The MOVband uses the same technology that most more expensive pedometers do: a 3D accelerometer in a solid state chipset.

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Dr Wittlinger, therefore, decided to investigate a century-old hypothesis that desert ants have internal pedometers in other words, they count their steps out, and they count them back.

ECONOMIST: Ants find their way home using pedometers

Those are the same tools used by fitness-oriented digital pedometers to track the number of steps a user has taken, their speed, the distance they've climbed and other location-based data.

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Some devices are pedometers, tracking steps.

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Google Now may not be the computer of the future that predicts your every need, but as people get more comfortable with their personal data being used to analyze them, predictive apps can expand their scope to collect even more data from tools such as wearable pedometers and other sensors.

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