Items tagged with Health
Concerned about cooties? Don't be, they're not actually real, no matter what bullies told you in grade school however many years ago. But germs and bacteria are, and if you stop to think about it, all these touch devices we use everyday are hotbeds for grossness. Acer's solution? Apply an antimicrobial coating to certain laptops, tablets, and other devices. This is a different kind of 'clean computing', folks. And probably more effective than bundling in a bar of soap with new laptops. What's at play here is a special coating that purportedly reduces the growth of microbes from high-touch surfaces, so your fancy hardware can "stay cleaner longer," according to Acer. But please, still wash your...
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With all the madness in 2020 surrounding COVID-19, we are starting to go full Cyberpunk now it appears. LG has unveiled an interesting looking new wearable air purifier that doubles as a mask. To be introduced during IFA 2020, this device will help you fight off viruses while looking futuristic as all get-out. Among all the masks, there have been numerous issues with varying quality and safety. LG aims to take care of this problem with their LG PuriCare Wearable Air Purifier. This device will sit on your face, not taking up much more space than a regular filtered canister mask. The LG press release says this mask uses “two H13 HEPA filters, similar to the filters used in the company’s...
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In the future, we may have AI become a part of our brains to monitor every aspect of our body and control objects in the real world. In the meantime, we will have to stick to utilizing AI in our devices to catch the things we cannot. Today, Amazon is introducing AI-powered Amazon Halo, “a new service dedicated to helping customers improve their individual health and wellness.” Amazon Halo (not like the other Halo) is a health and wellness app paired with the Halo Band. The band consists of an “accelerometer, a temperature sensor, a heart rate monitor, two microphones, an LED indicator light, and a button to turn the microphones on or off, among other functions.”...
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Update - 3:44PM ET 6/21/19: This article has been updated to reflect skepticism of the claims made by researchers and any direct causation with the symptom of bone spurs in the subjects of the study. Some recent biomechanics research suggests that young people are developing horn-like spikes at the back of their skulls due to excessive mobile phone use. These bone spurs are reportedly caused by the forward tilt of the head, which shifts the weight from the spine to the muscles in the back of the head. That tilt is reportedly causing bone growth in the connecting tendons and ligaments. The scientists involved in the study claim that the weight transfer that causes the build-up is comparative to...
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CT scans are essential tools that help medical practitioners detect various medical conditions. Healthcare providers rely on the accuracy of these technologies, because a misdiagnosis could prove fatal. Unfortunately, this vital technology is vulnerable to hackers. Researchers recently designed malware that can add or take away fake cancerous nodules from CT and MRI scans. Researchers at the University Cyber Security Research Center in Israel developed malware that can modify CT and MRI scans. During their research, they showed radiologists real lung CT scans, 70 of which had been altered. At least three radiologists were fooled nearly every time. A CT Scan of a brain trauma. Image from Rehman...
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There has been a lot of talk recently about Apple trying to move the Apple Watch from simply being a fashion wearable to a legitimate medical device with the integration of heart monitoring features. The KardiaBand heart EKG accessory is already available and FDA approved to allow at-risk people to accurately monitor their heart. Sources are now saying that Apple is working on its own EKG heart monitor tech that will be integrated directly into the watch. This could have a massive impact on these third-party accessories like the KardiaBand. Sources claim that one version in testing now requires the wearer to squeeze the frame of the Apple Watch with two fingers from the hand not wearing the watch....
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We've been warned about the potential risks of cell phone use due to radiation for ages, but to date, there hasn't been definitive information published that would warrant some sort of formal government or industry action. Nothing changes with that today, but California's Department of Public Health has deemed the risks to be high enough to issue a warning so that perhaps some users won't use these devices as much, as well as get out of the habit of regularly keeping them close to our bodies. The CDPH admits that the "science is still evolving", so again, there's no reason for immediate alarm here, but it goes on to say that many public health professionals are growing concerned about the constant...
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Amazon has been a massively disruptive force in the retail industry and has changed the way that people shop online. Prime members get free video streaming and free two-day shipping on many items making Amazon one of the top shopping destination online. It seems that soon Amazon could be expanding its offerings with pharmacy items, as it has now gained wholesale pharmacy licenses in what is seemingly preparation in multiple states for a push into the drug industry; something that was first mentioned earlier this month.Amazon has yet to confirm that it will be entering the prescription drug market, but public records show it has gained wholesale pharmacy licenses and there is no other clear reason...
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A myriad of devices are powered by processors or SoCs featuring ARM technology. From your smartphone or smartwatch, to your router or media streamer -- and a multitude of devices in between -- odds are that an ARM-based processor has some sort of impact on your daily life. While out covering ARM TechCon, which is currently underway in Santa Clara, we got a glimpse of a device being built by Heartfelt Technologies leveraging ARM processors by way of the popular Raspberry Pi, that could actually end up saving your life.The device is wall-mounted camera system for in-home patient monitoring, which captures cardiovascular information whenever a patient walks past. The camera system specifically looks...
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Amazon has been an incredibly disruptive force as the world’s most dominant online retailer. Not only has Amazon crushed other online retailers that have attempted to compete with it, but brick and mortar retailers have also come under immense pressure (or folded completely) due to the company's ever-growing footprint. Most recently, Amazon expanded its presence in the grocery market with the purchase of Whole Foods, and now the company is reportedly eyeing another adjacent leap into online prescription drug sales. According to a report from CNBC, Amazon will make a decision before Thanksgiving as to whether it will establish its first beachhead in the highly lucrative prescription drug market....
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We have been talking about benefits of machine-learning investments for quite some time. There's simply an incredible amount of potential and opportunities that can come from these learning machines - especially where the medical field is concerned. IBM's Watson might have been one of the first major computers to be used in this way, but the number of dedicated learning machines out there continues to grow by the day. The human body (and the systems of any living thing, in general) is seriously complex. Doctors can do their best to diagnose issues, but as a mere mortal, there's just no guarantee that they'll be able to correctly detect all ailments, especially when diagnosing certain issues in...
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At HotHardware, we unfortunately have to frequently write about security and privacy breaches, and those breaches can seriously affect their victims. But while a cyberattack on a bank might make for a bad day, nothing could compare to a cyberattack on equipment that helps keep their owners alive. If you have a family member using a pacemaker, for example, you want to be confident in its ability to thwart potential attacks. The Food and Drug Administration wholeheartedly agrees, and it proves it through in-depth guidelines for makers of life-saving devices. The FDA doesn't sugar-coat the importance, stating, "Failure to maintain cybersecurity can result in compromised device functionality, loss...
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Now that the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive are here, virtual reality is finally starting to spread. Let's cross our fingers that ocular herpes doesn't follow suit. We're not pulling that worry out of thin air—Twitter user @Drfit0r posted a screenshot of VR developers having a conversation with a game studio about ocular herpes "going around VR headsets" at events where people demo them. Public events where people share gadgets and gizmos are breeding grounds for germs, which is one reason why you often see people carrying around little bottles of hand sanitizer. But just as germs can spread from game controllers, smartphones, and other handheld items, they can also hitch a ride on VR headsts and land...
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Top talent is highly coveted in the tech industry, so it's no surprise that Apple jumped at the chance to bring one of the one of the biggest brains in robotics on board. Her name is Yoky Matsuoka and she's joining Apple to help with the outfit's health and fitness initiative, a growing trend in mobile and wearables. Matsuoka has an impressive resume, one that includes co-founding Google's X lab and serving as head of technology at Nest. She was bound for a vice president role at Twitter last year, but decided to turn down the job offer after being diagnosed what she described on Medium as a life-threatening illness. "Before I started work at Twitter full time, I took some time to get treatment...
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Living with a disability isn't easy for anyone, and it can be downright depressing for a kid who is bursting with energy and loaded with ambition. Fortunately, there do exist people out there who want to make sure those living with disabilities are able to more easily deal with them, and in the case of startup Open Bionics, its goal is to make sure kids can actually make some fun out of it. Soon, kids requiring prosthetics will be able to get some very interesting designs. Open Bionics has teamed up with The Walt Disney Company to let kids sport designs modeled after Iron Man, Elsa, and even Star Wars. Given that business is business, no one could blame you if you thought that this would result...
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Google prides itself on being able to deliver relevant search results in an instant. In some cases, results could be displayed before the query is even finished being typed out. Whether you're seeking song lyrics, a drink recipe, or flight information, Google's become quite good at getting you the right information, fast. It's hard to argue though that most of that instant information isn't "important". What is, is health information. In some cases, that information might genuinely be needed right that moment, while in other cases, it might not be so time-sensitive. Whatever the urgency, though, health is one area where Google is pushing hard to improve its overall search experience. In a new...
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Psychologists at the University of Exeter and Cardiff University have published a study that demonstrates how a simple computer game can help people lose weight. Participants in the study who played the specialized game lost and average of 1.5 pounds in the first seven days, and 4.5 pounds after six months. They also reduced their daily caloric consumption by 220 calories. Dr. Natalia Lawrence led the team of researchers that developed the computer game for the study. It was designed to train people to resist unhealthy food snack foods through a "stop versus go" process. Participants sat in front of a Pentium 3 PC running Matlab software on a 17-inch monitor. They were then instructed to press...
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Each day, we're bombared with new transistors, faster memory, and GPUs that can crank out a few additional frames per second. And while all of these things are certainly nifty, they aren't exactly having a revolutionary impact on the whole of humanity. That's where Samsung's newest innovation comes in: it's more than a new consumer product, it's an item that's engineered to help people with disabilities. EYECAN+ is Samsung's second-generation eye mouse, which enables people with disabilities to "compose and edit documents as well as browse the web through simple eye movement."What's so special about this rendition is that there is no associated eyewear. No glasses, no headgear. It's a single,...
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In case you haven't noticed, companies small and large seem to believe that health -- and in particular, connected health -- is the next major cash cow. As fitness slots into the mainstream attention, it's an ideal time for the likes of Apple, Google, LG, Samsung, Fitbit, and now Microsoft to make a splash in both health and wearables. Microsoft is joining the war this week with a new platform called Microsoft Health. According to the company, it sees an opportunity to bring devices and services together to allow end users to "combine the information they collect and use the power of the cloud to turn that data in to something more valuable." The Microsoft Health platform includes a cloud service...
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Google is responsible for a lot of things that have made our lives better. Better search, better email, and one impressive mobile operating system. But beyond its commercial success sits a research department that's doing fascinating stuff. Project Loon is helping rural areas around the globe receive Internet for the first time, and it appears that Google's fixation on health is going to extend well beyond a simple app. The company's Google X division has announced a project whereby researchers are building nanoparticles that "combine a magnetic material with antibodies or proteins that can attach to and detect other molecules inside the body." The goal? To enable patients to simply swallow a...
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We talked about the possibility of virtual doctor visits last spring, and discovered that it's a prospect most people seem to be in favor of. And who could blame them? The only thing worse than wasting away sitting in a doctor's office waiting anxiously for your name to be called is standing in line at the DMV anxiously waiting for your name to be called. Thankfully, the future of virtual doctor visits is here, albeit with a slow rollout. Recently, Google launched a new feature in its search engine that utilizes Hangouts to connect people to a live doctor. In the example below, knee pain is searched for, and an option to connect to a doctor is revealed directly below the search. During this limited...
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Any health expert will tell you that sitting on your rump for hours on end each day is detrimental to your well being. Yet, that's what many of us do, sitting tethered to our PCs as we toil for the fat cats in charge. The wiser (and more fit) among us have adopted standing desks, and the truly health conscious have even adapted treadmills into their daily work routine. But you can trump them all by building your very own Hamster Wheel Standing Desk. You can thank artist Robb Godshaw and Instructables developer Will Doenlen for this ingenious and cleverly designed contraption. It's also depressing in a way, serving as a daily reminder that all you're really doing is spinning your wheels and getting...
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