Dinner by bar code
Too busy to make dinner after a day in the field? Tovala (www.tovala.com) has combined an internet-connected steam oven with fresh meal deliveries to make dinners by bar code. Tovala chefs make the dinners, which, according to the company, “burst with big, bold flavors.” The production facility preps the meals, including par-cooking certain ingredients. Customers get the meals delivered to their doorsteps. They scan the barcode on each meal, press start, and get their meal in about 20 minutes or less. Here’s where the internet comes in: When a Tovala Meal’s barcode is scanned, the Tovala gets data from the cloud that tells the hungry person how to cook that particular meal. You pay about $400 for the oven, and each meal costs somewhere around $12 per person. (Dinners serve up to two people at once, though the company says it’s considering offering family-sized meals.) A Wall Street Journal review says Tovala “turns out superfast, consistent restaurant-quality meals.”
Slipped my mind
Drowning in emails? Important tasks – requests and assignments – falling through the cracks? A new artificial-intelligence (AI) assistant prevents workers from forgetting about important requests through email. Yva.ai (pronounced “iva”) from Findo Inc. processes your emails to automatically extract tasks and assignments. It understands if an important request was overlooked, and reminds you to follow up. Yva recognizes tasks assigned to the user and by the user to others, all categorized in a Daily Task List. The user can turn on reminders, where Yva will automatically prompt the user’s co-workers if they haven’t completed the task assigned to them. Those reminders will automatically switch off once they have completed the task. Yva interacts with users through email, so anyone with an email account can use it. (http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/yvaai-a-new-ai-personal-assistant-automatically-keeps-track-of-your-important-tasks-300485536.html)
A holiday story
The Amazon Echo Dot was the most-sold product on America’s newest holiday, Amazon Prime Day (July 11). The Echo Dot is Amazon’s most inexpensive Echo, made cheaper by its $15 discount to $34.99 on Prime Day. The product is a small puck that offers a built-in speaker and access to Amazon’s smart voice assistant, Amazon Alexa, which can inform users of the weather or sports scores, and allow them to order goods, play music and more. Amazon reported that total revenue increased more than 60 percent from last year’s Prime Day.
Going down
Cellphone bills are plunging. The four national wireless carriers are engaged in a price war. The consumer price index for wireless phone service, an indicator of current offers from cellphone service providers, dropped 12.5 percent in May from a year ago, according to the Labor Department, reports the Wall Street Journal. The index earlier fell 13 percent in April, the largest decline in the history of the category. The reason? The cellphone market is reaching saturation.
Burn it off
The Moov HR Burn ($60) is a chest strap that pairs with a free app that guides you through indoor exercise classes, outdoor runs or indoor cycling workouts. And “she” either congratulates you or nudges you to work a little harder. Perfect for those who are into high-intensity interval training, known as HIIT. (Source: Chicago Tribune.)
Control your home from anywhere
Control your electronic devices right from your phone or tablet with the Wemo Switch Smart Plug (www.belkin.com). No subscription or hub is required. The Smart Plug uses the existing home Wi-Fi network to provide wireless control of lamps, heaters, fans, and more. You plug the Wemo Switch Smart Plug into an electrical outlet, plug a device into the Smart Plug, and control the device using the free Wemo app. You can schedule house lights to turn on at sunset, or randomize your lighting schedule when you’re out of town to make it look like you’re home. Wemo Switch is said to work seamlessly with Amazon Alexa and Google Home.