Gizmodo Australia » gym

Is iPhone 3.0’s Mysterious iProd a Bitchy Personal Trainer?

Matt Buchanan — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 15:55:30 +0000

In addition to referencing brand new iPhones and iPods, the iPhone 3.0 OS also mentions the intriguing “iProd.” Which is what British publications called a bitchy digital personal trainer Apple patented last year.

Apple filed patents on an iPod touch-like personal trainer that tracks your fitness level and schedule, has personalised workouts, answers nutrition and health questions and monitors your heart-rate and motion through sensors to track your workouts. And if you wimp out of your workout, it bitches at you. Hence, “iProd,” though it’s mentioned nowhere in the actual patent application.

Personally, I’m still on the bandwagon “iProd0,1″ is a generic iProduct placeholder, which is in fact standing in for magic French toast. [New Scientist, Times Online - Thanks Evan!]

Gym Car Concept Sounds Both Healthy and Extremely Dangerous

Gizmodo US Edition — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 19:30:00 +0000

Designer Da Feng created the Gym Car mockup that includes a near-complete home gym as well as a Batmobile-esque carbon fibre exterior. No word on the safety of doing bench-presses while driving.

The car’s interior features a step machine, rowing machine, bench press, pull-up simulator and weights, and the energy outputted during a workout would go to powering its batteries. The exterior design of the car is supposedly inspired by World War II fighter planes, which sounds a lot more professional than “inspired by Batman.”

Given the many laws prohibiting something as easy as talking on a phone while driving, we’ve got to believe the transit authority would frown upon any combination of exercise and driving, but I could see the benefit of a little stationary bike or something to help pass the time during a long commute. [Wired]

Prospot Fusion Home Gym Combines the Tedium of Exercise With the Excitement Of Watching Things On a TV

Jason Chen — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 19:20:00 +0000

As you can tell by our headshots, the only way most of the editors here at Giz would exercise is if you stuck a TV onto gym equipment. Good news! That’s exactly what Prospot did with their Fusion HG6. The base unit costs US$4699 and looks quite sturdy and useful on its own, but coupled with the on-board media centre features it’s the rich nerd’s only hope to getting in shape—other than sticking a regular home gym in the same room as a regular TV that is. [Prospotfitness via Born Rich via Coolest Gadgets]

Nike+ Gym Equipment Coming July

Gizmodo US Edition — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 11:50:00 +0000

Following up on the promise made back in March, Apple and Nike have integrated Nike+ iPod technology into gym equipment. 24 Hour Fitness, the largest fitness chain in the US, will be the first to roll out the equipment to select locations across the country starting in July. [BusinessWire]

Multigym-in-a-Closet Keeps Your Fitness Under Wraps

Gizmodo US Edition — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 10:45:00 +0000

Gym bunnies amongst you might be interested in the Murphy Gym, a shallow cupboard full of the kind of equipment you need to look like a condom stuffed with walnuts—marbled walnuts if you are either a hunk of Kobe beef, or if you like popping S.T.E.Roids as if they were M&Ms. I’m also guessing that this little gym-in-a-closet might be appealing to pervy modders out there, who could swap the chest expander for something even more black and rubbery. And for those of you who like a nice bit of bedroom farce, this could be the cupboard that the really thin lover, clad in black polo neck and jeans, hides in when his lady friend’s husband returns home from work early. [Apartment Therapy]

Nike + iPod to Jack Directly Into Gym Equipment

Matt Buchanan — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 19:20:45 +0000

Nike + iPod is great for running, not so great for most other stuff in the gym. So, Nike and Apple are teaming up with most of the major gym equipment makers—Life Fitness, Precor, Star Trac and Technogym—to make their cardio equipment Nike + iPod-friendly. You’ll be able to track workouts on stair steppers, ellipticals, bikes and treadmills and upload them to NikePlus.com, like the standard Nike + iPod. Of course, this all requires to your gym to either buy new equipment or upgrade what they’ve got, so you might have to wait a while to get on board. [AppleInsider]

Medimo’s Vein Reader Gym Machines Lets You Work Your Pinkie to the Max

Addy Dugdale — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 11:48:56 +0000

Japanese company Fukui has unveiled 12 gym machines with finger-vein readers, which adjust the settings of the fitness equipment automatically for regular users. Costing around US$17,000 each, the gear can be hooked up to a remote server to update gym bunnies’ stats—calorie consumption and current exercise regime—with the info then displayed on a touchscreen. Go for the burn, fingers. [Pink Tentacle]

Aquafit Gymnasium-Spa Hybrid is Watery, Ironic

Haroon Malik — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 23:45:00 +0000

Apparently, sitting at your chair all day whilst blogging about gadgets is not supposed to be so good for your health. That’s where Dimension One Spas’ Aquafit 19 Dual Temp comes in. The US$40,000 gymnasium/spa allows users to have a full, underwater cardiovascular workout by using the included rower, tricep pull down and simulated jogger or swimming facilities.

The exercise area maintains the water temperature at levels that are ideal for the body’s thermoregulation during an intensive workout, whilst the spa area heats up to get things steamy and soothing. Additionally, the spa area is positioned so close to the gymnasium portion of the tub, you won’t have to expend any more calories than is necessary to get there, which is kind of ironic for a gym. So ironic, it’s giving us muscle ache just thinking about it. [Bornrich]

Carl Lewis Vibro-Exerciser Violently Vibrates the Fat Right Off Of You

Yuri Baranovsky — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 00:20:50 +0000

If there’s one person in this world who has the skill and experience needed to build a wildly vibrating exercise machine, it’s famed Olympian Carl Lewis. Mr. Lewis has just released a machine called the Vibro-Exerciser, which supposedly uses your “subconscious muscle responses” to help reduce fat and improve circulation. The $283 machine is supposed to work 70% better than regular ol’ exercise, except that, well, it probably doesn’t work at all. But then again, I know very little about giant vibrators. [CarlLewisFitness via UberReview]

Platinum Club Treadmill With iPod Dock, 15-inch LCD

Jason Chen — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 19:21:54 +0000

If we could ever summon up the strength to go exercise (which would then give us more strength), we’d want to do so on one of these Platinum Club Series Treadmills with a USB port for your iPod. Just hook up your iPod via the standard iPod cable, and you can scroll through playlists, watch videos, or just provide power for your player while you run. Not only that, there’s a virtual trainer and USB compatibility so you can save your workout data onto a thumb drive to take home. If this weren’t $7,999 we’d get one for ourselves. [LifeFitness via Everything USB via Slashgear]