Smart Glasses Continue Dream of Practical Head-Mounted Displays
Like many innovations just coming to fruition, smart glasses are a technology people first began dreaming of long ago. Wearable tech has always fascinated people, though until the modern age of technology it was impossible to pull off, and the idea of a wearable display has been arguably the most fascinating idea to people for some time. In fact, while Thelma McCollum’s name might not be one everyone knows or thinks of when they think back on great inventors, she actually has patents for dozens of new technologies in the 1940s and beyond. One of these was a patent for a device she referred to as a “stereoscopic television apparatus.” This was in 1945 and, sadly, became largely forgotten. It was not until some fifteen years later or so, in 1960, anybody really began taking the idea of a wearable display with any seriousness. While nothing really came to a real fulfilment, Morton Heilig fascinated people with the idea. Nobody at the time could believe it was even possible but, sure enough, Heilig applied for and received a patent for his own, less bulky, version of a head-mounted display. He followed this up in 1962 with his patent for the “Sensorama Simulator,” a virtual reality simulator complete with handlebars, a binocular display, a vibrating seat, stereophonic speakers, cold air blower, and a device close to the nose which would generate odors according to the action in the film. The intention of this device was to completely immerse a film viewer in every aspect of the film in a way we still cannot quite accomplish, but it was a bold effort to be sure. Obviously, the sheer bulk of such a device made its use impractical en masse, but he did create his dream via an arcade-style machine which played a 3D film along with stereo sound, vibration, smells, and wind. With this machine, he achieved his dream of creating a completely immersive sensory environment, but it would be several more years before the dream of making a truly wearable device would occur. Read more »
Fitbit is perhaps the premier name in the fitness tracker category, and the company’s newest offering is not just more of the same. It has always been a very popular brand, as well as probably the largest of its kind, and it had a hit with the Charge HR. That model came out in 2015, however, so a new release from Fitbit has been a good while coming in a quickly evolving tech market, and the answer was the Fitbit Charge 2. 
Runners have a lot of apps to track various aspects of their runs, with a plethora of options from which to choose whether a phone app connected to a wearable on your wrist or one for a smartwatch. Now Under Armour, one of the premier names in sports and fitness wear, has released technology that is not only wearable but completely unnoticeable. What this means is that runners no longer need to wear a fitness watch or activity band to track your workouts. Instead, the technology is in their running shoes: the SpeedForm Gemini RE. 
Advancements in technology continue to provide us with faster ways to collect more thorough data than ever before. From computers to mobile devices and now wearables, each piece of tech helps us to learn more. We can use technology to better understand sleep patterns, for instance, or how running affects us physiologically, but how do we organize that data for more useful purposes? Zenobase is an app that lets you store, visualize and correlate data from wearable devices with custom data or data from other sources to understand it on a higher level. For instance, you can better understand the question of sleep patterns when you can correlate as much information as possible, such as how the phase of the moon affects them. You can go beyond the effects of running to determine whether swimming or running affects you more positively. There are myriad possibilities, and Zenobase can open them all.