Kardia Band - an ECG monitor for your Apple Watch

The Kardia Band is made by AliveCor and is a watch strap for the Apple Watch (it comes in both 38 and 42mm versions). It replaces the standard Apple Watch strap and there's a big chunk of metal in the bottom strap.

To record your ECG place your thumb on the metal blob and your fore-finger onto the other side of your wrist. Run the Kardio app, sit back and RELAX. It's VERY sensitive to any kind of movement. After 30 seconds it will beep and then press save and it will try and filter out your ECG. If you move or there's lots of electric interference it's unlikely you'll get a good reading. Assuming you're not moving around much and the software processes the data, you'll then get a normal (or not) reading and you can scroll through the waveform, like it's been printed on paper and you move along along it.

AliveCor also make a Bluetooth version where you place your fingers on which is actually considerably cheaper and I'd guess gives better readings, but then you have to remember to take it with you or buy their special iPhone cases which wil hold the device.

The Kardia band does work and it's not reported any abnormal heart readings, which is probably a good thing. It's nice that you can take a reading whenever you like (as long as your wearing your Apple Watch), but it's very sensitive to environmental conditions.

The Kardia Band costs £199 in the UK directly from the AliveCor site (it's not available in the US as it's not FDA approved). The watch strap and metal insert have been improved since earliy version when the metal bit tended to fall out.

The Kardia Mobile Bluetooth sensor is available for £99 from AliveCor and is also available in the US.

Ofcom consults on whitespace co-existance

Ofcom, the Super regulator that handles radio spectrum as part of its remit, is holding a consultation on the coexistence of whitespace devices.

Whitespace is the spectrum that is unused in certain areas due to geographic transmission systems that can not overlap and in this case relates to the UHF TV channels (470 MHz to 790 MHz). As there are multiple transmitters across the UK, adjacent transmitters can not operate in the same frequency bands (especially for digital TV) or the transmitters would interfere with each other.

This leads to large chunks of the UHF spectrum not being used in a particular geographic zone, which could be used for other purposes (as long as it was low power and didn't reach neighbouring areas).

Current plans are that whitespace devices will monitor what bands are in use (by listening to those frequencies) and thus not use them, in the UK they must also contact a central database, report their location and the database will specify what frequencies are available and what power they can transmit at.

There are other services that can also be interfered with such as program making and special events (PMSE) - things like outside broadcast units which can use some of the spectrum for remote TV cameras and such like, which also have to be catered for.

Ofcom have already said they will allow whitespace use on a license exempt basis, but they also must ensure that there will be no harmful interference to digital terrestrial television (DTT) and PMSE.

Whitespace technology is new and thus there is some uncertainty on how whitespace devices may interfere with DTT or PMSE services. However Ofcom doesn't want to overly constrain whitespace use such that large amounts of spectrum go unused, or that power levels/etc are so restrictive that reaching any sizeable population is unrealistic.

Ofcom will currently err on the side of caution and setting parameters that can be relaxed in future. Later this year there will be a set of pilot trials across the UK with a number of service providers where the increased power levels can be used for limited periods of time to ensure interference doesn't occur. The trials (and stakeholder consultations) will continue until Summer 2014 and will help Ofcom set the parameters for future national whitespace roll-outs starting in Q3 2014.

Ofcom has set the parameters and algorithms for use in trials to minimise the effects on

• Digital Terrestrial Television services
• licensed users of equipment for Programme Making and Special Events
• services above and below the UHF TV band.

Ofcom have also noted that whitespace availability will vary in areas across the UK i.e. London has relatively low DTT issues with whitespace use while Glasgow has much less spectrum available, however Glasgow has very little PMSE use while in central London (and areas like Wembley Stadium) there is a large amount of use.

Though it is yet early days, whitespace spectrum should allow high bandwidth services with good propagation characteristics (coverage) which could be used to provide mobile network operator capacity off-loading, broadband and machine-to-machine (M2M) services.

Companies such as Neul (a CSR - now Samsung spin-off) are betting their futures on whitespace.

The consultation closes on 15 November 2013 and stakeholders can respond on-line.

Plastic Logic joins forces with Cambridge University Graphene centre

Graphene is the new wonder substance that could replace silicon for a new generation of integrated circuits and other devices. It is also much more conductive than steel and stronger.

Plastic Logic are leaders in the field of flexible e-ink displays (both colour and monochrome) which use their organic thin-film transistor technologies.

Cambridge Graphene Centre investigates the science and technology of graphene, carbon allotropes, layered crystals and hybrid nanomaterials.

With this collaboration, Plastic Logic have donated large scale deposition equipment to support the acceleration of manufacturing scale-up of developments on graphene which will then: -

• To develop graphene as a transparent, highly conductive layer for plastic backplanes, used to drive unbreakable Liquid Crystal Displays (LCD) and flexible Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED) displays; a market forecast to be worth $40bn by 2020 (IHS 2013).
• To develop novel transistor structures with graphene-like materials as the active layer, delivering a step change over the device performance currently possible on plastic, while retaining the ultimate flexibility of the devices.
• Leverage Plastic Logic’s expertise in the industrialization and volume manufacture of electronics on plastic, exploiting the commercialisation of graphene for flexible electronics. This will include key high value segments in the developing new market for flexible plastic sensors, forecast to be worth $2.2bn overall in 2020 (IDTechEx 2011).

The UK is a world leader in graphene research and this could push the UK into the forefront of usable technologies actually using it.

RFEL announces HALO for video processing applications

RFEL Ltd a UK company has announced it's HALO video processing system based on FPGAs (Field Programmable Gate Arrays) designed for military and counter terrorism use.

The HALO system is offered in a ruggedised enclosure, board only OEM unit and system on module unit for value add systems integrators. As the system uses FPGAs, new functionality can be added to the module at anytime. HALO supports the following video features: -

• Intelligent fusion of multi-modal imagery, such as from a visible and IR sensor.
• Image stabilisation, even when the platform is subject to severe vibration, and when imagery is sparse in features or of low contrast.
• Contrast enhancement to maintain high performance operation in marginal lighting conditions -- visible and IR.
• Noise reduction for optimising operation in low ambient light and for ensuring robust image fusion.
• Digital zoom, lens distortion correction, image overlay and support for compression standards.

It supports voltages from 4V to 27V DC.

3 is 94% data

UK Mobile Network Operator 3's CEO Kevin Russell says 94% of all traffic across 3's network is data. This is a dramatic increase as 3 has pushed data services to attract users such as offering Skype phones and INQ phones which are application centric.

He stated that Skype use has increased from 90,000 minutes in 2006 to 600 million minutes last year.

3 has been unusual in that it has promoted VoIP and other internet services, when most mobile networks tried to block them.

However it must be remembered that services like Skype are actually using an iSkoot client that then connects to a 3 hosted server which then uses Skype's protocols out to the rest of the world (though the user is unaware of this).

Kevin Smith at the IndigO2

This isn't the normal technical post, though anyone knowing Kevin Smith (or more appropriately @ThatKevinSmith will know he's a prolific tweeter, does a regular PODcast (or in his case a SMODcast) and runs several websites (and a couple of comic shops).

On Saturday October 10th he did a Q&A session at the IndigO2 (part of the O2 Arena complex) in North Greenwich. The venue was pretty busy (there were a few empty seats) and Mr Smith pretty well ranted (in a god way) for 3 hours continuously, answering questions from the audience (don't ask why there was no commentary on the "Zack and Miri Make a Porno" ... you'll get a long answer).

The show was a lot of fun, though the main complaint was there was no hashtag for the event, so though people were tweeting, unless searching for @thatkevinsmith it was a bit meaningless.

There are several shows across the UK and another at the IndigO2 on Tues the 13th, which should be fun too and as the show is pretty well driven by the questions that come from the audience it should be different from Sunday's.

Hopefully they'll be a pre-show tweetup in the O2 arena and a hashtag for the night, I'm picking #kevinsmith ...

Orange and T-Mobile UK jike non-EU prices

Both Orange and T-Mobile in the UK have hiked their prices to countries outside Europe, some by as much as 100%. Both networks announced the price rises at similar times.

Looks like they're already in cahoots before any official joining of companies.

iTunes / Audible

It's holiday time so it was time to buy an audio book (both for being lazy and traveling around a lot, so reading a real book wont always be possible).

The book was part of a trilogy, so go to iTunes and they have it. Look at the comments and there are several in the vain of "Go to Audible, it's much cheaper".

So off to Audible and lo and behold the trilogy is there for the same price as one book on iTunes.

This is iTunes and Audible in the UK, but that's a huge difference (about 3 times the price on iTunes).

Download from Audible and it all pops into the right locations in iTunes anyway (on a Mac anyway).

Apple are going to have to start pricing things sensibly!!!!

UK beats US in mobile internet use

It seems that the UK is beating the US for mobile access in terms of percentages of internet users.

In the UK 5.7 out of 30 million internet users access via some kind of mobile device. In the US it's only 30 out of 176 million.

The BBC seems to be the most accessed site.