Could a breath-monitoring headset improve your health?

Gigaom

Wearable technology and quantified self fans already strap gadgets to all different parts of their bodies to keep tabs on their activity levels, calories burned, heart rates and more. But a Walnut Creek, Calif. company believes health-conscious consumers should be paying attention to another biometric pattern: breathing.

BreathResearch2Since 2008, BreathResearch has been working on research and technology that analyzes “breath acoustics” (or the quality of a person’s breathing) to help reduce stress, optimize athletic performance, lose weight and improve sleep. Earlier this month, as part of a health innovation challenge backed by electronics giant Philips and Indiegogo, the company launched a crowdfunding campaign for a new breath-monitoring smartphone headset. So far, it’s raised more than half of its $30,000 goal.

BreathResearch founder and CEO Nirinjan Yee said that, as a trained holistic medicine practitioner, she spends a good amount of time working with patients with conditions like chronic pain…

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The Senate’s media shield bill protects bloggers, and they should support it

wow. flattered.

Gigaom

Some bloggers are alarmed by a law recently moved forward by the Senate Judiciary Committee. Ironically, this law would actually protect them.

The shield bill, which is called the “Free Flow of Information Act,” would create a new federal privilege for reporters to protect confidential sources. Forty-nine states have long had laws like this on the books or in their case law.

Nevertheless, the act is “an attempt to carve out certain types of journalism that Congress is uncomfortable with,” TechDirt claimed. GigaOM called the law “a terrible idea” that allows the government to define who is a journalist and who isn’t. And Matt Drudge tweeted:

https://twitter.com/Drudge/statuses/378460000282091520

Well, no. The bill does protect bloggers, which is why the Online News Association supports it. To figure out how the law would really work, take a look at the language of the definition itself — which includes two separate tests, and one…

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