SuperBetter – Free Interactive Game Promotes Healthy Lifestyle

lifehacker | SuperBetter Is a Game that Rewards You for Healthy Living and Working Towards Your Goals.

Getting into shape, changing your diet, slipping some exercise into your day, or overall taking the steps you need to take to live a happier, healthier life are all great ideas, but they can be difficult to get moving on when the inertia of day-to-day living sets in. SuperBetter is a web-based game built by author and TED speaker Jane McGonigal designed to get you on the road towards being a smarter, stronger, more resilient, and an overall better person. Continue.

Bluetooth Fitness

CNET | Health, fitness, and fun: The many applications of Bluetooth.

(click to access slideshow)

Bluetooth wireless technology connects electronic devices together, and has changed the way we gather and share data since its creation in 1994. In June 2010, v4.0 launched with faster speeds, tighter security, and lower energy output. Recently in San Francisco, tech companies from around the country came together to display its limitless applications. Continue.

Hi-Tech Exercise Trampoline

DigInfo TV | Trampoline Game Interface As An Exercise Support System.

This exercise support system uses movement on the trampoline as input in a virtual space. Under development by a research group at Tsukuba University, the latest version allows for a wider range of movements in the game world. In addition to the forward, balancing, and jumping motions which were available in the previous version, the user can now input sideways and backward motions. Continue.

TEDEducation

Introducing TED-Ed: Lessons worth sharing.

TED-Ed’s mission is to capture and amplify the voices of great educators around the world. We do this by pairing extraordinary educators with talented animators to produce a new library of curiosity-igniting videos. You can nominate a teacher, nominate an animator or suggest a lesson here: http://education.ted.com

Zombies, Run! A Running Game and Audio Adventure

You tie your shoes, put on your headphones, take your first few steps outside. You’ve barely covered a hundred yards when you hear them. They must be close. You can hear every gutteral breath, every rattling groan – they’re everywhere. Zombies. There’s only one thing you can do: Run!

Zombies, Run! is an ultra-immersive game for the iPhone and iPod Touch where you help rebuild civilisation after a zombie apocalypse. By going out and running in the real world, you can collect medicine, ammo, batteries, and spare parts that you can use to build up and expand your base – all while getting orders, clues, and story through your headphones.

The Human Connectome Project

CNN | Mapping out a new era in brain research.

The complex architecture of the human brain and how its billions of nerve cells communicate has baffled the greatest minds for centuries. But now, new technology is allowing neuroscientists to map the brain’s connections in ever-greater detail.

The creation of a map, or “connectome” as it has been dubbed, is raising hopes that brain disorders like autism and schizophrenia will be better understood in the future, perhaps cured. The Human Connectome Project (HCP), a U.S. government-funded scheme, recently began trials on healthy volunteers with a state-of-the-art diffusion-imaging scanner. Continue.

Fitness DVDs on the Rise

Reuters | Fitness DVDs remain hale and hardly over the hill.

Despite the brave new workout world of streaming videos and smart phone exercise apps, the old-fangled fitness DVD has never been in better shape. As people seek to live healthier, it remains the go-to workout aid for many who like their exercise accessible, inexpensive and private, according to a recent report. Continue.

Interactive Symptoms Checker

WebMD | symptomchecker.

Check Your Symptoms: To get started, click on male or female followed by age. Then use the symptom checker to select parts of the body where you are experiencing symptoms.

SBM Promotes Use of Social Media for Research

Outlook | Why SBM and Its Members Need to Have a Social Media Presence.

A social media revolution is happening, are you on board? Many who are not often ask, “What is the point?” Here are 4 answers to that question. First, it increases our ability to make the public and other professionals aware of what we do. Each of us has a responsibility to increase the reach and impact of our work, and to extend our sphere of influence beyond researchers and practitioners in our field. Social media is an outlet that can facilitate having our work heard and acted upon by a wide range of stakeholders, including high-priority targets like policymakers, the media, and consumers. The impact of the field will remain limited if we don’t do better.

Depressed? There’s an App for That

CNET | Can a smartphone sense depression?

The idea behind Mobilyze – under development by researchers at Northwestern University – is to create a virtual therapist to monitor a person’s activity over several days and then make a mood assessment.

“We’re trying to develop individual algorithms for each user that can determine specific states,” lead researcher and psychologist David Mohr said in an interview on WBBM radio in Chicago.