Latest news with #tracker
Phone Arena
20 hours ago
- Business
- Phone Arena
iPhone owners now have one less thing to worry about when traveling to Latin America
Do you rely on AirTag (or similar tracker) when traveling abroad? Yes, I always use one. I use it once in a while. I haven't used it yet. Yes, I always use one. 0% I use it once in a while. 0% I haven't used it yet. 0% (machine translated) Receive the latest Apple news By subscribing you agree to our terms and conditions and privacy policy Ajet – Turkey Air Canada – Canada Air India – India Air New Zealand – New Zealand American Airlines – US Breeze Airlines – US Cathay Pacific – Hong Kong China Airlines – Taiwan Delta – US Finnair – Finland IAG/Aer Lingus – Ireland IAG/British Airways – UK IAG/Iberia – Spain IAG/Vueling – Spain JetBlue – US LATAM – Chile/Brazil KLM – Netherlands Lufthansa Group/Austrian Airlines – Austria Lufthansa Group/Brussels Airlines – Belgium Lufthansa Group/Eurowings – Germany Lufthansa Group/Lufthansa – Germany Lufthansa Group/Swiss – Switzerland Pegasus – Turkey Porter – Canada Qantas – Australia Saudia Airlines – Saudi Arabia Singapore Airlines – Singapore Sun Express – Turkey Turkish Airlines – Turkey United – US Virgin Atlantic – UK Does AirTag work with Android phones? A trip to sunny, flavor-rich and exotic Rio de Janeiro always sounds like a good idea, but traveling across continents often involves sudden panic attacks over the whereabouts of your luggage. That's where the AirTag (and similar trackers) come in late last year with iOS 18 .2, the Share Item Location feature in Apple's Find My app has become one of the most practical AirTag updates. It allows you to easily share a tracker's location with friends or even airlines. Many carriers around the world already accept these location links when helping passengers recover lost luggage. In Brazil, LATAM is now the first airline to officially support the feature, thanks to a partnership with a baggage solutions provider, covering flights in Brazil and South America, a report website now explains how passengers can share their AirTag location when checked baggage is delayed, complete with a detailed PDF guide. Travelers must already have an open baggage report and their case number, then use the Find My app on an iPhone, iPad, or Mac to enable location sharing and generate a link. This link can then be pasted into LATAM's self-service portal under the option to manage an existing report. Sharing ends automatically once the bag is found, can be stopped at any time, and expires after seven 30 airlines across 18 countries officially support Apple's Share Item Location function, allowing AirTag owners to collaborate directly with carriers for faster baggage recovery:You should know that AirTags can be also used with Android phones , but only those who are on iOS – such as iPhone users – can take full advantage of the clever item work fully only with Apple's Find My network, giving iOS users real-time location, directions, and precision finding. On Android, you can't track your own AirTags, but you can tap one with NFC to see its owner's info if it's in Lost Mode, or use Apple's Tracker Detect app to scan for AirTags moving with you. These features are meant for lost-item recovery and anti-stalking, not personal users looking for similar functionality should consider alternatives like Tile, for example.
The Verge
30-07-2025
- The Verge
You can hide an AirTag in Skechers' new kid shoes
If you're a parent with kids in school or who are independently exploring your neighborhood for the first time, there's a good chance you've considered stashing a tracker somewhere on their person for added peace of mind. Skechers is making that a little easier with a new line of sneakers for kids that feature a hidden compartment in the sole designed to securely hold an Apple AirTag so you can track your child without worrying about the tracker itself going missing. There are currently several different styles and color options in the company's new Find My Skechers line with size options ranging from toddlers all the way up to eight-year-olds. Lifting the sneaker's insole and a fabric web liner reveals a plastic compartment recessed into the cushioned midsole that holds and protects an AirTag without inhibiting its wireless communications. You can already find a lot of AirTag accessories that let you attach an AirTag to an active child more securely than just slipping the tracker into their pockets where it can potentially fall out while they're playing. Skecher's solution goes one step further with a lid on the compartment that's screwed into place. That should help prevent kids from tampering with it and, given the AirTag's compact size, make it safer for toddlers still experimenting with cramming things in their mouths. As an added safety feature, the shoes don't feature any branding that hint at there being an AirTag inside them. They look like every other sneaker that Skechers sells, making them one of the more covert ways to keep tabs on where your kids are. Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All by Andrew Liszewski Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Apple Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Gadgets Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All News Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Tech
The Verge
28-07-2025
- Business
- The Verge
Your Whistle pet tracker will stop working next month
Tractive, an Austrian company that makes smart location and activity trackers for dogs and cats, is expanding its presence in the US by acquiring a competitor, Whistle, from Mars Petcare. As a result of the acquisition, the Whistle platform is being shut down and its pet tracking devices will stop working on August 31st, 2025. Existing Whistle customers can get a free Tractive tracker as a replacement, while remaining subscriptions 'will transfer to your new Tractive device,' according to the Tractive website. The free replacement devices will only be available until September 30th, 2025 and will require Whistle users to register on Tractive's platform through its website, select a new Tractive subscription, and provide the serial number of their current Whistle tracker. Tractive is also honoring remaining Whistle plans but will be adding the remaining time to new Tractive subscriptions. According to an FAQ the company shared about the acquisition, if you have over two months remaining on an active Whistle plan, your remaining subscription time will be transferred to your new Tractive plan and you won't be charged immediately. If there's less than two months remaining, you'll need to pay for a new Tractive plan at sign up but you'll get two free months of service (no matter how much time you have left) added automatically. The company's Basic subscription plan starts at $108 if you subscribe for just one year, but a two year plan is discounted to $144. That includes GPS location tracking, heart and respiratory rate monitoring, bark tracking, virtual fences and escape alerts, and activity and sleep monitoring. The pricier Premium plan is $120 for one year, $168 for two years, or $300 for five years and adds features like family sharing so additional people can track a pet, worldwide cellular coverage, year long location history, and the option to export the GPS data. Although remaining Whistle subscriptions are being honored, Whistle device warranties are not. When the trackers are shut down at the end of August they will no longer be supported. However, the free replacement devices that Tractive is offering will come with their own two year warranties. Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All by Andrew Liszewski Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Gadgets Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All News Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Tech
Telegraph
19-07-2025
- Health
- Telegraph
I tracked every single thing I ate and drank on holiday – the results were shocking
If you're anything like me, then the whole point of a week away on holiday is that you can eat and drink as much as you want, guilt-free. But how many of us can properly switch off? Too often, phantom calorie counts float next to the delicious treats listed on restaurant menus or presented in the windows of patisseries. Inevitably, there is panic, as the jeans worn on the flight to somewhere sunny refuse to button on the return home. Add to this a long string of hangovers and the general sluggishness that follows a week of heavy dinners, and you can find yourself more drained by a trip away than you were before it. Yet the positive effects that come with a week of R&R aren't to be underestimated. Holidays can be good for the health of our muscles, hearts, brains and blood sugar alike. So, earlier this year, I went off to Greece armed with a glucose tracker and the determination to keep a food diary but still enjoy myself, to see how much damage a week of ice cream, souvlaki and wine can really do to your health. The glucose tracker in my arm was there to tell me about how all of these carbs could 'spike' my blood sugar, leading to potential consequences for my health later down the line. Going to a Mediterranean country wasn't cheating. Yes, there's plenty of fresh vegetables and your food is more likely cooked in olive oil than butter, making it better for your heart and your skin. But there's also deep fried feta, chips inside of massive pita wraps, huge trays of baklava, and many different kinds of spirits to contend with. I went to Athens and then an island, with two friends and my boyfriend, who, thanks to spending a lot of time in the gym, usually eats about 4,000 calories a day. Foodwise I pretty much kept up with him for the whole trip away. For breakfast on our first day I had a huge bowl of creamy full-fat Greek yoghurt, topped with tahini, banana, honey and nuts. Lunch was a halloumi souvlaki, stuffed with chips and some kind of delicious yellow sauce. I split a box of baklava as a snack with one of my friends and then for dinner, I had a huge bowl of orzo with mushrooms, a side of (more) chips, and dessert, a platter of Greek treats split between the four of us. In true first-night-away style we got through five litres of wine. In our defence, it was 11 euros a jug. (Then I went back to our AirBnB and ate four croissants meant for the morning to soak it up). I might have earned some of that with a walk up the acropolis (thankfully, we hadn't planned it for the morning afterwards) but the rest of the holiday was spent lazing about. We all took it a bit easier on the booze but made up for it in food. Most mornings started with Greek yoghurt, but the nights ended with huge dinners, snacks afterwards, and a dessert like loukoumades (donuts covered in hard sugar) to finish. At home I try not to snack too much (a rule of keeping your blood sugar in check) but while I was away I ate anything I stumbled across that looked half-tasty. All in all, I totally pigged out and I drank more than I do in an average month. What would this blip in my usual moderate lifestyle mean for my health in the long run? Lauren's diet: at home vs abroad How bad is it really to gain a few pounds on holiday? I'm not here to tell you to starve on holiday. As personal trainer Dalton Wong helpfully puts it, 'losing holiday weight is easy, but you'll never get back the time that you spend away'. Yet the truth is that a sudden jump in weight can be jarring. When I got on the scale after my week in Greece, I weighed a full half a stone more than I had done when I left. I'd be lying if I said it didn't bother me. Did all the cheese and pita bread I ate really do that much damage? Probably not, Wong says. 'That jump won't just be fat but also water retention, caused by eating a lot of salty food, and probably a bit of fat depending on how much you've eaten,' he explains. If you're someone who does a lot of strength training, 'you might even put on a bit of lean muscle mass, because you're giving your muscles the good rest and nutrients that they need to actually grow'. As Wong often reassures his clients, you would have to eat a truly enormous amount of food to put on half a stone of fat in a week. A single pound of fat gained requires 'about 500 extra calories every day on top of the amount you need to maintain your weight,' he explains. As such, the reality is that a week of overindulgence likely won't make you gain more than two or three pounds at most, even if, like me, you've ended up reaching to the back of your wardrobe for an extra pair of trousers. I think I ate at least 4,000 calories a day. To maintain my weight I need about 2,000, roughly what I eat when I'm at home. It's not all as simple as calories in, calories out, either, however. 'Your body has a set point that it really wants to stay at,' says nutritionist Jenna Hope. Once you return from holiday, your body works hard to bring your weight back down to its usual levels, a process that can be masked by water weight and constipation. 'A week or two, or even three, outside of your norm might not actually cause weight gain at all, because you aren't causing any long-term changes to your metabolic activity,' so long as you go back to your normal habits. For this reason, Wong advises that you 'avoid weighing yourself for four weeks after you get home,' he says. 'Anything you see differently in the scales then might be actual fat, but until then, what you're seeing likely isn't real weight gain.' Sure enough, after a week back at home I was only three pounds heavier than I was when I landed in Athens; after a month, I was back to my usual weight. Given the power of your set point, shifting the weight can be as simple as 'going for an extra walk after lunch,' says Wong. If you really are concerned about putting on weight on holiday, 'either eat or drink your calories,' he advises. 'Have the extra cocktail or the slice of cake, not both. You'll likely be satisfied with one and feel a bit healthier afterwards.' What happens on the inside? The scales don't tell the full story, however. Studies that examine what a week of overindulgence does to your body only present bad news. One Oxford University study reveals that three weeks of eating badly is enough to raise your risk of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. Their participants were fed a diet high in sat-fats (crisps, cheese, chocolate and pizza) for 24 days, and while their weight didn't budge, their cholesterol levels spiked by 10 per cent, and the fat in their liver increased by a fifth. A summer trip can also give you an 'obese brain', another recent paper from the University of Tubingen in Germany found (clearly, holiday-spoiling is a flourishing academic niche). Just five days of eating a poor diet is enough to cause changes to our brains that outlive 'the timeframe of the consumption', reports Professor Stephanie Kullmann. After eating an extra 1,000 calories a day for five days, 'the brain and behaviour response resemble that of a person with obesity and changes in the brain seem to occur prior to weight gain.' What can also change quickly is our gut microbiome. 'A week or two weeks of eating differently and not getting enough fibre is long enough to see some changes in the makeup of your gut,' says Hope. The happiness of your gut is a core to good energy levels, proper digestion, immune function and even keeping you in a good mood. Spending time away in a totally different food environment is part of why we can come back from holiday feeling more sluggish and constipated than ever before. From the food log before and after my holiday, and while I was away, it's clear that I was eating more than I usually would for a few weeks on either side. I'd have an extra pint of beer or glass of wine on a Wednesday and I'd often veer towards something heavy in fat and salt and therefore attractive to my 'obese brain' for dinner post-holiday. I'm sure that my gut was not impressed. 'If you go away multiple times a year, it can be really hard to reset and not slide into bad habits,' Hope says. Fortunately, this is easily avoided. 'Preparing your breakfasts and lunches for the week that you're back home can be really helpful, as it removes the element of spontaneous choice and helps you make better decisions,' says Hope. 'It can be really helpful to order a grocery shop to arrive on the day that you're back.' To make it even easier for yourself, 'try having a healthy breakfast on the days that you're away, rather than diving into the hotel buffet and having everything you can see,' she adds. Having one healthy meal a day makes it much easier to get back to normal once you're home, and if it's high in protein, you won't instantly reach for a snack as soon as you leave your hotel. (And if you're in the land of thick, creamy Greek yoghurt, like I was, it won't feel like a sacrifice.) Will a holiday raise your blood sugar? Blood sugar monitors are increasingly being worn by people who aren't diabetic. The way they work is that you stick them into your arm (there's a small needle, but you can't feel it once it's in), and then you can monitor the amount of sugar that's in your blood after you've eaten from an app on your phone. Ups and downs are normal, but dramatic spikes after meals or prolonged periods of super-high blood sugar can indicate insulin resistance. This is a sign that your body is struggling to handle the amount of sugar you're feeding it, and is a precursor for type 2 diabetes. Discovering the foods that 'spike' you can help you prevent this in the long term, and this can also help you to avoid the sluggishness and fatigue caused by the crashes that follow. It was interesting to see that a typical day in Greece eating a lot of carby and sugary foods made my blood sugar soar. But I can't say it made me behave any differently. I did get a few weird looks from other tourists and it does ruin the bikini photos. The really useful bit came when I looked at my results after landing in Britain. I wore my patch, from Lingo by Abbott before, during, and after my holiday. In the week that I came home, my average blood sugar fell to being 95 per cent lower than it had been while I was away. At first I was shocked. Clearly my body had gone into panic mode because of how much I'd eaten. The stats sound dramatic on paper but in both cases, my average blood sugar remained in a 'healthy' range overall, only briefly rising or falling to unhealthy levels. Such a return to normal is a good sign: 'this shows that you're in good metabolic health and that your body is responding with insulin in a normal way,' says Sophie Bertrand, Abbott's nutritionist. Your blood sugar levels are a result of homeostasis, the complex bodily process that keeps us functioning as normal. It's hard to disrupt this process in a serious way by overeating for a week, Bertrand says. If you're in your twenties and have a BMI that marks you as healthy, like me, then you can eat whatever you like for a short while and be fine in this regard, but this process works less well as you age. Seeing its effects was helpful. 'Someone who's older might find that they have more problems bringing their blood sugar down to normal,' says Bertrand. Over time, this is an issue that can raise your chances of developing insulin resistance, a major risk factor for type 2 diabetes. About 40 per cent of us in Britain are insulin resistant. With this in mind I'll probably start approaching holidays a bit differently as I age. But regardless of your health, there are ways to get back to normal more quickly regardless of your age. Again, a protein-rich breakfast is king: 'this will help to avoid big fluctuations in your blood sugar throughout the day,' says Bertrand. 'Your sleep is also really important in keeping your blood sugar levels stable. Take the opportunity to grab a few more hours each night than you might at home.' Regardless of what you're eating or how much you're sleeping, a quick walk after dinner can work well 'to balance out your blood sugar' too. Besides, the chance to let loose can be good for us. Regularly going on holiday can lower your chances of dying from heart disease in the long run, and can also bring improvements to your blood sugar and 'good' cholesterol levels. As Bertrand puts it, 'a week of treats is much better than a routine filled with less healthy food or binges that follow restricting yourself too severely'. Do you need to worry about your step count? All of this ignores a fact that's fundamental to the concept of holidays: a week or more of relaxation does us provable good. Stress – both the physical and mental kind – can wreak havoc on our health. If you're the kind of person who exercises a lot, a week spent abstaining from lifting heavy weights or sprinting on the treadmill, presents a much-needed break for your joints and muscles. As a result, 'some of the weight you put on while you're on holiday might well be lean muscle mass,' says Wong. That said, keeping your step count up can actually offset the potential damage done to your health by eating outside of the norm. 'Going for a walk before or after dinner is a good way to help bring your blood sugar back down to a healthy range,' says Bertrand. And what's more, you'll probably find it easier to get them in while you're away than you do at home. I certainly did: my average steps per day are 12,000 as per my health tracker, but I got in 15,000 a day in Athens, and it didn't occur to me that I was exercising. Do I regret letting loose on holiday? Not at all. As Jenna Hope says, the really crucial thing for your health is how quickly you go back to normal after your holidays, and making sure that you don't live with your 'holiday brain' between them. Next time I go away, I'll be sure to plan some healthy meals for the week that I get back, and I'll try to find ways to keep my step count up while I'm away too, to counter the effects of eating badly. I'm not sure that I'd take a glucose tracker with me again, but it's certainly helpful to know that beer spikes me more than wine, and that baklava does less damage than chips. Best of all is that, having looked at the changes to my body, I now know that with some thought, I can keep enjoying holidays the way I want for the rest of my life.
BBC News
15-07-2025
- BBC News
Borrowdale cat found near Gretna after kidnap claim
A cat found 57 miles (92km) from home and in another country, months after it wandered off, is at the centre of an "abduction" regularly disappears from his home on a farm in Borrowdale, Cumbria, and is known to visit - among other places - a house miles away across when he did not return for eight weeks, owner Anne Cornthwaite noticed his tracker placed him on the other side of England in York, then at Gretna in southern Cornthwaite said she confronted the owner of Harvey's "other" house who, she claimed, "confessed" to taking Harvey over the border because he had damaged the man's property and attacked his cat. The BBC has approached the accused man for comment but he did not respond, while Cumbria Police said the matter had not been reported to searchers in Dumfries and Galloway have confirmed they found Harvey in Kirkpatrick-Fleming, north of Gretna, on 4 July. 'Some random location' Owing to his love of travel, Harvey is fitted with a does not record his movements live, but can show his location when he is near a device that can connect to his latest long absence, Harvey was tracked to several places within a few miles of his home but, on 23 June, he was briefly registered 120 miles (193km) Cornthwaite explained: "I just happened to check one night on my phone and he suddenly was in York, and I thought that was very odd."He returned to Cumbria that evening but, three days later, he was on the move again."Unbelievably he was in some random location at Gretna, but at that stage I wasn't really thinking he'd been abducted, I just thought maybe the tag was playing up." Wanting to bring her pet home, Mrs Cornthwaite went to speak to the man Harvey regularly visited. "When I got there," she said, "he confessed that he'd trapped him and taken him to Gretna and dumped him."I was speechless. I couldn't believe that anybody could do something so cruel."Then he said 'I'll tell you what he's done and you may change your mind'."She said he told her Harvey had been fighting with his cat and had injured it so badly it required stitches."He was thinking he had done the right thing," Mrs Cornthwaite said, adding the man also claimed Harvey had broken two cat flaps and knocked containers of cat food off shelves."He might be guilty of that," she admitted. 'Little meow' Mrs Cornthwaite said the man agreed to take her to the location in Gretna where he had left Harvey.A search ensued over many days, involving thermal imaging cameras and local Lisa Harker from Eastriggs, told BBC Radio Cumbria the cat was finally discovered hiding on a farm."I was using a voice recording of Anne and I heard this little meow," the 58-year-old said. "I'd purchased a red spot light that doesn't frighten animals but lights things up, and there he was." Mrs Cornthwaite travelled to the farm the following night and lured Harvey out from under a trailer using his favourite drove him back to England while her feline passenger "talked all the way home"."I couldn't believe it was him," she said."I was hoping that after being away for such a long time he would still recognise me and he would still come to me."It was a perfect ending. I just don't know whether he'll go off again or whether he's had a bit of a shock." Follow BBC Cumbria on X, Facebook, Nextdoor and Instagram.
