Garmin has enabled optical heart rate for swimming on the Forerunner 245 and 945. So far the feature has only been available in the Beta version of the app.
This means you no longer need to wear an uncomfortable chest strap if you want to monitor your heart rate under water. The info will be displayed on your wrist. Whats more your calories burned will be more accurate and you’ll be able to quantify the intensity of your swim as well as average and max heart rate values.
Fitbit has held discussions with investment bank Qatalyst Partners about whether it should engage with potential acquirers, the sources said.
Fitbit has not yet decided to pursue a sale and there is no certainty it will do so, the sources said. Qatalyst has been seeking to persuade Fitbit to explore its options for several weeks, arguing it could attract acquisition interest from Google owner Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O) as well as private equity firms, one of the sources added.
On the eve of World Heart Day, Apple’s Chief Operating Officer Jeff Williams talked exclusively to The Independent about the versatility of the Watch, the company’s health strategy and why it matters to him
Last week, Meru Health, a digital mental health clinic, announced the launch of a wearable to capture biofeedback, including heart rate variability (HRV), during mental health exercises. The clip-on wearable is affixed to an individual’s ear while they complete specific exercises, like breathing practices, directed by Meru’s platform. The goal is to show users a physiologically-relevant, quantifiable representation of the effect that correct, consistent use of breathing practices can achieve.
Meru program participants will be sent the new wearable in the mail and will be allowed to keep the device following program completion.
… The sensors within our fitness trackers have improved greatly in recent years. We now have more accurate heart rate monitors, accelerometers to detect the smallest changes in movement and positioning, and even ECG sensors in devices like the Apple Watch, Samsung Galaxy Watch Active 2 and Amazfit Verge 2 to flag up issues with our hearts.
But many experts believe this is just the beginning and soon our fitness trackers will be packed with an even wider range of sensors to collect data that could, potentially, save our lives, diagnose illnesses and keep our doctors constantly updated.
University of Massachusetts Amherst, News & Media Relations from
Scientists expect that in the future, electronically active garments containing unobtrusive, portable devices for monitoring heart rate and respiratory rhythm during sleep, for example, will prove clinically useful in health care. Now researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst have developed physiological-sensing textiles that can be woven or stitched into sleep garments they have dubbed “phyjamas.”
Graduate students Ali Kiaghadi and S. Zohreh Homayounfar, with their professors Trisha L. Andrew, a materials chemist, and computer scientist Deepak Ganesan, will introduce their health-monitoring sleepwear at the Ubicomp 2019 conference this week in London, U.K.
ACM Digital Library, Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies from
A person’s emotional state can strongly influence their ability to achieve optimal task performance. Aiming to help individuals manage their feelings, different emotion regulation technologies have been proposed. However, despite the well-known influence that emotions have on task performance, no study to date has shown if an emotion regulation technology can also enhance user’s cognitive performance in the moment. In this paper, we present BoostMeUp, a smartwatch intervention designed to improve user’s cognitive performance by regulating their emotions unobtrusively. Based on studies that show that people tend to associate external signals that resemble heart rates as their own, the intervention provides personalized haptic feedback simulating a different heart rate. Users can focus on their tasks and the intervention acts upon them in parallel, without requiring any additional action. The intervention was evaluated in an experiment with 72 participants, in which they had to do math tests under high pressure. Participants who were exposed to slow haptic feedback during the tests decreased their anxiety, increased their heart rate variability and performed better in the math tests, while fast haptic feedback led to the opposite effects. These results indicate that the BoostMeUp intervention can lead to positive cognitive, physiological and behavioral changes.
Reinvently, a mobile app development company based in Palo Alto, California, has created a number of healthcare apps, including those which collect, collate, and display data from wearable medical devices. The combination of a wearable device and a mobile app allows clinicians to monitor their patients in real-time and identify issues before they become a problem.
This approach is becoming increasingly popular, but in many cases, wearables are only as good as the software that accompanies them. Healthcare monitoring requires reliable and user-friendly apps that clearly display key data and alert users to issues as soon as they are identified. Bugs or glitches could have serious consequences when the apps indicate a patient’s wellbeing and determine treatment.
So far, the company has been the force behind some influential health monitoring apps. For instance, Reinvently developed the app that accompanies the Lumee Oxygen Platform from Profusa. The system allows clinicians to continuously monitor tissue oxygen levels in real time using the app, and is useful for monitoring at-risk tissues in conditions such as critical limb ischemia.
More than 70% of healthcare data breaches in the U.S. have involved sensitive demographic or financial information that could fuel identity theft, a new study suggests.
When a healthcare company is hacked, criminals gain access not only to health information, but also to demographic and financial data that could compromise patients’ privacy and financial security, researchers from the Michigan State and Johns Hopkins report.
Media reports often focus on the numbers of patients affected by these breaches, but what may be more important is the kind of data that has been stolen, they write in Annals of Internal Medicine.
… Below you will see the ten shoes that have been rated the highest for durability on the LRC shoe site (Rankings were from September 2019 from shoes widely available for purchase). If you want to find the current top 10 most durable shoes with pricing info for your your size, click here.
FlexInFit, for the evaluation of foot pressure inside the shoe, completes the biomechanical and postural analysis in conjunction with the freeMed platforms and Runtime treadmill from Sensor Medica. With 214 sensors in each shoe, the system precisely analyzes foot pressure in real time and can record data for up to 4 hours. FlexInFit is a versatile tool with many applications, for many professions: from the foot specialist who wants to integrate a gait analysis system to the physiotherapist who wants to check the real results of therapy, and from the athletic trainer interested in the study and improvement of sports movements to the physician interested in assessing pressure points inside the shoe to prevent the formation of ulcers in diabetic patients. FlexInFit can also be used to determine the efficacy of orthotic correction. The device is wireless and junction-box free to avoid interference with natural movements.
The inclusion of mobile computing in outdoor recreation raises important questions about its ability to contribute meaningfully to activities without detracting from their benefits to well-being. In this paper, we present results from our research, which seeks to explore and set directions for computing’s place in outdoor recreation. Our work addresses smartphone use while hiking. Our position is that computing already has a place in outdoor recreation and can contribute meaningfully to well-being in the outdoors now and in the future.
The distance of over 21 kilometres is booming – not only in Germany, but throughout Europe. Why is that? ISPO.com takes a closer look at the growing popularity of the half marathon distance and the motivations of the runners.
The nation’s largest consumer electronics chain, known for selling TV sets, cellphones and laptops, is looking to health care as a big source of its future growth.
Best Buy Co. said Wednesday that in five years it hopes to provide 5 million seniors with health monitoring services, which can range from sensors placed throughout a home to a pendant worn around the neck. It currently provides the service to 1 million.
It’s part of the chain’s deeper push into the $3.5 trillion U.S. health care market and essential to its goal of reaching $50 billion in annual revenue by 2025.
… In autumn the trends for the coming year will be set in the bike industry. In these days they write their order lists, determine with it already now, what is in their shops from March on, what should inspire us cyclists as especially practical, fun, fast, safe, beautiful and trendy. ISPO.com takes a close look at the bicycle trends of 2020.
We have an evergreen, curated superthread on our Reader Forum called Ministry of Travel. It’s a week old, it’s already busy, and it’s there because of American Airlines’ bike policy from earlier this summer, followed by Delta’s near match in its policy.
When we ask you, 44 percent say you’ll bike will travel underneath you, in the plane’s belly, more often than before because of these new rules. More to the point, if you’re an airline, 1 in 3 of you say you’re likely to change carrier loyalties because of this new policy. And of those who do are loyal to a carrier who doesn’t have this new liberal bike policy (e.g., United as of this writing), 73 percent of you say you intend to change your loyalty. (Even if you clicked that radio button out of frustration and not stark reality, if I were a non-conforming airline I’d be concerned.) Many of the remaining 27 percent say you just can’t change your loyalty because of the airport you use.
New modeling indicates that global subsurface ocean currents distribute submerged microplastics along very different routes than those traveled by floating plastic debris.
… Researchers in Finland analyzed the relation between medal-winning success and days sick in cross country skiers during the run-up to the last winter Olympics. They found that while medal-winners spent an average of 14 days per year with colds and other respiratory infections, less successful athletes spent an average of 22 days out sick with similar infections.
Similarly, a study conducted by the Australian Institute of Sport on track and field athletes over five seasons found that illness and injury that prevented or limited training were major factors in determining success.
On the positive side, athletes who completed 80% or more of their planned training were seven times more likely to reach their goals and succeed in events compared to those that did not.
They also found that most illnesses were associated with overtraining, and that 50% of illnesses occurred in the two months prior to competition when training loads and mileages are highest.
Current obesity rates in adults in the United States could be the result of dietary changes that took place decades ago, according to a new study published by researchers at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
“While most public health studies focus on current behaviors and diets, we took a novel approach and looked at how the diets we consumed in our childhood affect obesity levels now that we are adults,” said Alex Bentley, head of UT’s Department of Anthropology and lead researcher of the study.
The Adirondack Council’s 2019-20 State of the Park report is subtitled “Challenged by Success,” noting that the success of state tourism campaigns is straining the park’s lands and waters, as record numbers of hikers climb the state’s tallest mountains and as recreational boating and off-road vehicles gain popularity.
The challenge is especially noticeable in the High Peaks Wilderness Area, but can be seen in popular locations throughout the park, the report notes. State of the Park is the organization’s annual comprehensive assessment of the actions of local, state and federal government officials. This 38th edition rates 106 separate government actions.
The total number of park visitors is up almost 25 percent over the past decade, but some places the visitor increases are much higher. State records indicate, for example, that 4,000 hikers signed the trail register at Cascade Mountain trailhead on State Route 73 in 2000. By 2016, the number had rocketed to more than 34,000. All indications are those numbers are still climbing.
Gone are the days of hand-drawn topos, primitive sketches of a climbing route’s pitches and main features. Thanks to a two-year-long project completed this summer, we now have El Capitan—the Big Stone—captured in over 40 billion pixels.
Climbers and Yosemite guidebook authors Erik Sloan and Roger Putnam teamed up with photographers Eric Hanson and Greg Downing to create a 228,000-pixel wide image of El Capitan. A composite of 4,200 individual photos, the gigapixel panorama captured the wall in such high resolution one can zoom in to see every route, every feature in detail on the granite monolith.
It may seem like an obvious argument: Undeveloped lands, including parks, wilderness areas, and national forests, are critical refuges for endangered or threatened species. But scientists have had surprisingly little evidence to support that claim, aside from the occasional anecdote. Now, a new study suggests that if present global habitat-degradation trends continue, vascular plants and invertebrates living in wildlands—from wildflowers to bees—are twice as likely to survive as their cousins dwelling in nonwilderness areas.
To come up with the new figure, researchers first divided Earth’s land surface into millions of 1-kilometer-square grids. Not counting Antarctica, protected or unprotected de facto wildernesses made up about 20%. The rest were lands that had been more heavily affected by human activities, ranging from farming and ranching to mining, logging, and urban development. The researchers then filled in the known ranges of 400,000 species of plants and invertebrates—and estimated the extinction risk for each one.
They found that those species whose range included wilderness areas had only a 2.1% chance of going extinct within the next several decades, whereas those in nonwilderness areas had a 5.6% chance of extinction—a difference of more than a factor of 2, they report today in Nature.
A unique new flexible and stretchable device, worn against the skin and capable of producing electrical energy by transforming the compounds present in sweat, was recently developed and patented by CNRS researchers from l’Université Grenoble Alpes and UC San Diego (USA). This cell is already capable of continuously lighting an LED, opening new avenues for the development of wearable electronics powered by autonomous and environmentally friendly biodevices.
Electrical engineers at Duke University have harnessed the power of machine learning to design dielectric (non-metal) metamaterials that absorb and emit specific frequencies of terahertz radiation. The design technique changed what could have been more than 2000 years of calculation into 23 hours, clearing the way for the design of new, sustainable types of thermal energy harvesters and lighting.
Markus Niederberger’s team of researchers at ETH has used stretchable materials to develop a battery that can be bent, stretched and twisted. For applications in bendable electronic devices, this is precisely the kind of battery they need.