Tag: mobile technology

A connected apparel maker has now announced its latest form of clothing based wearables.

OMsignal, the wearable technology apparel company, has now announced the launch of two new offerings, one of which is a sports bra that comes with some traditional features as well as sensors that provide feedback on mobile devices.

The OMbra is made out of antimicrobial meshing as well as stretchable fabric into which there are biometric sensors.

These biometric sensors have been worked into the clothing in order to allow it to be used as wearable technology. When worn, the sensors can track various functions such as running economy, heart rate, cadence, and fatigue levels among others. This sports bra works along with the other major offering from OMsignal, which is a running platform called OMrun. It is through that platform that all the various metrics can be observed and tracked.

The OMrun is designed to translate the wearable technology’s feedback inot useful information for the wearer.

The OMrun platform also offers the user of the wearables with a “Biometric Coach”. This feature helps to make it possible for a user to see how her latest biometric results compare to some of her previous results as well as with a goal that she has set prior to the run.

While these wearables are clearly designed for a female market, the first launch from the company, back in late 2014, had been meant for male athletes. That was designed in the form of a men’s shirt that has been on the market since that time.

While the products created by OMsignal are quite unique, they are being added to a marketplace that is increasing rapidly in size. Moreover, it is expected to be a category that will see a considerable amount of rapid growth over the next few years, as well. The wearables sector, as a whole, is working hard to reach mainstream status with tech embedded clothing forming a rising part of it.

This suggests that OMsignal is going to be facing an increasing amount of competition over the next few years as more rivals start to make their own product launches.

The busy New York City airport is trying out a new way to try to reduce waiting time through tech.

A new technology based test is now underway at JFK Airport in New York City, which involves tracking the signals from passenger mobile phones in order to reduce the length of lines and, therefore, the amount of time people spend waiting as they make their way to board their planes and as they progress through the arrivals process.

This is the busiest commercial airport in the city and is known for presenting some usage challenges.

Due to the confusion many passengers routinely feel as they attempt to use JFK Airport, the facility is aiming to use the technology in mobile phones to shorten lineups and wait times to provide at least a little bit of relief from the overall stress being felt. In this effort, new geolocation technology devices have been installed in the airport’s Terminal Four. The tech is from Blip Systems, a Denmark based company, and it works to track the movements of passengers as they make their way through the areas of the airport that experience the highest levels of congestion.

The use of mobile phones makes this program different from what most other airports have tried.

Similar types of strategy have been made in other airports around the world. For instance, in London City Airport, cameras have been used to add a “pixel” on the heads of passengers as they move throughout the airport. The geolocation technology from Blip doesn’t require the use of cameras as it tracks the signals from mobile phones, instead.

Sensors have been placed in strategic points throughout Terminal Four. Those sensors are able to detect devices that have been Bluetooth or WiFi enabled, such as smartphones, tablets and even e-readers. The information collected is the movement of that person, the length of time they spend waiting in a specific location and their level of flow when traveling from one location to the next, within the facility.

According to Blip, in a description of the way the mobile phones are used for movement tracking, “When a device passes the sensors, its non-personal unique ID – called a MAC address – is recorded, encrypted and time-stamped. By re-identifying the device from multiple sensors, the travel times, dwell times and movement patterns become available.”