Technology that helps you get fit and stay motivated!

Have you heard of the iPhone accelerometer? Neither had I. An accelerometer is a tool that measures the force of acceleration either caused by gravity or movement. This was introduced in technologies such as Nike+ which coordinated “smart shoes” with an IPod. The piezoelectric sensors could tell if the shoe was moving and when it was not by how much time the shoe was on the ground versus when it was not moving. Information from http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/iphone-accelerometer.htm This article points out that the accelerometer is also how the iPhone determines which way it is being held to rotate the screen. This suggests that the iPhone accelerometer is more advanced then the Nike+ running shoes, and is more like the Nintendo Wii controllers that make games interactive.

I discovered this technology because I am always looking for new and fun ways to work out and stay motivated. A company called Gympact designed a way to use the iPhone’s accelerometer to detect movement to ensure honesty in their mission to motive people to work out. In a combination of a timer and use of the iPhone’s accelerometer a customer must register a certain level of movement for a minimum of thirty minutes in order to get credit for their work out. Gympact incorporates other technologies into their application such as runkeeper which is a gps coordinated app that tracks how far you have run and in the time you have done it.

So I saw a advertisement on Facebook that was targeted towards me because I list “working out” as an interest. Gympact requires you to set up a pact to work out however many times you plan on working out a week. For each day you miss you are required to pay (minimum $5.00) to Gympact. However by completing each week successfully you earn approximately $0.50 per work out. So therefore I currently earn about $2.50 per week for working out. Since I decided to sign up through PayPal as an added layer of consumer protection I can cash out the money I have earned when I reach $10.00 to avoid lots of PayPal fees.

I was amazed at the target specific advertising that was talked about in this week’s readings. I was more surprised that I even paid attention to the advertisement. In another class I had previously taken I discovered “banner blindness” which is essentially social media users training their minds to ignore the ads on the sides of the screens.  Banner blindness is probably why Facebook constantly has layout changes to counter act that banner blindness issue.