Free yourself with wearable tech
If you ask us to define the purpose of wearable tech, our first instinct is to say that it exists to free us from the struggle finding ways to improve certain aspects of our lives without impeding them, and the desire to document what happens around us and even within us. Yet this week, we discovered that wearable tech means more than that. Wearable tech means building a sort of balanced ecosystem with the gadgets that serve to enrich our lives. In the eyes of the mobile phone company Vodafone and University of Southampton, this means making use of the energy that our bodies produce to generate electricity to charge our mobile phones or gadgets. Currently, the kinetic and thermoelectric technology can be harnessed through two products: The Power Shorts and The Recharge Sleeping Bag. And if you worry about wear and tear in these products, you could even use Bare Paint, developed by graduates from the London’s Royal College of Art, to draw up electric circuits. All you have to do is move it to charge it!
Read more: The shorts and sleeping bag that mean you’ll never run out of mobile battery again – because they’re powered by your body heat and Cool Tech: Liquid Wiring On Paper, Walls And More, Thanks to Conductive Paint
On the move with wearable tech
And if mobility is one of the key reasons why you don wearable tech devices, this upcoming product might excite you just as much. A Russian startup, LiveMap, is working on an Iron Man helmet – a motorcycle helmet that has a built-in navigation system that accepts voice commands. Check out their Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign here!
Read more: Wearable Technology: LiveMap Working On Iron Man Motorcycle Helmet
Quantifying on the go with Foursquare
Now if you’ve been getting around a lot on your motorcycle or just donning the Power Shorts and running around to generate more electrical energy for charging your devices, remember to check-in on your Foursquare account because Foursquare just got better. For the love of the quantified self, Foursquare has introduced the Foursquare Time Machine to let you view all your past check-ins on a beautiful visualization that you see in the picture above. You could even share this with your loved ones to let them know of your favorite cafes or hangout zones. This move by Foursquare surely helps us to help others understand us better. Maybe the quantified self movement is becoming the quantified us movement? Stay tuned!
Read more: Foursquare Time Machine Teleports You Down Memory Lane
Sleep and memory
With all that moving around, we now touch upon an extremely important topic in lifelogging – sleep. Yes, you heard us right. Sleep is as important in lifelogging as being active and archiving the things you do. Sleep has been shown to be key in consolidating our memories. While we can rely on all kinds of devices to help us remember every moment, the primary lifelogging device is still our brain’s ability to retain precious memories. We all know how important sleep is in restoring our bodies and some even use sleeping pills in order to get that good rest that we deserve. However, the latest studies have shown that the commonly prescribed sleeping aid (known as Ambien), though effective in helping us sleep, heightens the recollection of and response to negative memories. Better to think twice before we pop that next pill, maybe?
Read more: Ambien Can Improve Your Recall, But Only For Unhappy Memories and Sleep Mechanism Identified That Plays Role in Emotional Memory
Time-lapse video: Existence
Putting all that research about negative memories aside, we love how time-lapse videos simply remind us of how beautiful life is. We came across this one (above) earlier this week and we hope you enjoy it as much as we did! Have a great weekend and we wish all fathers out there a Happy Father’s Day!
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