If you’re a user of the location-based social network Foursquare, that is.

Apparently, I eat a lot, spend a lot of time outdoors in parks and recreation facilities, visit quite a few offices, and — more than anything else — shop. How depressing. Fortunately, there’s a little bit of travel thrown in there as well to add spice to an otherwise mundane life.

Foursquare has released a special badge for 4sqDay 2013 — see it to the right — and has special shwag for those holding Foursquare day parties, as well as suggestions for businesses that are holding 4sqDay promos.

I’m nowhere near that passionate, but it is interesting to see your year in review and see what you’ve done and where you’ve been. Getting that information does, of course, require that you check in at every location you visit, but Foursquare has made that a lot easier in its latest iOS app update.

Foursquare users have checked in well over three billion times, and left tens of millions of tips, all of which is helping Foursquare build a local search and recommendation engine which is helping it transition from the once-I’m-there app to the where-to-go-now app.

To get the 4sqDay 2013 badge, simply check in anywhere, today.

Image credit: John Koetsier

One is the remote control for my TV, another for my surround-sound receiver. One is for my blue-ray player, another is for the PVR, and yet another one is for no discernible purpose.

But if I wasn’t half the lazy idiot I sadly am, I could replace them all with a simple app on my iPhone or iPad, like Roomie.

We’re getting fairly used to our mobile devices being remote controls for the various aspects of our digital and not-so-digital lives. Your LG fridge has an IP address, can text you when food is going bad, and can be controlled by your phone. Home security systems that come complete with an app, and can tell you what’s happening in your home, are almost the norm.

OnStar gives your car a remote control too, and if it’s not exactly a James Bond-style actually-drive-your-car-by-remote app, it at least tells you the condition of your battery, how much gas you have, and lets you remotely unlock your vehicle. (Oh, and by the way, if you do want to drive your car by remote control, just buy the Chinese BYD Su Rui, an ordinary 5-seater sedan that yes, can be driven by remote control — at 1.2 miles per hour.)

Next week at VentureBeat’s Mobile Summit 2013, we’re going to be talking about mobile as a remote control for life. Security systems, cars, homes, appliances: everything modern, seemingly, has a remote control.

Even you.

One of the things we’re increasingly using our mobile phones/remote control is to control ourselves. Sometimes with little devices like a Fitbit or an Up, but often also simply with our phones and apps like Digifit, which monitors and tracks our fitness and workouts. Others help us get better sleep, stop smoking, and walk more, simply by letting us set goals, and then holding us to them.

One, the Gain Fitness app, helps us to manage our fitness with one simple feature: the workout streak tracker. Although the app does other things, it tracks every day you do a workout, and every day you do not. Miss one, skip one, or avoid one, and your workout streak is broken, and you start back down at zero. Essentially, it’s a simple motivational trick to make yourself do what you know you really want to do, but sometimes don’t feel like.

In essence, a remote control.

More on devices, gadgets, the internet of things, and the mobile computers we call phones that are enabling this remote control trend at Mobile Summit 2013, April 1-2 in Sausalito, California.

photo credit: Stéfan via photopin cc

Source: USPTO

The transparent conical housing with a flexible display being inserted

Apple’s new patent is for a “consumer electronic product” with a flexible display that rolls up when needed, and unrolls if desired. In the patent claims, Apple says it could fit within a conical glass housing — a flattened oval — which would allow the display to be visible on any portion of the device.

In other words, your phone no longer has a front or back … just whatever side you happen to be looking at.

The device as patented includes facial recognition and user-sensing technology that determines which side is within your field of vision at any given time and selectively displays content and controls only where you can see them.

As such, it’s an interesting response to Google’s backside control patent, which describes controls built into the back of your phone to allow you to flip screens, turn pages, or control music without taking up front-screen real estate. Apple has a previous patent on similar backside controls, but this is more radical.

Source: USPTO

The flexible display inside the transparent glass housing

What’s interesting to me, however, is the flexible AMOLED display that rolls up and unrolls (see image gallery below, especially the fifth image). It’d be a perfect display for a sort of iCuff — a full phone built into a product that rides on your wrist.

The concept of iWatch as a peripheral to an iPhone has never made a ton of sense to me. If I already have a phone, it is already either on my person, or close enough for easy checking. A peripheral that simply enables notifications from my phone and perhaps has a few other self-quantification features doesn’t seem to be enough to make it worthwhile.

Rather, it makes more sense, potentially, to provide the entire phone (read: portable computer with communication capabilities) in a flexible cuff format that now comes with a handy new carrying case: you.

And, of course, if you want your full screen to be available, you simply unroll the cuff and snap the screen flat.

It would certainly solve the phone-in-the-pocket problem while still keeping your hands free for whatever you need to carry or do. And it’s built-in hands-free for while you’re driving.

More images from the patent application:

Image credits: iWatch mockup by VeneStudio; Hat tip: Cult of Mac

Because while it tracks your fitness activity, similar to a Fitbit, Jawbone Up, or Nike FuelBand, it also knows the difference between a sit-up and a push-up. In other words, it knows exactly what you’re doing, and it tracks it for you.

“The other devices are glorified pedometers,” Dave Scott, one of the four Amiigo cofounders, told me today. ”We’re the first fitness tracker which you can take into a gym and do jumping jacks or pushups or pull-ups … and it knows what you’re doing … and it knows how many reps and sets you’ve done of each.”

Amiigo fitness bracelet

I’ve had browser tabs open on the FitBit and Jawbone Up for a couple of weeks now as I’ve been trying to make up my mind on which one to buy. But one thing that’s holding me back is that neither of them actually seems really very smart.

The FitBit can tell me how many steps I’ve taken and stairs climbed, but it has no clue about my heart rate, or if I was  in the gym for 45 minutes. The UP will alert me when I’m too idle and will track my sleep patterns, but it wants me to tell it when I’m jogging or walking the dog or or in the gym.

And here I thought the whole point of technology is to do annoying, repetitive, and laborious things that I don’t want to. That is, in fact, the promise of Amiigo: According to the Amiigo founders, the gesture recognition technology can recognize 100 different activities.

“Because we’re using Xbox-like gesture recognition and we’ve included a shoe clip, we can track both upper body and lower body acceleration,” Scott says. “We know what you’re doing, and we’re automating that.”

That sounds good to me.

And apparently, to thousand of others on Indiegogo who have stepped up and ordered $347,088 worth of Amiigos, just two weeks into the campaign. But Amiigo doesn’t just know what you’re doing, it also knows how vigorously you’re doing it, by including a “pulse oximeter” sensor in the band that tracks both your heart rate and the oxygen content of your blood. Not to mention the skin temperature sensor.

Again, something that neither FitBit or Up do. And something that Nike’s FuelBand can’t do without an extra accessory.

All of the data, of course, shows up on the now-obligatory companion mobile app, which the Amiigo communicates with via WiFi or Bluetooth. And is shareable to social networks, where you can engage in fitness and activity contests with friends and acquaintances.

Of course, as with any crowdfunded campaign, you’re taking a calculated risk when backing a project. But the team of founders includes two MIT students and two alumni of a mobile marketing company. In addition, Scott says, he’s got working prototypes.

One more proof point that there’s something worthwhile here? In addition to the Indiegogo campaign, the team has apparently also raised a round of investment from a venture capital firm. The sum remains undisclosed.

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HealthBeat 2013 is a new conference showcasing how technology is transforming health care. We'll explore how IT is driving out inefficiencies on the hospital, practice, and patient levels. Check out full event details here, and register here.

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And you thought all those baby pics on Facebook were annoying.

The Withings Smart Baby Scale — the first-ever Internet-connected baby and toddler scale — comes armed with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and the must-have accoutrement of every “smart” gadget these days: a companion app. Parents place the baby on the scale, and all the normal vitals show up automagically on the iOS app, or alternatively on a website.

Once digital, baby’s stats can be sent to doctors, pediatricians, or family members. And, reminiscent of Facebook’s frictionless sharing, the scale can be set to automatically update Facebook or Twitter with every last detail of how many ounces Junior gained this past week.

The French company, which also makes a “Smart Baby Monitor” that shows you live video of your child on your iPhone or Android smartphone, won a CES Innovation Award last week in Las Vegas for design and engineering.

Pricing was not announced, but the product will be available in the second quarter of 2013. If you have Facebook friends with newborns, get ready for the onslaught.

Ever since the iPod Nano was slightly less Nano’d just a few months ago, there’s been increased speculation about an iWatch to replace it. Now there’s chatter about a new device — an iWatch, perhaps —  from Apple for specifically that purpose.

Nano is Apple’s smallest iPod with a screen, bigger than only the Shuffle, and the sixth generation has been used extensively as a watch with the simple addition of a wristband. At 1.55-inches square, the Nano was perhaps a little awkward but an excellent beginning — and perhaps a precursor — to the Pebble smart watch.

That’s no longer an option with the seventh generation iPod Touch, which sports a 2.5-inch multitouch screen and a longer, rectangular body.

Cue iWatch?

The speculation is that Apple will be releasing a product in the next six months, possibly with an Intel chip, that communicates with your smartphone via Bluetooth. If so, it needs to be much more than a watch, and much more than a way to communicate with the device that is already just a few inches away in your pocket.

In other words, it needs to be a personal quantification device for the masses.

There are currently 505 tools listed in the Guide to Self-Tracking Tools on Quantified Self. Jawbone’s UP, Fitbit’s err bit, Nike’s FuelBand, the Basis Band, the Zeo “personal sleep coach,” the Stresswatch, the Adidas miCoach and dozens more are devices built to measure, track, and encourage you to modify fitness activities.

This is more than a fad — it’s a movement. And while smartphones like Apple’s iPhone are often components of these systems, they’re just one component in an ecosystem that includes sensors, apps, online social experiences, and analytics. Apple could be so much more, if it wanted to play in this market.

As The Next Web mentions, 2013 could be the year when wearable computing leaves the geek and enthusiast community. And isn’t popularizing and improving emerging technologies what Apple does best?

The iWatch is just a rumor right now, but I’m hoping it’s more … much more.

photo credit: griffintech via photopin cc

But that might be about to change, according to Jeff Tangney, a serial entrepreneur who founded Epocrates, the medical information company, and is currently running Doximity, a Facebook-style app for doctors that is growing fast, with more than one in six doctors already on the network.

VentureBeat had a chance to chat with Tangney about the future of investment in the medical space.

VentureBeat: We don’t hear all that much about investing in medicine.

Tangney: No, health tech hasn’t even really been recognized as a category until the last 10 years. There wasn’t really too much venture investment in health tech, but that’s changing. With the passing of the Affordable Care Act and the recognition that health care is 18 percent of the U.S. economy … some VCs have started looking in.

VentureBeat: What will national health care do for the space?

Tangney: The first changes of Obamacare haven’t really changed all that much yet – the biggest changes are still coming up. In 2014, the insurance exchanges start at a state level. Until then, there’s a lot of uncertainty … which actually favors the venture community.

The medical community is not quick to change over time – venture community is the only one that can react that fast. For example, we just raised a $17M round a few months ago.

VentureBeat: What’s hard about investing in health care?

Tangney: Well, you see a lot of folks sitting on their hands due to regulation.

For example, it’s illegal for a doctor to send an email about a patient. It’s illegal to send an SMS. And the internet really isn’t used in healthcare. It’s a little like a third-world country … where they’re skipping PCs and going straight to smartphones.

Over time that will change.

VentureBeat: What is working … who’s getting VC in health?

Tangney: ZocDoc, HealthApp and CastLight are doing well. CastLight, which creates a very cool employer portal for lower health care costs, raised $100 million earlier this year.

ZocDoc, with does online scheduling, raised $70 million a few months before that. And PracticeFusion raised $34M round to help usher in electronic health records. We’ve raised $27 million at Doximity … so there’s easily $200 million raised in the last year.

VentureBeat: What do you see in the future?

Tangney: Investors who are focusing on health care are starting to place their bets … as soon as we get out of this regulatory uncertainty, things will start to move.

Most people don’t know it, but Sequoia’s biggest investment ever was in an urgent care center … MedExpress, about two or three years ago. They’re seeing this shift to insurance exchanges, where, instead of someone paying  $3,000 for treatment in a hospital, they’re getting essentially the same service for $1,000 in a small health care facility.

VentureBeat: How does the growing self-quantification movement fit into this?

Tangney: Well, I wear a Jawbone wristband, but the knock on Sand Hill Road is that no-one’s been able to turn it into a big business yet.

The question is: Where’s the cross-the-chasm product?

The hotbed of this is San Diego … QualComm has invested a lot, and West Wireless Institute has  put $500 million into quantification. They’re trying to come up with cool new technology that the U.S. can sell to the rest of the world … to the wealthy well.

I have a Sonos headband too. It’s really ugly, really geeky, and measures your sleep patterns. What I’ve learned is that to get a sleep score of 100, I need to be intimate with my wife first. [laughing]

Those are all cool things, but even Nike hasn’t been able to really crack this market yet.

photo credit: Viktor Hertz via photopin cc

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HealthBeat 2013 is a new conference showcasing how technology is transforming health care. We'll explore how IT is driving out inefficiencies on the hospital, practice, and patient levels. Check out full event details here, and register here.

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