More homes are not only getting more secure, they’re also getting much smarter, thanks to the availability of affordable and easy to set up security and home automation systems like Canadian-invented Piper.
Piper, which got its kick-start through crowdsourced funding on Indiegogo, is the brainchild of Ottawa-based BlackSumac (just acquired by California based iControl Networks earlier this week). The Piper solution revolves around a multipurpose camera unit and a multifunction downloadable app which together provide an all-in-one home awareness hub rather than just a typical security camera.
The Wi-Fi enabled camera shoots 1080p HD video. It’s equipped with a fish-eye lens that offers an impressive extremely wide 180-degree field of view. The 10x digital zoom supports pan and tilt functions giving you the ability to zoom in and look around the room. It also has an infrared motion detector to detect intruders (up to 10m), a built-in microphone and a piercing 105dB siren – loud enough to almost rival a chainsaw. More than just acting as your eyes and ears, it also has four additional sensors that measure indoor temperature, ambient light, and relative humidity. You’ll see why the last four are not just “nice to know”.
Read more…AT CANOE TECH BLOG
No matter where we go we always need to have some sort of USB cable nearby, whether it’s to charge up our gadgets or sync with another device. The truth is, carrying them around can be somewhat of a pain. They can be too bulky, cumbersome or we have nowhere to put them. Well Nomad has come up with a solution – in fact two of them, ChargeCard and ChargeKey.
EDMONTON, AB, April 8, 2014/ Troy Media/ – Windows XP is more than just a desktop and notebook computer operation system. It is also used in a significant number of retail point-of-sale systems (POS), restaurant systems and even ATM Banking machines are running it.

