1 00:00:03,040 --> 00:00:05,560 You might not think about it very often, 2 00:00:05,560 --> 00:00:08,800 but we are living through a golden age of technology. 3 00:00:09,840 --> 00:00:14,320 Our homes and our pockets are full of inventions and gadgets 4 00:00:14,320 --> 00:00:17,760 that 20 years ago would have been the stuff of science fiction. 5 00:00:17,760 --> 00:00:20,720 Alexa, how exactly do you work? 6 00:00:20,720 --> 00:00:24,000 Hmm, I don't know that. That's what we're going to find out. 7 00:00:24,000 --> 00:00:27,080 These things have become such an integral part of our everyday 8 00:00:27,080 --> 00:00:31,200 lives that we've forgotten to remember how clever they are. 9 00:00:31,200 --> 00:00:35,280 I'm Professor Hannah Fry and I want to open your eyes... 10 00:00:35,280 --> 00:00:37,080 I'm having a great time. 11 00:00:37,080 --> 00:00:39,760 ..to the secret genius of everyday objects. 12 00:00:39,760 --> 00:00:41,360 BEEPS 13 00:00:41,360 --> 00:00:46,040 The ones that we take for granted. Items that owe their existence 14 00:00:46,040 --> 00:00:49,360 to generations of scientific innovation. 15 00:00:49,360 --> 00:00:53,400 THE Edison drove an electric car?! Yes, this one. 16 00:00:53,400 --> 00:00:59,720 In every episode, I'm going to take one item...and tear it apart... 17 00:00:59,720 --> 00:01:01,760 GLASS SMASHES 18 00:00:59,720 --> 00:01:01,760 ..bit... Ooh! 19 00:01:01,760 --> 00:01:06,280 ..by bit... So, now, there's some stuff you can see. 20 00:01:06,280 --> 00:01:08,040 ..meet the people behind it... 21 00:01:08,040 --> 00:01:10,320 Frankly, I thought many things were impossible. 22 00:01:10,320 --> 00:01:14,720 ..and unlock the remarkable... There is the clandestine listening device. 23 00:01:14,720 --> 00:01:18,960 ..and sometimes hilarious stories behind its invention. 24 00:01:18,960 --> 00:01:20,360 Hello! Look at you! 25 00:01:24,480 --> 00:01:25,640 This time... 26 00:01:27,200 --> 00:01:30,680 ..it's the fitness tracker. More and more of us 27 00:01:30,680 --> 00:01:34,280 are wearing these devices that are monitoring our every movement, 28 00:01:34,280 --> 00:01:38,000 but these things are also getting increasingly sophisticated. 29 00:01:38,000 --> 00:01:41,520 Three, two, one. 30 00:01:38,000 --> 00:01:41,520 BLAST 31 00:01:41,520 --> 00:01:47,080 So, how did 1970s car crashes help us to count every step? 32 00:01:47,080 --> 00:01:49,640 That would really hurt a lot! 33 00:01:49,640 --> 00:01:52,280 Why did World War II fighter pilots... 34 00:01:52,280 --> 00:01:55,640 I mean, I know what you're thinking. Tom Cruise, right? 35 00:01:55,640 --> 00:01:58,280 ..lead to miniature health monitors? 36 00:01:58,280 --> 00:02:01,600 Rick Dabate now guilty on all three counts. 37 00:02:01,600 --> 00:02:06,080 And how did we get from our tracking our movement to tracking killers? 38 00:02:06,080 --> 00:02:09,200 They'd planned to use Connie's Fitbit as evidence. 39 00:02:17,720 --> 00:02:24,040 Tracking our every step, jump or hop is more popular than ever, 40 00:02:24,040 --> 00:02:27,280 with around a third of the UK population now owning 41 00:02:27,280 --> 00:02:28,760 a fitness tracker. 42 00:02:30,240 --> 00:02:34,080 I'm in Silicon Valley to meet one of the innovators behind iconic 43 00:02:34,080 --> 00:02:35,960 fitness tracker company Fitbit. 44 00:02:37,400 --> 00:02:40,720 But first... Hmm, I've got a confession to make. 45 00:02:40,720 --> 00:02:43,240 The team at Fitbit have let me borrow one of their devices 46 00:02:43,240 --> 00:02:44,600 while we're filming the show. 47 00:02:44,600 --> 00:02:46,800 I'm still trying to work out how it works. 48 00:02:46,800 --> 00:02:49,240 I used to have one of these, but I kind of gave it up. 49 00:02:49,240 --> 00:02:53,280 I know they're supposed to encourage you to do more exercise, 50 00:02:53,280 --> 00:02:54,960 but I actually found it mostly made me 51 00:02:54,960 --> 00:02:57,120 feel guilty for when I was being lazy. 52 00:02:57,120 --> 00:02:59,360 But maybe this time's going to be different. 53 00:03:01,400 --> 00:03:04,400 Fitbit were one of the very first fitness tracker companies 54 00:03:04,400 --> 00:03:07,400 and have sold millions of devices worldwide, 55 00:03:07,400 --> 00:03:11,080 so if anyone can help me find the genius of the tracker, and maybe 56 00:03:11,080 --> 00:03:14,960 help me work out how to use their own, it's one of their pioneers. 57 00:03:14,960 --> 00:03:19,840 So, you're one of the original Fitbit-ers? Yeah, sort of. Yeah. 58 00:03:19,840 --> 00:03:21,800 Go on, tell me... 59 00:03:21,800 --> 00:03:24,520 That's Shelten Yuen, Fitbit's principal scientist. 60 00:03:26,920 --> 00:03:28,840 Tell me the story about how you joined. 61 00:03:28,840 --> 00:03:31,000 So, I was doing research in surgical robotics 62 00:03:31,000 --> 00:03:32,920 and trying to do beating-heart surgery 63 00:03:32,920 --> 00:03:35,960 and the two co-founders of Fitbit came up to me with this 64 00:03:35,960 --> 00:03:38,000 idea - could we put motion sensors on people, 65 00:03:38,000 --> 00:03:41,320 help them track their health, and then get them to be healthier? 66 00:03:41,320 --> 00:03:44,240 And I was like, you know, "When you're working on someone's heart, 67 00:03:44,240 --> 00:03:46,280 "it's usually pretty late in the game and what 68 00:03:46,280 --> 00:03:50,680 "if you could actually help them way before that, 20 years before that?" And I was like, "Sign me up." 69 00:03:50,680 --> 00:03:54,280 And there was one crucial component that made the Fitbit origin 70 00:03:54,280 --> 00:03:57,000 story possible. It was right at the cusp 71 00:03:57,000 --> 00:03:59,800 when accelerometers were getting quite small and they were 72 00:03:59,800 --> 00:04:03,320 actually getting to the order of, like, millimetres in size. 73 00:04:03,320 --> 00:04:07,160 Wait, what was that? Right at the cusp when accelerometers... 74 00:04:07,160 --> 00:04:09,280 That's it, the accelerometer. 75 00:04:09,280 --> 00:04:12,200 It's the thing that measures your movement. 76 00:04:12,200 --> 00:04:14,280 Let's introduce it again with a graphic. 77 00:04:15,760 --> 00:04:19,960 The fitness tracker is a miracle of miniaturisation. 78 00:04:19,960 --> 00:04:23,880 I'm going to take it apart and look at five key components, 79 00:04:23,880 --> 00:04:27,680 from the heart rate monitor to the memory card. 80 00:04:27,680 --> 00:04:31,640 But I'm starting with the super-sensitive motion sensor 81 00:04:31,640 --> 00:04:34,120 that picks up your every move, 82 00:04:34,120 --> 00:04:35,800 the accelerometer. 83 00:04:40,640 --> 00:04:43,640 So, I've got this fancy device that the kind people of Fitbit 84 00:04:43,640 --> 00:04:46,520 have given me. What am I going to do with it? 85 00:04:46,520 --> 00:04:49,480 I'm going to tear it to pieces, of course. 86 00:04:49,480 --> 00:04:53,640 I'm borrowing someone's garage and I'm going to need some tools. 87 00:04:53,640 --> 00:04:55,640 This could be brutal! 88 00:04:55,640 --> 00:04:56,960 So... 89 00:04:58,400 --> 00:04:59,800 ..let's get this guy down. 90 00:05:04,240 --> 00:05:07,840 If you value your Fitbit, I wouldn't recommend doing this. 91 00:05:09,160 --> 00:05:15,040 But the screen on top is glued on, so I'm going to melt the glue, 92 00:05:15,040 --> 00:05:17,240 using a 400-degree heat gun. 93 00:05:17,240 --> 00:05:20,480 Getting to the accelerometer inside here isn't easy. 94 00:05:20,480 --> 00:05:25,240 This screen is made of secured toughened glass. Ooh! Sticky! 95 00:05:27,000 --> 00:05:28,760 FITBIT BEEPS 96 00:05:30,240 --> 00:05:32,360 OK... We're open. 97 00:05:34,960 --> 00:05:37,680 Ooh! Teeny-tiny screws. 98 00:05:39,160 --> 00:05:41,480 I'm having a great time. 99 00:05:41,480 --> 00:05:45,480 Now, I think I've got a good chance of getting the motherboard out now. 100 00:05:45,480 --> 00:05:48,600 There it is. Oh, wow! 101 00:05:48,600 --> 00:05:49,960 Battery. 102 00:05:51,160 --> 00:05:53,440 So, now, there's some stuff you can see. 103 00:05:53,440 --> 00:05:57,800 This is where everything happens. 104 00:05:57,800 --> 00:06:01,080 This tiny little circuit. 105 00:06:01,080 --> 00:06:04,600 On this circuit board, in a tiny two-millimetre square, 106 00:06:04,600 --> 00:06:08,760 is the revolutionary sensor that helps track your every move. 107 00:06:08,760 --> 00:06:14,800 This miniature little square - that is the accelerometer. 108 00:06:14,800 --> 00:06:18,600 This is the motion sensor that counts our steps 109 00:06:18,600 --> 00:06:21,360 and figures out how our body is moving, 110 00:06:21,360 --> 00:06:23,400 in any direction. 111 00:06:23,400 --> 00:06:25,360 What's going on in here, essentially, 112 00:06:25,360 --> 00:06:27,120 is imagine that you've got two combs. 113 00:06:27,120 --> 00:06:29,720 One of them is kind of rigid, the motherboard, 114 00:06:29,720 --> 00:06:33,280 and the other one is free to move. But they're interlocked together. 115 00:06:33,280 --> 00:06:37,040 So as you move up and down in that axis, this one sort of bends 116 00:06:37,040 --> 00:06:39,280 and stretches around the other. 117 00:06:39,280 --> 00:06:42,960 As the distance between the combs changes, an electrical signal 118 00:06:42,960 --> 00:06:46,600 is sent to the device, telling it that you're moving. 119 00:06:46,600 --> 00:06:51,840 But a single pair of combs can only detect movement in one direction. 120 00:06:51,840 --> 00:06:55,600 That is why an accelerometer needs multiple pairs, 121 00:06:55,600 --> 00:06:59,920 so it can work out what's going on in all three dimensions. 122 00:06:59,920 --> 00:07:01,640 It's not just up and down. 123 00:07:01,640 --> 00:07:06,440 It's up, down, forward, back, left, right, all at the same time. 124 00:07:06,440 --> 00:07:10,560 But that, essentially, this mechanical device, 125 00:07:10,560 --> 00:07:15,480 embedded in an electrical circuit, is the thing that allows you 126 00:07:15,480 --> 00:07:17,600 to calculate how many steps you're doing. 127 00:07:20,800 --> 00:07:26,440 The accelerometer is an ingenious device, but to find out how we 128 00:07:26,440 --> 00:07:30,040 got here, first we need to go back to Renaissance Italy. 129 00:07:32,360 --> 00:07:38,640 It's the early 16th century and the Papal Army want more-accurate maps. 130 00:07:38,640 --> 00:07:42,800 So, they hire a talented engineer by the name of Leo. 131 00:07:44,080 --> 00:07:46,080 Or Leonardo da Vinci, to you and me. 132 00:07:48,640 --> 00:07:51,640 He realises that if you can work out the number of steps that 133 00:07:51,640 --> 00:07:53,480 soldiers are taking, it will give him 134 00:07:53,480 --> 00:07:58,000 a pretty accurate indication of distances for the maps. 135 00:07:58,000 --> 00:08:01,400 So, he invents an elaborate gear-driven contraption 136 00:08:01,400 --> 00:08:03,280 worn at the waist. 137 00:08:03,280 --> 00:08:07,880 It has a long pendulum tied to the thigh, sounds comfy, 138 00:08:07,880 --> 00:08:13,160 and as you walk, the gears rotate and, voila, steps are counted. 139 00:08:13,160 --> 00:08:16,800 It's thought to be one of the earliest examples of what 140 00:08:16,800 --> 00:08:20,160 we now call a pedometer. For centuries, 141 00:08:20,160 --> 00:08:24,360 pedometers like Leonardo's remained the best way to count steps. 142 00:08:24,360 --> 00:08:27,160 They got smaller and more wearable, 143 00:08:27,160 --> 00:08:29,680 but were still clunky and not very accurate. 144 00:08:30,880 --> 00:08:33,160 The big development that would take us 145 00:08:33,160 --> 00:08:37,400 to today's accelerometer was an absolute car crash. 146 00:08:39,240 --> 00:08:42,520 Safety that evolves from a continuing programme of crashing 147 00:08:42,520 --> 00:08:43,800 test vehicles. 148 00:08:45,680 --> 00:08:48,040 It was all thanks to the airbag. 149 00:08:50,040 --> 00:08:52,840 After the end of the Second World War, 1950s, 150 00:08:52,840 --> 00:08:57,080 people started buying cars in their thousands. 151 00:08:57,080 --> 00:09:00,960 The only problem was, at the time, cars were a complete deathtrap, 152 00:09:00,960 --> 00:09:04,640 so manufacturers start introducing safety measures like seat belts, 153 00:09:04,640 --> 00:09:07,680 but surprise-surprise, nobody wants to wear them. 154 00:09:07,680 --> 00:09:12,200 And so, that is the environment in which the airbag was invented. 155 00:09:12,200 --> 00:09:16,680 A typical crash is over in 100 milliseconds, a tenth of a second. 156 00:09:16,680 --> 00:09:20,040 That is Matthew Avery. Here at Thatcham Research, 157 00:09:20,040 --> 00:09:21,840 he crashes cars for a living. 158 00:09:24,760 --> 00:09:27,680 And he's kindly agreed to let me watch. 159 00:09:27,680 --> 00:09:30,480 Is there anyone down there? No. No, everything's clear. 160 00:09:30,480 --> 00:09:31,880 The doors are locked. OK. 161 00:09:31,880 --> 00:09:34,840 A specially built sled is going to replicate 162 00:09:34,840 --> 00:09:40,200 the force of a head-on collision, with this poor sucker at the wheel. 163 00:09:40,200 --> 00:09:44,320 So, it's like a giant air rifle, this thing? Pretty much, yeah. 164 00:09:44,320 --> 00:09:49,000 Five, four, three, two, one. 165 00:09:49,000 --> 00:09:52,800 Ah, hold it there! Before we see it in action, 166 00:09:52,800 --> 00:09:56,080 you might be wondering what all this has got to do with fitness trackers. 167 00:09:56,080 --> 00:09:58,640 What is it that sets off an airbag in a car? 168 00:09:58,640 --> 00:10:01,280 It's an accelerometer, like these. 169 00:10:01,280 --> 00:10:04,800 Our old friend, the accelerometer. 170 00:10:04,800 --> 00:10:07,480 But back in the days of early airbags, 171 00:10:07,480 --> 00:10:10,720 they weren't quite the miniature marvels of engineering... 172 00:10:10,720 --> 00:10:13,960 Ooh! ..that we know today. 173 00:10:13,960 --> 00:10:17,800 The early accelerometers were just a sprung mass with like a ball 174 00:10:17,800 --> 00:10:20,680 bearing in, and basically, they're a contact centre, 175 00:10:20,680 --> 00:10:23,720 so when you apply enough force on it, 176 00:10:23,720 --> 00:10:27,280 it will create a switch which could deploy an airbag, for example. 177 00:10:27,280 --> 00:10:29,760 Here is a crash into a barrier. 178 00:10:31,840 --> 00:10:34,560 The ball bearing was held by a magnet. 179 00:10:34,560 --> 00:10:36,200 If the car suddenly decelerated, 180 00:10:36,200 --> 00:10:39,680 the ball would release from the magnet, roll down a tube 181 00:10:39,680 --> 00:10:43,840 and close an electrical circuit, triggering the airbag. 182 00:10:43,840 --> 00:10:46,720 They're contained in a sort of box like this, 183 00:10:46,720 --> 00:10:50,200 so here's an earlier airbag controller module. 184 00:10:50,200 --> 00:10:53,240 Yeah, that's... That's not going to fit in my Fitbit. 185 00:10:53,240 --> 00:10:55,560 You can see how big and chunky. 186 00:10:55,560 --> 00:10:59,120 And because these first accelerometers were so basic, 187 00:10:59,120 --> 00:11:04,080 they were prone to unexpectedly trigger with any sudden jolt, 188 00:11:04,080 --> 00:11:06,880 like a bump, or a kerb, or a pothole. 189 00:11:06,880 --> 00:11:09,880 Did that used to happen all the time? Did airbags just go off? 190 00:11:09,880 --> 00:11:12,320 The early airbags, maybe from the 1970s, 191 00:11:12,320 --> 00:11:16,240 which had much cruder accelerometers on, that could happen, yes. 192 00:11:17,840 --> 00:11:21,640 The need for less trigger-happy airbags led to an intense 193 00:11:21,640 --> 00:11:23,320 period of research. 194 00:11:23,320 --> 00:11:26,960 Until airbags are standard equipment on the American highway, 195 00:11:26,960 --> 00:11:29,320 tens of thousands of us will die. 196 00:11:29,320 --> 00:11:33,800 Airbag engineers utilised a new microchip technology called 197 00:11:33,800 --> 00:11:38,520 MEMS, which let them carve moving parts directly onto tiny 198 00:11:38,520 --> 00:11:44,320 circuits and the result was smaller, more precise accelerometers. 199 00:11:44,320 --> 00:11:47,520 And now, they're a lot more sophisticated 200 00:11:47,520 --> 00:11:50,840 and that level of sophistication means they can discern 201 00:11:50,840 --> 00:11:54,840 the difference between hitting the kerb and hitting another vehicle. 202 00:11:54,840 --> 00:12:00,040 The evolution from this simple giant chunky thing down to on this 203 00:12:00,040 --> 00:12:05,280 board and a recognisable little tiny accelerometer. 204 00:12:05,280 --> 00:12:07,600 It's kind of cool, isn't it? That's it. 205 00:12:09,480 --> 00:12:12,760 OK. Well, let's see today's airbag accelerometer in action. 206 00:12:13,760 --> 00:12:18,000 Five, four, three, two, one. 207 00:12:18,000 --> 00:12:20,120 BLAST 208 00:12:23,760 --> 00:12:24,960 Wow! Yeah. 209 00:12:24,960 --> 00:12:28,960 Pretty severe impact. That would really hurt a lot! Absolutely, yeah. 210 00:12:28,960 --> 00:12:31,280 I didn't even really see the airbag. 211 00:12:31,280 --> 00:12:33,800 Luckily, we can watch again in slow-mo. 212 00:12:36,280 --> 00:12:40,280 Within 20 milliseconds, the airbag has deployed 213 00:12:40,280 --> 00:12:43,600 and protecting the occupant, and that's what those accelerometers 214 00:12:43,600 --> 00:12:46,560 are doing, measuring that force and saying this is a severe 215 00:12:46,560 --> 00:12:49,240 collision, I need to deploy to protect the occupant. 216 00:12:50,520 --> 00:12:53,040 In just a 50th of a second, 217 00:12:53,040 --> 00:12:56,880 the accelerometer has precisely measured the acceleration, 218 00:12:56,880 --> 00:13:00,280 allowing its control unit to calculate the moment that the 219 00:13:00,280 --> 00:13:04,960 airbag should activate and it's that same incredible precision 220 00:13:04,960 --> 00:13:09,240 that tells my fitness tracker how I'm moving through space. 221 00:13:09,240 --> 00:13:13,600 The development of crash testing and airbags has really pushed 222 00:13:13,600 --> 00:13:17,600 forward the sophistication of the accelerometer and played a huge 223 00:13:17,600 --> 00:13:22,680 part in the miniaturisation and the proliferation of accelerometers. 224 00:13:22,680 --> 00:13:28,080 Do you know? It's really lovely when you get something that is so tiny, 225 00:13:28,080 --> 00:13:30,560 that has saved so many people's lives. 226 00:13:30,560 --> 00:13:35,000 That's right, yeah. Cars are now much safer than they ever have been. 227 00:13:40,240 --> 00:13:42,640 The accelerometers developed for airbags were 228 00:13:42,640 --> 00:13:46,520 so good at measuring precise changes in speed and direction 229 00:13:46,520 --> 00:13:51,600 that they quickly found a home in other...essential devices, 230 00:13:51,600 --> 00:13:54,320 like video game controllers. 231 00:13:54,320 --> 00:13:58,720 And there, they caught the eye of a certain Silicon Valley entrepreneur. 232 00:13:58,720 --> 00:14:00,520 Back to Shelten. 233 00:14:00,520 --> 00:14:03,240 And I was actually part of the origin story of Fitbit. 234 00:14:03,240 --> 00:14:06,080 James, one of our co-founders, was standing in line, 235 00:14:06,080 --> 00:14:07,680 waiting for a Wii... 236 00:14:07,680 --> 00:14:10,200 That's a Nintendo Wii, not the men's room. 237 00:14:10,200 --> 00:14:13,200 ..and he was like, "Hey, I can have fun doing exercise with this thing. 238 00:14:13,200 --> 00:14:15,840 "What if I could take that idea and put it out into the real world, 239 00:14:15,840 --> 00:14:19,320 "where people are moving around in their daily lives?" We settled on this idea that 240 00:14:19,320 --> 00:14:22,760 if we could track people's steps and just give them a sense of their overall activity, 241 00:14:22,760 --> 00:14:26,440 that would be a huge lift above what you could do back then. 242 00:14:26,440 --> 00:14:29,560 The prototype Fitbit was attached to the hip, 243 00:14:29,560 --> 00:14:31,640 just like Leonardo's pedometer, 244 00:14:31,640 --> 00:14:35,480 making step counting easy because the hip just slides forward 245 00:14:35,480 --> 00:14:37,920 and back as you walk. 246 00:14:37,920 --> 00:14:41,000 But the Fitbit founders had other ideas. 247 00:14:41,000 --> 00:14:44,960 They wanted their new tracking device to go onto the waviest 248 00:14:44,960 --> 00:14:46,680 part of your body. 249 00:14:46,680 --> 00:14:50,320 Did you try and persuade them to not make it a wrist device? Yes. I did! 250 00:14:50,320 --> 00:14:52,040 Really? Yes, I did. 251 00:14:52,040 --> 00:14:54,840 Yeah, the co-founders were like, "The future's the wrist. 252 00:14:54,840 --> 00:14:58,560 "We have to make this work on the wrist," and I was like, "Are you sure about that?" 253 00:14:58,560 --> 00:15:02,000 And presumably, people don't always swing their arms in the same way, either. Oh, no. 254 00:15:02,000 --> 00:15:03,960 It suddenly went from you describing it as what 255 00:15:03,960 --> 00:15:06,840 seemed like a relatively straightforward problem to 256 00:15:06,840 --> 00:15:08,960 something that, like, frankly seems impossible. 257 00:15:08,960 --> 00:15:11,280 Were there any points like at two o'clock in the morning 258 00:15:11,280 --> 00:15:14,080 when you woke up and were like, "I just don't think we can do it"? 259 00:15:14,080 --> 00:15:18,400 Yeah, frankly, I thought many things were impossible. The accelerometer gave them 260 00:15:18,400 --> 00:15:22,200 precise details of how the tracker was moving, but then, 261 00:15:22,200 --> 00:15:26,560 Shelten had to figure out which wrist movements were actually steps. 262 00:15:26,560 --> 00:15:30,200 What do you expect to see when someone takes a step? 263 00:15:30,200 --> 00:15:35,120 Well, I actually have some data that we could look at, if you like. OK. Amazing. Yes. Always. 264 00:15:35,120 --> 00:15:38,760 These downward peaks here is a step. OK. 265 00:15:38,760 --> 00:15:42,400 So, in orange there, that's the one that's essentially up, down axis. 266 00:15:42,400 --> 00:15:45,080 Is that right? Yeah, in the opposite direction of gravity. Sure. 267 00:15:45,080 --> 00:15:47,880 And then, there, these peaks, they've actually got quite a 268 00:15:47,880 --> 00:15:52,040 nice pattern to them, so, like, it's like the second one is a bit spiky. 269 00:15:52,040 --> 00:15:54,440 Yeah. And then, you have these like nice dips in between. 270 00:15:54,440 --> 00:15:56,920 So, that actually looks really clear. 271 00:15:56,920 --> 00:16:01,120 One distinct move of the wrist equals one step. 272 00:16:01,120 --> 00:16:03,320 But what if you're not marching like a soldier 273 00:16:03,320 --> 00:16:06,600 and you start waving your hands around instead? 274 00:16:06,600 --> 00:16:10,320 So I would contend that this person is probably walking at a pretty good 275 00:16:10,320 --> 00:16:12,800 clip and maybe they decided to like, I don't know, 276 00:16:12,800 --> 00:16:17,480 scratch their shoulder or something while they're doing it. But then, how are you supposed to find 277 00:16:17,480 --> 00:16:20,720 the signal in there of the walk, if the thing that they're doing with 278 00:16:20,720 --> 00:16:23,880 their arms, scratching their head, or whatever, is the dominant signal. 279 00:16:23,880 --> 00:16:27,600 So it is a little bit tricky and so... A little bit tricky. 280 00:16:27,600 --> 00:16:31,760 So we do a lot of signal processing filtering and machine learning 281 00:16:31,760 --> 00:16:35,080 to try to figure out what's noise and what's actual user activity. 282 00:16:36,400 --> 00:16:40,560 The accelerometer detects the movement in three dimensions 283 00:16:40,560 --> 00:16:44,920 and then, quite clever algorithms based on billions of data points 284 00:16:44,920 --> 00:16:49,280 will work out which combinations of movement are actually steps. 285 00:16:49,280 --> 00:16:52,040 I'm genuinely amazed that you've managed to solve this 286 00:16:52,040 --> 00:16:54,880 problem at all. How long did it take you, from beginning to end? 287 00:16:54,880 --> 00:16:56,800 I mean, it was... It's been 15 years. 288 00:16:56,800 --> 00:16:58,480 I think we're still on the journey. 289 00:16:58,480 --> 00:17:01,120 The very first algorithm was not nearly as complicated as we're 290 00:17:01,120 --> 00:17:05,560 talking about today, but today, you know, we have access to labs, 291 00:17:05,560 --> 00:17:08,600 gyms, where we can collect much more data and turn a lot of machine 292 00:17:08,600 --> 00:17:11,320 learning techniques, AI techniques, to the problem. 293 00:17:13,120 --> 00:17:16,080 And so, that is the story of how we got an accelerometer 294 00:17:16,080 --> 00:17:19,600 sensitive enough to track our every step and clever enough to know 295 00:17:19,600 --> 00:17:21,840 when you're just doing the Macarena. 296 00:17:25,720 --> 00:17:28,760 But today's trackers do far more than just count steps... 297 00:17:30,000 --> 00:17:32,760 ..monitoring everything from sleep to stress levels, 298 00:17:32,760 --> 00:17:34,360 to assess our health. 299 00:17:40,000 --> 00:17:43,440 Our next component is the most important health sensor of all. 300 00:17:45,240 --> 00:17:49,880 It uses the power of light to track the beats of the body's most 301 00:17:49,880 --> 00:17:53,480 critical organ. This is the heart rate sensor. 302 00:17:56,160 --> 00:17:59,400 50 years ago, if you wanted to find out about your own physiology, 303 00:17:59,400 --> 00:18:01,840 you would have had to have gone to a specialist lab, 304 00:18:01,840 --> 00:18:04,120 wire yourself up to all sorts of equipment. 305 00:18:04,120 --> 00:18:06,560 Now, they can pretty much do all of that for you. 306 00:18:08,360 --> 00:18:11,040 I'm back with the lovely Shelten, 307 00:18:11,040 --> 00:18:14,800 who seems determined to make me do a workout. 308 00:18:14,800 --> 00:18:17,400 It might be good to actually check your heart rate right now. 309 00:18:17,400 --> 00:18:20,160 It's the green light at the back of the fitness tracker that's 310 00:18:20,160 --> 00:18:22,480 key to the heart rate sensor. 311 00:18:22,480 --> 00:18:24,000 So, why green light? 312 00:18:24,000 --> 00:18:28,520 So it has to do sort of with how light travels through tissue, so 313 00:18:28,520 --> 00:18:31,440 green light happens to go through a good layer of tissue where 314 00:18:31,440 --> 00:18:35,000 there's a capillary bed and that capillary bed is pulsating, 315 00:18:35,000 --> 00:18:36,960 basically because your heart is beating. 316 00:18:36,960 --> 00:18:39,960 Or another way to put that, you're seeing through the skin. 317 00:18:39,960 --> 00:18:43,040 And the capillaries that are just underneath those top layers of 318 00:18:43,040 --> 00:18:47,240 skin, they're sort of swelling and contracting, as blood goes through. 319 00:18:47,240 --> 00:18:49,600 That's correct, yeah. That's exactly it. 320 00:18:49,600 --> 00:18:54,000 Measuring heart rate using light is called photoplethysmography 321 00:18:54,000 --> 00:18:58,320 and luckily, it's easier to explain than it is to pronounce. 322 00:18:58,320 --> 00:19:02,680 As the blood vessels expand and contract, they are filled with more 323 00:19:02,680 --> 00:19:07,240 or less blood, meaning they absorb more or less of the green light. 324 00:19:07,240 --> 00:19:11,440 The rhythm of those changes is what gives our heart rate. 325 00:19:11,440 --> 00:19:15,640 I mean, you must be talking about tiny, tiny measurements here. Yeah, they're really small. 326 00:19:15,640 --> 00:19:20,520 There's a lot of algorithms that really have to look into that signal to try to extract your heart 327 00:19:20,520 --> 00:19:23,040 rate from it, particularly when you're moving. 328 00:19:23,040 --> 00:19:25,320 Yeah. It's tricky. Yeah! 329 00:19:25,320 --> 00:19:30,480 What's even trickier is that the light is a huge drain in the battery 330 00:19:30,480 --> 00:19:34,480 and that's not great for a device that's designed to be worn 24/7. 331 00:19:34,480 --> 00:19:38,600 The batteries in these devices are probably, I don't know, 332 00:19:38,600 --> 00:19:42,720 15 times smaller than what's in a phone and so, you're really 333 00:19:42,720 --> 00:19:45,800 thinking about - how do you economise your use of these lights? 334 00:19:45,800 --> 00:19:49,920 Is that the reason why they're flashing, rather than just a constant light? Yeah. Oh, really? 335 00:19:52,560 --> 00:19:56,720 To test out this tiny device on my wrist, I am comparing it... 336 00:19:56,720 --> 00:20:01,240 And already, I can see it's gone up to 108. 337 00:20:01,240 --> 00:20:03,920 ..to this very expensive hospital-grade 338 00:20:03,920 --> 00:20:06,960 electrocardiogram, or ECG. 339 00:20:06,960 --> 00:20:12,040 Instead of light, the ECG uses electrodes attached to my body 340 00:20:12,040 --> 00:20:14,560 and it gives a far more detailed reading, 341 00:20:14,560 --> 00:20:16,560 but it is pretty cumbersome. 342 00:20:16,560 --> 00:20:19,200 OK, so how are the two comparing? 106. 343 00:20:20,440 --> 00:20:25,640 102? Ah, there's a delay. 107, 108. It's a little bit behind. 344 00:20:25,640 --> 00:20:28,840 Got you. Wow, it's got to do all that number crunching. 345 00:20:28,840 --> 00:20:30,800 The performance is impressive, 346 00:20:30,800 --> 00:20:34,160 especially on something that you can take anywhere. 347 00:20:34,160 --> 00:20:37,880 But how in the world did we manage to shrink down functions 348 00:20:37,880 --> 00:20:41,400 of an ECG machine, so that it could fit on our wrist? 349 00:20:44,400 --> 00:20:49,280 The answer can be traced back to the ski trails of Finland in the 1970s. 350 00:20:49,280 --> 00:20:50,800 Just a warning, 351 00:20:50,800 --> 00:20:55,600 the following footage contains some serious 1970s shell suits. 352 00:20:55,600 --> 00:20:57,080 One snowy day, 353 00:20:57,080 --> 00:21:01,120 the coach of a Finnish cross-country ski team bumped into his friend, 354 00:21:01,120 --> 00:21:04,720 a professor of medicine, whose name is even harder to pronounce 355 00:21:04,720 --> 00:21:07,200 than photoplethysmography. 356 00:21:07,200 --> 00:21:09,480 They discussed how they could monitor skiers' 357 00:21:09,480 --> 00:21:12,960 performance more accurately, even in the cold, dark forests - 358 00:21:12,960 --> 00:21:17,240 if they could measure their heart rates during training, not after. 359 00:21:17,240 --> 00:21:20,360 And so, the professor set about inventing the very first 360 00:21:20,360 --> 00:21:23,000 portable battery-operated heart rate monitor. 361 00:21:29,080 --> 00:21:33,160 It consisted of a radio-equipped strap, worn around the chest 362 00:21:33,160 --> 00:21:36,720 and a wristwatch that displayed the data, 363 00:21:36,720 --> 00:21:39,800 like a portable version of the ECG electrodes. 364 00:21:39,800 --> 00:21:41,840 It helped the Finns to up their game 365 00:21:41,840 --> 00:21:46,120 and was the first step towards today's heart rate monitors. 366 00:21:46,120 --> 00:21:49,000 But to ditch the chest strap completely, 367 00:21:49,000 --> 00:21:51,480 that took the development of, well, you guessed it, 368 00:21:51,480 --> 00:21:55,120 the green light photoplethysmography in 2004. 369 00:22:00,280 --> 00:22:03,280 The heart rate sensor was one of the first medical devices to 370 00:22:03,280 --> 00:22:05,800 go into our trackers. 371 00:22:05,800 --> 00:22:10,240 But our next component is a sophisticated recent addition. 372 00:22:10,240 --> 00:22:14,680 It uses red and infrared light to measure the oxygen 373 00:22:14,680 --> 00:22:16,720 levels in your blood. 374 00:22:16,720 --> 00:22:19,600 This is the blood oxygen monitor. 375 00:22:22,600 --> 00:22:25,520 OK, so these things... I think everyone recognises 376 00:22:25,520 --> 00:22:28,080 what these are now... Yeah. ..after Covid. 377 00:22:28,080 --> 00:22:31,680 These are the things that measure the oxygen levels in your blood, 378 00:22:31,680 --> 00:22:34,440 aren't they? Right. But you can do that in here as well? 379 00:22:34,440 --> 00:22:37,600 Yeah, so the optical sensor that's in the watch right now, 380 00:22:37,600 --> 00:22:41,240 you can see the green. Now, there's actually a red and infrared sensor in it as well. 381 00:22:41,240 --> 00:22:43,600 OK. And infrared, you can't see by eye. 382 00:22:43,600 --> 00:22:45,640 So when you're quite still, what it can do is 383 00:22:45,640 --> 00:22:49,360 look for your SpO2 or oxygen saturation that's in your blood. 384 00:22:49,360 --> 00:22:50,720 Oh, that's interesting! 385 00:22:52,680 --> 00:22:56,080 Blood oxygen levels should be high, if you're healthy, 386 00:22:56,080 --> 00:22:59,760 and so monitoring changes can alert you to everything from 387 00:22:59,760 --> 00:23:05,400 Covid-19 to a potentially dangerous condition called sleep apnoea. 388 00:23:05,400 --> 00:23:10,200 But to find the origins of portable blood oxygen monitors, we have to 389 00:23:10,200 --> 00:23:14,920 go back to the frenzied air battles of World War II fighter pilots. 390 00:23:17,680 --> 00:23:21,200 They didn't have long to wait. As the war began, 391 00:23:21,200 --> 00:23:24,840 Allied Forces took to the air in order to protect the skies. 392 00:23:26,720 --> 00:23:29,800 Flying by the seat of their pants, thousands of new pilots 393 00:23:29,800 --> 00:23:34,040 pushed their cutting-edge planes to the limit in sky-high dogfights. 394 00:23:38,480 --> 00:23:42,760 The National Museum of World War II Aviation in Colorado Springs 395 00:23:42,760 --> 00:23:46,800 holds some of the best examples of aircraft from that time. 396 00:23:46,800 --> 00:23:50,560 It's the 1940s, fighter pilots are going up in absolutely 397 00:23:50,560 --> 00:23:52,440 beautiful aircraft like this. 398 00:23:53,920 --> 00:23:58,600 This is the Brewster F3A Corsair and it's very lightweight, 399 00:23:58,600 --> 00:24:04,640 absolutely perfect for air-to-air combat, or dogfights, to you and me. 400 00:24:04,640 --> 00:24:07,240 They're not that easy to get into. Let's see how I do. 401 00:24:09,760 --> 00:24:11,560 Because they were urgently needed, 402 00:24:11,560 --> 00:24:15,280 young fighter pilots had to be trained in a matter of months. 403 00:24:17,360 --> 00:24:20,240 Holy Moley! This is absolutely extraordinary. 404 00:24:20,240 --> 00:24:23,040 And there's a foot hole here somewhere. There? 405 00:24:23,040 --> 00:24:26,640 SHE LAUGHS 406 00:24:23,040 --> 00:24:26,640 I think I'm stuck! 407 00:24:26,640 --> 00:24:30,920 I mean, I know what you're thinking. Tom Cruise, right? 408 00:24:30,920 --> 00:24:33,640 How... How... How they did this?! 409 00:24:35,160 --> 00:24:37,880 The real pilots were clearly as agile as their planes. 410 00:24:39,120 --> 00:24:44,840 But the new planes introduced new problems. They flew much higher and 411 00:24:44,840 --> 00:24:48,360 flying at high altitude could be fatal. 412 00:24:48,360 --> 00:24:51,800 So, as well as flying what is essentially a glorified tin can, 413 00:24:51,800 --> 00:24:55,160 the cabins on these things weren't pressurised, so the pilots 414 00:24:55,160 --> 00:25:00,320 would wear these oxygen masks, and there's a little tank down here. 415 00:25:00,320 --> 00:25:03,240 If they didn't give themselves enough oxygen, 416 00:25:03,240 --> 00:25:08,560 they would black out, which is definitely not ideal. 417 00:25:08,560 --> 00:25:10,400 Yes, I'm all right. 418 00:25:12,640 --> 00:25:15,760 At that time, the only way to monitor blood oxygen levels 419 00:25:15,760 --> 00:25:17,000 was in a hospital. 420 00:25:18,800 --> 00:25:21,680 And so, a solution was desperately needed. 421 00:25:21,680 --> 00:25:24,600 The Royal Air Force in Britain, they wanted a way to monitor 422 00:25:24,600 --> 00:25:28,400 a pilot's oxygen levels before they lost consciousness. 423 00:25:28,400 --> 00:25:31,600 So, they enlisted the help of an American physiologist called 424 00:25:31,600 --> 00:25:33,800 Glenn Millikan. 425 00:25:33,800 --> 00:25:36,400 Millikan was a keen mountaineer, 426 00:25:36,400 --> 00:25:39,760 which would have been great news to his father-in-law, because 427 00:25:39,760 --> 00:25:43,920 he married the daughter of famed Everest climber George Mallory. 428 00:25:43,920 --> 00:25:47,640 Now, Millikan, he knew that a lack of oxygen at high altitude 429 00:25:47,640 --> 00:25:50,920 was a problem, and he'd already been experimenting with 430 00:25:50,920 --> 00:25:55,560 lots of different ways to try and measure oxygen levels in the blood. 431 00:25:56,760 --> 00:26:01,080 Now, we've known quite a lot about how the blood carries oxygen, since the 1800s. 432 00:26:01,080 --> 00:26:04,640 That was when haemoglobin was discovered, that's the protein 433 00:26:04,640 --> 00:26:08,000 that carried oxygen, it's the thing that makes your blood red. 434 00:26:08,000 --> 00:26:13,280 And the amount of oxygen in your blood changes the colour of it, 435 00:26:13,280 --> 00:26:16,440 so if you have got really oxygen-rich blood, it's a very 436 00:26:16,440 --> 00:26:19,360 bright colour, but as the oxygen depletes, 437 00:26:19,360 --> 00:26:23,920 it ends up becoming a much darker, deeper shade of red. 438 00:26:23,920 --> 00:26:27,560 Millikan's breakthrough came form understanding that machines 439 00:26:27,560 --> 00:26:31,600 could measure blood oxygen levels by simply looking at how 440 00:26:31,600 --> 00:26:33,400 dark the blood vessels were. 441 00:26:34,800 --> 00:26:38,240 So, he created a very clever little device, 442 00:26:38,240 --> 00:26:41,000 a little bit like this, I borrowed this one from the museum. 443 00:26:41,000 --> 00:26:43,640 This is called an ear oximeter. 444 00:26:43,640 --> 00:26:47,240 A little device that clips onto your ear. 445 00:26:47,240 --> 00:26:51,360 And what happens is that there's a little light that comes out of one 446 00:26:51,360 --> 00:26:54,200 side of it and a sensor on the other side, 447 00:26:54,200 --> 00:26:57,320 so hang on, let me try and put it on. You go like this... 448 00:26:57,320 --> 00:26:59,640 Pop it on your ear. 449 00:26:59,640 --> 00:27:03,800 As it clamps onto your ear, it shines through a red light 450 00:27:03,800 --> 00:27:07,320 and an infrared light, which heats up that little bit of skin 451 00:27:07,320 --> 00:27:09,560 and dilates all of your blood vessels, 452 00:27:09,560 --> 00:27:11,440 creating a little pool of blood. 453 00:27:11,440 --> 00:27:13,760 And then, a sensor on the other side can detect how 454 00:27:13,760 --> 00:27:19,440 much of the light is passing through and tell how dark your blood is, 455 00:27:19,440 --> 00:27:23,440 or equivalently, how much oxygen you have in your system. 456 00:27:24,440 --> 00:27:27,560 Millikan's device was fitted to the pilot's mask 457 00:27:27,560 --> 00:27:31,480 and it would control the flow of oxygen needed. 458 00:27:31,480 --> 00:27:33,800 Apparently, Millikan would demonstrate this 459 00:27:33,800 --> 00:27:35,920 device by clipping it onto his ear 460 00:27:35,920 --> 00:27:38,040 and his wife said he would hold his breath 461 00:27:38,040 --> 00:27:42,680 until he was blue in the face and then, after a short delay, 462 00:27:42,680 --> 00:27:47,280 the drop in oxygen levels would be registered by the device. 463 00:27:47,280 --> 00:27:50,840 And this became known as the Millikan's oximeter. 464 00:27:53,000 --> 00:27:57,280 After the War, cabin pressure systems became widespread, 465 00:27:57,280 --> 00:28:00,600 allowing normal breathing at high altitude. 466 00:28:00,600 --> 00:28:04,200 But portable oximeters didn't become redundant. 467 00:28:04,200 --> 00:28:07,240 Instead, they were adapted from the ear to the finger 468 00:28:07,240 --> 00:28:12,080 and became the portable pulse oximeters that we know today. 469 00:28:12,080 --> 00:28:15,880 By now, these oximeters are such a crucial medical device that 470 00:28:15,880 --> 00:28:20,000 it's easy to forget that it had its origins in the military, 471 00:28:20,000 --> 00:28:22,600 a time when there was a real sense of urgency 472 00:28:22,600 --> 00:28:24,960 and when the stakes couldn't have been higher. 473 00:28:26,760 --> 00:28:31,720 Sadly, Millikan died in 1947 in a mountaineering accident 474 00:28:31,720 --> 00:28:37,640 and so never got to see how his technology revolutionised medicine. 475 00:28:37,640 --> 00:28:41,920 But his legacy lives on, not only in hospitals, 476 00:28:41,920 --> 00:28:46,720 but also miniaturised, right down into our fitness trackers. 477 00:28:49,960 --> 00:28:55,040 With more delicate electronics than you can shake a USB stick at, 478 00:28:55,040 --> 00:28:58,200 fitness trackers have to withstand all of the knocks 479 00:28:58,200 --> 00:29:01,680 and the bumps that we invariably put them through. 480 00:29:01,680 --> 00:29:05,880 So I heard this great story about a pig that was wearing a fitness 481 00:29:05,880 --> 00:29:10,080 tracker, monitoring its step count and proving that it was free-range. 482 00:29:10,080 --> 00:29:13,040 Except, unfortunately, one day, the fitness tracker fell off, 483 00:29:13,040 --> 00:29:15,840 the pig eats it, it got damaged in the digestive tract, 484 00:29:15,840 --> 00:29:18,360 ended up causing a fire when it came out the other end. 485 00:29:18,360 --> 00:29:20,560 Now, that is quite an extreme thing for a fitness 486 00:29:20,560 --> 00:29:22,760 tracker to have to go through. SNORTS 487 00:29:22,760 --> 00:29:26,400 But when you're building this stuff, you certainly don't want to create 488 00:29:26,400 --> 00:29:29,840 one that's just going to fall apart at the slightest knock or scrape. 489 00:29:32,520 --> 00:29:37,080 And that is why those clever fitness tracker designers have added 490 00:29:37,080 --> 00:29:38,680 a component that makes them 491 00:29:38,680 --> 00:29:43,160 robust enough to withstand almost anything that we throw at them - 492 00:29:43,160 --> 00:29:45,600 the toughened-glass screen. 493 00:29:47,400 --> 00:29:49,920 But just how strong is the glass? 494 00:29:49,920 --> 00:29:53,960 Well, this is the place that the tech companies come to to find out. 495 00:29:56,120 --> 00:29:58,320 If you really want to test something, 496 00:29:58,320 --> 00:30:00,000 give it to a four-year-old. 497 00:30:00,000 --> 00:30:02,880 That is Terry Liu from Quanta Laboratories. 498 00:30:02,880 --> 00:30:04,960 His job is to try and break stuff, 499 00:30:04,960 --> 00:30:08,120 testing-out products for most of the major companies... 500 00:30:08,120 --> 00:30:09,320 Oh! 501 00:30:09,320 --> 00:30:11,480 ..in Silicon Valley. 502 00:30:11,480 --> 00:30:14,480 Do you ever just want to, like, smash stuff? 503 00:30:14,480 --> 00:30:16,600 That's what we do. I know!. 504 00:30:16,600 --> 00:30:19,360 Terry puts products through their paces to make sure 505 00:30:19,360 --> 00:30:22,120 that they can withstand whatever we do to them. 506 00:30:22,120 --> 00:30:24,920 Although, OK, maybe not the pig thing. 507 00:30:24,920 --> 00:30:27,000 This is what we call the Guided Drop. 508 00:30:27,000 --> 00:30:30,560 And, basically, it drops a unit in any direction and point. 509 00:30:30,560 --> 00:30:33,120 It basically holds on to it and at the last foot, 510 00:30:33,120 --> 00:30:37,600 it lets it go, and drops it and hits the perfect flat drop. 511 00:30:38,640 --> 00:30:42,560 To test just how much stress the glass can withstand, 512 00:30:42,560 --> 00:30:46,600 Terry has a machine that will drop the device from various heights. 513 00:30:46,600 --> 00:30:48,480 We're starting at eight feet. 514 00:30:50,400 --> 00:30:52,080 Oh, my gosh. 515 00:30:54,200 --> 00:30:55,560 You want to go higher? 516 00:30:59,920 --> 00:31:01,720 Nothing. 517 00:31:05,240 --> 00:31:07,720 15 feet. Wow. 518 00:31:09,120 --> 00:31:12,280 The glass is proving tricky to damage by dropping, 519 00:31:12,280 --> 00:31:15,640 but how about resisting scratches from keys 520 00:31:15,640 --> 00:31:17,560 in our pockets, for example? 521 00:31:17,560 --> 00:31:21,640 Well, Terry has a whole other machine for testing just that. 522 00:31:21,640 --> 00:31:24,920 This test right now can add different weights on there. 523 00:31:24,920 --> 00:31:26,240 How much weight to put on it, 524 00:31:26,240 --> 00:31:28,200 how much force and pressure to put on it. 525 00:31:28,200 --> 00:31:30,800 So there's a certain amount of weight that presumably 526 00:31:30,800 --> 00:31:32,800 the manufacturers say that's OK. Yeah. 527 00:31:32,800 --> 00:31:36,600 So we can see no real scratch marks. Nothing. 528 00:31:36,600 --> 00:31:37,960 Just going back and forth. 529 00:31:37,960 --> 00:31:40,360 Can you put it in your pocket? Of course. 530 00:31:40,360 --> 00:31:42,360 Would I recommend that? Probably not. 531 00:31:42,360 --> 00:31:46,120 I wouldn't put my watch in my pocket if I know I had keys there. 532 00:31:46,120 --> 00:31:48,360 I had one of these smartwatches, 533 00:31:48,360 --> 00:31:53,040 and my daughter was having a tantrum in a supermarket... Sure. 534 00:31:53,040 --> 00:31:56,560 And like a fool, to try and get her out of her tantrum, 535 00:31:56,560 --> 00:31:59,200 I said she could wear my smartwatch, at which point she proceeded 536 00:31:59,200 --> 00:32:01,200 to have this huge tantrum on the floor. 537 00:32:01,200 --> 00:32:04,400 And then by the end, I mean, it was so scratched 538 00:32:04,400 --> 00:32:07,560 you could barely see it. They just know how. 539 00:32:07,560 --> 00:32:11,040 We actually tested a bunch of these toys and it was just crazy, 540 00:32:11,040 --> 00:32:12,640 the types of tests we have to do on them. 541 00:32:12,640 --> 00:32:16,360 All the bodily fluids you have to try on it, it's just nasty. 542 00:32:16,360 --> 00:32:18,720 Fake sweat, fake pee. 543 00:32:18,720 --> 00:32:21,880 We have different acids that you can put on there. 544 00:32:21,880 --> 00:32:24,280 And this is what I think about all day. 545 00:32:24,280 --> 00:32:26,080 How do I torture a device? 546 00:32:26,080 --> 00:32:29,920 Well, my old smartwatch died back in the cereal aisle 547 00:32:29,920 --> 00:32:32,040 of the supermarket. RIP. 548 00:32:32,040 --> 00:32:34,920 But this one has survived a 15-foot fall 549 00:32:34,920 --> 00:32:37,080 and Terry's scratch test. 550 00:32:37,080 --> 00:32:40,200 It's the Bruce Willis of smartwatches. 551 00:32:42,120 --> 00:32:44,880 So far, we've dropped the device onto wood, 552 00:32:44,880 --> 00:32:48,440 but now it's time for the toughest test so far. 553 00:32:51,000 --> 00:32:52,760 We could do a concrete drop. 554 00:32:52,760 --> 00:32:54,680 You want concrete? Yes. 555 00:32:57,440 --> 00:32:59,360 Oh, that did not sound good. 556 00:33:01,160 --> 00:33:03,320 There's one little crack. There's one little crack? 557 00:33:03,320 --> 00:33:05,680 I'm sure the next one would do it. A teeny, tiny hairline. 558 00:33:05,680 --> 00:33:09,840 Astonishingly, the glass only has a small crack. 559 00:33:09,840 --> 00:33:12,680 Go on, let's smash it again, smash it again. Sure. 560 00:33:12,680 --> 00:33:14,560 Wow, that sounded pretty good. 561 00:33:14,560 --> 00:33:17,440 It's a little disappointing that we can't break it that easily, huh? 562 00:33:17,440 --> 00:33:19,560 One more to put it out of its misery? 563 00:33:19,560 --> 00:33:21,760 Obviously! 564 00:33:23,640 --> 00:33:26,200 Sod your four-year-olds. I think I want to come and work for you. 565 00:33:26,200 --> 00:33:28,160 Yes, no problem. 566 00:33:29,320 --> 00:33:31,880 OK, so that glass screen did do pretty well, 567 00:33:31,880 --> 00:33:35,360 but most normal glass couldn't have taken that pounding. 568 00:33:35,360 --> 00:33:37,120 And here is why. 569 00:33:41,800 --> 00:33:46,040 These two panes of glass, one over here, one over there. 570 00:33:46,040 --> 00:33:49,320 They look quite similar, don't they? But watch what happens... 571 00:33:50,880 --> 00:33:53,760 ..after I very slowly get these gloves on. 572 00:33:55,560 --> 00:33:58,760 Oh! This is ordinary glass. Very, very brittle. 573 00:33:58,760 --> 00:34:01,200 Compare that now to this glass over here, 574 00:34:01,200 --> 00:34:02,400 this is toughened glass. 575 00:34:04,160 --> 00:34:05,960 That's barely left a mark on it. 576 00:34:05,960 --> 00:34:08,960 If I really gave it some wellie, I could smash it, but there's 577 00:34:08,960 --> 00:34:12,240 definitely a difference between these two panes of glass. 578 00:34:12,240 --> 00:34:14,920 The secret is chemistry. 579 00:34:14,920 --> 00:34:17,760 But first, I just need to undo this. 580 00:34:17,760 --> 00:34:19,360 Oh! 581 00:34:21,080 --> 00:34:25,720 Going to go into a little bit about the molecular structure of glass. 582 00:34:27,440 --> 00:34:29,320 But just bear with me because, I promise, 583 00:34:29,320 --> 00:34:30,640 this is going to be worth it. 584 00:34:30,640 --> 00:34:33,320 Glass is actually a supercooled liquid, 585 00:34:33,320 --> 00:34:39,040 so you can think of it more like some strings of beads of atoms 586 00:34:39,040 --> 00:34:41,520 rather than like a really nice regular structure. 587 00:34:41,520 --> 00:34:44,960 And glass, it's made from sand, limestone and sodium. 588 00:34:44,960 --> 00:34:49,480 Charged particles, or ions, of the sodium will sit inside 589 00:34:49,480 --> 00:34:52,640 this structure. Just on the surface like that. 590 00:34:52,640 --> 00:34:54,480 Right, that's normal glass. 591 00:34:54,480 --> 00:34:57,360 Now, when it comes to toughened glass, you have the same sort 592 00:34:57,360 --> 00:34:59,840 of strings that kind of go like this, 593 00:34:59,840 --> 00:35:05,480 but instead, they deliberately remove sodium ions on the surface 594 00:35:05,480 --> 00:35:08,120 and replace them instead with potassium. 595 00:35:08,120 --> 00:35:10,680 Don't know if you remember any of your chemistry from school, 596 00:35:10,680 --> 00:35:14,680 but potassium is a much bigger ion than sodium. 597 00:35:14,680 --> 00:35:17,800 And, so, its presence in this structure... 598 00:35:19,240 --> 00:35:23,040 ..means that those strings of beads fill up, 599 00:35:23,040 --> 00:35:25,600 the spaces between these strings 600 00:35:25,600 --> 00:35:29,280 are like squished out towards the edges. 601 00:35:29,280 --> 00:35:33,240 And it means that if ever something comes along... 602 00:35:34,440 --> 00:35:36,200 ..and cracks... 603 00:35:37,600 --> 00:35:42,800 ..down here, the potassium helps to just keep everything 604 00:35:42,800 --> 00:35:44,760 neatly knitted together. 605 00:35:47,000 --> 00:35:50,280 But the story of how we got toughened glass, 606 00:35:50,280 --> 00:35:52,440 that starts with a mistake. 607 00:35:52,440 --> 00:35:56,800 It's 1953, and in the small town of Corning, USA, 608 00:35:56,800 --> 00:36:00,600 chemist Donald Stookey accidentally cooks a batch of glass 609 00:36:00,600 --> 00:36:04,000 at 900 degrees instead of 600. 610 00:36:04,000 --> 00:36:07,840 Expecting a molten mess, he pulls the glass from the furnace, 611 00:36:07,840 --> 00:36:10,920 but the tongs slip and it crashes to the floor, 612 00:36:10,920 --> 00:36:14,160 where, instead of shattering, it bounces. 613 00:36:14,160 --> 00:36:17,960 Stookey has invented a super-strong glass ceramic, 614 00:36:17,960 --> 00:36:22,240 which becomes used in everything from ballistic missiles... 615 00:36:22,240 --> 00:36:25,880 From rocket research, a great new cook and serve wear, 616 00:36:25,880 --> 00:36:29,600 made of an amazing new material that defies heat and cold. 617 00:36:29,600 --> 00:36:31,360 ..to heatproof cookware. 618 00:36:31,360 --> 00:36:33,760 It can stand empty over hot flames, 619 00:36:33,760 --> 00:36:37,640 then go sizzling hot into ice water without damage. 620 00:36:37,640 --> 00:36:41,760 The success kick-starts a flurry of research into toughened glass, 621 00:36:41,760 --> 00:36:43,520 called Project Muscle. 622 00:36:47,000 --> 00:36:50,520 Half a century later, some guy called Steve comes looking for 623 00:36:50,520 --> 00:36:53,720 an ultra-durable glass for his new product. 624 00:36:53,720 --> 00:36:57,840 The story goes that he shook the toughened glass in a bag of keys, 625 00:36:57,840 --> 00:37:00,080 and it came out without a scratch. 626 00:37:00,080 --> 00:37:03,960 That man was Steve Jobs, and around six months later... 627 00:37:03,960 --> 00:37:06,200 It's a breakthrough phone. 628 00:37:06,200 --> 00:37:10,120 ..Apple releases the original iPhone with a revolutionary glass screen. 629 00:37:11,720 --> 00:37:13,520 Now known as Gorilla Glass, 630 00:37:13,520 --> 00:37:16,720 it's probably in many of the electronic devices you own. 631 00:37:18,640 --> 00:37:21,920 You really want to see it smashed, don't you? Because I do. 632 00:37:21,920 --> 00:37:24,200 Hold on. Let's give it some welly. 633 00:37:25,440 --> 00:37:26,960 Woo! 634 00:37:29,480 --> 00:37:32,760 I mean, it's definitely not indestructible, is it? 635 00:37:36,040 --> 00:37:39,200 There is one more crucial part to our fitness tracker. 636 00:37:40,840 --> 00:37:44,720 It's where all that information on our health and activity, 637 00:37:44,720 --> 00:37:46,680 or inactivity, is stored. 638 00:37:46,680 --> 00:37:49,680 Now, what was it called again? 639 00:37:49,680 --> 00:37:51,800 Ah, yes, the memory card. 640 00:37:54,560 --> 00:37:56,840 If I flick through this thing, 641 00:37:56,840 --> 00:37:59,720 it can tell me all sorts of data about myself. 642 00:37:59,720 --> 00:38:02,840 It tells me how many steps I've done, how far I've walked. 643 00:38:02,840 --> 00:38:06,920 You can even track your sleep and heart rate. 644 00:38:06,920 --> 00:38:11,360 All of that data is stored on a little memory card 645 00:38:11,360 --> 00:38:15,720 hidden inside the Fitbit, which just so happens to be sitting here 646 00:38:15,720 --> 00:38:17,840 on a canal-side bench in London. 647 00:38:17,840 --> 00:38:22,520 You can see just there, it's got 4G on the end, which is four gigabytes, 648 00:38:22,520 --> 00:38:24,640 and that's the size of this memory card. 649 00:38:24,640 --> 00:38:27,840 Now, you might imagine that that's quite generous, but if you think 650 00:38:27,840 --> 00:38:31,320 about the amount of information that this thing is collecting... 651 00:38:32,680 --> 00:38:36,120 ..actually, this memory card gets filled up within about a week, 652 00:38:36,120 --> 00:38:39,520 at which point it needs to sync to the cloud via Bluetooth. 653 00:38:40,840 --> 00:38:44,560 There it joins the data from every other Fitbit, 654 00:38:44,560 --> 00:38:47,760 all stored on a network of servers across the world. 655 00:38:49,440 --> 00:38:53,240 And today, the medical profession is realising the potential value 656 00:38:53,240 --> 00:38:56,120 of this massive health data set. 657 00:38:57,400 --> 00:39:00,000 There is this new initiative where you can share data 658 00:39:00,000 --> 00:39:02,160 from your fitness tracker with doctors. 659 00:39:02,160 --> 00:39:06,520 But remember that if this is the data for you as an individual, 660 00:39:06,520 --> 00:39:11,120 from the perspective of a Fitbit, they have the data not just for you, 661 00:39:11,120 --> 00:39:15,840 but for millions and millions of people simultaneously, 662 00:39:15,840 --> 00:39:19,440 which allows them to search for patterns in the way 663 00:39:19,440 --> 00:39:22,520 that we are all really behaving 664 00:39:22,520 --> 00:39:26,800 that might help us understand medical issues 665 00:39:26,800 --> 00:39:29,000 better and sooner. 666 00:39:30,720 --> 00:39:34,440 Collecting the health data of entire populations might sound 667 00:39:34,440 --> 00:39:37,000 like an episode of Black Mirror, 668 00:39:37,000 --> 00:39:40,760 but in fact it has its origins in the 17th century. 669 00:39:44,200 --> 00:39:46,240 It's the 1660s, 670 00:39:46,240 --> 00:39:50,480 and Britain is reeling after 20 years of bloody civil war. 671 00:39:52,040 --> 00:39:56,720 A London haberdasher called John Graunt takes up a macabre hobby, 672 00:39:56,720 --> 00:39:59,360 studying mortality rates, 673 00:39:59,360 --> 00:40:03,640 and the result is the first-ever collection of public health data. 674 00:40:03,640 --> 00:40:08,800 His extraordinary findings include the urban penalty effect, proof 675 00:40:08,800 --> 00:40:13,960 that moving from the countryside to the city is bad for your health. 676 00:40:13,960 --> 00:40:19,400 Within five years, two of the worst public health crises of all time - 677 00:40:19,400 --> 00:40:22,080 the bubonic plague and the Great Fire - 678 00:40:22,080 --> 00:40:26,560 both hit London, making Graunt's data collection techniques 679 00:40:26,560 --> 00:40:29,000 invaluable and giving him the title 680 00:40:29,000 --> 00:40:31,840 of the founding father of epidemiology. 681 00:40:34,480 --> 00:40:39,640 300 years later, British doctors Richard Doll and Tony Hill 682 00:40:39,640 --> 00:40:42,680 took public health data one step further, 683 00:40:42,680 --> 00:40:45,480 not just collecting the data, but also analysing it 684 00:40:45,480 --> 00:40:48,600 to find the cause of a killer disease. 685 00:40:48,600 --> 00:40:53,120 There had been unexplained increases in lung cancer deaths in men. 686 00:40:53,120 --> 00:40:55,880 Common explanations were coal fires, 687 00:40:55,880 --> 00:40:58,920 car exhausts or tarring on the roads. 688 00:40:58,920 --> 00:41:04,160 But Richard and Tony studied 1,400 patients across London, 689 00:41:04,160 --> 00:41:06,800 asking them detailed questions about their lives 690 00:41:06,800 --> 00:41:10,040 and painstakingly cross-referencing the answers by hand. 691 00:41:11,600 --> 00:41:14,080 They found another cause altogether... 692 00:41:14,080 --> 00:41:17,280 Have you tried to give it up? I have, yes, a couple of times. 693 00:41:17,280 --> 00:41:18,480 ..smoking. 694 00:41:18,480 --> 00:41:22,520 I don't think it, I don't think it makes any difference at all. 695 00:41:22,520 --> 00:41:24,840 Hmm, don't be so sure about that, mate. 696 00:41:24,840 --> 00:41:29,280 It was a turning point in finding the link between supposedly harmless 697 00:41:29,280 --> 00:41:31,520 cigarettes and lung cancer. 698 00:41:32,760 --> 00:41:34,680 Do you intend to do anything about it now? 699 00:41:34,680 --> 00:41:37,040 No, I don't. Still carry on. 700 00:41:40,160 --> 00:41:44,520 We've travelled a long way from 17th-century ledgers, 701 00:41:44,520 --> 00:41:49,520 and today the Fitbit is also helping to shape public health. 702 00:41:51,280 --> 00:41:53,480 I'm not even allowed to be in the centre of the table. 703 00:41:53,480 --> 00:41:56,480 This is all you. Light's on you, camera's on you. 704 00:41:56,480 --> 00:42:00,720 That is Dr Tony Faranesh, Fitbit's lead research scientist. 705 00:42:02,040 --> 00:42:06,600 In 2020, he ran a trial to see if big data could help identify 706 00:42:06,600 --> 00:42:11,200 a heart condition called atrial fibrillation, or AFib. 707 00:42:11,200 --> 00:42:16,000 So we invited all of our user base in the US, age 22 and older, 708 00:42:16,000 --> 00:42:20,920 to participate, and over 455,000 people enrolled. 709 00:42:20,920 --> 00:42:23,440 AFib is a potentially fatal condition 710 00:42:23,440 --> 00:42:26,400 where the heart beats fast and erratically. 711 00:42:26,400 --> 00:42:30,480 So if we look here, this is a typical electrocardiogram 712 00:42:30,480 --> 00:42:34,600 of someone with normal rhythm, where the beats are very regular. 713 00:42:34,600 --> 00:42:36,720 So this is like the traditional way of measuring it. 714 00:42:36,720 --> 00:42:39,360 This is somebody with loads of things stuck to their chest. 715 00:42:39,360 --> 00:42:43,440 That's right. A normal person, you can see that there's some variation, 716 00:42:43,440 --> 00:42:46,960 and with AFib you can see that the distance changes. 717 00:42:46,960 --> 00:42:49,040 It's all over the place. It's all over the place. 718 00:42:49,040 --> 00:42:51,080 It's close together, far, close together, far, 719 00:42:51,080 --> 00:42:52,800 without any sort of discernible pattern. 720 00:42:52,800 --> 00:42:54,800 And that's the hallmark of AFib. 721 00:42:54,800 --> 00:42:56,400 That's jazz for the heart. 722 00:42:56,400 --> 00:43:00,280 That's your heart doing a little bit of a jazz number. Yeah. 723 00:43:00,280 --> 00:43:02,720 How common is this condition? Yeah. 724 00:43:02,720 --> 00:43:06,640 Rough numbers, at least in the US, it's estimated that if you're 65 725 00:43:06,640 --> 00:43:10,160 and older, there's around 10% of the people have atrial fibrillation. 726 00:43:10,160 --> 00:43:12,240 10%? 10%. 727 00:43:12,240 --> 00:43:16,120 And if you're younger than 65, that number is closer to 1% or 2%. 728 00:43:17,840 --> 00:43:20,080 AFib symptoms come and go, 729 00:43:20,080 --> 00:43:24,040 so it is easily missed by a one-off appointment with a doctor. 730 00:43:24,040 --> 00:43:29,000 But many fitness trackers now monitor our heart continuously, 731 00:43:29,000 --> 00:43:32,840 so Tony and his team were in the perfect position 732 00:43:32,840 --> 00:43:34,600 to detect AFib early. 733 00:43:34,600 --> 00:43:36,840 And the results are in - normal sinus rhythm. 734 00:43:36,840 --> 00:43:39,800 No signs of atrial fibrillation. That's correct. 735 00:43:39,800 --> 00:43:41,240 OK. This is good. This is good news. 736 00:43:41,240 --> 00:43:45,000 How accurate does it end up being? Ends up being very accurate. 737 00:43:45,000 --> 00:43:49,080 The results from nearly half a million people's trackers 738 00:43:49,080 --> 00:43:50,840 were astonishing. 739 00:43:50,840 --> 00:43:53,480 They found 4,500 people 740 00:43:53,480 --> 00:43:56,640 who may have had AFib without even knowing it. 741 00:43:56,640 --> 00:44:00,000 Our main goal is identify those people who are at highest risk 742 00:44:00,000 --> 00:44:03,000 of this condition, to follow up with their clinician to get 743 00:44:03,000 --> 00:44:04,960 a confirmatory diagnosis. Got you. 744 00:44:06,920 --> 00:44:10,440 The study was so successful that in April 2022, 745 00:44:10,440 --> 00:44:14,360 the FDA certified the device as an accurate method 746 00:44:14,360 --> 00:44:16,520 of detecting atrial fibrillation. 747 00:44:21,080 --> 00:44:24,800 Solving health problems is what fitness trackers were designed for. 748 00:44:24,800 --> 00:44:27,720 But what's more surprising is that they're now 749 00:44:27,720 --> 00:44:29,880 also solving crimes. 750 00:44:29,880 --> 00:44:35,200 In 2016, the data from one tracker hit headlines around the world. 751 00:44:35,200 --> 00:44:39,320 39-year-old Connie Dabate was found dead just before Christmas. 752 00:44:39,320 --> 00:44:43,000 Police responded to her Birchview Drive home after the house alarm 753 00:44:43,000 --> 00:44:45,000 was activated. 754 00:44:45,000 --> 00:44:48,800 On the 23rd of December 2015, 755 00:44:48,800 --> 00:44:53,880 Connie Dabate was shot dead at her home in Ellington, Connecticut. 756 00:44:53,880 --> 00:44:55,840 The more time passes without answers, 757 00:44:55,840 --> 00:44:58,120 the more the rumour mill seems to churn. 758 00:44:58,120 --> 00:45:00,280 They found her husband, Richard Dabate, injured 759 00:45:00,280 --> 00:45:01,800 inside the smoky home. 760 00:45:01,800 --> 00:45:05,720 16 months later, Connie's husband, Richard, 761 00:45:05,720 --> 00:45:07,640 was charged with her murder. 762 00:45:08,880 --> 00:45:13,880 One man was present at the trial day in, day out. 763 00:45:13,880 --> 00:45:16,920 The Dabate trial, Richard Dabate, 764 00:45:16,920 --> 00:45:21,120 was by far the biggest case that I've covered. 765 00:45:21,120 --> 00:45:24,760 That is Matthew Knox, a local newspaper reporter 766 00:45:24,760 --> 00:45:27,840 who had a front-row seat as the trial unfolded. 767 00:45:29,200 --> 00:45:32,480 The case centred on Richard Dabate's claim that his wife was murdered 768 00:45:32,480 --> 00:45:33,920 by an intruder. 769 00:45:35,200 --> 00:45:37,280 A murder trial against a man from Ellington 770 00:45:37,280 --> 00:45:41,280 accused of killing his wife back in 2015, finally got started today 771 00:45:41,280 --> 00:45:42,920 after several delays. 772 00:45:44,200 --> 00:45:48,240 The prosecution gathered data from the house alarm system, 773 00:45:48,240 --> 00:45:51,920 GPS tracking on Richard Dabate's phone and, crucially, 774 00:45:51,920 --> 00:45:53,640 from Connie's fitness tracker. 775 00:45:55,280 --> 00:45:59,120 The trial became known as the Fitbit Murder Case. 776 00:45:59,120 --> 00:46:02,120 As the state continues to make its case, 777 00:46:02,120 --> 00:46:04,800 they plan to use Connie's Fitbit as evidence. 778 00:46:04,800 --> 00:46:08,640 Connie's fitness tracker recorded her movements that morning, 779 00:46:08,640 --> 00:46:10,480 and when they stopped. 780 00:46:10,480 --> 00:46:13,200 According to Richard Dabate's original statement, 781 00:46:13,200 --> 00:46:17,320 Connie would have been killed likely around 9:30 am. 782 00:46:17,320 --> 00:46:22,480 But her fitness tracker showed that she spent 783 00:46:22,480 --> 00:46:25,080 the next 40 minutes moving. 784 00:46:25,080 --> 00:46:29,120 There was movement up until a final movement at 10:05. 785 00:46:29,120 --> 00:46:34,000 The defence attorney tried his best to discredit the tracker evidence. 786 00:46:34,000 --> 00:46:39,600 He pointed out to the jury, it's a device that's made 787 00:46:39,600 --> 00:46:42,600 by a company for profit, 788 00:46:42,600 --> 00:46:46,720 for people to use so they can track how many steps they took that day. 789 00:46:46,720 --> 00:46:49,560 It wasn't created to help solve crimes. 790 00:46:49,560 --> 00:46:53,400 But the prosecution, in turn, called an expert witness 791 00:46:53,400 --> 00:46:58,280 who had carried out a study showing the tracker had 98% accuracy. 792 00:47:00,160 --> 00:47:03,840 After a five-week trial, the jurors were sent out to decide 793 00:47:03,840 --> 00:47:05,360 on a verdict. 794 00:47:05,360 --> 00:47:08,320 Jury deliberations set to continue tomorrow. 795 00:47:08,320 --> 00:47:10,720 We are on verdict watch here. 796 00:47:10,720 --> 00:47:14,520 You could tell in the courtroom that there was a lot of... 797 00:47:16,000 --> 00:47:17,560 ..you know, tension. 798 00:47:19,560 --> 00:47:21,680 A jury finding Rick Dabate guilty 799 00:47:21,680 --> 00:47:24,400 in the killing of his wife, Connie Dabate. 800 00:47:26,400 --> 00:47:29,120 It was clear that the fitness-tracker evidence 801 00:47:29,120 --> 00:47:31,120 had been compelling. 802 00:47:31,120 --> 00:47:33,680 It finished out the puzzle, 803 00:47:33,680 --> 00:47:38,840 knowing she's moving around, knowing that she's alive 804 00:47:38,840 --> 00:47:42,880 and then, and then she stops moving. 805 00:47:42,880 --> 00:47:45,440 That's the moment that she was killed. 806 00:47:51,520 --> 00:47:55,000 It emerged that Richard Dabate had been having an affair 807 00:47:55,000 --> 00:47:57,760 and the woman had fallen pregnant. 808 00:47:57,760 --> 00:48:01,960 It seemed he killed his wife to avoid the fallout of a divorce. 809 00:48:01,960 --> 00:48:07,240 In August 2022, he was sentenced to 65 years in prison. 810 00:48:07,240 --> 00:48:11,240 The use of the fitness tracking data was new, 811 00:48:11,240 --> 00:48:16,000 though we'll see if it gets used more often in the future. 812 00:48:19,120 --> 00:48:23,520 Used for good, there is no doubt that big data can have benefits. 813 00:48:23,520 --> 00:48:26,480 But there can also be downsides. 814 00:48:27,920 --> 00:48:32,040 Data is a commodity, a potentially very lucrative one. 815 00:48:32,040 --> 00:48:35,720 So wherever there's personal data being collected, you have to ask 816 00:48:35,720 --> 00:48:39,960 the question - who's accessing it and who's benefiting? 817 00:48:41,400 --> 00:48:45,400 Imagine that one day your boss gives you one of these devices. 818 00:48:45,400 --> 00:48:48,080 You're very excited. You're walking around your neighbourhood, 819 00:48:48,080 --> 00:48:50,960 you're running around counting your steps. It's all very thrilling. 820 00:48:50,960 --> 00:48:54,280 But then after a while, you stop doing quite so much activity. 821 00:48:54,280 --> 00:48:57,240 Maybe you've got a bit of a dodgy leg, 822 00:48:57,240 --> 00:48:59,680 maybe you've got a newborn baby at home. 823 00:48:59,680 --> 00:49:02,480 For whatever reason, your activity levels drop 824 00:49:02,480 --> 00:49:05,920 and it's all fine until you get a letter through 825 00:49:05,920 --> 00:49:08,760 saying that your insurance premiums are going up, 826 00:49:08,760 --> 00:49:11,600 and you realise that it's all connected. 827 00:49:11,600 --> 00:49:15,760 The data from your device saying that you're not being active enough. 828 00:49:15,760 --> 00:49:20,320 Now, that might sound like a dystopian tale from the future, 829 00:49:20,320 --> 00:49:24,040 except that this is something that is already happening. 830 00:49:27,200 --> 00:49:30,480 It's becoming more popular for large companies to hand out 831 00:49:30,480 --> 00:49:32,520 fitness trackers to their employees. 832 00:49:34,440 --> 00:49:36,120 The idea is seen as a win-win. 833 00:49:36,120 --> 00:49:39,240 It will help improve employees' health and therefore make them 834 00:49:39,240 --> 00:49:40,720 more productive. 835 00:49:42,240 --> 00:49:45,680 But there are other factors at play here, and some companies, 836 00:49:45,680 --> 00:49:50,320 like BP in the US, have tied the health data from their employees' 837 00:49:50,320 --> 00:49:52,760 trackers to insurance premiums. 838 00:49:54,560 --> 00:49:57,920 Tesco are said to have given some employees armbands which collect 839 00:49:57,920 --> 00:50:01,520 data on their movement and monitor breaks. 840 00:50:01,520 --> 00:50:06,320 While Hitachi have created ID badges that record when employees meet 841 00:50:06,320 --> 00:50:09,400 each other and how they behave in meetings. 842 00:50:11,480 --> 00:50:15,560 It's worth remembering that a lot of the time you can still decide 843 00:50:15,560 --> 00:50:18,560 not to accept a fitness tracker from your employer. 844 00:50:20,040 --> 00:50:24,000 There are a few things that you can do to protect your privacy 845 00:50:24,000 --> 00:50:26,680 when it comes to this data collection. 846 00:50:26,680 --> 00:50:29,880 The first and most important thing you can do is to actually go 847 00:50:29,880 --> 00:50:33,360 through the privacy policy, because there will often be things 848 00:50:33,360 --> 00:50:35,720 in there that you can opt in or out of. 849 00:50:35,720 --> 00:50:38,280 You can also just hide your real identity, 850 00:50:38,280 --> 00:50:40,240 just don't tell them your real name, 851 00:50:40,240 --> 00:50:43,800 but you can put limits on the amount of data that is collected. 852 00:50:43,800 --> 00:50:48,520 And a generally quite good thing to do is to go through regularly 853 00:50:48,520 --> 00:50:52,600 and just delete any data that you don't have any use for. 854 00:50:54,880 --> 00:50:57,280 It's kind of unfortunate that we live in a world 855 00:50:57,280 --> 00:50:59,600 where the onus is on you, the individual, 856 00:50:59,600 --> 00:51:01,240 to protect your own privacy. 857 00:51:04,680 --> 00:51:08,560 From their tiny sensors to the powerful data that they collect, 858 00:51:08,560 --> 00:51:11,680 fitness trackers look like they're here to stay. 859 00:51:13,280 --> 00:51:16,720 And yet, soon, we might be able to monitor our movement 860 00:51:16,720 --> 00:51:18,840 without traditional trackers at all. 861 00:51:20,320 --> 00:51:24,400 I'm about to show you something that will knock your socks off. 862 00:51:24,400 --> 00:51:27,640 Hah! Just been for a gentle run 863 00:51:27,640 --> 00:51:30,560 and I'm not wearing any kind of wrist tracker, 864 00:51:30,560 --> 00:51:34,920 and yet I've been able to collect all kinds of data about how fast 865 00:51:34,920 --> 00:51:39,280 I was going, about how many steps I was doing, and lots more besides. 866 00:51:42,000 --> 00:51:44,800 That is because I'm wearing smart socks. 867 00:51:46,520 --> 00:51:49,320 Not smart as in, you wear them with a suit, 868 00:51:49,320 --> 00:51:52,000 but smart, as in they can track your movements. 869 00:51:53,560 --> 00:51:56,360 The sock is actually not a traditional sock, 870 00:51:56,360 --> 00:51:58,800 but it's more like a computer. 871 00:51:58,800 --> 00:52:01,280 That is Maurizio Macagno, 872 00:52:01,280 --> 00:52:04,320 CTO of Seattle tech company, Sensoria 873 00:52:04,320 --> 00:52:07,480 who have developed this most unusual footwear. 874 00:52:09,400 --> 00:52:11,200 Tell me how the sock works, then. 875 00:52:11,200 --> 00:52:15,080 So the sock is injected with the sensors. 876 00:52:15,080 --> 00:52:18,960 You have pressure sensors on the plantar area, three of them, 877 00:52:18,960 --> 00:52:21,760 one on the heel and two on the metatarsal bones. 878 00:52:21,760 --> 00:52:24,600 So I guess if you've got, if you've got a sensor at the back 879 00:52:24,600 --> 00:52:27,440 and sensors at the front, you can then tell how your foot 880 00:52:27,440 --> 00:52:29,640 is striking the ground. Exactly Where are you landing first. 881 00:52:29,640 --> 00:52:32,000 And whether it's rolling. But in terms of the information 882 00:52:32,000 --> 00:52:34,680 that you're getting out of these, is it substantially different 883 00:52:34,680 --> 00:52:37,080 to what you would get if you were wearing a wrist monitor? 884 00:52:37,080 --> 00:52:41,040 Totally, because you actually get data directly at the foot level. 885 00:52:42,200 --> 00:52:44,280 Right, time to put this to the test. 886 00:52:44,280 --> 00:52:47,080 I'm going to need to dock this sock. 887 00:52:48,120 --> 00:52:52,000 It collects data from the sensors, which will be sent via Bluetooth 888 00:52:52,000 --> 00:52:54,520 to an app on my phone. 889 00:52:54,520 --> 00:52:57,600 So now I am ready to set off 890 00:52:57,600 --> 00:53:00,880 for an even more gentle run around the park. 891 00:53:02,520 --> 00:53:04,320 So how was it? 892 00:53:05,720 --> 00:53:08,120 OK. It was good. 21 calories?! 893 00:53:10,800 --> 00:53:14,000 So can I have a look at my data from our run? Yes. 894 00:53:14,000 --> 00:53:16,240 Here you see the very high-level data. 895 00:53:16,240 --> 00:53:21,520 So you have cadence. You run a 156 cadence average. Sure. 896 00:53:21,520 --> 00:53:24,760 So if we go here, you can see the sections of the run 897 00:53:24,760 --> 00:53:27,320 when you were heel striking versus ball striking. 898 00:53:27,320 --> 00:53:29,120 I'm nothing if not inconsistent. 899 00:53:29,120 --> 00:53:32,560 The important thing is that you trend towards what you want to do. 900 00:53:33,880 --> 00:53:37,520 The ability to measure your technique precisely is very clever. 901 00:53:37,520 --> 00:53:40,000 But look, you've just seen my run. 902 00:53:40,000 --> 00:53:43,280 Are these socks really going to have an appeal for anyone 903 00:53:43,280 --> 00:53:45,280 other than super-keen athletes? 904 00:53:45,280 --> 00:53:49,440 It turns out Maurizio has a vision for these socks beyond fitness. 905 00:53:49,440 --> 00:53:52,560 Imagine this, that can actually help a person heal better. 906 00:53:54,040 --> 00:53:57,480 His idea is to try and help people with neurological diseases, 907 00:53:57,480 --> 00:54:00,640 like Parkinson's or multiple sclerosis, 908 00:54:00,640 --> 00:54:04,400 monitoring how they're walking and alerting their doctor 909 00:54:04,400 --> 00:54:06,480 if there is a problem. 910 00:54:06,480 --> 00:54:09,280 So we give information that is not diagnostic per se, 911 00:54:09,280 --> 00:54:14,320 but gives a lot of insights to the doctor to make at least an alert 912 00:54:14,320 --> 00:54:17,640 and maybe help them sooner than later. 913 00:54:18,760 --> 00:54:20,640 That sounds promising, 914 00:54:20,640 --> 00:54:23,840 but I have a nagging worry about this concept. 915 00:54:23,840 --> 00:54:27,800 How quickly do these become really smelly? 916 00:54:27,800 --> 00:54:29,840 You can wash the socks. Yeah, absolutely. 917 00:54:29,840 --> 00:54:33,200 And that's been one hell of a journey for us as a company. 918 00:54:33,200 --> 00:54:36,040 This is a computer in the end, so you're washing a computer. 919 00:54:36,040 --> 00:54:39,400 So we have to provide proper waterproofing. 920 00:54:39,400 --> 00:54:41,960 But you can definitely wash them. 921 00:54:41,960 --> 00:54:44,720 But this tech doesn't come cheap. 922 00:54:44,720 --> 00:54:48,680 £340 a pair, to be precise. 923 00:54:48,680 --> 00:54:50,040 Ouch. 924 00:54:50,040 --> 00:54:53,000 I think that might be more than my washing machine. 925 00:54:53,000 --> 00:54:56,640 But it does make me wonder where all this is heading. 926 00:54:56,640 --> 00:54:59,840 Let's check back in with Shelten. 927 00:54:59,840 --> 00:55:03,560 Presumably, there's a limit to what you can ever record from the wrist. 928 00:55:03,560 --> 00:55:08,560 So does that mean that we can expect devices that are much more wearable? 929 00:55:08,560 --> 00:55:12,520 I don't know, like, sort of health-tracking leggings 930 00:55:12,520 --> 00:55:15,400 or like health-tracking, I don't know, bodysuits? 931 00:55:15,400 --> 00:55:17,000 I think there's a potential for that. 932 00:55:17,000 --> 00:55:21,080 But as a thought experiment, one would have to sort of figure out 933 00:55:21,080 --> 00:55:24,440 the power problem. No-one wants to charge their shirt, right? 934 00:55:25,800 --> 00:55:29,000 No-one wants to charge their underwear or something, right? 935 00:55:29,000 --> 00:55:32,400 And you have to really kind of figure out how to make that type 936 00:55:32,400 --> 00:55:33,800 of stuff very usable. 937 00:55:33,800 --> 00:55:36,920 It's like the new, "Sorry, I can't come out, I'm washing my hair. 938 00:55:36,920 --> 00:55:39,360 "Sorry, I can't come out, I'm charging my underpants!" 939 00:55:39,360 --> 00:55:41,680 Right! Right! 940 00:55:41,680 --> 00:55:43,760 In addition to the socks, 941 00:55:43,760 --> 00:55:46,920 all kinds of smart clothes are in development. 942 00:55:46,920 --> 00:55:50,480 Smart yoga pants that will help you to find the right pose 943 00:55:50,480 --> 00:55:52,880 and jackets that will give you directions. 944 00:55:54,640 --> 00:55:58,440 Who knows? Maybe one day there will be a whole outfit 945 00:55:58,440 --> 00:56:01,640 that can just go to the gym for you. 946 00:56:01,640 --> 00:56:04,800 Let's say that we were having this conversation in, I don't know, 947 00:56:04,800 --> 00:56:10,800 20 or 30 years' time, do we expect that there will be devices 948 00:56:10,800 --> 00:56:15,600 that will be continually monitoring the full health of your body 949 00:56:15,600 --> 00:56:18,760 and alerting you to whenever something looks like it's going 950 00:56:18,760 --> 00:56:20,080 in the wrong direction? 951 00:56:20,080 --> 00:56:22,640 That's my hope. 952 00:56:22,640 --> 00:56:25,760 I think the idea that we can act as a safety net, this technology 953 00:56:25,760 --> 00:56:28,720 can really catch you before you, before you get really sick 954 00:56:28,720 --> 00:56:30,360 and have to go to a hospital. 955 00:56:30,360 --> 00:56:32,960 What you're describing is trying to make it so that people 956 00:56:32,960 --> 00:56:34,840 don't get sick in the first place. Right. 957 00:56:38,320 --> 00:56:41,160 Fitness trackers have proven benefits, 958 00:56:41,160 --> 00:56:45,280 and the idea of preventative health care is really compelling. 959 00:56:46,800 --> 00:56:51,000 I think it's just a different way to think about your own health. 960 00:56:51,000 --> 00:56:56,040 It's changing from medicine being only about fixing problems, 961 00:56:56,040 --> 00:56:59,360 to think of your health as preventing problems 962 00:56:59,360 --> 00:57:01,040 from arising in the first place. 963 00:57:01,040 --> 00:57:04,640 But I think I'm going to end on a note of caution. 964 00:57:04,640 --> 00:57:07,920 As these devices get more and more sensors, 965 00:57:07,920 --> 00:57:09,720 as they get more sophisticated, 966 00:57:09,720 --> 00:57:15,320 we are going to amass this gigantic dataset of how an entire population 967 00:57:15,320 --> 00:57:19,280 of people are living and exercising, 968 00:57:19,280 --> 00:57:23,160 and, of course, can be an enormous source of good. 969 00:57:23,160 --> 00:57:26,880 But I do also think, if we don't get things right with privacy 970 00:57:26,880 --> 00:57:28,600 and security... 971 00:57:30,280 --> 00:57:32,440 ..that it could do quite a lot of damage, too. 972 00:57:35,400 --> 00:57:37,960 Next time - the trainer. 973 00:57:40,120 --> 00:57:44,240 It's the story of an American breakfast that inspired our "soles". 974 00:57:44,240 --> 00:57:46,800 Look, I've got other skills, OK. 975 00:57:46,800 --> 00:57:51,480 A family feud that created two of the biggest trainer brands. 976 00:57:51,480 --> 00:57:54,280 They had different ideas, really, how to run the business. 977 00:57:56,440 --> 00:57:59,200 Oh, and an 18th-century china tea set. 978 00:57:59,200 --> 00:58:01,280 Anything not perfect is smashed. 979 00:58:04,040 --> 00:58:07,240 To explore the interesting dilemmas behind some familiar pieces 980 00:58:07,240 --> 00:58:13,800 of technology and to hear some of my own thoughts, go to - 981 00:58:13,800 --> 00:58:16,120 and follow the links to the Open University.