Ballistic Brings iPhone4’s Most Rugged Case Yet to Verizon

After waiting so long to get an iPhone, Verizon subscribers want to protect their new phone like it’s precious cargo. That doesn’t mean they’ll leave it at home when they go on adventures such as rock climbing, biking or running. I just means they need a really rugged, protective case.

Ballistic, the designers of rugged cases for mobile phones and other accessory cases to “survive life,” just released its case for the iPhone 4 for Verzon and boasts it’s the most rugged protective case currently available for the iPhone 4.

Continue reading Ballistic Brings iPhone4’s Most Rugged Case Yet to Verizon

Planet Bike’s 1 Watt of Bright Light

It’s essential to have a tail light on your bike. Even when weight is a concern, it’s necessary to light your bike to protect your butt at sundown. Planet Bike has a new Superflash Stealth. It’s got a 1 watt Blaze LED light plus two eXtreme LEDs for visibility up to a mile.

You generally expect to have a red light, but this clear light flashes red and is visible even in daylight. Cars are getting tricked out with white or clear tail lights, why not bikes?  The housing is weatherproof, lightweight and durable. Two AAA batteries provide up to 100 hours of run time. That means forever for casual riders who may turn it on when caught coming back from their rides at sundown or in inclement weather.

PlanetBike

Virtual Trainer Gets Smartphone App

Tracking a workout will soon get a little easier, as Life Fitness recently announced the Life Fitness Virtual Trainer smartphone app that will sync with the company’s popular Virtual Trainer Website. This will allow users to update workout results on both the site and to their mobile devices.

Through the free app, users will be able to track workout progress via a smartphone, including both cardio and strength results. There will also be a library of training features available as add-ons for purchase.

“Today, internet content is shaping the workout experience and new technology, like apps, further enhances a fitness program,” said Chris Clawson, president of Life Fitness. “This smartphone app is the natural next step for Life Fitness and will support our users by allowing them to maximize their workouts on our equipment.”

The smartphone app will be available soon as a free download.

Life Fitness Virtual Trainer Website

Life Fitness Official Website

Lobster Snowboards Coming for Fall 2011

The reports from the Snowsports Industries America Trade Show last month were that this the best year ever for those in the snow sports business. And next year another player will be on board – as Icelandic snowboarding brothers Eiki and Halldor Helgason announced their new company Lobster Snowboards.

“Eiki and me wanted to get on the same board program since day one. We really have fun and push each other when we ride together so this was a logical step for us,” said Halldor in a statement.

The new brand will be launched for Fall 2011, and will be using triple base technology on the Jibboard, the Parkboard and the Girlboard, and the company will also introduce Eiki Jib Board and Halldor Park Board graphics. Given the new trend towards “rocker” technology, we have to ask… any chance we might see a “Rock Lobster” snowboard. We guess we’ll find out this fall.

Lobster Snowboards Official Website

Flex Belt – Real Deal or High Tech Snake Oil?

One product caught our eye this week, and that’s the Flex Belt, which Susan Brady of HealthNews.com wrote about last Friday. This product offers the same types of promises that we see in many of the items that get called out in as being worthy of a “Kinetic(Mis)Shift.”

The Flex Belt is, from what we found, an electronic muscle stimulator (EMS), a product category that has been around for a while. It has even been cleared by the FDA as a class II medical device, and has been endorsed by Olympian Janet Evans and professional football player Jerry Rice. According to Brady, the Flex Belt utilizes “the same technology used by physical therapists to exercise the muscles of their patients who can’t do it as effectively for themselves.”

Our question is whether these electronic “cheats” are even the best use of technology, even if it actually works. So far, we’ll say this much, we’re not really convinced. The product is reportedly available for $199.99, and that’s a lot of money for a product that bills itself as being able to replace traditional crunches and exercise. For one thing, let’s say it does work. Should we really embrace any product that offers shortcuts? Because if you can get a flat stomach without the pain, couldn’t it encourage people to take the route of least resistance with other workouts? Feeling good is often about more than just looking good.

[Via HealthNews.com: Fitness Fridays: The Flex Belt]

SolaRoad Uses Cycling Trails at Test Bed

Dutch company TNO recently presented its idea for the SolaRoad. While the application will likely be used for roads eventually, TNO has its eye on Holland’s 15,000 km of bike paths to start installation of its solar panel-infused road.

The current conceptual design for the SolaRoad consists of modules. For the cycling application, the path will consist of prefab elements made up in layers: a concrete housing, solar cells, and optical layer and a transparent top layer. The concrete element will measure 1.5 by 2.5 meters and each layer will be placed on top. The glass will be a 1 cm thick hardened glass layer of crystal silicon solar cells. The road surface will then collect roughly 50 kWh per square meter annually. An average household consumes about 3,500 kWh of electricity per year.

Solar roadways have a few criteria in the design and implementation such as stiffness and maintenance. Benefits the SolaRoad can provide include the ability to display messages electronically on the road. If it’s a cycling path, the road can display a message that the upcoming light is turning red in cases where the path crosses a road. It also eliminates what TNO calls “landscape pollution”.

New applications to collect solar energy are interesting to watch. It will be great to see the roadways become potential solar farms rather than taking up vast open spaces to install solar panel farms. However with a top layer of glass, we are interested to see what the actual surface will be like. Roads especially, but even bike paths, can get slick with even the slightest amount of rain. How will the glass and other layers of SolaRoad stand up to cold and extreme weather conditions? We know this isn’t your average glass, but it sure can get cold and snowy  in those winter months in the Netherlands.

For more information visit TNO and locate the English option.

via [Cyclecious]

New Guidelines for Anti-Doping Protocols in 2011 Amgen Tour of California

This week the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) made known its protocols for the 2011 Amgen Tour of California taking place May 15 to 22. The new guidelines are based on previous anti-doping procedures, and expand on the elements with their frequency and rigor.

In the 90 days prior to the race beginning February 15, all race participants will be subject to no-advance notice sample collections. International riders will be subject to the same no-advance notice, out-of-competition testing. During the competition the race organizers in accordance with the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) Code in-competition criteria will conduct testing. This includes daily doping controls following a strategic test distribution plan. Samples will be screened for substances and methods used on the WADA Prohibited List such as steroids, hormones, stimulants and various masking agents. Continue reading New Guidelines for Anti-Doping Protocols in 2011 Amgen Tour of California

Wahoo Fitness To Turn iPhone Into Digital Trainer

Among the companies at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show that showcased new products in the health and tech space was Wahoo Fitness, which recently introduced a line of Apple-friendly products, with the goal to bridge the gap between expensive fitness gear and everyday users.

Wahoo Fitness has developed the unique “fisica” technology, which via a phone dongle lets the iPhone handset or an iPod Touch receive information from various fitness monitoring devices including heart rate monitors, pedometers and other gizmos and gadgets. This plug-and-play add-on can work with around 40 leading fitness apps, helping deliver data to the handheld. The products communicate using ANT+ wireless protocol technology.

We’ll be sure to watch what Wahoo Fitness brings to market this year.

Wahoo Fitness Official Website

U.S. Digital Health Industry to Triple in Total Revenues Says Study

A healthy America could mean healthy profits for the digital health industry. These are the findings from a new Parks Associates forecast, which sees that U.S. revenues from digital health technology-enabled solutions and services will exceed $5.7 billion in 2012.

The study, titled “Delivering Quality Care to the Digital Home: 2010 Update,” shows that revenues in this space hit $1.7 billion in 2010, and further notes that this is a growing market. After all, there was the CES 2011 “Fitness TechZone,” which showcased digital innovations including apps, while numerous companies have gotten on board with the idea of digital health. Continue reading U.S. Digital Health Industry to Triple in Total Revenues Says Study

The Gym as the New Power Plant

When you go to the gym, do you think about how much power you’re expelling? The Columbia Athletic Club, part of Columbia Association, in Columbia, MD, just installed 28 Green Revolution stationary bicycles to divert the power exercisers produce and put it into the facility’s power grid.

The bikes in the spin class work to power the building. Each 45-minute cycling class averages about 20 bikes, and produces as much as 3.6 Megawatts of energy over the course of the year. That’s enough power to light 72 homes for a month. It reduces about two tons of carbon emissions per year, according to Green Revolution Inc.

Does it feel like you’re generating energy on the bike? “The ride is actually smoother than it was previously, so that has been an added bonus!” said Leslie Flynn, general manager of the Columbia Athletic Club.

“The generator does not add any measurable resistance to the bike,” explained Mike Curnyn, chief strategy and marketing officer and co-founder of Green Revolution, the Ridgefield, CT-based company that supplies the green bikes.

Since adding the bikes to the gym, Columbia Athletic Association has seen an increase in participants in its spin classes. “We have added two classes due to an increase in demand, partly because of the new Green Revolution bikes, but also in part to the usual increase during the busy season,” said Flynn, referring to January to March when more people attend fitness classes. The club currently runs 22 classes a week and looks to put more on the schedule. “We are maximizing our energy producing potential,” Flynn said.

Columbia Association

Green Revolution

Flex Goggles Let Swimmers Become Predator in the Water

While much of the United States is being hammered with snow, down under is another story. Despite some floods and a terrible cyclone, summer is in full swing and thus time to get in some swimming before the coming of fall. This week keen swimmers were offered a way to improve their stroke techniques and help their level of performance with two products from Zoggs.

The 4 Flexpoint Predator Flex Goggles are designed for use in pools as well as open swimming, and these feature enhanced frame styling, along with Fogbuster impregnated anti-fog lenses. The goggles offer quick adjust straps that can make for easy adjustments while swimming, plus 180 degrees of undistorted peripheral vision from the Curve Lens Technology. There are even mirrored lens to suit a variety of light conditions.

The Four-Stoke Positive Drive Fins can help users with all strokes. These training fins feature an offset foot pocket, which promotes natural supination in the kick turning for positive drive, while the ellipsoidal shaped blade provides ideal thrust in all the main four kick cycles. There is also an ergonomic foot pocket that is designed to provide greater comfort for training. The fins come in sizes 2/3 to 13/14.

Both products should help you feel like a big fish in a small pond, and more importantly a much faster fish at that. Let’s hope these products catch the current to North America this year.

Zoggs Official Website

Will ANT+ Give Bluetooth a Run for the Money in the Fitness Market

This week Sony Ericsson introduced a YouTube video that shows off the benefits of ANT+, a wireless communication standard used in a variety of fitness devices including heart rate monitors and pedometers. This wireless technology is software based, and it work with devices such as mobile phones. The question is now what ANT+ could mean for Bluetooth in the fitness space? We see a battle brewing between the blue and the ant!

Kinetic(Mis)Shift: Steam Bath for Your Gut

 

Way back when, when a trip to the spa meant a workout, the sauna was seen as part of “exercise.” We assume people thought the steam could “burn” off the fat, or somehow shrink you down. This same logic appears with the Belly Sauna, which asks if you are looking for six pack abs why do sit ups, diet and eat right or just anything that involves working out. Instead, the logic here is to put on this undershirt on and it will heat up the fat and turn it off.

Why break a sweat from working out when you can just turn up the heat seems to be the point. In other words, it sounds like a pointless product without any good intentions.

Kinetic(Mis)Shift are products that we think deserve to be called out for their utter lack of fitness benefits.