Health Tech

Jawbone UP First Impressions

Although it is only just being released this morning, I was able to pick up one of Jawbone’s new UP wrist bands yesterday (Jawbone UP). It truly is the height of “geek chic”, and whether or not it will be a passing fad waits to be seen. I wanted to share a few initial impressions of it but first let’s look at what it does and does not do. The UP is like a super-duper pedometer. It tracks your steps and can “challenge” you to do more. Or, if you set it at “X steps planned today”, it will tell you…

News

Jawbone Says, “Time to Get UP!” New UP Health Accessory Now Available for Pre-Order

Jawbone, known for their awesome Bluetooth headsets and iPhone accessories, is now shipping their new UP health bracelet accessory. The UP connects with a free iPhone app to track and monitor your movements while challenging you to do more, sleep longer and eat better. The UP combines a neat fashion accessory look with a free iPhone app to push you to live a healthier lifestyle. For example, each UP bracelet has a small vibrating timer that silently tells you to GET UP AND GET MOVING! It looks like the ultimate geek health aid! Here are a few brief snippets of…

News

What’s for Breakfast? Hopefully NOT One of These 20 Unhealthy Cereals!

As a kid you don’t worry too much about how healthy your cereals are. I mean, I remember being a kid and having Cookie Crisp come out (in 1977, apparently), and thinking ‘OH YEAH’! Then there were some other faves like Crunch Berries, Count Chocula, Boo Berry and Franken Berry. They were all nice sugary junk-food breakfast cereals we all loved … and far more appealing than the healthy alternatives such as Shredded Wheat (not the frosted stuff), Grape Nuts – or at best ‘compromise’ cereals like Cheerios or Rice Krispies with generous help from the sugar bowl. Then –…

News

Giving the Honeywell HEPAClean 3-in-1 Advanced Air Cleaning System a Try During This Allergy Season

Have you ever taken a good look at the space just in front of you when the morning sun shines directly in your windows? If you have pets or live anywhere other than in a hermetically sealed envelope, you are probably used to seeing fine floating particles that are nearly unidentifiable … but if you have allergies they are all it takes to make your skin crawl in anticipation of your histamines’ response. Those of us who suffer from allergies are used to dealing with itchy eyes, scratchy throats, runny noses and stuffy heads … and if we are lucky,…

News

Keep QuikClot on Hand, and You May Save a Life

QuikClot is an emergency wound dressing loaded with blood clotting agents. You can go to YouTube and watch some extremely graphic training videos of QuikClot in action, but I suggest that you not do so if you have a weak stomach. If you are able to handle the graphic images, I’m sure that you’ll agree the results are pretty impressive. I had never heard about QuikClot until I stumbled on a recent Lifehacker post, “How to Survive a Gunshot Wound.” Yikes. QuikClot is the consumer version of a Z-Medica product that has long been used by the military, law enforcement and emergency medical…

Gear Bits

Denny’s Embraces Indulgence, Ignores Health Risks with the ‘Let’s Get Cheesy’ Menu

What would you like for lunch today? How about a full days worth of calories and two days worth of fat? Oh, I know you can easily get that in any ‘glutton burger’ you’ll find around in burger joints looking for a moment of fame on one of the Travel or Cooking network shows … but how about as one of the featured items on Denny’s ‘Let’s Get Cheesy’ campaign? Here is part of the press release: Cheese enthusiasts across the nation are set to rejoice with the launch of Denny’s “Let’s Get Cheesy!” menu. Showing some serious cheese love,…

News

Keep Other Kid’s Hands off Your Kid’s Food with Lunch Bugs

Now that the kids are back in school, it’s time to think about practical matters such as how to make sure your son’s lunch doesn’t end up in some other kid’s mouth. Here’s an idea: Lunch Bugs sandwich bags. Lunch Bugs Sandwich Bags have a skittery surprise. Need some security when it comes to your sandwich? Our Lunch Bugs Sandwich Bags have a pre-printed bug on the sandwich bag. So the pest that goes to steal your sandwich will see a pest of another kind already calling dibs. There are 24 Lunch Bugs sandwich bags in a pack, and if…

Yum Log

Yum Log: So Tasty We Had to Share: Trader Joe’s Smoked Sea Salt

There’s more to life than gadgets and gear — hard to believe I know — but true!! For example there are things like… food and drink. And with so many great flavors and food experiences out there, we just had to start bringing you some of our favorites. That’s where the Yum Log comes in. The Yum Log is all about the food and drink experiences you just want to have. And the first Yum Log entry is… Trader Joe’s Naturally Smoked Sea Salt Elana brought this home the other day and it is just YUM. It is smokey and…

News

RunBike, the Duckbilled Platypus of Workout Equipment

When I saw the RunBike on Runner’s World this morning, it took a good two minutes before I stopped laughing/choking on my coffee. I was speechless, but once I recovered from my initial “WHY!?!” response, some more serious questions came to mind. 1) How on earth do you run uphill while strapped into that thing? 2) How long is a RunBike, and how do you get into it? Do you drop in from the top? Limbo in? 3) Is it street-legal? And do you follow biking laws, where you act like a vehicle and obey traffic laws, or do you…

News

Can Braun Tame the Planet of the Apes?

Summer beach weather is here in force, and the new film Rise of the Planet of the Apes is about to open, meaning that you are seeing hairy-backed individuals rampaging EVERYWHERE! And the folks at Braun have done a survey that shows that the women of the UK are having NONE OF IT! As the nation basks in the summer sun, Braun reveals what women really think of their partner’s body hair. With a summer full of poolside fun, men listen up and take note – three quarters (75%) of UK women don’t want a completely hair free man, they…

News

Gear Diary Video Round-Up

Last week saw us post a larger number of videos than ever. In them we took a first look at the AT&T Status phone running Android 3.2.2, Carly talked to us about the benefits of Chromebooks and why they might be a great choice for you and we launched not one but two contest/giveaways. Missed any of them? Well we’ve gather all of them together along with links to each post… Gear Talk: iPad 2 Case Roundup Read It! Judie’s Orbino Padova for iPad 2 Has Arrived: Here’s a First Look Read It! Gear Giveaway: Judie Attended Intel’s Upgrade…

Events

Intel’s “Upgrade Your Life” Event

Along with 12 other site owners, I was invited to attend the Intel “Upgrade Your Life” experience in Santa Clara, California on July 13th. I went into this event with no itinerary and no idea of what we were going to see, but I figured it had to be more than “just” processor chips. Sure enough, I was in for an eye-opening day … After a greeting by Intel’s Social Media guru Alison Wesley and an ice-breaking game of ‘guess the tweet’ game, we were on to the first speaker … Suzanne Fallender – Director, Corporate Social Responsibility Strategy and…

News

Wakemate May Help You Wake up Feeling More Refreshed

Wakemate looks like an interesting device that promises to help you get a better night’s rest. Wakemate 2, works with software that runs on iOS, Blackberry and Android devices. To use it, you just set the 20 minute window that you want to wake up in and slip the band on. The band will then keep track of your movements and trigger the alarm to wake you at just the right time; it promises to help you feel more refreshed. They have also included a way for you to report your activities, like going to the gym and how…

News

Random Cool Stuff: Your Saliva Can Reveal Your Age!

We know that our DNA holds the fingerprint to our entire physical makeup, but what about our age and the things that have happened to us through the years? Apparently we can even learn some of THAT through our DNA according to new research! According to a study from UCLA: During normal development, DNA in your body gets what’s called methylated. Small chemicals called methyl groups bind to the DNA, helping to determine which genes become active. But the patterns of methylation change as we grow older. Which was a clue that measuring methylation might give away age. The researchers…

Reviews

Review: emWave 2 Portable Stress Relief Device

A while back I tried the emWave Desktop software for stress relief. There were and are still many things that I did not like about the emWave Desktop, but my major discouraging issue with the product was that I had to be tethered to a computer during the session. Jim from HeartMath send me the new emWave 2 Portable Stress Relief Device, which alleviates my biggest pet peeve. Will it help me to be more diligent about using the device? Maybe. Did it enhance my prayer and meditation, and did it really work? Let’s find out. The emWave 2 is…

Gear Bits

Meet Winston Kemp, Lightning Strike Survivor and Lichtenberg Figure Owner

“What does your boyfriend do when you go out of town? Well, [mine] gets struck by lightning.” – Daphne Cheek We’ve all heard stories about people getting struck by lightning — usually as some sort of cautionary tale, but how many of us have ever seen the effects of lightning on a human? The Lichtenberg Figures it can leave? Winston Kemp, a 24-year-old electrician, has had first-hand experience, and now he also has a unique and possibly permanent bit of body art — a Lichtenberg Figure — to go along with it. As Winston tells it … I went outside…

Reviews

Grooming Tool Review: Klhip “The Ultimate Clipper”

Do you really need to spend $70 on a nail clipper? ($95 if you want the attractive leather case specially designed for it.) Of course not! But, as my lovely wife often reminds me, you get what you pay for. In the case of the Klhip nail clipper, while you can get something that does the same basic grooming function for under $10, you really aren’t comparing apples to apples. Here is take a look at what this high-end nail clipper is all about. From the Company: BUILDING A BETTER NAIL CLIPPER: Why re-design something so mundane? Average nail clippers…

How to Do It Yourself!

Using Technology to Train for My First Triathlon

I am currently in the final weeks training for my first triathlon here in DC on June 19th. The race lengths are an 800m swim, 20k bike ride, and 7.5k run, mostly along the National Mall. (Here are more detailed maps of the swim, bike, and run routes.) What makes this race particularly challenging for me is that when I began my training on March 19th, it was four weeks after I had hernia surgery, I couldn’t jog for more than 60 seconds without getting out of breath, had never swam freestyle in my life and couldn’t hold my form…

Editorials

Sweet16 Energy Drink: Why You Should Always Read the Label

A little bit of background: In the last year, I lost around 40lbs through watching what I ate and running. So I’ve gotten very used to paying close attention to my food, and to items that “claim” to be healthy. So when this press release popped up in the Gear Diary Inbox, I couldn’t resist taking it apart piece by piece, because it is truly the poster child for unhealthy “healthy” food. So let’s dive right in! My comments are in red, so you’ll know what came from the company and what didn’t. Bonavitas Introduces The First Truly Thermogenic Energy…

Editorials

GD QuickRant: Healthy Kids vs. Junk Food: This is America, so Obviously Junk Food Wins

Apparently the Revolution WON’T Be Televised … Last week I wrote about Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution, and while I took some issue with his cost models and plans for implementation, I agreed with his core point: our country is rapidly becoming ‘the land of the morbidly obese’, and rather than worrying about ‘long form birth certificates’ or who won celebrity whatever, we should get up off our butts and DO something about it! So what should we do about it? Apparently the answer is that school districts will learn to shut Oliver out, and his response to the lock-out will…

Gear Bits

An Ingenious Dieting Tool: The Diet Fork

I saw this on Etsy and thought it was cute. Want to look more svelte? Try eating less with a “Diet Fork.” You’ll be so frustrated by the time you are done trying to stab your spaghetti or rice that you’ll just naturally begin eating less, your stomach will shrink, and you’ll live happily ever after! Well, maybe losing weight isn’t quite that simple. Okay, so there are some fundamental flaws with that theory, but I still thought the Diet Fork Magnet was a whimsical item — perfect for gifting to your friends who are always starting the latest fad…

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