New parents, or those who are about to become parents (like yours truly), are always looking out for new ways to provide the best care for their children. One area that has seen quite a bit of growth, but not much in the way of innovation, is the monitoring of the child while they sleep. Currently, there are audio and video monitors or intrusive devices that connect to your child to monitor their sleeping habits but team "Miracle Workers", who are finalists in the US Imagine Cup, have come up with a solution that utilizes the cloud: a smartphone and a napping pad with sensors.
The product works by placing a pad into the child"s crib that the baby will sleep on. The pad contains a handful of sensors that can monitor heartbeats, respiration and movements, and then syncs this data to a Windows 8 PC or a smartphone. This information is then sent to the appropriate device and can display the vitals on a Live Tile, allowing you glance-and-go capability for monitoring your child"s health.
This simple implementation is a fantastic glimpse into the vision of Microsoft"s Imagine Cup, as the competition brings together great ideas and innovative developers to build products for the greater good. With the competition entering into its latter stages before the worldwide finals in July, we will continue to highlight more of the entries to show you what students around the world are developing.
Oh, and another cool fact about this application: one of its team members is a long time Neowin reader, Emon.