LAS VEGAS--A woman is pedaling leisurely on a stationary bike, her thick, dark braid draped delicately over one shoulder as she barely breaks a sweat. Someone whispers that she's Brazilian, and thus a real, live example of what you get with one of Velocomp's new workouts, Brazilian Butt. (Using a real, live Brazilian who presumably has said butt sans effort rather defeats the point, but I digress.)

Velocomp, creators of last year's iBike Dash, unveiled the iBike Powerhouse at CES this week--the Dash's bigger, badder cousin.

For $269, the handlebar-mounted cycling computer that includes a water- and shock-resistant case and syncs with the iPhone and iPod Touch is all about tailored workouts that remind you when you're slacking off.… Read more

LAS VEGAS--There are pedometers all over this year's CES (a few of them being tested simultaneously on my own hip), and while there's nothing particularly special about the $25 GeoPalz pedometer for kids in terms of the pedometer itself, its reward system has a few tricks up its, er, shoe clip.

The family-owned business, out of Boulder, Colo., has been working on the motivate-kids-to-move gag since 2008, and features a step counter that converts into online points for prizes such as books, CDs, and sports equipment.

This week, GeoPalz is taking the motivation game a step further by … Read more

LAS VEGAS--Fitbit, maker of a wireless clip-on activity tracker, is adding the Aria Wi-Fi scale to its lineup this April due, according to the company, to user requests.

The Aria has competition in the "smart" scale department, with the Withings booth and its very similar scales for adults and yes, even babies, just a few yards away.

But Fitbit has introduced a multiple-user feature that recognizes--out of as many as eight different users--who is standing on the scale. Think large households, dorm quads, sports teams, etc.

Priced at $129.99, Fitbit's first Wi-Fi scale can tally weight, body fat, and body mass index, and automatically uploads that info with every step on the scale to an online tool with graphs that perhaps too-handily track one's progress (or lack thereof). The online and mobile tools are free and also include weight goals and a food and exercise log.… Read more

LAS VEGAS--If you've been pining for a continuous heart rate monitor that doesn't strap onto (and continually pinch or slide down) your chest, the new company Basis Science may have just the solution for you, and it doubles as a sleek little watch.

The Basis Band, one of this year's dozen or so CES Health and Wellness Innovations Awards honorees, is equipped with multiple sensors that track not only heart rate (using optical blood flow sensors) but also activity level (via 3D accelerometer), calories burned, and temperature and galvanic skin response.

The water-resistant black or white band … Read more

LAS VEGAS--The days of standing on a scale with your baby and then without it and measuring the difference are over--if it's worth spending $150 on an Internet-connected scale built just for your little one.

So hopes Withings, the French design company that introduced a smart baby monitor last year and is unveiling its Smart Baby Scale--coming in the second quarter of 2012--at CES this week. Made for iPod, iPhone, and iPad, the scale is the first to use Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and Bluetooth Smart connectivity for tracking the weight of babies and toddlers.

The specs: at 3.3 … Read more

LAS VEGAS--Some things are just plain hard work. Like walking the show floor at CES. Which is why Striiv, a 2-inch touch-screen device that counts every step or stair its user takes, is notable among the slew of fancy pedometers at CES this year.

Because all it's done since I clipped it to my pants this morning is tell me how awesome I am, with every step I take, and there are few things quite so motivating.

It would be easy to dismiss something so feel-good as nothing but a device that applauds the status quo, but the folks … Read more

Body suit simulators are nothing new. Earlier this year the Kanagawa Institute of Technology in Japan unveiled Mommy Tummy 8.0, designed to help the partners of expecting moms--as well as teenagers thinking about getting it on--to understand the physical ramifications of, well, getting it on.

Now students at MIT's AgeLab are taking this empathy concept to another level with AGNES, the Age Gain Now Empathy System, a suit designed to help wearers understand the physical ramifications of neglecting our bodies for decades on end. (AGNES is meant to emulate a 75-year-old with arthritis and diabetes.)

The suit incorporates shoes that compromise one's sense of balance and shorten one's gait; knee and elbow braces that limit joint mobility; earplugs that tune out soft or high-pitched sounds; a helmet that compresses the spine; and gloves that reduce not only strength and mobility in one's hands and wrists but also tactile sensation.… Read more

It's often the case that a device or substance with a known benefit also comes with known risks--typically referred to as side effects and listed quickly at the ends of commercials. So it seems worth noting when a product's side effect may in fact be useful.

The Valkee, a portable headset launched in August of 2010, directs 8- to 12-minute doses of bright light through the ear canal and into the brain to improve seasonal affective disorder. It turns out that this concentration of bright light into the brain may also improve motoric reaction time, according to a study conducted by Verve Research in Finland.

The placebo-controlled study (meaning some were given the treatment and others a placebo in its place) tested the effects of the Valkee headset on Finnish national league ice hockey players and found that those exposed to 12 minutes of light via the headset sped up their already fast reaction times by 20 percent.

"The placebo-controlled study showed a significant improvement in motoric reaction times of top athletes using bright light via the ear canal," says lead researcher Mikko Tulppo in a news release.… Read more

Patches of tiny needles have already been shown to effectively deliver medications painlessly, and without a bloody mess. Now the tiny needles could also be used to monitor body chemistry in real time.

The new tech, developed by a team of biomedical engineers out of North Carolina State University, the University of California at San Diego, and Sandia National Laboratories, employs electrochemical sensors in the hollow channels of microneedles to detect certain molecules. The researchers reported their findings in the chemistry journal Talanta.

Current body chemistry monitoring involves taking samples, often before or after an event. Wearable micro-sensors, on the … Read more