Reading Time: 3 minutes Over the last few weeks, I’ve been gradually increasing the supported devices for TRAQS.me. As of today, I’ve successfully integrated FitBit, Withings, GPS data (GPX files), MyZeo, and now Garmin Heartrate monitors (TCX files). Devices like FitBit make syncing and importing data relatively fast. As soon as the device syncs with the ANT-based station, data…
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Reading Time: 2 minutes A month ago around this time I was anxiously awaiting the first annual Quantified Self conference in Mountain View, CA. This was a fantastic conference on many levels and, although a little late, deserves a future post detailing the great sessions, people, and companies who were there. I didn’t have an official speaking session, but…
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Reading Time: 4 minutes Last August, I enthusiastically blogged about an idea I had for creating a Fitness Tracking Platform; personal informatics for fitness. Since that time I’ve been gradually making progress and am getting closer to fulfilling that original vision. I figured I would do a quick writeup and share some of the progress I’ve made, and layout…
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Reading Time: 5 minutes What’s a better way to kick off the New Year than by giving tips on how to improve your overall quality of sleep? I decided to write this post as a mini-review of the Zeo Personal Sleep Coach and share some open source tools and APIs to help with saving your Zeo data for your…
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Reading Time: 5 minutes You know what they say: Location Location Location. I posted a reply to yesterday’s Quantified Self article answering what degree of self-tracking I’m already doing. Here’s the rundown: Mint for financial tracking and monitoring of budget and spending habits Fitbit for tracking activity level, calories burned, distance walked and sleep quality (New) MyZeo for detailed…
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Reading Time: < 1 minute Since my last post on Personal Informatics for Fitness Tracking I’ve been digging deeper into the emerging trend of self tracking (a.k.a personal informatics) and have come to realize that there are a lot more people out there interested in the same things as I am than I orginally thought. Tracking knowledge is one thing,…
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Reading Time: 4 minutes When I woke up this morning, I didn’t say to myself “Boy, I don’t have enough going on and need to add just ONE more huge hobby project to my list!”. But these things tend to happen, and when creative ideas ‘pop up’ it’s best to take action and at least start writing them down. …
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Reading Time: < 1 minute Last month I announced a new “hacking” project – creating a Perl API for my FitBit device. Traditionally, whenever I host one of my projects I usually include both the project page and source code all from my site. I’ve had a number of requests from various people to help with contributing changes on this…
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Reading Time: < 1 minute The other week I received my Fitbit and have been in geek heaven ever since. Fitbit is a tiny magical device($99 USD) that automatically tracks your fitness and sleep statistics. Throughout the day it will track your calories burned, steps taken, distance traveled, your activity level, and even track your sleep patterns. All of this…
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Reading Time: 3 minutes “Consider a future device for individual use, which is a sort of mechanized private file and library. It needs a name, and, to coin one at random, “memex” will do. A memex is a device in which an individual stores all his books, records, and communications, and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility. It is an enlarged intimate supplement to his memory.” — Vannevar Bush (1945)
Fast forward fifty four years, and we finally have the technology (hardware and software) to make the Memex a reality. My project has been primarily focused on fulfilling a small portion of the the original idea, but has only touched the surface. The Memex fully realized would be a system that completely (and automatically) digitizes experiences, memories, and interactions with the environment. The capability for Total Recall , offloading human memory to a digital space, is not too far away (think Cyborgs).
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