technology

LAS VEGAS--Personal fitness company Fitbit has just jumped further into the wearable tech market. The company unveiled its $99.95 Fitbit Flex device, an activity tracker designed to be worn all day and monitor movement, sleep, and calories burned.

Design The Flex is similar to other competing products in the growing personal fitness category such as the Nike FuelBand, and Jawbone Up. Built to be worn all day long, the appropriately named Flex is a soft bracelet encased in a rubbery skin. The idea is that it's malleable enough to stay firmly wrapped around your wrist but be comfortable … Read more

LAS VEGAS--It seems that many companies want in on the wearable fitness tracker craze, and Withings is no exception. Its new Smart Activity Tracker is a small, light, 8-gram device that records user activity, sleep, and even measures heart rate in real time.

About the size of a USB stick, the Smart Activity Tracker can handle all the typical pedometer duties such as logging the steps you take, stairs climbed, and calories burned. What sets this gadget apart, though, is its heart rate sensor located on back. Just place your finger tip in the right spot and the Tracker will … Read more

iPhone users wondering whether their wine or breath have gone bad may soon have help from a chip designed to identify nearby aromas and flavors.

Adamant Technologies has created a processor for iPhones that "can take the sense of smell and taste and digitize them," Adamant founder and CEO Sam Khamis tells Business Insider. Khamis says his company's product is fairly sophisticated, employing roughly 2,000 sensors to identify smells compared with the about 400 sensors in the average human nose.

The San Francisco startup, which is backed by venture capitalist Vinod Khosla, has begun producing chips … Read more

As the father of 9-year-old twins, I often find myself telling them about tech products and innovations that I didn't have growing up. All parents do it: trying to get their kids to understand how much tougher life was in the old days.

In my case, the old days were in the 1980s -- not that long ago. But the range of change in our lives continues to impress me and make my children roll their eyes.

Yesterday, I posted a photo on Instagram (see above and on my Sreenet account), saying the NYC subway's next-train arrival guides … Read more

I worked as a high-end audio salesman for 16 years and spent another 16 reviewing audio products. Here's what I learned: The very best gear is always expensive. Sure, there are occasional examples of affordable products that are remarkable, but they never get remotely close to what true high-end gear can offer. Beyond price the main thing that separates high-end companies from mass-market brands is high-end designers are all about maximizing performance. Mainstream audio companies rarely try to make the best possible sounding gear. They know that features, wireless connectivity, styling, compact size, cheap pricing, marketing, distribution, etc. -- … Read more

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The top-scoring cars of 2012 are, happily, an oddball assortment. If they were just a bunch of Audis and BMWs, I'd be as bored as you would. But cars with many different brands on their trunks came through this year, delivering great CNET ratings in a variety of price categories; though, of course, pricey cars do tend to have an advantage.

So if you want to see the year that was in cars and tech, sit back and enjoy this … Read more

Who needs an Xbox when you can just put on a sweatshirt and thrash your arms about? That's the idea behind Woven, a wearable gaming platform by two Dutch designers.

Christiaan Ribbens and Patrick Kersten, recent graduates of the Utrecht School of the Arts, embedded a sweater and pair of jeans with a small Bluetooth module, speakers, motion sensors, shake motors, a three-color LED screen, and other gizmos to create their concept gaming platform. A trio of LilyPad Arduino microcontrollers process the data and operate the LEDs (and are, incidentally, washable). … Read more

Foxconn International Holdings, another manufacturing division at Hon Hai that hasn't reached the same success as Foxconn Technology Group, is getting a new chairman.

The company's board of directors announced (PDF) today that Samuel Chin, its current executive director and chairman, will retire on January 1 to spend more time with his family. Tong Wen-hsin, another company director, will replace Chin as chairman. However, Chin will stay on an adviser to the chairman for 12 months.

"The company would like to take this opportunity to express its gratitude to Mr. Chin for his valuable contribution to the … Read more

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Some 15 years after its introduction, the Toyota Prius still defines the hybrid car business. It's an amazing dominance, comparable with the iPod's position in the portable media player market. Prius models outsell all other hybrids combined in the U.S. but that doesn't mean they always will. Enter the Ford C-Max. The name is about as goofy as "Prius," but the mission is serious: to give the Prius some real competition and perhaps push it … Read more