From Engadget: Squid is a shirt that keeps an exercise journal so you don’t have to

Squid

Wearable fitness trackers are everywhere these days. Everyone has a GPS watch, companies like Jawbone have turned to slightly stranger form factors, while AT&T and Under Armourare putting sensors inside clothing. Students at Northeastern University think the latter have the right idea, and have put an array of electrodes inside a compression shirt. The apparel is part of system being called Squid, which also includes a smartphone app and an exercise tracking site. Unlike other tech that ends with monitoring hear rate and tracking GPS coordinates Squid can actually gauge muscle activity and count reps so you don’t have to. The shirt probably can’t tell the difference between a bench press and push up, but at least its one less task to worry about while whipping yourself into fighting shape. No word on if or when the system might become available to the general public, so you’ll have to make do with the video after the break to see it in action.

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From Engadget: IDC: Nokia, Samsung, Apple are the new top 3 handset makers

The latest figures are in from IDC: the top three global smartphone makers are Nokia, Samsung and Apple, in that order. Drilling down into the figures finds some surprises: Cupertino’s third-place with only 8.7 percent of the market, while the giants of Korea and Finland are duking it out with 22.8 percent and 26.6 respectively. LG and ZTE are tied for fourth, but that’s hardly good news for Goldstar, given that it’s lost a staggering 42.2 percent of its market share in the last twelve months (Nokia was the other loser, eating 8.2 percent). The cause for the drop is in part the world’s rejection of feature-phones (dropped faster than fashionistas rightly abandoned Ugg Boots and Jeggings) as millions upgraded to smartphones. After the break we’ve got the tables in full for anyone who wants to have their mind blown at the sheer quantity of handsets shipped in the last year, both financial and calendar.

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From Engadget: French court fines Google France 500,000 euros for gratis Maps

French court fines Google France 500,000 Euros for gratis Maps

A Parisian commercial court has upheld a lower court’s ruling against Google France, ordering the company to pay a fine of €500,000 for giving away its maps services. The plaintiff, Bottin Cartographes, claims that Google leveraged the market share of its Maps platform — and the fact that it’s free — to undercut and stifle competition attempting to sell their topographical wares to businesses. “We proved the illegality of [Google’s] strategy,” said Bottin’s counsel, noting that this was the first timeGoogle has been convicted of malfeasance for this particular piece of software in the country. A representative from the search giant said it plans to appeal the decision, and reiterated the company’s belief that competition exists in the space. Personally, we think the court got it right. Why should people get an awesome product for free when they can pay for an inferior one, right?

French court fines Google France 500,000 euros for gratis Maps originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 02 Feb 2012 00:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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From Engadget: Seagate GoFlex Thunderbolt Adapter now shipping, snag one for $100

Keeping its Q1 delivery promise, Seagate is now shipping its GoFlex Thunderbolt Adapter for portable drives of the same moniker. We got our mits on this bad boy back at CES, witnessing first-hand the much improved transfer speeds of Intel’s tech over the standard USB 2.0 for the smaller external drives. You can snag yours now, via the source link for a whole Benjamin. If you’re in need of a refresher before making the investment, hit the gallery below for another peek at our hands-on.

 

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From Discover Magazine: NCBI ROFL: Who needs a doctor when you have Facebook? | Discoblog

It’s Facebook week on NCBI ROFL! All this week we’ll be featuring papers about everyone’s favorite social networking site. Enjoy!

Laypersons can seek help from their Facebook friends regarding medical diagnosis

“INTRODUCTION:
In contrast to Internet search engines, social media on the Internet such as Facebook, Twitter, etc. reach a large number of people, who are ready to help answering questions. This type of information aggregation has been dubbed “crowdsourcing” i.e. outsourcing a task to a large group of people or community (a crowd) through an open call. Our aim was to explore whether laypersons via Facebook friends could crowd source their way to a medical diagnosis based on a brief medical history, posted as a status update on Facebook.
MATERIAL AND METHODS:
The participants posted a brief case story on their Facebook profile and asked their “Facebook friends” to come up with possible diagnoses.
RESULTS:
The correct diagnosis was suggested in five of the six case stories, and the correct diagnosis was made after a median of ten minutes. The quality of the responses varied from relevant differential diagnoses to very silly diagnostic suggestions.
CONCLUSION:
Based on this study, we believe that laypersons can use his or …

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From Engadget: Comcast’s Internet Essentials program expanding as digital literacy project soars

Well, at least Comcast is doing one thing right!
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If everyone needs the internet, then poor kids need it more — since so much learning material is dependent on technology. Comcast teamed up with the FCC to produce Internet Essentials: a $10 a month broadband plan and $150 computers to get the nation’s poorest families online. Six months later, the program’s been a colossal success, leading to the company adding some sweeteners: eligibility is being relaxed to include any family who qualifies for discounted lunches (swelling the catchment group by a further 300,000). It’s also doubling the speed of the available connection: 3 Mbps down and 768 Kbps up and is allowing community groups to bulk-buy packages to directly supply the most impecunious households. It’s also pairing up with the “connect to compete” initiative to reduce computer costs, enrich digital literacy materials and connect those outside of Comcast’s core service areas. You can head on down to our source link to read the extended report and see how families are benefiting from a little corporate good deed.

 

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