GPS watches are core gear for many runners, but many cost hundreds of dollars. New from the makers of the popular app, the Runtopia watch costs $69 and provides most of the features runners need.
… The Forerunner series is designed for athletes who want to evaluate their training with detailed metrics, tracking and built-in data analysis. It’s geared especially toward runners. The watches are designed to be worn during any workout, as well as all day (and even night) to help you get a holistic understanding of your fitness—all grounded in robust physiological data. Adaptive training plans and advice, based on your workout data, are baked in to help you optimize your performance.
In this article, we’ll break down what’s new for Forerunner, how these watches compare to their predecessors, and how all watches in the Forerunner line compare to each other (and, in some cases, to closely related watches like the Garmin Fenix 5 Plus).
The Week in Review is a collection of both all the goodness I’ve written during the past week around the internet, as well as a small pile of links I found interesting.
… We’re quickly moving toward a world where AI will more seamlessly help to power our human intelligence and interactions.
Consider AlterEgo, a project originating from the MIT Media Lab — an intelligence amplification device that uses silent speech recognition, also known as internal articulation, to measure the electrical signals the brain sends to the internal speech organs. AlterEgo is a non-invasive device that’s worn over the ear and along the jawline. The signals it measures are part of the voluntary nervous system, meaning users must intentionally think of speaking words to trigger the device — a feature that sets it apart from other brain-computer interfaces (BCI) that are capable of receiving signals directly from the brain. The AlterEgo device translates these silent user signals into commands to control other systems, such as IoT devices, and query information, say from a Google search. A user controls the device without opening their mouth, and without any externally observable movements. They simply have to think about the words they would have asked Siri or a smart speaker out loud. Information is then relayed back to the user through audio. (AlterEgo uses bone-conduction audio to respond back to users, which completes the discreet information loop silently.) The entire interaction is completely internal to the user — almost like speaking to oneself. AlterEgo’s creators hope that this silent information loop will make people’s interactions with the technology both unobtrusive and discreet.
A University of Minnesota project combines robotics, simulated hugs and AI conversations in hopes of an eventual day-to-day stress tracking technology.
In a paper to be submitted by May 3 for the International Symposium on Wearable Computers, College of Design researchers detail a compression vest that can be used to relieve stress. A University of Minnesota Grand Challenges Initiative looks to combine three devices: a compression vest, a biometric-gathering bracelet and an at-home AI assistant into a stress management plan.
With the “Smart Hugs” technology, a person would speak to the AI in the morning about stressors they anticipate, and again in the evening to check in about stressful events. The bracelet would track the indicators of a stressor and the vest would alleviate stress via the simulation of a hug.
… At all levels, the patch will be a single use item that’s thrown away (or hopefully recycled) after use. That means no cleaning, no need to replenish the reactive dye or problems with adhesive for repeat usage. However, in this climate of renewed environmental consciousness, do we really need more items containing single-use plastics from a sports drinks company?
“We spend a lot of time on the use case for this 1st gen product and decided single use was the way to go,” [Roozbeh] Ghaffari says. “These materials that can be dropped in a regular recycling box. We do have the capability to build in Bluetooth and NFC, but that would require a battery. In a lot of cases, the battery is the biggest driver of waste.
“From our standpoint, it’s not meant to be a device that you use every day, the way you would a Fitbit. A pack of 12 may be good enough for a season, to give you a quick snapshot at the end of the exercise, or at half time.”
Garmin is the latest to throw its hat into the mobile women’s health ring, as this morning the company announced new menstrual cycle tracking to its app-based online fitness service alongside a slew of new Forerunner fitness smartwatches.
Starting today, Garmin Connect users can record their cycle type, symptoms and notes about their personal health. By doing so, the service will begin to predict when their next period will occur or outline windows of increased fertility. In addition, the app will surface fitness and nutrition educational content that is tailored to the user’s current phase of their cycle.
… When the anthropologist Claudio Aporta began studying Inuit wayfinding in the Canadian Arctic, he wondered whether GPS was just another technology that communities in the Arctic would adapt to and thrive with, like snowmobiles or shotguns, or would it erode something intrinsic and crucial about Inuit culture itself? When he first went to Igloolik in the 1990s, some 40 hunters already owned GPS units. The device’s greatest benefits were during walrus hunts: hunters could save fuel returning to shore from their hunting sites by plotting a direct course even when the shore was out of sight. But those who had grown up on the land still didn’t use GPS much, and knowledgeable full-time or part-time hunters merely used it to supplement traditional wayfinding. It was younger hunters who tended to rely the most on GPS as a primary tool. The combination of a lack of wayfinding experience, the speed of snowmobiles, and the ease of GPS could quickly amplify the dangers of navigating in the Arctic. GPS changed the routes that people take, sometimes away from paths whose safety had been proven over generations.
… The first thing the duo built was automatic tracking software that collected information from workouts and presented them to users visually with graphs. After thousands of reps of every single exercise they could think out, Spettel and Madonna built machine learning models that could classify the different exercises based on what they look like in terms of acceleration and angular velocity.
The algorithm, dubbed “Repcognition,” works in three stages. First, the sensors recognize if users are working out or not, dependent on repeating movements. Second, once users are within a set of an exercise, the software recognizes where the specific rep is — where it begins and ends — allowing for the third and final step, that classifies the specific exercises users are doing.
“You put all that together, you get the exercise performed, the number of reps performed and you can extract things like how explosive the user was and how much time and attention they spent, all these useful things,” Spettel said.
Air Force Material Command, Air Force Research Laboratory from
AFRL entered into a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement with Profusa, Inc., a company specializing in the development of biosensor technologies. Through an investment from both DARPA as well as the private sector, the San Francisco-based startup researched and developed minimally-invasive physiological sensing technologies over the past decade. Its novel approach involves a two-part monitoring system in which tiny flexible hydrogel sensors are injected under the skin, integrating into the surrounding tissue. A lightweight optical reader worn on the skin detects a fluorescent signal from the embedded sensors, resulting in a data readout that can be sent to a smartphone or other data collection device.
According to AFRL Scientist and Program Manager Dr. Jeremy Ward, this minimally-invasive approach provides reliable and repeatable data, while solving the foreign body response challenge that is common with most biosensors that are embedded under the skin. This response occurs when the body defensively builds up collagen around a foreign object. Such an occurrence greatly decreases the embedded sensor’s effectiveness at providing reliable information about a human’s biochemistry.
Until recently, only professional adventurers owned satellite communication devices. Most casual backcountry enthusiasts just didn’t have the budget, or the expertise, necessary to own an esoteric, expensive device that spat out weird numbers (Latitude, longitude? What?) on a hard-to-read LCD. If you regularly ventured off the cellular grid, you relied on maps, memory, and crossed fingers. All that has changed with a recent crop of more affordable—and much easier to use—satellite messengers. For the past year, I’ve driven to obscure mountain locations, hiked on tree-covered trails, and spent a lot of time sitting in the snow to track my location, map my routes, and send texts to my loved ones to show them how much fun I have in their absence. These are my favorite picks.
Four designers from the Royal College of Art and Imperial College have developed a series of machines that turn seafood waste into a biodegradable and recyclable bioplastic.
The project, called Shellworks, saw Ed Jones, Insiya Jafferjee, Amir Afshar and Andrew Edwards transform the shells of crustaceans into a paper-like material that could act as a sustainable alternative to single-use plastics.
The material consists of a mixture of vinegar and a biopolymer called chitin – a fibrous substance that makes up the exoskeleton of crustaceans and the cell walls of fungi.
Thousands of edible water bottles were handed out at the London Marathon today in a bid to reduce plastic waste.
The aftermath of the marathon is usually a sea of plastic waste as thirsty runners attempt to stay hydrated by drinking from then discarding bottles of water as they go.
But for the 2019 London Marathon, organisers arranged for participants to be handed edible pods made of seaweed extracts as they tackled the gruelling 26.2-mile route.
Drawing design inspiration from the skin of stealthy sea creatures, engineers at the University of California, Irvine have developed a next-generation, adaptive space blanket that gives users the ability to control their temperature. The innovation is detailed in a study published today in Nature Communications.
“Ultra-lightweight space blankets have been around for decades – you see marathon runners wrapping themselves in them to prevent the loss of body heat after a race – but the key drawback is that the material is static,” said co-author Alon Gorodetsky, UCI associate professor of chemical & biomolecular engineering. “We’ve made a version with changeable properties so you can regulate how much heat is trapped or released.”
The sudden collapse of thawing soils in the Arctic might double the warming from greenhouse gases released from tundra, warn Merritt R. Turetsky and colleagues.
Healthy bone is a balancing act. Our bodies continually remove older bone and replace it with new. As adults, if we lose bone at too fast a rate, replace it at too slow a rate, or both, the result is osteoporosis—weak, porous bones that fracture easily. The National Osteoporosis Foundation estimates that nearly 10 million Americans have osteoporosis, and over 43 million more have its precursor—low bone density. The disorder is more common in older than younger people. Fractured bones from this condition can be life-altering, and even life-threatening, but they are not inevitable. There is much we can do to maintain our bones. The earlier we start the better.
… Balancing family and work while training and racing at a high level requires some creative scheduling on Groner’s part. She averaged nearly 100 miles a week in preparation for Rotterdam, often running twice a day and taking only two days off once she began training in earnest for the race.
Groner has even found a way to train twice on days when she has her sons without sacrificing any evening family time with them. That means venturing out in the dark for a 5 a.m. run or squeezing it in after dropping the kids off at school prior to work. “Alarm off, running clothes on, shoes tied, hair up. Let’s Go!” her Twitter bio states.
Less than seven hours later, Groner is training again during her lunch break. She reserves longer evening workouts, such as 15-22 miles at a varying pace, for when her sons are with their father.
… It’s not much of a secret that I did unspeakable things to my body in the years that I was harassed by endurance racing demons. I’m paying that bill now. I need a cushy, compliant ride or I’m limited on how long I can ride or how often. I’m delaying ankle fusion as long as I can because that’s a one-way street, and in that hopefully substantial interim the Fatillac pictured here is my ticket to ride.
I mentioned above that I turned a corner when I started riding B Fat. It’s sort of like eating plain macaroni every day and being perfectly fine with it. Then one day you discover that you can has cheese…
GPS-equipped cycle computers are as popular now for use with social media apps such as Strava, as they are for navigation and training purposes.
Garmin dominates the market, with units ranging from the diminutive Edge 20 to the smartphone-sized Edge 1030, but brands like Wahoo and Lezyne are giving the GPS giant a run for the money with cool features and sharp prices.
Here we present the best GPS bike computers on the market, based on our testing in England, Colorado and Australia.
Only a few years ago, it was widely held that while 29ers were great for cross-country riding, their long wheelbases, heavy hoops, and floppy handling made them unwieldy and unworkable for enduro and downhill. Times have changed.
That’s partly because manufacturers have refined the bikes’ geometries. Head angles on 29ers are now slacker, top tubes are longer and mated to shorter stems for more stable handling, bottom brackets are lower, and rear triangles are tighter. Components like wider bars and dropper seatposts have made a difference, too.
Our first episode was all about getting a baseline health assessment and testing our mobility. In this episode, we turn things up a notch by testing our physical literacy.
Our expert and overall competition designer Adrian Lightowler (head strength coach from the University of Toronto) dives into why the tests shown in this episode help discover your fitness age. [video, 2:35]
Gyms are hotbeds of diet culture, with everyone from trainers to the guy working out beside you spouting the benefits of the latest fad diets. Be it keto, paleo, Whole 30 or intermittent fasting, gym rats are known for jumping on and off the diet bandwagon.
For most, testing out trendy diets isn’t likely to have much of an impact on their workout. But for distance athletes, runners, cyclists and triathletes, experimenting with fad diets is a risky business.
Taking a walk on a wooded path, spending an afternoon in a public park, harvesting your backyard garden and even looking at beautiful pictures of Hawaii can all make us feel good. Certainly, for many of us, it’s beneficial to have time outside in natural environments. Being cooped up inside can feel unnatural and increase our desire to get outside. The renowned biologist E.O. Wilson created a theory called the biophilia hypothesis, where he stated that people have an innate relationship to nature.
On an intuitive level, this makes sense. Humans evolved in an open, natural environment and removing us from this environment could have a negative effect on our health. But what does the research say? Is there actually evidence that being in natural environments can promote our well-being, prevent disease and speed recovery?
… What things should backpackers keep in mind as they plan trips this summer? Try new areas of the country maybe? Just alter their gear list? Embrace low elevation trips?
Spring is a dynamic time in the mountains, as the snow melts off and things transition from winter into summer. Normally this process happens before most backpackers get up there. But this year they will experience it. It’s a neat time of year, but you need to be flexible and be willing to adapt to the daily and even hourly changes.
The sweeping John D. Dingell Jr. Conservation, Management, and Recreation Act could mean great things for our national trail system, but it may take a while
For the third year, New Yorkers who have never camped before can apply to be part of a first-time camper program. The state will provide all the gear necessary for a weekend adventure, including a family tent, sleeping bags, sleeping pads, camp chairs, lantern, and firewood.
In 2017, the 40 slots over eight summer weekends were scooped up within 25 minutes. Now, the program is offered lottery-style.
To meet the demands of an electric future, new battery technologies will be essential. One option is lithium sulphur batteries, which offer a theoretical energy density roughly five times that of lithium ion batteries. Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, recently unveiled a promising breakthrough for this type of battery, using a catholyte with the help of a graphene sponge.
Sidhu Laboratories has created a class of 100% solid-state, high-performance polymer electrolytic membranes called SiLyte that offer numerous advantages over standard liquid electrolytes used in traditional batteries. Void of any ionic liquids, low-boiling point solvents, or low-viscous oils and gels, SiLyte electrolytic membranes are safe, high-performance, and mechanically-strong polymer electrolytes that promise to revolutionize Li-Ion batteries that are prone to explode when overheated or overcharged. Li-ion batteries also are expensive to manufacture, sensitive to temperature, and become unusable if the voltage falls below a certain level.
Hello Reddit! We are a group of scientists and engineers in academia and industry working on batteries and energy storage. Batteries are ubiquitous in our daily lives and we all have complained about them when using our favorite portable electronic devices. They are also critical in enabling the next generation of electric vehicles, such as electric cars and electric airplanes, and large-scale stationary energy storage. Let’s discuss anything regarding batteries and other energy storage technologies!