Day: January 4, 2013

Yesterday, we told you about StickNFind, a nifty electronic sticker that lets you locate anything you tack it to, and MeterPlug, the smartphone-compatible power monitor with cost estimates and realtime consumption readouts. Now, the folks that brought you those Bluetooth-enabled tools have a new connected toy to share. It’s called BluTracker — a “StickNFind on steroids,” according to its creator. Both devices are tasked with sending location information to a smartphone app, but BluTracker adds GPS and a whole lot of power, offering a range of 2,500 feet or more outdoors, or a few hundred feet if you end up with some walls in between you and the compact rechargeable device. Inside the water-resistant housing, you’ll find a Bluetooth module that “uses WiFi chips” to boost the range, along with GPS for providing realtime location information and a battery that can reportedly keep the device powered for at least two months.

This isn’t a tracking device in the traditional sense — while it provides location info, it doesn’t retain coordinates, so you can’t pop this on a vehicle to see where your kids really go after school. It will help you find your dog that’s wandered a bit too far from the front yard, though, assuming he’s still within a half mile or so (like walls, trees can get in the way of the signal, too). An onboard motion sensor can trigger an alert on your smartphone, letting you know that whatever you’ve tagged is on the move, so that bicycle thief won’t get far before you’re on the trail. We tested the device indoors — located near a window, it picked up a GPS signal easily, and transmitted its location to a map within the iOS app even as we walked 100 or so feet away, past several walls. That figure may not be terribly impressive, but we didn’t exactly push the BluTracker to its limits during a quick Manhattan office demo. The device just hit Indiegogo with a $69 “pre-order” price and an estimated April ship date, and it’ll likely retail for just shy of $90. Check it out now in the video after the break, then hit up the source link to get your name on the list.

Continue reading BluTracker lets you locate your stuff within 2,500 feet, we go hands-on (video)

Filed under: Cellphones, GPS, Mobile

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Source: BluTracker (Indiegogo)

from Engadget

Even with the popularity of cloud computing and terabyte servers, most US offices are still drowning in a sea of dead trees; around 10,000 sheets of paper a year per worker, according to the EPA. Enter Paperless 2013, a campaign that will email you monthly tips on how to make the paperless office a reality. It’s funded by the “Paperless Coalition,” a group of digital solution companies comprised of Google Drive, HelloFax, Manilla, HelloSign, Expensify, Xero and Fujitsu ScanSnap — none of which have any ulterior motive behind encouraging this paper-free existence. None at all. Of course, you don’t have to go with these specific companies to go eco-friendly (Dropbox and PDFPen are a couple of other options) but if you need some advice on how to shed those wasteful printing habits, then go ahead and sign up at the source. Or you could do what we did and unplug our printers altogether — just in case it gets possessed.

Filed under: Internet, Google

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Via: TechCrunch

Source: Paperless 2013

from Engadget