There have been a rise in the amount of devices looking to fill the desire for health improvement. We recently looked at the Jawbone UP, the pioneer in the field. However, the UP is no longer the only force taking over the market.

Image Source: NIKE+ FuelBand

The NIKE+ FuelBand is particularly interesting because it starts quantifying the physical activities users do. Basically, it analyzes the oxygen your body requires to perform a task, and runs it through the proprietary Fuel point system, to calculate the number of points that you’re generating throughout daily physical activity.

Image Source: Pop Culture Geek

The NIKE+ FuelBand’s abilities extend to tracking users’ progresses over an extended amount of time. Users can have a look in the past to see how far they’ve come, and measure their progress. This software can be accessed through traditional computers, or through mobile devices.

Users of the FuelBand will get a good idea of how much physical activity they are partaking in everyday, not just when they are at the gym. The FuelBand is handsomely designed to allow for subtle everyday usage.

Image Source: Pop Culture Geek

The Fuel point system allows users to start competing with each other, and uses the competitive human spirit to really make fitness social in its own way.

Traditionally, social games have also made effective use of competing with others’ scores, through leaderboards and other such forms of measurement.

What’s this competitive element mean for everyone? It could lead us to work harder to stay fit, which is great. On the other end of the spectrum, Martha Beck from the O Magazine has her own opinion on this:

Moving from shoulder stand to triangle pose, I was hit by two things: a back spasm and the realization that though I was ready to quit, I didn’t know how. I’d never practiced quitting. I didn’t know the right path out of the room, the right facial expression, the right way to give up.

So there I stood, befuddled, trying to touch my right foot with my right hand while bending sideways, when I heard a complicated thumping from the other side of the studio. By rolling my eyes far back into my skull, I saw what had made the sound. Besty had toppled from triangle pose directly into corpse pose.

She seemed too tired to speak, but from her feeble movements, she might have been trying to signal something—perhaps that she wished to be rinsed. But I took my own message from her example. In that moment, I saw with great clarity that (to paraphrase poet Elizabeth Bishop) the art of quitting isn’t hard to master. We can always just go limp.

Will the FuelBand also serve as a catalyst for overdoing it? There are tons of people who suffer from injuries due to over-working (like over-stretching in yoga exercises, or not performing the stretches properly), or people who burn out from doing too much too fast.

Keep an eye on how the FuelBand affects the sport of real life.

Watch: FuelBand by Nike+ from Dezeen on Vimeo.

Read: Nike+ FuelBand Review on TheVerge.

I could have only dreamed of this coming true — but here it is: the folks over at XDA-Developers (a bright bunch of people) have ported Google Android onto the HTC Touch (Vogue).  Now I’m really not so sure why it’s called the HTC Vogue (probably differences in countries — Canada calls the Samsung Blackjack just the Samsung Jack), but that’s besides the point.  Like…holy cow.  It’s alive.

HTC Touch Vogue running Google Android

photo credit: Kai Hendry

Sure, it’s got a bunch of minor bugs and issues for now, but it’s still something to contemplate — once its issues and bugs are gone, I’m definitely going to have to give this a try.

Apple and Nike have begun collaborating on a system called NikePlus – which measures your workouts. That’s decent – a technology giant and an apparel giant colliding together to make the world a better – and fitter, place. I have to say that this really makes me see them in a new light, somewhat. I can’t count how many people I can see benefiting from this – so many people already use their iPod Nanos while working out, and countless people support Nikewear.

Source: http://images.apple.com/ca/ipod/nike/images/runsensor20070905.png

The whole process is actually pretty simple – all you need is a little accelerometer from Nike and your iPod Nano. The accelerometer should be stored in NikePlus products that can be purchased from the Nike site – alas, I think that all you need is a safe pocket somewhere. Upon plugging the receiving unit into the iPod and navigating to the software through the menu, you start exercising! The accelerometer measures burnt calories, distance traveled, and all the nice little pieces of data. When the iPod is synced, the data is immediately transferred online to the NikePlus site, where all you statistics will be stored. Pretty neat, eh?

Source: http://images.apple.com/ca/ipod/nike/images/gearnanoplus20070905.png

The accelerometer itself can be found at Apple US for $19.99, and currently is not available on the Canadian store. However, I’m pretty sure that it’ll be at around the same price – try dropping into your local Apple or Nike store for more information.