US-based digital therapeutics company Biofourmis has signed an agreement to buy Zurich, Switzerland-based wearable biosensor company Biovotion. The deal consists of all Biovotion’s assets, including the clinical-grade Everion® device and over 60 global patents.

Read more Fighting Against NCDs – Wearables for Chronic Disease Management and Mobility Challenges

The acquisition of Biovotion enables Biofourmis to offer proprietary, clinical-grade wearables as part of its Biovitals® ecosystem, a highly sophisticated personalized AI-powered predictive analytics platform that predicts clinical exacerbation in advance of a critical event. The multi-parameter physiology data captured from Everion will be an integral component of Biovitals' digital therapeutics products and pipeline to manage conditions such as heart failure, COPD, oncology and pain.

Clinical-grade wearables are becoming integral across all areas of healthcare. These wearables can help modify patient behavior, and offer continuous real-time physiological data, allowing physicians to intervene earlier. Combining Biovotion's best-in-class wearables with Biofourmis' digital therapeutics platform and its leading artificial intelligence (AI)-driven predictive analytics creates the most comprehensive digital therapeutics solution on the market, said Biofourmis in a press release.

“Biovotion had been a trusted partner for many years as we have leveraged each other's technologies across numerous clinical, commercial and research applications,” said Kuldeep Singh Rajput, CEO and founder of Biofourmis. “We are thrilled to add Everion to the Biovitals® ecosystem, which will continue to help our clients achieve their goals such as demonstrating the value of pharmacotherapy, managing chronic diseases, predicting and preventing adverse events, and improving clinical outcomes—and ultimately reducing healthcare costs.”

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The lead product among Biovotion's wearables is the clinical-grade Everion device, which is a multi-sensor platform worn on the arm capable of measuring 22 parameters in real time. Collected physiological data can include heart rate, inter-beat interval, respiratory rate, blood oxygenation, skin temperature and actigraphy (rest/activity cycles)—all gathered non-invasively. Additional clinical and non-clinical parameters such as blood pulse wave, motion intensity and steps, energy expenditure, sleep quality and heart rate variability are also insights collected by Everion.

Read more Biofourmis to Partner with Yale University-Mayo Clinic Collaborative Program CERSI

Building on Everion's current market-leading wearable, the next-generation Everion device is already under development and will have the ability to capture additional vital parameters, including continuous blood pressure trends.

In addition to the acquisition, Biofourmis also announced a partnership with Swiss pharma company Novartis to supply patients using Entresto, a drug for reducing heart failure, with the Biofourmis platform, including Everion devices.

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Artificial Intelligence (AI) is making a huge impact on healthcare by simplifying the lives of patients, doctors and hospital administrators. AI can do these jobs precisely in less time and at a fraction of the cost.

Read more Embracing Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in Healthcare

care.ai, a Florida-based AI company, has partnered with Google use Google’s Coral Edge TPU to power autonomous monitoring in hospitals. This collaboration enables care.ai’s platform to leverage accelerated neural networks at the edge, to transform an ordinary room into a “Self Aware Room™,” in any care setting at enterprise scale.

Numerous patients die each year as a result of medical errors. Medical errors are the third-leading cause of death after heart disease and cancer. A recent Johns Hopkins study claims more than 250,000 people in the U.S. die every year from medical errors. care.ai’s breakthrough invention aims to create a transformative impact across clinical and operational processes to establish a new standard of care.

Using multiple modalities, care.ai sends context-aware, intelligent notifications to staff to alert and inform them about what is happening in any room at any time.  This new power of knowledge transforms archaic, reactive tasks into intelligent, proactive workflows.

Built from the ground up to be open, and rapid to deploy, care ai’s state-of-art edge sensors deliver innovation at enterprise scale. care.ai’s autonomous monitoring sensors are the next generation of IoT devices, that hold the power to transform healthcare, the company says.

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“Imagine if we brought the power of AI with autonomous monitoring to healthcare environments – we could prevent injuries, diseases, protocol breaches, and ultimately fatalities; while improving staff efficiency,” said Chakri Toleti, Founder and CEO of care.ai. “By utilizing Google’s Edge TPU, care.ai has done just that - we have built an AI sensor to monitor, predict, and infer behaviors using billions of data points in real-time. It is truly the world’s most advanced AI platform for healthcare.”

The platform’s neural network algorithms are built using the world’s most extensive library of human behavioral data, proprietary to care.ai. Our deep neural networks can actively learn and evolve on a more advanced level than any other healthcare solution. In addition, care.ai’s machine learning capabilities include first-of-its-kind enterprise staff monitoring algorithms to naturally identify strengths and expose weaknesses in workflows; to learn gaps and automatically improve accuracy, efficacy, and efficiency.

Read more How Explainable Artificial Intelligence Could Lower the Effect of Biased Algorithms

“We believe we are on the cusp of an amazing revolution for AI in healthcare and are proud to partner with care.ai to witness it becoming a reality,” said Billy Rutledge, Director of Coral. “By combining care.ai’s AI-powered autonomous monitoring platform with our edge computing framework, we can address some of the most demanding challenges in healthcare in a way that’s never been accomplished before this collaboration.”

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When war breaks out military command centers are required to remotely monitor events over a large area under harsh conditions.

The Command and Control Vehicle (C2V) is part of the family of manned ground vehicles and is the hub of battlefield command and control. This platform helps manage information of the integrated network and provides the tools for commanders to synchronize their knowledge of combat power with the human dimension of leadership. Infantry command and soldiers need to interface effectively with C2 applications. Israeli company, Elbit Systems has introduced wearable devices for C2 staff at DSEI 2019 in London.

Read more Scientists Develop Bulletproof Heating Pad Ideal for Soldiers in the Winter

As warfare becomes increasingly networked, Elbit Systems’ new devices address the requirement from infantry commanders and soldiers to enhance their interface with Command and Control (C2) applications, with other force members and with external sensing assets, thereby stepping-up situational awareness and combat effectiveness, reports Elbit Systems.

Expanding the Company’s DOMINATOR warrior combat suite, the newly launched set includes four devices that integrate seamlessly with radio systems and with Battle Management Systems: SmartEye; Smart WristView; SmartSight and SmartNVG.

SmartEye is a ballistic eyewear that provides a geo-oriented head-mounted C2 display. Projecting a see-through Augmented Reality (AR) on the visor and enabling real-time image detection, SmartEye provides users with instant situational awareness. SmartEye interfaces with multiple visual sources, including weapon sights, Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) and input from reconnaissance units.

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Smart WristView is a compact, low-power, rugged wrist-strapped C2 display, providing soldiers a quick and convenient view of operational data in combat situations without altering weapon’s hold , further enhancing situational awareness and team-level C2 capabilities.

Read more Rockwell Collins Unveils FasTAK Tactical Combat Targeting

SmartSight is a C2 add-on to most existing day and night weapon sights, projecting see-through AR symbology, laser rangefinder data and a compass onto the soldier’s weapon sight, greatly improving target acquisition capabilities and combat effectiveness.

SmartNVG is a C2 add-on to most existing NVGs providing superimposed AR navigation and operational symbology on any vision imaging system, significantly improving effectiveness in night operations. SmartNVG is compatible with both HDMI and Android.

The complete DOMINATOR warrior suite includes also the recently launched SmarTrack – a situational awareness system for dismounted forces in GPS denied environments.

Fitbit has updated its Fitbit OS operating system for its popular smartwatches and Fitbit Premium membership service. The release of OS 4.1 brings major improvement to heart rate tracking. Thanks to an adjustment to its algorithms, PurePulse will be working better than ever on Versa 2 to make it much more accurate. The update also brings new sleep features and greater functionality right from your wrist.

Read more Google Acquires Wearable Giant Fitbit for $2.1 Billion

Fitbit Versa 2 will boast an enriched always-on display mode, expanded capabilities for Amazon Alexa Built-in3 and a new advanced heart rate algorithm featuring the best tracking yet, all while giving you 6+ days of battery life, Fitbit said in a press release.

Fitbit is also continuing to roll out new content and tools to enhance your Fitbit Premium membership, including a personal wellness report. In addition, over the coming months, Fitbit will be rolling out new programs, challenges and wellness content, plus workouts from popular brands like Daily Burn, Down Dog, Gaiam, POPSUGAR and Whil.

With your new, personalized wellness report, you can view an in-depth analysis of your Fitbit activity, sleep, heart rate and weight trend data for the previous 30 days or past year for long-time users.16 You can share this with your healthcare professional, personal trainer or nutritionist to review your health trends over time, to better identify a potential health issue or help manage ongoing conditions.

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“Staying motivated to maintain your health and fitness routine is really hard around the holidays. We’re focused on making it more achievable through a combination of affordable devices, engaging software and our Premium membership to help you stay on track,” said James Park, co-founder and CEO of Fitbit. “The new FitbitOS update and added Premium features give users even more support with innovative smartwatch tools, fresh workouts, new programs and more, setting users up for success going into the new year.”

Read more Fitbit and Health2Synch Partner Up for Diabetes Management

Another exciting addition to this update is the ability to adjust watch faces directly from the device. Now, Fitbit users can store up to five of their favorite watch faces from about 4,000 available from the Fitbit App Gallery. Before this, users had to pair their devices to a smartphone and then use the Fitbit app to change faces.

FitbitOS 4.1 will begin rolling out to Fitbit smartwatch users the first week of December, just in time for the holidays. Fitbit Premium members can already access and enjoy many of the latest updates, with the rest rolling out on an ongoing basis in the coming months.

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It seems Google is about to take the lead in commercializing smart clothing and fabrics. Tech companies like Samsung and Apple are already on the smart fabric train. Now, a new patent filed by Microsoft details the company’s foray into smart fabric technology.

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

The patent filed by Microsoft and published by the USPTO last month details what the company has planned for smart fabric. In a patent titled “Electronically Functional Yarn,” Microsoft describes how it will embed electronic functionality into yarns that are typically non-electronically functional.

The patent image below “illustrates electronic components #306 in electronically functional yarns #304B and #304C. Each component may represent any suitable electronic component. It will be noted that the sizes, locations, and general arrangement of the components are presented for example, and that any suitable arrangement of electronic component(s) on an electronically functional yarn may be used,” reports PatentlyApple.

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In regards to the patent figures above, Microsoft notes that “although article #100 takes the form of a shirt, this innovation may also be applied to other electronically functional devices, such as soft-touch computing devices comprising textile exterior surfaces, wearable computing devices (e.g. head-mounted displays, functional gloves (e.g. a glove configured as a control device and/or output device for a computing system), wrist-worn devices, upholstery for furnishings, wall hangings, signage and other information displays, and internet of things (JOT) devices,” the PatentlyApple report states.

This new tech could be used on Microsoft HoloLens for both industrial and gaming applications. However, smart fabrics could be used in almost every industry, including Healthcare, Sports and Fitness, Automotive, Fashion and Entertainment, Home, and Safety/Military.

In September, WT | Wearable Technologies reported on a Microsoft patent application for a wearable band that suggest the company is looking into the possibility of wearable technology being used to help manage the symptoms of involuntary movements commonly suffered by people with Parkinson’s or a host of other disorders.

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Engagement is a fundamental aspect of our well-being. When people are engaged in what they are doing they are more likely to learn more; in a company setting, employee engagement can boost productivity. A prolonged sense of disengagement, on the other hand, can lead to serious issues such as depression and burnout.

Technology can play a fundamental role in understanding and reacting to people’s engagement – or lack thereof, reports Empatica.

Wearable devices with embedded sensors can be used to derive verbal and non-verbal expressions of engagement. Microphones can record vocal tone; cameras can capture facial expressions, gaze patterns, and body postures; accelerometers can identify body movements; and more.

Read more Embrace2 is the world’s most advanced smartband for epilepsy monitoring

Empatica, a wearable device maker focused on supporting the neurological research market, ran a study on human engagement. They investigated how to assess the engagement of students during lectures and how to characterize the experience of audience and presenters during conferences.

For the study, Empatica used their own E4 wristband. This lightweight and unobtrusive device is perfectly suitable for collecting data in real-settings. Moreover, it allows gathering physiological signals such as the EDA, which is a direct measure of the Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS). It indicates physiological arousal, which is in turn related to attention and alertness.

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Empatica researchers identified three aspects that characterize engagement: the momentary engagement, the interaction with the teacher, and the general arousal of the student. Momentary engagement happens when activity in class elicits students’ interest and can be captured using increments of physiological arousal. To capture this aspect, the researchers proposed an algorithm to consider “jumps” in the EDA levels as a proxy for “highlights” in contrast to moments without changes that are more likely to indicate boredom. They expected engaged students to have more “highlights” than non-engaged students and to experience more frequent high levels of EDA.

To verify their assumptions, the team collected data from 24 students and 9 instructors during 41 lectures at our institution, using the E4 and self-reports.

Read more Empatica-DRIVe Partnership to Develop Smartwatch That Alerts About Lung Infections Before Symptoms Appear

The researchers ran a classification pipeline using as input the above-mentioned features and demonstrated that non-engaged students can be reliably identified. For instance, using a Support Vector Machine with the momentary features they designed as input, the team achieved a recall of 81%.

This method could be integrated into systems that allow teachers to identify non-engaged students in time and evaluate methods to (re-)engage them. Students could also monitor their engagement, change their behavior, or drop specific courses in favor of others, says Empatica.

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The RealWear HMT-1 head mounted wearable provides the foundation for Connected Worker programs. The smart helmet can be used in wet, dusty, hot, dangerous and loud industrial environments. A fully rugged head-mounted device, it optionally snaps into safety helmets or attaches to bump caps and can be used with safety glasses or corrective eyewear.

Read more BlueParrot Introduces Noise Cancelling Headsets to Improve Worker Efficiency in Noisy Environment

RealWear is a Vancouver, Washington-based AR startup that develops industrial helmet for workers. In July, the company closed an $80 million Series B financing round, bringing the company’s total funding to over $100 million.

The high-resolution micro display fits just below your line of sight and views like a 7” tablet. It’s an industrial dashboard; there when you need it and out of your way when you don’t.

The wearable is making a huge impact in the automotive industry. Companies like Volkswagen, Toyota and Renault achieved greater productivity with this wearable.

Volkswagen Group UK Ltd is expanding its initial launch of RealWear HMT-1 headsets that use the Atheer Augmented Reality Platform. The RELS system (Remote Expert Live Support) combines Atheer’s connected worker solution and RealWear’s HMT-1 wearable rugged Android tablet to connect Retailer technicians to experts in Milton Keynes, reports RealWear.

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RELS will empower Volkswagen Group UK Ltd Retailer technicians in the following ways:

• Now technicians can get real-time guidance from remote experts when they run into a problem they can’t fix on their own.
• Technicians can access critical documents and schematics with a few simple voice commands. No need for bulky binders.
• If they need a refresher on any part of a new electric vehicle, they can access just-in-time training in seconds.

Toyota Germany deployed a different connected worker solution with the HMT-1. The company used AR Support solution by Essert Digital together with HMT-1, and was able to achieve a 20% cost savings in field service.

Read more Kopin Unveils World’s First Voice-Controlled AR Headset

“With the augmented support software we can better decide when a field service is really necessary. This increases the availability of the experts, improves the support of our dealers and increases customer satisfaction. The goal in the first year is to reduce 20% of field service through the augmented support software. Each of these missions costs us about 1000 euros, as soon as a significant sum comes together,” said Achim Koch, Product Quality Manager, Toyota.

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A researcher from the University of Michigan (UMich) has developed a wearable sensor patch to measure the range of motion of hard-to-assess areas of the body using principles from the Japanese paper art of kirigami.

When Max Shtein, a professor of materials science and engineering at the University of Michigan crashed his bicycle and broke his collarbone, he was dismayed to find that his physical therapist assessed the range of motion in his shoulder with a basic protractor. The method is prone to large errors, and he had no way of repeating the measurements at home.

Read more This ‘OLED Patch’ Will Heal Your Wounds Anywhere and Any Time

So, he teamed up with Ph.D. student Erin Evke to design a new sensor patch that can contour to the shape of the body. The patch uses electronic sensors to understand the functional range of motion as opposed to today’s static measurements. Influenced by kirigami, the Japanese art of creating 3D structures from cut paper, the sensor can hug the curves of a joint and yet can be manufactured flat, reports UMich.

“The shoulder in particular moves in a very complex way. It’s one of the most well-articulated joints in the body,” said Prof. Shtein.

“Nobody’s really been able to track it properly with anything wearable, and yet it’s key to so many activities in sports and daily life.”

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To make the patch, Evke laser cut a thin sheet of plastic into a labyrinth of concentric ovals. The shape pulls apart almost like a Slinky, and the cuts open into a lacework over the shoulder.

“If you take a sheet of paper and try to wrap it around a sphere, it’s impossible to do so without folding or wrinkling the paper. This would significantly stress the sensors before your measurement even began,” Evke said. “Our cut pattern avoids this problem.”

Because these structures transform from a flat sheet to a wrinkle-free, 3D shape, they can be manufactured with existing, cost-effective technologies. Shtein estimates that the cost of individual sensors could be below $10, assuming mass production.

Read more Very Thin Tattoo-Like Wearable Patch Monitors and Diagnoses Health Problems from Sweat

The team envisions that this kind of inexpensive sensor could be given to physical therapy patients, enabling them to log exercises and see progress through a smartphone app. This could help keep patients honest about doing their exercises and also provide more detailed information to therapists about each patient’s progress.

The study is published in the journal Advanced Materials Technologies.

Nordic Semiconductor, an Oslo-based fabless semiconductor company, announced the nRF52833 advanced multiprotocol System-on-Chip (SoC), the fifth addition to its popular and proven nRF52 Series. The nRF52833 is an ultra-low power Bluetooth Low Energy (Bluetooth LE), Thread, Zigbee, and 2.4-GHz proprietary wireless connectivity solution that includes a Bluetooth 5.1 Direction Finding-capable radio and is qualified for operation across a -40 to 105°C temperature range.

Read more ActiGraph Picks Nordic Semiconductor’s System-on-Chip for its CentrePoint Insight Watch

The nRF52833 features a powerful 64-MHz 32-bit Arm Cortex-M4 processor with FPU and includes a generous amount of Flash (512 KB) and RAM (128 KB) memory making it an ideal option for a wide range of commercial and industrial wireless applications including professional lighting, asset tracking, smart home products, advanced wearables, and gaming solutions, reports Nordic.

“The nRF52833 brings even more versatility to what is a very mature hardware and software platform used in hundreds of millions of products across the globe,” says Kjetil Holstad, Director of Product Management with Nordic Semiconductor. “Such stability is especially important for commercial and industrial markets where product lifetimes are generally longer.”

The SoC’s memory capacity also supports a dynamic multi-protocol capability, suitable for applications such as professional lighting where concurrent Bluetooth Low Energy and Bluetooth mesh, Thread or Zigbee support enables provisioning, commissioning, and interaction with a lighting mesh network from a smartphone using Bluetooth Low Energy. The temperature range also enables the nRF52833 to operate in professional lighting applications which typically feature elevated ambient temperatures, says Nordic.

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The nRF52833’s radio is capable of all Bluetooth 5.1 Direction Finding features and the large memory can support both receiver and transmitter roles for Angle-of-Arrival (AoA) and Angle-of-Departure (AoD) applications. Direction Finding enables positioning applications that not only rely on received signal strength indication (RSSI) but also the signal direction. Applications include real time location systems (RTLS) and indoor positioning systems (IPS).

The nRF52833 Development Kit (DK) accompanies the SoC’s introduction and is the ideal design tool to start nRF52833-based designs. The DK is a versatile single board development kit for Bluetooth LE, Bluetooth mesh, 802.15.4, Thread, Zigbee, and 2.4GHz proprietary applications running on the nRF52833 SoC.

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

The SoC will be made available in three packages: a 7.0 x 7.0mm aQFN73 with 42 GPIOs, a 5.0 x 5.0mm QFN40 with 18 GPIOs and a 3.2 x 3.2mm wlCSP with 42 GPIOs.

The nRF52833 engineering samples are available now with volume production due Q4, 2019.

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With the rising popularity of wearable devices, manufacturers are focusing on computers or smartphones with screens that can be folded or rolled. But unlike foldable displays, there are no foldable batteries so far. Now, researchers at ETH Zürich technical university in Switzerland have developed a new “stretchable battery”.

The research team led by Markus Niederberger, Professor for Multifunctional Materials at ETH Zurich, have developed a prototype for a flexible thin-​film battery that can be bent, stretched and even twisted without interrupting the supply of power.

Read more PolyU Researchers Develop Flexible High-Energy Textile Lithium Battery for Wearables

The researchers followed in the footsteps of traditional batteries, creating the flexible battery in layers, by stacking semi-rigid layers of anode, cathode, electrolyte on top of each other, and then encasing the sandwich in a rigid container. But, it's the first time all components of the batteries have made use of only flexible materials, Niederberger said in a press statement. "To date, no one has employed exclusively flexible components as systematically as we have in creating a lithium-ion battery," he said.

The anode and the cathode of the battery consist of bendable polymer composite that contains electrically conductive carbon and that also serves as the outer shell. A thin layer of micronized silver flakes was applied on the interior surface of the composite. Due to the way the flakes overlap like roof tiles, they don’t lose contact with one another when the elastomer is stretched. This guarantees the conductivity of the current collector even if it undergoes extensive stretching. And in the event that the silver flakes do in fact lose contact with each other, the electrical current can still flow through the carbon-​containing composite, albeit more weakly, reports Peter Ruegg at ETH.

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Researchers then masked off a predefined area of the silver layer and sprayed anode and cathode powder onto a precisely defined area of the silver layer. The cathode is composed of lithium manganese oxide and the anode is a vanadium oxide.

In the final step, the anode and cathode are stacked on top of each other with the special electrolyte gel. Unlike the electrolyte in currently available lithium-ion batteries which can spontaneously combust when exposed to air, this new design isn’t dangerous when exposed to air thanks to its lithium salt and water-based composition.

Read more Stretchable, Bendable Electronic Circuits Could Give Way to Flexible Electronics

What makes this electrolyte so special is its non-flammable and non-toxic properties. Unlike the electrolyte in current lithium-ion batteries which can spontaneously combust when exposed to air, this new design won’t really do anything if exposed to air thanks to its lithium salt and water-based composition. This makes it safer for wearables, especially when highly-flammable clothing is involved.

Niederberger emphasizes that this gel is environmentally more friendly than the commercial electrolytes.

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With their busy lifestyles and heavy workloads, Americans are finding it hard to get their required seven to nine hours of sleep each night. 40% of people age 40 to 59 reported that they are getting less than recommended amounts of sleep. Lack of Sleep costs the United States over $411 Billion Annually, reported Fortune Magazine.

Read more Sleep Health Solution Dreem 2 Smart Headband Launches in the US

MDCN technology Inc. has a developed a neurostimulation headband that will help you to de-stress, focus, sleep & meditate better and more. Dubbed NeoRhythm, the headband uses a safe magnetic method of neuromodulation to target specific areas of the brain with the purpose of helping the user reach a desired state of mind such as relaxation, focus or sleep.

NeoRhythm is the latest innovation in the rapidly developing field of neuroscience, using a safe magnetic method of neuromodulation to target specific areas of the brain with the purpose of helping the user reach a desired state of mind such as relaxation, focus or sleep.

The brain processes information about how we feel, behave and perform. The electrical footprint of its function is seen in the form of brain waves, which change depending on our activity.

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NeoRhythm emits scientifically-validated dominant and accompanying frequencies to which the brain synchronizes, creating a perfect mental environment for the desired state of mind.

The headband doesn’t just target the brain in general. It can be used in five different positions to better reach the area of the brain you want to stimulate.

NeoRhythm works without any wires or control buttons. Simply tap it twice to​ select the last mode used or to select another mode through the app on your smartphone.

The wearable headband has been scientifically tested and proved to be effective by two double-blind, placebo-controlled studies.

Read more Humm Forehead Wearable Patch Is Designed to Improve Working Memory

“The results showed that brain stimulation led to better performance on the memory tests, with it taking three days of stimulation before the improvement occurred,” says the company.

The NeoRhythm Headband is compatible with iOS/Android devices. There are 7 stimulation programs available, including one for pain control. The device is expected to start shipping in December.

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Scientists in China have developed a semi-flexible patch that can accurately measure various health biomarkers in real time, including glucose levels, lactate and potassium. Scientists at Tsinghua University in Beijing and Northwest University in Xi’an developed this patch which is made from a silk-derived carbon material. The patch can even detect certain diseases, according to the scientists.

The research was led by Yingying Zhang from the Department of Chemistry at Tsinghua University.

Read more Swedish Scientists Develop Multi-Purpose Sensors for Measuring Biochemical Compounds in Blood and Sweat

Our sweat contains a suit of health-related biomarkers, including uric acid, ascorbic acid, metabolites such as glucose and lactate, and electrolytes. It is therefore an excellent choice for assessing health conditions non-invasively. In recent years, scientists in various institutions have developed sweat sensors that can monitor these biomarkers. However, many of these materials have limitations, such as poor stability, inferior electrical conductivity, and limited flexibility and wettability.

The scientists took inspiration from silk worm, which can weave a single, strong and uniform thread of silk up to 1.5 kilometers long while building its cocoon. “Compared with the common electrode materials, the flexible silk-derived carbon textiles show intrinsic hierarchical and porous mesh woven structure, facilitating good contact with reactants and efficient electron transfer. These unique features endow the silk-derived carbon textile with great potential to serve as the working electrode of wearable electrochemical sensor,” the scientists wrote.

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The team integrated six electrochemical sensors into the array and modified the electrodes with different functional materials so that they could selectively detect multiple biomarkers, reports Physics World. Finally, they integrated the patch with a signal collection and transmission circuit so that it can be conformably mounted on human body for sweat analysis.

Read more Sweat Sensors to Predict Behavioral Issues in Autistic Children

The researchers recruited five volunteers try out the patch worn on their upper arms while riding a stationary bike. The silk sensors were then connected to a smartphone via Bluetooth, giving the cyclists a readout of their health parameters. The results were accurate.

“The versatility, high sensitivity, and remarkable stability of the sweat analysis patch, along with its facile fabrication process, hold promising practical applications in real-time monitoring of human health,” the scientists concluded.

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Fossil has unveiled its new hybrid smartwatch called Hybrid HR. The watch comes with the traditional look and provides the information of time with the mechanical handle.

Read more Fossil Launches Nextgen Touchscreen Smartwatches with Wear OS and Extended Battery Life

The device features a compact 42mm casing. While the watch does use a proper analog watch face with physical minute and hour hand, they float on top and always on display 27 of the watch casing’s 42 millimeters. But what sets it apart from other watches is that rather than an LCD or OLED, this watch panel uses e-ink, a similar display technology used by Amazon’s Kindle. The display is hidden behind traditional analog watch hands, so you might not even be able to tell this is a smartwatch at first glance. Fossil says there is a built-in light so you can still read the time in dark environments.

This type of screen only uses power when it’s changing state. But most of the time when it’s sitting and showing you the time, date and the weather, it’s consuming almost no energy. That let’s Fossil two weeks of battery life. The watch also has rapid charging feature that takes only an hour for a full charge.

One big addition in this watch is a heart rate monitor, making the Fossil Hybrid HR a much better workout partner than the company’s previous hybrid watches, such as the Fossil Q Commuter.

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Read more Google Agrees to Buy Fossil’s Secret Smartwatch Tech for $40 Million

The watch also gives you weather information, notifications, and activity tracking data. It can interact by using the three buttons which can be found on the right-hand side, and it will also allow to control music playback and personalize. Other features include music controls, a stopwatch and timer, a front light, and it can ring your phone.

It also has water-resistant to 3ATM and this will allow you to take it for swimming, reports TechnoBugg.

The watch can be connected to your smartphone via Bluetooth 4.2. It’s compatible with Android 5.0 or above and IOS 9.0 or above.

This new hybrid smartwatch comes in eight different styles: Charter Blush Silicone, Charter Rose Gold-Tone Stainless Steel, Collider Smoke Stainless Steel, Collider Dark Brown Leather, Collider Black Silicone, Charter Rose Gold-Tone Stainless Steel Mesh, Charter Black Leather, and Collider Tan Leather.

The price for the Fossil Hybrid HR starts at $195 and is available now through official website of the company in the United States.

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From smartwatches to smart glasses, voice command is being integrated into all sorts of IoT devices. However, these devices do not function properly, especially in noisy environments. Now, a Minneapolis, Minnesota-based wearable device maker is set to launch the world’s smallest EEG device that you can control through your brain waves. The device simply slips over the ear like a headphone and provides users with app- and cloud-based command capabilities, reports Industry Week.

“While this seems to be mind reading, the AI which analyzes the [brain] waves more so is finding a pattern in mental activity associated with a particular category and mapping future waves in the same direction,” says Ian Rowan, the founder and CEO of Nurio. “The Nurio AI engine is not able to ‘decode’ a brain wave into a native language, but rather learns to generalize over patterns in mental activity. This provides pristine data privacy for the users as well.”

Read more CTRL Labs’ Wearable Armband Lets You Control Your Computer with Your Mind

Nurio connects to the Bluetooth on your phone and allows you to track progress just like a smartwatch or fitness tracker. The headphone sized device leverages the latest EEG technology. It uses three dry electrodes and minimal on-device electronics to stream data via Bluetooth to any smart device or computer. This allows for the more powerful processors to leverage the data yielding an energy-efficient, safe and minimal wearable, the Industry Week report said.

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Nurio is compatible with other IoT devices. After recording around one minute of thoughts based on that object, nūrio’s AI algorithms can process their future waves into actionable commands. After setting up their device, the user needs to blink twice to trigger the device to begin recording a thought. This is then sent to nūrio servers, which process the raw wave into the user’s device, which ultimately triggers the device.

Read more Controlling Virtual and Augmented Reality with Your Mind

“Our goal was to package EEG electronics into small electronic housing that is comfortable to wear as opposed to some of the larger devices,” says Rowan. “The way we made this possible was to put minimal electronics in the actual device, and instead using a supporting device whether that is a smartphone or computer connected via Bluetooth.”

A study from the Stanford University School of Medicine and Apple has shown that wearable technology can safely detect irregular heartbeats, known as Atrial Fibrillation (AFib). The study was published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Read more Apple Announces Three Groundbreaking Health Studies with Leading Research Institutions

“The study’s findings will help patients and clinicians understand how devices like the Apple Watch can play a role in identifying atrial fibrillation, a deadly and often undiagnosed disease,” said Mintu Turakhia, MD, associate professor of cardiovascular medicine. “Additionally, these important findings lay the foundation for further research into the use of emerging wearable technologies in clinical practice and demonstrate the unique potential of large-scale app-based studies.”

Atrial fibrillation is a type of irregular heartbeat (arrhythmia) that happens when electrical impulses fire off from different places in the atria (the top chambers of the heart) in a disorganized way. The condition increases your risk of strokes, heart failure and other heart-related complications. It is a leading cause of stroke and hospitalization in the United States, but due to its elusive and sporadic symptoms, the condition often goes undetected.

To participate in the study, each individual needed an Apple Watch (series 1, 2 or 3) and an iPhone. The Series 4 and 5 Apple Watches, which feature a built-in ECG, weren’t part of the study, as they were released after the study’s launch.

During the study, the researchers found that only 0.52% of participants received an irregular pulse notification, assuaging concerns about potential over-notification in healthy participants. Those who were flagged for an irregular pulse received follow-up care through a heart-monitoring technique called an electrocardiography (ECG) patch, which continuously monitors electrical impulses generated by the heart, for one week.

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Of those who received a notification and were monitored by the ECG patch about two weeks later, 34% were found to have AFib. Because atrial fibrillation is an intermittent condition, it’s not surprising for it to go undetected in subsequent ECG patch monitoring. Comparison between irregular pulse-detection on Apple Watch and simultaneous electrocardiography (ECG) patch recordings showed the pulse detection algorithm has an 84% positive predictive value.

During ECG patch monitoring, participants’ Apple Watches continued to monitor pulse irregularities. If a participant had an irregular pulse detected, 84% of the time this was confirmed to be AFib on the simultaneous ECG patch. This, said Perez, demonstrates that the algorithm in the Apple Watch can successfully identify atrial fibrillation. Information from this study could be used to inform further clinical evaluation.

Read more Alphabet and iRhythm Partner Up to Develop Health Management Solutions for Atrial Fibrillation Patients

The study also showed how digital health alerts can enhance engagement with the health care system overall. A survey of participants who received an irregular pulse notification showed that 76% contacted either the telehealth provider or a non-study provider, suggesting that many actively sought medical attention as a result of an irregularity identified by their Apple Watch, said Turakhia.

With more than 400,000 participants enrolled in eight months, the Apple Heart Study is the largest virtual study to date.

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Whoop, a Boston-based sports tech and analytics company that makes discreet wearables, has a $55 million Series D funding. The funding round was led by Foundry Group, with participation from Two Sigma Ventures, Accomplice, Thursday Ventures, Promus Ventures, Silicon Valley Bank and other individual investors. The funding brings the total to more than $100 million for the company.

Read more WHOOP Introduces Subscription Service to Its Fitness Watch

The series D round adds up to a mix of equity and debt. While Whoop hasn’t revealed the specific breakdown, the money will be put towards expanding consumer acquisitions, membership services and product development, reports MobiHealthNews.

“We will continue to grow our membership globally and make Whoop the best experience for our members,” Will Ahmed, Whoop founder & CEO, said in a statement. “Human performance is a new category and Whoop has emerged as both the pioneer and the market leader.”

The company’s WHOOP strap is a wrist-worn wearable device that is designed to improve training, sleep and lifestyle choices with real-time feedback on the body. Its effortless social media integration further augments the user experience with compelling graphic design and easy in-app capture for ultimate connectivity. The new WHOOP Strap 3.0 allows users to share live data and progress with trainers, coaches, friends, and connect with the WHOOP community at large, said the company in a press release.

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Whoop also provides a membership for 24/7 coaching to improve performance. The company’s membership comes with free hardware (the new Whoop Strap 3.0), a coaching platform designed to optimize behavior, and a community of high performers. Members range from professional athletes such as sports teams in the National Basketball Association (NBA) and Major League Baseball (MLB), and Fortune 500 CEOs to fitness enthusiasts and military personnel.

Read more Duke Athletes Develop Wearable That Can Predict Injuries Before They Happen and Accelerate Healing

After the 6-months subscription ends, the user is free to cancel their membership and keep their Whoop wearable along with access to all the data leading up to the membership’s end date.

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Ams, leading worldwide supplier of high-performance sensor solutions, based in Austria, introduced AS621x-generation of temperature sensors that deliver best-in-class performance across a broad range of products – including wearables, health-related monitoring systems and heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems.

Read more Tiny Sensors Pave Way For New Wearable Medical Diagnostic Devices

“The new AS621x family of temperature sensors from ams is ideally suited for battery-operated devices, including wearables, laptops and tablets. We are making thermal management easy for our customers as the family’s ultra-low power consumption – in addition to its tiny size – enables a tight thermal control,” says Michael Leitner, Vice President and General Manager for the business line Medical + Specialty Sensors at ams.

In this era of IoT (Internet-of-Things), the new AS621x family of temperature sensors uniquely enables ams’ customers more simply to integrate this tiny 1.5mm2 Wafer Level Chip Scale Package (WLCSP) into their designs – without paying a power or space penalty. Prototyping and design verification becomes easier than ever before due to the product family’s industry-standard serial interface with eight I²C addresses and a factory-calibrated sensor. This combination allows the AS621x family to be used in a broad spectrum of applications ranging from industrial process control solutions, IoT applications such as cold-chain monitoring, medical data acquisition through to battery-powered mobile and wearable devices, says a press release.

“The new AS621x family of temperature sensors from ams is ideally suited for battery-operated devices, including wearables, laptops and tablets. We are making thermal management easy for our customers as the family’s ultra-low power consumption – in addition to its tiny size – enables a tight thermal control,” says Michael Leitner, Vice President and General Manager for the business line Medical + Specialty Sensors at ams.

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The temperature sensors come in three accuracy versions to give customers a wide choice to best match their requirements: ±0.2°C for the AS6212; ±0.4°C for the AS6214; and ±0.8°C for the AS6218.

Read more Printed Electronics Paves the Way for Bandages, Electric Tattoos and Biosensors

As the AS621x is a complete digital temperature system, which has been factory-calibrated to an accuracy up to +/-0.2°C, customers only need to solder the sensor solution onto their PCB to enjoy highest accuracy without requiring further calibration. For greater sensitivity to temperature change, the resolution of the temperature value output has also increased to 16 bit.

The AS621x temperature sensor family is now available in production volumes. Unit pricing starts at EUR 0.62 in order quantities of 1,000.

Skin friendly fixation, haptic, design, cost conscious / R2R
In many cases, chronic diseases need permanent monitoring and treatment at the same time. New medical technologies like wearable electronic patches give patients higher mobility. But permanent skin contact and fixation is an extraordinary challenge for the human skin. Skin friendliness (no sensitization) but safe fixation, design, haptic and acceptable cost are achievable with the right choice of materials and production technologies. Manufacturer of high-tech polymer materials for key industries Covestro, is introducing soft electronic embedding on R2R technology + skin friendly fixation – high performance materials for maximum wearing comfort. www.covestro.de

Electronic components for Wearable and IoT applications  
Specialists in European semiconductor distribution EBV Elektronik adds value at all stages of a customers' supply chain. Services range from in-depth design expertise and application know-how through value-added services right up to full logistics solutions. The disciplines of sensor technology, data preparation and data processing, data output, actuator engineering, connectivity and security come together in the Internet of Things – and EBV has been continuously active in all these areas for over a decade. www.avnet.com/wps/portal/ebv/

A holistic view on a product´s life cycle – development and manufacturing of secure wearables and solutions for patient monitoring
In healthcare and medical technology, wearable electronic devices offer a wide range of uses. Under everyday conditions and with no undue loss of comfort, these devices record vital parameters, analyze them and make them available to medical personnel for diagnosis. Kontron electronics, a provider of secure hardware, middleware and services for IoT and Industry 4.0, works closely with its customers to develop and manufacture innovative medical devices, body wearables and portables, and to ensure secure connectivity for these products. www.kontron-electronics.ch

Revolutionizing the Textile Interface
Being the largest apparel manufacturer in South Asia, MAS Holdings operated along the intersection of fashion, lifestyle and technology. Consumer centric design has helped them juxtapose aesthetics with function and due to advancements of traditional apparel manufacturing processes (bonding, knitting, sewing etc.), they have acquired skillsets and capabilities for advanced engineered textiles. www.masholdings.com

Health Applications of Sports Wearables
Wearable technology developed for sports has a large usage potential in the health sector. Movesense, Suunto’s open sensor development platform for motion sensing and biometrics, is accelerating the expansion of sports wearables into the health market. With their solutions they are serving the need of a low-cost, lightweight wearable sensor for health monitoring and management. www.movesense.com

A technology platform to enable wearable health
Quad Industries is specializing in the development and manufacturing of user interfaces and control panels for both consumer and industrial applications and has extended their activities in developing and manufacturing printed, flexible sensor solutions. Together with Henkel and Byteflies, Quad Industries has developed a smart health patch, worn 24/7 and continuously measuring and recording motion (IMU), electrocardiogram (ECG) and respiration (RES). www.quad-ind.com

Securely and wirelessly connect patients with caregivers
Our world is moving fast, soon you will carry your doctor in your pocket. u‑blox is setting the beat delivering the core technology to locate and wirelessly connect people, machines and everything else. Together with their partner Leikr, they are introducing a cryptograhically encrypted and power-efficient wearable eHealth gateway with LTE-M, NB-IoT and BLE connectivity. www.u-blox.com

Human-friendly man-machine interface
Xenoma develops the next-generation smart apparel ‘e-skin’ as a human-friendly man-machine interface. Their proprietary process integrates sensors and devices comfortably into circuits on fabric called Printed Circuit Fabric (PCF). The technology can be used in various fields and applications. www.xenoma.com

Commercialization, Manufacturing and Development of Biosensors and Printed Electronics
Zimmer and Peacock see that sensors are a critical part of a number of Social and Commercial Revolutions, including the Internet of Things (IoT), Sensor Web and the growth of the Invitro Diagnostics Market (IVD).  The company is partnering with academia and industry to ensure that there are enough good and commercially available sensors to meet the requirements of these new and growing markets. www.zimmerpeacocktech.com

The above listed companies will present their exciting innovations at the WT | Wearable Technologies Show MEDICA on Nov 18-21 in Hall 13 Booth D46.

Press Material: www.bit.ly/PRESS_WTMED19

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Millions of people with diabetes around the world use handheld electrochemical sensors to monitor their blood sugar levels with electric glucometers. These sensors improved at-home medical testing for diabetics but they haven’t yet been successfully applied to diagnosing other conditions. Now researchers at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University have developed a platform called “eRapid” that enables the creation of low-cost, handheld electrochemical devices that can simultaneously detect a broad range of biomarkers with high sensitivity and selectivity in complex biological fluids, using as little as a single drop of blood. The researchers described their new technology in the journal Nature Nanotechnology, reports Lindsay Brownell at Wyss Institute.

“As long as an antibody exists for a given target molecule, eRapid can detect it,” said co-author Pawan Jolly, Ph.D., a Senior Research Scientist at the Wyss Institute.

Read more Sticker-Like Thin Wearable Sensor Monitor Biomarkers without Needing External Power Source

While developing the antifouling coating, the challenge faced by researchers was to prevent accumulation of off-target substances on the sensor’s metal electrodes while still maintaining their conductivity to allow sensing of the target. The researchers experimented with a variety of recipes and finally developed a simple, porous, 3D matrix consisting of bovine serum albumin (BSA) crosslinked with glutaraldehyde and supported by a network of conducting nanomaterials, such as gold nanowires or carbon nanotubes.

The research team tested their nanomaterial-coated sensors in human blood serum and plasma, and found that they retained more than 90% of their ability to detect signal even after being stored for one month in those biofluids, whereas sensors coated with best previously published anti-fouling coatings lost significant signal sensitivity when incubated for one hour, and were completely inactivated after one day, said the Wyss Institute report.

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To demonstrate the commercial viability of the sensors the researchers created a multiplexed sensor with three separate electrodes, each coated with the BSA/gold nanowire matrix and a layer of antibodies against a specific clinically relevant target molecule: interleukin 6 (IL6), insulin, or glucagon. They observed excellent electrical signals with picogram-per-mL sensitivity.

Read more The Diabetes Epidemic is Driving Med Tech Companies to Develop Wearable Devices to Manage the Condition

The researchers so far have been able to detect more than a dozen different biomarkers ranging from 100 Da to 150,000 Da in size with eRapid, and they are continuing to experiment with conductive nanomaterials to optimize the electrode coating and the system’s performance, as well as reduce the cost even further.

“eRapid emerged from pursuing one innovation that led to another that has the potential to transform medical diagnostics. Hopefully, this simple technology will enable great advances in our ability to develop handheld diagnostic devices that can be used at home, as well as in pharmacies, ambulances, doctor’s offices, and emergency departments in the near future,” said Donald Ingber, M.D., Ph.D., Founding Director of Wyss Institute.

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is the most commonly diagnosed mental disorder of children. It affects children and teens and can continue into adulthood. Children with ADHD may be hyperactive and unable control their impulses. Or they may have trouble paying attention. These behaviors interfere with school and home life. There are drugs available to treat this disorder but they usually have pretty serious side effects. Now, researchers in Singapore are using a novel way to treat ADHD. A team of scientists from the country’s Institute of Mental Health (IMH), Duke-NUS (National University of Singapore) Medical School, and A*STAR (Agency for Science, Technology, and Research) have developed a system that combines neuromonitoring with video games to help improve symptoms among patients with ADHD. Neeuro Pte Ltd. is a local company that has been spun off to commercialize the technology, reports MedGadget.

So far, a randomized controlled trial of this technology has shown success in the laboratory setting. But Neeuro has further developed a version of the technology that is now being offered to a group of children with ADHD for use in their own homes.

Read more This Biofeedback Therapeutic Wearable May Ease Symptoms of ADHD

This system is composed of Neeuro’s electroencephalography “SenzeBand” and a Samsung tablet. The child simply places this brainwave-reading band on their head and plays a game called CogoLand. The system tracks their mental focus and adjusts the gameplay accordingly.

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In the video game study, children showed improvements in areas of the brain related to attention and task-orientation. These improvements were confirmed via functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).

The researchers are planning a new study which will use this technology to analyze children with ADHD being treated by Singapore’s Institute of Mental Health. These children will continue receiving their regular therapy, will evaluate the longer term effects of the new therapy under normal at-home conditions.

Read more FDA Approves Breakthrough Medical Device for Children with ADHD

“Our technology can accurately quantify a person’s attention level in real-time using a machine learning algorithm and, from there, develop a unique patented personalized training program using a feed-forward concept for cognitive training,” explained Professor Guan Cuntai, technical lead of the system and scientific advisor to Neeuro. “Further improvements have been made in recent iterations by capitalizing on the latest deep learning approaches with our large dataset.”

The study was published in the journal PLOS One.

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