Cool secret powers of everyday gadgets
iPhone - An App that measures your heart rate with the iPhone's camera and battery
The free Heart Fitness app from Senscare measures your heart rate, by using your iPhone's camera and a light source to watch blood pulse through your finger. Just follow the directions, and it's pretty accurate! It shows your beats per minute, plus the pulsing heart rate graph we all know and love from medical dramas. It even charts your resting heart rate over time, as a measure of overall fitness.
Heart Fitness works best with the iPhone 4, since its camera flash lights your finger up nicely, but it can work with the iPod Touch or iPhone 3GS if you hold it up to a bright light. Got an Android device? Try Instant Heart Rate on the Android Market, instead! Both apps are free to download.
Amazon Kindle -- Hear books read aloud
While you're reading a book on your Kindle, just press the "Aa" button to the right of the spacebar, then select "Turn on Text-to-Speech." Your Kindle will start reading the book aloud to you, which is great if you're driving or resting with your eyes closed -- the Kindle has a headphone jack so you can listen without disturbing others. Just don't fall asleep, or you'll lose your place!
The Text-to-Speech feature isn't the same as an audiobook, since it uses an automated voice instead of a human's. It also doesn't work with some books, because individual book publishers can choose to disable this feature. On the bright side, you can set it to have a male or female voice, and you can speed up or slow down how fast it talks. Want to go back to traditional reading? Press "Aa" again and turn Text-to-Speech off.
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