Meh...
Until they come up with something like 'Better than life' , I won't be buying into this whole 'Virtual Reality' crap...
My ring smarts. This is only to be expected, having exposed my ring for long periods to the burning sun. More fool me, you’d think, but you’d be wrong. Ensuring my ring is open to the elements is good for my health and well-being. And slipping it onto my finger is surprisingly comfortable. Hang on, what I meant to say was …
Until they come up with something like 'Better than life' , I won't be buying into this whole 'Virtual Reality' crap...
We want to implement the option that you can share your status on social media. You can share how much vitamin D you consumed. (found on the Helios Smart Ring website)
Why does all of this IoT crap have to have a social media link? When will these people get a life. All the more reason for not having social media...
The next thing you will read will be how these devices have been hacked and are used by criminals to tell in real time that you are not in your house (you are outside basking in the sunlight to get your Vitamin D score up) so they can safely break in and help themselves to your other kit. Alternatively there will be an attack on the users of the ring exposing them to excessive UV causing melanoma and other skin cancers...
Also, because it uses Bluetooth LE and has no On/Off switch just think of the tracking capabilities...
I'll put my fitness tracker in the tumble dryer (set to low) and I'll put my UV tracker in the UV box I use for photoresist - that should up my activity score nicely!
Meanwhile, I'll take my dog for a walk amongst the bluebells by the local brook.
Second thoughts - I'll just attach the activity tracker to the lunatic spaniel's collar.
"Petcube’s entertaining ‘Bites’ model, which you load with edible treats that can be fired individually across your kitchen or living room by tapping on a button in the app."
Unless mounted on the ceiling, any self respecting Black Labrador will work out how to get into the thing the minute you leave the house.
"Why does all of this IoT crap have to have a social media link?"
Because they are marketed and developed by Californians (I nearly said Yanks, but that's insulting the sensible ones, there are some), and engendering competition and being the "best" is the number on priority for these people. Doesn't matter what it is, it HAS to be competitive and YOU have to BE THE BEST!!!one11!!!11!
That thing you do with your hands, it's very bad.
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Ref just in case, take your pick, I'm going for an English.
Reading the Technical specs for the battery in the Helios Smart ring I wonder about the usable life
Can I modify the ring patent to include a solar cell to provide the charge to keep the battery topped up and to provide the power to run the ring while exposed to light?
"which might have been Stevie Nicks – unless that was just rumours"
In your Dreams, Mr Dabbs, unless you're really A Man of The World. Articles full of Second Hand News like this would make a good start to Monday Morning but I'll let you Go Your Own Way though I advise you you to Never Go Back Again. Some of your puns may have gone Over My Head.
When they manage to get a headset that can do the same as the current generation of fighter pilot skidlids (allegedly displaying data put together from all available sensors) I will be impressed.
Just imagine being able to walk down the road seeing the view as picked up by all those nice CCTV poles and millimetre-wave traffic camera speed sensors! Not to mention all the dashcams/headcams, mobile phones, body-worn cameras, Bluetooth-enabled drones...
Makes me glad I "wasted" all that time playing 3rd-person games like Resident Evil and Silent Hill...
Making billionaires.....So, I'm sure, did selling Snake Oil, Patent Remedy, devices for giving electric shocks and so on. ( Allowing for inflation £10m in 1901 would be over a billion today; see http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/bills/article-1633409/Historic-inflation-calculator-value-money-changed-1900.html).
Plus ca change.
A fool and his money are soon parted. The saying is documented as dating back to at least 1587 (possibly even 1573 - http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/a-fool-and-his-money-are-soon-parted.html) but I think we can be very confident that the idea is older still.
It's also a sustainable way of doing business - it's not like we're going to run out of fools for the foreseeable future.
"That’s like buying an electricity generator that runs off the mains.
Well Power Stations do get electricity bills, I had to "threaten" to cut one off if they didn't settle their arrears way back in the good-god-how-many-years-ago. So I understand your analogy but present this tediously anecdotal point to undermine it.
Dabbsy, if you made that video, I shall be visiting you very soon to transport you to Trafalgar Square where you will be publicly disembowelled with a rusty hacksaw blade for "services" to videography!!!!!
Do you really need permission for a short clip in a public place where there are stills/video/CCTV operating all over the place? I didn't realise it was so strict. Is that UK law or El Reg policy? Either way, I'm glad I'm not in your business. Sounds too much like hard work.
a side note:
>During one Augmented Reality demonstration I felt compelled to remove the headset as a feeling of nausea crept over me. The developer suggested that I might not have been using my “dominant eye”,
No, it's actually a common problem with attempting to imitate real-life perception with a hardware generated image. The hardware imitations usually have timing issues, and that messes the brain up. Nausea is a common reaction, or at least "disorientation".
For example, until screen refresh rates picked up, pure-3D goggles often had users feeling nauseous. Even on shifting to LCDs (whose images remained between refreshes), fast "movement" could create nausea, or at least a feeling of wrongness/disturbance. (LCDs are typically restricted to 50Hz refresh: "old-fashioned" CRTs with high speed did not have this problem.)
I even have problems in movies. Any panning shot has me shaking my head and rubbing my suddenly swimming eyes and protesting gut, as the slow "refresh"rate created by the original cameras' slow speed (24Hz) makes me feel like I've suddenly been smacked in the head with a whisky bottle that's then been poured into my veins. The image suddenly becomes this long, slow, mad, blurry, smear. Queasy and swimmy and disorientated.
(The weird thing is, most people don't know what you're talking about if you mention it. You can actually get a movie on DVD or whatever, and pause it in the middle of some panning, and actually point on the screen at the details being blurred sideways, and they won't get it.)
... then you can pretend you are starring in the film Wedlock when the battery decides to explode.
Seriously though, you'd have to be mad to put a potentially explosive device in a ring - we all know how hard it can be to get a ring off in a hurry. Quite likely to get dinged and dented on a finger too.