With the rise of cheap electronic devices like Nike+, Adidas miCoach and Nintendo's WiiFit, this panel looks at how technology is increasingly becoming part of the everyday fitness regime and what personal and wider social benefits this brings. The Core Conversation will explore these sites and devices and discuss what makes them useful as opposed to being another sports marketing gimmick. Some topics that we'll discuss include The personal benefits: how online fitness sites add to one's overall training program (ie. data visualisation/ goals/ feedback), The social affects: getting more people involved in community and peer support, from online running races (Nike's Human Race) to interactive fitness clubs, The data collection and privacy issues: how is the data useful outside of a users immediate training programme, can it be combined with other data to give insight into personal or public heath patterns. Are there concerns that users are giving away too much personal data? And lastly, The future predictions: what are the benefits once the devices become more advanced (ie. better monitoring of data such as heart rate, body fat and weight). What are possible negatives?
http://schedule.sxsw.com/events/event_IAP8162
