Tag: wearable technology

Wearable technology contact lens connects augmented reality and mobile health

| February 11, 2016

This tiny wearable allows wearers to benefit from glucose monitoring and AR tech at the same time.

A team of researchers at the University of South Australia have now created the prototype for a piece of wearable technology in the form of a contact lens that sounds more like science fiction than actual reality.

At the same time that smart glasses haven’t seen the hoped-for adoption, this eyewear offers a unique experience.

The contact lenses have been created to be a wearable technology that is electrically conductive and that could potentially host tiny displays. The tech would make it possible for a wearer to receive health feedback, such as blood sugar levels, and would be able to take advantage of certain augmented reality displays that would be shown as an overlay on top of the actual visible environment around them.

This type of wearable technology has been the pursuit of a few different teams around the world.

Contact lens wearable technologyThat said, the University of South Australia researchers from the Future Industries Institute (FFI) have been making some astounding advancements in the area of ultra-thin film tech sensors and displays. Previously, the same team of researchers have managed to come up with a type of thin reflective film coating that would improve the efficiency of vehicles. This same material could be used for the creation of smart windows on a building, so the amount of sunlight entering a room could be controlled.

That said, the most recent focus of the team has changed directions to a more medical pursuit. According to Drew Evans, an FII associate professor from the research team, “We have always known that our film coating technologies had potential for many applications and now we have taken that a step further by proving that we can make biocompatible, conducting polymers at the nanoscale and grow them directly on a contact lens.”

The wearable technology prototype was designed by using a layer of hydrated hydrogel substrates on the lens, which made it possible for a PEDOT polymer to be added to the lens surface. That polymer was engineered to be highly conductive at the same time that it is bio-compatible. Moreover, the team treated the hydrogel with plasma ahead of the application in order to ensure improved adhesion.

Mobile security may not be as high in fitness trackers as owners believe

| February 5, 2016

A new report has indicated that certain wearables and the apps needed to use them are posing a privacy risk.

Citizen Lab, in partnership with Open Effect have now released a report that has suggested that the mobile security being provided by several popular fitness trackers are actually vulnerable to potential tampering, surveillance and tracking over the long term.

These devices are quite commonplace and are used to allow a person to monitor his or her physical activity.

The report was the result of an examination of eight different fitness trackers and the mobile apps that are needed to use them. It was conducted by Citizen Lab from the University of Toronto, and the Open Effect not-for-profit research group. They looked into these applications and wearables to determine the level of mobile security and privacy they were able to provide. The trackers the researchers examined included: the Fitbit Charge HR, Jawbone Up 2, Garmin Vivosmart, Basis Peak, Mio Fuse, Xiaomi Mi Band, Withings Pulse O2 and even the Apple Watch.

The researchers looked at a range of different mobile security measures for every device they considered.

Wearable Technology - Mobile SecurityThe factors included those pertaining to the collection and storage of data, as well as their transmission practices. What they determined was that every device, aside from the Apple Watch, persistently emitted uniqueIDs by way of their embedded Bluetooth radios. Those identifications could potentially expose the users of the wearables to location tracking over the long-term, even at times in which the device was not paired to a smartphone or tablet.

The report said the Apple Watch was the only one among the wearables that actually randomized its Bluetooth ID, causing it to be impossible to track that smartwatch over the long-term.

The authors of the report also pointed out that the Jawbone and Withings app was vulnerable to being exploited in order to crate fraudulent fitness records. The reason this poses a mobile security risk due to the chance that the data collected by personal fitness wearables could be used in court cases, health insurance programs and for other official reasons. Therefore, if that data has been falsified, it could create a highly undesirable risk for the users.