Going with your gut

Wearable electronics such as the Fitbit allow users to monitor their health and fitness with metrics such as calories burned or heart rate. December saw the launch of a new portable device its inventors call an “activity tracker for your gut.”

The Aire by FoodMarble is a hand-held breath analyzer that, along with an accompanying smartphone app, is designed to help you identify foods most compatible with your digestive system. When food is improperly digested in the upper gut through a process called fermentation, bacteria in the gut release gases such as hydrogen and methane. For many people, this excess gas can cause abdominal pain, bloating, diarrhea, or constipation.

Aire is based on the same breath analysis technology gastroenterologists use in clinical settings to detect food intolerance: Some of the fermentation gasses pass into the bloodstream and then to the lungs, where the body expels them through the breath. Aire measures the levels of those chemicals to determine how the body responds to different foods.

Utilizing the Aire app, users test themselves for sensitivity to various types of carbohydrates such as fructose and lactose. They can then construct a diet plan based on foods compatible with their digestive system.

Hardware startup investor HAX accepted the Aire for funding and development early last year. The device is available on pre-order for $99.

Kids programming

Generations of children have enjoyed building amazing creations using robust and versatile Lego building blocks. Lego’s Power Functions Motor Set even lets kids bring their models to life with tiny motors, gears, and cables. But Lego’s latest update to its classic construction toy adds miniature computers kids as young as 7 can program themselves.

The 850-piece “Lego Boost” kits, unveiled at January’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, come in five versions: a robot with moving eyebrows, a cat, a space rover, a factory, and a guitar, according to The Wall Street Journal.

A tablet app shows children how to assemble simple blocks of computer code to program their creations and bring them to life. No typing is required. The virtual code blocks stack up just like real bricks.

Lego plans to begin shipping the $160 Boost kits later this year. —M.C.

Future function

An old rule of industrial design says that form follows function. But when your chief designer is the mastermind behind futuristic robotic concepts for major Hollywood movies such as Terminator Salvation and RoboCop (2014), even sci-fi designs may become functional reality. South Korean robotics company Hankook Mirae Technology is teaming up with movie and video-game robot designer Vitaly Bulgarov to build a 13-foot-tall, bipedal, robotic “mecha” suit that amplifies the arm and hand motions of a human pilot, according to tech website New Atlas.

The gigantic Method-1 mecha suit prototype is able to walk on flat surfaces while tethered to an external power source. Hankook Mirae hopes the prototype will lead to custom-designed mecha suits for industrial and construction workers. “I tried to avoid looking at any sci-fi robots for inspiration,” Bulgarov told New Atlas. But as he and his team of engineers ran into the design challenges and limitations of the robot suit’s range of motion, a more industrial look emerged: “It started to remind me of the robot suit in Avatar.” A wheeled version of the prototype is slated eventually to help with cleanup and restoration work at the Fukushima disaster site in Japan. —M.C.