RSS Feeds
|
US Edition
Babblebaby
|
Defamer
|
Gizmodo
|
Kotaku
|
Lifehacker
Apparently a fan of Jetsons-like living spaces, Panasonic is showing off a living room/kitchen area at CEATEC that puts all home gadgets and appliances on an interconnected network. Though we've seen numerous integrated home living concepts before, Panasonic's added a "Family Wellness Solution" that's kind of like a really advanced version of Wii Fit.
The eye is a delicate thing. Most ocular implants that get too hands-on with your squishy sightballs cause rejections problems, but a new implant developed by the Boston Retinal Implant project shrinks the components significantly, allowing your eye to take on its cyborg enhancements without casting them off violently as unwelcome invaders.
Adam Hammond, a former member of the U.S. Army's "Golden Knights" Parachute Team, has become the first recipient of the Eon Mini—the world's smallest spinal cord stimulator. After suffering a broken femur, a shattered pelvis and a severed spine in an epic parachute fail a few years ago, it seemed that Hammond would be condemned to a life of severe chronic pain. Doctors hoped that implanting the new Eon Mini would offer a solution by delivering repeated mild electrical impulses to the spinal cord. So far, Hammond claims that the device offers "significant pain relief" and that he was able to "walk twice as far" as he could previously.
The FitBit's just been unveiled at the TechCrunch 50 event, and it's an interesting gizmo: it's designed to clip to your clothing where it tracks your exercise activity, a bit like Nike+. But unlike the iPod/Nike combo, it wirelessly connects to its charger/basestation which sends data to an online database that tracks your performance. And it comes with a wrist-strap so you can wear it at night. Apparently as you slip into REM sleep your wrist will tremor slightly, and the FitBit uses this to work out your sleep quality. These prototypes have no screen, but the final product will have an OLED one that includes a Tamagotchi-style avatar that'll symbolise your health status. It's due in December for US$99. [Gearlog via BBG]
The news about new iPods coming out on September 9th combined with observations during my daily visits to the gym have got me wondering about how many of you use an MP3 player while working out. Based on these observations alone, it seems that somewhere around 40 to 50% percent of gym goers rely on an MP3 player to pump them up. It is a good thing too because most studies show that listening to music you enjoy while working out improves results. So, do you use an MP3 player during your workout? How do you use it? Do you exercise at all?
Note to Bloomberg News employees: when you're in the system updating your draft of Steve Jobs's obituary, do NOT press publish. That, though, is exactly what happened late last night, as sleuthed by our buddies over at Gawker. Now, pre-writing obits for prominent figures such as the Steve, in good health and in bad, is totally S.O.P. in the media--so this should not be viewed as yet another non-statement on Jobs's personal health. But unfortunately, we're all going to die (but not all of us will come back more powerful than you can possibly imagine), so reading this and imagining a world without Steve is more an entertaining mind fuck than anything else. And that's just for us--imagine what it must be like to read your own obituary. Read on for an excerpt, with more over at Gawker.
It's probably too late to remedy our self-induced scoliosis, but the iPosture looks promising all the same. It's a 1-inch button that can attach to a variety of garments (like a bra strap or even a necklace) and vibrates when your posture succumbs to the heavy weight of gravity/your underwhelming life. Then you pull back your shoulders and straighten your back until you start to slouch and the cycle repeats. Not a bad idea, but we'd need a painful electroshock component to ever take the thing that seriously enough. [iPosture via Ubergizmo]
Traditional camera lenses have to have beefier optics to make up for the fact that the sensor is flat--but one reason why the human eye is such an efficient little cam at (576 megapixels! ISO 800!) is because our image sensors (err, retinas) are rounder to better capture the light transmitted by the lens on the other side of the sphere. Researchers at Northwestern and U. Chicago have found a way to create a traditional photo sensor that flexes without breaking, which means your cyborg glass eye of the future will be all the more lifelike.
An Israeli company, Aespironics, is trying a new approach in re-designing an old faithful drug delivery system: the inhaler. They've teamed up with an expert in drug atomisation and a wind turbine researcher, and have come up with a breath-activated, turbine-assisted design that should be slim, cheap and easy to produce, and deliver dry drugs to the users lungs without leaving them sticking inside the mouth. Sounds amazing doesn't it? Particularly when you consider the implications of a simple, compact and cheap dispenser for aiding ill people in the developing world. The team is planning tests for the year end, and thinks a product could be on the market within three years. If it's an inhaler slim enough to fit in a wallet, I'll take one soon, please: lugging around a conventional one is annoying. [I21c via Medgadget]
I don't know how much of a workout you are going to get with some rinky-dink 1 pound weights, but I like the idea behind this Dumbell Sports Bottle design. Not only would a bottle weight serve as a constant reminder about proper hydration, it would also encourage recycling. Plus, if you were to drink from the bottle, it would unbalance the weight which could benefit your muscles by working them in unique ways. It's only a concept at this point, but if you add on some litre and gallon bottles I think it could be a viable product.
