Philips personal health programmes: A full suite for managing health and chronic conditions

Wearables and health monitors are nothing new: we’ve seen bundles of fitness trackers, bands, smart scales and more from a variety of manufacturers. Which is why Philips’ personal health programmes suite of products is an interesting take on the health market, for it focuses on not only maintaining health but also managing chronic conditions.

The products, sold separately, are made-up of the Health Watch, a £250 continuous heart-rate monitor and wrist-worn hub to the system; blood pressure monitor (£90 for the upper-arm one, £70 for the wrist-worn one); Body Analysis Scale (£90) to measure weight, estimate body fat percentage and BMI calculation; and even an ear thermometer (£45) for taking temperature.

Packages from competition such as the Under Armour HealthBox total £349 for wearable, scales and chest-strap heart-rate monitor, which makes the more practical Philips wrist-worn combination of Health Watch and Body Analysis Scales more affordable. And let’s not forget that a large part of the Philips business is based in supplying medical-grade products to healthcare businesses.

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The hub of the system, the Health Watch, which communicates with an associated app on phone or tablet, is able to measure heart-rate and even sleep patterns for around four days at a time, Philips claims. After which it will need a 40-minute stop to recharge. No interchangeable batteries means this might not always be practical, but that’s an issue with most current products in this sector.

The Health Watch will auto detect raises or drops in heart-rate and associate these to exercise, such as running or cycling, or sleep, as a means to assess stress. Being able to look back over these will act as a means to identify stress factors in given days or weeks and take action. If you have high or low blood pressure then integrating a monitor for this to your package may further assist with countering ongoing conditions.

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The system can also handle food data input, whether via the app or the watch itself, the Body Analysis Scales obviously being the means to continually measure and, the theory being, hit your goal of weight/mass gain or loss.

The Philips personal health programmes products have been a long time coming – we’ve seen the Health Watch before now – but will finally go on sale in September 2016. Looks like a serious take on health monitoring – we’ll be pulling together the full suite for a long-term ongoing review as and when it becomes available.

How many Pokemon are there in Pokemon Go? 151 and here they all are

Pokemon Go has been a global hit. The augmented reality game is available for iOS and Android in the US, Australia, New Zealand, Germany and now the UK too, so you can head out onto the streets to find and catch Pokemon.

However, how do you know which Pokemon to look for? And how many can you catch exactly?

There are more than 700 Pokemon that have appeared in the franchise in the last 20 years, 729 to be precise, but the number of them that can be caught in Pokemon Go is far smaller. In fact, thanks to Reddit user Juxlos, who deep dived into the field test version of the game, it has been revealed that there are 151 Pokemon in the mobile app to be found.

• Pokemon Go: How to play and other tips and tricks
• Can’t get Pokemon Go in your country yet? Here’s how to download it now
• What is Pokemon Go and why is everyone talking about it? 
• Pokemon Go: Best, worst and craziest places people have found Pokemon
• London through the eyes of Pokemon Go
• Pokemon Go: 11 amazing, mind-boggling facts about the AR game
• Pokemon Go: How to catch Pikachu as your first Pokemon

At least, there were 151 data files for Pokemon in the test version seeded a few months back. There might be more in the full consumer release, although 151 sounds about right as that’s the exact same number of Pokemon that appeared in the original Pokemon Red and Pokemon Blue Game Boy games that originally started the whole (Poke) ball rolling.

It has lead many to believe that Pokemon Go has, therefore, the entire original cast of critters for you to catch.

And on that basis, we present all 151 to you so you can see what you are looking for, and even tick them off when you’ve caught them.

Just flick through our gallery above and you’ll find all 151 Pokemon in alphabetical order.

Many of them are evolved versions of others. We’ve also attempted to find stills of them taken from the cartoon series or games, to make the experience even more retro. We hope they give you fond memories of the last time Pokemon took over the world.

Enjoy.

Pokemon Go review, or The Trials and Tribulations of a Pokemon Go addict

It’s raining. The British summer has been everything we expect it to be, and at 4pm on a Wednesday afternoon, you’re not supposed to be sitting in your car playing Pokemon Go.

But addiction makes you do things you wouldn’t normally do and things you certainly wouldn’t normally admit to. 

The cosseted interior of a BMW 5 Series is a fine place to launch an assault on the local Pokemon Gym. It’s raining, after all, and as a 39-year-old it’s perhaps a little too wet to be outside, even if that’s what Pokemon Go wants you to be doing.

Sheltering under the bridge next to this particular Pokemon Gym are three teens. The flash of green on their permanently awake smartphones confirms they’re Go players too. This is their Gym and they’re about to lose it. 

The gym is a soft target, although it takes several Pokemon to defeat the fully powered-up Hypno who’s lurking there. From the soaring high of the victory, comes the crushing low of seeing those teens rush out to reoccupy the Gym with a new set of more powerful Pokemon, faster than we can move in. It’s an embarrassing twist of events.

This is where Pokemon Go takes you. It crosses divides, from the softly heated leather of a BMW, to the cowled figures sheltering from the rain. You’re not playing in your front room on your sofa – something that has characterised computer gaming from its inception – instead you have to take yourself outside into the real world, where there are real people. 

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Pokemon Go review: A game of two very different halves 

It’s at this point that Pokemon Go is likely to divide its players. There are two sides to Pokemon Go. The first is the collection of Pokemon. This is the aspect that’s casual, but very, very, addictive. You have a Pokedex, a list of those Pokemon you have and those you could have, so you face the same sort of addiction that drives people to collect football stickers or Facebook friends – you don’t want gaps, you want the complete set.

Because Pokemon are fairly easy to find and fairly easy to catch, you feel like you’re making progress right from the start. You might catch a lot of the same type of Pokemon – for us it’s Pidgy and Rattata – but they play a part in helping you evolve and get new Pokemon.

Pokemon Go rewards you for heading to new places. Your garden is unlikely to yield much Pokemon action and quiet residential streets may be the same. But head into a town, or city centre, and Pokemon Go quite literally takes over. This will cause frustration for some players: if you live in the country, Pokemon might be hard to find.

As PokeStops – places where you can collect items like health potions and Poke Balls – are often on notable cultural locations, like statues, memorials or pubs, once you’re in a populated location, the riches are plentiful. Walk through Trafalgar Square in London and you’ll be collecting items about every 10 paces, feeling the endorphin rush of having your cravings sated.

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Catching Pokemon requires those Poke Balls you collect at PokeStops and catching a Pokemon is fairly easy. You press and hold the ball, watch the ring concentrating on the centre of your target, then you flick the ball at the Pokemon, hopefully hitting it on the head, where you’ll usually capture that character. 

Sometimes the Pokemon jumps or moves, and sometimes they can escape. Sometimes you’ll throw a lot of Balls, then hit them with a Razz Berry to soften them up, before you make a successful capture. The higher the CP of that Pokemon, the harder it is to catch, the rarer it is, again, the more tricky it seems to be. 

This is the side of Pokemon Go that will likely be popular with all ages and types of mobile gamers. You can sit in the park, eating your lunch, catching Pokemon. You can be waiting for the bus, and stroll up and down the street visiting PokeStops and seeing what Pokemon are out there. It’s a lovely distraction. 

Or someone might drop a Lure at the PokeStop pub you’re sitting in, and it’s happy days. It’s here that the augmented reality that Pokemon Go has been lauded for comes into play. When you go to capture, the camera on the rear of the phone shows you the real world with your target character in it. It’s fun, it’s novel, adding a sense of purpose to AR in a game that it has so far lacked, giving that feeling that you’re actually living in this alternate reality.

Yes, there have been a few times when we’ve felt our phone buzz, and we’ve looked around the real world for that Pokemon to catch.

Pokemon Go review: Cry ‘havoc!’, and let slip the Arcanine of war

Pokemon isn’t just about catching them all. It’s about pitching them into battle. This is where Gyms come into play, and ultimately, this is what the different Pokemon stats are about: how strong they will attack and how well they will survive attacks, as well as which Pokemon is more effective against which other type.

When you encounter a Gym, you’ll find it occupied by a team and defended by one or more Pokemon. You’ll be made to join a team as you progress through the game and that determines whether you’ll be training and defending the Gym, or battling the occupants, knocking down prestige and ultimately taking control for your own team.

It’s here that Pokemon is a very different game to the cutsey “catch ’em all” fun. Having to go to that Gym with those aims is very different to exploring and the reward of discovery.

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But it’s also what Pokemon is really about, and where the biggest rewards lie. If it’s your Gym and you’re defending it, you’ll earn coins and those coins will let you buy things from the store without spending real money. Gyms give you the chance to feed your habit without having to sell family heirlooms, or raid the kid’s college funds, but you’ll have to go back to it regularly.

Ultimately, the aim of catching, hatching, evolving or powering-up, is so that your Pokemon champion is more Gregor Clegane and less Tyrion Lannister. You’ll also want an army of strong Pokemon, rather than just a few, so you have the resources to take down a Gym. This is where the obsessive catching and evolving, filling out your Pokedex comes into its own, but where having friends on the same team as you matters, as you’ll need to attack Gyms together to have the power or the time to over-throw the defending team. Yes, a bit like gang warfare.

For many – those with the time – hanging out at Pokemon Gyms will be the hit, bringing the buzz of Pokemon Go, and taking the game to its highest highs. But for others, it will feel like Pokemon OD, where it gets too much, takes too much time and involves too much loitering.

It’s amusing that in these early days that no one really knows how to best tackle these battles and that’s part of the fun, because it’s all so new. We suspect that once Gyms get to high levels, casual players won’t stand a chance to winning and it’ll all come down to coordinated team efforts, which might reduce casual gamers to vagrant wanderers, hunting far and wide for an easy target.

Pokemon Go review: Real world costs

Aside from the real money you could spend, if you’re so far gone you just have to buy more stuff through in-app purchases, there are other tangible costs.

As smartphone users know though, keeping your phone on all the time costs you a lot in battery life. That’s where Pokemon Go really hits home. As you need to phone awake to be playing the game, you need it on. You don’t have to interact with it all the time, because you’ll get a vibration to notify you of something. 

An excited glance at your phone might reveal a new Pokemon for you to capture, or if you’re unlucky, just a text message from a loved one. We’re talking about addiction, remember?

With walking specific distances necessary to hatch eggs in incubators, there’s a feeling that things could be handled better – is it about the walking, or time spent with the game open? Sadly, it’s about walking with the game open, so there’s no escaping the massive drain on the battery as you do so, but we’ve started carrying a 10,500mAh battery pack like a pro, good for three full recharges.

If you’re fully addicted to Pokemon Go, you can expect your battery to be drained in a couple of hours – but just think about how far you might walk – we’ve chocked up 15km walks on some days, although Pokemon Go’s measurement of distance seems much lower than what you actually walk.

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Pokemon Go review: Pandemic problems

Pokemon Go’s success has surprised everyone. The game has become pandemic, already seeing huge adoption in regions in which it is yet to officially launch. This is part of the cult – you’re playing something you’re not supposed to, and that’s part of the thrill, being part of something that’s a huge event in mobile gaming, and brand new. That might lessen now that it’s officially launched in the UK.

There is a downside that plagues the game, however, and that’s a point of infrastructure. Server problems have been rife and that can mean failures to access the game, and failures to sync.

You might be mid-capture of Jynx and you’ll get the spinning wheel as the game stutters and fails to connect. We’ve had a number of freezes and crashes at this point, manually quitting the game and restarting to get things running again. It’s far from perfect, but, perhaps, Niantic Labs didn’t think it would be so viral.

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Then there are the locations. One of our local Gyms isn’t in a place you can get to. We don’t know how Pokemon Go’s locations were put together, but we guess it was some sort of location scraper that used online sources to collect data and images of places. But in the real world, you’ll find some of these locations are behind fences, on private property, or for us, on a building site.

Yes, Pokemon Go has placed a Gym on a field next to an actual gym. Unfortunately the developers rolled in with earth movers and put up boarding, so the physical location of that Pokemon Gym isn’t accessible. It’s still occupied, however, and there’s a flattened section under some fencing that lets the local kids in. Pokemon Go might lead some players to places they really shouldn’t be in. 

While some locations are good humoured about it, we’re not sure St Mary’s Church wants that many people standing in its cemetery and The Anglers pub might not want its outdoor seating area full of Go players. If they’re paying customers, there’s a happy medium here, but pubs with groups of kids hanging around outside might not do so well.

Verdict

Pokemon Go has already made its mark on the landscape. It comes at a time when many people wanted a distraction from the turmoil of the real world and Pokemon Go whisks you away on a flight of fancy. 

Exploring, collecting and catching is exciting, and being able to do that in that outdoors, on your feet, wherever you happen to be that day, is part of the magic, whether you’re young or old, in a group or on your own. 

For many, the battles and occupying the Gyms will be the game, especially for those with a Gym on their doorstep. It’s about dominating, owning your territory and leaving your mark, but some might simply find they’re too far from a Gym to ever really exploit that side of the game. It’s a social game that doesn’t leave you chatting to strangers via some chat app, but swapping tips with real people, in the real world. This could lead to meeting new people, but we’re sure there will be real world battles too, as people decide it’s easier to chase off Gym attackers, rather than beat them in the game.

Pokemon Go’s moment is now. It’s a rollercoaster ride you should jump on while the thrills are fresh and while it’s new and novel. Go and buy yourself a spare battery, and make yourself part of this crazy social event, before it fizzles out. For us, we’re almost ready to go Cold Turkey.

Motorola launches third-gen Moto E, confirms Moto G4 Play for UK

It looks like Lenovo’s Moto refresh isn’t yet complete, with the company today announcing a new Moto E handset. This third-gen Moto E slips into the bottom of the Moto line, but still offers you plenty for the £99 asking price. 

With the Moto G4 jumping up to 5.5-inches, many thought that Lenovo had abandoned the smaller-format of handset, but that’s not the case. The Moto E3 comes with a 5-inch display, although the resolution is 1280 x 720, so strictly HD.

There’s a quad-core processor to power things along, support for microSD and a 2800mAh battery, packed into a body that gets Moto’s water-repellent treatment, so should be able to fend off the odd rain shower.

There’s an 8-megapixel camera on the rear and a 5-megapixel snapper on the front. Aside from those details, Moto hasn’t gone into specifics, except to say that it will be available from Tesco, Amazon, Argos and O2 from early September.

Motorola has also confirmed you’ll also be able to get the Moto G4 Play in the UK. This third model was announced in some regions alongside the Moto G4 and Moto G4 Plus, and will only cost you £129 when it hits shelves in mid-August. 

It’s a bit of a step down from the Moto G4, with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 chipset, 2GB RAM, 2800mAh battery, and 16GB of internal storage, with microSD card support. Again there’s a 5-inch HD display, like the Moto E3. 

There’s an 8-megapixel camera on the rear and a 5-megapixel camera on the front.

Both phones launch on Android Marshmallow, presenting a nice clean and clutter-free Android experience, for not a lot of money.

Watch The Open for free with Now TV

You can watch the first day of The Open golf championship for free today, 14 July, thanks to Now TV.

The major golf event is being shown exclusively by Sky Sports and if you don’t have Sky you might miss out. However, Now TV is giving everyone a free Sky Sports Day Pass today, usually worth £6.99. That means you can watch for the next 24 hours on a connected TV, games console, tablet, phone or set-top-box at no cost.

The championship has started already, so you’ll have to jump in while it’s underway, but you’ll still get completely free coverage for the rest of the day. And as the Day Pass runs for 24 consecutive hours after you start watching, it’ll run to tomorrow morning too.

To get the free Sky Sports Day Pass, head to nowtv.com. You can either sign up for the first time or be an existing customer.

• Now TV Smart Box preview: Live TV and Sky in one device for a handsome price
• Now TV vs Now TV Smart Box vs Sky+HD vs Sky Q: Which Sky package is right for you?

A Sky Sports Day Pass also expires after the set time limit. You will not be charged for a further pass after it has completed (unlike the Sky Cinema or Sky Entertainment Monthly Passes).

Now TV has also recently released a new set-top-box of its own. The Now TV Smart Box can stream Now TV content, plus around 50 additional apps, as well as contains a digital TV tuner to watch, pause and rewind live terrestrial television.

Sky will begin 4K broadcasts on August 13th

When Sky launched its new Q service, blurring the lines between live TV and on-demand content, it also laid the groundwork to make the leap to 4K. However, while the top-end Sky Q Silver box has supported Ultra HD output from the get-go, we’ve only been given pretty vague assurances customers would be able to make full use of the hardware sometime this year. Turns out they won’t have to wait much longer, as Sky announced today that Ultra HD broadcasts will begin airing on August 13th.

Sky might have pipped Virgin Media to the post, but BT began showing sport in glorious 4K a year ago. If BT swung the first punch, though, then Sky is bouncing off the ropes with a heavy counter. In addition to showing 124 live Premier League games and from 2017, every Formula 1 race in Ultra HD, there will be over 70 4K movies available on Sky Cinema from the outset, including new blockbusters such as The Revenant and The Martian.

On top of that, a selection of documentaries and other factual programming, including some eye-watering Attenborough magic, and dramas such as The Young Pope and The Blacklist, not to mention other material in the realms of comedy and arts. Basically, it’s not exactly a lackluster launch lineup — there will be plenty to watch from day one — and best of all, it’s a free upgrade provided you have a Sky Q Silver box and the appropriate bundles (Sky Store rentals/purchases excluded). And since 4K broadcasts are being received via satellite, it places no additional burden on home broadband.

Customers will have to do one little thing to set themselves up, which amounts to digging through the set-top box video settings and changing the output to 4K. You’ll be prompted to do this the first time you try to view an Ultra HD broadcast and sent straight to the appropriate menu, though, so it shouldn’t be too much trouble. And if you bung on a footy match or anything else that’s showing in 4K, but on a different channel, the box will also prompt you to switch to the clearer broadcast.

To prepare Q Silver boxes for 4K, a UI update will begin rolling out at the end of July. New “Ultra HD” sections will be added to category menus where high-res content is available, but there are a couple of other tweaks that all Sky Q customers will see, even if they don’t have a Silver box. Most of these are geared towards bingeing. Once you start watching one episode of a show, the next one will begin downloading automatically in the background (this feature is coming to Sky+ HD boxes soon, too). And when one episode finishes, the next will automatically start after a 30-second countdown — Netflix style — during which time you can also tell it to get a move on, or stop it there before your session becomes an all-nighter.

And if there is no next episode, then the guide on the bottom rail will flag when it’s due to air so you can schedule a recording in advance. Jumping to specific points within a recording will become a little easier too. You’ll be able to swipe and hold on the fancy touchpad remote to quickly move back and forth through the timeline, or skip minute-by-minute with individual drags. Finally, Sky is also making a slight change to the sports content menu. The featured section will start promoting live, upcoming events, instead of simply highlighting past broadcasts to catch-up on. So, you know, you might heed the warning and be on top of a game or two instead of constantly finding out the scoreline from the group message thread.

Source: Sky Q

The new UK driving test will use a sat nav

Over the years, the standard UK driving test hasn’t changed all that much. Since 1996, learners have had to prove their road-worthiness by completing a set of multiple-choice questions and demonstrating decent hazard perception, but it’s always been about proving you’re a safe driver. In its biggest shake-up since the introduction of the theory test, the government will require new drivers to demonstrate their ability to navigate using a satellite navigation (sat nav) device in the hope it will promote safety, boost confidence and widen potential areas used for practical tests.

Under the new plans, the independent driving section of the test rise from 10 to 20 minutes. The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) believes it will allow assessors to better judge a candidate’s ability to manage different road conditions and “manage and prioritise distractions,” which may include directions from a sat nav.

Because many drivers now automatically use the sat nav built into their car or assistive smartphone apps like Google Maps, the DVSA argues that “this change in driver behaviour should be reflected in the test.” Instead of having to bring their own device, the candidate will use a pre-approved sat nav provided by an assessor that will be fixed to their car. They’ll then be judged on their ability follow the directions provided, but won’t be asked to actually program it.

Since April 2015, UK transport research body TRL has run a trial on the new test and found that learners are now spending more time on fast dual carriageways and using sat navs with their driving instructor when learning, which in turn made them more confident on the road. The public will now be invited to comment on whether they agree with the proposal ahead of the August 25th deadline.

Via: The Guardian

Source: GOV.UK

Nest Releases Outdoor Security Camera, Mobile App Update in the Works

Google-owned Nest has unveiled Nest Cam Outdoor, its first new product since co-founder Tony Fadell left the company.

The outdoor home security camera is similar to last year’s Nest Cam – now called the Nest Cam Indoor. The wired outdoor Cam captures 1080p HD video and features a two-way mic, 20-foot infrared night vision, and a 130-degree wide-angle viewing lens.

In addition, the Nest Cam Outdoor features waterproofing and a more rounded design, while a magnetized disc on the rear of the camera fixes it to external surfaces, such as house guttering.

Both cameras carry the same price tag of $199 and work with the Nest mobile app, which the company says will receive a redesign later this month. The app offers encrypted video streaming as well as additional $10-per-month, subscription-based video features, including upcoming features like wide-angle camera views and human profile detection.

The camera doesn’t work with Apple’s HomeKit, but Nest says it will work with Google Home, despite the camera running on its own proprietary platform.

The new camera signals Nest’s ongoing commitment to developing smart home products on its own, despite being acquired by Google in 2014 and its co-founder and former CEO leaving the company last month. Speculation regarding Fadell’s departure revolved around recent issues at Nest, including a long length of time between product releases and software issues with the Nest Protect smoke detector that led to a recall.

Tony Fadell is credited as one of the original creators of the iPod, heading up the project as senior vice president of the iPod division at Apple from 2006 to 2008. He still holds a role as “advisor” to Nest, and left a two-year roadmap for the company’s new CEO Marwan Fawaz, a former Motorola executive.

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