MWC: Qualcomm goes wireless walking

At this year’s Mobile World Congress, kicking off in Barcelona on Monday, Qualcomm will be holding a Wireless Walking Challenge in collaboration with the American Heart Association (AHA).

“Qualcomm Life is delighted to be working with the American Heart Association on the Wireless Walking Challenge by providing participants with a fun, engaging wireless solution to track physical activity to improve cardiovascular health,”” saidRick Valencia, vice president and general manager, Qualcomm Life. “”The openness of the 2net Platform allows challengers to select whichever device or app best suits them, enabling a truly personalized health experience where data is automatically collected and seamlessly aggregated across a variety of sensors, wireless technologies and applications.””

Qualcomm Life and the American Heart Association are working together to launch the Wireless Walking Challenge to encourage people to increase their physical activity in order to ultimately improve their heart health, and attendees of Mobile World Congress have the first opportunity to compete in this global challenge. To participate, attendees can download their choice of a mHealth app, including MapMyFitness, Noom or RunKeeper, or leverage a pre-owned activity monitoring device, including BodyMedia or Fitbit, to track their steps throughout the conference. The mHealth apps and devices are connected to the Wireless Walking Challenge app via the 2net Connect APIs, so participants’ steps are automatically updated and reflected in the app leaderboard. The Challenge app will be a central hub for participants to track their steps and earn prizes based on their total steps taken in relation to other participants enrolled in the challenge. The steps will be tracked via the web-based leaderboard and those with the three highest totals of steps at the end of each day will be awarded $200, $100 and $50 respectively. The grand prize, awarded to the participant with the most cumulative steps at the conference close, is a Dell XPS tablet. Participants and conference attendees are also encouraged to follow the challenge conversations on Twitter by following @QualcommLife and via the #WalkStar hashtag.

Expanded Availability of 2net Connect APIs

The Global 2net App Developer Challenge kicks-off today and runs through August 2013. Cash prizes will be awarded to the first, second and third place entries and will be in the amounts of €15,000, €10,000 and €5,000 respectively. The competition results will be announced at the Uplinq Conference held in San Diego in September 3-5, 2013.

Qualcomm Life’s 2net Connect APIs, previously only available in the United States, create a consolidated stream of biometric data that can be leveraged across multiple data-enabled platforms, including Andriod, iOS, Microsoft and BlackBerry. The value of this consolidated data stream is compounded by the fact that the 2net Ecosystem has grown to be one of the most comprehensive and open wireless ecosystems in the world, with over 220 customers and technology enablers.

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