All posts by blackfriar

quantified self

2014 CES stampede of the fitness trackers

 

http://www.medgadget.com/2014/01/ces-2014-watches-your-fitness-the-latest-in-consumer-health-and-activity-tracking.html

CES 2014 Watches Your Fitness: The Latest in Consumer Health and Activity Tracking

by BEN OUYANG on Jan 8, 2014 • 3:28 pm

We knew it was coming.  Wearable tech and health and fitness tracking has been picking up quickly, and CES was the venue for companies to push their way into the space this year.  Among the ultra-HD 4K TVs, tablets, laptops, and quirky electronics, were the smart watches that track daily activity, each with its own unique features. If you’ve become lost in the inundation of device unveilings, and are curious to see the smart watches and wristbands only,Medgadget‘s compiled a list of them to track down easily.  Read on!

basis CES 2014 Watches Your Fitness: The Latest in Consumer Health and Activity Tracking

Basis B1 Band (Carbon Steel Edition)

The new Basis B1 Band is revamped with a smooth metallic design.  It packs some of the most features in a smartwatch to date, including heart rate, movement, activity-adjusted calorie burn with proprietaryBody IQ technology (walking, jogging or biking), and even sweat output and skin temperature.

The corresponding iOS and Android app is also getting an upgrade to comprehensively track sleep and record time spent in REM, light sleep, deep sleep, as well as tossing/turning and any interruptions. The sleep mode is detected automatically with Body IQ, saving the user from pressing buttons to enter the mode manually, as with many other competing devices. Original B1 band owners will receive the sleep tracking software update. The B1 Band 2014 Carbon Steel Edition is priced at $199, and the original is dropped to $179.

Link: Basis…

Source: Engadget

 

wellograph watch CES 2014 Watches Your Fitness: The Latest in Consumer Health and Activity TrackingWellograph

The Wellograph is an e-paper smartwatch with a heart rate monitor, motion sensor and pedometer. It was created with visuals in mind and differentiates itself from other brands by displaying its measured data in graph form for quick interpretation. It’s set to run stand-alone, but has Bluetooth 4.0 connectivity for syncing to its app on iOS and Android.  It’s also equipped with a sapphire crystal front panel, for increased scratch resistance and strength. Such screens typically appear only on high-end watches, and the Wellograph is priced accordingly at approximately $300.

Link: Wellograph…

Source: Engadget

 

Garmin vívofit

Vivo CES 2014 Watches Your Fitness: The Latest in Consumer Health and Activity Tracking

Garmin’s vívofit is a sporty tracker similar to the FitBit that monitors activity levels and learns to set personalized goals for you.  It’s equipped with motion tracking, pedometer, and can be paired with a separate heart rate monitor. It touts a 1+ year battery life on a single charge, water resistance to 50m, and comes in five colors. Garmin’s elected to go its own route on connectivity, and the vívofit will have syncing to Garmin’s own fitness community, Garmin Connect.  There are no plans for iOS or Android connectivity at the moment.  It’s priced at $130, or $170 with the heart monitoring accessory.

Link: Vivofit…

Source: Engadget

 


Polar V800

Polar V800 CES 2014 Watches Your Fitness: The Latest in Consumer Health and Activity Tracking

Polar has added another fitness tracker to its long line of products.  The Polar V800 is first and foremost an activity monitor and GPS tracker to record speed, route, and location of a run. It comes with various coaching software to provide personalized feedback on things like recovery time, running improvement, training status, and a calorie counter, OwnCal, that Polar advertises as the most accurate calorie counter on the market. It’s waterproof to 30m and lasts between 14 hours of training to 30 days as just a watch on a single charge.  Its companion app, Polar Flow, is compatible with iOS and Android. The basic model costs $450, and for $500 the V800 comes with a built-in heart rate monitor.

Link: Polar V800…

Source: Engadget

 

Sony SmartBand + Core

lifetracker CES 2014 Watches Your Fitness: The Latest in Consumer Health and Activity Tracking

The Sony SmartBand + Core is a wearable wrist “life tracker” that counts steps and tracks activity (walking, cycling, driving, sleeping).  Its Android companion app, dubbed Lifelog, also tracks the photos taken, songs listened to, and games played on a smartphone, and it quantifies the amount of socializing you do with your friends.  The Life Bookmark button on the SmartBand instantly records “everything going on at that moment.”

At the heart of the SmartBand is the waterproof Sony Core, where the sensors and circuitry reside (the SmartBand is really just a case).  The small Core is detachable, allowing it to be worn elsewhere on the body, and also allowing for interchangeable SmartBand colors to fit the wearer’s mood and occasion.  The Core also has vibrational notifications for calls and texts to the user’s phone. The Core is expected to sell for 99 Euros, according to TheVerge, and a 3-pack of colourful SmartBand cases are priced around 15 Euros.

Link: SmartWear…

Sources: The Verge and Engadget

 

Razer Nabu

nabu CES 2014 Watches Your Fitness: The Latest in Consumer Health and Activity Tracking

Razer, a company known for its gaming devices, has unveiled the Nabu, a hybrid device worn for displaying iOS/Android smartphone notifications, activity tracking, and band-band communication. The activity tracking functions include a pedometer, motion tracking, altimeter, and basic sleep tracking.

The Nabu has two screens: at the top of the wrist is a small 32×32 pixel display that shows an icon describing the type of notification – email, call, text, etc.  At the palm side of the wrist is a 128×32 pixel display that shows the details of the notification, as a means of giving privacy to the wearer’s incoming messages.

The Nabu also has band-to-band communication, allowing two wearers to connect to each other with the band.  For example, a handshake between two people wearing them could exchange contact info, connect on LinkedIn, etc.  The final price is expected to be under $100, and developers can pick it up for $50 at the end of the first quarter of 2014, according to Engadget.

Link: Razer Nabu…

Source: Engadget

 

Pulsense band CES 2014 Watches Your Fitness: The Latest in Consumer Health and Activity Tracking

Epson Pulsense

Epson, maker of printers and imaging equipment, has also entered the wearable health arena with its Pulsense Watch and Band. These devices are equipped with technology for tracking heart rate, activity level, calorie burn and sleep patterns, as well as a golf swing analyzer (in development). The Watch is priced at $199, while the Band can be had for $129. More details can be foundhere in our earlier coverage.

Link: Pulsense…:

Source: Engadget
LG CES 2014 Watches Your Fitness: The Latest in Consumer Health and Activity TrackingLG Lifeband

The LG Lifeband activity tracker measures physical activity and calories burned.  It has an OLED touchscreen for intuitive control, call/text display and has a companion set of heart rate-monitoring earbuds.  More comprehensive info about the LG Lifeband can be found in our earlier coverage: Heart Rate Monitoring Earphones and Matching Activity Tracker Coming Soon from LG

Link: Lifeband Touch Activity Tracker and HRM Earphones…

 

reign CES 2014 Watches Your Fitness: The Latest in Consumer Health and Activity Tracking

Jaybird Reign

The Jaybird Reign band is a waterproof display-less fitness wristband that tracks activity by type (walking, jogging, ball sports, biking, and swimming).  It differentiates itself through its recommendation software.

It promises to learn and understand the wearer’s body and habits and to issue notifications when it detects that it’s time to work out.  It also recommends the personalized daily amount of sleep the wearer should get for optimal performance the next day.  It will have iOS and Android connectivity, and cost $199 at release.

Link: Reign…

Source: Engadget

cool, healthcare, technology

Bloodless detection of malaria

AMAZING: Able to spot single malaria infected cell among a million healthy ones without any false positives whatsoever…

http://www.medgadget.com/2014/01/new-detector-reliably-spots-malaria-in-seconds-all-without-blood-draws.html

New Detector Reliably Spots Malaria in Seconds, All Without Blood Draws

by EDITORS on Jan 6, 2014 • 6:08 pm

malaria blood free detector New Detector Reliably Spots Malaria in Seconds, All Without Blood Draws

A laser pulse creates a vapor nanobubble in a malaria-infected cell and is used to noninvasively diagnose malaria rapidly and with high sensitivity. Credit: E. Lukianova-Hleb/Rice University

Malaria continues to be a persistent problem in large parts of the world and a great deal of effort has been spent fighting the disease. Yet, diagnosing malaria still requires a blood draw, reagents, and a trained medical professional to perform the test. Moreover, these tests are both labor and time intensive, making them difficult to offer in resource-poor environments. Now a team from Rice University has developed a completely new test that doesn’t require a blood sample nor a reagent to test whether it’s infected by the parasite. Additionally, once developed into a product, the device shouldn’t require a medical professional to do the testing.

The system relies on a laser that creates “vapor nanobubbles” within infected cells. These bubbles eventually pop and create a signature sound that is acoustically detected by the device. In pre-clinical testing, the team showed that the device was able to spot single malaria infected cell among a million healthy ones without any false positives whatsoever.

From the study abstract in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences:

Here we show that the high optical absorbance and nanosize of endogenous heme nanoparticles called “hemozoin,” a unique component of all blood-stage malaria parasites, generates a transient vapor nanobubble around hemozoin in response to a short and safe near-infrared picosecond laser pulse. The acoustic signals of these malaria-specific nanobubbles provided transdermal noninvasive and rapid detection of a malaria infection as low as 0.00034% in animals without using any reagents or drawing blood. These on-demand transient events have no analogs among current malaria markers and probes, can detect and screen malaria in seconds, and can be realized as a compact, easy-to-use, inexpensive, and safe field technology.

Study abstract in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: Hemozoin-generated vapor nanobubbles for transdermal reagent- and needle-free detection of malaria…

Rice: Vapor nanobubbles rapidly detect malaria through the skin…

healthy habits, quantified self

Samsung receives FDA approval for fitness tracking app

captured mainly for the image – this is a heavy weight consumer electronics company making a big statement re. health – glucometers, blood pressure monitors, heart rate monitors… BOOM!

From: http://www.medgadget.com/2014/01/samsung-receives-fda-approval-for-the-s-health-fitness-tracking-app.html

Samsung Receives FDA Approval for the S Health Fitness Tracking App

by GAURAV KRISHNAMURTHY on Jan 6, 2014 • 4:06 pm

samsung health app Samsung Receives FDA Approval for the S Health Fitness Tracking AppSamsung has received FDA 510(k) clearance for its fitness and calorie tracking app called S Health to be used as a cardiac signal transmitter, according to a report by Mobihealthnews. With this approval, the app can be synced with third party wireless blood glucometers, blood pressure monitors, and heart rate monitors. Samsung also sells a body scale and heart rate monitor that works seamlessly with the S Health app to register weight data and heart rate information for more accurate fitness tracking.

In order to use the S Health app, the user first enters relevant personal information such as age, sex, and weight, and then has the option to make use of the pedometer on phones such us Galaxy S4 and S5 to track the number of steps taken during the day. The app then uses this step data along with previously entered weight information to estimate the amount of calories burned. Users can enter “daily step goals” in the app to help motivate them to stay fit and active. The app also pulls room temperature and humidity information from the sensors in phones, such the Galaxy S4 and S5, to give the user a complete picture during their workouts.

Users can enter their calorie intake by selecting the type and portion of each meal and the app automatically determines the amount of calories consumed based on that data. Users can also tag each entry with a photo of the meal to help keep track of their entries.

With all the syncing capability, as well as calorie intake and fitness monitoring, users can not only have more accurate inputs for advanced calorie measurements, but can also see all their health information on the S Health dashboard and have access to pertinent cardiology metrics in the palm of their hands.

Product page: S Health…

Mobihealthnews: Samsung gets FDA clearance for S Health app…

cool, data saving lives, facts & data points, musings, silly

Facial hair trends:1842 – 1976

  • Terrific find on facial hair trends over the 20th century
  • The introduction of the safety razor and world wars have had neglible impact on trends

Source Paper: robinson1976a_facialhairtrends

Source: http://flowingdata.com/2014/01/08/facial-hair-trends-over-time/

Facial hair trends over time

JANUARY 8, 2014  |  STATISTICAL VISUALIZATION

Facial hair trends

In 1976, Dwight E. Robinson, an economist at the University of Washington, studied facial hair of the men who appeared in the Illustrated London News from 1842 to 1972 [pdf].

The remarkable regularity of our wavelike fluctuations suggests a large measure of independence from outside historical events. The innovation of the safety razor and the wars which occurred during the period studied appear to have had negligible effects on the time series. King C. Gillette’s patented safety razor began its meteoric sales rise in 1905. But by that year beardlessness had already been on the rise for more than 30 years, and its rate of expansion seems not to have augmented appreciably afterward.

Someone has to update this to the present. I’m pretty sure we’re headed towards a bearded peak, if we’re not at the top already.

 

BUT THEN THIS FROM THE ATLANTIC:

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/01/the-rise-and-fall-and-rise-of-facial-hair/282951/

The Rise and Fall—and Rise—of Facial Hair

There was a time when the best option was to wear both sideburns and a mustache.
 Library Company of Philadelphia/flickr

In 1940, the anthropologists Jane Richardson and Alfred Kroeber examined pictures of catalogues, magazines, and drawings dating back to the 1600s in an attempt to find trends in the cuts and styles of women’s dresses. What they produced were fascinating graphs of evolving social mores, with periods of plunging necklines quickly succeeded by buttoned-up decades of modesty, and vice-versa. One particularly entertaining chart shows generally Amish-length skirts throughout history — save for a racy, rapid shortening during the libidinous 1920s.

Skirt lengths by decade, from 1600 to 1940. (Richardson and Kroeber)

In 1976, University of Washington economist Dwight E. Robinson sought to apply the same technique to fashion trends in the opposite sex—specifically, in men’s “facial barbering.”

For the study, published in the American Journal of Sociology, he examined the period between 1842 and 1972, the years of continuous weekly publication of the Illustrated London News. Since this was the “world’s most venerable pictorial news magazine,” it would serve as his sole source.

With the acknowledgement that the “gentlemen of the News” were largely limited to prominent members of society, he set about counting the frequency with which five different facial hair styles appeared: sideburns alone, sideburns and mustache, a beard (“any amount of whiskers centering on the chin,” in case you were confused), mustache alone, and clean-shaven. He excluded pictures of royalty, models, and non-Europeans, and gathered about 100 images for each year.

Here are the bristly results:

American Journal of Sociology

Beards and sideburns began losing their luster in the mid-late 1800s, while mustaches hit their apex in the early 20th century and have been increasingly less popular ever since. The number of brave souls who sported both sideburns and mustaches peaked in 1877, though the study did not address their later resurgence in modern-day Bushwick.

Few were clean-shaven in the late 1800s, but by the 1970s, nearly everyone was:

American Journal of Sociology

What’s more, the great “beard wave” of 1844 to 1955 corresponded to a similar heydey, for whatever reason, of extra-wide skirts in the Richardson-Kroeber study:

American Journal of Sociology 

Robinson’s theory as to why fashion—both sartorial and hirsute—seems to come in waves is this: Young people tend to eschew the tastes of their elders, but old trends seem new again after a sufficient amount of time has passed. So while long skirts may fall out of favor for one generation, their grandchildren will think they’re the cat’s pajamas.

1890s and 1950s dresses (Herbert Art Gallery & Museum, Coventry/Bess Georgette/flickr)

And most men might have been anti-beard between the 1940s and 1976, but a spin around the nearest artisanal cheese shop today will show that’s no longer the case.

cool, quantified self, technology

Baby cry analytics

Unearthing powerful meaning from something as tedious and mind-numbing as a baby’s cry… nifty!

 

Source: http://www.springwise.com/early-health-diagnoses-single-baby-cry/

Early health diagnoses from a single baby cry

Brown University scientists have developed a baby crying analysis system that can help diagnose illnesses from the acoustic quality of the cry alone.alttext

United States 19th December 2013 in Health & Wellbeing.
When a baby cries, it’s usually because they need something — whether that’s breast-feeding, changing, burping or simply attention. But according to researchers at Brown University, babies cries also contain extra information that indicates the state of their health. The scientists have now developed a baby crying analysis system that can help diagnose illnesses from the acoustic quality of the cry alone.A collaboration between the university and the Women & Infants Hospital in Rhode Island, the research showed that a range of different conditions manifest themselves acoustically in the cry of babies, although the difference is imperceptible to human ears. Its digital platform takes recordings of cries, splits them into small 12.5-millisecond clips before analyzing them for any of 80 flags that may indicate anything from neurological problems or developmental disorders. The flags in each clip are then averaged out over the duration of a single cry to determine which ones are most pertinent. Harvey Silverman, professor of engineering and director of Brown’s Laboratory for Engineering Man/Machine Systems: “It’s a comprehensive tool for getting as much important stuff out of a baby cry that we can.” The idea is that the system could detect early signs of disorders such as autism, which typically aren’t apparent until the child is older.

Although the researchers don’t currently have a plan in mind to bring the system to market, it’s easy to see how an app could be developed. Could other kinds of health information be gleaned from unusual sources such as this?

Website: www.brown.edu
Contact: kevin_stacey@brown.edu

Spotted by Murtaza Patel, written by Springwise

nutrition

Frozen peas may retain vitamins better than fresh stored

A potential food processing ally… worth considering alongside broccoli farmers.

Freezing is nature’s pause button.

Frozen produce may retain vitamins better than fresh stored: study

By Maggie Hennessy, 25-Nov-2013

Related topics: Fruit, vegetable, nut ingredients, R&D, Markets

Frozen produce is statistically equal to fresh when it comes to vitamin and mineral content, and retains vitamins equally so or better than produce stored in the refrigerator for a few days, according to a recent study from the University of Georgia in Athens.

“Consumers tend to have the impression that fresh is generally superior to frozen, but that assumption is misplaced,” Ronald Pegg, study co-author and associate professor at The University of Georgia College of Agricultural & Environmental Sciences, told FoodNavigator-USA.

For the study, titled “Nutritional comparison of fresh, fresh stored and frozen fruits and vegetables: Vitamin C, Vitamin A, Folate and Minerals,” fresh and private-label frozen blueberries, strawberries, broccoli, green beans, corn, spinach, cauliflower, and green peas were purchased from six local supermarkets over a two-year period. A composite sample of each fruit or vegetable was prepared with equal quantities of the produce from each supermarket. Fresh produce was analyzed for nutrients on the purchase day and again after five days of storage in a kitchen refrigerator, to mimic consumers’ typical purchasing and storage habits of fresh produce.

Vitamins C, A, and folate proved to be susceptible to degradation by enzymatic and oxidative mechanisms in the fresh-stored versions, whereas minerals did not. And in most cases, the frozen produce was not statistically different from its fresh counterpart in terms of vitamin content.

If you put fresh produce in the fridge, it degrades over time and loses nutrients

Dr. Pegg said he wasn’t surprised by the study’s results, as he’s “always had the point of view that frozen was going to be similar to fresh,” though he was intrigued by the nutritional degradation of fresh-stored produce noted in each instance.

“What we did see, and this was interesting, that the vitamin content of samples stored in fridge for a little time, in every single case, always decreased from their fresh counterparts.

“And in many cases, the frozen version was superior to fresh-stored: be it in vitamin A, folate or vitamin C levels,” he said.

“If you put fresh produce into the refrigerator, this vegetable or fruit is a living material—it respires, there’s oxidation and enzymes operating. It degrades over time and loses nutrients. That’s normal and to be expected.

“Freezing in essence is nature’s pause button. It maintains freshness in what we call fresh foods, slows down enzymatic reactions, increases the time it takes for anything to degrade.”

Freezing is nature’s pause button

There were some small variations (e.g., vitamin C levels in fresh-stored and blanched, frozen spinach was significantly less than fresh; frozen green peas had significantly higher vitamin A levels than means of fresh and fresh-stored; and mean folate levels for blueberries, corn and green peas were significantly greater than their fresh-stored counterparts).

“The way the study was designed, we tried to reduce variability in that we prepared composite samples, went to six supermarkets, and purchased certain quantities of each,” Dr. Pegg said.

“But there is always some inherent variability. When a significant difference existed, such as frozen was superior to fresh-stored, that difference was not of huge magnitude. We’re not talking about a difference of 100 times. But it does bring back the message that frozen fruits and vegetables are not inherently different from their fresh counterparts.”

business, healthcare, startup

Steve Blank – Lean LaunchPad class in Life Science

Steve Blank’s Lean LaunchPad start up class covering life sciences, digital health, diagnostics and medical devices.

Ties in to lean start up approach.

http://steveblank.com/category/life-sciences/

Discovered via this MedGadget interview:  http://www.medgadget.com/2013/12/leaning-out-the-life-sciences-interview-with-steve-blank.html

Blank’s HBR article: HBR_LeanStartUp

Business Model Canvas care of Business Model Generation: business_model_canvas_poster

BizModelCanvas

nutrition, policy, politics

Industry walks away from regulation…

The food industry play book in action in Scotland…

Scotland abandons responsible food marketing standard

By Caroline Scott-Thomas+, 11-Dec-2013

Related topics: Food safety and labelling, Legislation, Sugar, salt and fat reduction, Marketing

The Scottish government has shelved a standard for responsible food and drink marketing intended to tackle Scotland’s obesity problem, after food industry participants withdrew from discussions.

The government said in April that it would develop a third party certified publically available specification (PAS 2500) on responsible food and drink marketing in partnership with the British Standards Institute (BSI). A Steering Group was set up, consisting mainly of food industry and marketing associations “to give the process credibility and to ensure engagement and industry buy-in.”

However, in a letter addressed to Steering Group members seen by FoodNavigator, the BSI said that although there seemed to be agreement that the project should be attempted, “it was apparent that there was considerable scepticism in respect of the validity of the objectives for the PAS, amongst some sections of the stakeholder community”.

The industry ‘supports balance’

The standard was intended to provide a benchmark for the responsible marketing of food and drink to cut consumption of food high in fat, salt and sugar, but industry trade body, the Food and Drink Federation (FDF), says that it did not recognise that current approaches to food promotion already encourage balanced diets.

“By changing product recipes, creating new healthier options, investing in consumer education, providing clear labelling and promoting a wide range of products, the industry supports individuals to find the right balance,”said FDF director of communication Terry Jones.

“The PAS process did not recognise this context. It would restrict the information available to consumers and risk undermining one of Scotland’s most important industries and putting up prices for hard pressed consumers.”

No one from the FDF responded prior to publication to a query about which information would be restricted.

Government ‘could not continue without industry involvement’

The Scottish government said that it was now considering industry responses to draft proposals on other voluntary measures to encourage healthy choices, and aims to publish strategies for marketing and reformulation in April next year.

Referring to the shelved specification, a government spokesperson told this publication: “Unfortunately it could not continue without the food industry’s involvement. However, we welcome the assurance from all parties that they remain committed to constructive engagement on the issue of marketing of HFSS foods.”

Consumer watchdog organisation Which? urged the Scottish government to set out how it is now going to ensure action on more responsible marketing.

“People tell us that responsible marketing is one of the main areas they think Government should address to make it easier for people to eat healthily so it’s disappointing that talks have ended because of the withdrawal of the main industry groups,” a spokesperson said.