When IBM's Watson supercomputer took down Jeopardy champ Ken Jennings just about two years ago, IBM let slip that Watson's next gig would be as a voice-enabled physician's assistant. Now IBM is giving us a little more information, releasing a video demo that shows how Watson might help an oncologist diagnose and treat a cancer patient.
The demo, which warns that it's "not necessarily a direct...
Screenshot from a Senseye demo video (click to watch on YouTube)
A Danish startup company that lets people control mobile devices and computers with their eyes has won the innovation challenge at the largest health IT conference in Europe.
The company, Senseye, has developed a software algorithm that uses the front-facing camera on a smartphone, tablet or PC and an add-on or built-in infrared...
About 12 years ago engineers at IBM began to sketch out an idea for a weight loss application that rewarded employees for eating healthy food, according to a recent report in the New York Times. The article follows the story of the patent IBM secured late last year for this long-awaited healthy eating rewards application.
One important detail that the Times seems to have missed is that within a...
At the HIMSS 2012 meeting in February members of the Asthmapolis team told MobiHealthNews that its inhaler tracking technology would soon find a wide deployment in Louisville, Kentucky. A recent report in the Louisville Courier-Journal detailed the Asthmapolis deployment, which is set to go live some time this May with 500 people. Previous Asthmapolis programs only included a few dozen...
UPMC's Dr. Andrew Watson
The long-awaited boom in home-based, wireless health monitoring devices might happen sooner rather than later. In fact, Dr. Andrew Watson, medical director of the UPMC Center for Connected Medicine in Pittsburgh, believes that it will start in the next six to 12 months.
"Right now, the devices are so close," Watson says. And the biggest driver will be cost avoidance,...
IBM has acquired Israel-based mobile platform developer Worklight for an undisclosed sum. Worklight offers mobile application management to companies in a number of sectors, including healthcare. According to the acquisition announcement, Worklight is set to become a key component of IBM's mobility strategy. IBM will leverage Worklight to help enterprise clients "speed the delivery of existing...
A Canadian university is building a "smart condo" outfitted with sensors and sophisticated monitoring software to research how wireless devices can promote independent living for the elderly.
Following a successful test at a rehab facility, the Edmonton-based University of Alberta is building a permanent smart condo at the school's new Edmonton Clinic Health Academy. The system relies on three...
IBM, General Electric, Philips and other large tech firms have lobbied the FCC for at least the past year to allow wireless medical devices to use a range of wireless spectrum (2360MHz to 2400MHz) for vital sign monitoring. A recent report from Bloomberg, however, revealed that aircraft maker Boeing uses that range of spectrum to test the safety of its planes.
Plane safety vs. wireless health...
Text4Baby update: Forty states are in the process of creating Text4Baby coalitions and encouraging nurses to talk up the program, according to a recent report in Time magazine. The report also notes that another major television channel, besides MTV, is also promoting the text message powered service: Telemundo. More
iPlato has a new customer, this time outside of the UK: Lexum European Eye...
Earlier this month at the Mobile Healthcare Industry Summit, Vodafone Group CEO Vittoro Colao announced that the carrier was working with pharmaceutical company Novartis on a program called SMS For Life in Tanzania. Vodafone, Novartis and their partner IBM announced the program officially today.
As Colao noted, the program covers some 135 villages (more than 1 million people) in Tanzania after...
