… In its announcement today, Apple names several third party apps taking advantage of the new features. This includes snoww, Slopes, Snocru, Ski Tracks and Squaw Alpine. Using these apps Watch users can now log vertical descent and horizontal distance; number of runs; average and maximum speeds; total time spent and calories burned directly to the Apple Watch Activity app. And don’t worry, your effort on the slopes will contribute to closing your daily rings.
“What’s the best running watch?” That’s a question I get asked all the time. As a journalist with a passion for fitness and running tech, I’m in the fortunate position where I get to test most of the new running watches released by Garmin, Polar, Suunto, TomTom and Co, so you’d think it’d be a question I could answer very easily. However, finding the best running watch, one that works perfectly for your running needs, is much like hunting out the right pair of running shoes, it’s a very personal thing. The choice is also huge. There are fitness trackers that also clock mileage, smartwatches with running apps, multi-sport watches that let you swim-bike-run and ultra trail-friendly options for those who like to run longer, get higher and go off road. There’s a running watch for almost every discipline, level and almost every wallet.
The Adidas edition of the smartwatch comes with on-screen Adidas workouts, breathable sport band, and an exclusive clock face. It also comes with an extra $30 on its price tag — taking the total price for the Adidas Ionic to $330.
Bringing Adidas into the Fitbit fold makes sense, and could actually help generate some interest in the floundering smart watch. After all, Adidas is the company that reinvented itself through high-fashion “collabs” with brands like Céline, Jeremy Scott, and eventually Kanye West. Now the brand is beloved by Jenners, Kardashians, and their admirers the world over. With its caché and experience in collaborations, Adidas could lend Fitbit an edge it sorely needs to compete with Apple in the fitness wearables arena.
But alas, The Adidas edition is in even more direct competition with one of Apple’s products: the Apple Watch NikeLab Edition. In April 2017, Nike partnered with Apple to release their version of the fitness brand-affiliated watch. That collab also featured a special Nike-designed look, but it didn’t have the additional “perks” of the ionic. What it really lent to Apple was a cool, fashion-forward factor that the watch was seriously lacking.
If you could design the wearable tech of your dreams for endurance training and performance, what primary data would you choose to display on the face of the device? Would it be heart rate? Heart rate variability? Cadence and stride length? Real-time pace? Mechanical power? Blood lactate level? VO2?
The possible choices are pretty much endless, and each of those options has pros and cons that provide fodder for spirited debate. But there’s another, less heralded pick that doesn’t get much attention—and according to a recent article in Frontiers in Physiology, it may trump them all. Well-known cycling expert Louis Passfield of the University of Kent’s Endurance Research Group, along with Italian researchers Andrea Nicolò and Carlo Massaroni, make the case for “respiratory frequency,” or breathing rate, which is simply how fast you’re panting.
The gist of the argument is that breathing rate offers a surprisingly accurate estimate of how hard you’re working—something more typically quantified by asking an athlete to subjectively rate their effort on a scale of 1 to 10 (or 6 to 20, an effort scale that is more often used for historical reasons).
Princeton University, School of Engineering and Applied Science from
Wearable medical sensors used widely in hospitals and clinics are spreading into the mainstream as tech companies increasingly incorporate them into popular electronics, from Apple’s smart watches to Fitbit fitness bands.
Princeton engineers are working to take these sensor technologies one step further by developing software that could one day use multiple health clues from wearable sensors to diagnose myriad diseases in real-time. When fully developed, the system would warn a patient who is developing diabetes, for example.
In a paper in the journal IEEE Transactions on Multi-Scale Computing Systems, researchers led by Niraj Jha reported that their system, the Hierarchical Health Decision Support System (HDSS), used biomedical data to successfully detect five diseases in simulations created from an amalgamation of patient data. The paper, published in the journal’s Oct.-Dec. issue, states that the system diagnosed type-2 diabetes with 78 percent accuracy, arrhythmia with 86 percent accuracy, urinary bladder disorder with 99 percent accuracy, hypothyroid with 95 percent accuracy and renal pelvis nephritis with 94 percent accuracy.
Last December, several members of the U.S. Air Force volunteered for a sweaty mission. During extra workout sessions at the Air Force Research Laboratory in Ohio, the volunteers wore on their backs adhesive patches that collected their perspiration. Sensors in the patches were able to detect the specific levels of electrolytes in the sweat the volunteers released. That data was transmitted wirelessly to a laptop computer app where researchers could analyze it in real time.
“We can measure the sodium and potassium levels — the electrolyte balance that correlates with dehydration,” says GE materials scientist Azar Alizadeh, who is developing the patch with her team at GE Global Research and outside partners including the Nano-Bio Manufacturing Consortium, NextFlex, Air Force Research Laboratory, State University of New York, Binghamton, and New York State’s Empire State Development arm. “This could be so important to anyone who is working in hot or high-stress conditions, like firefighters, miners or elite athletes.”
The disposable wireless patch, which can fit in the palm of your hand, is made from materials used in medical tape and wound dressings. It contains two key elements: microfluidics technology and a sensor. GE engineers originally used microfluidics in jet engines to manipulate the natural airflow currents coming through the engine and channel them to optimize efficiency and performance. In a similar sense, Alizadeh has created a patch with tiny pathways and valves that can channel sweat into a conduit that contains a sensor.
Wareable (UK), Michael Sawh and Conor Allison from
Another Mobile World Congress is done and dusted and from a wearable tech point of view, it’s fair to say it’s been a bit of a quiet show. Samsung, Huawei and LG didn’t give us any new smartwatches, fitness trackers or hearables to go hunting for this year unfortunately.
But that’s not to say the show was entirely void of new and innovative wearables for us to get a play with. Amidst the 5G chat and full-screen smartphones, we had some new VR headsets and experiences to sample, a couple of unique-looking smartwatches and, hey, even Sony decided to join the wearables party for once.
Here’s our pick of the wearables that stood out at MWC 2018.
Developing Apple Watch apps is extremely frustrating and limited for one big reason: unlike on iOS, Apple doesn’t give app developers access to the same watchOS frameworks that they use on Apple Watch.
Instead, we’re only allowed to use WatchKit, a baby UI framework that would’ve seemed rudimentary to developers even in the 1990s. But unlike the iPhone’s web apps, WatchKit doesn’t appear to be a stopgap — it seems to be Apple’s long-term solution to third-party app development on the Apple Watch.
The separation of Apple’s internally-used frameworks from WatchKit has two huge problems:
Apple doesn’t feel WatchKit’s limitations. Since they’re not using it, it’s too easy for Apple’s developers and evangelists to forget or never know what’s possible, what isn’t, what’s easy, and what’s hard. The bugs and limitations I report to them are usually met with shock and surprise — they have no idea.
WatchKit is buggy as hell. Since Apple doesn’t use it and there are relatively few third-party Watch apps of value, WatchKit is far more buggy, and seems far less tested, than any other Apple API I’ve ever worked with.
Nike says that this year it’s introducing “four new ways of thinking about sneakers for women,” including expanding sizes of its most popular releases, more curated retail experiences for women in stores and online, including Nike Unlaced, the company’s “new sneaker destination for women,” styling services for women, and more female voices in its marketing and design collaborations, according to a notice on its website
The sports gear maker said that its emphasis on women’s-specific design includes not just a consistent offering of footwear, but also recent efforts to broaden women’s access to sport, including its development of the Nike Pro Hijab and plus-sizing for athletic apparel. But the fulcrum is footwear that is a “transcendent symbol of athletic and stylistic identity,” the company also said. “One thing that connects all women in sport is sneakers.”
If you’re like most athletes, you probably don’t put as much thought into your socks as you do other pieces of your race-day wardrobe—that is, until painful blisters or cold toes make it all but impossible to ride or run. The right socks can make all the difference in comfort and performance, and many technical socks are specially-designed to address the unique needs of endurance athletes. Thanks to these innovative sock solutions, it’s never been easier to find your perfect pair.
A new biotech device made with gold can generate electricity when attached to moving body parts. This technology could eventually be used to fuel wearable devices and even eliminate the need to carry device chargers.
The nanogenerator tab uses triboelectric charges to generate electricity. These charges are produced when certain materials come in contact with other materials. Static electricity is one example of a triboelectric charge.
With the rate of enhancements in the field of wearable tech growing, in particular with touch sensing and stretchy bio skin technology, we’ve got some good news for you from the research front. New enhancements are making it easier to mimic the functionality of biological skin thanks to Professor Takao Someya from the University of Tokyo’s Graduate School of Engineering. They announced, at AAAS Annual Meeting in Austin, Texas, their latest research by a Japanese academic-industrial collaboration.
Researchers at the have successfully etched edible circuits onto the surface of food, paving the way for RFID tagged edibles that can help us track food from farm to tummy. The project, which uses something called laser-induced graphene (LIG), is a process that creates a “foam made out of tiny cross-linked graphene flakes” that can carry electricity through carbon-rich products like bread, potatoes, and cardboard.
“Overall, the process demonstrated that LIG can be burned into paper, cardboard, cloth, coal, potatoes, coconuts, toasted bread and other foods,” wrote the researchers who hail from Rice University’s Smalley-Curl Institute and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.
There are few feelings more satisfying than gulping down water when you are thirsty. But how does your brain know when you are dehydrated or satiated, and how does it use this information to initiate or terminate drinking? Caltech scientists have now mapped the circuit of neurons within the mouse brain that regulates thirst by stimulating and suppressing the drive to drink water. This circuit offers insight into thirst regulation in the mammalian brain, possibly including humans.
… Scientists think caffeine affects the body chemical adenosine, which normally promotes sleep and suppresses arousal. Caffeine ties up the receptors in the brain that detect adenosine and so makes it more alert.
But it may also increase stimulation of the central nervous system, making exercise seem like it involves less effort and pain. In high-intensity activities such as resistance training or sprinting, it may increase the number of fibres used in muscle contractions, meaning movements can be more frequent and forceful.
… It’s great to see more and more older athletes taking part in endurance events, but how does age affect things like recovery, nutritional and hydration requirements? I’m going to look at that last one in particular and discuss three common traits of aging that mean getting your hydration strategy right all the more important as the years go by.
Read more at http://www.triathlete.com/2018/02/nutrition/3-ways-hydration-needs-change-age_311122#WwE2xwlejVrTuRMZ.99
… In recent years, we have become familiar with the idea that data on our finances, shopping and surfing habits are floating around in cyberspace. Belatedly, we have also started to pay more attention to who controls this data. At this year’s Davos, there were heated debates about the dominant role of companies such as Facebook, Google and Alibaba, not to mention the Chinese and US governments. Merkel also raised the subject in her speech.
For Harari, though, the really big issue is what will happen when computers start tracking not just our emails, messages and money but our bodies as well. “When you merge the revolution in infotech with the revolution in biotech, you get the ability to hack humans,” Harari told the Davos audience. He went on to argue that “the key invention that enables infotech and biotech to merge is the biometric sensor”(which can read fingerprints, for instance) and that “given enough such information and enough computing power, external systems can hack all your feelings, -decisions and opinions”.
This sounds utterly far-fetched now – those fitness gadgets are nowhere near that smart. But the technology is improving so rapidly that Harari thinks computers will eventually “know me better than I know myself”, since “humans often don’t know themselves very well”.
… There are two contrasting ideas that I think are worth taking away from this discussion. One is that the hours you spend hiking through the mountains or honing your front crawl have value beyond the merely physical, and perhaps even beyond the emotional or spiritual. Sure, wilderness appreciation is not on the curriculum at fine arts schools, but I think the parallels are strong. The lessons you learn and the perspectives you gain from outdoor hobbies inevitably inform your approach to challenges in other areas of your life. Running a marathon or climbing a peak will make you a better scientist or businessperson.
On the flip side, in your pursuit of mastery in whatever hobby you’ve chosen, a narrower focus isn’t always better. Sometimes, to be a better runner, you need to get on the bike. Or, like Roger Bannister did amid the tumult of his final preparations for an assault on the four-minute-mile barrier in 1954.