Raisin Health Monitor Sends Heart Rate Details To Your iPhone [IPhone Apps]

Raisin Health Monitor Sends Heart Rate Details To Your iPhone [IPhone Apps]: "

What looks like a bulky female hygiene product is actually a health monitor that hooks up to an iPhone via Bluetooth, sending bodily information such as heart rates to the compatible app. More »

It's not on sale yet, with Proteus' Raisin sensor only just being passed through the FDA, but it's another step for the iPhone into the operating room, after Apple showed off the Lifescan app by Johnson & Johnson at last year's WWDC, which works alongside a wireless glucose meter. Diabetes can analyze the glucose levels in their blood, with the information being sent to the iPhone app over Bluetooth.

Raisin would also work over Bluetooth, sending information on physical activity and pulse and so on, with the app giving the user more details about what's going on in their body—and also storing information for charting history. It won't replace your annual check-up at the doctors, but could be a neat tool for athletes or those who really want to know what's going on internally. [Proteus via SlashGear]

Send an email to Kat Hannaford, the author of this post, at khannaford@gizmodo.com.

More Active Cows = Healthier Cows + Healthier Earth

Now if cows are getting healthier and at the same time reducing energy demands, why not hook up the treadmills in our schools and gyms to produce energy as well? Sort of reminds me of the Pedal-powered OLPC, Shake, Crank, or Squeeze to Play, Power Pump to Toned Legs and Air Time, and the Sustainable Dance Floor. Check out more eco-friendly projects by clicking here.

At one farm in Northern Ireland, cows are giving up green grass in favor of green power. In order to decrease his reliance on fossil fuels for electricity, farmer William Taylor created the Livestock Power Mill, a treadmill that generates power as cows walk on it. It may seem like a kooky idea, but Taylor could really be onto something: According to his calculations, if the world’s 1.3 billion cattle used treadmills for eight hours a day, they could produce six percent of the world’s power. Cows are locked into a pen on top of a non-powered, inclined belt. To avoid sliding down the incline, the cow needs to walk, which turns the belt. As the belt turns, it spins a gearbox, which powers a generator. A feed box hooked to the front of the device keeps cows occupied and happy. One cow can produce about two kilowatts of electricity, enough energy to power four milking machines.

It may seem cruel to make cows sweat it out on a treadmill, but the routine is actually quite similar to the animals’ normal behavior. Cows walk about eight hours a day while grazing. Doing that walking on a treadmill provides the same amount of exercise with the added bonus of renewable power production.

For now, the Livestock Power Mill is just a prototype on Taylor’s farm. But if the idea catches on, we could see farms all over the world employing the useful device. Taylor estimates that a small farm could earn back a 50-cow system’s $100,000 price tag in a mere three years.

Virtusphere Brings 3D Whole-Body Immersion Gaming (GDC 2010)

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Virtusphere from Binghamton, New York was demoing at GDC 2010 in San Francisco back in March and the line to try it out was busy both days I was able to get on the exhibition floor.  I will be visiting their Binghamton office soon so I will have more to report over the summer. WIBC - I wonder if the movements are faster than a walking speed like running or more erratic movements like jumping, if the Virtusphere is still as effective. I wonder if the Virtusphere can be used along with a Wii, PS3, or Xbox360? Is it possible to use the newest wireless controllers that rely on magnetic fields (Sixense) or magnetometers (PS3 Move/Navigation Controller & Gametrak Freedom)?

How it works: Virtusphere consists of a 10-foot hollow sphere, which is placed on a special platform that allows the sphere to rotate freely in any direction according to the user’s steps. Wearing a wireless, head-mounted display the user is able to walk and run being immersed into virtual environment. The movement by the user is replicated within the virtual environment. The same hardware set can be used for different applications by changing only the software applications.

Health Games Research Database goes live

The Robert Woods Johnson Foundation sponsored Health Games Research Database has finally gone live and now lists  "information in the health games field related to games, publications, resources, organizations, and more.  Hundreds of health games are included."

Nike Music Shoes: Music to My Body & Soul!

Great Balls of Fire! This group of Japanese artists have taken musical expression and creation to a level that I can relate to, especially because it involves movement (Exergame Potential).  Much like the massive MIDI controller featured earlier, Daito Manabe, Tomoaki Yanagisawa W+K Tokyo and others (4nchor5,rhizomatiks) took the Nike Free Run+ shoes and added flexible Arduino micro-controllers (which change the resistance when bent) to the shoes which triggered sounds hooked to a DJ mixer and controlled by sound effects processor  Max/MSP and Ableton Max for Live. Jump to the Rhythm, Jump, Jump! [Via CreativeApplications.Net and Engadget]

Multitoe or MultiToeTapping ExerGame (Concept)

Does having a Virtual Hot Spot on the bottom of your shoe sound enticing enough for you to do some computer interaction like typing, playing a FPS using your feet and tilting your head...well the Multitoe concept from from the HCI lab at the Hasso Plattner Institute, Germany might be the place to find the next great exergame. (Via Engagdet)

We propose direct touch surfaces that are orders of magnitude larger than tabletops by integrating high-resolution multi-touch sensing into back-projected floors.

The key factor of the shown design is that it is based on frustrated total internal reflection sensing. FTIR allows it to identify and track users based on their sole patterns. The floor recognizes foot postures, distinguishes users who interact from people walking by, and enables high-precision interaction. In addition, the floor can approximate users' head positions based on the pressure profile in the soles and it extracts enough details from soles to allow users to play first person shooters by balancing their feet.

The shown work is a research project by Caroline Fetzer, Thomas Augsten, Konstantin Kaefer, Dorian Kanitz, Rene Meusel, and Thomas Stoff in the Human Computer Interaction Lab of Prof. Patrick Baudisch at Hasso Plattner Institute, Germany