from the past 30 years. Happy Birthday.
