Obama tweets his most retweeted tweet ever as news networks call election for Democrats

Barack Obama and his campaign team took to Twitter Tuesday night to thank supporters for turning out to vote, with Obama tweeting his most retweeted tweet ever in the process.

Barack Obama has taken to Twitter to thank his supporters for turning out to vote and returning him (almost certainly) to office for another four years.

At the time of writing, all the major American news networks are calling the presidential election for Obama, with a number of key swing states projected to fall to the Democrats.

At around 11.15pm ET, Obama’s campaign team tweeted, “This happened because of you. Thank you.”

Another came a minute later: “We’re all in this together. That’s how we campaigned, and that’s who we are. Thank you. -bo” The inclusion of “-bo” The inclusion of -bo apparently indicates a personal tweet from Obama himself.

The campaign team then tweeted a photo (below) of Obama hugging wife Michelle, accompanied by the words, “Four more years.” Twitter has just reported that this has already become @BarackObama’s most tweeted retweet ever – at the time of writing this stands at 314,000 – not bad for a tweet posted 40 minutes ago. The account has 22.1 million followers.

However, Mitt Romney’s Twitter account has so far stayed silent, with the last tweet posted around 3pm ET. “With your help, we will turn our country around and get America back on the path to prosperity. Please vote today,” it said.

Earlier in the evening, Twitter announced that Election Day had already become the most tweeted about event in US political history.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

Mom uses BlackBerry to write novel – no ‘BlackBerry thumb’ reported

You'd think that writing a book day and night on a BlackBerry smartphone would eventually render your thumbs useless, but a woman from London has done just that, and now her novel is selling on Amazon.

If you were going to write a book, the chances are you’d sit yourself in front of a full-size keyboard connected to a full-size computer screen before you embarked on your full-size project. Not so Brit Georgina Campbell.

She bashed out a 55,600-word book on, of all things, her BlackBerry smartphone. The 41-year-old Londoner said the idea to put thumb to keyboard came about after watching the 2011 sci-fi movie Attack the Block. While daughter Lorra loved it, Georgina thought it was abysmal and so bet Lorra she could write something better. It was then she grabbed her writing tool of choice and started work on her novel.

In an interview with the Daily Mail, Georgina said it took four months to complete the gritty tale of a group of girls growing up in inner-city London, writing it entirely on the phone’s native MemoPad app.

“When I started writing the book I would normally do it after a 12-hour shift at work and it would be a breeze – I loved it and wrote through the night,” she told the Mail. “It was almost like a holiday – I’d just sit down and start typing the book out on my BlackBerry using my two thumbs.”

Georgina said the phone was the ideal writing tool simply because it was with her all the time. “I was writing on the train, on breaks at work, waiting for a bus, having a bath, when I was walking around – anywhere. It completely took over my life – all I thought about morning to night was writing the book.” Four months after tapping out the first word, The Kickdown Girls made it  to Amazon.

Possibly the most remarkable part of the story, however, is that despite her round-the-clock commitment, her thumbs are still fully operational instead of finishing up as mere worn-down stumps; she didn’t even develop BlackBerry thumb, the repetitive strain injury linked to excessive use of the physical keyboard so beloved by BlackBerry users.

Whether Georgina’s work is better than the script of Attack the Block is something for readers to decide, though at the time of writing the publication is languishing at 257,164 in Amazon’s book chart and has no reader reviews.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

Kanye West bestowed his presence at Samsung Galaxy Note 2 launch party, but will sales boom?

Samsung took a stop in New York City last night to launch the Galaxy Note 2, complete with a performance by Grammy award-winning artist Kanye West.

Like many other tech journalists in New York City, Tuesday was an average day filled with Apple iPad mini announcements, quirky science news about a talking Beluga whale, and some new Windows 8 laptops and tablets. Then, this came in the mail.

Good Afternoon, 

Thank you for RSVPing for the Samsung Galaxy Note II event on Wednesday! We wanted to invite you to stay after the press conference for a special performance by Kanye West.

Although we’ve already reviewed the Samsung Galaxy Note 2, our New York staff had planned to attend to event in case anything new is announced. But after this email was sent out, tech media flocked to Moynihan Station in midtown New York to prepare for the long wait for Grammy award-winning artist Kanye West to drop a surprise performance slapped in the middle of the week.

What made Kanye Jesus Walk-ed his way into a Samsung event, or why Samsung chose to feature Yeezy as its special guest for the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 World Tour is beyond us, but by 9 p.m., some members of the public also joined the party, filling the room with an energy and noise I hadn’t witnessed from a crowd of bloggers since Steve Jobs passed away. Also in attendance was also some of New York’s finest crew, including fashion editor Nina Garcia, Jersey Shore‘s Pauly D, and the New York Giants star wide receiver, Victor Cruz.

In a quick set that lasted just over an hour, Kanye West performed classics like “Heartless,” “Runaway,” “All of the Lights,” and “Through the Wire,” while bringing in a special guest of his own, 2 Chainz, to accompany a recent hit, “Birthday Song.” The set ended with a new record, “Clique” before West disappeared behind the stage without an encore. While the concert was certainly memorable and intimate (all things considered, the room was pretty small), did the crowd leave with an impression of Samsung and the Galaxy Note 2 in mind, or were they overwhelmed with the presence of the one and only Yeezy? I guess we’ll find out when the phone-meets-tablet hybrid comes available this November.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

Amazon server outages bring down Reddit, Airbnb, Flipboard, and Viber

Last night (in Europe) an outage in Amazon Web Services on the US East Coast caused disruption of some major online services that we all use and love. Websites and apps such as Reddit, Airbnb, Flipboard, and Viber have all been non-responsive. The outage has been felt the worst by users in Asia and the US, where the downtime was actually running through the day.

A member of the collective hacker group called Anonymous went public on Twitter to claim responsibility. Later on, an Amazon spokesperson stated this is not the case and Amazon servers had not been under attack.

Of course, it’s anyone’s guess what actually had happened. The good news is that by Tuesday morning in Europe most of the servers functionality was up again. Some services may be still experiencing slight hiccups, but that’s due to the high number of users trying to connect back and no longer due to a malfunction in Amazon’s cloud infrastructure.

Source : blog[dot]gsmarena[dot]com

Meteor Shower: Scientists and Treasure Hunters Look in California for Debris

Wednesday night

So where did it come down?  People in the San Francisco Bay area are still puzzling over the fireball that went shooting across the sky Wednesday evening, making an audible boom and, perhaps, spreading debris across the suburbs and vineyards north of the city.

Scientists said the object was a meteor, most likely an errant hunk of rock from the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, traveling in an orbit that happened to send it tearing into the atmosphere over California.

Astronomers have been trying to calculate its trajectory from eyewitness reports, and there’s been natural disagreement over where any meteorites — fragments of a meteor that survive entry into the atmosphere and reach Earth’s surface — might have come down.  Bill Cooke of NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office in Alabama said he thought most debris would have ended up out in the Pacific.  Peter Jenniskens of the SETI Institute, a meteor hunter by background, suggested debris may have crashed near California suburbs such as Novato or Martinez.

But in a case like this, calculations only do you so much good.  If you’re interested in meteorites, there is only one thing to do — go out and look for them.

So Jenniskens, according to his office, was out in the field today, looking for shards of rock that, to the trained eye, would likely have been survivors of a trip from space.

His office said he would be organizing people who came on their own to look.  One person, asking not to be quoted since meteorites are Jenniskens’ subject, said this is a delicate issue.  Fresh meteorites are rare — so they have a market value.  So, this person said that Jenniskens, searching in the name of science, may find himself in a race against other meteorite hunters who see the potential for profit.

Source : abcnews[dot]go[dot]com

Foxconn factory at center of riot reopens, supply not affected

The Foxconn factory at the center of a large riot on Sunday night reopened on Tuesday, a company spokesperson said, adding that there has been no impact on supply.

The Foxconn factory at the center of a serious disturbance late Sunday involving thousands of rioting workers has reopened.

Company spokesperson Louis Woo told Reuters Tuesday that despite staying shut all through Monday, no impact on product supply is expected. “We have 79,000 people working in Taiyuan campus, and we always have spare inventory,” Woo said.

The trouble, which reportedly involved more than 2,000 workers causing widespread damage throughout the factory campus, was brought to a halt by around 5,000 police. About 40 people were injured, with countless arrests made.

China’s state-run news agency said the brawl started after a fight broke out between two workers in a factory dormitory. However, workers allege the incident erupted after a security guard manhandled an employee at the factory gates.

Foxconn, the world’s biggest component maker, is a major manufacturer for Apple, as well as other giants in the electronics industry. The Taiwan-based company has so far refused to say whether this particular facility, located in the northern Chinese city of Taiyuan, is involved in the production of Apple’s new iPhone 5 handset.

In an on-screen interview with the UK’s Channel 4 News program, one former Foxconn worker explained that new devices can cause great stress among workers, saying, “When a factory launches a new product, workers do overtime for long periods to test the production line until they are ready, which really puts pressure on the employees.”

He added, “A new generation of workers has higher demands. They know their rights and they’re more rebellious.”

Foxconn, which employs more than a million people across China, has been under the spotlight for the last few years following reports of employees suffering poor living and working conditions. More recently, the company has apparently been implementing changes in an attempt to improve the situation.

The Fair Labor Association said in August that Foxconn had been making good progress towards its goal of providing better living and working conditions, though if Sunday night’s disturbance can be attributed to a frustrated and beleaguered workforce cracking under the strain, it clearly still has some way to go until its job is complete.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

Riot breaks out at Foxconn plant, 40 injured [video]

A riot involving thousands of workers and police has caused the temporary shutdown of a Foxconn plan in northern China.

A riot broke out late Sunday night at a Foxconn plant in the northern Chinese city of Taiyuan. The impromptu protest involved more than 2,000 workers and 5,000 police, according to official Chinese government reports. The clash is said to have lasted about four hours, and around 40 people were injured. Three people were in serious condition.

A report from Chinese website TechWeb said that “at least” 10 people had died as a result of the massive brawl. However, a statement from Foxconn obtained by The Next Web said that “no employee deaths related to the incident” had occurred.

The Foxconn plant, which according to an undercover report produces back covers for Apple’s iPhone 5, among many other components for major electronics companies that include Sony, Nokia, and others, has been temporarily shut down while authorities investigate the cause of the upheaval. Foxconn has refused to officially confirm that Apple components are made at the Taiyuan factory.

Reports from Xinhua, China’s state-run news agency, said that the clash began after a fight broke out in a factory dormitory between two workers from different Chinese provinces.

“The cause of this dispute is under investigation by local authorities and we are working closely with them in this process, but it appears not to have been work-related,” said Foxconn in a statement.

The exact cause and other details of the protest are difficult to know, as China retains notoriously tight control of its media and social networks. As Engadget reports, information about the riot posted to Chinese social network Sina Weibo has already been deleted, presumably at the hand of the Chinese government.

Video and photos posted to Sina showed broken windows and other destruction. One highly cited video, posted to Chinese video sharing site YouKu, has been removed.

Foxconn employs about 1 million people in China. The Taiyuan alone has 79,000 workers, according to Foxconn.

Foxconn has repeatedly made headlines for poor working conditions and brutal treatment of its employees. In 2010, at least 13 people committed suicide at Foxconn plants. The company later installed “suicide nets” in employee dormitories in an attempt to prevent further deaths.

“Foxconn is known to have a very authoritarian management style and discipline is very strict,” said Geoffrey Crothall, a spokesman for the Hong Kong-based China Labour Bulletin, in a statement to AFP. “When you have a working environment like Foxconn where workers are treated simply as units of production, essentially robots, not human beings… then sometimes violence is the only way out [and] you see minor disputes escalating into violence.”

Similar incidents of worker outrage broke out in January and June of this year at other Foxconn plants.

Watch a video of the Taiyuan incident below:

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

Shimi, the intelligence musical companion you’ll want as your personal DJ

Shimi is a sophisticated robotic smartphone and MP3 player dock that will play your songs and enjoy it without judging your taste in music.

If you’re lonely on a Friday night or looking for a pal that won’t criticize your taste in music, Shimi just might be the robotic companion and personal DJ for you. Tovbot’s Shimi, developed by engineers from Georgia Tech, IDC Herzilya, and MIT Media lab, shimmies to music playing from your smartphone or MP3 player, can understand commands, and learn your musical preferences.

The Shimi, at first glance, just looks like a toy — but it took the minds of weathered PhDs to program and design this rather sophisticated piece of machinery. 

“We saw first-hand the level of excitement and interest that we were getting from our amazing robotic musicians like Shimon. So, we decided to use our experience with those larger, much more expensive robots to create Shimi, an extremely intelligent personal robotic companion with a personality and high-quality audio that consumers can afford,” Tovbot Co-Founder, Gil Weinberg, tells us.

Right away, we can recognize that the Shimi sports a “face” with speakers that protrude from the ends of its wing-like facade, resembling that of a hammerhead shark. The robot’s left foot serves as a dock for your MP3 player or smartphone, while its right foot is built for the sole purpose of tapping to the music.

The Shimi’s existence is almost comical because at its core, it’s really just a glorified speaker dock for your Apple device. At the same time, it’s highly sophisticated and capable of natural language processing, machine learning, motion tracking, and its gears are silent, contributing to smooth movements that might make us forget for a moment that Shimi isn’t a robot.

When you turn on the music, pivoting on five strategically placed motors, Shimi will groove to the music as it bobs its head to and fro, while its foot taps on beat with the music that’s currently playing. And no dance is the same, as its movements depend on your song choice.

You can also call out commands for Shimi to play specific songs from your connected mobile device, or ask it kindly if a certain song can be found in your music player’s library or even a streaming service like Spotify, to which Shimi will offer gesture responses of “yes” or “no.”  A secondary option to search for music, if you’re rhythmically talented, is to tap out the beat of the song that you’d like Shimi to play. It will for the most part recognize the beat and select the song accordingly.

Using its motion tracker, it can recognize your movements and direct its speakers toward wherever you are, but according to its creators, the next stage is app development that will enable Shimi to recognize your facial expression, learn what types of music you like, and recommend new music. ”Shimi will continue to evolve based on crowd-sourced ideas, including adding Android compatibility, Bluetooth connectivity and LED lighting color schemes,” said Weinberg.

The creators of Shimi have taken to Kickstarter to help complete their vision. The musical companion will cost $149 for the duration of the Kickstarter campaign, although a limited supply of 100 Shimis were up for grabs at a cost of $129, until that offer sold out.

Check out the video of Shimi in action below.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

Obama’s DNC speech sets new political record on Twitter

President Obama helped set a new Twitter record Thursday night, with his DNC speech provoking the most tweets ever for a "political moment."

Twitter went into overdrive Thursday night as masses of its users fired off a ton of tweets during President Obama’s acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina.

According to the official Twitter blog, the speech set a new record for “political moments” on the microblogging site, with 52,756 tweets-per-minute being posted at the end of the president’s address.

Adam Sharp, Twitter’s head of government, news, and social innovation, wrote in the post: “The Democratic National Convention has driven an incredible amount of Twitter conversation since the very first day. [At] the close of the official proceedings, we have seen more than 9.5 million tweets sent about the events in Charlotte.”

He added that Thursday alone saw 4 million tweets relating to the convention, a figure equal to the total number sent during the entire duration of last week’s Republican National Convention.

Sharp singled out the moments during Obama’s speech which really got Twitter users going:

- 43,646 tweets for “I’m no longer just the candidate, I’m the President.”

- 39,002 tweets for “I will never turn Medicare into a voucher.”

- 38,597 tweets during a discussion of Medicare

- 37,694 tweets for “We don’t think government can solve all our problems…”

- 34,572 tweets for quips about the Olympics and “Cold War mind warp.”

Sharp assured its users the Twitter blog would be following events closely between now and Election Day in November. “With the conversation about the 2012 election happening on Twitter, the road to Election Day 2012 will be paved in tweets,” he wrote.

It seems that wherever Obama goes, the connected world goes with him. Last week he did a 30-minute ‘Ask Me Anything’ session on Reddit, setting a new record for visitors to the site in the process. In fact, so many people logged on to view Obama’s AMA that the site buckled under the weight of demand, causing it to crash several times over the course of the session.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

New Amazon TV ad reveals large-screen Fire tablet and back-lit ‘Paperwhite’ e-reader

An Amazon ad broadcast Wednesday night appeared to reveal a number of products set for launch on Thursday, including a large-screen Kindle Fire tablet and back-lit Paperwhite e-reader.

It looks as if Jeff Bezos and his team are having some fun, teasing TV viewers the evening before a big product launch with an ad featuring, apparently, some or all of its new devices.

Interestingly, a large-sized tablet makes several appearances during the 60-second ad – likely the much-talked about 10-inch Kindle Fire. There even appears to be a shot of someone tapping away on a keyboard connected to the device – could the e-commerce giant be about to unveil a keyboard cover similar to the Touch Cover accompanying Microsoft’s soon-to-launch Surface tablet?

The existence of the Paperwhite e-reader is also apparently confirmed in the ad, with a fleeting shot of someone holding a device with a super-white back-lit screen.

There’s no sign, however, of a smartphone, though the company is said to be in the process of making one.

Broadcast during Wednesday night’s Giants vs Cowboys NFL game, the 60-second ad begins with boxes – lots of boxes (with Amazon printed on them, naturally) – and a voiceover saying, “We’re the people with the smile on the box. We’re the reinventors of normal.”

Various shots of various people with various devices follow – there appears to be a (new) 7-inch Kindle Fire, a larger tablet and a new e-reader. And lots of boxes.

It is of course possible that the ad wasn’t meant as a tease at all but was instead broadcast as the result of a scheduling error. Either way, we’ll all find out on Thursday exactly what the Seattle-based company has up its sleeve.

Digital Trends will be covering Amazon’s media event, which begins at 10.30am PT.

[Daniel Marchena via The Verge]

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

Michelle Obama’s Tuesday speech drives 28K tweets per minute

Michelle Obama's keynote speech at last night's Democratic National Convention provoked almost twice as much conversation on Twitter as Mitt Romney's address to the Republican Convention last week. Is there a message in there about who the Internet is more interested in?

The people have spoken – Well, Tweeted  – and it’s official: America prefers Obama to Romney. Michelle Obama, that is.

According to a post on Twitter’s official blog, last night’s Democratic National Convention keynote speech by the First Lady resulted in an impressive 28,003 Tweets Per Minute, almost double that of the Republican National Convention speech from Republican Presidential nominee Mitt Romney last week (He peaked at 14,289 Tweets Per Minute).

The most popular line from Obama’s speech was “We’ve got so much more to do,” which Twitter reported had 22,004 TPM – Something not entirely surprising, considering the bipartisan appeal of the line (“We’re not done yet!” for the Democrats in the crowd, while the Republicans could take it to mean “We haven’t managed to do what we promised in the last three years.” Would thatall speeches offered quite so much to everyone listening) – while the second most popular line was the equally-agreeable “Living the American Dream,” with 21,577 TPM. Third place went to “How hard you work matters,” which scored 18,669 TPM.

If Romney feels bad about being overshadowed by Mrs. Obama, perhaps he can take some solace in the fact that her 28K TPM last night also scored significantly higher than President Obama’s last State of The Union address, which only managed to reach 14,131 TPM as its peak – 156 TPM lower than Romney’s keynote from last week, should such things matter.

Overall, Twitter engagement with this week’s DNC seems up on last week’s RNC, Twitter’s Head of Government, News and Social Innovation Adam Sharp reported. “Although it’s just the first night at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte,” he wrote, “people have already posted more than 3 million Tweets, including #DNC2012 and related terms. In comparison, there were 4 million Tweets sent throughout the three days of last week’s Republican National Convention (#RNC2012).”

It wasn’t just Mrs. Obama raising the numbers, either; Mayor Julian Castro, considered by many pundits to be an up-and-comer akin to President Obama’s status back in 2004, reached the Tweets Per Minute total of 11,503 during his much-anticipated speech. That number puts him higher than any individual speaker at the RNC last week with the exception of Mitt Romney, surprisingly (Somewhere, Paul Ryan is very upset… or else, working out for his P90X for the day). Last night’s other speakers Massuchussets Governor Deval Patrick and Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley also hit worthy numbers, with 6.909 and 7,502 TPM respectively.

All of which raises the question: Why?

It’s not that the Republicans are necessarily any less of a force on Twitter; Romney’s numbers have been rising impressively over the last few months, and he’s expected to reach parity with the President before too long in terms of TPM about their respective campaigns, so… Are people just more engaged with the DNC as a topic this year? And if so, why? Expect experts from both sides of the political divide trying to work that one out over the next few days, if not weeks.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

‘Invisible Obama’ turns up on Twitter following Clint Eastwood’s bizarre RNC speech

It didn't take long for someone to sign up on Twitter as 'Invisible Obama' following Clint Eastwood's bizarre speech at the RNC on Thursday night. The account has already gathered over 30,000 followers – that's pretty good going considering it only went live a couple of hours ago.

It was all a bit bizarre, a bit confusing, a bit, well, odd. At the Republican National Convention on Thursday night, movie legend Clint Eastwood was brought out to entertain the audience prior to Mitt Romney’s big speech.

The 82-year-old actor proceeded to have a conversation – kind of – with an empty chair that he said seated President Obama. Over the next ten minutes or so, the movie actor asked the Invisible Obama a range of questions, but his rambling manner made the routine something of an awkward watch.

Of course, it didn’t take long for one wit to sign up to Twitter as Invisible Obama. The account – with the bio ‘Stage left of Clint Eastwood’ – has already gathered over 30,000 followers in the space of just a couple of hours.

Invisible Obama has been posting tweets steadily throughout the evening. Here’s a few of them:

– “When Mitt Romney says “Mr. Chairman”, do you think he’s referring to me?”

– “I’m behind Mitt. No seriously. I’m right behind him.”

– “Clint Eastwood’s performance opposite an invisible man was the best since Daryl Hannah’s. I should know. I had a front seat”

As you might expect, the Twitter hashtags #clinteastwood and #invisibleobama are also on fire just now. And tonight’s speech has given birth to a new meme: Eastwooding – take a look here to see pictures of people talking to empty chairs.

Obama’s campaign team has even made a reference to Eastwood’s speech, posting a picture of Obama in a chair on its Twitter account with the comment, “This seat’s taken.”

A spokesman for the Romney presidential campaign team told The Wrap that Eastwood was making it up as he went along, which certainly appeared to be the case. “His ad-libbing was a break from the political speech-making, and the crowd enjoyed it,” the spokesman said.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

Mars Rover Curiosity to Take First Test Drive

(NASA/JPL-Caltech)

The Mars rover Curiosity, which landed on the Martian surface on the night of Aug. 5, is about to take its first baby steps – or test drive, or whatever your preferred metaphor is – on the way to exploring the terrain around it.

Overnight, U.S. time, mission engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California said they plan to send Curiosity the computer commands to send it on its first short trip.  If everything works, it will move forward three meters (about 10 feet), turn right 90 degrees, and then back up a little bit.

That’s it.  But the longest journey begins with a single step.  Ultimately, NASA said it hopes the rover will be able to travel more than 100 yards per day over at least a two-year period, probing the Martian landscape for signs that it might once have been a home to microbial life.

“You will definitely see tracks,” said Mike Watkins, the mission manager, in a teleconference.  The first drive will tell controllers the rover’s six wheels are working properly, that it can turn in place as designed, and that it’s ready to move on later this week.

The test drive should last about half an hour.  It should take place in mid-afternoon, Mars time, when it’s warmest and the rover’s parts don’t have to be heated up.  NASA hopes there will be no surprises.

“We want to park it in a place we’ve imaged with our stereo cameras,” said Watkins, “just to make sure there’s nothing there.”

Controllers said they will be more bold over time.  The rover is in good shape so far after its nail-biter of a landing (recall the references to “seven minutes of terror” NASA promised) though a small wind detector is damaged.

Meanwhile, it’s almost summer-like at Gale Crater, where Curiosity put down.  Engineers reported the soil around the rover reached an afternoon high temperature of 37 degrees Fahrenheit on a recent Martian day, then dropped overnight to 131 degrees below zero.

Source : abcnews[dot]go[dot]com

Halo LED belt increases cyclist visibility at night

Make commuting at night safer with the Halo LED belt and be visible on the road without running the risk of getting your bike lights stolen.

In many cities, cyclists are required to have rear lights outfitted to their bikes in order to ride safely on the streets, especially during sundown. So why not take safety a step further into fashion by making it cool to promote good behavior? The Halo LED belt achieves both by allowing wearers to wear LED light as a belt, increasing his or her visibility on the road. 

So you may ask: why not just get bike lights? According to city laws around the world, light lumen limits vary — which make it difficult to have the same light be legal across all borders. Bike lights are also the subject of a thief’s desire. By wearing the safety light on you, you’re always visible and never run the risk of someone stealing your lights… unless, of course, you’re just entirely robbed out of your outfit. 

The Halo LED belt is also great for other types of land commuters, such as skateboarders or joggers, to be seen on the streets at night. The belt is a battery-powered gear that runs on two CR2025′s and lasts up to 20 hours of consecutive use, or 75 hours non-consecutive. Users also have the option of switching between three light modes: strobe, solid, or flash. The product started out as a Kickstarter project which asked for a rather measly $5,000… and ended up crowdfunding more than $53,000.

Designed for universal use, the belt can fit anywhere from a women’s size 0 to men’s size 38 waist. Even if you’re not a cyclist, the belt looks cool enough to wander the streets in or catch some attention inside a dark bar. Some of the promotional photos also show basketball players wearing the belt in the dark, which can help you classify teammates if you play in the park at night. You can even wear it around your shoulders if you want extra visibility — whether on the road or just roaming the streets.

You can purchase the Halo LED belt now in a choice of four colors — red, blue, green, and yellow — for $85.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com