Hasta La Gadget!

Spending too much time indoors? You need a Personal Energy Orb, a glowing Arduino powered ball that allows you to trade physical exertion for a tolerable mouse speed. Developed by two students at the University of Munich for a physical computing course, the PEO connects to a bike-mounted revolution counter to note how far a user rides, counting the total distance toward usable time on a computer. A fully “charged” green orb will allow a user to use their PC unhindered — but a spent red orb will drag Windows’ cursor sensitivity settings to its lowest. The idea, the project’s creators say, is to annoy the user off of the computer and back on to their bike. It sure sounds aggravating to us. Check out the full homework assignment at the source link below, complete with goals, follies and Python scripts.

Filed under: Misc

Personal Energy Orb Arduino project knows you haven’t been exercising, cripples your computer originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 26 Aug 2012 02:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Japan comes up with the weirdest exercise gadgets, but they’re usually targeted for the face. A couple of examples are the Hana Tsun Nose Straightener, the Eye Slack Haruka, the Rhythm Slim Chin Exerciser, and the Face Slimmer Mouthpiece,.

Korea proves they’re right up there with the Land of the Rising Sun when it comes to weird exercise machines with the Horse Riding Fitness Ace Power. It’s extremely unusual and also oddly inappropriate. You’ll see why in a bit…

As you can glean from its name, the exercise machine aims to let people mimic the action or movements that are associated with horseback riding. Picture people wide-legged and moving up and down while sitting on some odd machine, and, well, you’ll begin to feel uncomfortable yourself.

If words don’t do it for you, then check out the video below to see what I mean… (But you’ve been warned!)

[via Geekologie]

It’s fairly well known that if you want to get ripped, you gotta pump some iron. But what’s more of a surprise is that lab-engineered muscle also responds to a workout. Researchers at the Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center Institute for Regenerative Medicine have been looking at a way to help the body grow new muscle, and found that cells derived from muscle tissue (on a bio-compatible material) responded to “exercise.” The research also showed that when tissue was applied to mice with reduced back muscles, those which received the exercised flesh enjoyed significant recovery benefits over those that just received the “sedentary” cells. The scientists who conducted the study suggest that if this was done on an equivalent human scale, muscle would have recovered to 70 percent of the force of native tissue within two months — what they consider a significant amount. So if you ever need a transplant, perhaps that Thighmaster in the loft will finally come to use.

Continue reading Research shows that lab-engineered muscle responds to a workout

Research shows that lab-engineered muscle responds to a workout originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 18 Jul 2012 14:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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