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Mobile weight loss pilot in Japan
Yesterday, Rod Falcon and I met with Dr. Atsushi Ito from the KDDI R&D Laboratories (KDDI is the #2 mobile carrier in Japan). He told us about a pilot that his lab ran designed to support weight loss among company employees. This is an important application since the Japanese government is requiring companies to work with overweight employees to lose weight (or be fined). The second version of the pilot will be launched later this year with a larger group of employees.
A new player in the online health care marketplace
Courtesy of my colleague, IFTF Research Affiliate Richard Adler:
American Well is a new company that is creating a "online healthcare marketplace." On its website (www.americanwell.com), it states that consumers can,
"Talk to a doctor anytime, without leaving home or scheduling an appointment. Choose from a variety of specialties and connect with the doctor who is right for you."
Innovation in Africa: "Inside Nairobi, the Next Palo Alto?"
Interesting article describing the innovation capacity of Africa. Mobile devices may be the vehicle by which the African continent can flex it's innovation muscle. More than home electronics/computers/cars, mobile devices are in the hands of many people in the African continent and they are teaching the Western world how to innovate with these devices.
Article from NY Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/20/business/worldbusiness/20ping.html?ex=...
On-the-go heart monitoring
Researchers affiliated with Northern Ireland's University of Ulster have developed a disposable adhesive electrode patch that uses wireless technology to transmit information about a patient's heart and other vital data (like respiratory rate, temperature, and blood oxygenation levels). According to the university's press release,
iPhone and citizen science
Alexis Madrigal throws a link to the X2 Project in his post on the addition of GPS in the iPhone:
With Steve Jobs' announcement that the iPhone 3G will have geolocation built-in, plenty of people are excited about finding good restaurants near them or worried about the privacy implications....
Abundant mobility and hacks
I am in India conducting research, and as always amazed by the variety of cell phones and hacks that are available. One of our research partners brought my attention to the fact that many people in India have unlocked iphones, and have jail-breaked their iphones to install 'non-Apple" applications. A popular application is twinkle -- a twitter client that includes location based service. Twinkle is very popular with iphone users in India, who use it to twitter. It does not require sending a SMS for twittering. Iphone has not been officially launched in India as yet. It is expected to arrive later this year. But that is certainly not a deterrent for tech savvy Indians who aspire to own the iphones.
Fast food facts on the go
I love it when our local rag, the Palo Alto Daily News, is the the source for one of my posts. And it's even more fun when a headline is brought to my attention by a colleague while we are in downtown Palo Alto's only "dive" bar. (I hope I don't get in trouble for revealing too much!) And best of all, the story is about a company that I recently discovered and about which I have been meaning to write something.
"Getting your fingers on fast-food nutritional details" ran yesterday. As the lead 'graph says: "Calorie-counting fast-food lovers may be heartened to know there's a new source for nutrition information at their fingertips."
Have cell phone, will get medical care
A couple of weeks ago, I came across a Business Week headline that warmed the cockles of my Health Horizons blogger heart: "Medical Advances--Through Your iPhone?" The article describes several mobile phone health apps.
Cell phones and health in the developing world
Jan Chipchase is a "user anthropologist" for Nokia, the Finnish cell phone company; he travels the globe to study how people use and think about cell phones. A recent New York Times Magazine article profiles Jan and examines the role of cell phones in the developing world.
Have you taken your smart pill today?
Coming soon to a pharmacy near you . . . pills that can monitor when they have been taken and what effects they are having on your body. Michael Chorost, who spoke at IFTF's recent Ten Year Forecast Conference, reports in MIT's Technology Review about Proteus Biomedical's development of in-body computing platforms.
Grad students designing the future
The Health Horizons Program often uses "iBuyRight" as a signal of the impact of mobile phone technology. It is an application that can provide shoppers with social and environmental information about a product, enabling them to make purchases aligned with their personal values. iBuyRight was developed as a thesis project by some graduate students at UCBerkeley's School of Information.
Citizen Science meets art in San Francisco
Last weekend, an artist-run organization called Southern Exposure (SoEx) held a hands-on workshop in San Francisco that invited people to "[j]oin a team of researchers, artists, and practitioners in a citizen based participatory field study." Participants took part in "collecting, gathering, and analyzing the urban environment in [the city] using a collection of mobile, networked sensors called sensr: citizen science * air quality.
Your heart rate monitor watch will soon be obsolete . . .
I was cruising for something to blog about when I came across this headline: "DIY pervasive health monitor keeps tabs on your vitals." Do-it-yourself health? Persuasive technology? Six months ago, I wouldn't have had any idea of what those terms meant (nor would you have ever found me blogging). But I have learned a lot during my relatively short tenure at IFTF, and now I can recognize a Health Horizons blog-worthy story when I see one.
On-the-Go Health for Kids?
We explored Mobile Health technology at our Spring Conference (see our forecast and related scenarios under publications)--and we will continue to do so in the coming months.
Mobile technology is more than just a communications channel. It can be used as a tool for self-knowledge, for remote monitoring of medical conditions, and as an interface to access health information.
