Sleepwalker?

I have had the Samsung Galaxy Gear Fit for sometime now.  It functions as my primarily as a watch as its most basic feature.  And of course being a healthband it has various health functions associated with it.  Two of these functions would sleep monitoring and a pedometer.

The sleep monitor application basically measures how long you sleep which is triggered by a "start" button until such time you wake up and press "stop".  Similarly it would measure the percentage of "motionless" sleep you have based on the gyrometers built in.  The logic of less movement, better sleep.

While the pedometer function is activated each time you power on the device and would keep on measuring your steps each day until you turn it off (which automatically happens when your device has a drained battery) or if you manually stop step logging via the pedometer function stop button.  Similarly it measures your steps via the built-in gyrometer in the device.  Bottomline it should measure actions that is related to the person walking/running and not just shaking the device.

I use both functions on a regular basis and I just find it ackward that Samsung did not develop the logic to turn off the sleep monitor automatically when it detects that the pedometer is already counting steps.  It could be in their logic that constant sleep movement can simulate a step which is possible but at least turn the monitor off after logging 50 constant steps?  I would sometimes forget to turn off the sleep monitor and I would have done some activities awake which had involved walking for around 30 minutes or more.  This skews the data for sleep monitoring and basically to me is non logical. 

I do hope that Samsung can look into this and basically improve on the next firmware release.

Posted via Blogaway

The Lines on the Trunk

Year on year, the Philippines gets its huge share of Typhoons bringing with it strong winds and rains.  Unfortunately for cities that has poor civil planning and too much congestion and pollution, it also means floods.  For years I have witnessed both government officials and media alike report flooding in the streets based on estimated heights and basically a description of how the flood is, relative to a person or a stationary object that is currently submerged in that area. 

We were forced to accept reports based on “knee-deep”, “waist-deep”, “tire-deep” or “chest-deep” flood waters.  And in extreme cases get reports that the flood waters would submerge a “typical filipino person” which is not really accurate given that we do have height measurements in place. 

The City of Mandaluyong has come up with a flood alert scheme based on codes and height level but I do not think that there is a way for their City officials to determine the actual height of the flood waters unless they have someone do measurements on the flooded area at the time of the report.

I was just wondering if it would be possible (well at least to start with Metro Manila) for the local government, Metro Manila Development Authority or Meralco / PLDT to coordinate and have street posts painted with color coded markers that would indicate an actual height measurement based on ground level.  Having these markers in place relative to the floods would give an accurate measurement of how deep the flood waters are and it could also give an indication or clear warning to those planning to pass the roads.

A common mistake of motorists and pedestrians alike during floods would be the wrong estimation of how deep the flood waters are.  Motorists are only swayed to stop passing these roads when they get to see a vehicle stalled because the water is too deep.  Similarly we hear of accidents of pedestrians drowning while crossing flood waters.  Besides possible under currents it is possible that they basically under estimate how deep the flood waters are. 

If the metro gets to implement this simple scheme, which I believe is also used by other countries to measure snow fall, it would be an easy indicator for everyone.  It would server as both warning and reminder that we do have a flood problem and acknowledging it is a good first step.

Photo Credits: http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/639380/mandaluyong-folk-brave-nearly-neck-deep-floods

                      http://www.pinoyexchange.com/forums/showthread.php?t=513970&page=14

Look Back Look Forward

Way back in September 2011, I had decided to create a video showing a 7" Android Tablet that simulated the installation of a controlled release of Windows 8.0. During that time it was already documented that Microsoft would be releasing Windows 8.0 running on an Arm Processor, and that it would be supporting smaller screen devices. This eventually led to the Windows RT and its array of supported devices.

                                    

I forgot all about that video until a few days ago when Youtube sent me a notification that the video hit 10,000 hits. Was amazed by the fact that it was actually played some hundred of times and that people actually commented on it. Which was generally negative comments, as I believe people then were actually hoping to see or run Windows 8.x or Windows RT on their own ARM devices.

During that time it was my intention to show what Windows 8.0 would look like running in a small screened device. I never got the chance to post how Windows Metro UI could have faired on the setup I did. (Archos 7 IT running Android 2.3 with a remote desktop application connecting to a laptop running a virtual machine with Windows 8 beta). It could have been the first public simultation of what Metro UI was running on a smaller device. But more than a missed opportunity, it could have been my chance to record my outlook of what this technology could have looked in the future.

                                

Looking at what we have today, I own one of the first devices to feature a full Windows 8.x experience on a tablet with an 8" screen (An Acer W8-310). We also have RT running on various ARM devices. It's really amazing what the human brain can do and the creativity it can come up with. I would like to share this platform to the whole world and come up with my own outlook in life, in love and everything in between. The whole concept of internet, the internet of everything, and being social are all rooted from the fact that we think therefore we exist. But I believe that more than existing, our minds think the same way with another being that is why we co-exist and that our key for existence in this world is having similar beliefs. We validate and affect each other this way. Let me affect and validate you.