Fitbug (LON:FITB), a wearable activity tracker, just became available at Target stores. This button-sized device can be worn on the wrist, attached to your belt, or discreetly hidden beneath your clothes to keep your fitness attempt a secret until you hit your target.

The little helper can even go into a pocket or purse and still do its job. The app sends motivational information to keep you going with healthy recipes, articles and tips on nutrition.

Habits of daily living can interfere with a good night’s sleep. Even when you are not awake, Fitbug is still monitoring you, checking how much and how good you are sleeping. Fitbug will set personalized weekly goals to help you sleep better as a result of what you eat and how active you are.

It uploads your movement and activities, counting steps, distance, and calories burned to Fitbug.com where the personalized coaching technology calculates goals. You’ll get feedback combined with advice and encouragement that includes text messages, emails, and cell phone alerts. Your personal Fitbug coach can help you exercise.

Originally offered to corporations concerned with the health of their employees or of their customers, Fitbug has been used by companies such as The Vitality Group, Optum, Humana Vitality, and Every Move. The Vitality Group is a fully integrated wellness program designed to engage a company’s employees on the road to better health. Optum is comprised of a global team of professionals who collaborate across the health system to improve care delivery, quality, and cost-effectiveness. Every Move lets you earn rewards for your efforts with discounts from health-conscious brands and praise from your social network.

Fitbug founder and CEO, Paul Landau had his team take the product out into the consumer world. Bluetooth enabled last year, the Orb itself is unobtrusive – only 30mm in diameter, with no screen. Your information is sent to your phone.

At Pepcom, Paul Landau, CEO, showed how the Fitbug Orb can be worn in an interchangeable wrist band.

Good looking wrist bands offset your Orb so you can show off your dedication to fitness. If you want to wear Orb on your wrist, you can choose from white pink or black bands.

Just announced is Fitbug’s KiqPlan – health plans especially geared to your situation. Beer Belly Buster might be just what the doctor orders after the festivities of the upcoming Super Bowl. The KiqPlan called Slim+Trim says it all. For women, there are two unique plans. Healthy Baby Bump for that nine month trip to mommy hood. It’ll help you deliver a healthy child. After the big event, pick up Goodbye Baby Bump to help you get back to your pre-pregnant shape.

In addition to the Orb, the Fitbug series includes Fitbug Go, Fitbug Air, and Fitbug Wow scales. When you stand on the Smart WoW scale, your data is uploaded and syncs with your Fitbug app in real time to update your personal profile using Bluetooth technology.

Fitbug, a London based company, is listed on the FTSE as FITB. Over the past 52 weeks, prices have ranged in British Pounds from £ 0.38 – £ 7.98. Sainsbury in the UK and 1,800 Target stores in the US will be carrying the Orb. This additional exposure for the Orb and the new KiqPlans should help the share price stay at the upper end of that scale.

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An American Airlines flight from LAX (Los Angeles) to Heathrow (London) was delayed yesterday, Sunday, due to one of the passengers’ wireless Wi-Fi hotspot network SSID (name) was broadcasting as “Al-Quida Free Terror Nettwork.” This was discovered by one of the passengers on the flight and they expressed their concern about it and the flight crew took the plane back to the gate and passengers were made to stay on the plane. In fact, they were kept on the plane for hours. Passengers were initially told that it was some sort of maintenance issue, which eventually was not the case.

Airport officials stated to KABC TV that, “After further investigation, it was determined that no crime was committed and no further action will be taken.”

However, the Daily Mail in the UK is reporting that the flight was held for 17 hours and that it only took off Monday at 1pm (which it isn’t even yet in California at the time of publication). Additionally, if you check FlightAware for the American Airlines flight number that both KABC and The Daily Mail reference, flight 136, you will notice that it takes off at 8PM on Sunday and lands in London at 1pm. However, the flight for yesterday, the 26th appears to have been completely stricken from the record (very likely cancelled). This would support The Daily Mail’s saying that the flight was rescheduled for 1pm, except that hasn’t actually happened yet and isn’t showing up anywhere on FlightAware.

According to LAX’s own official flight information, which is to be trusted the most, the flight had an ‘estimated’ departure time of 10am today, which seems accurate if you track the progress of that flight on LAX’s website. We have contacted American Airlines for their comment. They are currently saying that they are, “Reviewing it internally.” Based on what we’re seeing, though, it appears that the flight was delayed longer than the three hours KABC was stating and shorter than the 17 hours the Daily Mail is stating. It appears to be closer to a 14 hour delay, indicating that the passengers were made to deboard and reboard this morning at LAX.

All of this is yet another reason why people need to be more considerate of how they use their technology and airlines also need to not overreact to people’s poor behavior. Sure, using such a Wi-Fi hotspot is without a doubt an idiotic thing to do, but simply addressing it by finding the person responsible and not cancelling the whole flight is also an option as well.

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The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) recently posted a ‘warning’ to foreign airports that have direct flights into the US, with an apparent focus on UK airports, namely Manchester and London’s Heathrow. In this posting, Secretary Johnson, the head of the DHS stated that elevated security measures were being implemented based on the ever changing security climate.

So, what exactly are these elevated security measures? According to the BBC, these new security measure being implemented in airports like Manchester and London are requiring users to have their electronic devices charged and to be able to power the device on when prompted to. Furthermore, if a device does not have charge or is ‘dead’ a passenger may actually be prevented from boarding their flight without proof of an operational laptop or tablet.

British Airways released a statement in regards to the issue at hand that advises that you not bring on any devices that are inoperable or depleted from charge. This includes people transferring from flights through the UK that may have had long flights. So, if you’re flying in economy and don’t have a charging plug, you no longer have the right to use your devices until they die because you might not get let onto your connecting flight.

The UK government also has a travel advisory that states,

Flying to the US

Make sure your electronic devices are charged before you travel. If your device doesn’t switch on, you won’t be allowed to bring it onto the aircraft.

These new rules implemented by the DHS are absolutely ridiculous and put an undo burden on consumers. I have flown through Heathrow countless times and have had a few instances where I had a dead phone, dead tablet or a dead laptop. And when you look at the utter lack of charging stations in Heathrow and in planes, it seems absolutely insane for them to be pushing these requirements on consumers without trying to alleviate them. The DHS and the UK have once again made flying miserable again and they’re taking more of our rights away without any justifications.

There are going to be easy ways to get around this ‘power-on’ requirement set by the DHS if you’re really trying to build a device that will cause harm. This is yet another pointless security measure being presented in airports to make traveling even more ridiculous and difficult than it already is.

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