Is Your Dog Healthier Than You Are?

It was only a matter of time before all of the wearable devices that we are seeing on the market, started to be made specifically for our favorite furry creatures at home.  That's right, wearable technology for your pets. Now all of the data that you love to gather from yourself, can be collected from Fido.

There are a number of new products on the market that will allow you to set exercise goals, analyze the amount of sleep, and even track the location of your little guy.  For example, Whistle is an activity tracker that attaches to your dogs collar.  Essentially a Fitbit for canines, Whistle collects data on your dog 24/7 and allows you to analyze everything through an App.  You can even share the insights to your friends or your dog's friends, assuming they have Facebook, Twitter, etc.

A tech that is a bit more ambitious, going as far as to claim that they can provide insights into how your dog is feeling, what he is thinking, and what he needs, simply by attaching the Voyce dog collar.  Providing similar insights as Whistle, it will also give you guidance as to how your dog is feeling based off information from top veterinarians.  While this product is not available right now, check out the video below to see how it will work:

Now is all this getting to be too much? Do we really need all this data in order to provide our pets a happy and healthy lifestyle?  If you are interested in giving your pet exercise, would you really need to analyze all their data to make sure they are healthy or would providing exercise just be part of your existing lifestyle already.  Well I believe that one thing is for certain, that if you are taking the time to analyze yourself to make sure you are living healthier, you have no excuse for not making sure Fido is living just as healthy as you are.

Surgical Precision from 500 Km Away

With different types of glasses/goggles appearing on the market and applications for augmented reality technologies, the surgery world will also evolve to allow easy access to more information, more accurate, permanent and even remote data during procedures. Even the communication between surgical staff or between surgeons will improve in order to enhance the efficiency and improve surgical results.

The following video shows the first use of Google Glass associated with VIPAAR (Virtual Interactive Presence in Augmented Reality). It's absolutely amazing how they operate on people these days!

During this shoulder replacement, the surgeon is helped and guided on the virtual surgical field by another surgeon, who's not in the OR, but in his office and who has strong experience in this procedure and can instructor the surgeon.

The second surgeon can remotely show with his hands and some instruments, transformed in virtual elements when transferred to Google Glass, the type of actions to lead while discussing with the operating surgeon and having the live images in front of him.

Another pair of high-tech goggles have also appeared recently in the news bringing new hope in order to improve surgery and provide better treatment against Cancer as they are able to highlight cancerous cells during a surgery.

These new goggles may help avoid a riskier and costly second surgery and thus reducing complications. As you can see on the following picture the cancerous cells appear clearly to the surgeon thanks to the goggles and the dye that has been injected in the patient before the surgery.

You can read more about this fascinating innovation here in an article from the BBC or check out the video report on this subject here.

These new types of applications of wearable tech/augmented reality may bring better patient care, more safety and collaboration in the operating room. The first trials are just finishing, but in the coming years, maybe months every surgeon and medical staff will be equipped with one of those devices if the advantages described in this post are confirmed.

50% of Users Won't Wear their Tech

Tech wearables, mainly those for health and fitness, fail to keep the interest of users for more than a few months. A survey of 6,223 US adults revealed that one in ten consumers aged 18 and over owns a modern activity tracker such as Jawbone, Fitbit, Nike+ Fuelband or Misfit Wearables. Yet, more than half of the survey’s respondents said that they no longer use their activity tracker, and a third of those stopped using the device within six months of receiving it.

The wearables that are very successful are the ones that are designed to solve a very specific problem for someone that a smartphone isn’t doing.

If nobody wants to wear it, is it really wearable? You can have the greatest product in the world but if it doesn’t have the right design aesthetic, no one will continue to wear it.

Wearables companies are dealing with challenges, they have to take care of the need for products to fit well, be comfortable, and compatible with consumer's lifestyle.

Behavioral psychology also plays a strong role in long-term adoption of wearables by the consumer.

A surprising percentage of devices in the market first fail to achieve even short term engagement for many users because they suffer from one or more fatal user experience flaws.

These flaws are:

• They are easy to lose
• They break
• They’re not waterproof
• They’re a pain to sync with your smartphone
• The battery doesn’t last long enough
• They’re ugly
• They’re uncomfortable to wear
• They provide no material benefit

Currently most wearables are worn on your wrist.  This video digs deeper to find out why companies aren't producing products to be worn elsewhere.

Military Wearable-Tech: The Iron Man Becomes Real…

Science fiction has always been a source of inspiration not only for the Hollywood filmmakers, but also for the real scientists and engineers. The robots, lasers, lab-grown organs and many more inventions and technologies that have come to the real world were initially just visionary ideas of the futurists.

As the technology continues to advance with an amazing speed, human imagination is proving to be the only limit. Not surprisingly, today the technicians find inspiration for tech innovations even in comic's heroes and toys, such as the Marvel’s Iron Man. Many of those incredible technologies shown in the Iron Man movies are not a fantasy anymore; they are becoming reality.

At the beginning of this year the U.S. army announced that the Iron Man-like suits could be ready for testing and supplied for the U.S. special operations forces this summer. The super-tech clothing called the Tactical Assault Light OperatorSuit (TALOS) was engineered by the scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). 

TALOS is a high-tech suit of armor which is designed to give Superman abilities and greater ballistic protection to soldiers. The suit is combined with smart wearable devices that promote soldier’s efficiency and protection: wearable computers with cameras that have software analyzing tactical environments, displaying personalized information and tasks. The clothing includes smart sensors that measure and transmit physiological parameters, such as, blood pressure, body temperature, and automatically adjusts the temperature inside the suit accordingly. The suits also include emergency medical functions which: monitoring oxygen systems and other vitals, wound status, then the suit compensates to enhance performance. Finally, combat suit can be loaded up with advanced weapons to provide that extra edge.

The battlesuit may be also equipped with a powered exoskeleton. The exoskeleton is a wearable bullet-proof robot, sensing where a soldier intends to go, and then accelerating that movement using its titanium frame working on batteries. It facilitates running longer, jumping higher, carrying weight and even lifting objects that a man would not normally be able to lift. The exoskeleton allows the soldiers to do more, longer, and harder, without getting as tired.

The U.S. is certainly not the only country working on the warrior of the future: similar projects are actively being developed by other countries (ProjectWundurra in Australia; the Israeli Integrated Advanced Soldier (IAS); the UK Future Infantry Soldier Technology).

As we can project, the supersoldiers will arrive soon and TALOS seems to be only the beginning. The new solutions for the military industry keep rapidly evolving. The engineers are working on technologies of mental interaction with devices. This will allow the future soldier to have mental control over the wearable combat devices through a direct link to the brain, hands-free. In addition, the researchers are exploring the use of sensors to tap the soldiers’ brain power to monitor and to improve their performance. Actually, this implies establishment of control over soldier’s mind.

So far, the brain control remains a framework concept, but we have seen how incredibly fast the technological advancements turns the ideas into reality. For sure, in case it is executed, it will change the shape of the future army and dictate our world will be shaped.