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Vivints new app wants to help you be a better neighbor
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Eight days after beginning a pilot program with Vivint Smart Homes new app, Streety, residents of a normally-quiet Las Vegas suburb awoke to find their cars had been burglarized. - photo by Liesl Nielsen
LAS VEGAS Eight days after beginning a pilot program with Vivint Smart Homes new app, Streety, residents of a normally-quiet Las Vegas suburb awoke to find their cars had been burglarized.

One homeowner quickly pulled up his app and shared the footage hed captured on his security cameras with the neighbors. Within minutes, other neighbors began sharing their footage and soon the community had six different videos, each depicting a young man going from car to car attempting to break in.

Families that didnt know they had been burglarized now suddenly had that information, which was soon passed on to authorities, said Clint Gordon-Carroll, vice president of product management at Vivint.

It was a powerful experience, and that was only in the first eight days of launching this, Gordon-Carroll said.

This is how you neighbor is Vivint Smart Homes mantra for the Streety app which the company publicized for the first time during the Consumer Electronics Show Tuesday through Friday in Las Vegas.

The Streety app is meant to bring a neighborhood together, Gordon-Carroll said, and allows users to connect with fellow homeowners within a 300-yard radius of their house. The app is free and anyone can download it, whether or not they own smart home technology though they must undergo third-party verification to be admitted as a member.

Residents can share or request security camera footage (of all brands, not just Vivint) and can approve neighbors to access their footage for whatever reason whether they need to occasionally check on their kids playing outside or figure out who ran over the mailbox.

Neighbors can also communicate in a feed where theyre able to post questions or queries.

To help CES conference-goers visualize Streety, Vivint built a smart street on the tech conference showroom floor and walked people through the different aspects of the app.

Its the same way you move into the neighborhood and take brownies and say, Hi, Im Clint, Gordon-Carroll said. You take the analog of that and create a digital experience.

Streety will officially launch on Android and iOS phones March 1, and Vivint hopes to continue adding to the functionality of the app by collaborating with local police departments, schools, other home security brands and home care services.

The PC era in the '90s was a pretty boring era until they networked the PCs together, and they got internet, and all of a sudden that was unleashed, Gordon-Carroll said. Its the same thing with these cameras on our homes. By themselves, they help one person, but if you network them together, you basically unleash a huge amount of value that neighborhoods get stronger, communities get stronger.

But Vivint knows having connected cameras wont be enough. Nobody wants to sit around looking at camera footage all day, said Jeff Lyman, Vivints senior vice president of product experience.

Instead, Vivint is working on training cameras to identify certain behaviors so they can notify an app user immediately whether its the approaching garbage truck on a day theyve forgotten to take out their trash cans or someone stealing packages off the front porch.

The cameras will also be equipped with facial recognition technology so they can alert designated neighbors if packages are dropped off while a homeowner is out of town, then let the homeowner know which neighbor has picked up their package and remind them when they return to go collect them from the neighbor's house.

I think thats the magic of where this stuff is going forward. Its not, Hey, you want to see your camera? Its, Tell me what my camera is seeing, Lyman said.
Its toxic: New study says blue light from tech devices can speed up blindness
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A new study from the University of Toledo found that blue light from digital devices can transform molecules in your eyes retina into cell killers. - photo by Herb Scribner
It turns out checking Twitter or Facebook before bed is bad for your health.

A new study from the University of Toledo found that blue light from digital devices can transform molecules in your eyes retina into cell killers.

That process can lead to age-related macular degeneration, which is a leading cause of blindness in the United States, according to the researchs extract.

Blue light is a common issue for many modern Americans. Blue light is emitted from screens, most notably at night, causing sleep loss, eye strain and a number of other issues.

Dr. Ajith Karunarathne, assistant professor in the UT Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, said our constant exposure to blue light cant be blocked by the lens or cornea.

"It's no secret that blue light harms our vision by damaging the eye's retina. Our experiments explain how this happens, and we hope this leads to therapies that slow macular degeneration, such as a new kind of eye drop, he said.

Macular degeneration is an incurable eye disease that often affects those in their 50s or 60s. It occurs after the death of photoreceptor cells in the retina. Those cells need retinal to sense light and help signal the brain.

The research team found blue light exposure created poisonous chemical molecules that killed photoreceptor cells

"It's toxic. If you shine blue light on retinal, the retinal kills photoreceptor cells as the signaling molecule on the membrane dissolves," said Kasun Ratnayake, a Ph.D. student researcher working in Karunarathne's cellular photo chemistry group. "Photoreceptor cells do not regenerate in the eye. When they're dead, they're dead for good."

However, the researchers found a molecule called alpha-tocopherol, which comes from Vitamin E, can help prevent cell death, according to Futurism.

The researchers plan to review how light from TVs, cellphones and tablet screens affect the eyes as well.

"If you look at the amount of light coming out of your cellphone, it's not great but it seems tolerable," said Dr. John Payton, visiting assistant professor in the UT Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. "Some cellphone companies are adding blue-light filters to the screens, and I think that is a good idea."

Indeed, Apple released a Night Shift mode two years ago to help quell blue lights strain on the eyes, according to The Verge. The screen will dim into a warmer, orange light that will cause less stress on the eyes.