Do you wake up tired? The Runtastic Sleep Better app can help

I have never been a sound sleeper.  Even when I was a little kid, it would take me forever to get to sleep.  This wasn’t such a big deal when I was younger, but now that I’m leaving my twenties in the rearview, sleep has become much more important.  I’ve found that getting a good nights rest takes more than simply getting to bed at a decent hour.  It helps to exercise, maintain a good diet, avoid caffeine later in the day and other things.  Everyone is different though, what might work for me, might not help you in the slightest.  If you’re like me and could use a little help getting a good nights rest, I have some good news for you.  The new Runtastic Sleep Better app can help you make the most of the hours spent in bed.

The Runtastic Sleep Better app takes some features that you usually find in fitness apps and combines them with an alarm clock.  When you go to bed you set your alarm and then place it by your pillow.  The sensors in your phone monitor your movement as you sleep so the app can then determine what sleep phase you are in.  When it comes time to get up, the Sleep Better app picks a time when you’re in a light sleep phase to wake you.  If you wake up during a light sleep phase, you wake up quicker and feel more energetic throughout the day.  If you are dragged out of a deep sleep phase, you take longer to wake up and feel tired for the rest of the day.  Instead of picking an exact time for your alarm, you pick a window of about 30 minutes.  The app then determines the best time during that window to wake you.  You can adjust this window in the settings so it can be longer or shorter depending on what you want.

When you wake up you’re presented with a summary screen.  You can see how long you slept, how much time you spent in each sleep phase and how efficient your night of sleep was.  Basically, the longer you spent in the deep sleep phase, the more efficient your sleeping is.  There are little icons on this page that help you keep track of important notes about that night of sleep.  For example, there is a little guy that looks like he is running.  You press that icon if you worked out before bed.  There are six of these icons, all here so you can keep track of activities you took part in the day before.  This makes it easy for you to learn what helps or hurts your sleeping patterns.  At the bottom of the summary page there is a spot where you can jot down notes about your dreams.  It’s never easy to remember what happened in your dreams, but if you take some quick notes when you wake up, you can keep track of the most interesting ones.

I have to admit that I had my doubts about the Sleep Better app when I began testing it.  After using it for about a week, I began to see the simple genius of this app.  By keeping track of my habits leading up to bedtime, I was able to gain a better understanding of what helped or hurt my sleeping.  While the app might not be a hundred percent accurate when tracking your sleep phases, I felt noticeably better on mornings that I had a higher sleep efficiency.  Furthermore, I can take what I have learned using the app and make changes to improve my sleep efficiency.  If you have had issues sleeping, the Runtastic Sleep Better app might be able to help you get a better nights rest.  By keeping track of what helps or hurts you getting to sleep, you can come up with a routine that should help you get a great night of sleep.  The Runtastic Sleep Better app should be available in the Google Play app store today.

Source Runtastic

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OnePlus reveals how many phones it’s sold

Ever since OnePlus first unveiled the One, Android fans have been clamoring for the limited invites needed to buy their own. It’s been an infuriating wait for many, but it seems the company is slowly starting to meet demand. Co-founder Carl Pei told Forbes that OnePlus has now sold 500,000 smartphones and is aiming for one million by 2015. So why hasn’t OnePlus just opened the floodgates already? Well, the company argues that to sell the device at such a low price-point, it can’t risk having excess inventory lying around. The company is slowing opening its doors though, after holding a (albeit botched) pre-order window that meant anyone could at least get in line. The firm says it racked up “tens of thousands” of sales and is offering fans a second chance to pre-order on November 17th, assuming they haven’t given up already and OnePlus has fixed its problems from last time.

Filed under: Cellphones

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Source: Forbes

Netflix will make ‘A Series of Unfortunate Events’ TV show

It’s been 10 years since Lemony Snickets’ A Series of Unfortunate Events was made into a movie, and you’ve probably accepted by now that there won’t be a second one. We’re not about to tell you that there will be (that’s the sad truth), but you will see the Baudelaire orphans on screen again, now that Netflix has secured the rights to adapt the 13 books into a live-action TV program. For those who’ve never heard of the title: the books tell a rather dark children’s tale, revolving around the terribly unfortunate lives of three orphaned siblings and their nefarious uncle Count Olaf (portrayed by Jim Carrey in the movie), who’d stop at nothing to steal the fortune they’re bound to inherit.

“After years of providing top-quality entertainment on demand, Netflix is risking its reputation and its success by associating itself with my dismaying and upsetting books,” the story’s author, Daniel Handler, wrote in the press release, taking on the identity of the series’ ever pessimistic fictional author, Lemony Snicket. Netflix is still looking for the right director to turn the books into a show for your TVs and computer screens, so it’s yet to announce when it’ll be available to stream. In addition to A Series of Unfortunate Events, Netflix is also developing other original chidlren’s programs in the next few years, including a How to Train Your Dragon spin-off and a King Kong cartoon series.

Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD

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Source: Deadline

Sensor helps you watch your diet by tracking your chewing

Tired of having to catalog every meal in your favorite fitness app just to get a sense of whether or not you’re burning enough energy? You might get some relief in the near future. The University of Alabama has built an ear-worn sensor that estimates your food intake by tracking your chewing. The Automatic Ingestion Monitor (AIM) combines imagery of your meals with jaw vibrations to determine both the volume and energy levels of whatever you’re eating. It’s smart enough to filter out talking, so you won’t throw it off by holding conversations in between bites.

The sensor exists just as a 3D-printed prototype for now. In the long run, though, a finished version could help a wide range of people. Doctors could better understand the patterns behind eating disorders, while you could slip on an earpiece whenever you want to measure your comestibles. An ear-based diet monitor is still going to be a bit awkward, but it should be more sophisticated than clunky wristbands and vibrating forks.

Filed under: Wearables, Science

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Source: University of Alabama