Sense: A gadget to change the way we sleep

entrepreneur James Proud, 23, presents a white sphere the size of a tennisball covered in a criss-cross pattern. “It is beautiful,” he says, when asked to describe it. “It doesn’t look like a piece of technology. 

We wanted to make something people actually want to put on their bedside table.”

 The device, called Sense, and the first made by Proud’s San Francisco startup company, Hello, is the latest in the world of sleep tracking devices claimed to help improve the quality of an activity we spend about third of our lives engaged in.

 It will be available in the UK early in the new year.

Until now, such devices have only tracked movement during sleep – giving an insight into when you toss and turn – but Sense takes things further by connecting that to the environment. Inside are sensors that record sudden noise and measure light, temperature and humidity in the room as well as the levels of particulates like dust and pollen that can affect sleep.

Just telling people how they slept doesn’t fix poor sleep, says Proud. “They need to understand why they slept that way.” Sense also records a sleeper’s movement, but not by requiring that they wear any device to bed, as most sleep trackers including Jawbone and Fitbit do. A small round plastic “sleep pill” clips onto the pillow. It contains an accelerometer and gyroscope and communicates with the system wirelessly.

The information that Sense gathers while you are asleep can be reviewed in an app. It includes a rating of sleep quality and a log of the disturbances experienced. If you slept poorly around 2am, Sense can tell you whether that was because of light, outside noise or snoring, for example.

Sense allows you to play back the noise disturbances – you can hear whether it was a car alarm or a barking dog that woke you. It automatically identifies snoring. Proud’s team trained the system to recognise the periodic sound by playing YouTube videos of people snoring – though Sense can’t yet distinguish whether it is you or your partner.

Over time the device also learns which conditions give you the best night’s rest. It might suggest that you lower the temperature by a few degrees, for example.

Waving a hand over the device makes it glow a certain colour, indicating how conducive the room is to sleep.

Gmail will soon allow you to ‘unsend’ your sent email

In October 2014, Google launched a new email client called ‘Inbox’, which is essentially a much more organised, easy to access, more intuitive and informative mail service. 

According BGR India, Inbox will soon include a feature that will allow its users to unsend the sent mails. A similar feature exists on Gmail’s web version via its Google Mail Labs channel. It allows user a period of 10 seconds after hitting the sent button to retract the mail. Inbox is expected to feature a similar option.

Other than the power to retract sent mails, the Google team plans to introduce features like cross-browsing and integration with Google Drive. The team is also working to make the Inbox app available for tablet devices.

These features are expected to be rolled out in a few weeks. 

Samsung Galaxy S6 Release Date: What We Know So Far about Galaxy S5 Successor

Samsung Electronics is tight-lipped on the release date and specifications of its upcoming flagship smartphone dubbed as the Galaxy S6 and it is very likely to keep the secrecy till the device is officially launched, but interestingly, major features of the product have been leaked over the last few weeks.

The South Korean electronics giant is expected to unveil the Galaxy S6 in the first quarter of 2015, and it won't come as a surprise if it is announced at the upcoming Mobile World Congress (MWC 2015) event to be held from 2 to 5 March, 2015. However, official release date of the device is still not known.

Not much is known about the Galaxy S6 but if one is to go by the recent reports, it may have significant change over its predecessor, the Galaxy S5. The device's codename - Project Zero – that was leaked earlier has given a clear hint that it would be very different from other smartphones.

The Galaxy S6 will take on the recently released iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, and the HTC One (M9) is also likely to be launched at around the same time. So, Samsung is expected to bring drastic change to Galaxy S6 with an aim to beat its rivals in the smartphone market.

According to reports, Samsung's upcoming smartphone may sport a 5.5-inch display with a 1440 x 2560 quad HD screen  (554ppi) or a 3840x2160 display resolution. The device is expected to have a new look, possibly a curved display, and full metal body.

Samsung Galaxy S6 is expected to be powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 or Exynos 7420 processor, run on Android 5.0 Lollipop, and come packed with 32/64/128GB internal memory. It will house 4GB RAM, a 21MP main camera and 6MP front snapper, and 4000 mAh battery, 

'Apple' of China, Xiaomi Mi 3 smartphone sold out in 39 mins on FlipKart

'“We are pleasantly surprised and delighted with the overwhelming response we have received from our India fans.'

Xiaomi, one of the leading mobile Internet companies in China, which forayed into India market on July 15th today announced that its entire Mi 3 stock was sold out in 38 minutes and 50 seconds onFlipKart.

Registrations to purchase the device were open till July 21st and saw over 100,000 fans registered to buy the Mi 3.

Commenting on the sales, Manu Jain, India Operations Head, Xiaomi, said, “We are pleasantly surprised and delighted with the overwhelming response we have received from our India fans. We would like to apologize to our fans who couldn’t purchase the Mi 3 today. We are responding immediately to the commitment shown to us by our customers by focussing on the following – we are working with Flipkart to ensure the experience of purchase is improved further and technical issues are resolved."

"We know some of our fans must be disappointed. We want to make it up to them. Hence for the next sale on July 29th only, we will ensure that customers who missed out on today’s sale are automatically registered to buy a Mi 3 on 29th.

We underestimated the demand we would receive and we are taking steps to  ramp up the supply as soon as possible. That being said we are committed that over the next few  months, every fan in India will get to own a Mi device”, she further adds.

Known as the 'Apple' of China, Xiaomi has entered the Indian market with an exclusive sales tie-up with Flipkart for Mi 3. The Chinese handset maker has priced Mi 3 at Rs 13,999.

On the sidelines, Michael Adnani, VP-Retail and Head- Brand Alliances, Flipkart said, "It is very encouraging to see the scale of response towards Xiaomi Mi3 that is exclusively available on Flipkart. We were confident of the success of Mi3 in India."

"It has done extremely well internationally and we naturally wanted to be able to bring this world-class device to our customers in India. We are working with Xiaomi to ensure that the purchase experience lives up to our Flipkart promise of excellence", he further says.