Thursday, July 28, 2005

Smart Goggles



Well I was going to write about an idea that I had, goggles that can keep track of your laps, I will include that at the end of this story.

Brilliant, Brilliant designer Katie Williams created a prototype of swim goggles as part of her design degree at Brunel University in West London. Katie like many has spent hours in the water and will always loose count of the laps we are on, for me I always think that I have done more laps than I probably have. Well she got tierd of this and decided to do something about it. Williams' system incorporates an electronic device, which houses a compass, at the back of the headstrap on the goggles. There is also a small button on the side of the goggles, which activates and deactivates the device when pressed. When a swimmer enters the pool, they press the button once, which signals to the compass the direction the swimmer will be traveling. When the swimmer turns, the compass detects that the co-ordinates have changed and registers the time. The information, including the total time spent swimming, the number of laps completed and the speed traveled are shown in a tiny heads-up display inside the goggle lens, using a system that reflects information off tiny mirrors.

My idea is a little different:
Technology hasn't always help improve what we do, if any one is interested in helping me develop my ideas you can contact me at tubaduba@healthcurrency.com attention Aaron Usiskin, we have SwiMP3 by Finis players that can work underwater for listening while you swim, great not useful to me but a good idea at $200+ dollars. What I would like to see "literally" is Speedo, or any other company to develop a device to count my flip turns. Lets call my device LapCounter(tm), attach a device to my foot (the pad of the foot) and within the goggles you could have a little display that can tell me after a flip turn when my foot pushes off the wall, what lap I am on. I think this is simple use an RFID device (pressure pad) attached to the ball of the foot, and inside or attached to the goggles can be a display that shows what lap you are on.

It can be just like the SwiMP3, the device attached to the back of the strap, placed on the back of the skull. This limits drag and then a wire lead to the goggles will show you what lap you are on using e-paper technology (maybe). Using existing technology electronic paper-based system, several manufactures are hot on this Citizen, Seiko and Hitachi to name a few," American shopkeepers may want to take a cue from Japan, where retailers are testing an electronic paper-based system that lets them change posted prices based on data fed to the shelves from a central server. The displays were created by tire company Bridgestone, and use a substance they call Electro Liquid Powder, which Bridgestone claims is brighter and more easily viewable than comparable LCD displays."
Thanks Core77.com and Engadget.

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