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Samsung Launches Simband, a Digital Health Platform

Samsung Simband Digital Health Platform

The South Korean company seems determined to improve its line of wearables with a new digital health technology platform that relies on sensors to track such body functions as blood pressure, respiratory rate and heart rate.

Samsung unveiled this new platform at a recent event that took place in San Francisco. Simband, as this digital product is called, is not currently bundled with any commercial products, but it is very likely that the South Korean tech giant will be launching new wearables to support it. For the sake of demonstrating Simband’s functions, Samsung used a wristband, but it’s more probable that this technology will find its way in a smartwatch.

Simband is supposed to post all of the data it collects to SAMI, a cloud-based open software platform that stores it securely for future reference. As Samsung stated, “The combination of Simband-designed sensor technologies and algorithms and SAMI-based software will take individual understanding of the body to a new level.”

The South Korean company is collaborating with university researchers in order to help improve healthcare. Michael Blum of the University of California at San Francisco explained how Samsung’s digital health platform is able to achieve that “Our bodies have always had something to say but now, with advanced sensors, algorithms and software, we will finally be able to tune into what the body is telling us. Validation of these technologies will improve the quality of data collected and help advance the ability to bring new products to market quickly.”

According to Young Sohn, President and Chief Strategy Officer, Device Solutions at Samsung Electronics, Simband “provides an exciting opportunity for the brightest minds in the technology world to come together to develop the products that will, for the first time, put individuals in the driver’s seat in understanding their own health and wellness. At a time when health care spending is at record levels and when the number of people over the age of 60 worldwide is expected to exceed more than 1.2 billion by 2025, digital health is an incredibly important area for innovation. We believe this initiative will be an essential first step and we invite developers and partners across the globe to join us in creating the technologies of the future that will help make people’s lives healthier.”

All we have to do now is wait for Samsung to launch products that will make use to the fullest of this platform.

Be social! Follow Walyou on Facebook and Twitter, and read more related stories about Samsung Gear Fit and Samsung’s Tizen OS Gear Glass.

UCSF study shows gaming makes you cognitively younger (video)

A slew of negatives plague video games -- Peter Pan Syndrome, hyper-violence, camping -- but their youthfulness could do just what Nintendo's Brain Age promised: improve elderly brain function. Over four years, researchers at the University of California, San Francisco had a group play a custom game (video of it in action is after the break) that tasks players to drive and identify road signs that appear while ignoring certain others, according to the New York Times. It's not quite Grand Theft Auto, but it proved how hard successfully multitasking becomes with age. However, after training with the game, the 60 to 80 year old test subjects stomped those a fraction of their age who had no prior exposure to it. What's more, this experience produced brain functionality benefits outside of the game.

This isn't a fluke, either. For proof, the scientists used electroencephalography to monitor the older subjects and found that while playing, the theta wave activity -- associated with attention -- in their prefrontal cortexes looked like that of a younger adult's. These findings may help scientists understand what areas of the brain "could and should" be manipulated to improve cognitive functions like memory. The study appears in today's edition of Nature and backs up similar research from May that also used a concentration-heavy game, and reported like results. Now if you'll pardon us, we have to show our parents that all those hours of our childhood weren't wasted.

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Source: New York Times