Another Heart Rate monitor device/app for the iPhone

There's another company that is producing a heart rate monitor device for the iPhone. Its outlined at fastcompany.com, and looks great. Its exactly the sort of thing that would render Bleep irrelevant. Sadly, its not going to be made into a product at this stage :(

Fitbit review on engadget

Engadget have released a review of the fitbit networked pedometer. I remember first seeing this about 12 months ago, when it had just launched at techcrunch 50. I like the idea of the device, but it is yet another thing to carry around, and yet another thing to charge.

It makes me thing of the belt valet computers in David Marusek's Counting Heads (Thanks for the reccomendation @doctorow). One day, not too far away, we will have computers that we carry, strapped to our person (perhaps in belt form), that can handle all of the biometric sensing that we want. It will be able to count our steps, work out our heartbeat, and record everything that we hear and see for future reference.

I'm really excited about the prospect, even if it does open up a lot of privacy concerns. It will be important that we as individuals retain control of the information that is being collected. I'm pretty sure that google having access to all of my heartbeat (which is basically an EKG) information would be a bad idea. David's sequel book, Mind over Ship shows us a very good example of the mis-use of complete information on people.

Gizmodo AU running a blog theme of fitness for geeks this week

Gizmodo are running a theme of playing with balls this week, which fits right up the alley for Bleep. In the linked article, they mention heart rate monitor gadgets in particular. At least my approach will be relatively inexpensive. What a pity that Bleep isn't ready for the publication yet. I'll be following their posts with interest.

Ahh, there _are_ heart rate monitor accessories for the iPhone already

I was operating under the impression that nobody had created a heart rate monitor system for the iPhone yet. This seemed illogical to me as it is such an obvious thing to do.

As it turns out, there is one. I found it today at Smheartlink's site. It looks like a great product, but it is a lot of money to spend, especially after you have already purchased a HRM belt.

Its a bit disappointing to see this considering my app will do much the same stuff, but I still see a niche for my app, as it doesn't require you to charge and carry another device around with you, plus it will be a bit cheaper :)

Apple approves how many apps a day?!?

I saw an article on gizmodo a few minutes ago that says that apple approved almost 1400 iphone apps last friday. Even on the slow days they approve hundreds of applications.

Its massively impressive that Apple have got so many applications. It just goes to show how much of a runaway success they have on their hands. I can't help wonder though how hard it will be for anyone to find the app that they want when there are so many apps to choose from. I suppose thats why we've got app review sites popping up now, like the App store equivalent of gizmodo... Here's hoping I can get them to review my app when its finished.

In Bleep development news, I got it running on my iPhone 3G last night (rather than just the simulator) and it works okay. There are some performance problems which I think I can rectify fairly easily, and then there is just user interface tweaking to go.

Progress on Bleep

I had hoped to finish Bleep to the point where it could be submitted to Apple over the weekend.  Sadly, I've run into some problems causing the application to crash on the iPhone, even though it runs fine in the simulator.  I'm also trying to polish the user interface to make it a better experience for users.

In the mean time, I've uploaded a sneak peek video of Bleep in action.  Bear in mind that this is an early version of the software, and it is still being tweked. Have a look:

More bike lanes for Melbourne

I saw this on the AGE this morning. Its good to see that cycling as a form of transport is getting some more attention these days. Melbourne used to be consistently rated as one of the world's best cities to live in, based in no small part on the excellent transport options. Due to decades of under-investment we no longer can lay claim to that title. Maybe we can start going back in the right direction.

Present Time

When I started trying to loose weight, I said to myself that if I reached a weight milestone, then I would get myself a present, paid for by my tax return. It couldn't be a present that would undo all of my good work, so chocolates and wine were out, rather it had to be something that would excite me but also enable me to continue getting fitter and loose weight.

The reward weight I chose is 80Kg. Its not my goal weight, as I would need to go further still to get rid of by belly, but rather it was intended to be an interim reward.

Well, I was getting close to the reward weight yesterday, so I went down to Goldcross cycles in Richmond, Victoria and bought a 2008 Fuji Team bike, based on the assumption that I wouldn't be able to pick it up straight away and by that time I would probably hit my weight. To my surprise, I got there today, so I'm very happy.

Weight Loss

I'm trying to loose weight, and I'm tracking it using google docs

Here's a graph of my current weight. Due to some google docs charts wierdness, I can't show the actual weight, so you'll have to read 0 as 80, 1 as 81, etc... Hopefully, this graph should change as I update the data. Thats what I'm checking out.



How am I achieving this? Work kindly provides a gym, and has hired personal trainers to come in each day during the lunch break. By going to these I'm managing to drop some weight, plus I'm finding it has some motivational benefits as well. I feel happier in the afternoons and more willing to work with a smile on my face :)

Nobody cares, except for me of course, but insn't blogging the height of narcacism anyway?