Brainworks is combining artificial intelligence and simple smartphone camera images to automatically detect someone's heart rate or breathing rate. And that's just one of the avenues the Emeryville, California-based company is pursuing in its work to use intelligent ambient biometric sensors to improve health care. Brainworks CEO Phillip Alvelda spoke at our VB Transform AI event on Thursday, and he demoed the technology in real time, both onstage and in an interview. He said health care should be more preventative than reactive. With that in mind, the company's technology is contactless and always-on, though it only works if users have opted in for the constant monitoring, which -- unlike most medical equipment -- is physically non-invasive. That's particularly important when it comes to monitoring the heartbeat of a premature baby, whose skin is so sensitive it can be harmed by patches and wires associated with vital sign monitors.

The U.S. Department of Defense is moving forward with its work on brain-computer interfaces (BCIs), with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) awarding contracts to five research groups and one private company on Tuesday. BCIs have been around for a while now, but the potential for expanding their capabilities is relatively recent. The primary purpose of BCIs have been developing better neuroprostheses, which is also one of the visions of DARPA's Neural Engineering System Design (NESD) program. Through NESD, DARPA wants to develop high-resolution brain interfaces that could restore and enhance human senses. "The NESD program looks ahead to a future in which advanced neural devices offer improved fidelity, resolution, and precision sensory interface for therapeutic applications," founding NESD program manager Phillip Alvelda said at the announcement, the Singularity Archive reports.