Gamification is kind of annoying, but if it manages to help melt away the slug of a human person I've become, I'm willing to reconsider. The new Fitbit Ultra's altimeter makes taking the stairs a quantifiable achievement.
If you need a refresher on Fitbit, it's a clip-on exercise monitor that measures your activity, food intake and habits, and how much vigorous, active sexual activity you engage in. And with the new altimeter, it'll give you updates oh how high you've climbed, like the equivalent of the Statue of Liberty.
The new iPhone app seems useful, but you can still access the web features through the mobile web client on Android, so there's no huge loss there. As an entity, Fitbit's been around for a while, and your smartphone or other devices can do more or less the same thing. Still, the altimeter does give it a leg up on GPS and WiFi-geolocation, and it's not like either typically measure how well you're sleeping. And hey, maybe you'll even be able to sucker yourself into climbing a few more stairs to keep your profile from being too too embarrassing. The new Fitbit's $100 and out today. [Fitbit via CNET, ThisIsMyNext]