… A San Francisco startup called Sano is designing a device that would make tracking our glucose as easy as reading the news or scrolling through Instagram. The company recently received a $6 million paycheck from Fitbit, its first-ever investment in a startup.
Apple, Google, and other big-name tech companies are also scrambling to create blood-sugar trackers as improvements in the technology, coupled with skyrocketing rates of diabetes and obesity, fuel the need for a better tool to improve our health.
There’s no denying that running watches are as feature rich as they have ever been. Garmin, Suunto, Polar et al. have all raised their game by packing in more modes and extras than we could ever possibly use. But it’s always nice to have more features, right?
Running watches will undoubtedly get better and smarter but is it about offering more or offering the right features? The ones that runners would happily pay extra for.
… IMU Step consists of 2 compact and light weight sensors which provides precise movement data by measuring the “bone load”. It is basically a calculation of the amount of stress athletes put on their limbs during activity. Instead of giving an overall performance data, IMU Step breaks down the analysis according to each individual limb. This is done by placing the sensors just above the ankle. The data is then analyzed through algorithms and software that help in quantifying the impact of movements on an athlete’s body.
Unlike most single sensors wearable tech, IMU Step offer a precise date that helps us classify how hard each limb hits the ground. This helps in assessing asymmetries and workout intensity which further helps in giving an accurate “bone load” score.
About 40% of injuries in a running-based sports are sustained on the foot and ankle. The metrics that IMU Step offers can help coaches and trainers in rehabilitating athletes from lower limb injuries, simultaneously reducing the risk of re-injury.
When it comes to biometric sensors, human skin isn’t an ally.
It’s an obstacle.
The University of Cincinnati is developing cutting-edge methods to overcome this barrier without compromising the skin and its ability to prevent infection and dehydration. By making better noninvasive tests, researchers can open up enormous opportunities in medicine and the fitness industry.
“You think of the skin as an opportunity because you can measure things through it optically, chemically, electrically and mechanically,” said Jason Heikenfeld, assistant vice president in UC’s College of Engineering and Applied Science. “But it’s actually the opposite. The body has evolved to preserve all of these chemical analytes, so the skin actually isn’t very good at giving them up.”
Rumors abound that companies including Apple are looking to offer non-invasive glucose tracking, which would let people test their blood sugar without breaking the skin – but according to Valencell, which licences biometric sensor tech to Samsung, Sony and other big companies, it’s a nonstarter.
“It is completely impossible to have a truly noninvasive glucose monitor,” Valencell CEO Steven LeBoeuf told Wareable. Right now, invasive techniques can tell diabetics what insulin dosage they need by measuring their blood and interstitial fluid. This can be done by pricking the skin for blood, or tracking interstitial fluid just beneath the surface, as Dexcom’s devices do.
But according to LeBoeuf, being able to advise someone on their insulin requirements using a noninvasive technology isn’t just difficult; it’s impossible. “There will literally be stem cell regenerated pancreas cells in the body before there is ever anything that can be a truly noninvasive glucose monitor for dosing insulin,” he said.
Last week, it was reported that Strava’s heat maps were potentially exposing sensitive military information. The detailed heat maps showed the routes users had been active on. A week later, it appears that in an effort to address the matter of privacy, segments are now one of the features under review.
The segment feature allows athletes to select sections of their activities to become timed inside the activity tracking app which other users can compete on and see. Segments is one of the most popular features on Strava with users tracking their times on stretches of road to compare with their friends or other riders in the area. The athlete with the top time on a segment is awarded the KOM or QOM.
While all the features that are under review by Strava is not clear, one user on Reddit reported not being able to create a segment as first reported by Verge. “We are reviewing features that were originally designed for athlete motivation and inspiration to ensure they cannot be compromised by people with bad intent,” Strava replied to a ticket submitted to customer support. It was the same statement Strava issued when Verge reached out for a comment on the matter. The segment creation problem may not be experienced by everyone with many commenting the feature was still working for them.
Lindsey Vonn remains one of the most gifted and decorated downhill skiers ever, and at age 33 she’s poised to expand upon her greatness at the XXIII Winter Olympic Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea. Yet her snowy paths to glory have been cratered with spectacular crashes and horrible injuries — broken bones, torn ligaments, concussions — that would have ended a less stalwart athlete’s career.
Each time, though, Vonn’s recovered, thanks in large part to the advanced sports medicine provided at the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association’s Center of Excellence in Park City, Utah. Along with availing herself of the latest and greatest gym equipment and machines at the COE, as it’s known, Vonn has access to virtual reality setups to simulate racing down a slalom course, computers crunching big data to enhance performance (legally) and strobe glasses to help retrain the brain after knee injuries.
The 85,000-square-foot state-of-the-art facility sits on five verdant acres in the Wasatch Mountains, just outside of Park City, home of USSA, the governing body of snow sports in the United States. It opened in 2009, paid for with $22 million in private donations — another reminder that the United States remains one of the only nations that doesn’t fund its Olympic athletes. Besides training and education for Team USA skiers and snowboarders, the COE is a rehabilitation and sports medicine showcase. “The hardware and techniques we use are on the forefront of injury rehab,” said Kyle Wilkens, medical director of USSA. “It’s changing the way we serve our athletes.”
Transferrable tattoos—or decal transfers—are a familiar part of childhood and industrial design. The technology is straightforward. Transfers consist of a thin film of ethyl cellulose polymer stuck to a sheet of paper by a sacrificial layer of water-soluble starch or dextrin.
Placing the transfer in water dissolves the sacrificial layer, allowing the ethyl cellulose sheet to be “transferred” to human skin or numerous other objects. A key property of ethyl cellulose polymer film is that it can carry an image or text created using conventional inkjet printing.
That sparked the imagination of a team headed by Giorgio Bonacchini at the Instituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT) in Genoa, Italy. These guys have printed organic electronic components onto transfer paper and then tested the properties of the resulting circuits. They’ve even transferred the circuits onto edible objects such as pharmaceutical pills and pieces of fruit.
Getting the right pair of running shoes can make the difference between comfortable, pain-free running or limping around the next day bruised, bloodied and wounded. But how can you tell if the nice looking pairs you try on in the store or that pop up in your browser are going to be a good fit for you after 5 to 10 miles, or after weeks of running a lot of miles? These five keys can make it more likely.
… Connected shoes just haven’t convinced us. We asked the question “where have all the smart shoes gone?” back in 2015. It’s now 2018, where even your toaster is connected, and yet we’re still lacing up ‘dumb’ running shoes.
So is putting sensors in shoes too much of a technical challenge? Is the market still not ready? Or are the true technological advances in running footwear focusing on other things? We’ve been looking at what the future holds for our running shoes.
Lennon and McCartney. Abbott and Costello. Peanut butter and jelly.
Think of one half of any famous duo, and the other half likely comes to mind. Not only do they complement each other, but together they work better.
The same is true in the burgeoning field of oxide electronics materials. Boasting a wide array of behaviors, including electronic, magnetic and superconducting, these multifunctional materials are poised to expand the way we think about the functions of traditional silicon-based electronic devices such as cell phones or computers.
Yet until now, a critical aspect has been missing — one that complements the function of electrons in oxide electronics. And a team led by University of Wisconsin–Madison materials scientist Chang-Beom Eom has directly observed that missing second half of the duo necessary to move oxide electronics materials forward.
… One Norwegian mother, the pulmonary powerhouse Marit Bjoergen, finds her fifth Olympics in cross-country here, having won a silver at Salt Lake City in 2002, a silver at Turin in 2006, three golds, a silver and a bronze at Vancouver in 2010 and three golds in Sochi in 2014. That made 10, the number she took to her final Olympics with her 37-year-old body that gave birth in 2015 to both a son and, presumably, the attached skis.
On Thursday here, she walked with three teammates into a school gymnasium, beneath the glass basketball backboards, as photographers followed her from one baseline to the other.
“My experience from previous championships makes me calm and reflective,” she said, “so the pressure on me is a bit lower than my first Olympics. I feel like this is just another ski run, like all the other ones. So I’ll keep calm.” And: “It is of course tougher and tougher for me to compete in the top.”
… Danish researchers conducted a randomized, controlled trial investigating whether immobilization after a recreational sports injury delays return to sports. They found that starting rehabilitation for injured muscles and tendons (with stretching isometric exercises and then gradually progressing to strength and resistance training) only two days after injury rather than waiting nine days, shortened the interval from injury to pain-free recovery and return to sports by three weeks. Subjects in the trial were 50 amateur athletes with injuries to thighs or calf muscles mostly sustained in soccer or track and field events. “Delay in rehabilitation can result in prolonged pain and a delayed return to sports, a finding that emphasizes the importance of regular and controlled mechanical loading early after trauma to large muscles,” the authors concluded.
During 2012 and 2013, we did a series of projects looking at what could be learned from millions of days of activity data. Most of these analyses were never released, but one that we really enjoyed was looking at the impact of the Super Bowl on the majority of the US, and compared that against individuals’ activity in the home cities for the two teams: San Francisco (the 49ers) and Baltimore (the Ravens). The prototype is a way to explore the activity data and how it coincides with the game broadcast.
Across the US, we see everyone sitting down for the game, then getting up for snacks at the end of the first half, sitting back down again to watch the halftime show with Beyoncé, then getting back up again for another break before the game re-started. During the game itself we see the biggest moments for each team as spikes of activity—with fans jumping up off their couches and cheering. The near-comeback of the 49ers is seen as a series of spikes toward the right, with the final game-winning touchdown for the Ravens as the furthest spike on the right. After the game, most of the US begins winding down their night, while the Baltimore fans remain excitedly milling about, and San Francisco heads home from their parties to finish the day because it was still early evening.
… With the continued increase of adoption of open source technologies, JavaScript is now making a name for itself in the world of IoT. Recently, Fitbit introduced its newest smartwatch, Fitbit Ionic™, which is the first production device to ship with the JS Foundation project, JerryScript, since the Pebble. JerryScript is a lightweight JavaScript engine built to power the Internet of Things. It’s capable of running on microcontrollers with less than 64KB of RAM, making it ideal for compact smart devices. It supports on-device compilation and execution for very resource-constrained devices.
“This is a very exciting time for the JerryScript project and the JS Foundation,” said Kris Borchers, Executive Director of the JS Foundation. “Seeing JerryScript once again being incorporated into a production wearable device with a household brand like Fitbit is a great accomplishment for that team. Fitbit choosing to use an open source project to bring JavaScript’s power and approachability to the wearable app space illustrates the positive shift in corporate perceptions of the safety and reliability of open source and JavaScript.”