
Microsoft designs smart bra to combat emotional eating - shawndumas
http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/12/microsoft-designs-smart-bra-to-combat-emotional-eating/
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kristiandupont
Sorry about off-topic, but if there was ever a real title that I would have
thought came from the headline generator of last week, this has got to be it!

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bcx
Actual paper is pretty interesting:
[http://www.cs.rochester.edu/hci/pubs/pdfs/FoodMood.pdf](http://www.cs.rochester.edu/hci/pubs/pdfs/FoodMood.pdf)

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asciimo
In case anyone didn't make it to the last paragraph, the bra device was a
previous iteration. They have moved toward bracelets suitable for everyone.
(Well, everyone with hands.)

> Since conducting this research, the team has moved to testing the use of
> Affectiva Q3 bracelets, which detect mood, so that both men and women can
> participate. The pilots, say the authors, have been "quite promising" for
> both sexes.

~~~
eriktrautman
Looks like the Affectiva Q sensor is discontinued and the company said they're
moving away from that into facial tracking instead. How does the Q3 come into
play then?

Discontinued site: [http://www.qsensortech.com/](http://www.qsensortech.com/)
Press Release: [http://www.affdex.com/news-article/affectiva-accelerates-
inv...](http://www.affdex.com/news-article/affectiva-accelerates-investments-
in-affdex-emotion-measurement-discontinues-q-sensor-device/)

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droopyEyelids
This has such tremendous potential. So much of our lives are ruled by habits,
and who here doesn't have habits they want to break or new, better habits they
want to develop?

Imagine if this could notice your boredom behaviors and prompt you to work out
or study, if it gave you a solid reminder when you were watching more TV than
you thought was useful, etc. Even if it noticed when you'd been sitting for
more than an hour and prompted you to get up and stretch.

That would be fucking awesome.

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downer95
1\. Electrodermal Activity Sensor 2\. Electrocardiogram Sensor

So, we can rest assured that the embedded system and controller board will be
equipped with software that defaults to an always-upload mode, dumping all
data to microsoft.com. The device will be completely unusable and it's data
inaccesible without a one-time prompt agreeing to the EULA.

Is Microsoft trying to convince women to submit to continuous lie detector
monitoring, under the auspices of weight control?

~~~
nivla
>rest assured that the embedded system and controller board will be equipped
with software that defaults to an always-upload mode, dumping all data to
microsoft.com ... Is Microsoft trying to convince women to submit to
continuous lie detector monitoring, under the auspices of weight control?

What? I get it, its in fashion to hate on MS but come on these are just
ridiculous assumptions. Let's look at it from a technical point of view. If
you want an always-upload device, at the current state it would require a
substantially battery which needs to be recharged atleast every 12hours. Now
who will buy a heavy bra that fails in half a day?

Lie detector.. really? because its in the evil interest of a corporation to
know when only women are lying.

~~~
downer95
It needs a battery no matter what. It assuredly has a battery. How would it
function at all without a battery small enough to power a wrist watch?

How much battery power do you need, in order to pipe readings from a sensor
into a tiny 2GB cache of flash memory?

Then, the data syncs with your laptop, because how else will you find out what
the readings are, without some kind of GUI interface showing you some charts
and graphs that interpret the raw sensor data?

The sync software will come bundled with a "share your data, oh goody!"
feature that defaults to constant sharing mode (dark pattern). You charge the
battery whenever you sync. In the presence of an internet connection, it
uplinks to MsSmartBra.com, where data is monitored and tracked so everyone
knows your high score! Yay!

~~~
nivla
Wait so you changed your course of comment from "always-upload" and "lie-
detector" to "syncs to a central server" when plugged in? Then how is this
different than existing products such as Nike fuel band or fit bit?

My initial response was to your paranoic bit on being always on. Without the
help of a median device, for data to be always uploaded or for constant lie
detection, a wifi/4g module has to used. Which in itself is a battery sucker
and not to mention, adds to weight of the bra making it uncomfortable.

~~~
downer95
Okay, my mistake in using the term "always-on." That term is generally
reserved for broadband network connections.

But consider the standard use case for undergarments. It will continuously
collect data any time it's worn. That could turn out to be a lot of data, even
in a store-and-forward data collection strategy. And really, bras are most
commonly worn in social situations, so most data will be collected while the
subject engages in social interactions.

I point this out as a possible "lie detector" because that's my immediate
association with respect to electrodermal and EKG sensors used in combination.
Add in respiration (a small leap since this will be strapped to your rib cage)
and you would have the complete recipe for a lie detector. That part doesn't
seem to be included, although my free association still stands.

I'm hypothesizing that Microsoft might be taking aim at a strategy to
crowdsource ambient lie detector data, because that sounds like a really
interesting data set, with lots of opportunities for exploitation.

What motivation could there possibly be, beyond "pure evil", as a drive to
study this sort of thing? Perhaps a sense of adventure and bold curiosity for
the future that lies ahead? I dunno, but it's already well established that
Microsoft is a known collaborator with the DoD and most alphabet agencies.
Maybe it's a sureptitious fishing expedition?

Why women only? Because a complete lie detector session involves respiration.
So, if it's a sureptitious data collection program, you start with the
question: how do we convince people to adorn themselves with cumbersome blood
pressure cuff, EKG, electrodermal and respiration sensors that we usually wrap
around their chest? Who would ever wear anything tightly strapped around their
chest? Wait! Women do that all the time, whenever they wear a bra!

Good work, Johnson! Here's a two million dollar budget! In six months, be
ready to show me something that will convince people to willingly share
respiration, heart rate, and skin conductivity via the web. Then we'll
restrospectivly analyze the raw data set, blindly without context, and try to
pick out the liars, and develop a common statistical model of deceptive
behavior, ironically collected using deceptive tactics.

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auggierose
That's awesome! Can men wear it, too?

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clockworkelf
Cmon people, this is pretty sad. Humans are not robots and shouldn't be
treated as such. What's next? A pair of underwear to stop men from impulsive
sex? We have a soul, a spirit. Find the real reason why you harm yourself and
emancipate that in a spiritual way .. not an electronic bra.

~~~
cLeEOGPw
First - humans ARE robots and have no soul/spirit, second - you should not
treat non-human with disrespect just because it was of another species.
Animals have feelings just like you, and in the future an actual mechanical
robots might too. Would you still treat AI as it was "a thing", although it
could feel, understand and act just like any human being? Because if so, you
should treat every human being as thing too.

~~~
smtddr
_> > First - humans ARE robots and have no soul/spirit_

I very strongly disagree with this, but I know on HN this makes me an absurd
fool with no data to back myself up with. Ya know, on my myers briggs[1] test
that took last year, and also about 20+ yrs ago when I was in highschool the
results were the same. I have a strong sense of spiritualness and
connectedness. I'll link this blog[2] but I suspect its contents will be
dismissed around here as unscientific baseless nonsense. Not trying to change
anyone's mind here, just showing how I feel. Maybe some readers will better
understand the other people in the world, like myself, who don't think like
vulcans[3].

1\. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers-
Briggs_Type_Indicator](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers-
Briggs_Type_Indicator)

2\. [https://findingourwayhomeblog.wordpress.com/tag/myers-
briggs...](https://findingourwayhomeblog.wordpress.com/tag/myers-briggs-type-
indicator/)

3\.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulcan_(Star_Trek)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulcan_\(Star_Trek\))

~~~
cLeEOGPw
Regarding the MBTI test, take it with a grain of salt.

As for spirituality, if it is how you feel, it's nothing wrong. The way human
body functions is not a matter of agreement between people anyway.

Also being reasonable and logical doesn't automatically make you emotionless.

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GnarfGnarf
Thank goodness for HN to keep us abreast of these developments.

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plg
always nice to see innovation in the over-the-shoulder-boulder-holder space

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loceng
Breast tissue is very sensitive, not sure electronics "permanently" being
there is a great idea. And please don't downvote me just because you don't
believe this could lead to higher rates of cancer - it's still not fully known
and should be considered a valid concern. EDIT: A number of spiteful and/or
lazy people on HN eh?

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diab0lic
Females, at least where I'm from, regularly keep things in their bra such as
cell phones. It never ceases to amaze me when a phone suddenly materializes
from seemingly nowhere. Given that I feel they would hardly be opposed to some
thin embedded electronics in the bra.

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loceng
Yes, I have seen this too. I'm sure they're not aware of or perhaps don't
believe the studies showing that there's increased cancer around the area
where heavy cellphone use it as. Sure, you can argue they're not using the
phone - however phones more and more actively push and receive data.

~~~
daeken
Citation badly needed. There have been many studies on this and, as far as I'm
aware, not one has shown such a link.

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loceng
I have to head out now - this was nearest I could find at the moment -
[http://www.spandidos-publications.com/ijo/43/6/1833](http://www.spandidos-
publications.com/ijo/43/6/1833) \- if clicking "View Affiliations" you can see
where study was done, who's involved, and could do more searches. The study's
conclusion is 70% increased in certain cancers if used 1 year or longer, and
300% increase if 25 years or longer (cordless and cellphone) - though not many
participants had used cell or cordless phones for 20-25 years.

~~~
daeken
So, I just read over the paper, and the biggest thing that stands out to me
is: it's completely backwards, methodology-wise. They start from tumors, then
work backwards to collect data about their mobile phone usage, and compare
them to a control that is selected from a comparable population. I'm sorry,
but that's _not_ good science. Read over the "Materials and methods" section.

It also has a remarkably low sample size (n=593). This is in contrast to the
Interphone study (n=~14000), which found no statistically significant
correlation between brain cancer and cell phone usage.

~~~
loceng
Seriously? This is how many studies are done, unless you can have a highly
controlled environment say with breeded rat populations. And yup, wouldn't it
be great to keep track of absolutely everyone - and then see how they
progress? The problem is most of us are bombarded with a lot of pollution (not
just electrical), which all will affect our body's ability to cope with dis-
ease and sickness.

I'm not sure where you're getting the sample size of 14,000 ... though
different pieces of the study had upwards of 5,000 participants.

~~~
daeken
This is indeed how many studies are done. It's also why many studies are 1)
completely worthless, and 2) impossible to reproduce.

This is simply not valid science. It's not blinded, it's not representative of
the population at large (or these would've come out of a randomly selected
population), and it's not properly controlled. It's junk science.

~~~
loceng
So you believe it's completely useless and no value to take 1 common factor,
and see what other common factors exist or vary from others who don't have
that common factor?

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TsiCClawOfLight
Go read "bad science", then come back and answer your own question. :)

~~~
loceng
I hope the book itself doesn't make such as generalized claims as some of the
sections of the Wikipedia page describing its sections..

I will add it to my read list though, thanks.

~~~
TsiCClawOfLight
I found it very elaborate, actually. It's certainly a very good read :)

