Monitors

Smartphones may offer a smarter way to gather data in cognitive research, according to a paper in this week's journal PLoS ONE.

Until recently, when studying human behavior cognitive psychologists--who examine such things as how people think, remember, and perceive the world around them--have relied on volunteers who come to research facilities.

Collecting data solely from this sort of cohort could highly skew resulting data; for one, the number of people who volunteer their time tends to be smaller in scale, and by studying only the types of people who volunteer for this kind of research, cognitive psychologists … Read more

In Japan, it's called "detergent suicide." People take their own lives by inhaling a deadly mixture of chemicals, typically including hydrogen sulfide, in small, enclosed spaces such as cars or closets. At high enough concentrations, one breath can be lethal.

A few years ago, these chemical suicides were extremely rare. But they started occurring more frequently in Japan and began to make headlines there after a 14-year-old girl contaminated 90 of her neighbors when she took her life this way in 2008. Today, by some counts, more than 2,000 people have committed suicide in this fashion, … Read more

Health and wellness firm Zeo's labeling of sleep problems in America as an "epidemic" might not be hyperbole. Some 64 million of us grapple with sleep issues every night, and another 49 million struggle at least a few nights a week, according to the firm's analysis of U.S. Census data.

Zeo, which first caught our eye in 2005 under the name Axon Labs with an alarm clock called SleepSmart, now offers a highly evolved mobile sleep system that employs a wireless headband to track all known sleep phases, including Light, Deep, and REM sleep.

The Zeo Sleep Manager then sends the resulting sleep data directly to the user's mobile device (iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, and soon Android-based smartphones), which then syncs to the user's online Zeo account, where a ZQ sleep score that summarizes sleep quality is calculated. (It used to be transmitted to an SD card and then had to be manually uploaded.)… Read more

Iteration is something Apple is good at. Its 24-inch Cinema Display was good, but it appealed to an extremely small number of users. In 2010, Apple released a new version with an improved screen and by that time there were many more Mini-DisplayPort-compatible Macs in the wild, thus widening its appeal.

With its Thunderbolt Display, Apple adds a superfast connection, as well as Ethernet, FireWire, and Thunderbolt. Note that the display is only compatible with Thunderbolt-compatible Macs, so in effect, we're kind of right where we started with the 24-inch Cinema Display: a powerful monitor that only a small … Read more

After the alliterative disaster that was five-deal Wednesday, I couldn't let Friday go without correcting that disturbance in the Force. Plus, a lot of really good deals appeared on my radar today.

Many of them are today-only and/or limited-time, but all of them are still available and in stock as I write this. In no particular order:

1. Newegg has the 32GB iPod Touch (4th gen) for $269.99 shipped when you apply coupon code EMCKAHG29 at checkout. To clarify, this is the latest model, the one with the retina display and built-in cameras. And it'… Read more

Researchers at UC Santa Barbara are introducing a novel technique using a form of laser spectroscopy and biotags that help discriminate between cancerous and healthy cells.

While the tech is likely years away from clinical trials, the team hopes it will eventually lead to a microdevice that can predict when prostate cancer will metastasize--which is key, given it is the metastasis throughout the body, not the primary tumor, that kills prostate cancer patients.

"The delay is not well understood," says Gary Braun, biologist and second author of the paper that appears this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. &… Read more

Engineers at the University of Utah predict that, in about five years, a network of wireless transceivers around a bed will be able to measure breathing rates without a single tube or wire being connected to the patient.

The uses of the system, which the team has dubbed BreathTaking, are obvious: patients in post-op, infants at risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, or even people with sleep apnea.

And because the technology uses off-the-shelf transceivers similar to ones used in home computer networks, the system could cost less than current breathing monitors, said electrical engineer Neal Patwari, senior author of … Read more

Houston, we have a health problem.

About 30 percent of adults in the U.S. have at least two chronic health conditions. Roughly half of a panel of surveyed patients are not complying with doctor's orders. And more than half of Americans could be obese by 2030.

In the coming years it's going to be more important than ever for doctors' offices to be able to automatically track their patients across a variety of parameters, from age and ethnicity to conditions and diseases, and even to compliance levels. Dallas-based health management firm Phytel is hoping that the platform it's unveiling today … Read more

Last month, when asked which one was better, Thunderbolt or USB 3.0, I said that it was hard to compare the two since Thunderbolt is about more than just storage. Now here's the proof: Apple's latest Thunderbolt-based device, the Thunderbolt Display.

This is the first display from Apple that uses Thunderbolt as the connection, and from my first impressions, it seems great.

First of all, it's extremely sleek with an aluminum chassis and a gorgeous-looking LED-backlight LCD. It's huge, too, with a 27-inch screen with a 16:9 aspect ratio and a maximum resolution of … Read more