Two universities adopt Wii Fit to monitor football concussions
As it turns out, there are quite a few uses for a $100 off-the-shelf computerized scale, above and beyond getting fit — Nintendo’s Wii Balance Board is now providing a mechanism by which college football teams at Ohio State University and the University of Maryland can cheaply determine whether players are suffering from concussions. Taking the place of force plate machines that can cost tens of thousands of dollars, the white plastic boards measure students’ balance (using yoga poses) and coordination (in Table Tilt) before a game, to provide a frame of reference against which trainers can measure whether athletes are fit to keep playing. Though some scholars found Wii Fit didn’t stack up favorably against the expensive force plates, the universities trialing the system called it “pretty decent,” so the question is whether Nintendo’s peripheral offers a reasonable enough benchmark for the price. We suppose the American Heart Association liked it well enough.
Two universities adopt Wii Fit to monitor football concussions originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 23 Aug 2010 03:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Posted: August 23rd, 2010
at 7:39am by Sean Hollister
Topics: BalanceBoard, Health, NintendoWii, OhioStateUniversity, Sports, University of Maryland, UniversityOfMaryland, Wii Fit, WiiBalanceBoard, WiiFit, athletics, balance board, concussion, concussions, injury, nintendo, nintendo wii, ohio state university, wii, wii balance board
Coway AP-1008 Air Purifier With Color Changing Pollution Indicator Light
By Andrew Liszewski
Besides a slick form factor that won it a red dot design award and a 3-stage Hepa filtration system which removes 99.5% of airborne particles including germs and dust, the Coway AP-1008 features an illuminated hole that will glow a specific color depending on how polluted the room happens to be. Red indicates high levels of pollution, light purple for medium pollution, purple for low pollution and blue signifies the room is 99.5% clean. Of course that last 0.5% of air pollution could very well contain those microscopic bits that eventually get you, but for $279.99 you’re greatly increasing your odds of not getting sick.
[ Coway AP-1008 Air Purifier ] VIA [ 7Gadgets ]
AgaMatrix WaveSense Cable Will Let Diabetics Connect Their iPhone To Their Blood Glucose Meter
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AgaMatrix, maker of the Jazz blood glucose meter, already has an extremely popular free database app for the iPhone available that lets you manage and track your diabetes ’scores’ which is an important part of managing the disease. But until now, or very soon at least, users have had to manually enter the results from the meter into the application. Not a giant inconvenience mind you, but one that’s soon to be a thing of the past thanks to the company’s new WaveSense Direct Connect Cable which allows the glucose meter to transfer the results directly to their app on the iPhone, iPod Touch or the iPad. The cable is currently pending review and approval from the FDA, but when available it will sell for around $25-30. Until that time you can sign up on the AgaMatrix website to get a notification when the cable is finally ready for sale.
[ AgaMatrix WaveSense Direct Connect iPhone Cable ] VIA [ DiabetesMine ]
Your Dog Wants A Collar Air Purifier
By Evan Ackerman
Want to know where the whole dog versus cat thing got started? I’ll tell you: allergies. Dogs are allergic to cats. Think about it, it makes so much sense, especially for us humans who also have cat allergies. Allergies turn you in to a crazy feral beast who sneezes. The solution to this, obviously, is to get your dog a personal ionic air purifier, which will virtually guarantee harmony with all other animal species. But wait, there’s more.
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This thing? This thing scares me. This is a problem, since it’s supposed to be relieving stress as opposed to causing stress. Seriously. It’s a stress relieving device that looks suspiciously like the mouth of a lamprey, which, in case you didn’t know, is a fish that bores into your flesh and sucks your blood out. The Headtime scalp massager features 29 silicon balls, 34 ceramic balls, LED lighting, temperature control, and an internal speaker system that plays soothing nature sounds. You wear it on your head like a hat and pretend that it doesn’t make you look like this guy:
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