livestrong

The bike that expresses its feelings

There are times, I am sure, when you believe your car is talking to you. Your lawn mower too, no doubt. These machines sometimes groan and squeal as if to say "Ease up, big boy" or "Honey, I have a headache."

I have to tell you, though, that these messages are all in your mind. Machines do not have feelings. They will never truly love you.

Well, all except one. A bike called Precious.

Precious has been fitted with all sorts of clever sensors that reveal the bike's thoughts and feelings at any given moment. As Precious rides along, the sensors send the average of their readings by text message back to servers that analyze the true emotional soul of this extraordinary machine.

This analysis leads, it being the modern world, to tweets at Twitter.com/yesiamprecious. Did I mention that Precious is currently on a 3-month journey from the East Coast of America to the West, in aid of Livestrong? Well, I should have, because it makes for some fascinating understanding of how a machine's brain and emotions really work.… Read more

Gowalla: We're still in the location race

It's been fewer than four months since the much-hyped "location wars" of the South by Southwest Interactive Festival, where eager onlookers were quick to pit rival "check-in" services Foursquare and Gowalla against one another to see which one dominated the social-media-crazed nerdfest. Yet, by most accounts, Foursquare has emerged victorious.

Earlier this week, a set of statistics made the rounds claiming that Foursquare is now five times bigger than Gowalla and is growing 75 percent faster. A source in the location space added a tidbit in a conversation with CNET: not only is Foursquare winning … Read more

Gadgettes 188: The Mega-Segment Farewell Episode (podcast)

I hope you are sitting, and not standing. For this is in fact the final episode of Gadgettes. Yes, it sucks. But the show will always live on in the archives. Before you start re-listening to every single past episode, enjoy our final sendoff where we (appropriately) cover nearly all of the segments from the show.

Subscribe:  iTunes (MP3) |  iTunes (320x180) |  iTunes (640x360) |  RSS (MP3) |  RSS (320x180) |  RSS (640x360)… Read more

Webware Radar: Disney brings Kaboose aboard

Disney Online announced on Wednesday that it has acquired "a number" of assets from family site Kaboose.

According to the company, Kaboose assets were acquired for $18 million. Kaboose sites, including BabyZone and AmazingMoms, will become part of Disney's existing family properties. The deal will be completed once the acquisition attains shareholder approval.

FileLater, an authorized IRS e-file provider, announced on Wednesday that it is now the only online service to provide both businesses and consumers the opportunity to file a tax extension before the April 15 deadline. The company said it facilitated the filing of more … Read more

Fire the personal trainer: Use these sites instead

Spring is almost here, and soon we'll be showing the world much more than just our heads and hands. That means it's time to get up off the couch and start doing whatever we can to get our bods ready for summer. Need advice on that? These sites can help.

Gyminee If you're looking for a way to track your workouts and get some dietary advice, Gyminee is a great place to start.

In a matter of seconds, you'll be able to join Gyminee and start creating a workout regimen that will help you lose weight, tone your muscles, or gain strength. And you won't need to do it alone. With the help of Gyminee, you can find exercises and create a regimen from pre-configured workout routines based on your goals. Gyminee does a fine job of helping you do whatever you want.

Gyminee's tracking tools are very good. Once you sign up, you can put your weight, resting heart rate, and measurements into the system to see where you stand today. As long as you keep inputting that information on a regular basis, it will show you a detailed graph providing your progress over the term of your workout. That's easily my favorite feature because it's a great motivation tool that helps me see just how far I've come since I started exercising.

While Gyminee does a fine job with workouts and tracking, I was disappointed with its dietary advice. It does provide a detailed analysis of required calorie, fat, and protein intake to get you to your goal weight, but it doesn't do much more. It doesn't tell you what to eat and how to do it. It doesn't tell you when you should be eating. It basically tells you that you need to have a certain number of calories every day and leaves it at that. For a full-featured health improvement site, that's weak.

Gyminee boasts extra features like a forum so you can discuss health considerations, and you can make friends with others and track their progress. If you want, you can also set challenges and see how close you are to achieving those goals. Gyminee offers good features and it's worth using even though it doesn't have enough dietary information.… Read more

Find answers to your medical questions with these five sites

I am, sadly, well-acquainted with medical research sites. (I broke my back years ago, and am still dealing with the recovery.) But while everyone knows WebMD and probably uses the site to find out about medical conditions, you might be surprised to know there are a slew of sites that offer similar service, providing outstanding medical information. I've found these sites to be good resources.

HealthiNation While some sites deliver articles of medical information, HealthiNation uses videos to inform you about what a condition is all about.

Overall, HealthiNation is designed quite well and its easy to search for … Read more

Lance Armstrong launches health and fitness site, sort of

Correction: This post initially misstated the type of cancer Lance Armstrong survived. It was testicular.

Lance Armstrong, the champion cyclist who was everybody's hero until he dated Mary-Kate Olsen, is taking his LiveStrong brand to the Web much in the way that MC Hammer did with DanceJam.

Armstrong has formally partnered with Demand Media to launch LiveStrong.com, which debuted in full on Tuesday. It's a site for keeping tabs on fitness, wellness, and weight-loss goals, along with discussion forums, editorial content, and videos--other sites in this space are Wellsphere and SparkPeople.

It's a for-profit spinoff of … Read more

Reply to Mr. Ohman concerning patent dispute with Lance Armstrong Foundation

Mr. Ohman responded to yesterday's posting, expressing concerns as to the accuracy of its content. In an email message to me, he said that his design patent was amended because the USPTO simply asked him to choose one design of the three he originally filed, that he was not "forced" to amend his claims, and that the Patent Office did not refuse anything. See Yesterday's Posting. He also stated that he felt the information in yesterday's posting to be defamatory and libel. It was certainly not the intent of the posting to cause any hurt … Read more

Lance Armstrong Foundation sued by holder of design patent for BARKSTRONG pet collar

In an apparent retaliatory lawsuit, Chris Ohman has sued the Lance Armstrong Foundation ("LAF") for infringing a design patent to its "BARKSTRONG" dog collar design. In his complaint, filed in the Northern District of Oklahoma last week, Mr. Ohman claims to own patent rights to the use of the LAF's signature LIVESTRONG mark on pet collars , and accuses "LIVESTRONG" pet collars sold by the LAF of infringement. The lawsuit appears extremely questionable in light of the fact that the Patent Office expressly denied Mr. Ohman design patent protection for collars with the word &… Read more