The impact of numerology over the names

Whenever an infant is born into a family, it’s a norm to first assess him/her with a name. The name of a person is just not a word to be referred to them but actually is the definition, a description of their personality and the briefing of their traits. It should be made very sure that while naming a person all the necessary measures are taken care of. They say that labeling of a product is done properly to define the quality of that product. The same theory can be applied upon assessing names to the young ones too. The better the name the more illustrative would be the definition.

 

While a lot of people who believe in ancestry, name their children on the basis of their legacy or the family trees, while others who believe in Numerology have different opinions. The people who believe in numerology work and practice a lot with numbers before naming their kids. In numerology each letter of your name is said to have an individual corresponding number. Cornerstone is said to be the first letter in your name while capstone is said to be the last one. Under Numerology the first vowel is also given sheer importance, as it is said to fulfill all your urges and dreams in life. Each and every letter in this section has a meaning of its own and preparing a name with all those combine meaningful letters will eventually make out the best desired result. The sum of the numbers in your birth date and the sum of numbers you make out while naming a person displays a great deal in the character, the future, the strengths and the weakness of an individual. Numerology helps in standing and fighting against all these weaknesses and odds. Believers say that numerology make you achieve whatever you want in life, and not just infants, a lot of people change their names in the later stages of their life too after realizing the problems they are suffering in their lives and in order to fight against them. This concept of Numerology was initially brought up by the Babylonians but gradually everyone started practicing it and eventually it became so popular and effective that now it is practiced across almost all over the world. There might be no scientific proofs about the authenticity of these numerology charts, but people still have faith in ample numbers about the relationship of words and numbers.

 

People also believe that in Numerology the on goings and the redemption is based upon three major factors; the date of birth, the name given to you on your birth and the name you use currently. The third factor can well be managed according to the needs and necessary requirements by the Numerology charts. There are ways to work over your names even if you’re a grown up in order to get over the grey shades you are going through in your personal lives. So everyone needs to go through that Numerology chart while assessing their young ones with new names.

 

Browse through name meaning, rankings, other people's comments, ratings, and other statistics in addition to the name meanings.

 

Carvey Is A Powerful CNC Machine For The Rest Of Us

Robotic CNC machines – cutting systems that use spinning tools to swipe through metal, wood, and plastic – are cool but ugly. Most of them are as big as a fridge and designed to carve out objects in a few minutes but none will sit quietly on your desk and do its business with aplomb and elegance. Now, however, there’s Carvey.

Carvey is the Form 1 of CNC. Designed to be a seamless, well-designed tool for designers and makers, you program it by entering a tool path – basically the movements the cutting head will make – and pressing a button. The system can be set up for specific materials.

Now this isn’t exactly a 3D printer. It’s more useful if you’re planning on building a flat-pack sort of buildable object (think Ikea) or a flat piece of a bigger project. For example, you could print an entire pair of glasses with this system by printing the stems and eyepieces separately. You could even cut out the lenses.

Quoth the creators:

We designed Carvey for makers and designers of all levels, from artists and teachers to architects and engineers. We want Carvey to blend seamlessly into an office, a workshop or a crafting desk, and be so simple to use that anyone can incorporate it into their practice.

Early bird units cost $1,999 and non-early birds will pay $2,399. They’ve already surpassed their goal and are aiming to ship next September.

Apple Patent Hints Remote Unlocking And Trunk Operation Possible For Future CarPlay

Apple has secured a new patent that suggests it may add more features and capabilities to its automotive software in the future. The patent, published by the USPTO today (via AppleInsider), describes a system in which an iPhone acts as an automatic car remote control when used with head units with CarPlay-like connectivity.

The patent describes how iOS devices might be used like remote starters and key fobs, but with additional automated actions made possible thanks to geo-fenced location capabilities. A user’s iPhone or iPad could be set to trigger actions like unlocking/locking the car, activating an alarm, starting the engine and activating climate control, or unlocking the trunk when a driver approaches the rear of the vehicle. Bluetooth LE is mentioned as a possible tech to be employed to accomplish this, and Apple could also use its iBeacon tech to work with proximity and positioning.

More ambitious elements of the patent include features that would monitor a user’s device over their cellular connection even when they’re away from the vehicle, and then report back to the connected head unit in the car to provide it with an intelligent profile of when to begin certain activities like warming up the car, even before proximity is locally detected. Features like starting the engine could also be locked out until a driver is actually in the driver’s seat, however, as a safety precaution.

The system would make sense if Apple wants to go further down the road (pun!) of vehicle integration for iOS devices, and many car makers are already offering companion apps for their vehicles that tie directly into their own proprietary systems. A universal, Apple-led effort would be better for consumers, though there are a lot of challenges, both technical and in terms of securing automaker buy-in, to overcome before we see anything like this go to market.

Microsoft Drops Nokia Name, Sticks With ‘Lumia’ For Windows Phones

After a long and complicated relationship that first involved just a close partnership with Nokia handling hardware duties, and then Microsoft acquiring Nokia’s phone-making business during what appeared to be a fairly acrimonious separation, there will be no more confusion as to who’s making first-party Windows Phone hardware going forward: they’ll be called just “Microsoft Lumia” devices going forward.

The rebranding will begin in France, according to The Verge, and then move around the world from there, and will apply across product branding, social media accounts and all online presence. Nokia, the company, will continue to operate separately as a mapping and network tech concern, and tech newsrooms everywhere will breathe a sigh of relief as they can stop asking “wait, which Nokia are you talking about?” when discussing stories.

We knew it was coming; MS naming its hardware division the same thing as the company that it secured it from was untenable, for any number of reasons, and Microsoft has previously admitted it would be transitioning away from the Nokia moniker. Using the Lumia name makes a lot of sense as a replacement, because it was unique to Windows Phone devices from the beginning, but has also been around long enough now to have some brand recognition, even if it’s only a fraction of the legacy brand presence enjoyed by Nokia.

Expect a big branding push once this transition begins in earnest, as Microsoft tries to append the new (old) name to its mobile platform in people’s minds and supplant the Nokia memories.

This Week On The TC Gadgets Podcast: iPads, Disrupt London, And iPads

You might have heard that Apple released some new iPads last week. A lot of them. Plus, TechCrunch ventured across the pond for Disrupt London, where a number of incredible hardware startups debuted their wares. It was a long, but awesome, week.

We discuss all this and more on this week’s episode of the TC Gadgets Podcast featuring John Biggs, Matt Burns, and Jordan Crook.

Have a good Friday, everybody!

We invite you to enjoy our weekly podcasts every Friday at 3 p.m. Eastern and noon Pacific. And feel free to check out the TechCrunch Gadgets Flipboard magazine right here.

Click here to download an MP3 of this show.
You can subscribe to the show via RSS.
Subscribe in iTunes

Intro Music by Mendhoan.

Nintendo’s Extended Amiibo Video Is Weird And Long But Good

Nintendo has a new online ad for its Amiibo ‘toys-to-life’ mobile figures, and the spot depicts the lengthy journey of one young player looking to upgrade his collectible character in order to win over the favours of one of his older brother’s friends. The story arc and acting are weird and generally not good, but the video is mostly fun, and it gives you a decent look at how Nintendo’s Amiibo will work in action in the upcoming Super Smash Bros. for Wii U game.

Plus it reveals that there are 50 potential levels you can attain for your Miibo, which, if that’s common to all games where they’re supported and not just Super Smash Bros. Wii U, means that Nintendo’s toys-to-life line will be introduced with a lot more potential in terms of progression than any other competitors, including the Skylanders line and Disney’s Infinity toys.

The Wii U was made for these NFC-powered toys, but we’ll have to wait and see if it’s enough to turn around flagging sales of the console, which is so far way behind the competition from both Sony and Microsoft. The Amiibo, along with Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, arrive on November 21 in the U.S.

You Can Now Build Oculus Rift Projects In The Free Version Of Unity

Hey, you! Yeah, you! The one with the awesome idea for something that needs to be built in virtual reality!

Remember a few weeks back, when Oculus mentioned that its development tools would soon work with the free version of the Unity game engine, rather than just the $1,500 Pro Version?

It’s done. Oculus has just released a new build of its SDK, complete with support for Unity Free (v4.5.5 and up.) If you’ve got a Rift dev kit and an idea, there’s seriously no reason to not start building now.

The rest of the SDK’s changes are primarily behind-the-curtain performance tweaks, except for one big bullet point: Linux support. It’s labeled as “experimental,” so expect bugs galore. But if you’re on Linux and want to get in on the virtual reality fun without having to dual boot, it’s finally feasible. (You’ll still have to wait for devs to port their wares to Linux, of course.)

Oculus devs can view the full changelist here.

Fitness Tracker Moov Raises $3 Million For Its Wearable A.I. Coach

The crowdfunded fitness tracker Moov, built by former Apple engineer and HALO game designer Nikola Hu, Microsoft Research vets Meng Li (now Moov CEO) and Tony Yuan, has raised $3 million in new funding in a Series A round led by Banyan Capital. The additional capital follows Moov’s earlier raise of $1 million via a crowdfunding page on its own website.

There was early buzz around Moov’s new hardware-based fitness tracker shortly after its debut – the team passed its $40,000 crowdfunding goal in just 90 minutes and then went on to greatly exceed that.

The device the company is selling is designed to go beyond the usual “step tracking” data other fitness trackers collect, and instead uses a combination of hardware (9-axis sensors) and software algorithms designed to pinpoint a body’s movements (get it? “Moov!”) without using a camera. That means the device aids wearers who participate in other types of activities outside of running or walking, including boxing, cycling, weight lifting, swimming and more.

Moov’s hardware includes a waterproof watch-like gadget with a round face that can be worn on the wrist or ankle, depending on the type of activity you’re currently engaging in, for best results.

More importantly, Moov’s system includes more than just the tracking of data – it also offers real-time coaching and feedback based on how you’re moving, which can help users perform better while also protecting themselves from injury. In other words, it’s an attempt at putting a “real” fitness trainer in gadget format by offering a service that responds to your movements and then pushes and encourages you during workouts via Moov’s mobile applications.

The company is working toward offering a suite of applications designed specifically for the activity being tracked, including apps for running and walking, cardio punching, swimming, cycling, and more. The first two in that list are live now on the iTunes App Store, and others are in the works. Moov is also working on bringing its software to Android next month, along with the launch of several new apps. By year-end, Moov’s list of apps will have more than doubled.

Moov CEO Meng Li won’t disclose the exact number of units sold to date, but would confirm that the company raised the $1 million in presales during the first 2 weeks of crowdfunding, with unites sold for $50/each. (That’s 20,000 units sold in the first few weeks, to give you an idea.) Today, the company is selling Moov for $79.95 via its website, still on pre-order. This price includes one tracker, 2 bands and a charger, though those engaging in activities like boxing may want to order 2 devices for better analysis.

The 11-person team is now growing, as a result of the raise, Li notes, and the remaining funds are being put toward expanding the number of activities the Moov device supports, decreasing manufacturing time, and developing an SDK (software development kit) so other developers can build Moov-compatible apps.

Apple Announces Too Many iPads

If you’re in the market to buy a new iPad, your choices just became dizzying. As expected, Apple announced new iPads this morning at its news conference in Cupertino, but it didn’t retire some of its older products to make way for the additions. How many iPad models can you choose from now? Five? And that’s not even counting the fact that each flavor comes with various storage sizes as well as Wi-Fi and cellular versions!

It’s a good thing the lines are long at the Apple stores on new product launch days, because you’ll probably have to spend that time trying to figure out which iPad you’re actually going to buy. (Unless, of course, you’re like a lot of us here – happily using our “old” iPad 2’s which seem to still manage to do everything we need them to.)

The latest iPads to join the flock are the iPad Air 2 and the iPad mini 3. The former is Apple’s new flagship tablet: a full-sized iPad now updated with a Touch ID fingerprint sensor (Apple Pay!), and as the name implies, a thinner body. It has a better camera, better CPU, better GPU, and several other specs that won’t matter to your non-technical parents and grandparents when they ask you if they should upgrade. (“Well, it comes in gold now,” you can say.)

You can also mention it has a barometer, which may eventually matter a little in terms of upcoming applications designed to take advantage of the new functionality – like detecting your altitude, suggests a private pilot discussing the launch on Hacker News.

But look at all the price points!

• Wi-Fi model: $499, $599, or $699 for 16GB, 64GB, or 128GB, respectively
• Wi-Fi + Cellular model: $629, $729, or $829 for 16GB, 64GB, or 128GB, respectively

Meanwhile, the iPad mini 3 is an updated version of the purse-sized iPad, also now with support for the Touch ID fingerprint sensor, and again slightly better specs than last year’s model – well, it has the old A7 processor, but the iSight camera is better. And oh, yeah, it comes in gold, too!

And the iPad mini 3 has a bunch of SKUs, including:

• Wi-Fi model: $399, $499, or $599 for 16GB, 64GB, and 128GB, respectively
• Wi-Fi + Cellular model: $529, $629, or $729 for 16GB, 64GB, and 128GB, respectively

But wait, there’s more!

Apple is continuing to sell its older model iPads, including the original iPad mini, last year’s Retina model (the iPad mini 2), and the iPad Air. These start at $249, $299 and $399, respectively, for the Wi-Fi versions – lower prices than before, so that’s something.

That said, we don’t know what Apple has against offering a 32 GB version on the low-end instead of 16 GB. Why not throw that SKU in there as well while you’re at it, Apple? (But seriously, though, why is a 16 GB anything a reasonable mobile product offering these days? Have you seen the size of some of these games? Isn’t Apple letting consumers shoot in HD now?)

One could argue that Apple can’t drop the 16 GB price point because that’s the model that competes at the low-end of the market. This is critical for Apple’s larger global strategy where it has to go up against a wider range of competitive products, including entry-level Android tablets. Even the nicer Android tablets are fairly affordable: Google’s 16 GB Nexus 7, for example, is currently $229 and gets the job done. The forthcoming, brand-new Nexus 9 starts at $400.

Apple’s enterprise strategy may also require a range of lower-cost iPads for companies who buy in bulk and don’t need the very latest high-end specs the very minute they’re available.

For consumers, however, Apple’s iPad line-up is starting to resemble that of rival Samsung’s. And for a company that likes to focus on simplicity, it’s odd to see what is frankly a confusing array of choices appear, even if the price points are competitive enough to attract new buyers who may have shied away previously because of Apple’s “premium” brand and associated pricing schemes.

So if you’re confused, too, and you need help deciding on which iPad to get, here’s the easiest way to figure it out: Big or Little? Good. Now, how much money do you have to spend? Yep, that amount works. Apple has one for you.

Image credits: Apple event, Darrell Etherington, Recsolu

The New iPad Mini 3 Gets Touch ID, Keeps Last Year’s A7

Update: Apple’s specs page for the iPad mini 3 says that it has the A7 processor, not the new A8 that debuted in the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus.

This year’s small form-factor tablet from Apple is called the iPad mini 3, dropping the distinction between the original iPad mini and last year’s mini with Retina.

It’s got the same A7 system-on-a-chip as last year’s model (as opposed to the beefier A8X in the new iPad Air 2). Like its bigger sibling, the iPad mini 3 receives Apple’s Touch ID fingerprint scanner and will come with iOS 8.1, meaning you’ll be able to use it with Apple Pay for online purchases.

There’s also a new pricing scheme for the iPad mini, impacted by the fact that Apple will continue to sell the original iPad mini, as well as last year’s Retina model. The price of entry for the iPad lineup is now only $249 (if you’re willing to use 2-year-old hardware), but it also means you can get last year’s A7-powered Retina wonder for only $299. As with the new iPhones and the iPad Air 2, the new iPad mini 3 will be available in three tiers, priced by storage: 16 GB, 64 GB, and 128 GB.

Hands On With The iPad Air 2

The new iPad Air feels a lot like the old iPad Air, and that’s a good thing, But it’s amazing the difference that shaving just a little more off of the thickness of the device can do, in terms of its overall presence in the hand. This iPad Air definitely feels more portable, and I’d imagine will be a lot more comfortable to hold over longer periods, thanks to the additional size and weight savings.

The display is the same resolution as the one you’re used to from the last generation, which is still one of the best in the tablet industry, but now it somehow looks as if it’s even closer to the glass, and the impression is one of a printed high-resolution mock-up, rather than an actual display you can interact with and change. That’s because Apple has eliminated a gap by combining screen components to bring the display even closer to the glass. Things look a lot more touchable, some how, with this new look.

While the iPad Air’s hardware mute/lock switch is gone, it isn’t forgotten. I understand the need to remove the physical button in the interest of saving space, but it’s still a very handy thing to have on the device if you’re looking to quickly silence any notifications or noises. The software workaround isn’t terrible, but it isn’t ideal, either.

Touch ID on the new iPad Air is a very welcome addition. It works as you’d expect it to, if you’ve used the iPhone 5s or later, which is to say it works far better than any other fingerprint unlocking tech out there, with a much lower incidence of error.

Overall, Apple has delivered a powerful update to its larger iPad, and the camera improvements actually might convince me to start using a tablet to take photos, even though I never thought I’d say those words ever in a million years.

We’ll have additional thoughts on the iPad Air 2 once we get a chance to do a full review, but for now it seems like a solid upgrade, if a mostly evolutionary one.

Hands On With The New iMac With Retina 5K Display

Apple’s newest iMac has a Retina 5K display, which Apple says is the highest resolution display on the planet. The new screen is, as you might expect, gorgeous at first sight, and prolonged exposure only heightens the experience. And even as someone who’s used to using a Retina MacBook Pro as his main machine, it’s a big step up.

The screen shows full resolution photos with zoomed crops that look better than most originals coming out of the camera, and the iMac still features that tapered design that narrows to 5 mm at its thinnest point. Apple’s existing industrial design on the iMac has aged well, but the screen is the real star here, and it’s honestly a little hard to pay attention to the rest as a result.

As someone who works with images and video on a daily basis, I can immediately see the advantages of owning a Retina 5K Mac, even over and above the arguably more powerful Mac Pro. Apple has beefed up the internals with faster processor and graphics card options here, however, and it should have enough juice to handle 4K video editing, which it can also do at full resolution while also offering you a fully featured app window with controls and settings in Final Cut Pro.

Apple’s clearly not positioning this for the average computer user – $2,499 is a lot less expensive than high-end 4K TVs at comparable sizes, and this is a full computer, so that’s definitely a good deal. But it’s still a big investment, and one that most people in the market for an all-in-one will probably balk at.

Just like with the Retina MacBook Pro, Apple’s looking to start this tech out as something aimed at pros and serious enthusiasts first, but make no mistake – eventually, Retina will bleed to lower cost lines, and it’s definitely the future of desktop computing.

iOS 8.1 Out Monday Brings Apple Pay, iCloud Photo Library … And The Return Of The Camera Roll

At the Apple event being held today in the Town Hall auditorium at Apple’s Cupertino headquarters, Craig Federighi, SVP Software Engineering, briefly detailed iOS 8.1’s upcoming features, namely support for Apple Pay and iCloud Photo Library. The software is coming out on Monday.

Federighi also briefly went through 8.1’s support for iCloud Photo Library, including iCloud pricing plans which start out with the first 5GB for free, and then go up to $0.99 for 20 GB, and $3.99 for 200 GB. Tiers are also available up to 1 TB, he says.

And, another welcome change for those confused by the Photos app’s new interface in 8.0 is the re-emergence of the “Camera Roll” gallery in iOS 8.1.

Federighi even joked that Apple received complaints about this change, which led them to make “improvements” in 8.1, referring to the return of the Camera Roll.

In case you missed it, Apple customers have been lamenting the reorganization in the Photos app, and the changes introduced in 8.0. They’ve been looking for their Camera Roll and Photo Stream galleries and, not finding them, have blown up Apple support threads with inquires and complaints. Instead of Camera Roll, in iOS 8.0, Apple had added a section called “Recently Added” for your most recently snapped photos. But old habits die hard, and the changes were disorienting.

iOS 8.1 will also introduce into public beta of iCloud Photo Library, which is what will sync photos and edits to your photos across all your Apple devices. And the new software will include Continuity, which is what allows users to move between tasks started on one Apple device and finish them on another, whether desktop, laptop, mobile or tablet. Users will also be able to accept phone calls on their Macs, thanks to Continuity.

[Update: the launch date has now been announced to be Monday, and the post was changed to reflect this.]

Alpine’s Slick New Headphones Make You Feel Your Beats

I’ve spent the better part of today playing with the new Alpine Headphones, a $299 pair of cans that promise to make you feel your music with the company’s “Full Frequency Immersion” technology.

An Alpine spokesperson told me that the product is “targeted to millennials,” which I assume means that they’re designed to give the “oh my god my entire body is shaking” feeling you get at music festivals and EDM shows. Using the headphones’ default settings, you do get some approximation of this. With that said, it’s not as if you’ll feel the bass in your chest — basically, it feels like some of the sound is intentionally diverted away from the ear pieces themselves up to the band that goes over your head.

If you download Alpine’s app, you can fiddle with the headphones’ settings and automatically create playlists based on “intensity” (read: beats per minute), but the app only works with songs in your iTunes library. That left me with some odd playlists, as I migrated from iTunes to Google Play (and subsequently Beats Music) a while back. Still, for the songs I do have in my library, I could adjust settings to reach my preferred sound profile:

All of the settings that you can modify on the headphones (and the whole shaking thing) require that you have them powered on. That means that in addition to your phone, you also need to charge your headphones over USB. People who already charge their Bluetooth headphones every day might be fine with that, but they probably wouldn’t like doing it for a gadget that has to be plugged into their phone to function. It’s bizarre, but despite having Bluetooth LE to send settings from the app to the headphones, you still need an audio cord to play jams on Alpine’s Headphones.

As with Beats headphones, Alpine’s headphones feel like they’re made for people who care about giving off a certain image with their tech accessories and don’t care about the technical details that audiophiles dig through when making a new purchase. If you’re all about the bass and think they look pretty cool, it’s easy to see  and try them in person: Alpine says they’re in Apple Stores everywhere as of Tuesday.

IMAGE BY Alpine

Apple Begins Taking Pre-Orders For iPad Air 2 And Mini 3

Apple revealed new iPad models on Thursday, and they all go on sale starting today via Apple’s online store. Today is just the beginning of pre-sales, with iPads officially shipping to pre-order customers and arriving in stores sometime “late next week,” according to Apple.

Pricing for the new iPad mini, which is essentially the same as the existing model with Touch ID added and a new gold color option, starts at $399, while the iPad Air 2, with its full external and internal overhaul, begins at $499. Configuration options include 16, 64 and 128GB options, with both Wi-Fi only and LTE-capable models of each.

Delivery time for the new iPads is listed as October 23, which partly helps explain why the date wasn’t set in stone on stage. Apple seems to want to get these out the door as soon as possible, instead of staging a defined, singular street date, so they could be shipping them in batches as soon as they come off the line.

Our own initial impressions of the new iPads found that the iPad Air 2 is a marked upgrade even from last year’s version, but as for the iPad mini 3, unless you have a burning desire for Touch ID or you’re upgrading from a first-gen Mini, it might be worth holding off on a purchase.

MasterCard Will Borrow A Touch ID Trick For Fingerprint Scanning Credit Card

Apple isn’t the only company using biometrics to authenticate payments and purchases – Apple Pay partner MasterCard wants to make fingerprint scanning something even people without an iOS device can use to digitally ‘sign’ for contactless transactions. The credit card company is launching the “world’s first” fingerprint-enabled credit card with technology partner Zwipe, which will have the exact same dimensions as existing plastic payment cards, but with an embedded fingerprint scanner.

Like Apple’s Touch ID, the card stores any fingerprint data records only on the card itself, rather than transmitting them to the cloud or MasterCard’s servers, which makes it far less likely that the information can be intercepted and stolen. Activation occurs via a simple initial scan setup process, and after that, the chip-based cards use a successful scan match to complete payments, instead of the usual manual entry PIN.

Power for the scanner is actually provided by the payment terminals they work with, every time they’re used, which means they don’t require conventional charging. As you’ve probably guessed based on the fact that it uses chip-and-pin, it’s going to be rolled out in markets outside the U.S. first starting in 2015, but since the U.S. is finally moving to EMV, expect it to come there, eventually, too.

Clearly Apple’s hoping that it can convince users to ditch the cards altogether in favor of a centralized storehouse of their payment methods on the iPhone, but it’s smart to see credit card makers move into biometrics, provided they work well and thus offer actual convenience, instead of added hassle.

Apple Patent On The NFC Mechanics Of Apple Pay Details Its Inner Workings

Apple has applied for a patent (via AppleInsider) related to its new Apple Pay mobile payment system, and within the document, it goes into detail about how the near field communication between the phone and the payment terminal at participating stores works. Essentially, it explains in more technical and specific terms what Apple talked about on stage at its iPhone 6 event in September, but it’s well worth a closer look, especially as it details some of the things Apple didn’t talk about with much specificity, like how Apple Pay works on accessories like the Apple Watch.

The filing discusses the basics, like how Apple’s new smartphone uses an NFC module to communicate to a merchant’s payment terminal. But it discusses in detail the way the tokenized transfer occurs, whereby shoppers only transfer a special, single-use digital token that the POS system will decode using a shared secret, but at no time does a user’s credit card information ever actually leave the secure enclave contained on the user’s device. That applies to the Apple Watch, too, which also has a secure enclave chip to store payment info.

Basically, it’s like your phone and your merchant’s terminal agree upon a secret passphrase, and when that’s successful, they pass the info on to the payment provider (Chase, Bank of America, etc.) which then authorizes the payment. Only you and the payment card provider ever know the credit card number used; the merchant’s terminal only ever knows the passphrase, which is unique and automatically generated for one-time use.

Apple does this so that even if the NFC communication is hacked and intercepted by outside forces, the data they can steal is completely worthless. It’s a measure designed to alleviate the fear that transferring any kind of payment information wirelessly sets a user up for attack, which is likely one of the factors involved in slow adoption of NFC payment methods thus far.

The patent also talks about how a user device generally isn’t using NFC actively, but can detect a payment terminal using passive detection methods, which then prompts the NFC receiver to move from an idle to an active state. That will let it initiate a transaction, which is authorized by use of the fingerprint scanner on the iPhone 6, or a confirmation input on the Apple Watch.

Apple’s patent also details how even devices that don’t have a current active connection to a cellular network (like an Apple Watch used away from an iPhone) will still be able to use Apple Pay, so long as they contain the user’s stored payment information on their secure enclave. That means the enclave will be functionally no different from a physical credit card, at least in terms of requirements to operate, so long as a merchant has a compatible payment terminal. That could be ideal for the forthcoming iPad, which is rumored to offer Touch ID and Apple Pay, and which won’t always have an active connection, especially with Wi-Fi only models.

Belkin Explains Why Its Routers Stopped Working

Yesterday morning, Belkin routers prevented users from accessing the Internet. In a statement provided to TechCrunch Belkin identified and outlined steps it will take to prevent it from happening again:

“One of our cloud services associated with maintaining router operations was negatively impacted by a change made in our data center that caused a false denial of service. Normal operations were restored by 3PM PST, however, some users might still be required to reset their router and/or cable modem to regain connectivity. Moving forward, we will continue to monitor, improve and validate the system to ensure our routers continue to work properly in the event connectivity to our cloud environment is not available.”

It took Belkin some 15 hours to fix the issue, which caused wide-eyed speculation and conspiracy theories.

Even with this explanation, it’s a scary thought that a local networking device can be disabled or even controlled from a remote server. Apparently, per the official statement, the outage was not caused by Belkin uploading buggy firmware, but rather one of Belkin’s remote operations.

This Week On The TC Gadgets Podcast: Tesla, Amazon Fire 7, And Withings Home Monitoring

Tesla just announced new “D” versions of the Model S and Matt can’t shut up about it. Meanwhile, Amazon announced a new Fire HD 7 tablet that John reviewed and found to be quite the solid little reader. He argues, however, that it isn’t a tablet.

We also take a look at the newest stuff from Withings, including the Home monitoring system, as well as rumors around Coin’s imminent failure.

We discuss all this and more on this week’s episode of the TC Gadgets Podcast featuring John Biggs, Matt Burns, and Jordan Crook.

Have a good Friday, everybody!

We invite you to enjoy our weekly podcasts every Friday at 3 p.m. Eastern and noon Pacific. And feel free to check out the TechCrunch Gadgets Flipboard magazine right here.

Click here to download an MP3 of this show.
You can subscribe to the show via RSS.
Subscribe in iTunes

Intro Music by Mendhoan.

Please Stop, HTC. Please.

Have a new phone? Better use fashion models to show them off. Because real people wear outfits that look like monochrome jellyfish and never smile and they want… no, need… your products.

That’s just what HTC did today in an industry that is plagued with gender inequality and “booth babe” marketing. They had models of both sexes strut around with phones designed to make it easier to take pictures of models.

The occasion for this ham-handed event was the launch of the HTC Desire Eye, a phone that features front and back 13MP cameras — you know, for the selfies. Instead of celebrating a fairly amazing achievement, they turned it into a fashion event. And when mobile companies try to put on fashion events, everyone loses.

Technology companies generally struggle to make press events like these interesting. It takes something special to get people to look up from their laptops and phones. Several years ago, Samsung put on a Broadway “show” worthy of a local community theater. But that backfired. It was hilarious rather than interesting. It was roundly derided as ridiculous.

At CES 2013 Qualcomm rolled out the psychedelic elephants and floating deadheads for an event that was clearly designed by someone dropping acid.

And now HTC joins this crowd with a fashion show featuring future Sith Lords. Well done, HTC. At least you didn’t die quietly.

Please, mobile companies, stop. There is nothing “fashion” about your product unless you count the number of celebrities who carry your phone for a week because you gave it to them. Phones are objects of desire, to be sure, but that desire is not manufactured or forced – it’s earned, and this was just a mess.

One In Three U.K. Children Now Owns A Tablet — Instagram, Snapchat, WhatsApp Use Also Rising

Last October research put out by the UK’s telecoms regulator, Ofcom, highlighted rising usage of tablets among kids. Unsurprisingly that trend has continued, with Ofcom’s 2014 annual report exploring parents’ and children’s media use finding that tablet ownership by children in the U.K. has now risen as high as one in three.

Among children aged between 5 and 15, Ofcom found that a third (34%) now own their own tablet, i.e. rather than using devices belonging to their parents or school. That’s up from a fifth (19%) back in 2013.

Kids’ tablet ownership is even rising at the lower end of the age bracket, with around one in ten (11%) children aged 3 to 4 years now having their own tablet, up from just 3% last year.

The 2014 report also notes that twice as many kids aged 5 to 15 years old are using a tablet to go online (42% versus 23% in 2013).

It argues this could have implications for the future use of laptops and PCs — especially given the report notes a drop in the proportion of children accessing the internet on a PC, laptop or netbook. Ofcom says this fell for the first time (since it began this annual survey back in 2005) — dropping by three percentage points, year on year, to 88%.

Meanwhile smartphone ownership among kids has remained steady, according to Ofcom,  with the 2014 report recording that a fifth (20%) of 8-11s own a handset, and 65% of 12-15 year olds.

The report suggests tablets are replacing TV sets in kids’ bedrooms, with the latter proportion dropping by a third over the past five years (from 66% in 2009 to 46% in 2014). Meanwhile the proportion of kids watching TV shows on tablets is on the rise — up by a third in a year, from 15% in 2013 to 20% in 2014.

Gaming on tablets is also on the rise among U.K. kids. It’s up from 23% last year to 30% in 2014. But use of dedicated gaming devices is dropping, down from 81% in 2013 to 77% in 2014.

Kids’ social media usage increasingly diverse

The report also explores social media usage by children in the U.K., shedding some light on the relative popularity of various digital services among this age group.

According to Ofcom’s data, Facebook remains a staple for U.K. kids, with almost all surveyed children (96%) reporting they have a profile on the site — a proportion that has remained largely unchanged since 2011.

However the proportion of kids who identify Facebook as their “main social profile” has declined. The report notes that has dropped from 87% in 2013 to 75% in 2014.

Meanwhile other social serviced have bubbled up, with usage of Instagram, SnapChat and WhatsApp specifically all growing since last year’s survey — although their proportional usage lags far behind Facebook. Still, given that the relative attraction of using additional social service to Facebook is likely to be for kids to seek out a smaller niche group of users (i.e. which does not include their parents) that’s to be expected.

Of these additional social services, Instagram has currently carved out the biggest niche among U.K. kids after Facebook — with some 36% of respondents saying they now use the photo sharing site, and 9% identifying it as their main social profile.

That’s followed by 26% who say they use SnapChat, and 20% who are using WhatsApp. Both Instagram and WhatsApp are owned by Facebook, of course. But SnapChat remains independent, having shunned various suitors.

On the falling out of favor front, the Ofcom report shows usage of Twitter among U.K. kids has declined after three prior years of growth, down from 37% last year to 28% this year. While Google-owned YouTube has also dipped slightly in usage, dropping from 26% to 22%.

The report underlines how fickle digital fashions can be among this age group, with erstwhile U.K. kids’ digital social favorite Bebo rapidly falling from a usage rate of nearly half (49%) back in 2009 to a mere 3% in 2014.

Monsieur, The Drink Robot, Raises $2 Million

A robotic bartender named Monsieur and his human partners have raised $2 million in seed investment from BIP Capital with Base Ventures, Paul Judge, TechSquare Labs, NFL star Derrick Morgan, and NBA star Glen Davis. The funding will go towards building more Monsieur drink robots for bars, restaurants, and my bedroom.

“We are in pilot with several NBA arenas, one of the top hotel brands that has over ​4,000​ locations, and​ a popular movie theater brand that has over ​500​ locations. Monsieur will be in at least 3 NBA arenas this basketball season. Those arenas have a total capacity of​ over​ ​110​,000 attendees,” said co-founder and CEO Barry Givens.

As you’ll recall, Monsieur launched at TechCrunch Disrupt and is essentially a black box full of booze. You program in a drink – a Manhattan or a Slippery Wapdoodle With A Twist – and the machine mixes the drink in proper proportion and squirts it into a glass. The whole system runs on an Android tablet and a set of pumps and can be upgraded and controlled remotely. You can think of it as a robot bartender that will never talk back and can programmatically buy you a shot.

“The idea came when I was waiting for his drink to come at a popular restaurant chain. He was there with his friends to watch a playoff basketball game and did not get his first drink until halftime. At that moment he realized that there was an opportunity to develop something that could provide consumers with a better experience but also help the businesses get drinks out faster to increase drink sales,” said Givens.

The team has deployed beta units at restaurants and bars in Atlanta and they’re working on partnerships with drink brands and sports arenas. They see this as sort of a “bartender in a box” that staff can roll into a room and let users order drinks without having staff on hand. The system maintains a log of what was served and the venue can ring up a bill at the end of the night. I’ve tried the drinks that pour forth from this delicious machine and I can report that they are as good as human-made libations. Now if they can only replace bar patrons with faceless robots who won’t bother you with long stories about conspiracy theories, I might just be set.

Google Reveals ‘The Physical Web,’ A Project To Make Internet Of Things Interaction App-Less

Google’s Scott Jenson, an interaction and UX designer who left the company only to return to the Chrome team last November, has revealed a project underway at the company called The Physical Web to provide “interaction on demand” so that people can walk up and use any smart devices without the need for intervening mobile apps. This would make it possible for users to simply walk up to a bus stop and receive the time until the next arriving bus, without any additional software needed.

The project is an ambitious bet on the future of smart devices. Analysts are predicting explosions in connected devices over the next few years, with Cisco anticipating 50 billion Internet-connected gadgets in action by 2020, and Intel pegging the total at 15 billion by just next year. Google’s project, spearheaded by Jenson, would make it much easier for people to interact with the growing web of connected devices every day.

“People should be able to walk up to any smart device – a vending machine, a poster, a toy, a bus stop, a rental car – and not have to download an app first,” Jenson explains on the Physical Web project page. “Everything should be just a tap away.”

Th aim of the project isn’t just to create something that can be leveraged by Google devices and software, however; it wants to create a standard that can be used by everyone and that is open, like those used for the basic building blocks of the web. A shared standard would definitely help expand the usefulness of connected devices, but Apple has already taken steps towards its own proprietary version of this kind of tech with iBeacon and with its new contextually relevant app suggestions in iOS 8.

Jenson lists some practical applications of the proposed standards on the project page, including parking meters and vending machines that offer quick and app-less payments, universal physical retail shopping experiences and a ZipCar rental system that works via the signs advertising the parking spaces themselves. As for why Chrome is spearheading this effort, the team sees this as yet another web standard, operating as it does beyond siloed native apps.

An accepted open standard is probably still years away, if we ever get one, but the idea of an Internet of Things that doesn’t require even a single centralized software hub like those provided by SmartThings and others is tempting, especially since it democratizes control over the system.

Little Moe Is A Robot That Hunts And Kills Ebola

A San Antonio-based company called Xenex has risen to media prominence recently thanks to their ultraviolet pulse robot called Little Moe. The robot can enter and clean a hospital room in five minutes and destroy the virus by fusing its DNA. You can watch the cute local news piece about the below.

The technology isn’t particularly new. It works by flashing surfaces with ultraviolet light which in turn damages viral DNA. It uses a particularly bright type of xenon lamp that can “can penetrate and damage organisms in unique ways.”

Sadly the robot doesn’t move itself through the hospital like a virus-destroying Roomba. Instead, you place the robot in a room, set up the room type and number, and arm the robot. It then raises its pulsing and starts firing UV light into the room.

Medical robotics is a big business and it is changing daily. While telemedicine and the like get all the ink, robots like Little Moe are important because they do one thing and they do it very well, in this case room disinfection. And if a cute name and an Ebola scare are what it takes to move medical science forward, I’m all for it.

Skylanders Trap Team Review: Good Storytelling And Simple RPG Mechanics Succeed

The ‘Toys to Life’ category has been a much-needed savior for the gaming and toy industry alike, bolstering sluggish sales for both by anticipating a huge demand for real-life action figures that can be ‘brought to life’ for use in digital games. Activision’s Skylanders series pioneered the concept, and the originator is back with Trap Team, a new installment with the unique game mechanic of allowing players to ‘trap’ key villains in special physical play pieces, which makes them playable in-game as characters.

That’s not the only trick Skylanders Trap Team has up its sleeve, however – the game is being billed as the first to launch simultaneous, completely identical games on both tablets and dedicated gaming consoles. Trap Team is available as a starter pack either for the standard Wii, PlayStation and Xbox consoles you know and love, or for the iPad 3 and higher, along with select Android and Kindle Fire tablets. The tablet version works across devices from various manufacturers, and comes with a Portal and dedicated controller that both use Bluetooth LE to connect, and are battery-powered so you can use them anywhere.

Skylanders developer Toys for Bob assured me, during an interview with founder Paul Reiche, that there was no time at which they felt they needed to cut features or rein in their ambitions for the project in order to deliver a satisfying experience on both iPad and console, and one that offered the full experience in both places. I tested the game both on PlayStation 4 and iPad mini with Retina Display, and it definitely seems like the same thing on both, with a few caveats.

On iPad, you have to download new content like additional Skylander characters and some worlds and environments, while on the console everything is instantly available. This can be either mildly or very annoying, depending on your connection speed, but even with my fast home Wi-Fi some things took longer than others. The waiting is made less annoying by the fact that once you’ve downloaded something, it’s available and loads quickly the next time around.

What’s great about the iPad version is that Vicarious Visions, the team behind the mobile app for Trap Team (and sister studio to Toys for Bob) has delivered a near-perfect mobile gaming experience, in that it can work as either a completely contained title with just the tablet and software, or expand into something a little more robust with the accessory Portal and controller hardware. Vicarious Visions co-founder Karthik Bala explained in an interview that designing an experience that required nothing else, and that could be easily packed up, moved and used anywhere was a key part of their vision for Trap Team for tablets.

With an iPad mini with Retina display, I could use the entire Trap Team setup on my desk next to my workstation with little to no interference on my main screen, and aside from some aesthetic differences I noticed (fewer background assets, mostly), the tablet experience was the same as the one on the PS4. My saved games didn’t cross both, but character progress did (it sticks with the toys, of course) and you can still enjoy both versions at the same time.

As for the game itself, it’s my introduction to the Skylanders series, and I have to say I was impressed by both the storytelling, and the level of quality when it comes to character animations is fantastic. Skylanders actually beats some of its rivals with more experience in animated storytelling, like Disney, when it comes to the cutscenes and overall game progression, and the humor and likability of its characters.

The gameplay is repetitive and simple, but then again, this is a title aimed primarily at the 6-12 age bracket, and the puzzles it does provide are just complex enough to avoid coming off as insulting. The fun is in the grind, for more advanced players, and in levelling up your Skylanders to the cap of 20, along with unlocking their powers along the way. One knock against Trap Team is that it doesn’t up the level cap beyond what was introduced in last year’s Swap Force, and older Skylander toys don’t get improved abilities. The game also requires you to use the new Skylander Trap Master figures to unlock a good chunk of the game’s extra content, which means you’ll have to invest in new toys as a completionist, but then again these are mostly Hats and accessories and don’t take away from the core experience.

Playing as villains is a nice, but mostly shallow experience in Trap Team, with no progression available for the baddies. But the idea of redeeming them and their ongoing narration via the Portal’s speaker is charming, and each at least has a sidequest that can “evolve” the character. Activision has also shown some welcome restraint, here: you don’t need a separate trap for each villain, just one of each elemental type, and you can shuffle character off and on to those.

Skylanders Trap Team ends up being a game that’s fun to play, either alone or with a friend, that just so happens to also encourage a huge amount of accessory purchasing. I’m of the school of thought that if you’re going to be buying toys for your kids anyway, they might as well have some lasting value (Activision once again says these will be forward-compatible with new software in the series). And while I value the appeal to my nostalgia and existing habits that Disney’s Infinity series, and especially its new Marvel line bring, the work Activision is doing creating entirely original IP and weaving it into an actual narrative is impressive. If you’re a fan of the series, Trap Team won’t disappoint, and if you’re new to the game, this is as good a jumping off point as any.

Keep Calm And Attend Hardware Alley In London

It’s Hardware Alley time again and we want to see you at Disrupt London! The alley, which runs during the last day of Disrupt, features all of my favorite startups – the hardware ones – in glorious Technicolor.

What is Hardware Alley? It’s a celebration of hardware startups (and other cool gear makers) that features everything from robotic drones to 3D printers. We try to bring in an eclectic mix of amazing exhibitors and I think you’ll agree that our previous Alleys have been roaring successes.

We’d like you to register as a Hardware Alley exhibitor. You’ll get to exhibit on the last day of Disrupt London, October 21, to show off your goods and get access to some of the most interesting people (and most interesting VCs) in the world.

All you need to demo is a laptop. TechCrunch provides you with: 30″ round cocktail table, linens, table-top sign, inclusion in program agenda and website, exhibitor WiFi, and press list.

You can reserve your spot by purchasing a Hardware Alley Exhibitor Package here.

If you are Kickstarting your project now or bootstrapping, please contact me at john@techcrunch.com with the subject line “HARDWARE ALLEY.” I will do my best to accommodate you.

Hope to see you in London!

StoreDot Charges Up With $42M For Its Fast-Charging Bio-Organic Batteries

Israeli startup StoreDot, which is developing quantum dot-utilizing fast-charging smartphone battery technology, among other things, has closed a $42 million Series B funding round. It pitches its bio-organic nano-crystal technology as an enabler for faster charging batteries and also a cheaper and non-toxic alternative to cadmium in screens.

StoreDot demoed the speedy charging battery technology back in April, flaunting its potential with a prototype device that charged from flat to full in 30 seconds — although it used a less than full capacity battery that was too large to fit inside a phone.

Commercializing this technology will require applying it to a full capacity battery and squeezing everything to fit inside a standard smartphone — and that’s what it intends to use the new funding round for, it said today.

Speaking to TechCrunch, StoreDot’s CEO and founder Dr Doron Myersdorf said: “The fully functioning prototype that fits inside the phone for commercialization will be ready the second half of 2016. In early 2017 it will be on the market.”

Also on the slate for StoreDot post-Series B: new hires, and developing other technology products that make use of its nano crystal bio-organic technology. To that end, it said it sees potential for its technology to enhance various electronics areas — including superfast Flash memory and bio-lasers (i.e. in addition to batteries, displays and bio-LEDs).

Other use-cases for the tech it’s looking at are in an area it terms “nano-medicine” — citing “drug delivery, food security, bio labeling and more” as areas of interest here.

Medical uses are not surprising, given that StoreDot’s technology was actually spun out of research being done into Alzheimer’s disease at Tel Aviv University. That research identified particular peptides (amino acids) that the startup is utilizing for electronics.

“When the self-assembly process of these molecules can be managed, we can create nano-crystals,” said Myersdorf back in April, discussing how the technology works. “We were able to take the same peptides that participate in biological processes in our body and to create nano-crystals — these are stable, robust spheres.

“And these can be used… in a semi-conductor device or in a battery or in a display. We are talking about new type of materials that can be introduced into different types of devices.”

Investors in StoreDot’s new funding round are largely undisclosed, with multiple unnamed “strategic partners” cited in a press release. (Samsung has previously been rumored to be an investor in the technology but a StoreDot spokeswoman declined to comment on this.)

The round does include a confirmed $10 million investment from Russian businessman Roman Abramovich’s private asset management company, Millhouse LLC.

StoreDot had raised a total of $6.25 million before this Series B round, with prior investors including Singulariteam, a private investment fund focused on early stage startups.

Myersdorf previously told TechCrunch StoreDot was hoping to close a $20 million Series B so it has evidently been able to boost the size of the round considerably — given today’s announcement of a $42 million closing. The size of the round will enable the startup to commercialize “both the fast charging battery for smartphones and our BioLED display”, he added in a statement today.

Garmin Announces A New Running Watch, The Super Smart Forerunner 920XT

Running watches can either be dead simple – see Timex’s Ironman line – or complex. Garmin usually errs on the side of complex. Their latest running watch, the 920XT, will be available before the holiday and promises enough bells and training whistles to help you go from couch to (probably not) a 100 miler in a few weeks.

The new Forerunner looks similar to the previous models – large screen, big body, comfortable strap – but is waterproof and allows you to track bicycle rides and pool laps. It also connects to your cellphone allowing you to pick up reminders, text messages, and notifications right on your watch. It also includes WiFi so you can upload stats directly without a cable. The watch costs $449 without a heart rate monitor and $499 with.

Some features include:

The Forerunner 920XT’s sleek design is 15 percent lighter and 18 percent thinner than its predecessor, and features flexible, hinged watch bands for a more comfortable fit. Its high-resolution color display features a watch mode, and daily activity tracking features including steps, distance, calories, countdown to a personalized daily goal, audible move alert after one hour of inactivity, and sleep tracking. It also keeps users connected with smart notifications of incoming text, email, call, calendar reminders and more when in range of a paired Bluetooth device.

I’ve been running with Garmin for years – the Fenix 2 is my current favorite – and it’s been fascinating to see the evolution of these pieces from the hotel-soap-sized 305 to is bright and beastly watch. We’ll have a hands-on test over the next few weeks but until then you can check it out here.

This Week On The TC Gadgets Podcast: Gapgate, Garmin, And Jamstik

We’re off and running this week with the latest TC Gadgets podcast. Garmin announced a new smart watch called the Forerunner 920XT. We take a look at that, as well as Garmin’s earlier smart watch offering, the VivoFit. We’re also curious about what’s going on with #gapgate, on the Galaxy Note 4 smartphones.

Meanwhile, the Jamstik MIDI device is finally shipping.

We discuss all this and more on this week’s episode of the TC Gadgets Podcast featuring John Biggs, Matt Burns, and Darrell Etherington.

Have a good Friday, everybody!

We invite you to enjoy our weekly podcasts every Friday at 3 p.m. Eastern and noon Pacific. And feel free to check out the TechCrunch Gadgets Flipboard magazine right here.

Click here to download an MP3 of this show.
You can subscribe to the show via RSS.
Subscribe in iTunes

Intro Music by Mendhoan.

Bowflex Max Trainer M5 Review: Connected, Intense Exercise In A Relatively Compact Package

A blogger’s life is not the most active lifestyle possible for a human; tech bloggers probably get the most exercise walking to and from the post office to retrieve packages they missed at home or to ship things back out. If you don’t have a standing desk, you probably barely even rise out of your seat at a job where the Internet is your main medium, source and subject. The chance to review the Bowflex MAX Trainer M5 was, therefore, both tantalizing and terrifying in equal measure.

Bowflex has gone high-tech with its home gym line, and the Max Trainer M5 boasts smartphone and heart rate monitor connectivity that use Bluetooth LE to communicate with your device, so that you can ditch the pencil and paper to keep track of your progress (or lack thereof). The M5 is the top-of-the-line MAX trainer, too so it also packs a fancy display, heart rate target zone monitoring, and its own contact heart-rate monitor in the box, in addition to the company’s unique exercise action, which is low-impact like ellipticals for an easier overall time for your joints, while also providing more efficiency for a higher caloric burn rate over the same period of time in use.

The Max M5 has a high-end pricetag to match its feature list – it’s available for $1,599 right now direct from the manufacturer. But it has a lot of advantages vs., for example, a gym membership, especially for the soft-bodied bloggers out there like myself. The first is that it’s remarkably small in terms of its overall footprint, which is is surprising if you check it out online and even when you see the pictures of it installe din a space. My review unit was delivered by two friendly guys who doubted it could make it through my very narrow entrance hallway (which is split between my place and my upstairs neighbor), but it managed to navigate the corridor without much effort.

It also takes up just a small corner of my office, leaving plenty of room for two desks and a modest home entertainment unit. It’s smaller than a treadmill, and most of the space it does take up is vertical. Plus, it doesn’t suffer from the kind of footfall impact that can make using treadmills in apartments or second-floor dwellings a major no-no.

Which is all well and good, but how well does it actually work? As with any exercise product, it’s hard to tell the hype from the reality with Bowflex, and years of infomercials of toned 50-somethings doesn’t help. But practically speaking, having switched from a daily 5K running routine to a daily Bowflex MAX Trainer workout, I’ve noticed no significant change in weight (maintenance was my goal) and if anything, more toned musculature, especially through the core. The action is reminiscent of an elliptical machine, but feels also somewhat like a stair-climber, and wore me out surprisingly quickly, with ample variation between low- and high-intensity settings.

The M5 gets your upper body involved in the workout, as you can generate a lot of force with your arms, chest and core through the handles in addition to the steps. I could definitely feel the effects, but I was really surprised by how much my legs felt weak after each workout, which was a good thing. My body is likely accustomed to running, but generally all I feel now after my daily outing around the local outdoor track is joint pain, whereas the M5 resulted in the kind of post-workout burn and general weakness that indicates actual progress.

Bowflex’s app for tracking your history and viewing your workout progress isn’t the best thing in the world, and it’s clear they were focused on providing an interface that resembled the on-device workout gauge more than anything else. But it works, and it captures your workout results via seamless syncing in my experience after a painless initial setup process. It’s nice that it can sync workout data back to MyFitnessPal, but I’d like to see the company go further and build a way to output this data to Health and other apps via HealthKit, but I’m not holding my breath, as the connected aspect of this hardware seems like a nice-to-have add-on, rather than a core feature.

Overall, though, Bowflex has built a workout machine that’s well-built and designed with potentially tight spaces in mind. It’s a workout that won’t necessarily replace a whole home gym, but will provide you with some much-needed cardio in the cold winter months, or if you prefer preserving your knees, hips and ankles from frequent runs. $1,600 is a lot to pay for a piece of equipment, but it almost pays for itself after a year of use compared to a gym membership in a metro area, if you’re just after a demanding physical activity that gets you out of the office chair or off the sofa for a few minutes each day. Given the usual vigors of the blogger lifestyle, that’s a service that could prove life-saving over the long-term.