Nokia + Burton: Self tracking and viral advertising

Via Information Aesthetics:

It had to come to this. Now the "viral" infographics has engulfed us so much we cannot longer communicate a simple fact without some sort of Photoshop-crazy or weirdly-angled, textual chart (wonder-o-wonder, where do I get these examples from?), the next frontier seems to become the world of the quantified self.

And of course, the first people to adopt self-tracking viz for viral purposes are always the coolest of the bunch: mobile communications company Nokia and snowboard manufacturer Burton recently joined forces and hooked up a snowboarder to a powerful smartphone and a series of custom sensors in order to capture 5 different measurements during a snowboard run: speed, the 3D orientation of the board, feet pressure, heart rate and physiological rush (i.e. galvanic skin response).

Nokia and Burton now invite people to "interpret" this data in a creative way, ranging from unique visualizations to original installations that are triggered by the data. Their goal is to show the winning entries at the Burton US Open in March.

As any common data geek is also a star on the black-labeled snow slopes, winners will receive VIP tickets, plus accommodation and travel. For anyone who happens to live far, far away from Stratton, US, and has a bunch of free time around the middle of March, this seems like a sweet deal. Note that the submission deadline is 21 February! Others can wait until they release all the required information to develop and make your own data-augmented snowboard.

Be sure to follow the link and check out the embedded videos.

From quantified to optimized

The quantified self movement is clearly on to something: converging technologies are finally allowing people to measure, record and track their biometric information in meaningful ways. People are increasingly wanting to do this—whether it be to measure their sleep patterns or reveal the deep intricacies of their DNA.

But it's not enough to just measure yourself. Left alone, this approach doesn't complete the loop. What matters is that this information be acted upon. Otherwise it's just useless data.

One approach that I see arising from all of this is what I'd like to call the optimized self movement. I don't necessarily agree with the complaint that "optimized" is too nebulous and subjective a word; individual people can come up with their own definition of the term as it applies to their own sets of needs and goals. One person's version of an optimized self will vary significantly from the next person's, and that doesn't make it invalid or somehow wrong. It's all about personal campaigns driven by personal goals and values.

Specifically, I imagine a future not too far from now in which handheld devices and other gadgetry will be preconfigured to monitor specific health and life style factors and make specific recommendations to users based on a predefined set of goals.

For example, your handheld device (or even some kind of augmented reality display), could advise you to consume more protein if it senses that you're below your goal. It could also alert you to problems, like elevated blood pressure or glucose levels, while also advising that you avoid the cheese cake. It could remind you to take your vitamins and supplements. The potential number of trackable and actionable factors are nearly endless.

We're pretty much there right now. There are already toilets in Japan that can measure sugar levels in urine, blood pressure, body fat and weight. This is the kind of thing we can expect more of in the near future.

Sure, you could ignore the advice of your virtual health coach, but if you're keen on hitting your goals you're more apt to listen to it. It could even give you positive feedback and bonus points for consistently hitting your daily lifestyle targets.

And if you're not hitting expected performance goals, you can recalibrate and experiment with different approaches. It's all measurable, so users will eventually know what works best for them. For the most part these are going to be very personal campaigns; individually, we'll be striving to maximize our genetic potential (physical, cognitive and emotional). It will also be possible to tap into the larger network and discover what's working best for other self optimizers.

Personally, my inner perfectionist and health-nut finds the idea of the optimized self particularly appealing. Books like Tim Ferris's Four Hour Body show that personal improvement is part of the new geek agenda. It has suddenly become quite cool and fashionable to apply the latest science to our bodies in order to get the best results possible. It's likely why transhumanists like myself, who are notorious early adopters, are increasingly getting involved in not just things like the quantified self, but also activities like CrossFit and the Paleo diet, both of which which claim to produce the best results in fitness and diet respectively.

I'm looking forward to seeing just how "optimized" I can get. Such a thing would be great for not just health purposes (especially life extension!), but it's also a worthwhile project in personal betterment and self-experimentation in general.

Using EEG for meditation training [quantified self]

Beer van Geer - Project Dagaz from Quantified Self Amsterdam on Vimeo.

From the Amsterdam QS Show&Tell Meetup group: Beer van Geer explains his award-winning Dagaz Project. His application uses the Neurosky EEG headset to quantify brainwaves during meditation on Mandala symbols. Meditation students and practitioners can observe their progress in real-time.

This is very cool considering the recent news indicating that meditation can change the structure of the brain.

Via Quantified Self.

Zeology on polyphasic sleep

Interesting article about polyphasic sleep over at the Zeology blog. Polyphasic sleep is the practice of sleeping (or napping) multiple times during a 24 hour period instead of getting all required sleep at once (monophasic). Zeology recently discovered a fascinating post on the "Polyphasic Sleep" Google Group and had the author, Oki, produce a guest post: Sleeping ’round the Clock: A Polyphasic Experiment. Of interest to the Zeology blog and qualitative self gurus, Oki used Zeo to transition to a polyphasic sleep pattern and track data.

In summary, Oki writes:

• Took very little adaption. The only tricky part was training myself to go to bed between 8 and 10pm instead of midnight but that only took a few days to get used to. Bare in mind that I’ve been experimenting with polyphasic for the past 2 years so napping comes pretty easy to me.
• Easy to pop in and out of. I have the old problem of a partner who I sleep with fairly regularly. If I join her for the morning nap there isn’t much of a problem because I just try to time my wake up to be similar to hers. If we go to bed for the evening nap, however, it’s a bit awkward and annoying for me to be woken and get active in the middle of the night while she is trying to sleep. For one, I’m a much heavier sleeper than she is. We’ve tried a bunch of things over the past couple years and it just doesn’t work. Cuddling is important to a relationship That’s ok! If I sleep monophasically once or twice a week it doesn’t mess up my schedule at all! I still usually hit the mid-day power nap if this happens. Also, if work or a social engagement absolutely can’t be avoided or worked around at that time I can still do it and just sleep monophasically when I finally get to bed. I really need to get an extra power nap in there before I do whatever is going to keep me out late, however, or I’ll start getting really sleepy by 10pm.
• Don’t have a hard time doing any normal activity at night including computer work or reading.
• No apparent decrease in athletic ability. I’m still able to do vigorous exercise for hours at a time.

I'd be curious to know if any of my readers have tried a polyphasic cycle and whether or not it worked for them. My intuition tells me that monophasic sleep, as an evolved sleep mode, is probably best for us, but I'm open to the possibility that it could work.

Personal genomics tests facilitate lifestyle changes

This isn't really surprising when you think about it, but the fact that the data is in is exciting: Personal genomics tests prompt lifestyle changes. From New Scientist:

David Kaufman of the Genetics and Public Policy Center in Washington DC quizzed 1048 customers who had ordered genome scans from Decode Genetics of Reykjavik, Iceland, 23andMe of Mountain View, California, or Navigenics, based in Foster City, California.

Asked about changes in their behaviour between two and six months after receiving the results, 34 per cent of respondents said they were being more careful about their diet, 14 per cent said they were doing more exercise, and 16 per cent had changed their medications or dietary supplements.

"I was surprised at the number of people who said they'd made changes already," says Kaufman, who revealed the results this week at the annual meeting of the American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG) in Washington DC.

That's impressive because getting people to adopt more healthy lifestyles is notoriously difficult – even when family history shows a high risk of conditions like type 2 diabetes and heart attacks.

There's obviously a selectional effect at play here. People who have gone about personalized genomics are already primed to act on that data, otherwise they wouldn't have gone about it in the first place. A bigger question would be: How would a random sampling of individuals respond to the acquisition of personal genomic data and a listing of their potential risks?

My guess is that the figure would be a bit lower than that of the early adopters used in the study. Denial can be a pretty powerful de-motivational factor; people in the pre-contemplative phase of behavior change overtly ignore or dismiss information, even when it's overwhelmingly evident that their lifestyle choices have to change.

That said, these results are very encouraging; it points to a future in which behavior modification can be facilitated through the dissemination of highly personalized genetic information.

The quantified self: 6 tools to help you get started

The quantified self movement is really starting to gain some steam, mostly on account of a slew of new technologies and services that are making personalized metrics easier and more meaningful. It's truly a case where the dream is coming true; in short order we will be able to track the most minute details of our body's functioning, have that data analyzed, and given a set of prescriptions to help us optimize our health based on a predetermined set of goals.

We're not totally there yet, but that day is quickly approaching. Imagine a system that can tell you your Omega 6 to Omega 3 ratio and what you need to do to get it in balance. It could let you know when your iron levels are too low. Or if your LDL cholesterol is too high and what you need to do to raise your HDL levels. A fully realized system will notify you of any problem and let you know what to do about it. When it comes to our health concerns, there will be no more fumbling in the dark.

But there's more to the quantified self movement than just tracking health factors: it's also about self-experimentation. People are looking to better understand their own bodies and behavior. This kind of self-evaluation can be as straight-forward as assessing your performance on or off caffeine, or something more profound like measuring the potential cognitive boosting effects of modafinil. With this empirical approach, the sky's the limit in terms of possibilities.

Regardless of your motives, there are some things you can do today to get started in your quantified self practices. Here are some suggestions:

1. Google Health

Google Health is an online central repository for you to store and share your medical data with whomever you want. You can act on all your health and wellness concerns, engage in data tracking, increase personalization and set and track progress toward health goals. It features an easy-to-use dashboard that brings together your health and wellness information in one place and makes it easier for you to organize and act on that information. Participants can track wellness and wellness goals, including the recording of daily experiences.

2. Personalized genetic testing

Despite some recent setbacks, the personalized genomics movement is steadily gaining in popularity. Companies like 23andMe are empowering individuals with the genetic information they need to better understand who they are and their potential health trajectory. For less than $500, you can learn about your genetic traits, vulnerabilities to inherited diseases, and even ancestry. Armed with this information, you can more knowingly set up preventive health programs for yourself and avoid potential problems later in life.

3. CureTogether

CureTogether provides free tools to help you track your sleep, weight, caloric intake, and exercise. You can also compare your symptoms and treatments for 212 conditions with the community of CureTogether members. In addition, anonymous, free, aggregate data is used for open source health research.

4. BodyMedia Armband

BodyMedia recently announced that its armband sensors will be able to communicate wirelessly with smartphones via Bluetooth. Its health sensors will be one of the first devices, other than ear buds, that link to smartphones with Bluetooth short-range communications. The device is poised to allows users to monitor a collection of nearly 9,000 variables—physical activity, calories burned, body heat, sleep efficiency and others—collected by the sensors in a BodyMedia armband in real-time, as the day goes by. The Bluetooth-enabled armband will cost $249 and the BodyMedia data service will cost $7 a month.

5. Zeo

Zeo is a program that is designed to help you analyze your sleep and improve it. It’s composed of a lightweight wireless headband, a bedside display, a set of online analytical tools, and an email-based personalized coaching program. It works accordingly to a three step process in which you sleep with the wireless headband, view the data that's recorded, and act on tips and assessments received through email-based coaching.

6. Fitbit

The Fitbit is a wearable device that tracks your calories burned, steps taken, distance traveled and sleep quality. It contains a 3D motion sensor like the one found in the Nintendo Wii. The Fitbit tracks your motion in three dimensions and converts this into useful information about your daily activities. The device can be worn on your waist, in your pocket or on undergarments. At night, you can wear the Fitbit clipped to the included wristband in order to track your sleep. Anytime you walk by the included wireless base station, data from your Fitbit is silently uploaded in the background to Fitbit.com.

So, what are you waiting for? Go quantify yourself!

Body sensing armband

Quantified-self junkies, rejoice: BodyMedia recently announced that its armband sensors will be able to communicate wirelessly with smartphones via Bluetooth. Its health sensors will be one of the first devices, other than ear buds, that link to smartphones with Bluetooth short-range communications.

The device is poised to allows users to monitor a collection of nearly 9,000 variables—physical activity, calories burned, body heat, sleep efficiency and others—collected by the sensors in a BodyMedia armband in real-time, as the day goes by.

The Bluetooth-enabled armband will cost $249 and the BodyMedia data service will cost $7 a month. The device is scheduled go on sale this coming November. In the past, BodyMedia users had to consult personal data downloaded to a Web site or observe a few measurements on a special watchband display, sold for $100.