Tag: health

Facebook Introduces New Feature To Help Increase Blood Donations In India

Facebook has introduced a new feature in India in a bid to connect blood donors across India with hospitals and organisations in need of blood. Facebook cites “shortage of safe blood” in India as the reason behind this step. In a blog, Facebook said that users in India already use the wide spread platform to connect donors with donees. Facebook will use its network to help both the parties here by helping donors sign up and work with NGOs, health industry experts to make sure the method useful.

In the blog, Facebook posted about the process and how the feature will work:

Starting October 1 — National Blood Donor Day — Facebook users in India will be able to start signing up to be blood donors. To help encourage participation, we’ll show a message in News Feed or people can edit their Profiles to sign up. All information will remain private and set to “only me” by default, but people can choose to share their donor status on their timelines.

In the next few weeks, in order to easily connect blood banks, hospitals or NGOs with donors, Facebook will introduce custom posts wherein all the necessary details can be given. Facebook will then notify potential donors near to the entered location. Donors can then review the request and, if they wish to respond, contact the requestor directly through WhatsApp, Messenger or a phone call. To maintain anonymity, the person who needs blood won’t be able to see any information about the donor, unless the donor explicitly provides it when he/she reaches out to the person in need of blood.

The post continued:

We hope this new feature helps people come together in ways that weren’t possible before. By raising awareness and growing the number of blood donors in India, we want to make it easier for people and organisations to give and receive blood.

If you want to sign up for the program or learn more about the initiative, log on to facebook.com/donateblood.

September 28, 2017
5 Cool Wearables for Pets

If you think wearables are a piece of tech, from the future, here are wearables for your pets to take things a step further. From electric bow ties to little paw-cams, there is every kind of wearable out there available for your pets. And you thought pet-wearables were only about GPS trackers, didn’t you? Forget those obsolete little devils, they are a thing of the past. However, sadly enough, the majority of these wearables are for dogs, but hey, that’s a start.

1. FitBark : Dog Activity Monitor

FitBark, as the name suggests, is a tracker for your dog’s daily activities. It would monitor sleep which would be converted into what the company calls ‘BarkPoints’. The fitness tracker would explain changes in your dog’s behaviour based on biological and physiological changes. It can be linked to your FitBit helping to track both your and your pet’s fitness. Priced at $54.95, the FitBark can bought off the official website here.

2. WonderWoof Bluetooth Bow Tie

This is another kind of activity-tracker for your dog which uses Bluetooth to connect itself with its companion WonderWoof app. It is compatible with both iOS and Android devices. The monitor would keep you updated about the health status of your dog based on its breed, gender, age and size. This device also helps you set up a social network of sorts for your pet. Your friends’ pets can be connected to your tracker which would then give you notifications if they are in the vicinity.

Using the tracker, play dates, vet appointments and grooming sessions can be fixed. WonderWoof also has a waterproof rating of IP67. It can be bought off the official store for $95. At CES this year, where WonderWoof was launched, the company also mentioned a product called WonderMeow, but it won’t be able until the end of the year. No other details have been mentioned

3. PawsCam Remote Video Camera

Ever wonder what your pet was up to when you were not around? No, they don’t just sit there all day waiting for you to come back. And here is a device to prove that. PawsCam takes a 6-second video when it detects any movement which is auto-uploaded to PawsCam cloud. The user can access it on iOS devices or on the web. To make sure you get an uninterrupted record of your pet’s escapades, the device has been made to be shock-proof and is capable of lasting seven days with a single charge. The videos recorded are of 480p 30fps and require Wi-Fi to be sent to the cloud. PawsCam is available for $100.

4. Taillights

This is one of a kind wearable -even for the animal world. Taillights is a series of LED lights meant for horses. There are four strips of lights which are attached to the tail of the horse, making it visible even on a dark for up to a mile. This fantastic wearable is surely a good measure against road accidents. Police officials in the US and Canada use it for patrol-horses. The lights are available in multiple colours and flash patterns, along with festive options. Guess who can have a horse with a tail incandescent with red and green lights for the festive season this year? Taillights cost $145 on the official website.

5. GoPro Fetch

GoPro Fetch is basically a harness made by the company that lets you attach a GoPro (to be bought separately) to your little canine friends and then view the world from their point of view. Use it to watch your dog during “bone-chewing, digging and front-paw action”. The harness is washable, sturdy and tough enough to withstand exposure to mud and water. It can be purchased for a price of $49.99 off the GoPro website.

February 9, 2016
These Tiny Swallowable Sensors Analyze Your Health From Inside

A team of researchers at MIT have developed an ingestible sensor which will be able to assess your vital signs from inside the body. The sensor would pay special attention to the gastrointestinal tract while making both short and long term assessments easier for patients. Athletics and soldiers also stand to benefit from this new development in the realm of health related technology.

The sensor sits inside an almond-sized silicone capsule. The method of using this sensor internally will be very helpful with trauma patients like burn victims. Even though measurement of vital signs has evolved and developed tremendously over the years with ECGs and electronic stethoscopes being two efficient examples, all these are wearables which require skin contact. But ingestible devices completely eliminate the need for external contact with the patient’s body.

“What we did with our technology is identify components that were compatible with ingestion. These are very small microphones similar to the ones that are used in common cellphones and actually listen from within the body and [can] extract the heart rate and respiratory rate,” says a research affiliate at MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research.

The sensor works by picking up sound waves from both the heart as well as the lungs, along with the additional noise that comes from the digestive tract. The team overcame a major hurdle of devising a signal processing algorithm that can sieve and differentiate between the different kinds of noise and pay attention to the the heart beat and breathing.

This received data can be transmitted over a distance of as far as three meters. Once ingested, the capsular sensor would stay within the system for about a day, or two. For patients that require long term treatment, they might need to ingest these sensors more than once over a fixed period of time.

Image Source

November 21, 2015
Google’s Semi-Secret Facility Unveils a Health-Tracking Wristband

Rumour has it that Google X is currently working on an interesting wearable project. Google’s semi-secret workshop is one of the most innovation oriented institutions in the world. The research facility takes on some of the most fundamental questions on transportation, communication and others. Then, it takes an alternative bottom-up effort to understand them. The facility worked on concepts like Teleportation, Space elevators, and it is also the birthplace of projects like Google Glass, Driverless car and the upcoming Project Loon.

It is now developing a medical-grade wristband which will track health vitals such as heart-rate, pulse and skin-temperature on a “minute-by-minute” basis. The wristband will also measure external conditions such as room temperature and noise levels. The surprising thing is that Google won’t sell the device to general consumers, unlike Fitbit, which focuses on consumer wearables.

“Our intended use is for this to become a medical device that’s prescribed to patients or used for clinical trials,” said Andy Conrad, head of the life sciences team at Google, in an interview to Bloomberg. The device will allow doctors and medical researchers to keep track of a patient’s vitals outside the laboratory. Google wants the device to record accurate data, a function which can’t be expected from consumer-grade fitness wearables. The wristwatch can also make the research process more efficient, since the data collected from the patients can be easily organised and analysed.

Google X, the secret research wing of Google, is developing the wristwatch. The company will invite researchers and drug companies to test the device’s accuracy. The trial will start over summer, the company’s spokeswoman said.

June 24, 2015
Google Announces Calico, a New Company Focused on Health and Well-being

Google today announced Calico, a new company that will focus on health and well-being, in particular the challenge of aging and associated diseases. Arthur D. Levinson, Chairman and former CEO of Genentech and Chairman of Apple, will be Chief Executive Officer and a founding investor.

Announcing this new investment, Larry Page, Google CEO said:

Illness and aging affect all our families. With some longer term, moonshot thinking around healthcare and biotechnology, I believe we can improve millions of lives. It’s impossible to imagine anyone better than Art—one of the leading scientists, entrepreneurs and CEOs of our generation—to take this new venture forward.”

Arthur Levinson will remain Chairman of Genentech and a director of Hoffmann-La Roche, as well as Chairman of Apple. “ I’ve devoted much of my life to science and technology, with the goal of improving human health. Larry’s focus on outsized improvements has inspired me, and I’m tremendously excited about what’s next.”

Tim Cook, Chief Executive Officer of Apple, said:

For too many of our friends and family, life has been cut short or the quality of their life is too often lacking. Art(Arthur) is one of the crazy ones who thinks it doesn’t have to be this way. There is no one better suited to lead this mission and I am excited to see the results.”

Larry Page further mentioned on his Google+ post, This is a lot different from what Google does today. But as we explained in our first letter to shareholders, there’s tremendous potential for technology more generally to improve people’s lives. So don’t be surprised if we invest in projects that seem strange or speculative compared with our existing Internet businesses. And please remember that new investments like this are very small by comparison to our core business.

Calcio is California Life Company!

September 19, 2013
WIMM – The Wearable Android Module

The Wimm Module has been developed by Wimm Labs to be an extensible and customizable touchscreen module that can be incorporated into devices such as watches, remotes, and other modules that can be small enough to be integrated with wearable products.

The device sports a 1 inch square, full colour 160x160px capacitive touch screen display and its wifi and bluetooth ready versions also feature an accelerometer as well as a magnetometer. The devices run a modified version of the Android operating system and are compatible with most devices running Android, Blackberry or iOS.

Weighing only 22 g, the Wimm Modules are designed to be integrated into a wide range of products from watches and pendants to ‘Smart’ wallets. Possible applications include use as calendars and appointment books, pedometers, calorie counters and other health trackers, mobile payment solutions, music and video players, file storage, and universal remotes.

August 25, 2011
Bluetooth Specialist Interest Group adds Apple and Nordic to its Board (PR)

The Bluetooth SIG group announced yesterday that it’s added both Apple and Nordic Semiconductor to its board of directors.

Companies that it says will help it :

“drive Bluetooth technology’s expansion into platform and sensor markets.”

[Bluetooth SIG]

[toggle title_open=”COLLAPSE” title_closed=”READ THE PRESS RELEASE” hide=”yes” border=”yes” style=”default” excerpt_length=”0″ read_more_text=”Read More” read_less_text=”Read Less” include_excerpt_html=”no”]Bluetooth SIG Adds Apple and Nordic Semiconductor to Board of Directors

Industry Leaders Support Expansion of Bluetooth Technology into New Markets

KIRKLAND, Wash.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) today announced two new members to its board of directors from Apple and Nordic Semiconductor. Leaders in their perspective markets, Apple and Nordic join household names Intel, Motorola, Lenovo, Nokia, Microsoft, Ericsson AB, and Toshiba on the Bluetooth SIG board. These companies, plus the more than 14,500 additional Bluetooth SIG member companies, will drive Bluetooth technology’s expansion into platform and sensor markets.

“We see the importance of platform development and ultra-low power sensor silicon for Bluetooth technology and believe guidance and board participation from Apple and Nordic, industry leaders in these perspective fields, is essential,” said Michael Foley, Ph.D., executive director of the Bluetooth SIG. “We have set the ambitious goal of shipping five billion devices in 2015 – to get there we must continue to build a technology that will offer a simple and secure solution that can be found everywhere, in every type of device. These additions to our board will ensure we succeed in new markets we have targeted for growth.”

The way consumers utilize digital devices is undergoing a fundamental shift – mobile phones, laptops and tablets, TVs and even cars now stand to serve as hub devices that capture data from small sensors monitoring everything from footsteps, heart rate activity, blood pressure and sugar levels to house temperature. Hub devices turn that data into useful information at the application layer, then may push that information to the cloud. Apple and Nordic understand this shift; insight from Apple on platform development and Nordic for sensor silicon demands will ensure a smooth growth trajectory of Bluetooth v4.0 into these new areas.

Nordic Semiconductor’s Svein-Egil Nielsen brings extensive experience in R&D as well as his entrepreneurial spirit to the Bluetooth SIG. Nielsen’s vast understanding of the ultra-low power space and its demands will help guide continued development of the Bluetooth v4.0 specification.

“Bluetooth technology has been the main R&D focus at Nordic for the last six years and we are now in a position to enable new and exciting products for consumers,” said Svenn-Tore Larsen, CEO Nordic Semiconductor. “With our success in ultra-low power wireless technology, we know the market, applications and the customers. Nordic is proud to have the opportunity to extend this knowledge to the Bluetooth community.”

Apple and Nordic’s two-year appointments were agreed upon by unanimous vote of the current board of directors and will officially begin on July 1, 2011.

About Bluetooth® Wireless Technology

Bluetooth wireless technology is the global wireless standard enabling simple connectivity for a broad range of electronic devices. Version 4.0 featuring Bluetooth low energy technology creates new application opportunities for products within the mobile phone, consumer electronics, PC, automotive, health & wellness, sports & fitness and smart home industries. With nearly two billion devices shipping annually, Bluetooth technology is the only proven wireless solution for developers, product manufacturers, and consumers worldwide. Backed by industry leading companies, the Bluetooth SIG empowers more than 14,500 member companies to collaborate, innovate and guide Bluetooth wireless technology. For more information please visit www.bluetooth.com. Bluetooth wireless technology: Simple. Secure. Everywhere.[/toggle]

June 24, 2011
The Cancer sniffer costs 10,000 Rs. and takes only an hour!

The scientists, from Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, have developed the nuclear magnetic resonance scanner which uses antibodies and magnetic particles to identify cancerous cells. The device costs only 10,000 Rupees / 200$ and is the size of a blood sugar monitor. You need to insert a needle full of sample tissue, for the device to start processing the cells for cancer. And at the end you need – an – iPod / iPad / iPhone to read the results thanks to an already avaialable application.

The scanner has a 96 % accuracy, compared Vis-à-vis the conventional 84% accuracy using traditional methods, makes this device a pretty great invention.

Talk about a “magical device” eh Steve Jobs! The fact that the iPhone is used so often in the medical world, in new innovations like this “One hour Cancer Sniffer” makes it truly “MAGICAL”

[Gizmodo]

February 25, 2011
New Imaging technique could end Biopsies for Doctors, make patients happy

Biopsies are used to detect cancer cells in body tissue or matter, and usually involve an invasive and painful method. A new technique developed by a professor at the University of Rochester will take high-resolution 3D images under the skin’s surface, potentially eliminating the need for biopsies in cancer detection. Professor Jannick Rolland created a prototype that uses a liquid lens, in which a droplet of water replaces the standard glass lens, in conjunction with near-infrared light, to take thousands of pictures at varying depths. Those images are then combined to create clear, 3D renderings of what lies up to one millimeter below your epidermis.

While these methods have already been tested on Humans and under human skin, the professor claims that the method is a long way from full launch. Possibly years!

Either way , looks like we are getting closer and closer to a possible cure to the dreaded disease.

February 23, 2011
Steve Jobs takes leave of absence for Medical reasons – Assigns Tim to take over.

This may not be technology news, But, he is our favorite CEO. This time around a memo from Steve states that he will be taking leave of absence to “focus on his health”. read the full memo below.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs today sent the following email to all Apple employees:

Team,

At my request, the board of directors has granted me a medical leave of absence so I can focus on my health. I will continue as CEO and be involved in major strategic decisions for the company.

I have asked Tim Cook to be responsible for all of Apple’s day to day operations. I have great confidence that Tim and the rest of the executive management team will do a terrific job executing the exciting plans we have in place for 2011.

I love Apple so much and hope to be back as soon as I can. In the meantime, my family and I would deeply appreciate respect for our privacy.

Steve

It’s unclear whether this leave of absence is related to his 2009 liver transplant or his earlier battles with pancreatic cancer. Here is hoping that he is fit and well soon enough , else the new iPad 2 launch may not be as exciting as we would want it to be.

Via : Twitter

Source : Apple

January 17, 2011