BioBeats: Making music with your pulse

Startup BioBeats plans to join biometrics with entertaining apps to create tools that help you stay healthy -- and that collect troves of data that medical researchers can use.


photo: Pulse, designed by BioBeats, gives users an approximation of their heartbeat using the iPhone camera.

In the vision of BioBeats CEO Nadeem Kassam, medical research shouldn't be restricted to a lab. Rather, it should be something that takes place in real time around the world, using readily available technology like smartphones -- and that gets participants involved through entertainment.

That's one of the ideas behind this self-described "big-data mobile-health company," which announced a $650,000 funding round Thursday, with investors as diverse as rapper-turned-film-star Will Smith and mobile software firm Eniac Ventures.

The company's overall concept is a bit complicated, but here's a chunk of it. With a smartphone app called Pulse, developed by BioBeats, users can take an approximate measure of their heartbeat in real time and broadcast it to the company.

BioBeats' ultimate goal is to collect, store, and analyze biometric data -- starting with cardiovascular info and branching out into other "quantified self" realms like sleep-tracking and daily calorie burning -- and use it to evolve mobile entertainment apps designed to help people maintain healthy lifestyles. And, through future clinical-grade apps, it will also participate in medical research that's in desperate need of real-time numbers from people around the world.

But what if promised health benefits aren't enough to compel people to send their heartbeats to BioBeats? That's where the entertainment comes in. Picture these people at a hip-hop show where their heartbeats can be translated into drum kicks or other sonic goodies and become part of the mix. It's the love of music that prompts people to send in their data.