Robotics

Jason Hiner/ZDNETApple is exploring the connections between technology and health more deeply. On Wednesday, the tech giant launched the Apple Health Study, which explores how its iPhones, Apple Watches, AirPods, and other third-party wearables can impact health advancements.What is the Apple Health Study?The study, conducted with Brigham and Women’s Hospital, examines the connection between mental health and heart rate, sleep and exercise, and more, according to the press release. Unlike clinical studies, which are confined by a limited number of participants, timeline, and data capture, the Apple Health Study utilizes a base of more than 350,000 participants and builds on other studies launched in the Research app.Also: Your next Apple Watch or smart ring could have a feature that transforms healthcareWearable health technology, like the Apple Watch or Oura Ring, has improved in recent years. These products were once merely step counters and sleep trackers, but in recent years, brands have developed features within their smartwatches and smart rings that monitor and predict illness and provide data users can bring to their doctor for diagnosis.Take the AirPods Pro 2, for example. The earbuds received FDA clearance to be used as hearing aids in 2024. In the comfort of their homes, people can now take a hearing loss test on their phone with the earbuds in, receive a diagnosis, and then bring that data to a doctor.  More

<!–> ZDNET’s key takeaways The Sabrent USB SSD 4-bay docking station is available now on Amazon for $89 This docking station makes adding external drives to your system a total plug and play affair The case is plastic, so it feels a bit cheap but that doesn’t get in the way of performance. more buying […] More

ZDNETLast fall, Apple TV+ came to Android and Google TV devices in a roundabout way when it became available as an add-on to Amazon Prime Video. Now, Apple has finally announced the official streaming support for Android phones.Also: Apple is launching a giant new health study – here’s why and how to joinThe Apple TV app is available in the Google Play Store for Android devices, letting users subscribe to either Apple TV+ or MLS Season Pass on their phones, TVs, tablets, and other Google-operated devices. Foldable phones will support the new app, too.Before the Amazon add-on last year, you had to use either an Apple TV streaming box or a web browser to watch on your TV, neither of which were convenient options. Now, Apple TV+ will be just as widely available as other popular streaming services.  More

<!–> ZDNET’s key takeaways The Chipolo One Point and Card Point are available starting at $22. They’re highly accurate, robust, and integrate well into the Google ecosystem. However, the One is only splashproof, and the Card version has a non-user-replaceable battery. –> What’s the deal? Chipolo is offering an exclusive 10% off all tags to […] More

<!–> ZDNET’s key takeaways The InfinaCore 2024 has a Qi2 MagSafe charging pad and two other pads for the Apple Watch and AirPods. The charging stand is strong, stable, and minimalist. It doesn’t come with a wall charger, so you’ll need to provide one. –> I’ve tested many wireless charging stands over the years, and […] More

ZDNETThere are many lightweight Linux distributions on the market, many of which are outstanding options for bringing aging hardware back to life with speed, flexibility, and security that those old computers might never have known. That’s part of the beauty of Linux — it’s not only flexible, reliable, and secure, but it’s also perfectly capable of performing like a champ on machines that modern Windows iterations would cripple.Also: How to use Linux without ever touching the terminalOne such distribution is WattOS. This no-frills, lightweight desktop operating system will feel immediately familiar to you and will make that ten-year-old computer feel brand new again.But before you dive in, let’s talk about WattOS for a bit. WattOS system requirementsThis Linux distribution is specifically designed to be lightweight, which means it uses a desktop environment that won’t hog system resources. That desktop environment is LXDE, which is modular and performs well on everything from your ancient computer to a Raspberry Pi. The system requirements for WattOS paint a very obvious picture:192MB RAMAny Intel or AMD CPU700MB disk spaceEven on a PC with such low resources, WattOS performs very well. And because the desktop is laid out in a very familiar fashion (start button, panel, system tray, desktop icons), anyone who’s used any iteration of Windows should feel right at home.Also: If you’re ready to break up with Windows, this is the Linux distro I suggest for new usersI installed WattOS as a virtual machine on VirtualBox, with more than enough system resources (3GB of RAM, 2 cores, and 100GB of internal storage), so you can imagine that my VM performed like a Ford Tempo with a rocket engine.It’s fast.Very fast. More

Apptronik AI-powered humanoid robots that co-exist with humans to help our workloads may seem like the plot of a sci-fi movie, but companies have been working on them for years. Case in point: Apptronik, a robotics lab founded in early 2016, has been working on a 5-foot 8-inch, 160-pound, general-purpose humanoid robot named Apollo. The […] More

ZDNETI’m an Android user and have been since version 1.5 of the OS. Over the past year or so, Google has switched its default assistant to its powerful AI solution, Gemini. For a while, I used Gemini on Android to get answers to my questions. I even made use of Gemini Live (which is quite impressive).But recently, I’ve been defaulting to a different AI service, Perplexity. I’ve installed the Perplexity app on Android, Linux, and MacOS, and set it as the default search engine in my web browser. Although I prefer using local AI (such as the Ollama/Msty combination), there are times when I need more or something faster than a local AI can deliver. On top of that, my locally installed AI doesn’t have access to real-time data, so it can’t tell me what’s in the news today.But why Perplexity over Gemini?Also: How I made Perplexity AI the default search engine in my browser (and why you should too)For starters, you can’t switch from Gemini to Perplexity as the Android default digital assistant, and I doubt that will ever be possible. You can, however, use Perplexity on your phone, desktop, and laptop as the default AI tool.Let me explain why you might want to do that.1. AI as search engineFor me, this is the biggest reason to switch to Perplexity. I’ve been using AI as a search engine for some time now. Why? The main reason is I find Google far less effective than it once was. When I’m doing research, I need answers fast and would rather not have to wade through sponsored sites or sites that contain so many ads that they render my browser unusable. One thing about Gemini is that you can certainly head to the Gemini website and use it, but you can’t set it as the default search engine in your web browser. On the other hand, you can do this with Perplexity, and that, for me, is a deal-maker.2. Better, more accurate responsesAfter comparing both Gemini and Perplexity for a few weeks, I’ve found Perplexity not only gives better answers (with more description and context) but the answers are also more accurate. I’ve found Gemini to produce subtle inaccuracies fairly regularly, but I have yet to find fault in a Perplexity response. That’s not to say they aren’t there, but they’ve not been nearly as obvious as what I generally found with Gemini. I’m not saying that Gemini is always or often wrong, but in the comparison, Gemini delivered less accurate responses overall. On top of all this, the response detail in Perplexity is much higher than Gemini. More