Sony Xperia Enters the Smart Home Realm

Sony knows exactly what you’ve been thinking—how can we make our homes smarter? It’s no longer enough for them to limit themselves to helping us stay entertained during our leisure hours; they’re now determined to improve our productivity as well.

Enter the Sony Xperia Ear, Xperia Agent, and Xperia Projector. All of these products are designed to help you stay organized and effectively manage everyday tasks, but they do so in different ways.

The Xperia Ear is basically the latest product in the electronic personal assistant trend. From its convenient place in your ear, this device can search for things on the web, read your text messages out loud, and communicate with your other smart devices. Since it’s easy to take with you wherever you go and is built to comprehend voice commands with astounding accuracy, it seems to have some distinct advantages over other electronic personal assistants currently on the market.

Next is the Xperia agent. Imagine if you lived in a mansion and had a virtual butler. That butler would be the Xperia agent. Programmed with a charming personality, it efficiently centralizes all of your smart devices, controlling and managing them according to your desires and whims.

As for the Xperia Projector, its purpose to let you turn into just about any space into your own personal computer. After placing it on a flat surface, all you have to do is connect it to your smartphone, and then it can project an image of your keyboard on which you can type. Of course, you can also use that projection to watch videos or surf the Internet.

The point is that it’s versatile enough to be relevant in many common household tasks and activities. This means that if you’re not a fan of the small screen of a smartphone and/or you enjoy sharing what you’re doing with those around you, the projector will make it more convenient for you to do what you want.

Clearly, if Sony has anything to say about it, the future will continue to run toward us at record speeds. Welcome home, smart homes.

 

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Google Presents IoT OS Android Things

As technology continues to becoming a defining factor in nearly every facet of life, the demand for fast and insightful improvements seems never-ending. When it comes to the gathering and exchanging of data, Google is practically unparalleled. It should come as no surprise, then, that they’ve further revolutionized the Internet of Things by presenting to us the Android Things.

With this technology, Google will help its users employ Android to build IoT products without compromising security. Inspired by Project Brillo and utilizing the platform Weave, Android Things uses tools such as Android Studio, the Android Software Development Kit, Google Play Services, and Google Cloud Platform to make IoT easy.

Semiconductor and telecommunications companies are already picking up on the new technology, including Qualcomm, which intends to update its Snapdragon processors to support it. The company looks forward to seeing a surge in participation from developers in regards to taking advantage of the opportunities offered by IoT.

They’re hoping that Android Things will offer the perfect solution to the problems that developers and manufacturers face when trying to keep up with all the ways that devices are being connected nowadays.

Thanks to the combined forces of cloud integration, optimization tools, and security reinforced by hardware upgrades, it looks like their dreams might just come true. With this technology, the IoT process should be improved to the point where it can be quickly scalable for a great value, considering the price.

What does this mean for the rest of us? Well, as we mentioned earlier, it’s obvious to everyone that our world is increasingly emphasizing the importance of connecting everything. Once developers learn to use Android Things to its greatest capacity, we should find our IoT demands being met and even exceeded. Prepare to have everything constantly in tune with everything else—and all the implications that come with it.

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Kidde Recalls Combined Fire and Smoke Alarm

For the safety-conscious, a combined alarm for both smoke and carbon monoxide is a necessary tool in the home. After all, according to the National Fire Protection Association, seven people die each year from house fires. Forbes also reports that between 20,000 and 30,000 people are poisoned by carbon monoxide annually, with about 500 of those incidents ending in death, usually at home.

What’s worse than these statistics is the fact that most people wouldn’t even be aware of a problem until it was too late, at least not without the help of alarms. House fires have a way of getting out of control rather quickly, and carbon monoxide is infamous for its ability to kill without its victims even noticing it.

Knowing that your alarm can warn you of danger well before any real damage is done is a crucial comfort. Of course, knowing that the alarm is working is even better.

Unfortunately, that was not the case with the Kidde Nighthawk alarm, model KN-COSM-IB. Manufactured between June 1^st, 2004 and December 31^st, 2010, these alarms were recalled because once their battery life ended after seven years, they would no longer chirp once the batteries were replaced.

About 3.6 million units (in addition to 1.5 million in Canada) were sold before the malfunction was discovered. Luckily, although eight reports were submitted regarding the problem, no injuries occurred before the recall.

The items were sold through Amazon and brick-and-mortar distributors nationwide between June 2004 and December 2010. Regardless of where or when they were bought, consumers were advised to stop using them right away and ask Kidde for a replacement as soon as possible.

This serves as a great reminder that it’s not a good idea to just buy an alarm like this and then think that all of your problems are solved. Be diligent about checking items like these to make sure that they’re working. Otherwise, what’s the point in buying them?

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