INSPECT YOUR GADGETS

We have all become accustomed to mobile gadgets like iPads, iPhones, iPod-touches, and the list goes on.  They have been integrated seemingly seamlessly into our lives.

But there are some gadgets that don’t slot into your lives quite so easily that maybe you haven’t thought of yet.  It is up to you to decide whether you could imagine living without these gadgets after learning about them.

Here are few:

The Magic Wand Remote

If you’re bored using your old television remote, why not replace it with the long, thin, tubular, magic wand remote?  Change the channel with flicks of your wrist, and with big sweeping moves of your arm you can record your favourite TV show.  Fantastic.

Video Recording Spy Watch

Concealed inside this watch is 1GB of flash memory attached to a microphone. The microphone is well placed so that you can clearly record while the watch is still on your wrist. This makes it very easy to sneakily record conversations without raising suspicion.

It comes with a set of head phones allowing you to listen to your recording immediately afterwards, and the watch will also act as an MP3 player. This allows you to take your favourite tunes with you and keep you entertained while you’re on the move or in a boring lecture.  Who needs to tell the time?

Meade MySky Star and Planet Identifier

If you’re clueless about the night sky, don’t let it bother you any longer.  This gadget looks like a science-fiction ray gun, but the only thing it fires is knowledge.  It helps you to identify and learn about the stars and planets and can take you on a guided audio and visual tour where it can highlight the best bits based on the current time and your location.  It has full-color LCD that won’t obstruct your view of the night sky.  Wonderful.

Self-Stirring Lazy Mug

This mug holds your tea, coffee, hot chocolate or other mixed drink, and all you need to do is push a special button on the handle and it starts to stir your drink.  Who needs a spoon?  Think of all the time you’ll save.

Thanks to the very innovative people with plenty of time on their hands to invent gadgets like these, there are loads of them to choose from.

Before you have decided which ones you need in your life, there will already be another five hundred new ones available.  Isn’t it nice to be spoilt for choice?

USB-POWERED FORK HELPS YOU CONTROLS YOUR WEIGHT

Being overweight is a huge problem for a lot of people around the world. People who struggle with their weight do so mainly because of bad eating habits, along with other factors, of course. One of the contributing factors to weight gain is how fast people eat.

Implications of eating fast:

  • Eat more: It takes twenty minutes for a person to feel full. This means that when we eat faster, we tend to eat more.
  • Digestion problems: When a person eats too fast, they tend to not chew their food properly. This can lead to digestion problems, as the food has to sit in your gut for a while and then gets stored as fat. Not good for someone who is trying to watch their weight.
  • Acid reflux: Acid reflux occurs when food from the stomach flows up to the oesophagus.

Help is at hand

Eating fast is a habit that’s hard to break. Fortunately, technology to help us break the habit has entered our kitchens and landed on our dinner tables. The HAPIfork, or smart fork as it is known by its manufacturers (HAPILabs), can help you lose weight by monitoring the amount of food you eat and how fast you are eating it. The fork vibrates when you increase the pace of your eating. It does this by recording the time between each fork serving of food.

According to the manufacturers, HAPIfork monitors the following:

  • The number of forkfuls eaten per minute per meal.
  • The duration of each serving interval.
  • The exact time at which you start and end a meal.

You can recharge the fork by connecting it to your computer with a USB cable that is provided. The data is uploaded to an online dashboard that can be connected to the HAPIfork via Bluetooth or the USB cable. The dashboard allows you to see how long your meal was, how fast you were eating and what percentage of the meal time was fast.

HAPIlabs also has a mobile app for iPhone, Android and Windows Mobile, which has a coaching program that will help you control your eating habits.

The fork fits easily into your hand, and the USB component can be removed, making it dishwasher-friendly too.

The way food is prepared, the way in which we eat, and a sedentary lifestyle all contribute to weight gain. The weight loss industry is a multi-million dollar industry. A lot of quick fix schemes are advertised and people buy into them mostly due to desperation. Is the HAPIfork the new weight loss wonder? In time that question will be answered, but for now, it pays to be skeptical.