Internet of Things & Wearable Technology Insights

What if tattoos weren’t just decorative, but could convey real-time data about your body?

That’s the vision of the MIT Media Lab researcher Katia Vega, whose project DermalAbyss explores the possibilities of tattoos inked with biosensors instead of traditional ink. In collaboration with Harvard Medical School, Vega created three different types of biosensor inks that measure the shifts in interstitial fluid in your skin, changing color based on the levels of glucose, sodium, or pH in your body.

Vega, who is a computer scientist by training and is currently opening a computer science department at Peru’s University of Engineering and Technology, believes the skin can act as a new kind of interface. She’s been researching what she calls “beauty technology” for seven years, combining cosmetics and electronics to create things like smart fake eyelashes, conductive makeup, and RFID-enabled nail polish.

But while these former projects enable wearers to interact with the outside world through different types of cosmetic interfaces, injecting biosensors below the skin allows Vega to connect internal biological processes with external interfaces. “I wanted to go deeper, not just on the top of your epidermis,” she says....

CES is a bit like the auto shows of yesteryear, back when carmakers simply came to flex their muscles and show what they were capable of, as opposed to unveiling products that are destined for dealership parking lots. In the same spirit, Samsung has unveiled three products that will be on the showroom floor at CES 2016 next week.

The first, and the strangest, is a ‘smart wearable healthcare belt’ called the WELT.

Called the WELT.

(long pause)

This smart health belt looks perfectly normal but is able to measure the user’s waist size (I should hope so), eating habits, the number of steps taken in a day, and time spent seated. From there, the information is digested through an app that makes recommendations for better health....

Owlet, a Hardware Battlefield darling, announced that they are going out of beta this weekend and will be available to new parents who want to make sure their wee ones are breathing at night. The announcement comes in conjunction with actual testimonials from parents who feel that Owlet saved their babies’ lives.

Wrote founder Jordan Monroe:

Andrew, Pia, and Easton. These are the names of the babies who were unable to breathe in the middle of the night, and their parents were alerted by the Owlet Monitor in time to intervene. Two of the children were turning blue when their mothers picked them up and stimulated them to start breathing again.
This is our announcement to the world today: Owlet has strong initial evidence that it really can alert parents if, for some reason, their baby is unable to breathe. We are also happy to announce that we are now taking Owlet out of private beta and making it available to the public.

Monroe is careful to point out that Owlet does not prevent SIDS but instead lets parents know when the child is suffocating....