Quantified Self
Shiny New Things
Personal Tracking Device Mania!
Move over Fitbit, Nike FuelBand, Jawbone Up, Larklife, and all the rest, here comes Misfit Shine! Behold, the Misfit is smaller and shinier than it's competition, and it plays nicely with jean pockets and t-shirt collars. More to the point, it can tell when you're swimming or riding a bicycle which is a first in the category.
What also sets the Shine apart is that it's not yet available for sale. The product is still in the prototype stage, and so the San Francisco-based Misfit crew has launched an Indigogo campaign (kind of like Kickstarter) to raise the funds to take their device from dream to reality. Thusfar, they've raised $348K, crushing their own 100K goal.
That still doesn't seem like quite enough of a war chest, however, to compete with Nike. Get out your credit cards! We love the tiny, shiny form factor, and are generally glad to see that the pot of tracking device innovation boileth over. Our big question remains: What social software platform will integrate all these disparate hardware devices so we can all play together virtual-like? Just asking.
Quantified Self
The Future of Bracelets
David Pogue on the Times reviews the Nike FuelBand and the new-and-improved UP band by Jawbone. His verdict: FuelBand is a "one trick pony," but a pretty slick one. Up aims higher, but falls a bit short of its goals due to a few pesky design flaws. Still, he says, it's "not bad for a rubber band." Our take: The bracelet form factor has arrived, and it's a big deal. People WANT to wear things on their wrists, and the Pogue review marks an inflection point in the slow, inexorable advance of wearable computing and self-quantification. Not to be too melodramatic, or anything....
Online & Video
Live Now!
Living by the Numbers!
Coming to NYC today and tomorrow, the much-awaited Wired Health Conference featuring some exciting speakers taking on the theme "Living by the Numbers." Among the notables: Wired's own Quantified Self gurus, Kevin Kelly and Gary Wolf, as well as Timothy Ferris, Craig Venter, and an Olympic Gold Medalist Aston Eaton. Should be good!
Semi Automatic
Doh! Time to Throw Away Your Fitbit?
There is a growing crowd of geeky, self-righteous researchers and businesses — like Social Workout — exploring the bleeding edge of personal wellness "tracking," i.e. tracking your every heartbeat, footstep, and sun salutation. One of the basic articles of faith in this field has been that more automation is always better. That is, if a person can carry a fitbit or Nike+ device which eliminates the need for them to manually enter their activities via keyboard, they are more likely to collect the data, and thus benefit from it. Now, however, researcher Anind Dey of Carnegie Mellon has made a surprising finding: Too much automation is counter-productive:
Manual collection of information means the collector is focusing on the data (whenever collection occurs) and has the opportunity for short reflections, and can keep abreast of the data more easily. We have found that completely automating collection removes these opportunities and can actually hinder individuals in keeping track of and making sense of their data.
In short, a bit of manual data entry is actually a good thing. Long live mlogging! (Via Project HealthDesign via Quantified Self.)
Scientific
Cal Professor Details How to Live Optimally
People talk about living a "balanced life," but what, exactly, are they balancing? Seth Roberts, Berkeley professor emeritus of psychology, has spent a dozen years geeking out on this very subject — mostly by meticulously testing himself, i.e. his own moods, energy, weight, etc. (In the process, he has apparently demonstrated that "self-experimentation" can be very effective.) Anyhoo, according to Professor Roberts, there are twelve activities one needs to juggle to live "optimally." Some of these are expected, like exercise and social time. Others are less so, like hunger, morning sunlight (about an hour), and foot stimulation. Dr. Roberts' bottom line? Go barefoot (especially on cobblestones), blog, and make sure you talk to a real person shortly after waking up. Here's the full list.
Scientific
Extreme Self Tracking: Talking Pills
People abuse prescription drugs. Either they don't take their meds, or they take too much, or they take them at the wrong time. If only that little plastic bottle could talk. Well, now it can. Actually, it's even better than that: Exhibit A pictured at left is the "Raisin" from Proteus Biomedical, FDA-approved for release in 2011. How does it work? Each pill gets loaded at the factory with a tiny ingestible microchip. Said chip monitors how the drugs are working, and sends a report to that bandage-like receiver, which in turn transmits nifty looking graphs to your iPhone. Or to your doctor's office. Where, um, does the chip end up, and why isn't it dangerous to have little bits of electrified silicon floating around our blood stream? Got me. This is all very early stage, and unrelated to fitness, per se, but clearly related to "self tracking." Heart rate monitoring is so 2009. (Via Quantified Self.)
By the Numbers
Self Tracking Isn't Just for Phds and Weirdos Anymore
Required reading for all mloggers and workout trackers: Gary Wolf's seven page feature in Sunday's Times Magazine. Wolf, is the co-founder, along with Kevin Kelly of the Quantified Self blog, hub of serious self-trackers. Fans of Social Workout's Wired Intern may recall that Wolf coined the phrase "macrocosm" in his last opus on the subject a year ago. This time around, he again chronicles the many emergent self-tracking devices such as Fitbit and Nike+, and also tells the intriguing tales of certain hardcore trackers, like 28 year-old Ben Lipkowitz, who just wanted to keep track of how much time he spent cleaning his roommates dirty dishes.... It's a fascinating read, but in case you're busy at the moment, a few choice bits after the jump....
More...
Geeky
When A Computer Scientist Goes for a Run
For those just tuning in, the most hardcore trackers of calories burned, miles traveled, books read, etc., hang out on Kevin Kelly's Quantified Self blog. This morning the Kelly reprints a talk by one professor Ramesh Rao, more or less on the subject of Prof. Rao's heart rate. OH MY GOD, can this man quantify his bad self. Think 3,000 words, with a multitude of charts and graphs. Pictured above, I believe, is Dr. Rao's respiration patterns during a post run "restorative savasana" on November 22nd. Must check out the post simply for the aesthetics, but, should you be short on time, the key theoretical take away seems to be summarized in the very first sentence:
Electrical signals that trigger the beating of the heart are not quite periodic and the larger the variation the healthier the heart! A transplanted heart shows very little heart variation.
In other words, if your heart speeds up and slows down quite a lot given various different activities — and does so in somewhat variable ways — don't panic. You may be healthy!
Wired Intern
The Quantified College All-Nighter
The Wired Intern returns! Social Workout has outfitted our intern, Juliet B., with four of the top body tracking gizmos. Thus equipped, she plumbs the depths of personal surveillance as she proceeds through her life as a Junior at Fordham University.
It's the night before a midterm paper is due, and I'm feverishly typing away at the computer...and getting up to wash dishes...and pacing back and forth...and getting totally distracted. Just in case you were wondering, here's what all that actually looks like....
Annual Reports
Dan Meyer Quantifies Himself
Self monitoring is taking off: Pedometers, heart rate monitors, GPS trackers.... Prepare for the day when your neighbors issue annual reports on the numeric state of their minds and bodies. Actually, too late, that day is already here....