Fitbit’s Latest Activity Trackers Feature Heart Monitoring, Smartwatch Functions

Meet Fitbit’s latest: The Charge, Charge HR, and the Surge. These activity trackers will sit atop the brand’s masthead going into 2015 and beyond. But don’t look for most of these products this holiday season. Only the $130 Charge will be available this year. The $150 Charge HR and $250 Surge hit stores in early 2015.

Fitbit had a tough 2014. After launching the flagship Fitbit Force in late 2013, the company trudged through a public recall of the product in the first quarter of 2014. Yet Fitbit pushed forward sans a true flagship product but managed to retain a dominating position in the growing activity tracking market.

The Charge is the rebirth of the Force. This time around, though, the wrist band is slightly different and textured. Unlike the Force before it, the Charge can display caller ID information from a connected smartphone.

The Charge HR packs all the goods as the Charge, but also includes a heart-rate monitor. Because of this addition, the battery life is only five days instead of the seven found in the Charge.

The Surge is big addition for Fibit. It’s more smartwatch than activity tracker and is clearly designed to appeal to fitness fanatics. The Surge also has a heart-rate monitor and built-in GPS capabilities that can track pace, distance, and elevation.

The watch’s large LCD face is customizable and can display Caller ID, text alerts and media playback. But at $249, Fitbit is competing with a different set of players including Samsung and Garmin. While Fitbit might rule the inexpensive activity tracker field, the brand could face hesitation from buyers looking for a premium product.

For some reason, Fitbit is not launching the high-end Charge HR and Surge until next year. Apparently it feels confident in its aging lineup to carry it through the 2014 holiday season. Yet in 2015, Fitbit will no doubt face stiffer competition as next year is shaping up to be the beginning of the smartwatch era.

How To Hide Text In Microsoft Word 2007, Reveal It & Protect It

Sometimes what we hide is more important than what we reveal. Especially, documents with sensitive information, some things are supposed to be ‘for some eyes only’. Such scenarios are quite common, even for the more un-secretive among us. You want to show someone a letter composed in MS Word, but want to keep some of the content private; or it’s an official letter with some part of it having critical data. As important as these two are, the most common use could involve a normal printing job. Many a time we have to print different versions of a document, one copy for one set of eyes and others for other sets. Rather than creating multiple copies and therefore multiple printing jobs, what if we could just do it from the same document? That too, without the hassle of repeated cut and paste. We can, with a simple feature in MS Word – it’s just called Hidden and let me show you how to use it to hide text in Microsoft Word 2007. It’s a simple single click process. Open the docum...

Boom, the startup that wants to build supersonic planes, just signed a massive deal with Virgin

Have you heard about Boom? Boom is a relatively new startup that’s aiming to build something pretty crazy. They’re not building an app… or a social network… or even some new gadget for the Kickstarter crowd. Boom wants to build planes. Really, really, really fast planes. Specifically, they’re trying to design and build a supersonic passenger plane that goes 2.2x the speed of sound. If all goes to plan, they’ll be able to shuttle people from New York to London in 3.5 hours, and SF to Tokyo in 4.5. Sound crazy? I wouldn’t disagree. It’s worth noting that the company is in the very early days for something as intensive, massive, and hugely expensive as designing and producing a passenger aircraft. They’re still working on their first prototype, and hope to fly it by late next year. But it’s also worth noting that the team behind the plane has some serious talent in its blood: the company’s 11 employees have collectively contributed to over 30 aircrafts — having worked on thin...

Build Your Own Awesome Personal 3D Avatar with Avatara

Do you use social networks and want to build your own awesome 3D avatar? Maybe you want to send someone a cute cuddly image of yourself (kind of)? Or maybe you have your own ideas of what you would do with an Avatar… Well look no further than Avatara which I discovered from the MakeUseOf directory . You can create 3d avatars out of pre-set up templates or create your own from scratch. To start, visit Avatara’s homepage . You will see this screen: Click Get Started to umm, get started! That will take you to this screen: You see that you can build your own Avatar using an uploaded head shot like the Obama one above (just an example, guys). Or roll with one of their awesome avatars. I chose to start with a blank avatar by clicking Start with a blank avatar at the bottom of the screen. That takes you to here: I clicked on the filter at the top and told it to filter out everything but male characters and then I saw this: I rolled with Buck and continued. You need to click Select...

Kiran Upadhyay

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