Aveine takes the wait out of aerating wine

Aerating wine can dramatically improve the taste by just letting it sit in a glass or decanter for a while. However, sometimes you don’t really want to wait an hour (or several hours) to have that first sip, so Aveine developed a gadget that nixes that wait time. With its $200 connected device of the same name, the company says it can offer up to 24 hours of aeration as you pour the wine. No more waiting until the perfect amount of time has elapsed to have a glass.

The gadget attaches to a wine bottle and features a touch panel on the front for adjusting the aeration level and displaying the wine’s temperature. There’s a companion app that allows you to scan the label of your bottle so the software can provide a suggested aeration time. The company says that if the app’s database doesn’t recognize what you’ve scanned, you can manually add it. Based on a few questions, it will still give a suggestion for aeration — even for those bottle you have to add yourself. And yes, if you already know you like that 2009 Pinot Noir aerated for 4 hours, you can skip all the app stuff and manually adjust the time period.

If you’re ready to commit, Aveine will be up for pre-order in March and it’s slated to ship in June.

Click here to catch up on the latest news from CES 2018.

Google uses GPS and smart locks to secure wayward campus bikes

Google is well-known for offering free bikes on campus to help its employees get around, but those bikes frequently don’t stay on campus. Up to 250 go missing per week — and that’s rather ironic for a company that built its reputation on finding information. At last, though, the search giant is putting technology to work to solve the problem. Google has been adding GPS trackers to its bikes as of late 2017, and has been testing smart locks that employees can open with their phones.

The company tells the Wall Street Journal that about a third of its bikes have GPS trackers so far, and they’re offering insight into just how far the two-wheelers will go. While many tend to stay around Mountain View (some locals treat them like community rides), others have been taken as far as Alaska and Mexico.

In many ways, the trackers and locks represent Google’s ongoing loss of innocence. Free-to-ride campus bikes might have sounded great in Google’s utopian early days, but that’s at odds with a reality where people will routinely borrow or steal anything that isn’t nailed down. Even though the company can easily afford to lose bikes, it doesn’t look good to waste money and resources for the sake of maintaining a company tradition.

Source: Wall Street Journal

Moodo’s smart fragrance box adds a hint of vanilla to your home

It’s no secret that not every Kickstarter or Indiegogo project becomes a reality. Often times, these ideas get crowdfunded but don’t get turned into an actual product, but thankfully that wasn’t the case for the Moodo smart air freshener. The project was funded on Indiegogo last year, and now Moodo is showing it off at CES 2018. It works exactly as advertised, letting you use your smartphone or tablet to select and activate different scents in your home, such as Orange Sunrise, Precious Spices, Grandma Vanilla and Midnight Trill.

The Moodo box consists of four scented capsules, which you can mix and preset them to turn on via the companion app. If you’re someone who likes to have scented candles in your home, this could be the perfect device for you. It’s available now for $189 with 12 scented capsules, and each pack of four after that will cost you $29. Yes, using your phone to make your house smell good is kind of pricey.

Click here to catch up on the latest news from CES 2018.

Dreamlight’s smart eye mask is designed to help you sleep

For everyone but the journalists covering the show, CES is all about catching up on, and improving the quality of, your sleep. One company with an eye on getting you well-rested is Dreamlight, which is building an eye-mask that, so its founder claims, will help you get some more shut-eye.

The chunky foam eye mask wraps around your head and is secured by velcro, with special inserts to ensure no light can peek in around your nose. Inside, however, are flexible circuits that house a quartet of speakers, infra-red sensors, an optical heart-rate monitor and LED panels in front of your eyes. It’s comfortable, and the darkness that the eyemask offers is certainly better than the shades you can buy from a corner store.

The LED panels are for the sleep program, and will gently blast you with 15 minutes of orange light in order to stimulate melatonin production. After that point, you’ll be shut off from the outside world with the eyemask that’ll keep you in a dreamlike state until you set a wake-up time.

When it’s time for the new day to begin, the mask will blast increasingly-light green hues toward your eyelids, which is more apparently invigorating than the traditional blue. In addition, the device can play a number of sounds, from your own tunes through to white noise.

Of course, the presence of both the optical heart-rate monitor and the accelerometers and gyroscopes in the eyemask means that it can also track your sleep. Using the companion app, you can learn how long you rested the night before, and find out the quality of the shut-eye you received.

The company has partnered with 23andMe, and apparently can craft custom sleep profiles that are tailored to your genetic makeup. One such profile is “Da Vinci’s Sleep,” and should you have the requisite profile, the company claims you can train your brain to require less sleep and still be productive. In addition, Dreamlight will offer up a six-day jetlag plan to help you get over that special fatigue you feel when you’ve traveled across several timezones.

Battery-life wise, founder WIll Wu believes that the eyemask will last for up to four nights on a charge, depending on use. If you use the built-in headphones to stream music from your smartphone, for instance, then you can expect that figure to fall.

Dreamlight is preparing to launch on Indiegogo later this month, with prices expected to begin at $100, although there’s no word on when you can expect delivery.

Nicole Lee contributed to this report.

Click here to catch up on the latest news from CES 2018.

Orbi’s 360 degree camera glasses are set to ship this spring

A delicate balance must be struck when using action cameras, between capturing your adventures and keeping your hands free. But with Orbi’s 360 degree camera glasses, you’ll no longer have to choose.

In development as a crowdfunding project since 2016, the Orbi Prime glasses are finally set to begin shipping, the company announced at CES in Las Vegas on Monday. The water-resistant frames hold a pair of HD cameras at each temple and can record up to an hour of 1080p video onto the onboard microSD card between chargings.

The Orbi’s associated mobile and desktop apps enable users to quickly edit and stitch together their recordings, though the glasses also offer built-in WiFi so that you can share these videos without having to first offload them to a PC. The Orbi Primes are expected to begin shipping to IndieGoGo backers around April, according to a company rep, and will retail for just over $400 once they do go on sale.

Click here to catch up on the latest news from CES 2018.

Velco’s smart handlebars use lights to guide you home

Smartphones are great for getting you where you want to go. But when you’re on two wheels, it can be tough to keep track of your progress. You either have to pull over, or attach your device to the handlebars. Velco’s “Wink” smart handlebar solves that issue while also adding additional security to any bike it’s attached too.

The Wink handlebar uses lights adjacent to both grips that indicate which direction you need to go after the rider has created a path with the companion app. If the right light is illuminated, you turn right, if the left, you turn left. If both are illuminated, you go straight. It’s turn-by-turn navigation without the non-stop barrage of notifications coming from your phone.

But if you’re someone that needs to be connected, the Wink will notify you when you receive a text message or call.

On the security side, the handlebar is equipped with GPS and can be tracked in case your bike is stolen or more embarrassingly, you forgot where you parked it. With a three-week battery life, it’ll be easier for you or the proper authorities to track down your missing bicycle, or at the very least the handlebars.

In addition to keeping the bike safe, it’ll notify a predetermined friend or family member if the handlebar determines there’s been an accident thanks to the onboard accelerometer.

And finally, it’s also just a light for riding with two beams ready to pierce the night. Of course, all these fancy features come at a price and a hefty one at that. The Wink’s launch price is €280 ($337) . It’ll land in Europe this March and North America and Asia by the end of the year.

Click here to catch up on the latest news from CES 2018.

SureFire’s ARON ecosystem enables augmented reality without Wi-Fi

SureFire is laying the foundation for a post-Wi-Fi world. Its new platform, ARON, is a communications system designed to transmit real-world data via infrared light, allowing users to access an augmented reality view of their immediate surroundings. It’s a lot like Google Lens — but it doesn’t rely on Wi-Fi, cellular data, geolocation or orientation tools.

ARON stands for “augmented reality optical narrowcasting” and it’s able to transmit any type of digital file format, including high-definition video and images, up to 400 meters during the day and 1,200 meters at night. The data travels on square beams of infrared light, creating a secure connection between the device — whether a smartphone, car, computer or wearable — and the sensor in the real world.

Ditching Wi-Fi and data creates a secure connection, but it would also come in handy wherever internet connectivity is weak or nonexistent, and in the face of natural disasters, which typically wipe out Wi-Fi. SureFire imagines a few happy scenarios where ARON could be handy, too: It would allow visitors to see information about stores or restaurants while walking around a foreign city (typically without a data plan). Or, baseball players could wear sensors allowing fans with smartphones or AR glasses in the stadium to see their stats, superimposed directly over their bodies as they run around the field.

ARON isn’t something that can be rolled out on a massive scale overnight. It would require sensors on buildings, athletes, highways, cars and anything else that needs to transmit data. Plus, smartphones and other devices would need the proper receiver. Right now, ARON exists in a limited demo form.

Dr. Narkis Shatz, one of the inventors behind ARON, said one thing needs to happen for this ecosystem to take off: A major provider of electronic communication (think Verizon, Comcast or AT&T) has to invest in it. SureFire revealed ARON at CES and the company is in Las Vegas for the week, showcasing the technology at the IEEE booth, hoping to lure big-name investors.

L’Oreal and John Rogers built a thumbnail-sized UV sensor

L’Oreal is not a name that you’d normally associate with CES, but the cosmetics giant is now a regular exhibitor at the show. This year, the company is demonstrating a thumbnail-worn smart device that’s less than two millimeters thick. UV Sense is a battery-free electronic sensor that’s designed to monitor your sun exposure and, with the help of an NFC-enabled smartphone, help limit your skin cancer risk.

UV Sense is a big leap from L’Oreal’s last offering, My UV Patch, which was just a sticker loaded with a series of dyes. These dyes changed color depending on how long they’ve been exposed to light, and users could track the changes by taking pictures with the corresponding app. This time around, the sensor is designed to be worn more than once, and will store up to three months’ worth of data at a time.

Would-be owners can affix the sensor to their thumbnail — where, apparently, you get optimal sunlight exposure — for up to two weeks. Then, they’ll need to re-apply it with a fresh adhesive patch, several of which will be included in the packaging.

UV Sense needs an iOS or Android device with NFC, since you’ll need to tap your handset on the sensor to transfer data. From there, the companion app will tell you about your risks to ultraviolet exposure and will suggest better habits, including when to get out of the sun and when is best to reapply lotion.

L’Oreal is working with MC10, the medical technology wearables outfit set up by professor John Rogers at Northwestern University. Rogers is famous for developing the “wearable tattoo,” circuit boards no thicker than a band-aid that attach to people’s skin. The eventual goal for such technology is that it will replace the bulky and invasive monitors strapped onto hospital patients.

The fact that the device is so small, and yet is packing a flexible circuit board, capacitor and an LED within its tiny frame is encouraging. After all, if the partnership can solve the issues of power and transmission, then it’s possible that future devices in this range will be more autonomous. That should dramatically reduce the sort of bulk that hospitals normally invest in, and make patient lives a little bit easier.

If you’re interested in testing UV Sense, it’ll be available at point this summer in the US for an as-yet unspecified price. A further, global roll-out is due in 2019, while My UV Patch will also be made available via the Laroche website.

Click here to catch up on the latest news from CES 2018.

Google Assistant will unlock Schlage Sense deadbolts

Schlage’s Sense smart deadbolt now works with (almost) any virtual assistant under the Sun. The lock maker has revealed that Sense will support Google Assistant early in the first quarter, letting you check on your door (and, of course, lock it) from your Google Home or mobile apps that use the AI helper. You’ll need the Sense WiFi adapter to make this work, but it’ll give you the choice of Assistant, Alexa or Siri (via HomeKit) — not bad when some rivals only offer one or two options.

The solution won’t be cheap when you’re looking at a $229 official price for the deadbolt itself and another $69 for the WiFi adapter. However, it might be worth the outlay if you want remote control of your door and don’t want to be forced to use a specific platform or smart speaker.

Click here to catch up on the latest news from CES 2018.

Source: Schlage

First SpaceX launch of 2018 carries a secret payload

SpaceX’s first mission of 2018 has more than its share of mystery. The company has successfully launched “Zuma,” a mysterious government payload, into orbit from Cape Canaveral. How mysterious was it? The codename is basically all we know about it — SpaceX couldn’t even show every step of the launch, like it typically does. It did, however, successfully land the Falcon 9 rocket’s first stage.

This was a long-overdue mission, we’d add. The Zuma mission was supposed to take place in mid-November, but SpaceX put it on hold to investigate the results of testing for another customer. It then set the launch for January 5th, but had to push it back due to harsh weather.

Whatever was aboard the rocket, its success is at least symbolically important. SpaceX is edging ever closer to the first launch of Falcon Heavy, and the last thing it needed was a problem with a (mostly) routine mission. In a sense, Zuma clears the path for Heavy and lets the company focus on the next big step in its conquest of space.

Source: SpaceX (YouTube)