It’s called smartphone, but is it really smart? After all, most people use the smartphone to browse social networks, listen to music, play games, make memes and upload photos to Instagram. Not much advanced intelligence needed to run those things. However the smartphone is essentially a small computer. You can do pretty amazing things with it including launch it into space as a nanosatellite.

(Image Source: ICEdot)

But that is for dedicated use. In cases where you want to keep using your smartphone for your online activities, you can also set your smartphone to do other things like locate your missing car, lock and unlock your homes, watch your health and contact your relatives if you get into an accident, etc. Check out a few other ways you can make your smartphone smarter, and your life easier. You’ll probably look at your smartphones differently now.

Recommended Reading: 30 Famous Tech Gadgets Disassembled

Viper SmartStart

Make the Mercedes-Benz owner envy you, with Viper SmartStart, a device that allows you to perform regular tasks your remote key can do, for instance lock the door, honk the car and release the trunk, all with your smartphone. On top of that, with Viper SmartStart you can even check your vehicle status to ensure it’s safe, and ready to rock and roll. [$149-$399]

Hone

Keys have a special ability to disappear right when you are looking for it. Hone is a Bluetooth device for iPhone and iPod that helps you find your key. The setup is easy – just tie the device to your key and press the Find button on your iPhone. The device will light up and emit a sound to indicate its position. That’s it, smart and elegant. [$49.00]

Lockitron

The Lockitron not only lets you unlock the door with just a touch on the smartphone, but also notifies you when someone is knocking at the door. With the right customization, you can even set your door to unlock whenever you get near the door – no more fumbling around with your house keys especially when your hands are full. [$179.00]

Square Register

Square Register is a revolution that’s disrupting the current old, static transaction system. It takes the advantage of the smartphone’s mobility to let you accept any credit card payment anytime, anywhere. The buyer signs on the smartphone to authorize payment and avoid potential fraud, and the information is encrypted before any processing initialize.

Geode

Geode can convert all your physical credit cards, loyalty cards, and membership cards into digital information. To use the cards, you can transfer the card information to the provided Geode card temporarily. Flick to activate the card, say a credit card, then swipe it through the terminal as normal.

You can also store all the barcodes from your loyalty cards and display it at the back of the Geode to allow for scans. [$159.00]

Tōd

Use these smart beacons to track the location of your child, a beloved pet or even your car. Get notifications via email or text when they make an unscheduled departure from the compound or if they wander off too far from you. [$32.00]

Pico Genie A100

Heavy projectors are so last-century. I’m going for the Pico Genie A100, a speaker-enabled projector as mini as the iPhone! The outcome is a 60″ viewing area with sound-boosting effect, not to mention that you could carry the Pico Genie 100 around during presentations. But honestly, I think it fits better as a gaming device! [$262.00]

Botiful

Just plug in your smartphone to Botiful, the robot, and you can move it anywhere and communicate with any human using the minimalistic Skype interface. What’s even more fun here is that you can also explore everywhere that your big human body cannot reach with this feet-sized robot. It makes me feel like a god that’s omnipresent, only I’m a little bit mini! [$199.00]

Scanbox

You can use your smartphone to help you scan codes such as QR Codes but even better, you can get a simple, portable Scanbox to stabilize your camera to perform bulk scanning tasks! The Scanbox comes with LEDs that light up from the bottom, providing prominent light sources for the best scanning quality possible. [$15.00]

NODE Chroma

You can call NODE Chroma a real-life Photoshop color picker, as it really is. Place the Chroma on the colored object, and the color will be saved into your smartphone or personal computer with the standard formats of RGB, HEX, CMYK and LAB for your future reference and even comparison. [$149.00]

Sensordrone

Sensordrone is a sensor computer that harvests vital information around your environment, such as air quality, gas leaks, temperature, humidity etc – practically anything that can be sensed! Great for people with jobs that require technical measurements while on the go. [$175.00]

Crash Sensor

Your life will be safer with the ICEdot’s Crash Sensor. All you need to do is mount the device on your helmet before you take off to any of your extreme sports or cross-country races. The device will notify your emergency contacts and send GPS coordinates to initiate rescue attempts should an accident occurs.

Misfit Shine

Misfit Shine helps you track your physical activities on-the-go. Upon equipping it on your body, Shine will track your physical activities and inform you at the end of the day that if your body movements are well enough to keep you fit and shiny. [$79.00]

Health Appliances

While Withings Blood Pressure Monitor helps you monitor your blood pressure intelligently, Medisana ThermoDock checks if your body temperature is beyond dangerous parameters. Your data is stored within the VitaDock app for future reference. Smart health management for smartphone holder! [$158.00, $80.00]

Deeper

I have never imagined that my smartphone can detect fish underwater, but Deeper makes the impossible possible. The magic is made possible by the Friday Lab’s sonar that can detect movement of fish within a 50m radius, and reflects its ‘catch’ on your smartphone’s screen. The best app for tech-savvy fishermen. [$149.00]

Smart Radiation Detector

The nuclear meltdown happened in Japan has raised awareness about the absorption of radioactive materials into the food and water. The Smart Radiation Detector can detect and confirm radiation levels to help you avoid contaminated resources. Medical professionals and rescue team operators could use this when working in nuclear-related disasters. [$100.00]

SkyLight

The SkyLight could connect your smartphone camera to a supported microscope, and let you capture microscope photographs with the option to switch the focal planes with a touch of your finger. [$65.00]

Smart Baby Monitor

After the installation, the Smart Baby Monitor will start sending live streaming audio and video through secure connection. The monitor gets even more awesome with the WithBaby app that let new parents check on their baby via wireless connection. The monitor can even detect your baby’s activities as well as the room’s humidity and temperature. [$352.00]

Wise-Pet

Built to protect your phone, the Wise-Pet doubles as a tech pet, promising 5 different pets possessing 5 different personalities. The app is also built with some educational features, like the video feature that broadcasts fun lessons, or the recording feature that saves up your voiced bedtime stories, and let the Wise-Pet reads out for you! [$20.00]

iPhly

Tired of losing the remote controls for the TV, air conditioner, garage door opener or even your toy car/plane? Store up all your controls in iPhly. With the iPhone/iPod Touch combined, you can steer the R/C car, or swipe it up to throttle up the R/C airplanes, or run your devices all with your smartphone. [$70.00]

Once you get it out of the box, you need only do a handful of things to set up your Microsoft Surface RT: select a language, accept the terms and conditions, name your device, connect to your home Wi-Fi and tweak some privacy settings. After going through this ‘welcome process’, you’ll be able to start using your device.

It’s likely that Windows RT is a whole new experience for you so we figured that you might like some tips and tricks to get you started. If you are interested in the swipes and gestures bit, take a look at our earlier post on A Guide To Windows 8 Metro Start Page Navigation before checking out how you can setup and personalize your Surface RT.

Recommended Reading: Getting Around (And About) The New Windows 8 UI

Surface RT Setup & Personalization

Here’s a few things to get you started on using your Surface RT.

1. Update Windows And Apps

First and foremost, you should update Windows and the apps that are pre-installed into the system.

To update Windows, go toCharms Menu > Settings > Change PC settings. Scroll to the bottom and you’ll see Windows Update, download and install the updates and restart the device if prompted to.

To update pre-installed apps, go to the Store app and tap on the green word, Update at the top right corner.

2. Easier Login With PIN

Since the Surface RT is linked to a Microsoft account, you’ll have to input your account password to unlock the device. Your preferences linked to the account will be synced into your Surface tablet. You will be prompted for the same password every time you want to use your device, but ther eis the option to set a 4-number PIN lock as a login.

To do this, open the Charms Menu > Settings > Change PC Settings > Users > Sign-in options > Create a PIN.

3. Enhance Security With Picture Password

If you think the 4-number PIN is not secure enough, then you can try the new ‘Picture Password’ as a way to unlock your device. You’ll find it at the same place you used to create a PIN, or just follow this path: Charms Menu > Settings > Change PC Settings > Users > Sign-in options > Create a picture password.

It will then take you through the steps and show you the gestures you can use to create a Picture Password. Do note that you have to use your own picture and not one that is available within the device.

4. Setup Your Personal E-Mail Account

By default, the Mail app will show emails from whatever email address you used to log in. If this is not your main email address, you can use other accounts from Hotmail, Outlook, Google or your own domain.

To add an account, open the Mail app and then activate the Charms Menu > Settings. Then tap on Accounts. You will see Add an account on the right sidebar.

If you don’t want emails from your Microsoft account to be displayed on the live tiles, you can open the Charms Menu > Settings > Accounts, tap on the email account you do not want shown, and untick ‘Email’ under Content to sync.

5. Choose Modern UI Color Schemes

Don’t like the color scheme you are dealt with? Good news, you can change the color scheme and the background design of the Modern UI. Open the Charms Menu > Settings > Change PC settings > Personalize to pick a different color scheme.

You can also change the lock screen picture here.

6. Managing Modern UI Tiles

You would probably prefer one app over the other, so it makes sense to personalise your tiles to reflect that rank of importance. Rearrange your app tiles by tapping and holding a tile to move it around.

The tiles can be made bigger or smaller to suit your personal needs, but note that smaller live tiles will display less information. If, however, you don’t want your information to be showing on the tiles, you can disable this temporarily via Charms Menu > Settings > Tiles then tap on Clear.

7. Naming your UI Tiles

You can also name groups of tiles by pinching with 2 fingers to zoom out of the Modern UI view. Flick downwards on any of the groups to bring up the menu on the bottom (or right click on your mouse). Tap on Name group and throw in a cool name, click Name and repeat for all other groups that need renaming.

8. Share Photos

To share photos or screenshots through the Photos app, select the photo and bring out the Charms Menu > Share. From there, you can share it by Email, upload it to SkyDrive or through other apps that support in-built sharing.

9. Enable Faster App Switching Multitasking

Swiping in from the left edge of the screen will show the multitasking bar, where you see all your recently used apps. However, you can set this gesture to take you directly to the last app you were using.

To do this, open the Charms Menu > Settings > Change PC Settings > General and under App switching, turn on the second option.

To show the multitasking bar when this option is enabled, swipe inwards from the left edge of the display then swipe back to the left.

10. Social Integration

The People app is a great way to receive multiple feeds of your social networks simultaneously. You can connect your Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts to see your feed.

Add your Hotmail, Outlook or Google account by going to the ‘People’ app and following the path: Charms Menu > Settings > Accounts > Add an account. Sign in to have your contacts transferred over.

There is also the native ‘Messaging’ app which not only connects to contacts linked to your Microsoft account; it can also connect to Facebook chat which allows you to receive chat notifications and reply straight to the to the chat thread.

To set this up, go to the Messaging app and open the Charms Menu > Settings > Accounts > Add an account and login with your Facebook details.

In your WordPress recently, you might chance upon the Facebook Like Button suddenly displaying a red "error" instead of showing you the count for Likes, and when you click on the red error, you are directed to a Facebook page with the following shown: "The href URL must be absolute".

While we’re not sure what is the cause behind this, after a few trial-and-errors (because we can’t help ourselves), we found the culprit to be the urlencode function.

Look at your theme’s codes, where the error occurs and find:

echo urlencode(get_permalink());

Replace it with the following:

echo get_permalink();

And the error would have been rectified in no time.

One of the biggest trend setters in the world of technology, Apple Inc has proven to the world again and again and sophisticated tech can always afford to be stylish, sleek and beautiful. It has come a long way and established itself as a frontrunner in smart technology and powerful electronic devices and has also found its way into the hearts of millions of users.

(Image Source: martz90)

In appreciation of the hard work put in by this company, we are featuring these 15 awesome Apple Art wallpapers in this week’s Wednesday Wallpaper.

Recommended Reading: 60 Most Beautiful Apple (Mac OS X Leopard) Wallpapers

Apple Light. Available in the following size: 2880×1800.

Apple World. Available in the following size: 2560×1440.

Jakeroot Apple. Available in the following size: 2880×1800.

Mac Vintage Ribbon. Available in the following size: 1920×1200. Download zip.

Colourful Apple. Available in various sizes.

Apple Blueprint. Available in various sizes.

Apple Green. Available in 1920×1200.

Apple Retro. Available in the following size: 1920×1200.

Retro Apple. Available in the following size(s): 1280×1024, 1600×1200 2560×1600. Download zip.

Burning Mac. Available in the following size: 1920×1200.

Apple Gold. Available in the following size: 1920×1080.

Bitten Apple. Available in the following size: 1920×1200.

Microphone Icon. Available in various sizes.

Apple Stitched. Available in various sizes.

Mac Vintage. Available in the following size with 4 different colours. Black, Green, Blue and Red: 1920×1200. Download zip.