Ernesto Ramirez

June 16, 2013

We hope you like these links, articles, and ideas that we’ve enjoyed this week.

From Gary Wolf

Apple Gives Massive Nod to Wearable Tech in New iOS7 Update: This analysis of iOS7 changes for wearable technologies argues that the iPhone’s future as a QS hub matters more than the much hyped and hypothetical Apple Watch.

“Drawing Dynamic Visualizations” – Many clues here in this Bret Victor talk about the future of understanding our personal data. Be sure to check out the supplemental material on his website.

The Scientific Life: A Moral History of a Late Modern Vocation, by Steven Shapin: I’m finding this book very influential in shaping my reaction to some of the pious statements about “real science” that I encounter in discussions of the Quantified Self movement. Here’s an interview with Shapin that includes a link for the book.

From Ernesto Ramirez

Quantifying the body: monitoring and measuring health in the age of mHealth technologies: A thoughtful research article by Deborah Lupton exploring to sociocultural implications on self-tracking on health and identity.

A Timeline of Smartphone-enabled Health Devices by Mobihealthnews: A great look back at the how far the field of mHealth has come since 2009.

Lifeloggers by Memoto : This short documentary explores the world of lifelogging through various interviews with experts such as Gordon Bell and Steve Mann.

A Personal API by Naveen Selvadurai: Naveen, co-founder of Foursquare, has started to open up his data in the form of an “personal API.” He’s challenged developers and the broader QS community to see what they can do with this data. Right now his API allows access to sleep, steps, weight, fuel (Nike Fuelband), and places.

We’ve also noticed two open challenges that might appeal to the QS community:

The Economist-Lumina Foundation Quantified Work Challenge: The Economist and the Lumina Foundation are asking for your thoughts on what “potential objective inputs or data and potential methods of collecting and reporting that information that organizations could use to build a personalized “skills tracker” for individual employees.”

Chart.js Personal Dashboard Challenge: Use the open source chart.js javascript visualization library to create your own charts and graphs based on your personal data.