CES 2017: Sleep Number Announces Self-Adjusting, Feet-Warming ‘360’ Smart Bed

Today at CES Sleep Number announced the technological follow-up to its iPhone-connected “IT” smart bed from last year. The new bed is the Sleep Number 360, a self-adjusting smart bed that can warm your feet, adjust to your snoring and more.

The bed, which uses Sleep Number’s SleepIQ technology, has four new signature features. The bed can self-adjust throughout the night, matching the sleep movements of the sleeper. For instance, if someone switches from sleeping on their side to sleeping on their stomach, the bed will adjust comfort in real time. The bed can also sense when a sleeper is snoring and gently adjusts the sleeper so that they’re in a position that will lessen snoring.

Snore adjustment is temporary, and the feature only works with mild snoring in otherwise healthy adults, according to Sleep Number. The feature adjusts the bed based on the sleeper’s sleeping position. For instance, if the snorer is on their back the bed will raise their head slightly.

The 360 also comes foot-warming technology. Because the bed knows the sleeper’s bedtime routine via the SleepIQ app, it can warm up the foot of the bed to be toasty when the sleeper is ready to go to sleep. The company claims that research shows that people fall asleep faster when their feet are warmer than normal.

Finally, the bed has a smart alarm that’ll deliver a wake-up call at the optimal moment. Sleepers can set an alarm window via the SleepIQ app, and the bed, within that window, will deliver an alarm when the sleeper is in their lightest sleep.

The SleepIQ app can also connect the bed to external services and products like Fitbits and Nest Thermostats. It can combine this data to let users know how fitness is impacting their sleep habits and when let the sleeper know what temperature is best for them to fall asleep.

The Sleep Number 360 will rollout in phases throughout 2017. Sleep Number did not announce official pricing for the new beds, but said that it would be priced similar to current mattresses. Sleep Number’s current mattresses range from $800 to $7,099 for queen sizes.

The SleepIQ app is available for free in the App Store [Direct Link]

Tags: Sleep Number, SleepIQ, CES 2017, Sleep Number 360
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Lenovo’s new Miix 720 2-in-1 is a true Surface Pro 4 competitor

Lenovo has taken the wraps of its next 2-in-1 and, if the spec sheet is anything to go by, the Miix 720 will be a true competitor to the Microsoft Surface Pro 4. Lenovo’s promise is that now you’ll be able to take any kind of work – no matter how demanding – anywhere with this powerful tablet/laptop crossover.

This latest 2-in-1 is loaded with Windows 10 (Home or Pro), has a 12-inch screen and a detachable full-size keyboard with a touchpad included in the starting price of $999 (roughly £815).

Its portability is a key attraction here, with metal alloy chassis measuring just 14.6mm thin (including the keyboard) and weighing just 1.1kg, it shouldn’t ever feel a burden to lug around in your messenger bag.

There’s also a kickstand, complete with a “watch band hinge” on the back capable of adjusting to up to 150 degrees. Despite its portability, there’s plenty of power on the inside too.

Lenovo

That 12 inch display up front boasts a resolution of 2,880×1,920 (or QuadHD+) and is powered by the latest 7th gen Intel Core i7 processors in the highest specced version.

In the maxed out tablet you’ll also get 16GB RAM and a 1TB solid state drive, although that will cost considerably more than the $999 starting price. It also has Intel HD Integrated Graphics 620. 

As well as that, there’s the infrared camera up top for use with Windows Hello, allowing you to unlock the tablet just by looking at it, and a 5-megapixel camera on the back. 

There’s also a Thunderbolt 3 port which can support up to two external displays, and supports up to 4K resolutions. Being Thunderbolt 3 means it can support data transfer speeds up to 40GBps, so it can easily keep up with the fastest external storage available. Other ports include one USB 3.0 port, a USB 2.0 port, microSD slot and an audio jack. 

Lenovo

All this comes with a battery which Lenovo claims will get you up to 8 hours of usage on a single charge, although we suspect actual real life usage will deplete the capacity a little sooner than that. 

As for the backlit keyboard, Lenovo boasts that it will be accurate and feel good thanks to the 1.5mm key travel. And, of course, you can remove it whenever you like and just use the touchscreen on the tablet, plus the optional Active Pen 2 stylus.

This new Active Pen 2 has over 4,000 levels of pressure sensitivity, which is double what the first generation model had, and will be available to buy from February for just $60 (roughly £50). 

The tablet itself won’t be available to buy until the beginning of April though, which may just be enough time for Microsoft to launch its Surface Pro 5. 

The Morning After: Tuesday, January 3rd, 2017

Welcome to 2017!

Congratulations, you made it.

It’s 2017 and time for CESHere’s what to expect at CES 2017

The Engadget team spent their New Year’s Day venturing to Las Vegas. That means it’s CES season, and a buttload of TVs, wearables, self-driving cars and countless stupid “smart” things.” Here’s what we reckon you’ll see this week.

Tech-heavy luxury for the richDriving in Tesla’s superfast P100D

That thrill of incredibly quick acceleration (while exciting) is only a small portion of the Tesla P100D’s charm. In a dense urban environment like San Francisco, where Roberto Baldwin drove it for a week, there aren’t a lot of opportunities to live out your Top Gear dreams. Instead, he spent most of his time with the car commuting, trips with his family (holidays!) and heading to Costco. The glamour!

This real-life Gundam can moveWatch Korea’s mech take its first steps with a pilot on board

That real, life-sized mech that Korean company Hankook Mirae debuted recently isn’t just for show. Its designer, Hollywood SFX veteran Vitaly Bulgarov, posted a video on Facebook showing the robot taking its first steps. And, yes, it had a pilot on board.

Nano cells? Nano cells.LG’s incoming 4K TV series deliver better color through ‘nano cells’

If your TVs already have 4K, HDR and all the other buzzwords that promise top-tier image quality, what do you do next? For LG, it’s decided that it’s all about the colors. With its Super UHD TV line for 2017, and all three models (the SJ8000, SJ8500 and SJ9500) revolve around Nano Cell LCDs whose uniformly-sized particles promise more accurate and consistent colors.

Still looking for an ultraportable two-in-oneDell’s convertible XPS 13 laptop starts at $1,000

Until now, if you wanted a Dell ultraportable that folds into a tablet, you’ve had to look beyond the company’s XPS series. Not anymore. With the launch of the XPS 13 2-in-1. It’s looking pretty darn nice.

We’ll understand if you need a momentLenovo’s CES haul includes thinner laptops, VR and an Echo clone

What does Lenovo have in store for CES 2017? A $400 VR headset with embedded cameras for room-scale tracking, the “Legion” gaming laptop you’ll need to power it, some thinner Thinkpads and a Bluetooth speaker that hooks into Amazon’s Alexa service. Yeah, we don’t understand that last one either.

Grizzly tracksVermont power company (not) hacked by the Russians

On New Year’s Eve newspaper headlines broadcast a rumor that Russian hackers may have penetrated the US power grid via a Vermont utility. Later, the Burlington Electric reported that it had found malware matching a signature released by the DHS and FBI on a single laptop that was not connected to the grid. Now, the company says there’s no indication the grid or its customer data has been compromised, and that the result came from internet traffic that is “not unique.”

But wait, there’s more…

• Dell’s Ultrathin 27-inch monitor really lives up to its name
• Steam’s 2016 top sellers include ‘No Man’s Sky’ and ‘Rocket League’
• France gives you legal permission to avoid work email
• SpaceX will resume rocket launches on January 8th
• Samsung goes overboard to make you care about laundry

The Morning After is a new daily newsletter from Engadget designed to help you fight off FOMO. Who knows what you’ll miss if you don’t subscribe.

Linksys is the latest company to unveil a WiFi mesh system

Mesh networking has become trendy for folks looking to fill every nook and cranny of their homes with WiFi. So it should be no surprise that the makers of the most iconic router ever is unveiling its own system. The Linksys tri-band Velop setup is a modular system that the company says is made to expand as your needs do.

Each Velop Tri-Band 2×2 802.11ac Wave 2 MU-MIMO node pulls quadruple duty as a router, range extender, access point and bridge. According to Linksys, each Velop is capable of a combined speed of 2,200 Mbps. It’s like having a bunch of little routers in your home all working together to make sure you can stream The OA regardless of which room you’re in.

The Velop can be set up and maintained via the Linksys iOS and Android companion app and it supports Amazon’s Alexa platform out of the box. For example, it has a skill to turn guest access guest WiFi on and off with your voice. The smarts continue under the hood as well: Linksys says that the network will also dynamically adjust itself to deliver the best WiFi speeds.

And so it looks good in your home but will ultimately be mistaken for a speaker, the power and Ethernet ports are on the bottom of the Velop so it maintains a clean profile from all angles.

Since the device is modular, Linksys is selling it individually for $200 or in packs of two and three for $350 and $500, respectively. That makes it pricier than Google’s offering. Of course, though, it’s Linksys, which means it has a strong track record in networking products that Google hasn’t yet earned. Fortunately, we won’t have to wait long to see how they stack up against each other, as the Velops are available today.

Click here to catch up on the latest news from CES 2017.

Source: Linksys

Roccat’s new wireless gaming mouse promises zero lag

Wireless gaming mice are arguably more convenient and less hassle than wired mice, but they can come with a significant downside: lag. Roccat’s latest wireless gaming mouse aims to address this issue with the Owl-Eye optical sensor, which promises to translate motions to the screen with 1:1 accuracy. It’s one of three new mice and a swanky new keyboard Roccat revealed this week at CES 2017.

The Leadr is Roccat’s latest wireless gaming mouse, and the company promises it has “virtually zero latency.” It comes with a charging dock and a detachable charging cable (which technically makes it wire-capable, as well).

The two remaining mice are wired updates on the Roccat Kone line, each with the new Owl-Eye sensor. The Kone EMP is designed for players with medium to large hands, while the Kone Pure 2017 is made for slimmer hands, coming in at just 88 grams. Previous iterations of the Kone Pure have performed exceptionally well, especially for a slimmed-down mouse.

And then there’s the latest Roccat keyboard, the Isku+ Force FX, an updated model in the Isku series. The Force features a rubberdome keyboard that includes pressure-sensitive keys on the QWEASD zone, lending players greater control and customization options. Plus, each of those keys can be programmed with three different functions.

Click here to catch up on the latest news from CES 2017.

New Apple Watch to Launch in Fall 2017 With Improved Battery Life But no Major Design Changes

Apple’s third-generation Apple Watch is expected to be unveiled in the third quarter of 2017 and will focus on improving battery life and overall performance, according to a new report out of China.

On Tuesday, the Chinese-language Economic Daily News (EDN) claimed the next iteration of the wearable device will be manufactured by Taiwan-based Quanta, which was also responsible for the production of Apple’s first and second-generation smartwatch.

Citing market watchers with knowledge of Quanta’s plans, the paper said improving battery life is the manufacturer’s “main task”, but beside general performance improvements, the device’s other hardware would not see much change. Quanta declined to comment on the report, calling it “market speculation”.

The claims represent the first tentative indication of Apple’s launch timeline for its third-generation Apple Watch, pointing to a possible fall unveiling of the new wearable alongside this year’s iPhone 8.

The report also narrows down Apple’s rumored ambitions for the third-generation device, with previous reports suggesting it could introduce the first significant design changes for the timepiece, such as more advanced sensors that Apple was not able to include in the first and second-generation models.

Other previous rumors have claimed Apple plans to add cellular connectivity to the next Apple Watch, after battery life concerns prevented the feature from being included in the Series 2 device. Also suggested is a potential switch to micro-LED displays, which are thinner and lighter than current screens and offer improved color gamut and brightness.

Filed patents by Apple show other possibilities for future versions of Apple Watch, including the ability to determine a user’s identity through their heart rate and unique cardio rhythms. Future models could also potentially integrate haptic feedback into Apple Watch bands, freeing up internal space for other components and allowing for a thinner body design.

(Via DigiTimes.)

Related Roundups: Apple Watch Series 2, watchOS 3
Tags: Quanta, Apple Watch 3
Buyer’s Guide: Apple Watch (Caution)
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CES 2017: Lenovo Announces Amazon Alexa-Powered Connected Smart Speaker

PC maker Lenovo today announced its first smart speaker with Amazon’s voice-activated virtual assistant built in.

Called the Lenovo Smart Assistant, the connected speaker integrates Amazon’s Alexa Voice Services and offers the same speech-activated features as the Echo family of devices, but housed in a slightly redesigned unit.

The speaker keeps the same cylindrical profile as Amazon’s Echo, but with the microphone portion of the device in a slightly raised position, which Lenovo says offers better ventilation to cool the internal components. Lenovo’s unit also has eight far-field microphones versus Echo’s seven, with noise suppression and acoustic echo cancellation included for picking up voice commands from up to 16 feet away.

The Lenovo Smart Assistant comes in a range of color schemes including green, gray, and orange fabric. The speakers will ship in May for a price of $130 (less than Amazon’s Echo at $180). Lenovo is also offering a Harman Kardon edition of the Smart Assistant featuring better sound quality for $180.

Amazon’s Alexa Voice Services API is expected to crop up in a number of new third-party products at this year’s CES. Microsoft has previously teased third-party devices using its own Cortana virtual assistant technology.

Tags: Lenovo, Amazon Echo, CES 2017
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macOS 10.12.2 Users Urged to Avoid Using ‘Work-in-Progress’ Preview App to Edit PDFs

Mac users running macOS Sierra 10.12.2 are being urged to avoid using Preview to edit PDFs until Apple fixes several bugs in the app that can cause corruption issues in the document format.

The recommendation comes from TidBITS publisher Adam Engst. Writing on the online Apple newsletter website, Engst backs up fellow developer Craig Landrup’s claim that Apple’s decision to rewrite the PDFKit framework for macOS 10.12 has broken basic functionality that PDF-related developers rely on, such as compatibility with ScanSnap and Doxie scanners.

It pains me to say this, speaking as the co-author of “Take Control of Preview,” but I have to recommend that Sierra users avoid using Preview to edit PDF documents until Apple fixes these bugs. If editing a PDF in Preview in unavoidable, be sure to work only on a copy of the file and retain the original in case editing introduces corruption of any sort.

As to why issues have arisen in Apple’s native Preview application, Engst quotes approvingly the DEVONthink developer Christian Grunenberg, who characterizes the rewritten version of PDFKit in Sierra as a “work in progress”:

Apple wants to use a common foundation for both iOS and macOS. However, it was released way too early, and for the first time (at least in my experience) Apple deprecated several features without caring about compatibility. And to make things worse, lots of former features are now broken or not implemented at all, meaning that we had to add lots of workarounds or implement stuff on our own. And there’s still work left to be done.

10.12.2 introduces new issues (it seems that Apple wants to fix at least the broken compatibility now) and of course fixed almost none of the other issues. It’s not only DEVONthink — a lot of other applications (such as EndNote, Skim, Bookends, and EagleFiler) are also affected.

Apple previously removed functionality in its iWork suite for Mac to conform with iOS, but eventually re-introduced the missing features in a later version. Whether Apple plans to do the same with an update to Preview is still unclear. Meanwhile, until Apple fixes the issues with the native Mac app, Engst recommends Smile’s PDFpen as an alternative for PDF manipulation of all sorts, with Adobe’s Acrobat DC being a more expensive option.

Related Roundup: macOS Sierra
Tag: Preview
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Lenovo 500 multimedia controller Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET

You may not have a computer hooked up to your main living room home theater setup, but perhaps you should should. It’s a great way to get high-end PC gaming on a big screen, makes it easy to stream tons of content not easily accessible through common TV-based apps, and it’s the best way to set up virtual reality in a big living room space.

But the problem of how to actually drive that computer, be it a mini-desktop or a big gaming tower, is a tough one. I’ve tried everything from a standard wireless keyboard on my lap to a gyroscopic mouse I’d wave in the air, but nothing really works seamlessly.

Lenovo

Lenovo aims to solve this problem with the Lenovo 500, launched at CES today in Las Vegas. It’s a multimedia controller that looks like a hybrid of a tiny PC keyboard and an oversized Blackberry. The big difference between this and other wireless keyboards is that there’s still a standard (if small) QWERTY keyboard, but no separate touch pad or pointer. In this case, the entire keyboard surface doubles as a touch pad.

How does it work? Click the keys to type, or swipe your finger lightly over them to use the touch pad. It’s small enough that while holding it in two hands, both thumbs should be able to hit every key and swipe over the entire surface. There are still distinct left and right mouse buttons, as well as a few multimedia shortcut buttons.

Lenovo 500 Multimedia Controller
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There’s a small curve on the back of the Lenovo 500, making it easier to pick up from flat surfaces such as coffee tables, and the estimated range is around 65 feet (20m).

It’s certainly a clever idea, and it addresses a problem that to date has had no definitive solution, but touchpadding by swiping over a keyboard could be tough to get used to. We’ll have to get some serious hands-on time with it to see if it’s accurate enough for navigation, especially if it’s used on high-res 4K television screen.

The Lenovo 500 is expected in March, for $54, £44 or AU$75.

Lenovo Legion Y720 Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET

Lenovo has always been a bit of a stealth force in PC gaming. For years, the company has turned out some very good gaming laptops and desktops, with just a bit of gamer-y flair, excellent performance, and prices that are as good or better than the competition.

At CES 2017, Lenovo is rebranding its gaming line, hoping to make it more of a player in a category dominated by Dell’s Alienware and HP’s
Omen
on the mainstream side, and boutique players like Origin PC and Falcon Northwest on the custom side.

Lenovo

The new name is Legion, and it’s launching with two new laptops, the Y720 and Y520 (keeping the Y-series designation from Lenovo’s previous gaming laptops). Why that name? Lenovo says: “Just as the Roman army shared a common purpose that bound them together as a force to be reckoned with, Lenovo Legion is all about our growing community of gamers and their passion for gaming.” So, there’s that.

The new models look like slightly slimmer versions of Lenovo’s previous Y-series laptops, with red accents and keyboard backlighting (red-only on the 15-inch, multicolored on the 17-inch), and a wide central hinge connected to an angular body. Inside both of these, you’ll find new seventh-generation Intel Core i7 processors and Nvidia graphics, up to the current GeForce 1060 (in the 17-inch model). The 17-inch Y720 also includes a Thunderbolt 3 port for fast connections to accessories and external displays, and an optional 4K display with an anti-glare coating.

Lenovo Legion Y720
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The 17-inch Y720 is also the first Windows laptop with built-in Dolby Atmos, which is a surround-sound-like ecosystem of hardware and supported content for excellent positional audio, which is certainly important for games.

My favorite new feature in the Y720 is the integrated Xbox One wireless receiver. The standard dongle you need to plug into a PC to use an Xbox gamepad is huge (and frequently buggy). Having that built in is one of those small touches that means a lot.

The 15-inch Y520 version.

Lenovo

As of right now, it seems that the 15-inch Y520 model is missing most of these high-end extra features, and only supports the Nvidia 1050 graphics chip, which means it won’t work with the Oculus Rift or HTC Vive. Considering other PC makers put Nvidia 1060 or better GPUs into even 13-inch laptops, it seems like something we’d like to have in a future revision. Even the 17-inch tops out at the Nvidia 1060, not the faster 1070 or 1080, but in my hands-on testing in other laptops, the 1060 is perfectly fine for virtual reality and full-resolution, high-detail-level gaming.

The Legion Y720 starts at $1,399 (£1,144 or AU$1,947) and is coming in April, while the Legion Y520 will be available in February, starting at $899 (£735 or AU$1,251).