A Joneser's rants and riffs, ideas and trends, musings and innovations - all for your perusal and reuse. Steal it. Use it. Tell others.

Monday, November 27, 2006

Steal This: Fat Monitor

When the subject of weight and dieting come up, most people look at me and comment on how "in shape" I am. This is not a brag. And like many others who receive such compliments, I believe they really think that, but I personally know "the truth." Which is, I am in ok shape. But I still could shed 5-10 lbs from my gut and I'd be a lot happier with how I look.

So I moderate what I eat, and I exercise a bit, and try to walk places rather than drive or take public transport. But that gut just doesn't go away. You all know what I'm talking about - anyone who has ever tried to drop a couple pounds knows how difficult it is. And I can't say I understand what some people must have to cope with, trying to drop 30 or 40 or 100 or more. Can't imagine what that must be like.

I do know for my own self that one of the challenges to losing weight is knowing how much food is the right amount of food to eat at any given time. My present strategy involves guesstimating how much food it would take to sate me at a meal, and then trying to cut that in half, and eat a more limited amount. I do this because I've learned that about a half hour later I'm going to feel "full." And if I don't go for the half, and instead munch down the whole burrito (or whatever), it'll slip right down while I'm enjoying it, but in about a half hour I'll feel like I just swallowed a bowling ball. Not good.

But even with my halving strategy, I still find I am creeping up on the waist line, and I really don't like it. So what to do?

Well, what if I could monitor some bodily statistic throughout the day that would tell me whether the current food intake level was in the "gain", "hold" or "lose" range, weight-wise? You know, the way a diabetic monitors their glucose level using one of those electronic monitors with a drop of blood. What if I could see the numbers behind what my body is doing with the food I have eaten thus far in the day, and then gauge what I eat next based on those numbers?

I do this when I work out - with a heart-rate monitor. Gets to the point where I can tell what my heart rate is without looking at the readout, based on how hard I'm breathing, and what I'm feeling.

I really believe that if I could monitor whether my body was getting fatter or thinner in realtime throughout the day I would learn how to eat the right amount all the time, rather than guessing and halving, which is not working that well - but it's better than nothing.

Anyone know of a technology that can do this? Does it exist? Is it physiologically possible??

Postscript: on further research, I found a science journal article related to this published on the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition website. It is entitled, Biomarkers of satiation and satiety. It appears researchers are asking this question and finding some ways of providing answers. It also appears that a definitive answer does not yet exist. Stay tuned!

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Steal This: Hearing aid + Bluetooth cell headset = ?

Have you noticed how the makers of hearing aids are responding to boomer vanity by advertising ever-more invisible versions of their product? And guess what? Phil Specter-loving, wall-of-sound-listening, turn-it-up-to-11-concert-going Boomers are going to need hearing aids, make no mistake about it. But they sure don't want anyone to know it.

On the other hand, I see people of all ages walking around with flashing blue contraptions stuck to the side of their heads making them look like some kind of freakazoid escapee from one of those nutty space serials on tv. Far from trying to hide the fact that they have this thing stuck to their head, these people seem to be trying to show off the fact that they have their head wirelessly connected to their cell phone (or is it an iPod?). "Look ma, no hands."

So...why not build one that does both? As long as there are a fair number of folks who think it's cool to walk around with this humongous electronic growth stuck to side their head, why not incorporate a hearing aid into it? Or, just build a hearing aid, flashing blue lights and all, that looks like one of these bluetooth rigs, but really is just a hearing aid?

Then you could be hip and deaf, and no one would be the wiser. Just a thought. Hello? Oticon? You there?

Big Green - A story from the future

IBM recently hosted Innovation Jam, a 72-hour web-based multilogue aimed at generating ideas for innovations in government, finance, sustainability, etc. One of the ideas was for IBM to move into services and consulting around something dubbed Big Green Services (a play on their informal moniker, Big Blue).

A technique called scenario planning is a useful way to encapsulate the richness of an idea without fully describing it in detail. I like playing with scenarios and decided to take a shot at writing one that would provide a sort of future vision of what Big Green Services might look like. This can be useful as a way of then determining what things need to be happening now, if the future vision is going to be realized. So here's my story from the future:
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Big Green Services: A story from the future
By: Tom Short © 2006


In 2007 IBM signed partnership agreements with the five largest energy utilities in the US to develop, sell and deliver energy conservation solutions across six targeted industries, plus residential. With energy prices skyrocketing and consumers becoming increasingly agitated with the attendant rise in prices and little corresponding rise in wages, the Fed and most State governments lined up with the new partnership, so that by 2008 there were matching incentives across the board to support the integrated energy conservation solution offerings that IBM and its various utility partners had jointly developed.

Now, in 2012, the wisdom of these pacts is easy to understand: energy savings equivalent to 10 new nuclear units are directly attributable to the partnership. Significant reductions in consumption and deep-computing-based approaches to grid operations management have put off major investments in transmission grid expansion, resulting in further cost savings for rate payers.

The future looks even brighter, since the joint IBM-utility partnership joined forces with Europe, Japan and Russia in a concerted effort to solve economically feasible fusion leveraging IBM's considerable research capabilities. Proof of concept is expected by 2014, and if all goes well, a prototype 100 MW unit could be operating by 2016.

The combination of the utilities' experience with transmission and distribution operations, and familiarity with customer needs, combined with IBM's world-class service-based business model were what made it all possible.
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Originally posted on the IBM Global Innovation Jam Wiki
site, September, 2006.

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Interestingly enough, I just read a news feed this morning about a multi-nation consortium that has pulled together funding to push fusion research ahead. Will be interesting to see what their timing is. Here's the article:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6165932.stm

Update: 12/07/2006: http://www.poweronline.com/content/news/article.asp?docid=b133d3d5-8219-4a1c-8be2-a8bf2408f126