Lounge-Wood laptop stand is a beautiful piece of furniture too

Lounge-Wood laptop stand is a beautiful piece of furniture too: "

Despite the term laptop, chances are you’ll probably be more productive and slightly more comfortable if you were sitting at a desk, or if you had a more stable surface to place your laptop on. Sure there are laptop stands currently available which claim to provide ergonomical features, but are they as beautiful as the Lounge-Wood laptop stand? We think not.

Lounge-Wood laptop stand is a beautiful piece of furniture too, By Ubergizmo. Top Stories : Xperia Play Review, Samsung Infuse 4G Review,

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HAL exosuit takes a Cybernic approach to disabled tourism

HAL exosuit takes a Cybernic approach to disabled tourism: "

Cybernics -- it's not a typo, it's a completely new field that mixes cybernetics, mechatronics, and informatics with an all-human core. Pioneered by Tsukuba Univeristy designer Yoshiyuki Sankai, the Hybrid Assistive Limb (HAL) exosuit originally created to aid Japan's eldery has now found an even nobler mission -- assisting disabled tourists. Through detection of weak muscular bioelectrical impulses in the legs, this RoboCop-like lower body suit boosts its wearer's load-bearing abilities by a whopping 176 pounds. The exoskeleton tech first helped paralyzed Seiji Uchida nearly tackle Switzerland's Breithorn peak in 2006 and is now getting another go at the disabled traveler's bucket list. This time 'round, Uchida hopes his ride atop a HAL-outfitted human will successfully carry him to the top of Normandy's rugged Mont Saint-Michel, paving the way for other similarly handicapped travelers to do the same. Although the robotics in question here is more mech suit than say, dental training real doll, it's still a huge leg up for the nascent research industry that got its kick-start making a wish come true.

HAL exosuit takes a Cybernic approach to disabled tourism originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 01 Jul 2011 14:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink PhysOrg  |  Center for Cybernics Research  | Email this | Comments"

Vermont Uses Draft Horse To Lay Fiber-Optic Cables For Internet Access

Vermont Uses Draft Horse To Lay Fiber-Optic Cables For Internet Access: "

In what seems like an ironic situation, a draft horse is being used in Vermont to lay fiber-optic cables that will be used for internet access. It’s like how “old” technology is being used to install newer technology, but the reasoning behind it is far from ironic, but instead quite practical.

Vermont Uses Draft Horse To Lay Fiber-Optic Cables For Internet Access, By Ubergizmo. Top Stories : HTC Sensation Review, Samsung Infuse 4G Review,

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Keas: The New Game That Has Officemates Battling One Another To Get Healthier

Keas: The New Game That Has Officemates Battling One Another To Get Healthier: "

Former Google exec Adam Bosworth is helping companies save money on health care by gamifying exercise and nutrition as coworkers compete for cash prizes. 'We’re trying to change health habits in a very fundamental way,' he tells us.

The reward of living longer, healthier lives hasn't been enough to incentivize too many Americans into exercising or eating well--a lifestyle choice wreaking havoc on employee productivity and health care costs. But former Vice President of Product Management at Google, Adam Bosworth, has found success encouraging healthy habits by stopping the lecturing and turning wellness into a game, through a workplace wellness platform called Keas (pronounced 'Key-ahss'). He spoke with Fast Company about what he believes are the psychological keys to motivating healthy living--and, how these are making up for the failed Google Health project.

Bosworth argues that Keas separates itself from the competition by only
counting sustained engagement. Measuring the number of initial signups
or those who only log on a few times is not helpful. Instead, he says: 'We’re trying to
change health habits in a very fundamental way.'

Keas outfits workplaces with an opt-in healthy competition software platform, where individuals or teams vie to rack up points by completing tasks such as walking to work, eating healthier, or learning about nutrition. Winners earn badges and take home mid-sized prizes, including cash and gifts.

 

[youtube P1nDUCNj9-0]

Keas boasts that, on average, roughly 35% of an entire company's staff plays the full 12-week program. After only three months of testing, Bosworth admits they have insufficient data on life-long lifestyle changes, but the demand has been so strong that his team is now building a program for gung-ho employees who want to continue long after the workplace game ends.

For Bosworth, gamifying health needs to be consistent with 'human nature.'

Come for the reward, stay for the people

Rewards are 'what brings people to the game, but it's not what sustains them; it's not what keeps them there, it’s too little money,” argues Bosworth. Rather, it's the exhilaration of team competition and the support of coworkers that keeps employees committed. More than age or sex, 'the one thing that had a dramatic effect on engagement was being a member of a team.'

Bosworth says that teams of six are large enough to exert social pressure, but small enough so that everyone can keep tabs on each other. 'Peer obligation is a very important psychological factor in the game,” he says.

Bosworth thinks that Google Health ultimately failed because it wasn't social. 'It
wasn't actually a place you wanted to go to. It wasn't fun. It wasn't a
place to hang out with others dealing with the same issues. Nobody was
cheering you on as you made progress or encouraging you during
setbacks.'

In addition to swapping nutritional tidbits over lunch and encouraging a struggling peer to press on, our colleagues' actions are socially contagious. Seeing a sweat-dripped coworker arrive energized to work shows us the person we could have been if we had chosen to walk to work. On the darker side, if everyone orders dessert after Friday happy hour, the temptation to cheat may break those struggling to maintain healthy eating habits. An environment overflowing with Keas participants can snatch up stragglers who don't want to be left out of the fun.

Be like Richard Simmons: Keep it positive

Bosworth learned early on that the carrot was far more effective than the stick: Biting reminders of obesity caused users to bolt. 'Rather than causing people to wake up and suddenly be motivated and see the light and say, ‘Oh, I must fix this,’ they were gone in 60 seconds.'

Gorging is about cheap, immediate gratification--not nutritional needs or, sometimes, even taste. To prove this, one clever experiment mapped the density of fast food restaurants around participants and found that, unsurprisingly, one of the greatest predictors of whether employees grabbed a greasy snack was impulsivity, or “reward sensitivity.” Likewise, Bosworth found that tiny incentives were enough to satiate the reward-itchy fingers of his obese users: 'Now that we’ve made the thing entirely positive feedback, people love it and they stick around.'

Surprise: Quizzes are a reward

A recent meta-review of video games
for workplace training found that games can be more effective than
traditional training alone, which is precisely how ice cream retailer
Cold Stone Creamery saved itself money through an interactive game
showing employees how to reduce the amount delicious of ice cream they
served up. 'One of the advantages of games is that they are
intrinsically motivating, resulting in employees choosing to repeatedly
engage in game play and mastering the skills,' author Traci Sitzmann
told ScienceDaily.

'Quizzes are not a cost, they are a reward,' says Bosworth. His team believed they had created a cheap, endless pool of bonus rewards when they crafted 60 nutritional quizzes. 'Four days after we launched the game, we had customers besieging us with emails saying they were out of bonus points,' he says. 'We realized they’d done all 50 or 60 quizzes; they’d done them in four days and they wanted more.'

Advice: Hire a psychologist

'Frankly, those of us who designed software were not psychologists,' he admits. Applying intuitive understandings of human behavior to their programs ended up backfiring.

Negative feedback, for instance, seems like a time-tested way to kick people into action, but few studies support it, as research finds that punishment is good for stopping behavior, but not for replacing it with desired actions: 'A big change for us was when we put a psychologist in charge.'

[Image: Flickr user xJasonRogerx]

Follow Greg Ferenstein on Twitter. Also follow Fast Company on Twitter.

Read More:
Arookoo, The Depressing App That 'Makes Walking Fun'

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Video: PBS Reports On Bionic Limb Development

Video: PBS Reports On Bionic Limb Development: "

It’s hard to keep up with all the developments in the bionics and cybernetics worlds: so many universities and private institutions are working on so many projects that by the time you report one, another has leapfrogged it. PBS News Hour has put together a nice little survey of the current tech, interviewing Dean Kamen and a number of other inventors and researchers in the field. Feeling out of date? Watch away.

The full transcript can be found here if you don’t feel like watching, though it’s really great to see some of this stuff in action.

[via BoingBoing]

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The Elliptical Machine Office Desk: putting the 'commute' back in 'telecommuting'

The Elliptical Machine Office Desk: putting the 'commute' back in 'telecommuting': "

Quite frankly, you've got it just a bit too easy. You rise 98 seconds before you're scheduled to clock in, you mash a power button, and suddenly, you're at work. PJs still caked to your legs, mouth still steaming from a lack of brushing. You're a telecommuter, and you're the envy of the working world. In fact, it'd be just stellar if you'd do us all a solid and add a sliver of complexity to your workday -- you know, like swapping out your OfficeMax special for an elliptical machine. And maybe, just maybe, you can convert your laptop into one that's pedal-powered, forcing you to keep churning for fear of dropping from the virtual office. And no, you can't ask for donations to cover the $8,000 price tag -- your fuel savings from last week alone should just about cover it. Harrumph.

The Elliptical Machine Office Desk: putting the 'commute' back in 'telecommuting' originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 29 Jun 2011 07:08:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Medical Xpress  |  Hammacher Schlemmer  | Email this | Comments"

Microsoft's ergonomically alliterative Comfort Curve Keyboard makes a contoured comeback

Microsoft's ergonomically alliterative Comfort Curve Keyboard makes a contoured comeback: "

Like a vinyl record left out in the sun too long, Microsoft's Comfort Curve Keyboard has returned, albeit slightly more warped than before. The ergonomic peripheral is an attempt to improve the comfort and posture of users who just don't go in for the split variety. The 3000 features uniformly-sized QWERTY keys, offering up a similar layout to traditional straight keyboards. You'll be able to get your fingers on the input device in August for $20, to see if the comfort does indeed match the curves.

Microsoft's ergonomically alliterative Comfort Curve Keyboard makes a contoured comeback originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 15 Jun 2011 08:10:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Microsoft  | Email this | Comments"