Office Tech

Don’t bother with the gym when you can use the Peloton Indoor Exercise Bike to work out at home. This indoor workout bike provides you with a way to fit in serious cardio exercise, even when you don’t have time to leave the house. The Peloton bike gives you access to nearly a hundred live classes per week. So you won’t be watching some boring 80’s workout recording. In fact, the Peloton instructors can even shout out to you in real-time, so you better keep up. If you can’t make a live class, choose from the Peloton library of classes that range from five to 90 minutes in length. You can surely find five minutes to spare for a little sweat. And while the price of the Peloton bike is a little steep, the company offers a monthly financing option that is less expensive than many gym memberships.

Always have just the bag you need when you have the HOLYFANCY Magic Kit 3-in-1 Modular Backpack. Featuring the Shoulder Bag, ClassyPack, and Bum Bag, this set has everything you need no matter how you gear your gear. The Shoulder Bag is spacious enough for your everyday carry gear, including your camera. The ClassyPack takes on a more traditional backpack design with 18 liters of storage, offering a secure spot for your laptop. Finally, the Bum Bag offers incredible hands-free access to your smaller items. And, when you’re on the move to your next destination, all these bags clip together for total convenience and organization. You wouldn’t know by looking at it, but these bags are made from recycled PET bottles, tire tubes, and cotton scraps. This material isn’t just kind to the environment, but it’s also water-resistant to protect all your gear inside.

The proliferation of connected gadgets in the home means there’s a lot more for the average person to worry about.

It’s not just your phone and computer that need the latest security updates. You’ll have to stay on top of your connected television, your smart refrigerator, the security cameras mounted around your home, your voice assistant speakers, your smart mirrors, your talking toilet and whatever new gadget the tech overlords spew out.

Welcome to the unintended hassle of the internet of things.

“If you have a lot of IoT devices, you’re essentially an IT manager,” Gary Davis, McAfee’s vice president of global consumer marketing, said last month at CES 2018.

It’s telling that many security firms were at the massive gadget expo to hawk their services. CES is typically a place for companies to show off physical goods that people can buy in stores in the near future. The pitch for security as a product itself — like a new television or washing machine — underscores the growing interest and need for better protection, a notion reinforced by the wave of cyberattacks in 2017.

Keeping everything safe sounds like a hassle, but security companies are willing to make it easy — for a price.

Nearly every company I spoke with at the show boasted about how their products were the solution to looming IoT risks. But prices for that benefit ranged from $99 to $249, in some cases as an annual payment. While technically you can do it yourself, many consumers are willing to accept the premium for protection.

“It used to be hard selling security to the mass market,” said Sameer Nayar, the co-founder of Cujo Smart Firewall. “Not anymore. If it’s simple, it definitely helps sales.”

Cujo is one of the many “plug and play” security measures I spotted during CES — the sales pitch being that it’s simple enough that your grandparents or kids can figure it out. With Cujo, you don’t have to tweak your settings and manually run an antivirus scan. The firewall device plugs into your router and is supposed to protect everything that’s connected to the network. It warns you if any connected smart devices are outdated, and blocks out malicious traffic.

Like many security companies at CES, Cujo is selling itself on simplicity. The firewall costs $249 and has no subscription fees. It looks like an air freshener with LED eyes, almost as if it’s a cute assistant by your bedside table.

That’s part of Cujo’s sales approach too. Nayar said the company doesn’t want security to be this scary obstacle for people, so it gave its device a friendly robot look.

“The more barriers you can remove, the easier it becomes to sell,” he said.

Doomsday scenario

When you’re expecting 20.4 billion IoT devices on the market, you need to start dumbing down security for people to embrace it.

In 2016, the Mirai botnet, a massive network of hacked devices, caused a massive internet outage by using thousands of outdated cameras and DVRs. A year later, security experts raised concerns about the Reaper botnet, which had the potential to hijack up to 2 million IoT devices.

F-Secure, a security company based in Finland, warned that if IoT devices aren’t fixed now, we’ll be headed to a “dystopian future.”

Also new from Razer is a trio of PC speaker sets, called the Nommo, Nommo Chroma and Nommo Pro. The first two are 2.0 PC speaker systems with three-inch drivers. The Chroma version adds, you guessed it, Razer’s Chroma lighting system. Those will be $99 and $149 in the US (converts to AU$60, £35 and AU$189, £109). 

More interesting is the Nommo Pro. This $499 system (roughly AU$635, £365) is THX certified (it helps that Razer owns THX), adds a separate tweeter on top of each driver and a standalone subwoofer. The Nommo and Nommo Chroma are available now, while the Pro version doesn’t have a set release date yet. 

Valentine’s Day can be a divisive holiday: There are people who love to celebrate it and others who dread being alone for it. One gadget out to change that is an ingenious digital/analog wooden box called the Lovebox. It’s built for sharing love and positive thoughts whether it’s Valentine’s Day or not.

Of course you can always let someone know you love them by sending flowers or taking them out to dinner, but those ways aren’t that unique. There are also a number of ways to use our phones to sends texts, photos and videos expressing our feelings, but those messages can get lost in the flood of daily communication we send and receive. That’s why a French company at CES launched the Lovebox.

The idea is simple. The Lovebox sits in your home and connects to the internet via Wi-Fi. A loved one sends you a message with the Lovebox app available on iOSand Android. On the front of the box is an itsy-bitsy heart. When the box receives the message, the heart spins like a pinwheel.

There is something precious about a tiny little heart on a small wooden cube spinning in silence. It is such a simple hallmark to symbolize that someone is thinking of you.

The heart spins until you lift the lid to read the message.Lovebox

If you lift the lid, there’s a diminutive screen where you can read the message or see the drawing that your loved one sent. When you open the lid it feels like you discovered a secret message.

Everything about this box is endearing and unassuming: The size, the curved corners, the silent way the heart spins and the black-and-white display. It is refreshing to see how Lovebox integrates messaging into something so discreet. There’s no loud notifications or lights to get your attention — just a palm-sized spinning heart.

The Lovebox costs $99, which converts to £70 and AU$125, and can be purchased on the Lovebox website. If you are trying to buy one and have it shipped before Valentine’s Day, you need to place the order by 12 a.m. PT Sunday Feb. 11. If you’re in the US, it is recommended you order one by 12 a.m. PT Thursday Feb. 8.

What to expect from the big screens of 2018: From OLED to QLED to Micro LED, CES is the place where screen time is absolutely friggin’ huge. Here’s a peek.

CES 2018: CNET’s complete coverage of tech’s biggest show.

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What Is An API?
The concept of SaaS applications Is no longer new or novel, and it dominates the marketplace. The explosion of SaaS applications has had impacts on the business world and has sparked the growth of other software innovation that goes along with these applications.

One area of focus is on APIs. APIs dictate the quality of the internet experience, and it has significant importance and relevance for many businesses right now.

API stands for application program interface. An API allows developers to access another party’s application or platform.
There are different types of APIs. These include public APIs which can be used by developers to build on their platforms, as well as private APIs. These are used internally by businesses. If a company has several software products, the purpose of an API is to allow that software to communicate with one another.

Social media networks are among the most well-known and high-profile users of APIs. Social media APIs can access particular elements of these social sites without actually duplicating their functionalities.
So what does all this mean for businesses? What do businesses need to know about the value of APIs?

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