Tag: slow

Even Realities G1 Smart Glasses Review: Superb Display, But Slow Info

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I’ve been wearing the Even Realities G1 glasses for four months, and while many people have commented on my new frames, only two friends asked if my glasses were “smart.” For someone who wore Google Glass in public and lived to tell the tale, this technological anonymity is high praise indeed. They look like glasses you might actually want to wear, and they don’t draw unnecessary attention to your (OK, my) face.

But as Clark Kent accessed his superpowers after taking off his spectacles, inversely, this mild-mannered reporter benefits from real-time language translation, access to AI, turn-by-turn navigation, and a personal assistant, all by keeping his glasses on.

Most smart glasses, like the Ray-Ban Meta, rely on Bluetooth audio, but the G1 features a small but brilliantly effective heads-up display called the Holistic Adaptive Optical System, or HAOS. Look carefully at the lenses and you’ll see a faint rectangle in each eye. This is where a micro-LED optical engine projector displays crisp, green digital text (640 x 200 pixels). Glance up (choose the angle via the app) and a seemingly two-foot-wide text homepage appears to float around five feet in front of you. Considering all this, it’s astonishingly clever given how light and, well, normal the frames feel.

The digitally surfaced lens is actually two bonded lenses but manages to be no thicker or heavier than a standard design. Prescription lenses cost $129 extra and, aside from the occasional glimpse of the projector screen in bright sunshine, works as well as any glasses I’ve ever owned.

Nestled on the end of each arm you’ll find two rubbery nodules. These contain the battery, buttons, and antennae that exchange real-time data with your phone over Bluetooth. They’re marginally heavier than standard glasses, but because the weight is kept away from the nose, they feel good. The frames are made from solid magnesium and have a cool matte finish, with the temples coated in silicon for added grip. Add in screwless hinges and a classic oval shape, and you’ve got a stylish proposition even before you charge them up.

Photograph: Christopher Haslam

The charging case is equally well designed and holds enough power to recharge the glasses 2.5 times. The 60-mAh battery in the glasses has enough power for 1.5 days.

So, they’re nice glasses—but what do they actually do?

Virtual Assistance

The idea of the G1 is not to replace your smartphone but rather to offer a pared-back interface that gives you help and information when you need it, then vanishes when you don’t.

After installing the app and syncing the glasses, when you glance up you will see a screen with the date, time, battery level, and upcoming diary dates (assuming you’ve given permissions). You can also receive messages and alerts from social and messaging apps. You can’t respond to any messages, though, which seems both odd and a shame given the onboard microphones and the transcription software used.

The right side of the main display is for QuickNotes. If you pinch the small box on the right arm, a note will flash up saying “Quick Note Recording.” When you speak, your words will be saved and displayed on the screen when you next look up. If you mention a date, time, or place, the AI assistant will add it to your diary. It’s great if you are a fan of voice notes. I’m not, but as someone who meets new people all the time but remains terrible at remembering names, I loved being able to have names, and even job titles, on display, for my eyes only.

Translation

Open up the Translate box on the Even Realities app, choose from one of 13 languages (including Mandarin, Japanese, and Korean), decide what language you’d like things translated into (in this case English), and press Engage. If someone then speaks to you in that language, the G1 glasses will listen, translate, and write the words on your HUD.

Annoyingly, however, it’s no Babelfish. With one-on-one conversations it worked OK, and I enjoyed understanding my wife’s rusty Spanish. Similarly, I had success rewatching Squid Game without subtitles. But without someone wearing their own pair and translating my English, it is one-way traffic.

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October 25, 2024
The Meteoric Rise of Temu and Pinduoduo—and What Might Finally Slow Them Down

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Tsai didn’t mention Pinduoduo by name, but from its beginnings, the shopping platform has never made the merchant its focus like Alibaba did: It has always prioritized getting the user the lowest price online.

“In retail ecommerce, price wars are continuous and will never stop,” says Zhuang Shuai, retail analyst and founder of Bailian Consulting. “They’re effective in the short term but not a long-term effective way to compete.”

Pinduoduo has even instated policies that favor customers to the detriment of merchants. Since 2021, Pinduoduo has allowed consumers to get refunds without returning the item, if what they got didn’t match the seller’s description. The Chinese counterpart to Tiktok, Douyin introduced a similar policy in September 2023, as did Taobao and JD at year end.

The platform is also edging into territory traditionally occupied by its competitors by welcoming dealers for established brands like Apple and Louis Vuitton.

Competitors like JD, which banked on being the destination for quality products and fast logistics, are at risk of their users being stolen. “JD is worried it can’t retain its existing users, and also won’t be able to attract price-sensitive users,” says one former mid-level JD manager, who asked for anonymity because of potential professional repercussions, about Pinduoduo’s rise. On its app homepage, JD has begun aping Pinduoduo by emphasizing discounts.

Pinduoduo has also made international expansion a priority by launching Temu for international markets, a step that many retail Chinese companies haven’t taken. It used to be fine for a Chinese brand to stay within the Chinese market—after all, the consumer base is huge. Rather than make international expansion a side thought, Pinduoduo spent a reported $21 million on ads at the SuperBowl earlier this year; The Wall Street Journal also reported that Temu was Meta’s single biggest advertiser in 2023, racking up $2 billion in spend. That push has paid off; in the first half of this year, Temu spent more days ranked first for downloads on both the iOS App Store and Google Play Store in the US than any other app.

The company is facing headwinds, though. In addition to the potential US curbs on cheap shipments, other countries and regions are moving in a similar protective direction. Brazil passed a law levying a 20 percent tax on purchases up to $50 in June. The EU has considered scrapping its $150 duty-free threshold. In August, South Africa announced it would introduce a value-added tax on imported low-value goods, which had previously enjoyed a concession.

Managing director of CTR Market Research Jason Yu says it’s “very likely” that Temu would take a hit if the US goes through with it. “Competing on lower price will not be a sustainable strategy for companies like Temu or Shein in the long run,” he says. “With the change of law, their advantage in price will be less obvious.”

It all adds up to “a gloomy outlook for cross-border online shopping in 2025,” says Tendolkar, the research analyst.

At least on the surface, Pinduoduo isn’t worried. A Pinduoduo spokesperson tells WIRED, “If their [policy change is] fair, we believe they won’t tilt the competitive landscape.”

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October 4, 2024
Slow Reps vs. Fast Reps: Which Is Better for Muscle Growth?
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When it comes to the slow reps vs. fast reps debate, your best bet is doing a little of each.

Image Credit:
Thomas Barwick/DigitalVision/GettyImages

In This Article

When it comes to lifting weights, do slow and steady reps win the race or do fast and explosive reps take the prize? Is there such a thing as moving too slow, and can going too quickly lead to poor form and results?

Well, like many debates in the fitness industry, the idea of slow reps vs. fast reps has compelling evidence on both sides.

Tip

Slow reps and fast reps are both worthwhile training strategies with unique benefits. Combine them in your routine for the best results — just make sure to prioritize good form.

To truly compare slow vs. fast reps, you first need to understand exactly what repetition speed, or tempo, is. Tempo is how fast you lift and lower a weight or resistance. And it includes the eccentric, isometric and concentric parts of a movement.

“The concentric phase of movement is when a muscle produces a force to overcome a load or resistance placed on it,” says certified personal trainer Yusuf Jeffers, CPT, a coach at ToneHouse and Mile High Run Club in New York City.

“Technically speaking, what’s happening is you’re shortening the agonist muscle, or main muscle being worked,” says Noam Tamir, CSCS, a certified strength and conditioning specialist and founder of TS Fitness in New York City. When using free weights like dumbbells, this is the lifting part of the movement.

Next comes the isometric part of a rep. “The isometric phase is when the forces produced by the muscles are equal to the resistance placed on it,” Jeffers says. “This leads to no movement at all.”

This is also sometimes the “pause” portion of a rep, where you briefly pause before you finish the rep, like at the bottom of an air squat or the top of a dumbbell deadlift.

Last is the eccentric stage. “The eccentric portion of a movement is where muscles being used exert less force than resistance placed on them causing a lengthening of the muscle,” Jeffers explains. This is also sometimes referred to as the negative portion of a rep.

“Anatomically speaking, in this phase, you’re lengthening the agonist muscle, or the main muscle doing the work,” Tamir says.

Tip

Here’s a helpful shorthand for remembering these three stages: Concentric shortens the muscle, isometric holds the muscle static and eccentric lengthens the muscle.

For example, when doing a biceps curl, the concentric phase happens when you curl the dumbbell up toward your shoulders, working against the load. When you pause at the top, you’re in the isometric phase. And as you lower the weight down, you enter the eccentric phase, lengthening the muscle and yielding to the load.

Strength-training reps often follow a 1-1-2 tempo:
1 second up

1 second pause

2 seconds down
Tempo variations in workouts to either a faster rep pace or slower tempo alters the effects of exercise.

Whether you’re just starting out or you’ve been lifting weights for years, you might be wondering what the best workout is to build muscle fast. If your goal is hypertrophy or increasing muscle size, then focusing on slow reps to build muscle is a good place to start, according to a June 2018 study in the ‌Journal of Human Kinetics‌.

“Slow lifts help with increasing recruitment of more muscle fibers to overcome an external resistance,” Jeffers says. “Lifting slow eliminates momentum and forces the muscles to work harder through their ranges of motion.”

When you do a slow rep workout, your muscles spend more time under tension than they would if you were doing fast reps. Time under tension refers to the amount of time a muscle is under strain. “The time under tension helps to optimize muscular strength, endurance and growth,” Jeffers says.

You can achieve this by drawing out one or more of the phases of your rep. For instance, you could use a 2-2-2 tempo, taking 2 seconds to do each portion of the lift. Or, you could use a 2-1-3 tempo: Raise for 2 seconds, pause for 1, lower over the count of 3.

Tip

Slowing down the eccentric, or lowering, portion of the exercise is the most common way to approach slow reps.

A slow lifting technique while using lighter weights is also a safer approach for beginners. Slowing the tempo down allows you to focus on form and make sure you’re doing the move correctly. “You will usually use less weight and a lower rep scheme than a typical set,” Jeffers says.

If your fitness goals involve max strength and power, then using a faster tempo may be more beneficial. For example, if you’re training to improve your vertical jump, you need to be able to not only generate a lot of force, but do so quickly. Fast reps are going to be the best way to do that.

“Fast lifts are mostly used to help develop power output or explosiveness,” Jeffers says. “The weight used is typically a very low percentage of a person’s one rep max. The focus is mainly working on neurological connections.” A good benchmark is to use 70 percent of your one rep max, he says.

Most often, during fast reps, it’s the concentric portion of the exercise that is done quickly. For instance, in explosive exercises like power cleans or box jumps, you move quickly against resistance and then take your time getting back to start. This helps you focus on your form during hard efforts and reduce the risk of injury.

While lifting weights fast is generally linked to more explosive movements that result in power, training with this tempo can also increase muscle size, according to the ‌Journal of Human Kinetics‌ study.

Your Best Strategy: Combine Slow and Fast Reps

So which should you choose, fast or slow reps? “There are positives to performing slow and fast lifts, so both should be added to most strength routines,” Jeffers says. “It can be especially helpful when it comes to breaking plateaus, too.”

According to an April 2016 meta-analysis in the ‌Journal of Sports Medicine‌, using a fairly wide range of repetition durations is ideal for maximizing muscle growth.

“Varying rep speed and time under tension plays a huge role in a perfect weightlifting program,” says Bobby Gallant, CPT, an instructor at Barry’s in New York City. “I like to combine both fast reps — which promote explosiveness and speed — with slow reps — which encourage time under tension, muscle growth and muscle endurance. A combination of both can help create a well-balanced strength-training program.”

The most common way to do this is by performing fast, explosive reps early on in your workout when you’re feeling fresh, and then moving on to slow reps later in your workout.

This helps make sure you’re able to do all of your exercises, no matter the tempo, with safe, effective form. Because, remember, no matter your rep speed, your rep ‌form‌ needs to be top priority.
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May 7, 2024
Photographs show the Frank Erwin Center’s slow deconstruction

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This year’s SXSW in Austin was filled with hype: There was a drop from Icon, lots of AI speculation, the premiere of a movie about 4chan.org, and enough Army presence to cause some musicians to boycott the festival. But just north of downtown and set against the roar of Interstate 35—and amid the city’s building boom—a slow spectacle of deconstruction is unfolding: The Frank Erwin Center is coming down in pieces.

The 500,000-square-foot sports and entertainment venue was designed by Wilson, Crain & Anderson, the Houston-based architecture office responsible for the Astrodome and Houston’s downtown post office, which was later renovated by OMA. The structure situated a square stadium arrangement within a circular envelope; its outer walls, faced in concrete panels, tapered slightly inward at the top. Spectators entered through low openings that ringed its base upon arriving across a windswept plaza.

The 500,000-square-foot sports and entertainment venue was designed by Wilson, Crain & Anderson and completed in 1977. (Courtesy Atelier Wong Photography)

Named for a former chairman of the University of Texas Systems board of regents, the facility was completed in 1977 at a cost of $34 million ($174 million in today’s currency). This demolition, approved by the UT System Board of Regents, is proceeding at an estimated cost of $25 million. The nearby Denton A. Cooley Pavilion, a basketball training facility finished in 2003, will also be removed. Work is scheduled to be completed this September.

Beyond hosting UT’s basketball games, the Erwin Center was also used for concerts, which made it a regular destination for music-minded Austinites. The web page for the building lists some notable trivia: The first two-night run was Prince in 1985, the fastest concert sell-out was 47 minutes for a Garth Brooks concert in 1992, and the highest-grossing event was a two-night bash by Paul McCartney in 2013. Photographs from the Austin American-Statesman document the range of activities hosted inside.

It hosted UT’s basketball games and served as a venue for concerts.(Courtesy Atelier Wong Photography)

The drum’s demise comes out of a necessity for a contemporary venue. Plans for a new hall were announced in 2014 and realized in 2022 with the completion of the Moody Center, a $375-million-dollar venue designed by Gensler. The new building is north of the Erwin Center along Red River Street (which becomes Robert Dedman Drive north of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard), closer to the Darrell K. Royal Memorial Stadium for football, the Mike Myers Stadium for tennis and track and field, and Bass Performance Hall. Like the Erwin Center, the Moody Center is similarly positioned alongside the access road of Interstate 35, which will be widened over the coming years, according to plans from the Texas Department of Transportation.

The drum is being demolished because a contemporary venue, the Moody Center, was built. (Courtesy Atelier Wong Photography)

The removal of the Erwin Center facilitates the recycling of as much material as is possible, according to a recent essay by Avrel Seale published by UT News. The schedule allows for the reusable portions of the building to be sorted and appropriately redirected: “The debris will be sorted, and steel will be recycled and hauled off site to appropriate facilities,” according to the schedule for a Board of Regents meeting last May. UT did not respond to AN’s request to elaborate on details of the material reuse.

Recent photographs by Patrick Wong taken earlier this month showcase an exposed steel structure with its interior seating fulling removed and its facade partially removed. Runs of metallic ducting are visible within the structural bays, both in elevation and across the roof. Piles of debris from the ongoing facade removal sit at the base of the building. From the sky, the activity seems mismatched with Austin’s youthful skyline. In the background of some shots, cranes are in place for the construction of a $280 million expansion to the Dell Seton Medical Center at the University of Texas.

Wong’s photography taken earlier this month show an exposed steel structure with interior seating fulling removed and the facade partially taken apart. (Courtesy Atelier Wong Photography)

Once the site is cleared, work is scheduled to begin in 2026 on two towers for the Houston-based MD Anderson Cancer Center, to be realized at an estimated cost of $2.5 billion. The news, announced last year, further intensifies the healthcare-focused building boom in the immediate area. An architect and a design for the new towers have not been announced.

During the demolition the materials are being taken to facility for storage and eventually will be reused elsewhere. (Courtesy Atelier Wong Photography)

When the Erwin Center opened in 1977, Austin had a population of about 322,000. Last year, the city numbered an estimated 974,000 residents and continues to experience rapid growth. Through witnessing its deconstruction, the Erwin Center becomes another reminder of the value of considering a building’s eventual disappearance when designing its initial realization.

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March 22, 2024
Cannabis extract found to slow melanoma cell growth & trigger cell death

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A new study has found that an extract derived from the Cannabis sativa plant can inhibit the growth of melanoma cells and trigger cell death. The next step is to develop a targeted delivery system before moving on to pre-clinical trials and investigating whether the extract can be used to treat other types of cancers.

Melanoma might only account for around 6% of skin cancers, but it’s the cause of more than 80% of skin cancer deaths. This cancer is prone to metastasizing and has been shown to be highly resistant to traditional treatments. In a new study, researchers from Charles Darwin University (CDU) and RMIT in Australia have developed a non-traditional treatment: a cannabis extract that stops melanoma cells from dividing and triggers the process of programmed cell death.

“The damage to the melanoma cell prevents it from dividing into new cells, and instead begins a programmed cell death, also known as apoptosis,” said Nazim Nassar, a co-corresponding author on the study. “This is a growing area of important research because we need to understand cannabis extracts as much as possible, especially their potential to function as anticancer agents. If we know how they react to cancer cells, particularly in the cause of cell death, we can refine treatment techniques to be more specific, responsive and effective.”

Previous studies have suggested that certain compounds present in cannabis may have antitumor effects by acting on receptors in the endogenous cannabinoid – or endocannabinoid – system (ECS). The cannabinoid receptors CB1 and CB2, widely distributed in the central nervous and peripheral immune systems, influence various intracellular signaling pathways that regulate different processes, including gene transcription, cell motility, and apoptosis.

In the current study, the researchers tested the effect of PHEC-66, an extract derived from Cannabis sativa, on the growth of primary and secondary (metastatic) human melanoma cells. They found that PHEC-66 impeded the growth of all melanoma cell lines by interacting with CB1 and CB2 receptors. They also found that PHEC-66 inhibited the progression of the cell cycle, the series of events that takes place as a cell grows and divides. The sub-G1 and G1 phases were particularly affected; the G1 phase is when the cell prepares to divide by copying all of its DNA. In addition, the researchers observed that PHEC-66 influenced metabolic pathways by causing an accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in the melanoma cells, pushing them towards pro-apoptotic signaling pathways, while diminishing anti-apoptotic ones.

“All these actions together start the process of apoptosis and slow down the growth of melanoma cells,” said the researchers.

The next step is to develop a targeted delivery system to deliver the extract to the melanoma cells in the body so that the researchers can proceed to pre-clinical trials to test PHEC-66’s safety and efficacy.

“Advanced delivery systems still need to be fully developed, underscoring the importance of ongoing efforts to ensure the proper and effective use of these agents at target sites,” Nassar said.

The study’s findings have the potential to advance treatments not only for melanoma but also for other types of cancer.

“Clinical uses of cannabis extracts include treatment for anxiety, cancer-related symptoms, epilepsy, and chronic pain,” said Nassar. “Intensive research into its potential for killing melanoma cells is only the start as we investigate how this knowledge can be applied to treating different kinds of cancers.”

The study was published in the journal Cells.

Source: CDU

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February 9, 2024
Pets may slow age-related cognitive decline in those living alone

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A new study has found that, for older adults living alone, owning a pet was linked to slower rates of decline in some aspects of cognition and may completely offset the association between living alone, a recognized dementia risk, and cognitive decline.

The number of people living alone has increased in the past few decades. In 2021, it was 28.5% in the US, 29.4% in the UK and 25.6% in Australia. A recent meta-analysis found that, for older adults, social isolation is an important risk factor for dementia and was associated with a greater population risk than physical inactivity, hypertension, diabetes and obesity. Something that reduces social isolation is pet ownership.

There’s limited – and controversial – evidence on the link between raising pets and the rate of cognitive decline. Some say it improves aspects of cognitive functioning; others say it doesn’t. A new study by researchers at China’s Sun Yat-sen University investigated whether pet ownership is associated with cognitive decline in older adults who live alone and whether it mitigates that decline.

The researchers obtained data from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA), an ongoing, prospective, and nationally representative cohort of community-dwelling UK adults aged 50 or older. In wave five of the study, participants were asked, “Do you keep any household pets inside your house/flat?” and the researchers looked at data from 7,945 participants with a mean age of 66.3; 56% were women. Information relating to cognitive function was obtained from subsequent waves of the study, with the researchers looking particularly at verbal memory and verbal fluency.

Verbal memory is the ability to remember written or spoken information previously learned from a conversation, dialogue, or written work. It’s part of episodic memory, the memory of events or personal experiences used to enable a person to identify when and where an episode happened. Verbal fluency is the ease with which people can produce words, an indicator of memory retrieval and executive brain function.

After adjusting for potential covariants, the researchers found that, compared with non-pet owners, pet owners had a slower rate of decline in verbal memory and fluency. In contrast to older adults living with others, those living alone showed a faster decline in these two factors, as did non-pet owners living alone compared with pet owners living with other people.

“Older adults living alone are at high risk for developing dementia, and living alone is a state that is not easily changed,” the researchers said. “It is worth noting that compared with pet owners living with others, pet owners living alone did not show faster rates of decline in verbal memory or verbal fluency. These findings preliminarily suggest that pet ownership might completely offset the association of living alone with faster rates of decline in verbal memory and verbal fluency among older adults.”

The researchers note some of the study’s limitations. First, it only considered verbal memory and verbal fluency, representing episodic memory and executive function, respectively, whereas cognitive function includes many other dimensions, such as attention, reasoning, and processing speed and accuracy. Second, ELSA contained no information regarding the duration of pet ownership, and third, almost all study participants were white, making the results ungeneralizable to other racial and ethnic groups.

And because it was an observational study, the effect of unmeasured confounding factors, such as the APOE gene, which influences Alzheimer’s disease risk, on the results can’t be eliminated, hindering the determination of a causal association.

Further studies that include a comprehensive cognitive function assessment are needed to explore the association between pet ownership and global cognitive decline in those living alone.

The study was published in the journal JAMA Network.

Source: Sun Yat-sen University via Scimex

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December 27, 2023