According to CNET News, a study appearing today in the Canadian Medical Association Journal claims that computer reminders, which doctors use while electronically charting and writing prescriptions for patients, don’t improve the quality of health care as much as they were once expected to do. In 2008, Medicare even offered incentives for doctors to adopt and use e-prescriptions, but according to this review of 28 clinical trials, digital reminders improved the accuracy and reliability of medicine taking by a median of 4.2-percent. At best, the reminders improved accuracy and quality by a median of 5.6-percent, which the study’s authors characterize as being “below thresholds for clinically significant improvements.” The authors go on to say that these results make e-prescriptions nothing more than “an expensive exercise in trial and error.”

We’re not doctors, but it seems like any improvement is better than none — especially in light of this CNET News report that suggests handwritten prescriptions are seven times more likely to result in an error. The study does note that one institution saw significant improvements with a “homegrown” system, which suggests the key is designing and implementing a regimen that’s easy-to-use and accessible. [From: Canadian Medical Association Journal, via: CNET News]

eReminders Less Effective for Doctors Than Hoped, Study Finds originally appeared on Switched on Tue, 09 Mar 2010 13:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Facebook is taking a break from the constant, user-infuriating redesigns to add an honest-to-goodness new feature — location updates (which will probably be user-infuriating, anyway). Location awareness is all the rage for social networks as GPS has become a standard feature on most smartphones. Twitter, Google Buzz, Google Latitude, and Foursquare have all tightly interwoven these features into their respective services, and Facebook doesn’t want to get left in the dust.

According to the New York Times, Facebook is set to unveil location-based updates at next month’s F8, the Facebook developer conference. Those with keen eyes have known this was coming for quite some time. In November, Facebook updated its privacy policy to include the following statement: “When you share your location with others or add a location to something you post, we treat that like any other content you post.”

Continue reading Facebook Ups the Stalker Quotient, Adding Location-Based Updates

Facebook Ups the Stalker Quotient, Adding Location-Based Updates originally appeared on Switched on Tue, 09 Mar 2010 17:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Nothing about William Shatner has ever been exactly subtle. But with one nonchalant tweet last week, the Shat quietly entered into the social networking foray by announcing the creation of his very own site.

Shatner’s oh-so-originally-named MyOuterSpace.com is geared toward not just Trekkies, but to creative sci-fi aficionados of all shapes and sizes. A self-proclaimed “Sci-Fi Social Network for those with a passion for the arts,” MyOuterSpace, in theory, will give everyday users the chance to actually work on developing very real science fiction productions. And, in the unlikely event that you ever forget what it’s all about, there’s a helpful, intergalactic metaphor there to remind you — again, and again.

Continue reading William Shatner Starts Sci-Fi ‘MyOuterSpace’ Social Network

William Shatner Starts Sci-Fi ‘MyOuterSpace’ Social Network originally appeared on Switched on Mon, 08 Mar 2010 08:42:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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They might not have as high a profile as the Oscars, but Britain’s first annual Google Street View Awards ceremony was held Monday. The Telegraph reports a panel of U.K. experts, selected by Google, and about 11,000 online participants voted a cobblestone road in York, called The Shambles, “Britain’s Most Picturesque Street.” “It has been the backdrop for many a jigsaw, chocolate box and railway poster and once you visit you will see why,” shop owner Ian Addyman told the Telegraph.

The competition, intended to hype the many new locations added to the U.K. Street View, also included other award categories. Bath’s Milsom Street won for “Best Fashion” and Hampshire’s Stockbridge High Street came away with “Best Foodie Street.” In return, these winning walks get a ton of free publicity (which business owners must love), and will be highlighted on Street View with special guides and point-of-interest markers. Google hasn’t provided Street View links on the Awards announcement, but you can still browse the best of the digitized U.K. via the voting page. [From: Telegraph and Google]

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Street View Awards Show Best of U.K. Without the Black Pudding originally appeared on Switched on Tue, 09 Mar 2010 10:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google has been offering public data and statistics via search for some time now. In November, it added stores of information from the World Bank to its database. Now, the search giant has supplemented Google Labs with a new tool, the Public Data Explorer, which is designed to make that torrent of numbers a little easier to understand.

Data, anything from common last names to unemployment figures, can be combined and compared into line or bar graphs, as well as into animated maps and bubble charts. The animated bubble charts are particularly impressive. In the example below, you can watch the number of worldwide births drop as life expectancy increases. An extra layer of data is added by separating countries into color-coded bubbles. Representing various demographics, those bubbles grow and shrink in accordance with each group’s size in relation to the overall population.

In addition to the World Bank, data can be culled from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U.S. Census Bureau, the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development, the California Department of Education, Eurostat, the U.S. Center for Disease Control, and the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (whew!) — making it an invaluable tool for researchers, students, and anyone else who needs easy access to a bottomless store of statistics. [From: Official Google Blog]

Google Public Data Explorer Makes Sea of Stats Easy to Understand originally appeared on Switched on Tue, 09 Mar 2010 06:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Hoping to be selected as test sites for Google’s upcoming high-speed fiber network, many cities have launched weird viral campaigns. According to an Associated Press report, Google set the nomination deadline for March 26th, and will announce the winners by the end of the year.

Sascha Meinrath, director of the New America Foundation’s Open Technology Initiative, told the AP that Google wants cities that are ready to hit the ground running. “They want a fast, easy rollout,” he said. “They are really looking for a community that is fully bought into this.” Judging by a few of the more interesting nominees that PC magazine found, that won’t be a problem.

Continue reading Cyber-Nerdy Cities Woo Google’s Fiber-Optic Service With Viral Campaigns

Cyber-Nerdy Cities Woo Google’s Fiber-Optic Service With Viral Campaigns originally appeared on Switched on Mon, 08 Mar 2010 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We briefly mentioned Microsoft’s Courier tablet concept back in September, but more details about the would-be iPad-killer have finally leaked. While the design seem to have moved into a less “pie-in-the-sky” direction, the demo videos and mock-ups are still quite impressive.

We now know that the dual-screened electronic journal will be less than an inch thick, and that each screen will be roughly five inches by seven inches. By way of a stylus and multi-touch capacity, Courier will allow users to scribble notes, manipulate clipped photos and text, and sketch images. Courier will be built around NVIDIA’s Tegra 2 chipset and run Windows CE 6, the same system powering the Zune HD and the upcoming Windows Phone 7 Series handsets.

Continue reading Microsoft Courier Details Leaked, iPad Looks on in Envy

Microsoft Courier Details Leaked, iPad Looks on in Envy originally appeared on Switched on Sat, 06 Mar 2010 10:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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North Korea is renowned for many things, including famine, human rights violations, a comically evil leader, and the world’s worst arcade. But as far as the IT industry goes, the country does not immediately spring to mind. In a sad attempt to prove itself as the technological equal of its neighbor to the south, the North Korean government has slapped together its own proprietary operating system, named Red Star.

The Linux-based OS was revealed to the world by a Russian blogger named Mikhail who is studying in Pyongyang, North Korea’s capital. Among the programs included in the Red Star OS are a productivity suite similar to Microsoft Office, an e-mail client named Pigeon, an anti-virus program named Woodpecker, and games like Minesweeper and Solitaire. The OS also includes a version of Mozilla’s Firefox named My Country… which must be very helpful in a nation where almost no one except a select few government officials are allowed to use the Internet. My Country does, however, connect to Kwangmyong, the North Korean Intranet used by the general populace. Without any broadband coverage, however, we imagine all those “We Love Kim Jong-il” message boards take a really long time to load. The operating system’s minimum requirements are a Pentium III 800-MHz CPU with 256 MB of RAM, which would have been state of the art in about 2003. According to Mikhail, North Koreans unsurprisingly prefer Windows-based operating systems over the homegrown Red Star.

Continue reading North Korea’s Busted Red Star Operating System Rips Off Windows

North Korea’s Busted Red Star Operating System Rips Off Windows originally appeared on Switched on Fri, 05 Mar 2010 15:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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There’s a very good reason that ‘Mission Impossible’ is a movie: it’s impossible. The “Don’t Try This At Home” disclaimer pretty much goes without saying for virtually anything involving Tom Cruise, and certainly for the kinds of Hollywood stunts featured in the ‘M.I.’ franchise. To a group of burglars in New Jersey, however, the film was much less fiction, and much more how-to manual.

Thursday morning, employees at a Best Buy in South Brunswick walked into the store to find a pile of debris, a hole in the roof, and a bunch of missing laptops. Theft, to be sure — but how did the plunderers avoid the spider web of alarms? According to Police Sgt. James Ryan, the thieves managed to climb a gas pipe to scale the building, and used some type of suction device to lift a hole in the roof. Ryan speculates that they then lowered themselves through the hole into the store, managing somehow to keep themselves ten feet above the floor at all times, evading the store’s motion sensors. They even kept behind store banners throughout the operation, thus shielding their faces from security cameras. Upon swiping $26,000 worth of Apple laptops, they scurried out the same way they’d come in.

Continue reading ‘Mission Impossible’-Style Best Buy Thieves Swipe Laptops, Baffle Cops

‘Mission Impossible’-Style Best Buy Thieves Swipe Laptops, Baffle Cops originally appeared on Switched on Fri, 05 Mar 2010 10:06:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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When The Who’s Pete Townshend wrote “Pinball Wizard,” we bet he never imagined just how much influence technology would have on the classic game of flippers and steel balls. Tommy, the song’s protagonist, sure could play a mean pinball, but he wouldn’t stand a chance at the flippers if his opponent were wearing this brain-scanning device.

According to io9, the device, which looks like a swim cap, uses an electroencephalogram (EEG) to monitor the brain’s activity. It fits snugly on the user’s head, and allows him or her to flick those flippers with brain waves rather than crazy flailing fingers. Just take a seat, strap on the headpiece, and let your telekinetic powers rack up high-scores, bonus rounds and extra balls. The machine is the work of the Berlin Brain-Computer Interface research consortium, which recently revealed the system at the ceBIT Technology Fair in Germany.

Continue reading ESP Pinball Wizardry Impressive, Still Silly Looking

ESP Pinball Wizardry Impressive, Still Silly Looking originally appeared on Switched on Fri, 05 Mar 2010 06:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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