Carnegie Mellon University, School of Computer Science from
We’ve become accustomed to our smartwatches and smartphones sensing what our bodies are doing, be it walking, driving or sleeping. But what about our hands? It turns out that smartwatches, with a few tweaks, can detect a surprising number of things your hands are doing.
Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University’s Human-Computer Interaction Institute (HCII) have used a standard smartwatch to figure out when a wearer was typing on a keyboard, washing dishes, petting a dog, pouring from a pitcher or cutting with scissors.
By making a few changes to the watch’s operating system, they were able to use its accelerometer to recognize hand motions and, in some cases, bio-acoustic sounds associated with 25 different hand activities at around 95 percent accuracy. And those 25 activities are just the beginning of what might be possible to detect.
… If you’re serious about your athletic pursuits, you won’t go wrong with a Garmin sports watch. The 945 certainly seems like an attractive option but you may be wondering how exactly it compares to Garmin’s Fenix range. We’re here to help.
The Apple Watch has quietly soared to become the best-selling smartwatch in the world, and its creator reported on Tuesday that it just wrapped up its biggest-ever sales for a non-holiday quarter. What was initially introduced as a curious extension of the iPhone has found its niche and enticed buyers, lighting a path for Apple to add new features that will keep that momentum going.
“It was another sensational quarter for wearables, with growth near 50 percent,” Apple CEO Tim Cook told investors during the second quarter 2019 call. “This business is now about the size of a Fortune 200 company, an amazing statistic when you consider it’s only been four years since we delivered the very first Apple Watch.”
… I ditched the watch, locked my phone and looked for better options to help hit my goals. For the most part, my tracking needs could be met with pen and paper and a simple interval timer, which lets you set timed periods for work and for rest and repeat those periods over and over again.
Though not a fitness tracker in the Fitbit sense, the timer allows me to easily track my set and rest times without having to look at anything, as it beeps or vibrates when time is up. It can also be used in a number of other ways, like high-intensity interval training (HIIT) or interval running, where you change your pace for different periods.
Sure, there are interval timer apps for your phone, Apple Watch and WearOS watch, and Fitbit’s exercise app has an interval timer. But frankly, fitness trackers don’t excel at tracking many activities beyond running and other cardio anyway. Plus trackers work best if you put in the effort to find and maximize their apps and data, so you should commit to that as well.
Electronic contact lenses have been in development for over a decade by a number of labs around the world. Having electronics integrated into a contact lens may provide medical capabilities, such as measuring intraoccular pressure, analyzing tears for glucose levels, and aiding people with poor vision. While the science of making smart contact lenses has progressed quite a bit, there’s still a major challenge of how to power these devices so they can do impressive feats and do so for long periods of time.
Researchers at IMT Atlantique, a French engineering university, working with folks from LCS, a contact lens manufacturer based in Caen, have now developed a way to integrate a flexible battery into a contact lens.
… Today, when I perform a full gait and biomechanical analysis at my clinic, I always include a portion of the analysis in an indoor controlled environment and also an outdoor assessment. The indoor section allows me to collect high frame-rate video of the sagittal and frontal planes with the runner in situ and also conduct multi-pace testing with the ease of a treadmill’s speed adjustment.
But the real “acid test” for me is sending the runner outside to run a predetermined course with the same wearable sensors that they wore on the treadmill. In this part of the analysis, I can see how their running gait responds in a real environment where their feet stay stationary during the contact phase, and the terrain includes uphills, downhills, and potentially even technical underfoot conditions.
The moulding together of artificial intelligence (AI) and the geographic/geographic information systems (GIS) dimension creates GeoAI. There is an emerging role for GeoAI in health and healthcare, as location is an integral part of both population and individual health. This article provides an overview of GeoAI technologies (methods, tools and software), and their current and potential applications in several disciplines within public health, precision medicine, and Internet of Things-powered smart healthy cities. The potential challenges currently facing GeoAI research and applications in health and healthcare are also briefly discussed. [full text]
Wearable technology designed to keep an eye on your stress levels, help you stay calm or teach you how to meditate isn’t new. Companies like Muse with its meditating headband, Spire and its devices that want to calm your breathing and Bellabeat with its wellness trackers were among the first to realise the potential of looking beyond tracking just the physical.
However, big tech brands are also beginning to pay closer attention to mindfulness tracking, adding more of these types of features to their smartwatches and fitness trackers, like Fitbit’s guided breathing sessions or Samsung’s recent collaboration with the meditation app Calm.
Suunto product users should already have received notifications about further clarifications to the recently announced closure of the MOVESCOUNT app, as Suunto transition to their Suunto app.
Nike Inc. is unveiling technology that aims to solve its customers’ biggest pain: not knowing if shoes bought online will really fit.
The world’s largest sneaker company is launching Nike Fit, an addition to its app that lets customers scan their feet at home and provides their proper size in various models. The company says 60% of people wear the wrong size shoe, and concern over fit has a material impact on consumer confidence.
… For most runners and gym-goers, the treadmill is a necessary evil. It’s an easy (and safe) way to get your workout in when it’s dark outside or the weather is less than ideal. For Ewens, the above-average winter rainfall in Northern California forced her indoors. But a combination of new technology and treadmill classes offered by many gyms has given the machine a new luster.
According to year-end data from ClassPass, a service that connects people to fitness studios and gyms, treadmill classes were the fastest growing trend in 2018 among its users.
From on-demand and group workouts to virtual running worlds with simulated courses, companies have given the most boring cardio machine a much-needed makeover, much as group cycling studios and spinning classes have revolutionized biking for exercisers. Treadmill-only studios, such as Stride in Pasadena, Calif., to Equinox’s stand-alone Precision Run Studio, have cropped up across the country, and companies such as Peloton, iFit and Zwift are catering to devoted “tread” fans with virtual classes in their own homes, mostly via apps.
After comparing dozens of models, we believe the Jabra Elite Sport are the best running headphones. These fully wireless earbuds go way beyond simply offering you music to-go. With onboard fitness tracking, robust resistance to water and sweat, and a shape that is guaranteed to stay put no matter how hard you like to pound the pavement, they’re everything a runner could ask for in a set of headphones.
During a recent trip to my home and native land, I was fortunate enough to tour the Arc’teryx headquarters, Design Centre and Arc’One manufacturing facility. It was an incredibly eye-opening experience, one that I won’t soon forget. It’s not every day that you learn life lessons from an outdoor clothing and sporting goods company, but that’s exactly what happened.
As a middle-aged mother of six struggling to reclaim my body, I wondered if their clothes would even fit my fuller figure. As a social sciences professor who encourages students to analyze the advertising around them, I went into the experience with a checklist of questions in my head — and the answers astounded me. Here are a few of the surprising things I learned about Arc’teryx while being fully immersed in their unique culture.
… A board lasted shoe is very stiff and has a piece of cardboard or fiber overlying the shank and sole (sometimes the shank is incorporated into the midsole or last) . It can be effective for motion control (pronation) but can be uncomfortable for somebody who does not have this problem.
A slip lasted shoe is made like a slipper and is sewn up the middle. It allows great amounts of flexibility, which is better for people with more rigid feet.
A combination lasted shoe has a board lasted heel and slip lasted front portion, giving you the best of both worlds.
It was back in 2016 when FashNerd.com managing editor Mano ten Napel had the pleasure of getting to know Madison Maxey over a cup coffee in Amsterdam. The Brooklyn based smart fabric engineer had flown to The Netherlands to speak about intelligent textiles at The Next Web.
A businesswoman on a mission, Maxey found her niche inventing fabrics that conduct electricity in a patterned way that enables the fabric to fuse without the need for the sewing machine. Embodying persuasion and perseverance, Maxey targeted soft goods product manufacturers, especially ones with innovation labs, with materials that function as a circuit board — perfecting her craft of developing materials that could be intertwined with fabrics Maxey has famously built prototypes for the likes of Google x Zac Posen, Flextronics, VF Corporation and North Face. So when Forbes 30 Under 30, Madison Maxey offered to write about her forte, e-textiles, for FashNerd.com we jumped at the chance to have her explain the world of e-textiles.
Bacteria across our planet contain nanometer-sized factories that do many different things. Some make nutrients, others isolate toxic materials that could harm the bacteria. We have barely scratched the surface of their functional diversity.
But all share a common exterior, a shell made of protein tiles, that Michigan State University researchers are learning how to manipulate in the lab. This will allow them to build factories of their own design, using the natural building blocks. Indeed, scientists see the structures as a source of new technologies. They are trying to repurpose them to do things they don’t in nature.
In a new study, the lab of Cheryl Kerfeld reports a new genetically engineered shell, based on natural structures and the principles of protein evolution. The new shell is simpler, made of only a single designed protein. It will be easier to work with and, perhaps, even evolve in the lab.
NewYorkUpstate.com, Syracuse.com, Kevin Tampone from
If you were in a business that seemed to be in the crosshairs of a corporate titan like Nike, you might feel a little panicky.
Of course, it would help to have over 90 years of history behind you and more than a million devices sold, like Central New York’s Brannock Device Co. The firm, headquartered in Liverpool, manufacturers the Brannock device, the legendary foot-measuring tool invented in Syracuse in the 1920s.
We’re not ones to hate on a treadmill run or a road race (never!), but trail running has some unique benefits of its own, and too many runners fail to take advantage of the twists and turns beyond their front door. Only 23 percent of runners said they were interested in running a trail race, compared to 75 percent of runners interested in a half marathon, according to Running USA’s National Running Survey.
But there are benefits to switching up your scenery. “Trail running is a great way to connect with nature, see beautiful landscapes and escape the noise of the road,” says Cyndi Wyatt, REI Outdoor School instructor who leads trail-running courses around the country. And that means benefits that last long after your heart rate goes down: Research shows that spending time in nature can reduce anxiety, relieve stress and even make you more satisfied with life in general—no small perk.
In “How Change Happens,” law professor Cass R. Sunstein, formerly a senior adviser in the Obama White House, draws on behavioral science to describe the actions that lead to social change, whether for good or ill. In this excerpt, he describes the power of breaking with convention and challenging the seemingly entrenched norms that “leash” and inhibit us.
There are plenty of good reasons that people should cycle more. People who exercise more are healthier and can score higher on cognitive tests, for one thing. And replacing short car trips with journeys by bike (or on foot) is probably a good thing if we want to try to deal with this whole climate change thing. But that will only work if people feel safe swapping their two-ton deathmobiles for a pair of pedals. And it may well mean providing cyclists with bike lanes protected from vehicle traffic with more than a coat of paint. In fact, a study from Monash University in Australia suggests that merely painting bike lanes onto the roads may be counterproductive.
Some surprise cities (Lawrence, Kansas?) and some veterans of ‘best of’ lists (looking at you, Portland, Oregon) topped out a survey that assessed more than 500 municipalities nationwide.
Emily Nonko details the evolution of bike infrastructure planning, and bike infrastructure project delivery, in Houston.
“[O]ver fifty new miles of bike lanes and trails now grace roadways, or are under construction, across Houston,” writes Nonko. “And there are more to come. The city is now implementing an ambitious bike plan that calls for, ultimately, 700 miles of on-street lanes.”
Nonko traces the evolution of the city’s approach to bike planning back to former Mayor Mayor Annise Parker, who called in 2013 for the city to implement a complete streets policy.
… Physiological loads can be defined as the biochemical stresses experienced by the cardiovascular system. Enough stimuli may lead to desired adaptations such as increased metabolic and/or cardiac efficiency, while an over or under load could cause energy depletion or cardiac atrophy. Examples of commonly used measures to assess the internal physiological loads include oxygen uptake (VO2), heart rate, blood lactate and/or self-reported ratings of perceived exertion (RPE). The external physiological loads, on the other hand, are commonly quantified by GPS-derived metrics such as the total distance covered or time at certain speed or acceleration thresholds. Although these variables may be used to quantify and evaluate the aerobic and metabolic demands of training, they do not describe the loads experienced by the musculoskeletal system [2].
Stanford University, Stanford Medicine, News Center from
Scientists at the Stanford University School of Medicine and their collaborators followed a cohort of more than 100 people over several years, tracking the biology of what makes them them. Now, after collecting extensive data on the group’s genetic and molecular makeup, the researchers are piecing together a new understanding of what it means to be healthy and how deviations from an individual’s norm can flag early signs of disease.
The results point to a need for a paradigm shift, said Michael Snyder, PhD, professor and chair of genetics.
“I would argue that the way medicine is practiced is deeply flawed and could be significantly improved through longitudinal monitoring of one’s personal health baseline,” said Snyder, who holds the Stanford W. Ascherman, MD, FACS, Professorship in Genetics. “We generally study people when they’re sick, rarely when they’re healthy, and it means we don’t really know what ‘healthy’ looks like at an individual biochemical level.”
In 2020 climbing will be an official Olympic sport with three events — lead, bouldering and speed climbing. The fastest time up the standard 15 meter speed wall is 5.48 seconds. Could it be faster? WIRED’s Robbie Gonzalez climbs with junior champion Jordan Fishman and professional climber Alex Honnold to find out. [video, 16:40]
Senator Elizabeth Warren is the first presidential contender to come out with a comprehensive set of public lands policy proposals – here’s what they could mean for your future trips.
… Four months after the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy (RTC) announced the Great American Rail-Trail initiative, the organization shared the preferred route that will connect more than 125 existing trails and 90 trail gaps over more than 3,700 miles between Washington, D.C., and Washington state. The Great American Rail-Trail will be multi-use, with public trails available for activities such as running, cycling, walking, wheelchair use, inline skating, cross-country skiing, and horseback riding.
… More investment is needed to ensure that park resources are preserved, as well as accessible and welcoming to all, which in turn helps boost the economies of gateway communities. National park visitors spent more than $18 billion in local communities in 2017, supporting more than 306,000 jobs and resulting in more than $35 billion in national economic output.
Fixing the parks now can help protect that revenue and those jobs, and show domestic and international tourists alike that U.S. leaders see the long-term value in maintaining the country’s park system at world-class standards.
The National Science Foundation has awarded a $452,000 grant to faculty at Binghamton University for research to generate power from human sweat.
Seokheun Choi, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, and Ahyeon Koh, assistant professor of biomedical engineering, will attempt to generate an innovative, practical and longstanding power source from human sweat, which is one of the few available energy resources on the skin, by using the metabolisms of sweat-eating bacteria. Their project is titled “Power-on-Skin: Energy Generation from Sweat-Eating Bacteria for Self-Powered Electronic Skins.” Electronics skin, or e-skin, refers to flexible, stretchable and self-healing electronics that are able to mimic the functionalities of human skin.
Choi said that sweat-based power sources have a lot of potential. Devices that scavenge energy from sweat could be a superior substitute for conventional batteries, energy storage devices and other energy harvesting devices for future e-skin applications.
The newly developed supercapacitor demonstrates solid performance and stability, even when researchers stretch it to 800 percent of its original size for thousands of stretching/relaxing cycles.
The team’s results, which appear in the journal Advanced Energy Materials, may spur the development of new stretchable energy electronic systems, implantable biomedical devices, as well as smart packaging systems.
“The key to success is the innovative approach of crumpling vertically aligned CNT arrays, or CNT forests,” says Changyong Cao, director of the Soft Machines and Electronics Laboratory at Michigan State University and an assistant professor at the School of Packaging.
The Conversation, Chris Howard and Mitch Watts from
… We’d been trying to separate layers of phosphorus crystals into two-dimensional sheets. Instead, our technique created tiny, tagliatelle-like ribbons one single atom thick and only 100 or so atoms across, but up to 100,000 atoms long. We spent three years honing the production process, before announcing our findings.
The two-dimensional ribbons have a number of remarkable properties. Their width to length ratio is similar to the cables that span the Golden Gate Bridge. Their incredibly uniform but manipulable width allows their properties, such as whether and how they conduct electricity, to be fine-tuned. They are also incredibly flexible, which means that they can follow the contours of any surfaces they’re put on perfectly, and even be twisted.
