Library API Blog
Fitbit’s Flex wristband goes on sale: harder to lose, easier to track
Posted on 05-06-2013
Summary: Fitbit’s newest fitness-tracking device, the Flex wristband, begins shipping on Monday.It’s more conspicuous than clip-on models — which may not be a bad thing.When I started wearing Fitbit’s clip-on fitness tracker a few months ago, I loved how easy it was to hide.You can clip it to a pants pocket (or ladies can clip it to an undergarment) and no one has to know that it’s there.But I, like a few of my colleagues and other users, soon discovered a downside to Fitbit’s (see disclosure) discreet design — it’s so inconspicuous that you can forget about it entirely.
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Jawbone Buys Sensor Start-Up for $110 Million
Posted on 04-30-2013
Jawbone declined to comment on how much it paid for the acquisition, but a source close to the deal who was not authorized to speak on the record confirmed the price.“It’s a significant deal because it’s a significant opportunity,” said Hosain Rahman, the chief executive of Jawbone.“We looked at the market and what we thought about what we can do on our own or together with BodyMedia, and we found a deal acceptable to our shareholders.”
BodyMedia has been making and selling activity tracking armbands that can monitor exercise and sleep behaviors since 1999.Mr.
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Who Really Owns Your Personal Data?: Critical Eye : Details
Posted on 04-29-2013
Thanks to an exploding number of wellness apps and wearable devices, you may be beaming biodata into the cloud right now.As the Quantified Self movement picks up steam, who stands to profit?(Hint: not you.) And can those cashing in on Big Data use your heart rate against you?(Take a guess.
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Supercharge Your Fitness App with Active.com and StackMob
Posted on 04-18-2013
Mobile apps in the fitness category are flexing their capabilities, spurred on by new hardware that monitors our movements and our willingness to track our behavior.One key to the fitness category is the personal nature of the data.Developers need a way to store this information securely, yet allow people to share selected information through social networks to reinforce their positive behaviors.StackMob provides a robust data store API and easy to use SDKs built for iOS, Android and HTML5.Developers can enable Login with Facebook or Twitter and secure user data with access control levels.
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Going the Distance with Walkscore’s Travel Time API
Posted on 04-15-2013
You have a hectic business trip to Seattle coming up and its time to choose hotels.Sure, there’s cost, availability, checkout times ad whether it has a pool or gym to consider.But there’s another important factor: proximity.The Travel Time API demo uses Seattle.See graphic below.
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ActiGraph Releases API Supporting Actigraphy Data Collection
Posted on 04-08-2013
ActiGraph, a leading provider of objective physical activity and sleep/wake monitoring solutions for the global research community, announced today the release of an Application Programming Interface (API) to its popular ActiLife analysis software.The ActiLife API was primarily developed to support the implementation of ActiGraph’s objective monitoring system within drug trials and clinical research studies.ActiGraph, a leading provider of objective physical activity and sleep/wake monitoring solutions for the global research community, announced today the release of an Application Programming Interface (API) to its popular ActiLife analysis software.The newest addition to ActiGraph’s growing technology suite, the ActiLife API was designed to run within closed systems, ensuring that protocol and regulation compliance requirements are not compromised during data collection.ActiGraph’s new API allows programmatic control of the ActiLife software over a standard socket, allowing users to develop their own custom applications (Java, C#, C++, etc.
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Programming the Quantified Self: APIs to Track Health
Posted on 12-19-2012
SXSW Interactive is probably best known now for its size.The event is spread through about half a dozen venues around downtown and greater Austin, Texas.And the parties that happen late into the night can be many Texas-sized blocks apart.It was a perfect place to track the activity–and inactivity–of a bunch of techies.Storing real-world data and making it accessible in the cloud is a growing trend, with a number of devices and APIs to facilitate it.
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APIs Essential for Quantified Self’s Core Purpose
Posted on 12-19-2012
Quantified Self, “a collaboration of users and tool makers who share an interest in self knowledge through self-tracking,” requires tapping into massive amounts of data for its very existence.Members meet in an online community, and in person through small groups and a larger conference.The goal of any meeting is to learn, develop, and refine methods for collecting personal data in hopes to generate an effective response to the data.At Quantified Self forums around the world, “[i]ndividuals tell their stores of using data to better understand who they are and how they interact with the world around them.” says Singly.
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The Best Team Page Ever!!
Posted on 09-25-2012
When it comes to any business, you want to showcase your team, and the value they bring to the table. One of the things I do here at API Evangelist, is showcase great examples of technology across the API industry. With this in mind I wanted to showcase the Singly team page. When you visit singly.com and click on team in the footer, you get immediately see a team member photo carousel: Which isn't very unique, but next you get 3 things that are unique: Average number of hours each Singly team member slept this week Number of Github commits in the last 7 days Distance walked by Singly team members Singly team members provide this data using Quantified Self (QS) data from products like Fitbit and Runkeeper, and social programming networks like Github--driven by APIs. Next Singly shows a map of their neighborhood in the San...
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An API Driven Quantified Self
Posted on 09-17-2012
I’m immersing myself into the fascinating new world of the Quantified Self (QS). If you are not familiar with what QS is, according to Wikipedia: Quantified Self is a movement to incorporate technology into data acquisition on aspects of a person's daily life in terms of inputs (e.g. food consumed, quality of surrounding air), states (e.g. mood, arousal, blood oxygen levels), and performance (mental and physical). As I do with other areas, I start my research by doing a roundup of companies who offer QS products and services--which helps me define the space. Within an hour I easily found 50+ QS device manufacturers, some of which were complete with API driven integration platforms-- way too many to list in a single roundup, but here are a couple of better known companies: Fitbit - Fitbit is a health and fitness tracking device RunKeeper - Runkeeper is a device for tracking, measuring,...
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