Cerebral palsy is a group of permanent movement disorders that appear in early childhood. It's caused by damage that occurs to the immature brain as it develops, most often before birth. This is the most common cause of pediatric disabilities, particularly debilitating for daily activities. There are ankle-foot orthoses available as gait treatment. But selecting the most appropriate orthotic configuration is not easy. Researchers in Italy have now developed an assessment protocol based on wearable gait analysis to help clinicians in ankle-foot orthoses configuration selection.

Read more European Researchers Team Up with Pharma Companies to Develop Gait Detecting Sensor

For their study, the researchers selected 10 children with spastic diplegic Cerebral Palsy. The children were aged 4 to 11 years.

The participants performed a 10 Meter Walk Test in three conditions: barefoot and wearing alternatively a polypropylene hinged and solid ankle-foot orthosis accommodated in the same off-the-shelf shoe model, after 20 days of daily use of each configuration. The researchers developed an instrumented assessment protocol based on body-mounted magneto-inertial sensors to measure spatio-temporal, gait stability and symmetry, reports Science Direct.

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The researchers found that all the children benefited by the two orthoses. The ankle-foot orthoses were patient-specific and it helped different children with gait issues. “The proposed instrumented protocol represents a quantitative and useful tool to support the clinical selection of an appropriate orthotic treatment and, potentially, in evaluating its effectiveness,” the wrote.

Read more FeetMe, Novartis Collaboration Aims to Study Gait of Multiple Sclerosis Patients

The research team comprised of researchers from Ospedale Pediatrico Bambino Gesù; Interuniversity Centre of Bioengineering of the Human Neuromusculoskeletal System, University of Rome “Foro Italico”; and ITOP SpA Officine Ortopediche, Palestrina – all in Rome, Italy.

The study was published in the journal Science Direct.

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Libre Wireless Technologies, an embedded Wi-Fi/wireless technology hardware and software solutions provider, announced their MAVID low power mic-to-cloud platform is now powering Hansong’s Microdot XS, a Wi-Fi/Bluetooth audio speaker with a no compromise far field voice interface featuring Amazon Alexa Built-In.

Hansong Technology is an audio OEM/ODM manufacturer, covering home theatre, hifi and AV systems, custom installation solutions, professional audio, wireless technologies and commercial products including AI voice and IoT devices.

Read more Waves Announces Optimization of Nx 3D Audio Technology with Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 Mobile Platform

“We are extremely excited about this entirely new category of portable, ultra-low power products enabled by Libre’s MAVID device,” says Helge Kristensen, Vice President at Hansong Technology. “The Microdot XS is the first of several breakthrough portable and wearable products we will deliver as we enable entirely new use cases and applications in the exploding AI and IoT markets where voice is becoming a primary new man-machine interface.”

The MAVID device is single chip mic-to-cloud solution measuring only 13.5mm square. By integrating Hansong technology, it created an entirely new category of personal, portable battery powered miniature voice-enabled product, reports Business Wire.

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The Microdot XS, a tiny golf ball-sized speaker, has all the advanced features of full-size Wi-Fi audio speakers. The small size and long battery life allow users to carry it wherever they go. The device has the unique ability to connect to your mobile phone hotspot while maintaining special low power connections for extended voice assistant and music streaming support.

Read more ReSound Launches LiNX Quattro, the First AI Voice Control Smart Hearing Aid

“We are very proud of having developed and delivered MAVID, a revolutionary voice/AI technology product which offers so much unique and differentiating value to our customers,” says Jordan Watters, Chief Executive Officer of Libre Wireless Technologies. “With innovative partners like Hansong Technology, we are excited to see the many unique new miniature, portable and wearable WiFi products that are being created and will lead the market expansion of voice assistant applications.”

The Microdot XS will launch in Q3 2019 in multiple markets including the US, UK, Germany and France, and can be seen at the Amazon booth at IFA Berlin and viewed in Amazon’s partner program press release at Amazon Press Link for Hansong Microdot.

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Almost on a weekly basis, there are reports of an active shooter in the workplace. These critical events are threatening lives and causing major business disruptions. Fatal work injuries have increased over the last decade, with 5,147 occupational fatalities recorded in the U.S. in 2017. Now, Everbridge, a Massachusetts-based event management and enterprise safety software applications provider, is partnering with wearable device maker RiskBand to bolster workplace safety.

Read more Wearable SOS Button to Reduce Lone Worker Hazards

With the additional modality and simple access of the RiskBand wearable device, Everbridge is expanding its addressable market for protecting employees regardless of their physical location, whether inside the office, working remotely, or traveling the globe, reports Business Wire.

“The rise in smart technology and connected devices drastically improves operations for businesses across the globe, and brings about new opportunities to keep people safe,” said David Meredith, CEO of Everbridge. “Our partnership with RiskBand advances our existing connected safety ecosystem, offering employees without immediate access to a mobile phone with a direct line for emergency communication that they can utilize anywhere.”

The challenge of these incidents is only magnified by an increasingly mobile workforce, as well as the prevalence of lone worker scenarios across multiple industries served by both Everbridge and RiskBand, including healthcare, banking, retail, energy and utilities, hospitality, and higher education.

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Designed for enterprise-level personal safety and security, RiskBand’s wearable devices bolster an organization’s emergency communication and response strategy. A single push of a button provides two-way voice, user profile data, images, and geolocation, in near real-time to your organization’s security operations center. As part of the partnership, Everbridge will integrate its award-winning Safety Connection™ platform with RiskBand’s wearables, allowing both Everbridge and RiskBand customers to receive emergency messaging and provide detailed reporting of their location.

Read more CommandWear Wearable Technology Helps Save Lives While Also Keeping First Responders Safe

“It is especially gratifying that a respected industry leader like Everbridge recognizes the powerful solution of the RiskBand ARIES device and platform. We believe that this collaborative partnership will enable us to empower businesses to enhance employee safety through state-of-the-art wearable devices that are fully integrated with the most comprehensive critical event management solutions,” explained Jim Van Law, CEO and Co-founder of RiskBand.

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Wearable health and wellness devices such as smartwatches and fitness trackers use optical detection to monitor vital health data. However, this rigid technology hinders the performance and form factor of the device. Now, in a study published in Science Advances, researchers demonstrated a new class of flexible and transparent wearables based on graphene sensitized with semiconducting quantum dots (GQD). The researchers showed several prototype wearable devices that are able to monitor vital health signs noninvasively, including heart rate, arterial oxygen saturation (SpO2), and respiratory rate.

Our skin is a unique interface for electronic devices to assess the current wellness and health status of our body.

Read more Exeter Researchers Develop Self-Powered Graphene-Based Wearable Sensors for Monitoring Vital Signs

Optical vital sign monitoring is typically performed through photoplethysmography (PPG). PPG-based wearables are made of discrete, rigid silicon photodiodes that cannot interface conformably with the skin and thereby reduce the accuracy of the data. At the same time, bulky readout electronics and rigid sensors make the wearable uncomfortable to the user, reports Science Advances.

Because of its flexibility and transparency, graphene is a viable material for wearable sensors. Especially, GQD (graphene sensitized with semiconducting quantum dots) photodetectors offer key benefits such as broadband wavelength sensitivity and high responsivity due to a built-in photoconductive gain.

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For their study, the researchers integrated flexible photodetector in a flexible bracelet and on a mobile phone screen, allowing users to track heart rate and respiration rate from a range of body locations. They used reflectance mode PPG to extract the heart rate of the user from the wrist. On the other hand, they used transmission mode PPG to monitor the heart rate of the user from a finger placed on the health patch.

In this case, the health patch uses the ambient light passing through the tissue, which then reaches the. Because of the broadband wavelength sensitivity of the GQD PD, the health patch can operate in transmission mode using solely ambient light because light of higher wavelength penetrates further into the skin. “This allows a wearable device to detect vital signs that require continuous tracking over a long time. Because of the absence of an external light source, the power consumption of the integrated wearables is very low and limited to the dissipation in the PD and the readout electronics,” the researchers wrote. “Mass-produced and low-cost devices are within reach for this flexible wearable platform, as it is fully compatible with scalable CVD growth and roll-to-roll transfer processes,” they concluded.

Read more Graphene-Based Sensors Detect Diabetic Foot Ulcers Before They Cause Injury

The research was carried out by scientists from ICFO–Institut de Ciencies Fotoniques, The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology, 08860 Castelldefels, Institució Catalana de Recerça i Estudis Avançats, and Lluis Companys, in Barcelona, Spain.

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According to new report from International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Wearable Device Tracker, shipments of wrist-worn wearables, including smartwatches, basic watches, and wrist bands, reached 34.2 million units, up 28.8% during the second quarter of 2019. The top 5 companies – Xiaomi, Apple, Huawei, Fitbit, and Samsung – captured 65.7% of the market, an almost 12-point gain from last year, reports Business Wire.

“Health is now at the forefront for these devices since companies have started providing actionable insights and prescriptive measures for end users,” said Jitesh Ubrani, research manager for IDC Mobile Device Trackers. “Beyond health, mobile payment is also starting to become a mainstay as roughly two out of five wrist-worn wearables now include NFC, and many more simply use QR codes to complete transactions.”

Read more Children are Becoming Major Driving Force Behind the Wearable Market Growth in China

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Top 5 companies highlighted are:

Xiaomi. This Chinese wearable maker maintained the top position thanks to its latest Mi Band 4. China remains the most active market for Xiaomi's products though expansion outside China continues to be a priority.

Apple. The Cupertino tech giant ranked second in terms of units although the company outpaces all others in terms of dollar value as the average selling price for an Apple Watch was $448 during the quarter. IDC anticipates shipments of the Apple Watch to grow by 10.8% by the end of 2019 and capture 38.9% of all smartwatches shipped during the year.

Huawei. This Shenzhen, Guangdong-based company took the third position with its dual brand strategy aimed at capturing the mass market with the Huawei brand and a younger audience with the Honor brand. Many of the company's wearables are bundled with its smartphones, thereby putting the company in a challenging position given all the recent uncertainty around its smartphone business.

Read more IDC Report: Xiaomi Tops Apple and Fitbit with 21.5% Global Wearable market share in Q3 2018

Fitbit. The wrist-worn wearables market pioneer, ranked fourth in the recent quarter. Though its smartwatch business declined, thanks to poor reception of the Versa Lite, the company did manage overall growth due to the popularity of the newly launched Inspire wristbands.

Samsung. The South Korea-based multinational conglomerate rounded out the top 5 and achieved the highest growth rate amongst the top 5 due to the introduction of its low-cost wrist bands, the Galaxy Fit and Galaxy Fit e, and the popularity of the Galaxy Watch.

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MediaTek, a Taiwanese fabless semiconductor company, launched MT8516 2-mic development kit for Alexa Voice Service (AVS). The MT8516 kit is an integrated hardware and software solution aimed at helping developers build high-quality voice-assistant products, thereby reduce development costs and accelerate the integration process for creating far-field products with Alexa built-in, including multi-room music (MRM) capabilities.

Read more MediaTek Launches New Multi-Mode 5G SoC to Power High-End 5G Devices

Ideal for a wide range of voice assistant devices and audio applications, the MT8516 kit features a quad-core ARM Cortex-A35 application processor, operating up to 1.3 GHz to process user inputs faster. The development kit provides a highly integrated and cost-competitive solution with both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth capabilities built in, and also integrates audio front-end and post-processing technologies without any additional cost. With MT8516, audio manufacturers can reduce the development time, effort and costs associated with designing and customizing smart speaker products, said a press release.

“As the No. 1 chipmaker for voice assistant devices, MediaTek is at the forefront of the connected device revolution, powering some of the most innovative voice recognition products in homes today,” said Jerry Yu, MediaTek Corporate Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Intelligent Devices Business Group. “The MT8516 development kit accelerates the development of devices with voice technology, making it easier for developers to bring consumers smart speakers, soundbars and other home appliances with the latest features.”

Read more Libre MAVID Embedded Wireless Device and Software Now Has Amazon Alexa Built-in  

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The MT8516 can be integrated into a range of smart devices including speakers, sound bars, smart home hubs, industrial applications and smart home appliances. The MT8516 platform is capable of the following technology components, which are included with the kit:

• AVS Device SDK: With C++-based libraries, manufacturers can easily design devices that process audio inputs and triggers, establish persistent connections with AVS and handle all Alexa interactions.
• Amazon multi-room music (MRM): Enables developers to design smart products with MRM so customers can enjoy simultaneously streaming music over multiple Alexa built-in devices.
• MediaTek far-field algorithms: Integrating the algorithms on the application processor saves costs by eliminating the need for an additional digital signal processor (DSP). Qualified by Amazon with a two-microphone linear array, MediaTek also offers a four-microphone circular arrangement for added design flexibility.
• Amazon wake-word engine (WWE): Provides robust wake-word recognition in Alexa supported locales.
• MediaTek PowerAQ: MediaTek's powerful acoustic tuning tool PowerAQ provides an easy-to-use graphical user interface (GUI) for signal flow design and audio parameter turning.

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Industrial wearables provider ProGlove raised $40 million investment from global growth equity firm Summit Partners. The company plans to leverage this funding to expand its international footprint and support its mission to connect the human workforce with the industrial Internet of Things (IoT). In April, WT | Wearable Technologies reported on ProGlove’s state-of-the-art handsfree barcode scanner, Mark 2.

ProGlove was founded in Munich, Germany in 2014. The company offers a scanner glove designed to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of scanning processes used across the manufacturing, logistics, transportation and ecommerce/retail sectors. ProGlove's products are integrated into the factory and warehouse floor processes at some of the world's most renowned brands including Audi, BMW, Bosch, Daimler, DHL and Lufthansa Technik.

The company's smart glove provides an ergonomic, hands-free barcode scanning solution that helps workers increase productivity and optimize workflow. While traditional handheld scanners tend to be unwieldy and bulky, the small form factor, lightweight, wearable design of ProGlove's scanner unit allows users to reduce scanning time by up to 4 seconds per scan. In a warehouse or on a factory floor, this reduction represents an improvement in scanning efficiency of as much as 50 percent for some ProGlove customers. Additionally, the company's smart glove provides direct feedback to the user via optical, haptic and acoustic signals, helping to eliminate mistakes and improve overall process quality, the company said in a press release.

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“Organizations seeking to maintain a competitive edge in the era of Industry 4.0 must rethink and reinvent the way in which humans and machines interact. Wearable devices acknowledge the importance of enabling a smarter, more effective worker in the industrial IoT environment,” said Andreas Koenig, CEO of ProGlove. “Industrial wearables define the future of assembly, production and logistics processes. Our smart wearables are designed to function as a natural extension of the workers' tools, strengthening the role of the human in today's automated world.”

Read more Mobile-Sensing System Constantly Tracks Workers’ Performance

ProGlove started its operations in 2014 right after it earned recognition in “Make It Wearable” contest by Intel. The company began commercializing its scanner glove in 2016 and quickly amassed a number of industry accolades and an impressive roster of customers. Today, the company operates on a global scale, serving more than 500 customers around the world from its offices in Munich, Germany and Chicago, Illinois. ProGlove employs 160 people from over 40 countries at its two sites in Munich and Chicago.

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Scientists at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland have developed a smart robotic hand to help amputees in daily tasks. The artificial hand combines individual finger control and automation for improved grasping and manipulation.

Read more Researchers Develop New Prosthesis that Provides Sense of Touch So the User Knows Its Location

This interdisciplinary proof-of-concept between neuroengineering and robotics was successfully tested on three amputees and seven healthy subjects. Implementing these two concepts together, the technology contributes to the emerging field of shared control in neuroprosthetics. The results were published in Nature Machine Intelligence, reports EPFL.

The robotic hand is intelligent enough to decipher the user’s intentions and can grasp an object and maintain contact with it for robust grasping. Such automation may help the system to be more skillful, innate and less cumbersome than previous robotic prostheses.

“When you hold an object in your hand, and it starts to slip, you only have a couple of milliseconds to react,” explains Aude Billard who leads EPFL’s Learning Algorithms and Systems Laboratory. “The robotic hand has the ability to react within 400 milliseconds. Equipped with pressure sensors all along the fingers, it can react and stabilize the object before the brain can actually perceive that the object is slipping.”

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The machine learning algorithm, developed by the researchers, first learns how to decode user intention and translates this into finger movement of the prosthetic hand. The amputee must perform a series of hand movements in order to train the algorithm that uses machine learning. Sensors placed on the amputee’s stump detect muscular activity, and the algorithm learns which hand movements correspond to which patterns of muscular activity. Once the user’s intended finger movements are understood, this information can be used to control individual fingers of the prosthetic hand.

“Because muscle signals can be noisy, we need a machine learning algorithm that extracts meaningful activity from those muscles and interprets them into movements,” says Katie Zhuang first author of the publication.

Read more Swedish Woman Receives First Dexterous and Sentient Prosthetic Hand

Next, the scientists engineered the algorithm so that robotic automation kicks in when the user tries to grasp an object. The algorithm tells the prosthetic hand to close its fingers when an object is in contact with sensors on the surface of the prosthetic hand.

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Kaasa solution, a Movesense development partner from Germany, is publishing Data Collector 2.0 for recording Movesense raw data. Data Collector 2.0 is a powerful iOS solution that not only records Movesense data but also manages data collecting in projects where data is collected in several locations and multiple people.

Read more Movesense Motion Sensors Helping Companies Build Wearables for Various Fields

“We developed the Data Collector originally for our own Movesense projects but noticed that many developers need such a tool. Therefore, we are now making the improved 2.0 version available to other companies as well,” says Kaasa CEO Nico Kaartinen.

The new Data Collector connects quickly to up to five sensors and records their data to synchronized files, reports Movesense. The app includes a number of innovative features that makes data collection easy and reliable and makes sure that the recorded data is stored systematically:

• Easy real time annotation of recorded data through video, audio, hot buttons and free text.
• Easy sharing of sensors settings to ensure that data collection within a project always uses the same settings.
• Fast viewing of large recordings of up to 5 synchronized sensors with real time annotations through Data Collector Plotter.

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One of the innovative features of the app is sharing of sensor settings. When collecting data for research projects, prototypes, AI algorithms, and other purposes, it is essential that the sensor settings are kept identical across all sensors, locations and users in a project. Kaasa Data Collector 2.0 makes storing and sharing sensor settings within a project very fast and easy. This becomes even easier when using Movesense smart connectors.

One of the first users of Data Collector 2.0 is professor Sampsa Vanhatalo, leading researcher at BABA center, Helsinki Children’s Hospital.

“We are developing medical wearables for neurological assessment of spontaneously moving infants. It was necessary to find a tool that allows recording synchronous data from multiple sensor, and Data Collector 2.0 was the only solution that could carry out the task, says professor Sampsa Vanhatalo, leading researcher at BABA center, Helsinki Children’s Hospital.

Read more Microsoft Patents Multidimensional Heart Rate Sensor that Delivers Accurate Data on Wearables

“In addition, the ability to collect synchronized video as well as manual and audio annotations was extremely useful for us. Such tool will be crucial for anyone who wants to collect well characterized datasets for future training of analysis algorithms. Indeed, this was a game changer for our projects. We now feel so confident with the tool and its ease of use that we are planning to give it to external participants in their daily living environments, adds professor Vanhatalo, who’s also one of the first users of Data Collecto

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Wireless earbuds, better known as hearables, are fast replacing wearables as the most popular accessory for consumers. According to Worldwide Quarterly Wearable Device Tracker of International Data Corporation (IDC), global wearable device shipments grew 85.2% in the second quarter of 2019 (2Q19) as shipments totaled 67.7 million units. From these devices, hearables were among the fastest growing categories, capturing 46.9% of the overall wearables market during the quarter, up from 24.8% a year ago. This growth was driven by a multitude of new products and consumers who purchased their second wearable, a hearable, to use in parallel with existing smartwatches or wrist bands, reports Business Wire.

“The growing popularity of the hearables segment is forcing existing brands to reconsider past designs when launching new products, as evident in Samsung's popular Galaxy Buds, while also attracting new brands to market,” said Jitesh Ubrani research manager for IDC Mobile Device Trackers. “And though it's still early days, the market is showing signs of emerging subsegments such as hearables dedicated to sports from the likes of Jabra, premium hearables from companies such as Bose, and ones dedicated to hearing loss such as those from Nuheara.”

Read more Nuheara Building Ecosystem for Hearables with its IQStream TV

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Companies highlighted in the report are:

Apple. The tech giant led the market for hearables by capturing 50.2% share during the quarter. New products such as the refreshed AirPods and the latest from the Beats lineup helped the company grow 218.2% compared to last year.

Samsung. The company’s self-branded devices and the JBL brand, captured the second position during the quarter. The highly publicized Galaxy Buds were one of the company's most popular pair of hearables as the pair was bundled with the purchase of Samsung's latest smartphone.

Xiaomi. Xiaomi's AirDots (amongst other models) helped the company capture the third position. Though the company primarily sells its hearables in China, Xiaomi has already started to make inroads in other markets such as Europe and the Middle East with its smartphones and wrist bands.

Read more Hearables Are Going to Revolutionize Healthcare, Here’s How

Bose. This Boston-based company ranked fourth in this market. The company's long lineage in audio and premium offering has helped set the company apart from the remainder of the pack.

ReSound. The parent company of Jabra rounded out the top 5 with 5.1% share and 132.9% growth. Jabra's Elite Active 65t have been extremely popular as an alternative to Apple's AirPods and have also been promoted heavily on Amazon's store.

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Shimmer, a Dublin-based wearable technology company that produces wearable wireless sensors, which can be used in research applications, announced launch of a healthcare industry open source initiative for wearable sensor algorithms. The initiative is being co-founded by Shimmer, Dr. Vincent van Hees, author of the GGIR software and algorithms for movement sensor calibration, sensor wear detection, and signal aggregation, and Nextbridge Health, which is developing the Nextbridge Exchange, an online marketplace and discovery platform for the clinical research community.

Read more Shimmer Launches Verisense™ Wearable Sensor Platform for Clinical Trials

“We are excited to be working with Dr. Vincent van Hees and Nextbridge on this initiative. Vincent’s GGIR platform sets the standard for open source algorithms in terms of usability, documentation, and validation. More than 80 peer-reviewed studies involving almost 200,000 participants have used GGIR. When we searched for algorithms to power our Verisense™ wearable sensor platform for clinical trials, nothing came close to GGIR,” said Geoffrey Gill, president of Shimmer Americas.

Wearable sensors have the potential to revolutionize clinical trials and medicine in general by enabling continuous, real-world data to be included in clinical and post-marketing studies. They allow occasional and often subjective measures of health to be replaced with continuous, objective measures. But the lack of accepted clinical endpoints is proving to be a major impediment to the widespread adoption of wearable sensors in clinical trials, reports Shimmer.

This new initiative seeks to develop a curated set of open source algorithms and software tools for analyzing wearable sensor data that will be available to all medical device and pharmaceutical companies in a pre-competitive environment as a service to the industry. It will allow the work conducted by thousands of researchers during the past decade to be leveraged to create commonly-accepted de facto industry standards.

“Shimmer’s deep connections to the research community provides a fantastic channel to reach and recruit researchers to provide content,” said Richard Strobridge, CEO of Nextbridge Health.

Read more Oracle mHealth Platform is Revolutionizing Clinical Trials with Remote Monitoring Devices

This initiative will allow sponsors to gain access to transparent, peer-reviewed, and validated algorithms that have been commonly accepted by the industry. This advance should expedite clinical trials, reducing their cost, and improving patient access to treatments. Similarly, wearable sensor developers will gain access to accepted, validated algorithms, thus reducing duplication of efforts, and likely leading to quicker acceptance of new devices by the industry and regulatory agencies. Algorithm and software developers will receive increased visibility, greater recognition, and broader uses for their work, potentially resulting in business opportunities for them.

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Stretchable electronics is a technology for building electronic circuits by depositing stretchable electronic devices and circuits onto stretchable substrates or embed them entirely in a stretchable material like silicones or polyurethanes. Stretchable electronics comes in many shapes and forms. Because of their elasticity and conformity, they are widely used in wearable medical devices. A new report titled Stretchable and Conformal Electronics 2019-2029 finds that the stretchable and conformal electronics market will grow to approach $500m within a decade, reports Wearable Technology Insights.

This report provides a comprehensive and insightful view of this diverse emerging technology front. It covers the progress of more than 100 companies and 25 research institutes including first-hand primary research on 62 companies.

Read more New Stretchable E-Tattoo for Long-Term Uninterrupted Heart Monitoring

According to the report, most commercial growth in stretchable electronics comes from electrodes, circuit lines and interconnects, and basic sensors. InMold Electronics products are used in various fitness products for monitoring heart rate or respiration. These products are also used in wearables to monitor pregnancy. Many are also working on printed circuit boards.

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“Stretchable electronics faces a complicated path to the market. It is not a replacement market in that stretchable electronics will often not substitute an existing component or product. There are rare exceptions, for example, in e-textiles. However, even in those cases, the addressable market itself is nascent and fragmented. As such, the challenge is to create new markets and new demand,” the report states. “This will require identifying and defining problems, in diverse sectors, which the unique features of stretchable electronics can help solve.”

The positive side, however, is that stretchable electronics are being used in various sectors. The most popular form of SCE is seen in fitness monitoring devices. The next round of products might come in smart skin patches and other forms of wearable patient monitoring tools and smart textiles, according to the report.

Read more Researchers Develop Stretchable Thermoelectric Coils for Energy Harvesting in Flexible Wearable Devices

The pipeline can be huge and robust and may be composed of many small pieces. Therefore, the companies should organize themselves to deal with these products. “This implies that in the medium the market will remain fragmented in terms of users and use cases, products, value chains, and performance and cost requirements,” the report said.

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AI health firm Myia Labs has raised $10 million in a Series A funding for its AI and consumer wearable monitoring platform. The funding round was led by Mercy Virtual which pledged $5 million. Other investors in the round include Zetta Venture Partners, BootstrapLabs, Boston Consulting Group and B Capital Group, all of which participated in last year’s $6.75 million seed round.

Read more Oura Ring’s New Feature ‘Moment’ Tracks Your Meditation

Myia’s platform uses Apple Watches, Fitbits, Oura Rings and other consumer devices to monitor and collect real-world data. In combination with Myia Lab’s applied machine intelligence technology, these data are then used to get insights on the patient’s chronic conditions, enabling doctors to determine whether or not additional intervention is needed, reports MobiHealthNews.

“Real-world data from patients' everyday life is an essential element for clinicians to be more preventative in caring for patients,” Simon MacGibbon, cofounder and CEO of Myia Health, told MobiHealthNews in an email. “If inserted into clinicians' workflow at the right time, such data will allow them to see bad things before they happen, to personalize patient care plans (e.g., making more timely medication changes), and to optimize the use of scarce resources by focusing on the patients who need care the most. We think of this as ‘personalized care management,’ not just ‘remote patient monitoring.’”

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Described as ‘hospital without beds,’ Mercy Virtual’s low-cost at-home virtual care has so far reduced readmissions among chronic disease patients by 50% over a two-year period. About its partnership with Myia, the company told MobiHealthNews that it drove the relationship from a commercial partnership to a full-fledged strategic investment.

Read more NIH, Fitbit Launch First Digital Health Technology Initiative BYOD Project

“Myia stands out for its breadth and depth of capabilities,” said J. Gavin Helton, president of clinical integration at Mercy Virtual. “From a consumer-grade patient experience and seasoned machine learning and bio-computation experts to incredible depth of thought regarding how to surface actionable information into clinical workflows to allow our clinicians to practice at top of license, Myia can truly enable us to deliver on the promise of virtual care. Most important of all though is the trust and respect we have for each other as we work with urgency and transparency towards a common vision that will benefit patients and clinicians both.”

Apple is Collaborating with Leading Medical Institutions to Examine Hearing, Women’s, Mobility and Heart Health. The tech giant said it will begin enrolling consumers for the 3 studies later this year through an upcoming app. Participants will contribute to potential medical discoveries and help create the next generation of innovative health products. The Research app will be available as a free download in the App Store later this year, reports Apple.

“With the Apple Heart Study, we found that we could positively impact medical research in ways that help patients today and that make contributions that will benefit future generations,” said Jeff Williams, Apple’s chief operating officer. “Today’s announcement carries our commitment to health even further by engaging with participants on a larger scale than ever before.”

Read more Apple Joins Eli Lilly to Study How iPhone and Apple Watch Can Detect Signs of Dementia

The studies include:

Apple Women’s Health Study: In partnership with Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the NIH’s National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), Apple has created the first long-term study of this scale focused on menstrual cycles and gynecological conditions. This study will inform screening and risk assessment of conditions like polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), infertility, osteoporosis, pregnancy and menopausal transition.

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Apple Heart and Movement Study: Apple is partnering with Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the American Heart Association on a comprehensive study of how heart rate and mobility signals — like walking pace and flights of stairs climbed — relate to hospitalizations, falls, heart health and quality of life in order to promote healthy movement and improved cardiovascular health.

Apple Hearing Study: Apple is collaborating with the University of Michigan to study factors that impact hearing health. The Apple Hearing Health Study is the first of its kind to collect data over time in order to understand how everyday sound exposure can impact hearing. The study data will also be shared with the World Health Organization (WHO) as a contribution toward its Make Listening Safe initiative.

Read more Johnson & Johnson Collaborates with Apple to Use its App with Apple Watch in AFib Study

Apple started supporting the medical research community by introducing ResearchKit and CareKit. These software framework for apps expanded the pace and scale at which healthcare could be studied and provided. Apple used ResearchKit to create the Apple Heart Study, which was the largest study of its kind and demonstrated how virtual, large-scale studies can impact medical research by examining atrial fibrillation to provide validation for the irregular rhythm notification feature on Apple Watch.

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New York-based sleep tech company Dreem launched the second version of its smart sleep tracking headband Dreem 2 in the U.S. The noninvasive technology combines hardware and software to provide poor sleepers a tailored and holistic solution to address their problems falling asleep and staying asleep.

Related 4 Smart Sleep Masks to Help You Get Some Sleep While on the Go

“This is the first step in our mission to deliver precision sleep medicine at scale. With the US launch of our FDA-registered medical device, we've taken our place at the forefront of sleep healthcare,” explains Vik Panda, Dreem's Managing Director for North America. “Poor sleep has a tremendous impact on productivity, stress, absenteeism and overall mental health, not to mention the link between poor sleep and a long list of chronic diseases. Our first-of-its-kind solution helps individuals take control of their sleep, thereby improving their overall health.”

According to sleep experts, 30% of the U.S. population suffers from problems falling asleep and maintaining sleep, and for 10% of these people these problems are persistent and long-term. These sleep problems not only lead to loss of productivity, concentration or memory but can also be closely linked to serious physical and mental health issues. However, there are only a few treatments available to address this issue. Hypnotics, or sleeping pills has health risks and they only provide short-term, superficial relief, the company said in a press release.

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The headband’s seven sensors measure brain activity (EEG), heart rate, respiration and movement, the user is provided with a complete, detailed overview of their sleep. This monitoring and analysis are accompanied by the headband's biofeedback features that use audio to make falling asleep and waking up easier.

Related This Wearable Sleep Tracker Can Help Detect Your Sleep Apnea

The data collected by the headband is used to adapt an in-app 7-week long program to fit the sleeper's needs.  Backed by scientific evidence, this program is made up of exercises, tools and advice designed to help the user address thought patterns and habits at the heart of their sleep problem and establish a healthier sleep routine. The program can be divided into 4 main blocks: Sleep Consolidation, Stimulus Control, Cognitive Exercises and Sleep Hygiene.

Dreem 2 is priced at US $440 and can be ordered through the company’s website.

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In terms of connectivity and technology, swimming has always been slightly behind other endurance sports as measuring heart rate, the most common training metric is challenging in water. Competitive swimmers are rarely using wearables but that could be changing with Instabeat´s technology. Founded by swim-techpreneur Hind Hobeika, the company developed a smart add-on for swimming goggles that provides real-time visual feedback of your heart frequency. While an optical sensor is reading your heart rate from blood flow in your right temple, the device shows colored lights through your goggles for three zones according to your individual resting heart rate and preferences: green for recovery, blue for training and red for development zone. The mobile app dashboard displays detailed workout analytics, including your heart rate curve, distance, lap count, strokes recognition, and interval analysis.

From theory to practice – our team member Marius, an experienced triathlete and passionate swimmer, had the honor to test the Instabeat technology in the pool. After several sessions and a decent amount of collected data, he summarized his experience before, during and after his training.

BEFORE TRAINING – GETTING STARTED

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The nicely designed little package came with a personal message from founder Hind Hobeika, a goggle guide, instructions, a charging cable and last but not least the sensor. The step by step instructions are very easy to understand and the sensor and its displaying lights well explained. Although the charging cable disconnects very easily, the device charges really fast. After getting compatible goggles, it took some time to mount the Instabeat on the goggles at the first try but it got smoother after a while. Pairing with your mobile device goes quick and easy and right away you are set for your first swim.

DURING TRAINING – MONITOR YOUR SWIM

Very positively, the device is hardly perceivable during swimming. The different lights are good to see when necessary, do not disturb or distract and very much engage you – especially in exhausting and painful, alternating sprint intervals to stretch for the last meters. After a while, the pressure at the temple slightly increases and can become a bit uncomfy, but that is dependent on how strong you fit your goggles. However, it reliably stays in place during turns, starts, and styles. So, starting and executing sessions is pretty smooth by simply clicking the power button, awaiting a blue light signal and off you go.

AFTER TRAINING – SHOW ME THE DATA

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After connecting the device to the app, it synchronizes your swim and easily transfers the collected data that can be assigned to a dedicated workout defined in duration, distance and pool size. The app automatically imports and calculates heart rate, means and pace, shows courses over the session and gives detailed information on your performance. In total, the overall picture looks good and the app considers essential swimming metrics.

In conclusion, Instabeat is the only device on the market that provides a real-time heart rate experience and adds an essential value to your swim training. The technology is easy to use and the lights do not distract the swimmer during training. Although benefits might differ between swimmer experiences, the sensor is definitely a great way to enrich your workout value (e.g. self perception, stamina, variation etc.) and your training creativity. It helps finding the most efficient technique and avoids wasting too much energy on wrong things. It particularly supports your learning of recovery processes as you really perceive that there are days where a correct training zone feels uncomfortable. In terms of metrics and data analytics, the device even allows knowing about absolute values of swimming heart rates and we believe this technology has so much room for extension to make any swim session a motivating experience. That said, Instabeat is a great device that performs very well in a undoubtfully harsh environment for electronic devices.

Curious to learn more about Instabeat? Visit their website www.instabeat.com

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Feel developed by Sentio Solutions Inc. took part in the 34th edition of the WT | Wearable Technologies Conference in San Francisco and proudly won the “Top Public Award”. The disruptive start-up founded in 2015 impressed the wearable audiences and jury of the Innovation World Cup Series with the emotion-sensing wristband and app, that allows continuous monitoring and real-time personalized interventions for individuals suffering from anxiety and depression. Feel made a big leap to the Semi-finals of the 11th IoT/WT Innovation World Cup®, stand among the promising winners of the WellTech Challenge and top the Healthcare category. Check out their story of success and explore how mental health issues can be solved with Feel.

1. HOW DID THE JOURNEY BEGIN?

Back in 2015, the co-founders of Feel, George Eleftheriou and Haris Tsirbas, both struggled with their mental health. Depressive burnouts and panic attacks led them to start psychotherapy. Even though it was a good investment in themselves, they quickly realized that there are many flaws in the healthcare system.

Psychologists, psychiatrists, and patients rely on outmoded forms of analysis to diagnose, evaluate, monitor, and intervene in the treatment process. Unlike all physical disorders that can be monitored e.g. measure glucose in the case of diabetes, there are no objective data and tools for mental health and no mental health support outside the therapist office. More than that, an appointment at the psychologist most of the times is expensive. Therefore, many people end up without getting help. And this is what they decided to change together.

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2. WHAT ARE THE MOST MAJOR ACHIEVEMENTS SO FAR?

Feel has been awarded and recognized as “TransTech 200” in 2016, “Pioneers Athens”, “Insurance Shaper of the Year 2017”, MITEF Greece Startup Competition and “Top Public Vote” Award at the WT | Wearable Technologies Conference 2019 USA. Moreover, we have closed our seed round and have raised a total amount of $1.8 million from Anthemis Exponential Ventures, SOSV, Make in LA and angel investors.

3. WHAT WERE THE BIGGEST CHALLENGES YOU FACED IN YOUR JOURNEY?

We would say that stigma was a great challenge. We had prospective investors suggesting that we shouldn’t talk about personal experiences because it would hurt our chances of getting an investment or asking if we are still in psychotherapy to understand if we are “sane” or capable enough. The lack of objective metrics exacerbates this stigma, since mental health remains as something ineffable, something that cannot be quantified.

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5. WHAT IS COMING IN THE NEAR FUTURE?

The development of biomarkers for management and evaluation of mental illness, indicators of relapse, mood swings, depressive episodes, panic attacks and more.

6.  WHAT ARE THE NEXT STEPS?

We want to elevate the digital era, in which even though there is plethora of solutions, there is still subjectivity, self-diagnosis and stigma. We strive to bring to life the Augmented Mental Health era. Our next step is to begin deployments with major Health Plans and Employers in the US and Europe.

6. HOW WAS YOUR EXPERIENCE IN THE IOT/WT INNOVATION WORLD CUP®?

We are very excited to have won the “Top Public Vote” Award at the 34th WT | Wearable Technologies Conference 2019 USA. It shows that people really need such a solution. The Innovation World Cup® gave us the chance to spread our idea and vision to many more people. It was a great opportunity.

7. DO YOU HAVE ANY TIPS FOR THE FUTURE IOT HEROES COMING FROM THE INNOVATION WORLD CUP®?

Choose a cause that you really care about. And choose people who care as much as you do for the cause to make a team.

Explore further:

Understand how Feel Wristband works and acknowledge the power of technology in recognizing human emotions. Enhance individuals’ mental well-being and learn to obtain a fulfilled life.

The Innovation World Cup® is a milestone for hundreds of tech startups worldwide. It is high time to submit your solution before the deadline on September 18th, 2019 approaches. Enter the 11th IoT/WT Innovation World Cup®, the world’s leading competition in the Internet of Things & Wearable Tech, and race for the special prizes:

• WellTech Challenge
• EBV IoT Hero powered by EBV Elektronik
• rapidM2M Challenge powered by Microtronics
• Logistics Game Changer powered by LOXXESS
• Smart Clothing Challenge powered by AIQ Smart Clothing
• Gore Innovation Center Prize powered by Gore
• Trusted Connectivity Award powered by Gemalto

Great prizes worth 500.000$, 10.000€ in cash for the best IoT Solution, free development kits supported by corporate partners STMicroelectronics, EBV Elektronik, Würth Elektronik, and Microtronics, free speaking spots at international tech events, free use of marketing package, significant business network and more are awaiting the leading innovators!

Visit the Hall Of Fame and get to know the faces who have made it to the summit of innovation with the Innovation World Cup® Series. Do you want to be the next? Get your solution ready and reach us now: www.innovationworldcup.com

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VARTA AG Group, an industry leader in rechargeable lithium-ion batteries for high-tech consumer products, announced it will expand its production capacities in 2022. After projections were raised at the beginning of June to more than 100 million cells per year by the end of 2020, the company is now planning to further increase production capacities to more than 150 million cells per year by 2022. The company said this expansion is due to continued high customer demand in a market that is growing by more than 30% per annum.

VARTA stands to benefit most strongly from the technological transition away from cylindrical batteries to coin-shaped batteries. With its leading technology, the Group has supported this technological progress in wireless headsets and is setting the industry standard in this area with constant innovations. The Group is striving to attain global market leadership for lithium-ion batteries with a market share of more than 50% in 2020.

Read more VARTA Microbattery Launches Three New Lithium-Ion Cells for Wearables at the ISPO Munich 2019

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“We stand on the cusp of a huge boom in lithium-ion batteries for premium true wireless headsets, from which we are set to benefit enormously. We have developed unique competitive advantages and are growing much faster than the market. For this reason, we are again significantly expanding our production capacities,” said VARTA CEO Herbert Schein.

The capacity expansion requires an additional investment of around € 130m (to manufacture an additional 50 million cells per year). The investment volume is to be financed using the cash flow from the operating activities in connection with additional customer pre-payments. Moreover, the Group has at its disposal a revolving credit facility in the amount of € 80m.

Read more How Thin Cell Batteries Are Revolutionizing the Wearable Industry

“We are registering an enormous and steadily growing order backlog and we have been able to easily forecast short and medium-term demand for lithium-ion batteries. The renewed expansion of production capacities will allow us to continue the high pace of growth, said Steffen Munz, Chief Financial Officer of VARTA.

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Wearable heart monitor company iRhythm is collaborating with Alphabet’s health company Verily on unspecified new technology that will monitor people at risk for atrial fibrillation (Afib). Afib is a common form of irregular heart rhythm that is linked with strokes and other serious health problems. This partnership brings together iRhythm’s expertise in AI based arrhythmia diagnosis and Verily’s advanced health data analytics technologies to address the millions of patients living with undiagnosed AFib.

Read more Wearable Tech Can Safely Detect Atrial Fibrillation, Says Apple Heart Study

“We are excited to partner with iRhythm, a pioneer in ambulatory cardiac monitoring, to find innovative ways to deliver more efficient care to patients with atrial fibrillation,” said Dr. Jessica Mega, chief medical and scientific officer of Verily. “With the high prevalence of cardiovascular-related health issues, we have an opportunity to not only improve how we diagnose, manage and monitor conditions like atrial fibrillation, but also develop patient-centric solutions that could ultimately prevent serious cardiac events.”

iRhythm estimates that more than 10 million Americans are at high risk for Atrial fibrillation. This condition is associated with a five-fold increase in the risk of stroke as compared to those without AFib, with these strokes tending to be more severe and associated with higher mortality rates. For approximately 20% of individuals who experience a stroke due to AFib, the occurrence of AFib was not diagnosed until the time of their stroke or shortly afterward. Further, an estimated one-third of those who have AFib are not aware they have it. Asymptomatic or “silent” AFib is associated with certain risk factors like high blood pressure, diabetes and sleep apnea – which increase an individual’s likelihood for developing the disorder, reports Globe News Wire.

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This new partnership aims to address this significant, underserved population at risk for asymptomatic or silent AFib. Under the terms of the agreement, iRhythm and Verily will collaborate on solutions capable of providing earlier warnings, enabling the identification and management of patients that could otherwise go undiagnosed until they have a cardiac event, such as a stroke.

Read more Johnson & Johnson Collaborates with Apple to Use its App with Apple Watch in AFib Study

At the annual meeting of the American College of Cardiology in May, the first phase of the mSToPS study, published in JAMA, showed that patients who were diagnosed with AFib in iRhythm’s Zio service-monitored group had a significantly lower rate of hospitalizations and emergency room visits than the non-monitored control group. “We are pleased to partner with one of the world’s most reputable healthcare technology companies to better serve the millions of people living with AF today. Verily’s patient-centric approach to disease management and advanced hardware capabilities will prove critical in providing patients and providers with the tools needed to increase the efficiency of heart healthcare,” said Kevin King, president and CEO of iRhythm.

As part of the agreement, iRhythm is making an upfront payment to Verily of $5 million and potential milestone payments of up to $13 million.

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Orchestra BioMed, a Pennsylvania-based biomedical innovation company received CE Mark approval for its Moderato implantable pulse generator system that delivers BackBeat Cardiac Neuromodulation Therapy (CNT) for treatment of hypertension while also providing standard pacemaker functions.

Read more Deaths from Uncontrolled High Blood Pressure Slowing the Progress in Fight Against Heart Disease

Hypertension affects 46% American adults. While the conventional therapy for high blood pressure is through drugs, BackBeat allows even existing cardiac implants to deliver treatment in a novel way by modulating the bioelectronic signals associated with blood pressure control.

“BackBeat CNT is an exciting new approach to device-based blood pressure management and has potential to be a primary treatment modality for the more than two-thirds of pacemaker patients at risk from hypertension,” said Dr. Karl-Heinz Kuck. “In the MODERATO I clinical trial, BackBeat CNT demonstrated excellent efficacy and safety results, particularly given that 78% of the study patients had isolated systolic hypertension and that patients’ average baseline ambulatory systolic blood pressure (137 mmHg) was lower compared to patients in other device-based hypertension studies. I look forward to presenting the six-month primary endpoint results from the MODERATO II study of BackBeat CNT as a late-breaker at TCT later this month.”

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The company’s MODERATO II clinical study of BackBeat CNT was selected by the the Cardiovascular Research Foundation (CRF) for a late-breaking science presentation at the Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) 2019 annual conference to be held this month. Every year, TCT late-breaking presentations feature major medical research breakthroughs and highlight the latest data on the most innovative treatments that will impact patient care and how physicians treat heart disease. The studies selected examine the safety and efficacy of minimally invasive techniques, pharmaceuticals, therapies and devices that demonstrate potential to treat or prevent cardiovascular disease.

Read more Medtronic’s Implantable System for Remodulin to Treat Patients with Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension Gets FDA Approval

“CE Mark approval and selection for late-breaking science presentation at TCT validate the potential for BackBeat CNT to benefit targeted high-risk hypertensive patients, such as those already indicated for a pacemaker,” said David Hochman, Chairman and CEO of Orchestra BioMed. “Effective treatment of these patients, the majority of whom have isolated systolic disease and persistent high blood pressure despite conventional pharmaceutical therapies, represents a significant market opportunity that could have substantial growth, value and market share implications for the field of cardiac rhythm management.”

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