Gadgets

Category: Gadgets

Mobile phones tracked through JFK Airport to shorten lineups

BWild | January 7, 2016

The busy New York City airport is trying out a new way to try to reduce waiting time through tech.

A new technology based test is now underway at JFK Airport in New York City, which involves tracking the signals from passenger mobile phones in order to reduce the length of lines and, therefore, the amount of time people spend waiting as they make their way to board their planes and as they progress through the arrivals process.

This is the busiest commercial airport in the city and is known for presenting some usage challenges.

Due to the confusion many passengers routinely feel as they attempt to use JFK Airport, the facility is aiming to use the technology in mobile phones to shorten lineups and wait times to provide at least a little bit of relief from the overall stress being felt. In this effort, new geolocation technology devices have been installed in the airport’s Terminal Four. The tech is from Blip Systems, a Denmark based company, and it works to track the movements of passengers as they make their way through the areas of the airport that experience the highest levels of congestion.

The use of mobile phones makes this program different from what most other airports have tried.

Mobile Phones Tracking - Image of JFK Airport Similar types of strategy have been made in other airports around the world. For instance, in London City Airport, cameras have been used to add a “pixel” on the heads of passengers as they move throughout the airport. The geolocation technology from Blip doesn’t require the use of cameras as it tracks the signals from mobile phones, instead.

Sensors have been placed in strategic points throughout Terminal Four. Those sensors are able to detect devices that have been Bluetooth or WiFi enabled, such as smartphones, tablets and even e-readers. The information collected is the movement of that person, the length of time they spend waiting in a specific location and their level of flow when traveling from one location to the next, within the facility.

According to Blip, in a description of the way the mobile phones are used for movement tracking, “When a device passes the sensors, its non-personal unique ID – called a MAC address – is recorded, encrypted and time-stamped. By re-identifying the device from multiple sensors, the travel times, dwell times and movement patterns become available.”

Wearable technology sleep sensors may not be as accurate as you think

Julie Campbell | January 6, 2016

A new study has revealed that many gadgets overestimate the number of hours wearers are sleeping.

As 2016 gets off to a new start and people begin their resolutions, many are using wearable technology to help them to try to get in shape, improve their fitness, lose weight, or achieve better overall health.

As a part of that, many users of wearables have been tracking their sleeping habits through their gadgets.

That said, a new study has now suggested that the promises made by wearable technology to help you to measure the length of a night’s sleep may not be accurate at all. The research showed that devices, which primarily included Fitbit and Jawbone gadgets, were overestimating the number of hours of sleep people were actually receiving. This study was conducted as a review of 22 other published studies that used these device for this purpose.

Many of the articles found the wearable technology could accurately complete their measuring functions.

Wearable Technology - Sleep Sleep wasn’t the only issue that was pointed out in this research. Both the Fitbit and Jawbone devices were shown in many of the articles to be able to complete the counting tasks in a lab as well as in the field. However, there was only a single study that had actually looked into the capability for Fitbit to measure distance. What it found was that Fitbit was programmed to overestimate a slower speed and would underestimate a faster speed. This could cause the results to be skewed.

The accelerometry was a central component for measuring the wearer’s physical activity. The study indicated a strong link between slower and faster motion and inaccurate results. Moreover, when conducting an assessment of several comparative analyses of the wearable tech devices, the researchers determined that the wearables from both brands were underestimating calorie levels while they were overestimating the number of hours a user was sleeping.

The outcome of the new study was, therefore, that while these devices are relatively precise when it came to functioning as a pedometer that would count steps, they may not be nearly as accurate in their ability to calculate the number of calories that are burned or the number of hours of sleep an individual may be receiving.