Gadget | Evolving Consumer

Apple Spins Patent for Cycling

s-APPLE-BIKE-large — Apple's diagram for its Smart Bike patent application currently in development.

Looking for a cycling computer? There’s an app for that. Apple recently filed with the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office for various concepts of a newly-advanced Smart Bicycle System. Reportedly in development, the app will use the iPhone’s (or iPod iTouch) accelerometer and gyroscope to measure speed, distance, time, altitude, elevation, incline, decline, heart rate, temperature, weather, wind speed and other factors relevant to cycling. A few other add-ons such as a heart rate monitor strap and sensors to place on the wheel will likely be required to take full advantage of the app.

Other news outlets are reporting the iPhone and app that pro cyclists could adopt and even used to communicate while racing in a stage. Most teams already have cycling computers that read all the same settings and report back to the team’s manager in the team car. Garmin-Transitions Slipstream, for example, has Garmin as a sponsor and part of the GPS manufacturer’s commitment is in supply of cycle computers and other equipment. It is possible some teams will opt for the iPhone app, and certainly will be open to a sponsorship. Several new teams have been announced and it wouldn’t be all too surprising to see an Apple team form in the next year or so.

Whether the app is used by competitive cyclists, expect to see plenty of hipsters on track bikes with their iPhones mounted to the handlebars. We just hope they refrain from text and ride practices.

[via: Patently Apple and Huffington Post]

Phoning in Your Workout

No, you can’t send your phone on a run, but you can take it along with you for added benefits. The new touch screen handset Samsung Eternity II, available through AT&T, is packed with features including apps and GPS. The GPS allows for fitness tracking so you can chart your routes and where you biked, ran, or otherwise traversed in a cardiovascular manner. If you explored the trails at a local park and aren’t sure how far you actually went, you can review your journey post-workout and map the trails plus tabulate the distance.

What’s unclear is whether the GPS app just tracks distance, or also calculates grade and elevation so you can see your progress on those hill repeats. The Eternity II also has expandable memory up to 32 GB leaving plenty of room for music to take along on your workout. The two features, plus any upcoming apps available through the AT&T AppCenter, reduce the number of gadgets you take with you for a workout, and puts more power behind that muscle.

AT&T product page

Eye-Hand Coordination Gets Serious Attention From Dynavision

Today pre-season football training isn’t just limited to weight lifting, running sprints and hitting the tackling dummies. Elite athletes are looking for that special edge to become faster, smarter and stronger, because this edge can truly mean the difference between winning and losing. Now it looks like many NCAA athletic programs and other performance institutions around the country are casting an eye on sports vision training equipment. Who knew that eye-hand coordination could be something you could actually use as part of your training, but that’s exactly what Dynavision D2 can bring to the field or court. Continue reading Eye-Hand Coordination Gets Serious Attention From Dynavision

Ki Fit Monitors all Activity

what_is_ki_fit_image_2 — Ki Fit armband device knows when you've been walking, it knows when you're awake.

My workout doesn’t feel complete if it’s without a heart rate monitor. It’s like driving without a seatbelt. But even my trusty heart rate monitor is somewhat lacking in the data it provides. The Ki Fit, available in the U.K., is a device worn on your arm, and tracks all kinds of movement and body chemistry to give you more information than how hard your heart is pounding during a sprint.

The Ki Fit system tracks calorie burn; physical activity; steps taken; sleep duration and sleep efficiency. Through a subscription to Ki Fit Online Activity Manager, you can analyze the data along with a food log and other reporting. Certain functions such as the physical activity and calorie count are measured by an internal accelerometer. Another sensor can detect your hydration and sweat levels.

Continue reading Ki Fit Monitors all Activity

Tweet from the Mountain Tops with DeLorme GPS

There’s nothing like a “Climbed a category 4, now on the summit” post to Twitter or Facebook. “Just got back to base camp after a category 4 climb to the summit” is a pale substitute. But when you’re out of cell range, those location posts are difficult if not impossible. Many serious hikes and climbs take you out of range. Not only are you unable to text your family, post messages to social networks for your friends, you can’t easily call for help if your hike should come to that.

The DeLorme PN-60w with SPOT Sattelite Communicator is a rugged GPS handheld with the ability to send outgoing messages to email, cell phones, Facebook, Twitter, Fire Eagle, SpotAdventures.com and Geocaching.com. Posts are geotagged and tracked by Google Maps. You might not be able to post a photo with your message, but you can give your precise location. The PN-60w, which runs about $549.95, also has GPX file support to better manage and save waypoint, geocache, and other files. The unit has an elevation profile tool that pinpoints user location; new poer management and display options extend battery life. The PN-60w has 3.5 GB of onboard memory to store maps and aerial imagery. Continue reading Tweet from the Mountain Tops with DeLorme GPS

Iowa Congressman Introduces P.E for the 21st Century Act

: Rep. Leonard Boswell (D-Iowa)

While lawmakers in the United States looks to improve education in this country, one congressman has introduced a new pilot program to improve physical education as well. Congressman Leonard Boswell (D-Iowa) has introduced the P.E. for the 21^st Century act, with the goal to establish a competitive pilot program for physical education classes in elementary and secondary school systems. Under this program fitness technology would be introduced to help students reach fitness goals. These would includes devices such as heart rate monitors and body fat testing, and would be part of a core curriculum of physical fitness in American schools.

The congressman introduced this legislation last week after several tours and meetings with physical education leaders at Grundy Center Community Schools in Iowa. Currently the school district’s PE 4 Life program already incorporates interactive technologies as part of its own physical education curriculum. This includes using heart rate monitors to track activity levels and progress, and gives students the ability to track personal health goals, to ensure that they are maintaining and improving their own fitness levels.

“We must utilize all available technologies to encourage physical fitness among our nation’s children,” Boswell said. “The equipment that will be available from the grants are proven tools toward not only improving physical education curriculum, but also encouraging children to remain physically fit outside of the P.E. class.”

IowaPolitics Press Release: U.S. Rep. Boswell: Introduces physical education legislation

Congressman Leonard Boswell Official Site

Video Camera Takes Action

OREGON SCIENTIFIC ATC9K — The ATC9K all-terrain video camera

When you pull off the perfect stunt, you want to keep that memory forever and subject your family and friends to repeat viewings. But not only is a video camera capable of filming in HD heavy, it won’t stand up to the abuse of the road, trail, water, freefall or other dirt you might get into. The ATC9K all-terrain video camera from Oregon Scientific has you covered from 12,500-plus feet above sea level to 56 feet below the surface.

The camera’s bright yellow and black casing is built to withstand the tumbles and rolls in the dirt that come with adventure. The camera is waterproof and shock-resistant, and has a mount to allow for strapping it to a helmet, handlebars, surfboard or snowboard. To minimize the shaky video footage you see on many sports videos, the ATC9K has a built-in G-sensor that measures the force of gravity during acceleration, deceleration and hang time. An additional plug-in will enable PC-users to map the location, or the trip, where video was taken and tag it using Google Maps or Google Earth. When you ride your next century you can film the whole hundred miles and chart it on Google Maps to prove your distance and bragging rights.

To introduce the $299 camera, Oregon Scientific is running a video-upload contest on Facebook for a chance to win a prize worth $750.

Oregon Scientific

iPhone Tells You To Go Faster

Plenty of iPhone apps that customize workouts for you, but how many track your progress based on movement. Fitaid from India-based developer Positech uses the phone’s accelerometer to sense your pace based on the goals you set. The program estimates your V02Max; tracks against plan and provides audio cues to speed up or slow down; and customizes those cues and settings to match your goals and abilities.

Fitaid’s developer Positech has goal to provide sophisticated scientific tools to a mainstream audience looking for ways to self-manage their health and improve wellbeing. The founder, Siva Raj, claims to have faced his own personal struggle with staying fit and used his experiences to develop Fitaid.

The use of the accelerometer to sense movement, which tracks any activity on a user’s feet including stepping to salsa or playing Frisbee, is a vital innovation and a good use of the technology of the iPhone. We hope to see more applications like this, and for a wider array of smartphones.

Fitaide is available from the Apple App Store

Fitaide Official Site

Tape Up Those Aches

GettyImages_PauloVillar_110mHurdles_Columbia_82396159 — Olympic athlete Paulo Villar tapes his muscles to get through the hurdles.

Working through aches and pains has gone way beyond the ace bandage. Kinesio Tex Tape Gold, a black and brightly colored tape that almost looks like an abstract tattoo, is often seen on Olympic and pro sport athletes. Kinesio Tex Tape Gold is latex free elastic therapeutic tape developed by Dr. Kenzo Kase ofer 35 years ago in Japan. The tape is applied over muscle sprains, tendon pulls and other maladies that might sideline a runner or athlete.

We spotted the black, hot pink and turquoise blue tape on many riders during the Tour de France, which is set to conclude in Paris on Sunday. BMC rider Cadel Evans managed to stay in the race after breaking his elbow through the use of the Kinesio tape. The current world champion cyclist twittered “This #TdF I’ve too much about ‘second skin’ & ‘kinesio tape’ …..it’s holding me together :o(” A rider from HTC Columbia has an artful application on his knee that mimics his muscle structure in his thigh attaching to the knee.

The tape is generally applied in the direction of muscles or tendons and creates a lifting effect to improve circulation and relieve pain. It can be used to both relax or stimulate muscles, depending on its application. This goes beyond wrapping an ace bandage around a body part. Kinesio offers training and certification, as well as DVD demonstrations to learn proper application to get benefits from the tape. You can pick it up at some sporting good stores, but to get real relief find someone authorized to tape you, which will last up to three days.

Kineseo Tex Tape Gold

Big in Japan: The Robo Skateboard

The Segway is really just a grown-up version of those annoying kiddie scooters – a fad that we keep hoping will finally run out of steam. So we’re skeptical about the still very much in development robotic skateboard that is currently being tested in Japan. Why do the Japanese need a robotic skateboard would be the first question to ask, as the island nation is rather crowded to say the least!

But that doesn’t seem to stop the designers at the Shibaura Institute of Technology in Tokyo from working on a very high-tech board. The Robo-Skateboard prototype according to online reports weights about 15kg, is about 30cm wide and 60cm long and about 25cm thick. It works much like a regular skateboard, where you stand on it and lean to make turns. Your shifting body weight will thus let you steer, but lean forward and you’ll get to pick up some speed. Put your weight directly on your feet and you’ll be flying like Tony Hawk – almost anyway, as this board can hit speeds of 10kph.

Continue reading Big in Japan: The Robo Skateboard

Microsoft Announces Kinect Pricing

You won’t have to wait long to go controller-less with the Xbox 360. Today Microsoft announced that the Kinect game console add-on will be released in North America on November 4, and will cost $149.99. We were hoping that Microsoft would include a fitness game, but instead it looks like the motion and voice control system will be released with the game “Kinect Adventures.”

This game will be also be part of new Xbox 360 bundle, which will include the soon to be released matte black version of the console that now offers a 4GB hard drive. The quasi-fitness game “Kinect Sports” will also be available at launch on November 4, and we’ll expect many third party titles will also arrive in time for the holidays.

Xbox.com

Halo Like a Guardian Angel For Your Bike

Almost everyone at one time or another says, “if only this thing could talk, imagine the tales it would tell.” Well, imagine if one of those tales was about how it stopped a potential theft. That’s the idea behind designer Steve Hunt’s Halo Bike Lock. This flexible ring, which looks a bit like the angelic halo is heaven-sent for an entirely different reason.

Halo-Bike-Lock — An angelic way to deter theives

The Halo is actually constructed in such a way as to make breaking or otherwise removing it from a bike a bit more difficult than just cutting a simple pad lock, thus slowing down a possible theft. The cable connector of the Halo is actually housed inside the lock’s frame, but the real reason to buy the lock is the warning an owner will get. The Halo Bike Lock will send a text message, via an integrated wireless transmitter, should someone try to tamper or cut the lock.

All that sounds great right? Well, there is a problem. Steve Hunt hasn’t actually produced the Halo yet, and thus the idea is still very much in the clouds. Dare we say that Steve needs an angle investor to get the Halo off the ground?

Steve Hunt’s Halo Bike Lock Official Site

[Via Softpedia: Halo Bike Lock Notifies Owner of Bike Theft]

Magellan Explores the Outdoors

While you can take your GPS suited for the car on the trail, there are a few distinguishing features of the Magellan eXplorist Outdoor Handheld range. The eXplorist 510, 610 and 710 are made to get in the dirt or even a little bit of surf. The smaller screen, a 3-inch color touch screen, and form factor is about the size of a cell phone. Compared to the size generally used in cars with a larger screen, the palm-size is much more suited for outdoor activity. Each unit has a 3.2 megapixel camera with auto-focus. You’ll probably still want to bring a camera with higher megapixel capability, but the eXplorist series works well to geotag and post photos so you can show off the view of the summit you climbed or the white water you traversed. The three models range from $349 to $549 and include a 30 day free premium membership to geocaching.com.

Magellan