Outdoors + Tech newsletter – May 20, 2019

bracelets

Consumer ECG (electrocardiogram) devices, like the Apple Watch Series 4, are one-lead, and can only test for a particular range of heart arrhythmias. But AliveCor’s newest mobile ECG device that just gained FDA clearance could potentially do a lot more.

The $150 iOS and Android-compatible KardiaMobile 6L is the only consumer-sold six-lead ECG (other portable devices, like AliveCor’s nearly identical-looking but cheaper KardiaMobile, can only record one lead). It can record heart activity on six different leads at once (I, II, II, aVL, aVR and aVF). It can detect atrial fibrillation (AFib), bradycardia (abnormally low heart rate) and tachycardia (abnormally high heart rate), but promises to also detect other arrhythmias that could indicate heart disease.

… Kitting kids out with fitness trackers and encouraging them to view fitness through stats, data, numbers and targets is setting them up to see life as an endless competition. There is a commendable aspect to what fitness trackers are out to achieve. I’m all for encouraging people to move. They have served as great motivational tools for many people who find themselves in an exercise slump. But when they start to market that to kids, it gets a little dicey. Whoever was in charge of the children’s edition decided to not include calories burned or body fat percentages as a measurable.

… Experts say that fitness trackers can motivate us to get moving, however, unfavorable readings can lead to low self-esteem and feelings of guilt. Studies show that smartphones encourage people to hit the gym, while also inhibiting their ability to do so safely and efficiently.

And those are just some of the many ways that technology could be ruining your workout.

non-wrist wearable

Gymboss’ tough little interval timer doesn’t collect your data, but maybe that’s a good thing.

… “Bioelectronics begins and ends at the same places that the pharmaceutical industry begins and ends,” says Kevin Tracey, president of the Manhasset, N.Y.-based Feinstein Institute for Medical Research, the research branch of the Northwell Health healthcare network.

Tracey outlines the process to develop a treatment in the pharma industry: “You pick a disease, and you pick a target. Then, you screen for drugs or molecules to hit the target, and then you test them and sell them.

“It is the same in bioelectronics,” Tracey goes on. “We pick a disease and identify a target, but rather than screen for molecules or drugs to hit the target, we discover, search, or screen for neurocircuits that control the target in the body. Then, from the neurocircuits knowledge gained, we develop the specifications for a bioelectronic device to control the nerve to control the target.”

For roughly 18 months, AirPods play music, or podcasts, or make phone calls. Then the lithium-ion batteries will stop holding much of a charge, and the AirPods will slowly become unusable. They can’t be repaired because they’re glued together. They can’t be thrown out, or else the lithium-ion battery may start a fire in the garbage compactor. They can’t be easily recycled, because there’s no safe way to separate the lithium-ion battery from the plastic shell. Instead, the AirPods sit in your drawer forever.

software

… The Fika app provides five-minute emotional exercises based on techniques that combine the science of positive psychology, acceptance and commitment therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, sports psychology and mindfulness.

Most importantly, it emphasises the need for taking the time to talk, listen to your emotions and those of your friends, which all help to combat the impacts of stress and anxiety, which in a world dedicated to screen time, is a much needed approach.

… security researchers say that the big reason Bluetooth bugs come up has more to do with sheer scale of the written standard—development of which is facilitated by the consortium known as the Bluetooth Special Interest Group. Bluetooth offers so many options for deployment that developers don’t necessarily have full mastery of the available choices, which can result in faulty implementations.

“One major reason Bluetooth is involved in so many cases is just how complex this protocol is,” says Ben Seri, one of the researchers who discovered BlueBorne and vice president of research at the embedded device security firm Armis. “When you look at the Bluetooth standard it’s like 3,000 pages long—if you compare that to other wireless protocols like Wi-Fi, for example, Bluetooth is like 10 times longer. The Bluetooth SIG tried to do something very comprehensive that fits to many various needs, but the complexity means it’s really hard to know how you should use it if you’re a manufacturer.”

The users posting photos to Ever, a mobile and desktop app similar to Flickr and Photobucket, had a choice. If they opted into facial recognition, the app’s software could analyze photo subjects’ faces, which meant it could group photos, let users search photos by the people in them, suggest tags, and make it easier to find friends and family using the app.

For users, this is tidy and convenient. For Ever, it’s lucrative: NBC News reported last week that Ever licenses its facial-recognition system, trained on user photos, to law-enforcement agencies and the U.S. military. As more people opt in to facial recognition, the system grows more advanced. Ever did not respond to requests for comment from The Atlantic, but privacy advocates are outraged.

Users are “effectively being conscripted to help build military and law enforcement weapons and surveillance systems,” says Jake Laperruque, the senior counsel at the Project on Government Oversight. Had users been explicitly informed about the military connection, he says, they may have chosen not to enable facial recognition.

materials

Toronto-based Myant Inc., the world’s first end-to-end textile computing company, and Ryerson University’s FCAD, Canada’s leading creative innovation hub, formed a partnership to create new ideas and applications in the emerging field of textile computing. Dan Herman, VP of Strategy and Partnerships at Myant will be speaking about how textile computing is changing the landscape at the WT | Wearable Technologies Conference in San Francisco on July 9-10.

Through this new partnership, the new Myant Textile Computing lab at FCAD will enable groundbreaking collaborative research across disciplines into new user experiences, advanced textile design, and novel fabrication processes.

stories

… Why wasn’t it done long before? There is essentially no technology involved. Ok, a bit. Alex is wearing modern climbing boots, which have very sticky rubber. But that’s it. And reasonably sticky rubber has been around for a few hundred years. There is nothing technological that stopped human beings from climbing much like this thousands of years ago. Alex, transported to 1890, might not have free soloed El Capitan without his current boots, but he would have climbed a lot more big walls than anyone else.

Clearly, there has been an explosion in human ability to climb rocks, just as there has been in human productivity, our knowledge of how to do things, in more prosaic and more economic activities. And, reading the history, the rate of improvement has grown over time.

I think that in studying economic growth, we (and especially we in the Silicon Valley) focus way too much on gadgets, and too little on the simple fact of human knowledge of how to do things.

Rock climbing, popularized on social media and the subject of many documentaries, is set to debut in the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games — a sign that the sport has arrived, athletically and economically.

Andrew Bisharat, who’s covered climbing for National Geographic, told Marketplace host Kai Ryssdal that it’s come a long way in a short time.

“Competing on plastic holds, in an Olympic setting, has been quite a transition that’s really rapidly taken place in the last few years,” he said. [audio, 3:35]

biking

As Garmin associates and avid cyclists, we have the pleasure of not only working on Garmin devices but also using them. We know the frustration of taking a long ride and having your battery die. With cycling race season approaching, we want to share our tips and tricks to extend your Garmin cycling device battery life to help you achieve your race goals.

1. The backlight can be a top cause of battery drain. Garmin cycling device displays are all designed to be visible in daylight, and the backlight rarely makes a significant difference in screen visibility. To maximize your Garmin battery life, turn the backlight off and/or ensure it has a 15-second time-out, even if you have a device with an ambient light sensor.

… I’ve discovered a life-saving device that allows cyclists to protect themselves and take back the road: the pool noodle.

Find one for about $2 anywhere: dollar stores, shopping malls, even the supermarket. Choose from the array of fun colors and use a bungee cord to strap this light, flexible toy to your bike rack so that it sticks out to the left side (or the right side, if you’re in a country where cars drive on the left). Start pedaling and watch as car after car moves over to the other lane.

Wahoo’s new ELEMNT ROAM bike computer is built for long rides full of unexpected detours and discovery. Its new vibrant color display and smart navigation make it easy to explore new paths. Your bike computer should not get in the way of your ride. Whether your ride is a welcome escape from a stressful workday, a short workout that leaves you feeling accomplished and exhausted or a multi-day trip that leads you to places unknown resulting in memories and stories to last a lifetime the ELEMNT ROAM is Built For the Ride.

data

There are, of course, many ethical reasons to use nonviolent strategies. But compelling research by Erica Chenoweth, a political scientist at Harvard University, confirms that civil disobedience is not only the moral choice; it is also the most powerful way of shaping world politics – by a long way.

Looking at hundreds of campaigns over the last century, Chenoweth found that nonviolent campaigns are twice as likely to achieve their goals as violent campaigns. And although the exact dynamics will depend on many factors, she has shown it takes around 3.5% of the population actively participating in the protests to ensure serious political change.

Chenoweth’s influence can be seen in the recent Extinction Rebellion protests, whose founders say they have been directly inspired by her findings. So just how did she come to these conclusions?

Taping is a mainstay of preventive foot blister management in athletes and active people. Its use is based on the premise that rubbing causes blisters, and that tape protects the skin from this rubbing and/or provides thermal insulation from the heat generated by rubbing. This commentary highlights research that casts doubt on these assumptions and discusses alternative mechanisms of action for preventive blister taping.

… We sought to find out to what extent this was borne out in practice, questioning whether it funds research and allows publication, even if the findings could harm its interests and profits. Can industry money really bring all these benefits while simple conflict of interest statements negate any influence?

public lands

… Proving that public lands are effective places of national healing for veterans makes an irrefutable argument for more land conservation. And there will be no stronger advocates than veterans who have found peace and healing there.

For Aspen, surrounded by three wilderness areas — Maroon Bells-Snowmass, Hunter-Frying Pan and Collegiate Peaks — these lands take on significance beyond recreational tourism. They become sacred places for those who tread a path to wellness.

“It’s not a secret that our physical and mental health are affected by our environment and the people with whom we surround ourselves,” states Mandy Walker, a Huts for Vets alumna, Air Force veteran and social worker for homeless veterans in Denver.

A new report released this week by the National Parks Conservation Association found that nearly all of America’s national parks are dealing with significant air pollution.

The study looked at pollution in four areas: unhealthy air, harm to nature, hazy skies, and climate change. Using National Park Service data, researchers found that, overall, 96 percent of America’s 417 national park sites are significantly impacted in at least one of the categories. They found that 85 percent of parks have unhealthy air; pollution is harming nature in 88 percent of parks; 89 percent have haze pollution; and climate change is a significant concern for 80 percent.

This pollution negatively impacts the roughly 330 million people who visit America’s national parks each year, and has the potential to trigger asthma attacks or cause other health effects for certain vulnerable populations, such as children and the elderly.

Award-winning and critically acclaimed indie feature film Find Me is directed, written by and stars Tom Huang as an emotionally wounded accountant who breaks free from the drudgery of his routine existence to search for a missing co-worker, taking him to stunning landscapes in national parks like Zion, Yosemite, and Death Valley. Divorced and a bit lost in life, Huang’s character follows a trail of clues left behind by his friend who has gone missing, encountering a diverse cast of characters along the way. “It’s a classic boy chases girl story,” said Huang, “and then some… you will have to watch the ending.”

While the outdoor industry endeavors to connect with more people and increase its awareness of issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion, this film is particularly relevant now. It features multi-ethnic characters and their stories of how they’ve connected to the outdoors, such as Latina Amelia, who’s sister “kidnapped” her to backpack in Yosemite and getting her hooked on the getting outside or African American Jordan, who travels from Chicago to work in Death Valley, inspired to see the millions of stars not visible in the big city.

energy

… Zhu’s current expertise is in energy storage, flexible nanopaper electronics, roll‐to‐roll manufacturing, and the processing and application of biodegradable and renewable materials from wood, such as nanocellulose fiber and nanocellulose crystal. She has over 10 years of experience in high-speed, large scale paper manufacturing and > 80 manuscripts published on topics such as energy storage, manufacturing, biomaterials, and paper electronics.

Her current focus is on the investigation of the fundamental structures and chemistries of wood and wood-derived materials, studying the structure-properties-application of cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin. Her research group is also working on two dimensional nanomaterials for energy storage and energy generation.

Prof. Zhu was kind enough to answer some questions for this interview.

… Consumer demand for batteries — millions of batteries — translates directly to demand for mining cobalt, and lithium or nickel. The anticipation of such grand demand is already stirring talk of soaring prices for these minerals as consumer demand puts pressure on the supply side. The transition from fuel tank to battery is likely a lot less simple than many innocently assume.

Add smartphones. They, too, add pressure to mine for the minerals that go into batteries. And our lifestyles include repeated demand for mining every time we buy some next new improved phone with extra bells and whistles, and then add to our carbon footprint by using it to watch videos. Even solar powered garage door openers can increase consumer demand for batteries.

Solar panels themselves add their own demand to mine, baby, mine — think copper for wiring.

Washable, wearable ‘batteries’: based on cheap, safe and environmentally-friendly inks and woven directly into fabrics, have been developed by researchers at the University of Cambridge.