ArcSoft , a software company with a photographic bent, last year debuted a Wi-Fi video home monitoring camera called Simplicam . It let you view the action at home remotely from your smart phone and even speak to family members through the phone’s mic.
Simplicam’s mobile software companion, Closeli, offers among other things, built-in face detection and face recognition technology that lets you watch for specific people or animals and alerts you to noise or motion.
Today, as part of a major app update and firmware upgrade for the product, Simplicam announced the availability of Detection Zones, a new feature that allows users to customize motion and face alerts based on specific areas of a room.
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Now, parents and pet-owners can cut down on the number of alerts by eliminating them from areas where kids and pets are active. The update also introduces a new user interface that makes editing and sharing videos easier, adds improved motion and night vision sensitivity settings, lets you permanently delete selected clips from the Closeli Cloud anytime you want and lets you easily turn phone notifications on or off via the app.
Simplicam is available for $149.99 on Amazonom or from the Simplicam Website. Premium features, like face recognition and face detection, and video recording are available with a Closeli Recording Service plan, starting at $4.99 a month.
➤ Simplicam and Closeli [ iOS / Android ]
TomTom is going head-to-head with GoPro, releasing its own action camera
When it comes to action cameras, GoPro is the one that springs to mind for most as it has monopolized the market for so long. Today, TomTom announced that it is venturing into the action space with its new Bandit camera .
It will be priced at $475 and available online in May.
Like the new Garmin VIRB XE camera, the Bandit uses motion detectors and GPS to recognize what you’re doing and when to start recording. It then tags what you’ve captured by speed, accelaration, altitude and G-force. You can still make manual tags as well so separate your recordings.
It can be paired with your TomTom Runner, if you have one, to detect your heart rate which will trigger it to start recording whenever there’s a spike.
It’s waterproof down to 50metres (with an additional lens cap) and has a wide angle lens with a 16-megapixel sensor.
Video can be recorded in 1080p or 720p and there are more cinematic options to record at 4k15 and 2.7k30 as well.
Other features include slow-mo and time lapse capabilities and single shot or burst photography settings.
There is an accompanying iOS app that will be available at launch, which allows you to preview and edit your captures through your phone. TomTom has said that an Android will be available as well at a later date.
The app is probably the smartest part of this camera, it means you can edit on the go so you don’t need to be downloading or remembering to bring additional cables or card readers with you.
It will also pull together the highlights of whatever you have recorded if you just shake your phone. The camera knows what part of your video has the action in it because of the numerous sensors.
TomTom says you will get 3 hours of use from one charge, but that’s something I’ll have to confirm when I get my hands on one.
➤ TomTom Shakes up the Action Camera Market [TomTom]
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Surface 3 with LTE is now on sale in the US, but don’t rush to buy one from Microsoft just yet
Microsoft has announced that the LTE (4G) variant of its Surface 3 tablet-cum-PC is now available to buy in the US.
A blog post from the Surface team confirms that the devices come in two versions – with either 64GB or 128GB of storage – and are being offered through Microsoft’s brick-and-mortar stores , resellers and ‘partner retailers’.
It’s also being offered via AT&T from today and T-Mobile will start selling it to business customers from the end of July, Microsoft says.
Unfortunately, at the time of writing, Microsoft’s own online store is currently showing an ’email me when available’ message when you select either of the LTE-equipped models. It seems you’re going to have to wait just a little bit longer if you’re planning to buy one directly from Microsoft.
➤ Microsoft Surface 3 LTE
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