Blog | News & Information on Wireless Services & Telecommunications
Posted: 06/14/10
It’s beginning to seem like no feat is too large for the wonderful world of wireless. So in the future, don’t be surprised when the latest wireless advancement isn’t merely something you can text or tweet, but something you can… wear?
Sure enough, developers have introduced prototypes for a new ‘smart’ clothing, which use wireless biosensors to measure a wearer’s physiological conditions throughout the day. The information is sent to the user’s smartphone or PDA that maps the findings in an emotional database, and in turn responds with a pre-determined message depending on the wearer’s emotional state.
The inspirational sayings can come in the form of text messages scrolling across the garment’s sleeve, via video streaming across the corresponding handheld device, or as sound clips spoken by loved ones that come from speakers embedded in the clothing.
The technology is still in its nascent stages, but the potential positive ramifications it could have across varying industries—including its medicinal uses—are already being explored.
So while it may be a while before Mobile Future shows at Bryant Park, we’re certainly not surprised that wireless may soon be wearable (and no… we’re not talking something like this).
Posted: 05/25/10 by Mobile Future Team
If you didn’t catch 60 Minutes on Sunday night, you missed an amazing segment on how mobile apps will revolutionize our lives. The show profiled Marty Cooper, grandfather of the cell phone, who at age 81 is still among the top futurists of our mobile future.
Take mobile technology and healthcare. As Cooper told Morley Safer:
“Healthcare is going to be revolutionized because you will have sensors at various points on your body measuring different things. And a computer somewhere or maybe a doctor will be examining you all the time…. If you could measure [vital signs] all the time, you could predict heart failures. You could predict diabetes. And you could prevent all these things.”
In one sense, the mobile healthcare revolution has already started. See here and here as examples. But as everyone from Marty Cooper on down would agree, mobile technology has only started to scratch the healthcare surface.
For two-minute version of the 60 Minutes show on YouTube, click here. For the complete 60 Minutes interview, click here.
Posted: 05/18/10 by Jonathan Spalter
"High speed Internet empowers people with disabilities to become more independent. [It] can remove barriers that keep people with disabilities from participating in everyday activities such as employment, education, civic responsibilities and social connection."
From a joint statement by: The American Association of People with Disabilities and The Communications Workers of America
For America's 54 million people with disabilities, two important events happen this summer. First, there's Memorial Day, when disabled veterans will proudly lead ceremonies and officials will emphasize the need to help those injured in conflict.
Second, July 26th is the 20th anniversary of the landmark Americans with Disabilities Act. The ADA was a long time in coming and is probably the single most empowering law during the past generation. But while the ADA has been instrumental in providing legal help for Americans with disabilities, something else is doing an important job in improving basic living standards.
It's your mobile phone.
That's the conclusion of a new research paper that Mobile Future issued today. For all the talk about texting, streaming video, gaming and other apps, one of the most heartening mobile developments involve affordable, life-changing improvements for those with disabilities. The FCC also recognizes this development and hosted a workshop to explore ways in which new technologies can offer opportunities to meet the communications access needs of people with disabilities.
Take the hearing impaired. In 2006, according to the CDC, 37 million adults in the United States had trouble hearing (ranging from a little trouble to being deaf). That's an increase of more than five million since 2000.
As described in Mobile Future's paper, a new wireless system developed at the Georgia Tech Research Institute offers those with hearing difficulties the ability to caption events in real-time. The device translates spoken words into text and displays it on a screen.
Meanwhile, according to Scientific American, researchers at the University of Washington (Seattle) are developing software that lets mobile phone users communicate through sign language and real-time video instead of being limited to text messaging.
But what about those who can't see? Some of the same technology that lets you save money while shopping is also turning the phone into an electronic seeing-eye companion.
As we discovered, mobile apps can use smartphone cameras to scan labels and announce the contents of grocery items, their nutrition labels, and even pill bottles. When merged with GPS technology, these apps can assist the visually impaired by giving them step-by-step directions through their smartphone.
Know someone with a speaking disability? An estimated 6 to 8 million Americans have this challenge. Many, if not most, can now take advantage of low- or no-cost communications apps on their cell phone. There's voice output software that conveys typed messages; downloadable text-to-speech software can be an effective, less-costly alternative to speech devices covered by private insurance and Medicare.
Also, some experts say that children with speech impairments often prefer using "mainstream" technology which is less stigmatizing.
Mobile Future's research paper is meant to be both an assessment and a celebration of the key innovations that are helping those with disabilities. It is also a "look-ahead" at the next phase wireless technologies in the pipeline which promise even more transformational impacts for the one in five Americans who live with disabilities.
This column was originally posted on Huffington Post on May 13, 2010.
Posted: 04/01/10 by Mobile Future Team
At CTIA Wireless 2010 last week, the newest and coolest mobile products and services were on display. There were lots of interesting ones, including many amazing mHealth applications.
Here’s a look at some innovative apps:
PillPhone
A mobile application that helps consumers better manage their medication.
LookTel
An application that helps the visually impaired recognize objects.
MedApps
A mobile outpatient monitoring solution that proactively alerts doctors and nurses to potential health problems.
Posted: 02/18/10 by Allison Remsen
In a recent CNET article, Lance Whitney explores the exponential growth of wireless on a global level. With the ITU predicting that wireless subscriptions will reach 5 billion in 2010 (or 74 percent of the world’s population), it’s pretty clear mobile devices have become ubiquitous in today’s society. And the applications offered by mobile technology are in great demand.
This week at the Mobile World Congress, held in Barcelona, International Telecommunications Union (ITU) Secretary-General Dr. Hamadoun Toure discussed the growing role that mobile plays in providing Internet access:
"Even during an economic crisis, we have seen no drop in the demand for communications services and I am confident that we will continue to see a rapid uptake in mobile cellular services in particular in 2010, with many more people using their phones to access the Internet."
This increase in mobile connectivity can have positive implications for people around the globe.
"Even the simplest, low-end mobile phone can do so much to improve health care in the developing world," said Toure. "Good examples include sending reminder messages to patients' phones when they have a medical appointment, or need a prenatal check-up. Or using SMS messages to deliver instructions on when and how to take complex medication such as anti-retrovirals or vaccines. It's such a simple thing to do, and yet it saves millions of dollars--and can help improve and even save the lives of millions of people."
Posted: 12/14/09 by Mobile Future Team
With the exception of
reducing the Digital Divide, probably the greatest social benefit from wireless
technology is its potential to improve access to more affordable
healthcare. We've blogged a lot about
this (see here, here and here) and now
thanks to Venuri Siriwardane at the Newark Star-Ledger, there's
even more evidence.
As
an example, Siriwardane cites fuzzy bedroom slippers with pressure sensors in
the soles which wirelessly transmit movement data, including information that
the wearer may be more likely to fall.
Of
greater potential benefit, researchers are pouring research funding into the
development of cost-effective wireless audio and video consultation services so
doctors may interact remotely with patients in real time.
The
reason for this is not hard to discern:
Remote
patient monitoring alone can generate between 20 percent to 40 percent in
savings, said Chris Wasden, managing director of health industries strategy and
innovation at PricewaterhouseCoopers....
Wasden [explained] that telehealth is much more common in developing
countries such as India, where cell phones enable people to receive health care
in remote areas that once lacked access to modern medicine. "They've already
developed the ability to deliver mobile health care to their people, but we're
behind the times on that."
Better
healthcare. More affordable access. That's the mobile future.
Posted: 12/04/09 by Mobile Future Team
As Washington focuses on
healthcare legislation, here's a sobering statement from Dr. Pauline Chen,
author of the New York Times' "Doctor & Patient" column:
"Nonadherence,
or the failure to follow medical advice, is the most important cause of
organ rejection in long-term transplant
survivors."
Teenagers are at
especially high risk, she writes this week, citing studies suggesting that a
majority of teen liver transplants fail and that teen patients are four times
more likely than adults to take their medications at the wrong time or to forget
to take them.
So how to reach
today's hard-to-reach teens? Last month, researchers at researchers at
Mount Sinai Hospital in New York published a study showing the remarkable
effectiveness of texting in improving success rates among young liver transplant
patients.
During a
year-long test, patients receiving texts were more likely to take their
medications. One result: while 12 of the young people experienced rejection
episodes in the previous year, only two did so during the
study.
The next time a text message appears on your phone, it may be your doc giving you an important
reminder.
Posted: 11/17/09 by Mobile Future Team
The
New York Times reported this
month on an engineer who is converting cell phones into devices that diagnose
diseases. Dr. Aydogan Ozcan, an assistant professor of electrical engineering at
UCLA, has successfully adapted cell phones for screening in places far from
hospitals, technicians or diagnostic laboratories. Dr. Ozcan's devices provide a
simple solution to a complex problem by replacing the need for a traditional
microscope with a basic cell phone camera.
One prototype, a slide holding a finger
prick of blood can be inserted over the phone's camera sensor. The sensor
detects the slide's contents and sends the information wirelessly to a hospital
or regional health center. The phones can detect the asymmetric shape of
diseased blood cells or other abnormal cells, or note an increase of white blood
cells, a sign of infection.
Dr. Ozcan has formed a company, Microskia,
to commercialize the technology. Some of the company's products would be
adaptations of regular cell phones. For phones without cameras, or phones too
compact to modify, the company has different designs, including a simple box
with a sensing chip that can be plugged into a cell phone or laptop with a USB
cord.
As explained in The New York Times article, the devices
are compact in part because they have eliminated the central element in a
microscope, its lenses. There is no need for lenses in these devices because
magnification can be done electronically. For this electronic system of
magnification, inexpensive light-emitting diodes added to the basic cell phone
shine their light on a sample slide placed over the phone's camera chip. Some of
the light waves hit the cells suspended in the sample, scattering off the cells
and interfering with the other light waves. When the waves interfere, they
create a pattern called a hologram. The detector in the camera records that
hologram or interference pattern as a series of
pixels.
"The holograms are rich in information,"
Dr. Ozcan said. "We can learn a lot in seconds," he said. "We can process the
information mathematically and reconstruct images like those you would see with
a microscope."
Posted: 11/13/09 by Mobile Future Team
Do you hate the cold stethoscope pressed against your back as your doctor asks for a good deep cough? Well, those days may soon be over thanks to our phones.
A recent article on Discovery News offers exciting insight into new applications for our phones, which can analyze the sound of coughs and allow doctors to make initial diagnoses.
New research by American and Australian scientists aims to diagnose cold, flu, pneumonia or other respiratory diseases by analyzing coughs with software. The research could save patients across the world a trip to the doctor's office. Instead, they could simply cough into their cell phone and receive a diagnosis a few seconds later.
The implications for such research might not only save us a trip to the doctor's office, but could also help reduce the spread of contagious diseases and help employers keep sick workers at home, as a recent post on Internet Evolution points out.
If the software commercially existed now, it could go far in preventing the spread of H1N1 flu, as infected people would no longer congregate in doctors' offices, nor could they stay at work while sick. An employer could simply require any staff member to cough into her phone to check to see if the illness is contagious. Or an employer could require employees to cough into their phones before reporting in to work.
There are still a number of issues to be worked out: how to sterilize our phones after coughing into them, or how doctors will account for the factors like age, sex and weight that influence coughs. Still, the possibility of bringing the point of diagnosis from the doctor's office to any place we can take our phones must not be overlooked.
Our nation has been consumed over the last few months with the need to improve healthcare while reducing healthcare costs. Here's a chance for our phones to help do both.
Posted: 11/02/09 by Allison Remsen
"We're in the adolescence of the mobile and wireless revolution," said White House policy expert Tom Kalil, as he began his discussion of wireless issues and federal policy at today's Mobile Future luncheon in Washington.
Kalil, the Deputy Director for Policy in the Office of Science and Technology, said the Obama Administration understood and respected the immense economic and social benefits of a burgeoning wireless industry. "We want to create the right policy environment for private sector investment," he said, adding that "[Wireless] innovation is a powerful tool to address the broad range of challenges we face."
As an example, he cited mobile healthcare - "a really promising area." He also cited the power of wireless in connection with other advances such as nanotechnology, which will soon put the entire contents of the Library of Congress on a device the size of a sugar cube.
At a subsequent panel discussion, Debbie Goldman, an economist with the Communications Workers of America, discussed the linkage between wireless investment and union jobs. "There are 45,000 union workers in the wireless industry," she said. "Telecom networks are good employment opportunities that offer good career jobs for [union workers]."
Also on the panel was Citi Investment Research analyst Michael Rollins, who discussed the relationship between industry investment and government regulation. "In the telecom industry, you deal with long-life assets," he said. That makes changes in regulation a cause for great concern.
Also presenting at the luncheon were economists Robert Hahn and Hal Singer, who discussed the economic implications of exclusive mobile handset contracts between manufacturers and wireless carriers. To access their paper, please click here: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1477042
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Tags: Applications, Mobile Healthcare, Smartphone, Telemedicine, Text message, Wireless Innovation