Health and Wellness

For the past few months, I’ve done something which is dorky even by my own dorky standards: I’ve often gone out in public with two wearable devices on my wrist. One has been a smartwatch of some sort. (At the moment, it’s Motorola’s Moto 360.) The other has usually been Jawbone’s Up 24 fitness band. Continue Reading →

Fitness trackers like the Jawbone Up, Nike Fuelband, and Garmin Vivofit are typically smaller, more minimalist than their smartwatch cousins, but their features are limited too. Garmin’s latest wearable, the Vivosmart, combines these two worlds with a fitness tracker design and robust smartwatch-like features. Garmin introduced its first general purpose wearable, the Vivofit activity tracker, Continue Reading →

Given recent events surrounding the security of cloud-storage accounts, Apple is keen to reassess any updates to iOS. The company has revealed that any Healthkit apps storing a user’s private wellness data in iCloud will be flat-out rejected from the App Store. That same info, gathered by apps using the Healthkit API, is under even Continue Reading →

Calico, the secretive Google-backed life sciences company, on Wednesday revealed plans to build what could be a $1.5 billion research and development center with biopharmaceutical company AbbVie, the recent spinoff of Abbott Laboratories. The new San Francisco Bay Area facility will focus on drug discovery and early drug development for diseases like neurodegeneration and cancer. Calico’s Continue Reading →

How’s the ticker? Some dangerous heart problems can exist without any symptoms whatsoever, like “atrial fibrillation” (A-fib) a type of abnormal cardiac rhythm that affects one in four people. A visit to your physician is normally required to detect it (and is still a must), but a company called AliveCor has just announced that its Continue Reading →

  If it’s not the lure of delicious new gadgets, it’s stone cold bribery. Either way, the reasons to stay slumped on the couch are evaporating quicker than the sweat off a runner’s head. Adidas looks set to slay some more, too, as we’ve learned the sports giant is opening up its miCoach fitness-logging platform Continue Reading →

Thalmic Labs has added support for smartglasses to its Myo gesture control armband. Supported headsets include Google Glass, Recon Jet and Epson Moverio. While wearing a heads-up display and an armband might seem inconvenient, the integration is intended for workplace environments like construction, healthcare, bike messengers and field service. The idea is that Myo can Continue Reading →

Wearable technology is routinely being batted around these days as the cure-all for everyday health tracking gaps, but Intel’s latest venture is taking that potential to a whole new level. The Michael J. Fox Foundation has tapped the tech giant for a collaboration with the goal of improving the monitoring and treatment of Parkinson’s disease. Continue Reading →

Headphones don’t care if you’re listening to terrible music while exercising, but a new pair from 50 Cent’s SMS Audio might judge your workout. The company’s just announced BioSport In-Ear, a set of wired earbuds with biometric capabilities to record heart rate using built-in optical sensors. The earbuds draw power from the headphone jack and Continue Reading →

Chinese vendor Xiaomi will launch its new rock-bottom-priced fitness band on Monday. Known as the Mi Band, the device will sell for 79 yuan, which translates to about $13 or 10 euros. The first wearable gadget from a company known for its increasingly popular smartphones, the Mi Band can monitor and help with your exercise Continue Reading →