There is this company called Withings that has launched something real cool for all people who suffer from high/low blood pressure. Its worlds first BP monitor for the iPhone and will be launched by next month. It was showcased at CES 2011 which is going on currently. It comes with a great app and online monitoring.
Here’s part of the official press release:
With hypertension affecting almost 25% of the world population , blood pressure measurement can help to save lives. However, until now, taking your blood pressure required the use of complex devices with multiple manipulations, mathematical operations and data recording procedures. Self-measurement has been recommended by the medical profession for many years , but no one had yet found concrete solutions to expand its use.
This is why Withings chose to rethink the blood pressure monitor and turn it into an attractive, user-friendly connected device.
With the Withings Blood Pressure monitor, measuring and understanding your blood pressure couldn’t be easier. All data is recorded and saved to the user’s secure online space for easy measurement access and retrieval through their iPhone, iPad or other screen connected to a user-friendly interface.
Self-measurement is made simple by the Withings Blood Pressure monitor. Itimproves the reliability of readings and offers the option to share them with relatives, healthcare providers or medical professionals.
Withings Blood Pressure Monitor is compatible with iPhone, iPod Touch, and the iPad. It will be available later this month, for $129 USD. For more on this check out Withings website.
This iPhone accessory can monitor your glucose levels on the move and is dead easy to use. Developed by Sanofi-Aventis, this one connects directly to your iPhone (or iPod touch), and it can also be kept permanently attached to iPhone. Engadget covered this mod a while back and there is no word on availability just yet — that still hinges on FDA clearance. The device might cost somewhere around $80.
They have introduced the first-ever medical device that actually physically plugs into the iPhone and iPod Touch! It’s a tiny new USB-sized glucose meter they’re calling iBGStar. It’s coupled with the new iBGStar Diabetes Manager program, a free logging app that users will be able to download from the iTunes store when the new product hits the market around January or February of 2011.
This German company has flooded the German iPhone space with a crazy line of hardware add-on gadgets for the iPhone. You can buy simple add-ons like a thermometer to flashlight or even laser lights. Each of the add-on needs to be plugged into the headphone jack and you are good to go. Found this on MMi. Check this laser add-on video. There are many more:
Over to MMi – HMB-TEC’s gadgets (googletrans of German page) are powered by the electrical current from the headphone jack in the iPhone iPod touch and iPad: the devices with the TRRS jack (two rings) that carries current. It’s not clear from the website, but the data probe devices like the thermometer and heart monitor presumably use modulated analog to carry info back to the apps.
iPhone will soon become your true friend helping you live longer. Apple had filed a patent way back in Jan 2009 for a “Seamlessly Embedded Heart Rate Monitor” describes a heartbeat sensor built into an iPhone. When holding the device, the sensor would pick up information on “the durations of particular portions of a user’s heart rhythm, or the relative size of peaks of a user’s electrocardiogram (ECG/EKG).” U.S. Patent and Trademark Office made this application public this week. AppleInsider covered this patent info:
“For example, the durations of particular portions of a user’s heart rhythm, or the relative size of peaks of a user’s electrocardiogram (EKG) can be processed and compared to a stored profile to authenticate a user of the device,” the application reads.
The sensor would provide the phone with heart rate data, which would be analyzed for unique characteristics that could only belong to one person. The system could then allow only the owner of the phone to use it, and block out those who do not match the unique biometric data.
I am not sure if I would ever want an external keyboard for my iPhone. I love my inbuilt iPhone keyboard so much that, I have started finding it difficult to type with my regular laptop keyboard. I keep expecting my laptop to auto-correct as I type just like it happens on my iPhone. Anyways, there are few iPhone users who might need external keyboard support at times. And for them, there is this cool bluetooth keyboard mod available in Cydia, which once installed, will work with any external bluetooth enabled keyboard. This driver runs on all iDevices with Bluetooth support. But you will need to jailbreak your iPhone to make this happen.
Its called the Bluetooth Keyboard Driver and is available for free under Cydia. Here are its features:
Bluetooth Keyboard Driver: This Bluetooth Keyboard driver is based on the BTstack Bluetooth Stack. It supports various HID Keyboards. This demo version does not allow to use the keyboard outside.
Repo: BigBoss and PlanetiPhones
Version: 1.0-23049
Engadget shared this China specific iPhone calling model number A1324, which they dug out from this Chinese website (translated version):
The pictures were posted on Chinese portal Sina.com.cn on Friday morning and showed an iPhone with simplified Chinese characters in its display and inscribed on the back of the handset. Simplified characters are used in mainland China and Singapore, but Singaporean iPhones don’t have Chinese inscription on the case. (Hong Kong and Taiwan use more complex traditional characters)
The iPhone in the pictures also carries China’s “Environmental Protection Use Period” mark, which indicates the number of years of normal operation during which hazardous or toxic substances included in the product will not leak or change in a way that harms the environment or human health. In the case of the iPhone pictured that length of time is 10 years.
An Australian company named 22Moo have started developing “the world’s first” iPhone OS 3.0 compatible game controller. This game controller will feature 8-way D-pad with 6 buttons, incorporate a 2000mAh battery and support both Bluetooth and 30-pin dock connector connectivity.
GameBone Pro will features:
• Dual connectivity – Connect with Bluetooth wirelessly OR use the 30-pin dock connector cable
• 2000mAh Lithium-ion Battery for additional power for your iPod touch / iPhone*
• LED showing charging state and capacity
• 8-way D-Pad with 6 buttons
• Bluetooth button for pairing and status
• Built-in speakers, mic and 3.5 audio headphone jack
• “Made for iPod” and “Works for iPhone” certification**
Pricing and Availability:
22Moo are currently open to pricing suggestions from the public. You too can send in your suggestions. They say – Currently our ETA for the GameBone Pro is mid September 2009**. To be notified when it becomes available, register your interest HERE.
Joystiq says “It seems like every developer under the sun is working on iPhone / iPod game of some kind”. Isnt this cool. This will bring the best of gaming to iPhone. AWESOME! And with the release of iPhone 3.0, peripheral accessories will start making inroads into the iPhone gaming world too. These peripheral accessories could be virtual control pads for better control while paying iPhone games, steering wheels for car racing games and many more.
There are lots of games out there, and a rising number of them are pretty good, but the iPhone / iPod has thus far been devoid of another major aspect of the game industry: Third-party peripherals, reports Joystiq
Alereon, a Wireless USB technology company will be demonstrating an iPhone/iPod peripheral that would consist of a small wireless USB peripheral connected to a typical iPhone connector. The adapter will enable any iPhone or iPod to both provide extra battery power/charging as well as synchronize wirelessly to iTunes whether on a Mac or Windows machine. Future enhancements will enable connectivity to HDTVs for displaying photos or videos.
“The success of the Apple iPhone and iPod motivated us to apply the simplicity of our low power Wireless USB solution to the needs for high throughput wireless connectivity for synchronization” said Eric Broockman, CEO at Alereon. “Our new AL5301, because of its low power consumption, allowed us to produce a small form factor ideal for use with Apple’s elegant iPhone family”
Pretty amazing Robot with an iPod Touch head – This robot is “directly” controlled by iPod touch. iPhone is not only interface. It is the brain, interface, and sensors of the robot. Please call this robot “Robochan”!! Found this on Gizmodo:
The developer of this app, Rick Yaeger talked about this on his blog:
I found a way to remote control my R2D2 with an iPhone. I’ve got minimal control working now. Once I perfect it, I will share more details, but for now this will wet your appetite. In the videos I demonstrate controlling a servo and the dome motor using an iPhone using the accelerometer (tilting the iPhone controls it) and using a slider control on the touch screen.
I remember following the iPhone OS 3.0 Preview Launch sometime back. I was amazed by one section that showed the possibility of what 3.0 OS can do with peripheral accessories that companies would start building soon after the release of 3.0 SDK. Check this video and then I am going to share few excerpts from VentureBeat’s article on this very topic:
These iPhone OS 3.0 Peripheral Accessories that are currently being built, promise to monitor an individual’s every step, almost every health related information constantly, via sensors on that individual’s skin. Eventually making that individual more and more efficient.
LifeScan, a Johnson & Johnson company focused mainly on diabetes monitoring devices and software, demonstrated a Bluetooth-enabled blood glucose monitor that syncs with the iPhone’s 3.0 operating system.
A bunch of companies are working away on applications that monitor all of your six vitals: These vitals are temperature, heart rate, heart rhythm, respiration rate, blood pressure and 02 saturation (or the amount of oxygen you have in your blood).
A company called Toumaz.com, is building tiny sensors priced at $10-20 that you can use to track your vitals such as heart rate, and which could be easily connected to a smartphone.
Cardionet, of San Diego, is one of the bigger players doing heart rate and rhythm wireless monitoring and says it is building a mobile application.
Triage Wireless, backed by Qualcomm Ventures, is one of many that monitors blood sugar levels and other vital signs wirelessly in hospitals and homes, but it hasn’t released a mobile phone version.
