Smart bike helmet manufacturer Coros is expanding its lineup once again, but this time it is adding an entirely new kind of wearable to its catalog. The company has introduced a GPS fitness watch called the Pace that offers some intriguing features for runners, cyclists, and other outdoor athletes.
With an attractive price and excellent battery life, the Pace includes all of the features you’d expect to find in a fitness watch, including GPS tracking (GLONASS support included), a built-in optical heart rate sensor, and support for a variety of sports and activities. The watch is made from lightweight, yet still rugged materials and comes with a sport-focused watchband that is durable and breathable. The wearable device weighs just 42 grams (1.4 ounces), is reportedly waterproof down to 50 meters (165 feet), and comes packed with an array of technology that includes a compass, accelerometer, gyroscope, and a barometric pressure sensor that accurately measures elevation gain and loss during a workout.
… For $30 per month with a six-month mandatory commitment, anyone can become a member of what chief executive Will Ahmed is calling the WHOOP community.
Indeed, along with the hardware and analytics, which will report on and suggest recovery periods, ideal workouts and the optimal amount of sleep a body needs culled from the five variables WHOOP’s wearable collects 100 times per second, WHOOP is creating a social network where users can create teams and participate in challenges to encourage activity and use.
“We’ve now taken many learnings from the top performers and applied them to a consumer facing membership,” said Ahmed in a statement. “This is for a wider set of consumers — those that take performance seriously, whether that means securing a [personal record] on their next marathon, or improving their personal habits as a business executive on the road for work.”
… lately I’ve been considering the less positive relationship between wearables – specifically smartwatches – and my mental health. As we’ve begun to grapple with the negative effects of being perma-connected, wearable tech is playing a part. It’s not that these tiny computers on our wrist are inherently anxiety-inducing, but they do offer another door to our increasingly connected world: tweets, texts, emails, Slack notifications, minute-by-minute updates from a ceaseless news cycle. And ah yes, the meme hunters are at it again, and you simply must see their latest creation. It’s their best yet.
Without proper management, this portal can become toxic.
Part of the smartwatch sales pitch is that these devices can reduce the time we spend looking at our phones – “Be more present!” – but it’s a strange notion. I can choose to not look at my phone, but the constant tap tap tapping on my wrist is inescapable. The world is no longer just at my fingertips, but strapped to my wrist, hounding me for my attention 24/7.
It’s no secret that serious runners, cyclists, and triathletes try to keep close tabs on their fitness metrics while working out. Unfortunately, that usually means glancing down at a GPS watch or cycling computer to get an indication of how well they’re doing, which can cause them to break stride or momentarily take their eyes off the road. But a new product called the Solos smart glasses is looking to change that by delivering a functional head-up display that puts all of the data that outdoor athletes need within their line of sight without them ever having to look at another device.
While Apple devices come with a retina display, the Solos smart glasses use what is called a “pupil display” instead. This translucent screen provide quick access to workout information data by displaying exercise metrics in a high-resolution, bright, and full-color fashion. The display is just 4 millimeters square, which is about the size of a person’s pupil, and yet due to its proximity to the eye, it looks much larger and clearer. It is even reportedly highly visible in bright sunlight, ensuring the screen doesn’t get washed out during daytime runs and rides.
Cambridge, Massachusetts-based sensor maker MC10, known for its flexible and stretchable electronics, has received its first FDA 510(k) clearance for the BioStamp nPoint system. BioStamp nPoint is a more advanced version of the company’s non-FDA cleared BioStampRC.
“BiostampRC was primarily developed as an investigational tool, primarily used by academia, as well as by pharmaceutical companies, but they were doing internal development work,” Don Fuchs, MC10s’ senior vice president of marketing and strategy, told MobiHealthNews. “Generally speaking, for new drug applications and for phase 1 through 4 FDA filings, the biometric sensors that would be used to collect data for those filings, the pharma companies are looking for FDA-cleared products because they need to be able to point to a clinical validation.”
But BioStamp nPoint has also been approved in a number of other ways. The system consists of reusable adhesive sensor patches that can monitor users for 24 hours at a time. The sensors record vital signs like movement and heart rate and display them on an Android phone also provided by MC10. The system is designed to be used at home or in the clinic.
Scientists from the UK have developed a non-invasive wearable sensor that can replace blood tests for chronic diseases such as diabetes. The stretchable sensor can measure sweat, doing the same tests that would require blood.
The research was conducted by Bendable Electronics and Sensing Technologies (BEST) at the University of Glasgow, and the finding was published in the journal Biosensors and Bioelectronics.
Professor Ravinder Dahiya, head of the BEST group led the research.
The new wearable device uses a pH sensor composed of a graphite-polyurethane compound, printed circuit board (PCB) for data transmission, and a stretchable radio-frequency-identification (RFID) antenna. It measures around 1 square centimeter, but a pair of zig-zag interconnecting pieces allow it to be stretched up to 53 percent in length without impairing performance.
Artificial intelligence is now part of our daily lives, whether in voice recognition systems or route finding apps. But scientists are increasingly drawing on artificial intelligence to understand society, design new materials and even improve our health.
Gladys West is one of the people whose work was instrumental in developing the mathematics behind GPS.
Until now, her story has remained untold.
When Mrs West started her career at the Naval Surface Warfare Center in the US state of Virginia in 1956, just one other black woman and two black men worked alongside her.
“I carried that load round, thinking that I had to be the best that I could be,” she says.
Let’s say you hit the tennis court after a lay-off and leap for an overhead smash, only to feel the gunshot pain of your Achilles tendon snapping. That’s the big strap at the back of the ankle that pushes the foot down to jump, run or walk. The treatment is often surgery to bring the divided ends back together.
After it’s all sewn up, however, comes the vexed question of when to start moving and putting weight through the tendon. Too early and you risk damaging the repair, too late and you can get scar tissue that limits the range of movement.
The new sensors, made from polymers also being researched for retinal transplants and to patch dead heart muscle, promise to give doctors precise information on how much strain is put through the tendon during exercise. The idea is to gauge exactly how much activity it can tolerate and tailor rehab to suit.
The sensors measure direct pressure on the tendon, too – with sufficient sensitivity to detect a grain of salt – something that can also delay healing.
… We all have our niche, a sport we specialize in. And every sport has its own gear and tools, which add up quickly when it comes to cost and storage. But plenty of equipment can play double duty, reducing the clutter and the strain on our wallets. To come up with the following list of super-versatile gear, we asked multisport athletes to share some of their favorite do-it-all products.
This year marks our 80th anniversary. We’re celebrating by going back in time, to trace the history of the modern-day backpack, a history slightly older than we are.
Humans have been carrying loads around on their backs since time immemorial. But it hasn’t always been easy. Years ago, hikers struggled under cumbersome, ill-fitting packs. This made the hours spent traipsing through the woods miserable. Over time, pack technology has gotten better. Let’s take a look.
High-density data could one day be stored in fabric patches embedded in people’s clothing, say scientists at the University of Washington. Importantly, it wouldn’t require electricity, so the smart-fabric could be washed or ironed just like regular clothing. That could make it more convenient than other forms of memory.
Off-the-shelf conductive thread, which the scientists say they recently discovered can be magnetized, is being used in trials. The data is read using a simple magnometer. The conductive thread is used commercially now in gloves for operating touch screens, for example.
“You can think of the fabric as a hard disk,” said Shyam Gollakota, associate professor in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Washington.
When it comes to cell phones, there are few things more frustrating than a short battery life. As the battery bar of a phone dwindles down below 10 percent, there’s a mad rush to find a charger and an outlet, and then it can take up to an hour for the battery to fully charge. Twelve hours later, the process repeats when the battery drains itself once again.
But researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and Drexel University are working together on a novel technique that will allow batteries and supercapacitors to store more energy and last longer as well as drastically reduce the amount of time they take to fully charge. The technique could lead to better phones and electric cars, and even wearable chargers woven into the fabric of a shirt. Their most recent results, which focused on supercapacitors, have been published in Nature.
First thing, you can do this. If you like to run and live within running distance of your work, you can turn your commute into daily a workout—as long as you know how to get around a few common obstacles. It’s worth it. There is no better feeling than starting or ending the day with a run that also eliminates your need to be stuck in mindless traffic or tied to a bus schedule.
Four years ago, I started running every day to my job as a corporate attorney in downtown Denver. It’s as professional a job as they come, but I didn’t want to have to get up an hour early to get a run in—only to sit in traffic twice a day for the 2-mile trip downtown. Fortunately, my firm is ahead of the game and installed a nice shower and locker room for bike commuters and mid-day workouts. And that’s really all you need to turn your commute into a running workout.
I thought through all the things that kept me from running to work, got some pieces into place, and then picked a Friday to give it a try. Since, then I have run to and back from work every day, in summer and in winter, in just about any weather, for about four years. It became a rhythm that is easy to sustain. And pretty quickly, a funny thing happened. Getting to and from work became one of the highlights of my day.
High Country News, Kate Schimel and Brooke Warren from
… The West’s vast public lands remain its defining factor, but these days, their economic value increasingly comes from the outdoor industry. Nationally, that industry is worth nearly $900 billion annually, according to the Outdoor Industry Association. People made over 290 million visits to the West’s public lands last year and spent a lot of time — and money — along the way. Those numbers are growing, while the jobs and revenue associated with hydrocarbons and timber have declined over the past several decades. The West’s nearly 600 million acres of public lands have tremendous influence on what it means to be a Westerner, and that picture is changing. Here, a by-the-numbers look at the economic heft of recreation and public lands:
Going on vacation may be fun for you, but it’s not great for Earth. The carbon footprint of global tourism is about four times larger than previously recognized and accounts for about one-twelfth of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, a new study suggests.
Previous analyses typically tallied only carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions due to air travel. But the new study also includes emissions of CO2 and other planet-warming gases due to the construction and maintenance of such infrastructure as hotels and airports, as well as emissions associated with tourists’ purchases of food, beverages, and souvenirs.
Using data collected by and within 160 countries, the researchers estimate that global tourism in 2013 accounted for greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to 4.5 billion metric tons of CO2, or about 8% of global emissions that year. Air travel accounted for only about 12% of that total, the team reports today in Nature Climate Change.
Data collection for scientific research can be a tedious task, especially when it comes to gathering information from remote, wintry climates. But a group of scientists based out of the University of Oregon, University of Washington and University of Alaska have joined forces to mobilize an army of backcountry citizen scientist to gather crowd-sourced snow-depth data.
This broad, new citizen science-based program—dubbed Community Snow Observations and funded by NASA’s earth science division—is simple. When skiers and riders head into the backcountry, they can use their probes to take snow-depth readings wherever they are and then upload the measurement to one of two preexisting crowd-source apps: Mountain Hub, a platform for non-professional recreationists, or Snow Pilot, an app geared toward forecasters and guides. The data is then assembled and used by scientists to assess and interpret information gathered through aerial means by NASA and other agencies to improve water runoff models.
Professor David Hill at the University of Oregon is one of the scientists working on this new crowd-sourced data-collection model, and he sees great potential for this new way of activating citizens in the field to get a large amount of data—and quickly—so the information can then be plugged into a number of different models.
I’ve spent a lot of my adult life in search of stoke, and like a lot of recreationists, I have implicitly linked my passion for skiing, climbing and running with a passion for conservation and environmental stewardship. But after accepting this premise for most of a decade, I am no longer so sure. Can outdoor recreation really support conservation for the long-term health of the land, not just human access? In the face of the daunting planetary environmental challenges ahead, can stoke really save us? I suspect the answer is a hollow no.
In the recent past, alligators, wolves, leopards, mountain lions, and other large predators have been increasingly spotted in places where people didn’t expect them. Thanks to conservation efforts, these large predators—vital to their ecosystems and previously hunted nearly to extinction—are rebounding. But that also means that humans may find themselves face to face with them more often.
Nobody anticipated that new development. Scientists expected that when these predators rebounded, they would expand their ranges and venture into new land in search of food. People didn’t really think that the animals would try to return to the lands now occupied by humans. But a new study by Brian Silliman, associate professor of marine conservation biology at Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment, and his colleagues, found otherwise. Silliman and his team syndicated data from several recent scientific studies and government reports. They found that alligators, sea otters, river otters, gray whales, gray wolfs, mountain lions, orangutans and bald eagles, among other large predators are increasingly expanding their habitats, some of which are encroaching on human locales.
“We can no longer chock up a large alligator on a beach or coral reef as an aberrant sighting,” said Silliman. “It’s not an outlier or short-term blip. It’s the old norm, the way it used to be before we pushed these species onto their last legs in hard-to-reach refuges. Now, they are returning.”