The health and fitness gadget market is rapidly expanding, but there are plenty of interesting tech innovations specially developed for the elderly that are often overlooked in favour of fancier gizmos. So, Shiny Shiny has been exploring a few of the tech developments unveiled at the Geriatric Care Fair in Hanover, Germany this week.

We love health and fitness gadgets here at Shiny Shiny, we even started a new blog dedicated to them over at Connected Health. But at the moment we're really interested in some of the innovations we're seeing that have been developed specially for the elderly.

A number of tech brands have launched products over the past few years with a more elderly audience in mind, just take a look at all of the mobile phones over at Hearing Direct, from the likes of Doro and Amplicom.

There are a number of specialist trade shows dedicated to geriatric health care across the globe (we saw some interesting demonstrations at CES too), but the most recent fair in Hanover, Germany has revealed some very interesting new gadgets and tech advances, like crazy dancing robots and a 'gentle' outdoor exercise wheel...

[Images via Press Association]

Nike+ launched back in 2006 and since it's added a number of great products and tools to its eco-system, like the exciting new Fuelband, designed to track all of your fitness activities throughout the day.

This week Nike took a further step into the world of fitness and exercise tracking as it officially unveiled new ways to track basketball and interval training, which Mark Parker, Nike INC's President and CEO, described as, "two new experiences connecting digitally enabled footwear with interactive mobile applications that together deliver a revolutionary sport experience."

Both of these experiences utilise a new kind of Nike+ pressure sensor technology, which has been built into each of the different training shoes and can then be used to collect a range of information about the user's movements, which are all wirelessly transmitted to the apps that work alongside them.

Nike+ Basketball

The Nike+ Basketball experience is designed to provide users with a much better understanding of how high, quick and hard they play each game. The first trainers to feature Nike+'s new technology are the Hyperdunk+, the Lunar Hyperworkout+ and Lunar TR1+ training shoes, which come with sensitive pressure sensors in the toe, heel, ball and outer foot that work alongside accelerometers, allowing all kinds of movement-based statistics to be collected and sent through to the app.

A big part of the Nike+ Basketball experience is about setting goals, competing with others and sharing your experiences among your social networks too. We wouldn't expect anything less from Nike, and this kind of competition means people will undoubtedly train much harder and get better results in the long run.

Nike+ Training

The Nike+ Training experience is about high intensity fitness training to make users fitter, faster and stronger. There are lots of different interval training exercises to follow and all of the information collected from the special work out shoes gets sent to the Nike+ Training mobile app, which we reviewed last week. The whole point of Nike+ Training is to make working out into a fun game that anyone can enoy. The first NIKE+ enabled Training shoes will be the Lunar Hyperworkout+ for Women and the Lunar TR 1+ for men.

At the launch event in New York Mark Parker, President and CEO of Nike INC, said:

"NIKE+ allows us to connect the physical world of sport with the social elements of digital to create a better sport experience for every athlete, [...] It's about much more than a shoe. It represents a shift for NIKE from product, to product + experiences."

It's exciting to see that Nike is adding even more innovative devices to its range of tracking products and tools, particularly those that use the latest in pressure sensor technology AND encourage plenty of healthy competition and social sharing. Now we just can't wait to see how everything ties together with the online dashboard and the new Fuelband, which is already receiving rave reviews from amateur and professional athletes alike.

[Via Connected Health]

From research papers, new companies and industry rumours, we always knew 2012 was going to be a big year for fitness gadgets and technology that gives us the power to take control of our own health in a way we've never quite experienced before. Here at Shiny Media we've even set up a dedicated sister site called Connected Health, focused on exploring ways we can monitor our well-being and live happier, healthier lives. What a lovely vision.

But the big question is, are any of these products really innovative or are they just jumping on the "improve your life" bandwagon?

Well, here's our pick of the ten best health and fitness gadgets of 2012 so far that we think are more than just faddy gizmos. We've seen a few at CES, we've only heard rumours about the others, but they could well shape the way we view our personal health and fitness over the next twelve months.

1. The Basis health and heart rate monitor

From the Jawbone UP bracelet to the Fitbit, we've come across all kinds of monitoring devices in recent months that promise to give users detailed stats about their health and fitness.

The Basis works on that same kind of principle, but its watch design would make it much more practical for most users and the simple interface you use to look through your data is the cleanest and most intuitive we've seen so far.

Check out our video demo of the Basis watch and its computer dashboard from CES 2012.

2. Striiv pedometer gadget

Striiv is a cute little device, which is being billed as a handy personal trainer for your pocket. It takes the features of a basic pedometer and builds on them to create a device that gives you all kinds of readings about how much you move during the day.

As you'd expect, it's a small gadget that you attach to your belt and has a colour screen, which not only allows you to track your steps, but lets you play games and encourages you to be more active along the way.

To find out more about the device, check out the post Striiv - a pedometer on steroids over on Connected Health.

3. Ideal Life's connected health system for the home

Ideal Life's booth at CES was less about a specific gadget and much more focused on how to integrate a connected health system into your home.

Primarily devised for those already living with a medical condition, Ideal Life's products and services allow you to use gadgets, like pedometers and blood monitoring devices in your home. These gadgets then send the readings that are taken throughout the day to a dedicated patient portal, where users can monitor them. This data is also accessible via a clinical area, where medical professionals can keep a close eye on their patients too.

Check out our video demo of Ideal Life's connected health home system from CES last week.

4. STMicroelectronics' smart suit prototype

STMicroelectronics has recently unveiled a new kind of smart suit technology with sewn in sensors that track movements and turn them into a digital model. It all sounds a bit sci-fi, but the technology used in the suit could help to improve outcomes in clinical and sports medicine applications. The technology is still in the early stages of development at the moment, but watch this space for Tron-style light suits over the next year.

5. Valencell's fitness monitoring in-ear device

We've seen a number of new gadgets that utilise in-ear technology to give users the best readings recently, and at CES we came across Valencell, a company which aims to give you a better workout by providing you with detailed health and fitness data from within your ear.

Valencell's technology currently exists in small earbuds that contain sensors to collect important data, which is then delivered back to a mobile device.

Check out our chat with one of the Valencell team about the in-ear technology and how it could evolve in the future.

6. The Fitbit ecosystem

At CES last week we had a demo of Fitbit's new Aria scales, which give you accurate information about your weight, body fat and BMI. Although the scales are pretty cool, it's the ecosystem Fitbit is building up around its products that we're particularly interested in. Now you can track everything you do with the Fitbit Ultra and then see your results with the Aria scales, as well as share everything among friends, set challenges and store all of your data. So the devices themselves are certainly interesting, but its the way everything connects together that we think will make Fitbit a big player in the health and fitness arena in 2012.

7. Qualcomm AliveCor iPhone ECG device

This ECG mobile device from AliveCor has been making the headlines recently because it was used to save someone's life on a flight. Despite the circumstances, that's a pretty brilliant testament to just how well it can detect heart problems.

We spoke to one of the AliveCor team at CES, who explained the basics behind the technology and how it was used to diagnose someone in the real world.

8. Iqua Beat fitness gadget

Like the Valencell earbuds, the Iqua Beat tracks your exercise and fitness through little buds in your ears. We particularly love the fact that the device comes with a way to answer calls and intuitively skip music tracks with a simple swipe. It's less of a ground-breaking device and more of a handy gadget for fitness fanatics ho want to know more about their workouts.

Check out our video demo of the Iqua Beat from CES last week over on Connected Health.

9. Wahoo Fitness Bluetooth heart rate strap

Although many devices measure your heart rate, this strap from Wahoo claims to be the world's first Bluetooth Smart heart rate strap made for the iPhone 4S (and also other Bluetooth Smart Ready devices). It's also pretty clever because it works with a range of different fitness apps too, like RunKeeper and MapMyRide.

10. BodyMedia's adhesive patch

BodyMedia already has a new personal health system and part of it consists of an adhesive patch, which when placed on the skin can be left for several days to record as many as 500 data points each minute including calories burned, steps taken, activity levels, and sleep pattern.

Although BodyMedia's system looks great as a whole, we're interested to see whether an adhesive patch is more or less convenient than the straps, watches, clothing devices and ear buds we've seen from other companies.

CES 2012 is in the home straight now and soon the exhibitors, bloggers and industry hangers-on will be leaving Las Vegas and jetting home.

One of the hottest trends at this year's show has been health and fitness gadgets and we have already compiled a list of some of the best here.

However they keep on coming, and here are a few more for you to check out.

The Basis, a wrist based rival to the FitBit, Jawbone Up and BodyMedia Fit

We like the design of this Fitbit Ultra and Jawbone Up rival as it looks more stylish and high tech. As for features it has many you'd expect, like a 3D accelerometer to track your movements, temperature gague and a heart rate monitor.

Qualcomm's Alivecor software and how it saves lives

Do mobile self-diagnosis devices mean people could get more accurate assessments of their health than they necessarily would from their doctors? Qualcomm thinks so.

Second generation Striv 'pedometer on steroids' on its way

Everyone's favourite pocket pedometer to get even smarter.

Forget hospital Matrons - here comes Ava the healthcare robot from iRobot

At CES 2012 iRobot, the company that makes the Roomba home-cleaning robots, was parading its Ava bot, a three-to-five-foot tall robot with an Apple iPad for a head. And it could be heading for your nearest hospital.

One of the hottest trends at this year's CES is health and wellness gadgets. Largely created by smaller companies these range from souped up pedometers that connect to iPhones right through to a smart suit that logs your every movement.

Here's our favourites so far

The smart suit for athletes and Parkinson's sufferers

STMicroelectronics NV has unveiled a smart-suit prototype with motion sensors which is designed to help people recover from injuries quicker, improve their co-ordination if they are suffering from conditions like Parkinson's Disease or push their body that bit more if they are athletes. More here

The first Bluetooth Smart heart rate strap made for the iPhone 4S

The Wahoo Fitness Blue HR heart rate strap's big claim is that it is the world's first Bluetooth Smart heart rate strap made for the iPhone 4S (and also other Bluetooth Smart Ready devices). It is a standard format of a strap and an accompanying app. More here.

The ultra smart blood pressure monitor

The Zensorium Tinke is a two unit system with dongle that fits on to your iPhone that then connects to a wearable heart monitor - which incidentally comes in an array of bright colours.

It measures heart stats like blood pressure, respiratory rate and oxygen levels through shining infrared and red light beams onto the tiny blood vessels in the tip of your finger. More here

The intelligent disposable adhesive patch bandage

BodyMedia is parading a new and highly innovative new way of capturing data about our bodies. It has unveiled an adhesive patch which you place on your skin and leave there for seven days. During that time it records as many as 500 data points each minute including calorie burn, steps taken, activity levels, and sleep pattern. More here

The baby scales that tweet your child's weight

French technology company Withings has just announced an Internet-connected baby and toddler scale, the Withings Smart Baby Scale.

The idea is that thanks to its Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity it will automatically update your child's weight on any manner of devices from PCs through to phones and tablets in some instances using a dedicated WiScale app. It can also instantly update Facebook, Twitter or send an email to private email addresses with new readings. More here.

As it's the beginning of January you can guarantee that everyone is thinking about, talking about and trying to stick to their resolutions for the new year. So, over the next few days we'll be looking into gadgets, apps and online services that help you stick to those resolutions, you just need the will power to actually make them work in the long run, because there's unfortunately not really an app for that...

If your resolutions are about getting your body into gear, whether you want to get out running, lose some mince pie weight or wake up feeling happy and energised every day, then we've collected together our favourite health and fitness gadgets to get you on the right track. Some are a little pricey, others seem a bit gimmicky, but they'll certainly point you in the right direction when it comes to sticking to your resolutions and making a lasting change.

Check out the full article 10 gadgets to help you stick to your new year's resolutions on our sister site Connected Health.

Today Shiny Media (the company behind your favourite place on the interwebz, Shiny Shiny) has launched a brand new website dedicated to the world of health and fitness technology.

The new site, called the Connected Health Store, will focus on the latest news from the worlds of health and technology, as well as the increasingly advanced gadgets and applications specially designed to keep track of what you're up to on a daily basis and keep your health and fitness in check.

Here at Shiny Shiny we've covered all kinds of health gadgets and apps over the years, from Jawbone's clever little UP wristband through to huge vibrating power plates, but now Connected Health will be the dedicated place for Shiny readers to get a more in-depth look at the way the worlds of health and technology are colliding to create great products that could (as cheesy as it sounds) really improve our lives.

Check out the Connected Health Store, or follow updates from the site on Facebook and Twitter.

A few months ago we first heard about Jawbone's new revolutionary health and fitness offering, Up, which is essentially both an app and a wristband, which "tracks your activity and sleep and inspires you to move more, sleep better and eat smarter" according to the launch email we received this morning.

We've seen plenty of health and fitness gadgets and apps recently, but the Up is different because it tracks EVERYTHING, from the calories you've burned and the steps you've taken throughout the day to the amount of deep sleep you've had and the meals you've eaten. There are then many different ways to keep a record of everything, share it with your contacts and even set yourself goals for the future.

The bracelet and app don't just track your activity either, you can set yourself reminders and even a morning alarm, which means the bracelet gently vibrates on your wrist.

When it comes to the bracelet itself, it's been specially designed to not irritate you throughout the day, it's durable, light, sweat-proof, water resistant and comes in a few different colours. It speaks to the app via an audio jack hidden at the end under a little cap. Obviously it'd be great if it didn't require you to hook them together like that manually, but the bracelet's not that clever. Not yet anyway.

I imagine there'll be sceptics who don't want to feel like they're living every second of their lives through a colourful bracelet, but we use so many separate apps and gadgets to track things and give us advice, the Up system seems like the next logical step.

A few early reviews are picking holes in the sharing aspect of Up, suggesting that the fact you can't link your data with Twitter and Facebook just yet is a big negative. I imagine that kind of integration will come very soon, but for now I quite like the fact that our health and fitness information is kept private, sure some people like to brag or like to be spurred on by their social networks, but at the end of the day improving your health and fitness needs to be a personal goal if you're going to stick with it in the long run, not just so you can tell your Facebook friends all about it.

We can't wait to get our hands on an Up bracelet to try it out for ourselves, so check back in the next few weeks for a full review.

Available from a number of online retailers for $99 (we're trying to find out if it's available in the UK too).

Gocycle inventor Richard Thorpe used to be an engineer for Formula One racers McLarens, but he took some time off a while ago to make an electric bicycle. Launched in 2009, we take a look at its buttons and spinny bits as National Cycling Week urges us all to get in the saddle. Richard chats us through the features and give the hard sell on why you should shell out on the £1500 bike. (Also available for £45 a month.)

The GoCycle, £1,495 from their site

Well, we've all got excuses for not cycling more. "It's cold", "I've lost my helmet" and "it's a 30 mile round trip" (well that last one is fair) but with environmental concerns and better bike lane provision, bike use has crept up in Britain over the past few years.

Anyway, one ingenious gadget that might tempt you away from the car more is the GoCycle a battery-assisted bike. What with it being National Cycling week next week, we thought it was time to revisit this invention first launched in 2009.

You can pedal it as normal but hold the power button on the left handlebar down to give you an extra boost. You can keep it pressed on at all times and it speeds up your performance particularly over long straight patches, or just turn it on when you want a boost coming out of corners or accelerating away from a stop. ANYWAY - here are two of the demonstraters having a little race...

The GoCycle can be bought for £45 a month, or for £1,495 outright. See Gocycle.com.
It has to be recharged from a mains supply for 3 hours, hits a max speed of 15mph and can last for up to 20 miles, depending on pedal input and terrain.

iHeadache doesn't sound like an attractive name for an app, especially to people whose brains are already frazzled by technology overload, but it's a clever concept that makes keeping important medical records easier.

Made by Texan company, iHeadache provides a place for you to log your migranes and sore heads. You can make note of the symptoms, the duration, the type of headache, the trigger and what medication you're on. Accurate information is an important tool for doctors in treating the problems.

All stuff that could be done on a paper journal of course, but you always have your phone with you, whereas you may not always have a journal, and of course as soon as you've entered it the data can be analyzed and tracked.

iHeadache makers use International Headache Society criteria (IHS) to classify headaches and the data from the app can be broken down by time period.

iHeadache says: "Reports are formatted for physicians to quickly gather all relevant data needed to assess the treatment plan..... iHeadache helps patients and physicians to pinpoint patterns and determine if a headache is chronic. Medication tracking is also used to help a doctor decide if a patient is having rebound headaches from medication overuse."

An app which is actually useful.

iHeadache is free for the next 10,000 downloads otherwise there's a free version and a £5.99 premium version

It's always interesting to know stuff about yourself, how many steps you walk, how many hours you sleep or how many calories you burn when you go for a run.

And we've just been testing out a device that tells you exactly that, the KiFit armband. Billed as "the most intelligent calorie management system in the world", it measures calories burnt, physical activity, steps taken and how efficent your sleep is.

Strap it onto your arm during a day and night and then plug it into a computer via USB to get it to import and analyse all your data.

Apart from the sheer curiosity factor, this would be pretty useful if you are trying to lose weight, train up for something or just get a certain number of hours sleep a night. However, it's a pretty pricey piece of kit.

THE FEATURES
With 3 types of sensor - testing body temperature, moisture and motion, it can pick up a lot of data about how active you are and how many calories you are burning off.
According to the KiFit rep I met, these measurements work out as 95-7% accurate compared to other much more complex laboratory ways of measuring calories burned.

Originally invented for medical reasons to monitor the health of patients on life-support, the arm band has a decent medical basis to it.

The armband links with a website, which once you sign in, will sync with your device and show you all your vital stats in a nice set of graphs.

Measured are:
- Calories burned while wearing the armband
- Physical Activity, how many minutes were spent in moderate and vigorous activity
- Steps Taken
- Sleep Duration - the motion sensor detects how restless you are in bed and whether you actually get that 8hours that you think you do.
If you enter data about what you eat, it will total up the calories you consume and line it up against what you burn to work out your calorie deficit or surplus - useful if you're trying to lose weight.

THE GOOD
The Data: there's so much of it, and having a spread across a day or a week is really interesting and gives you insights about your daily activities. For example sitting at a desk you are burning hardly any more calories than you do when you're asleep. About 1.4 a minute compared to about 1.1 when in bed. During difficult or stressful moments your calorie consumption goes up.

Nice graph presentation - once you get through the website and sync your device up to the activity manager, your stats are nicely and clearly presented.

Goals: very easy to set goals and match up your performance to them

KiFit measures sleep: I haven't come across this before. It has the ability to measure deep sleep: the motion sensor detects how long you actually sleep for in comparison with how long you lie down for. Turns out you sleep a lot less than you think..

THE BAD
The Price - at £199 plus a minimum subscription of £16.41 per month to the activity manager software, you'd have to decide that you really wanted this before splashing out. Totalling up as £380 a year, it's about the upkeep costs of a good smartphone and it puts it just out of the reach of someone merely curious.

The Software - the graphs all display nicely but I find the website a little unecessarily complex, and often have to open 3 windows to check one thing.

Logging calories - to get full use of the KiFit, you probably want to enter in the details and calorie and vitamin content of the food you eat. Personally I find that quite fiddly and couldn't be bothered.

The Armband, well, obviously if you buy this product you'll have bought into the whole armband idea, but just to say it does look a little bit silly to walk around with, particularly in the summer when everyone's in t-shrits.
And you can't take in water so if you're a swimmer, or just have er energetic showers, you'll never know how much energy you burn.

CONCLUSION
The KiFit gets you some really interesting data which is pretty accurate and often quite surprising. However at that price, it's not a novelty purchase, it's one for the fitness freaks, or bulge-battlers who find that simpler methods don't work. Or perhaps just geeks with an interest in their own biology.

KiFit armband, £199 then £16.41 a month after the first month. (£380 for one year)
from KiPerformance.co.uk

It's long been a dream of mine to play bowling using gnomes as skittles.

Sadly gnomes don't actually exist, and using children might be construed as "cruel" or "distasteful". Luckily for us, the lovely people at I want one of those have released a six pin gnome bowling kit!

Joy. Of. Joys. Now I can hurl balls at gnomes in my back garden to my heart's content, and so can you! They're only £29.99 and when you're not bowling at them, who's to say you can't afix them with webcams and place them around your garden to create a sophisticated security network?

To compliment your neat new gnome bowling game why not pick up a set of AQ wireless outdoor speakers too? These bassy three watt speakers hook up to anything with a 3.5mm headphone jack, and for £89.99, they're cheaper than most of the half-arsed wireless speakers we've come across in the past. They're weather-ressisatant too, which is handy if mother nature decides to scupper your BBQ.

Yes, after last week's look at one weird form of wheel-based transport the Magic One Wheel, here's another one: Hot Roller wheels.

Billed as the progeny of roller skates and skateboards, these hoops with wheels on the bottom and foot plates on the inside require you to make that wiggly motion that skateboarders do.

To be honest these look pretty tricky, probably best just for pros on very smooth surfaces. You'll need to watch the video (on the Brando link) to really get it, but unless you've got an great sense of balance, or fancy some hair-raising wheelie exploits, I'd stick with skates for the meantime...

Hot Roller Wheels, $99 from Brando

While we're on bike-related gadgets, let's mention the bike mug. it's not the most complex piece of human engineering we've ever covered in these pages, but for those of you who like cycling and like drinking hot beverages this could be the bike mug for you.

No it doesn't pipe warm tea into your mouth, it is an insulated cup that attaches to your handlebars. During pauses in your cycle, you can pick it up, take a sip or two, and enjoy a relaxing drink while you wait at the traffic lights in front of roaring motorists.

Holding 16oz of tea or coffee, it has a slide-button lid you can operate with one hand.

Apparently, it really pisses motorists off: "Every time I lifted the cup from its handlebar-holder while waiting at traffic lights, I swear I could hear the drivers behind muttering in disapproval." writes Helen Pidd in the Guardian who, err road-tested it.

While the idea is nice it seems that the attachment and the lid are a bit shoddy, breaking loose after a few trips and spilling liquid when taking speedbumps.

Soma Morning Rush, £35, from Soma

The New Year brings resolutions and resolutions inevitably bring trips to the gym. Though the hours sweating on some conveyer belt in FitnessFirst seem to be inevitable - the music list doesn't have to be. And as you might expect, some tunes are better motivators than others. If we can judge by the musical taste of UK's fitness instructors the officially most motivating exercise song right now is JLS's Beat Again, followed closely by Beyonce's Sweet Dreams.

PRRs for Music compiled a list of the top 5 Songs as used by Fitness & Gym Instructors:

1. BEAT AGAIN, JLS
2. SWEET DREAMS, Beyonce
3. HOLIDAY, Dizzee Rascal
4. WHEN LOVE TAKES OVER, David Guetta feat. Kelly Rowland
5. I KNOW YOU WANT ME (CALLE OCHO), Pitbull

We guess that the hip-hop and rnb rhythms are the sort to get your heart pumping and keep running on and on despite the heat and sweat and sight of yourself in the mirror looking like a lobster. It makes sense, something like SnowPatrol would most likely make you curl up on the ground and put your head in your sports bag.

Cameras usually have the primary function of taking pictures, but one, just released by Casio has the primary function of improving your golf swing. Rather than holding your arms and talking about posture to you in the manner of a more traditional coach, the Exilim Hi-Speed EX-FS10 videos your swing and then analyses it.

Capturing up to 1000 frames a second, it gathers very detailed information about how you move, then using simple augmented reality graphics it layers lines on top of your image showing how you are and should be moving.

Playback can be super-slow allowing you to see what you couldn't with the naked eye.
With an AV cable you can plug this into the TV and rewatch your golf swings there. You might get dumped if you do this too often, so think carefully about it.

Top Japanese players and coaches have contributed to the advice and analysis parts of the program, said to be ideal for beginners.

The Exilim has three video modes with the higher resolutions capturing fewer framer per second (fps), the three modes are: 224x64px at 1000fps, 224x168px at 420fps, 480x360px at 210fps-30fps.

Launched initially in Japan, at a price of 34000 yen, it is expected to become internationally available. Casio press release here - google translate if necessary]

[viai4u]

Related: Nikon S1000pj: World's first Projector Camera

Internet addiction could become the biggest problem for kids of this generation a doctor was quoted as saying on CNN.

"Internet addiction could easily become one of the most chronic childhood diseases in America, says Dr. Dimitri Christakis of the Center for Child Health, Behavior and Development, in Seattle.

Internet addiction is not officially recognised as an addiction in the States or Britain but rehab centres for internet addicts have opened, and recently studies in Taiwan have linked it to genuine disorders.

Apparently boys who spend too long online were more likely to develop ADHD and hostility while the effect on girls tended to be social phobia and depression.

So when do you stop using the internet and start being addicted to it?

Follow on after the jump

As I type, a small plastic circle attached to my brastrap is buzzing. No it's not the latest kooky sex toy - it's the iPosture device. And it's buzzing me because I'm slouching. We reported on this little posture-improving gadget once before and now - ladies and gents, it's launching in the UK.

Follow on after the jump

With the advent of a burning summer of heat, christened the BBQ summer by all serious media organisations in the UK, we'd hate to think of you getting hot, when some judiciously-applied gadgetry would help keep you cool.

These aren't the sort of gadgets that will make the hot, slightly sticky man pressed into you in the tube/bus/confined space move away from you - those are different - but these should keep you looking calm and dignified in the face of the burning sun.