Apple's Health-Tracking EarPods Might Launch Soon

It would seem that Apple's PR and social media department has been working overtime again to keep the rumor mill stoked and buzzing. But that's what they do...

One has the sneaking suspicion that someone (or perhaps several someones) keeps a realtime tweet rate monitor on their desktop and whenever the numbers fall below a certain threshold, out pops a fresh, tantalizing tidbit of "insider" gossip.

We recently reported that the Cupertino company had added medtech veteran Divya Nag to its roster, and in late March, summed the available intelligence on Apple's health-monitoring technology.

The latest hot news, all from anonymous sources of course, is that health-monitoring EarPods are in the works. Christopher Freeburn, writing for Investorplace, reports a posting that claims to have knowledge that Apple's new EarPods will feature heart rate and blood pressure-monitoring sensors. The poster also said that the new earbuds will employ Apple's iBeacons location-finding technology "so they don't get lost," and also noted that the EarPods will use the lightning port to connect to iOS devices.

The UK's Guardian, retweeting from the same post as Freeburn, added that the poster wrote, "[the phone] stores the data in a similar way to thumbprint point data, fully encrypted and nothing identifiable. But nice to send to your doctor to keep track of at which point your blood pressure started rising, for example."

There was also the suggestion that the headphones will be introduced when iOS 8, the next version of Apple's iPhone and iPad operating system, is released. iOS8 is widely expected to debut in September, which would maintain the company's cycle of updates to its iPhone line and be just in time for the Christmas selling season.

Other, semi-corraborating, word comes from a source who spoke with MacRumors' Juli Clover told her that MIT researcher Eric Winokur will soon be joining Apples wearables team. Winokur did research at MIT's Medical Electronic Devices Realization Center, has published papers on ear-worn wearable vital signs monitors. Clover says his LinkedIn page lists one of his specialties as "wearable medical device R&D."

And in other Mac news, this time verifiable, 9to5Mac wrote that Apple has confirmed that it has bought LuxVue Technology, a company that develops low-power, microLED-based display technology for consumer tech products. Quoting a report on TechCrunch, 9to5Mac says, "LuxVue had managed to remain fairly quiet over the past few years, and what we know is that the company develops low-power, micro-LED-based displays for consumer electronics. We've heard Apple acquired the company to add to their hardware innovations area."

Stephen Levy is a contributor to Qmed and MPMN.