One of the new features in the Samsung Galaxy S5 Android smartphone is a heart rate sensor. This innovative new item uses the phone’s flash and camera to measure the rate at which your heart is beating. But is it really innovative? Well, actually, heart rate monitors have been around for years and all you need is an app from the Google Play Store for your phone.

I have covered brain training apps twice before and have examined four apps for iOS and Android. I make no excuse for covering two more brain training apps and you simply cannot have too many. In order to have a healthy, active brain you need to spend as much time exercising it as you do the rest of your body at the gym.

Modern life can be hectic and stressful. There may be problems at work, deadlines to meet, awkward people to deal with and so on. Problems can occur in your personal life too and they may be a cause of more worry and stress. Headspace mindfulness meditation can help induce a feeling a quiet, calm, relaxation.

Interest in health tracking using smartphones, watches and bands is growing and some of the biggest companies around are developing hardware and software for this market. I looked at Google Fit not long after it was launched and found it to be an interesting app. Since then, it has grown into a hub that other apps can connect to and store health and activity tracking information and this makes it even more useful.

There is an old saying, ‘Use it or lose it’. Well, you won’t lose your mind, but unless you exercise it, it will weaken and become slow at thinking, reasoning, logic and mental arithmetic. Brain training games can improve your mind and keep it sharp. The more you use it, the better it will be here are two popular brain training apps that run on both Android and iOS, Elevate and Mind Games.

Some people say that the brain is like a muscle and like any other muscle, if you exercise it, it will improve. It won’t get physically larger like other muscles do, but it will become more efficient and you can increase your brain power. Lumosity and Fit Brains are two competing brain training apps for Android that are designed to make you smarter.

Moves is a health and fitness app that has just been acquired by social networking giant Facebook. What does the app do and why would Facebook want to buy it? The app is free so why not add it your Android phone or iPhone and see for yourself?