However, as we all know, Coronavirus/COVID-19 pandemic is a huge issue affecting the entire world. Besides avoiding getting ill, we need to be able to eventually get back to normal, and technology can help both prevent/arrest the spread of the pandemic, and allow us to return to normal sooner rather than later.

Therefore, I’m proud to be a member of a talented and experienced team that has developed a live digital public health solution that could dramatically curtail this epidemic, support most ecosystem stakeholders, and reassure the general public, allowing faster recovery and return to day-to-day life. Track Virus is a platform, composed of an app and web services backend, already widely used (in Israel), used and endorsed by United Hatzalah (a leading NGO), and experiencing exponential growth.

Importantly, the solution is privacy-preserving so it can be deployed also in liberal democracies. Sample press coverage here and here (and many more in Hebrew and other languages).

We want to make this available to other countries PRONTO while also expanding its use domestically.  We are already in touch with numerous countries and government authorities at this time. To get widespread use and maximum impact, our preferred approach is to “start from the top”, and be adopted and recommended on national/governmental level (could be federal, state, or large city) for their emergency response efforts. Any help getting to the decision-makers in these positions is appreciated.

Let me know if you can think of any way to help us… (sooner=better

In the meantime, stay safe and socially isolated (in real life, but not virtually).

Tomorrow morning the journey begins. Our transatlantic flight is tomorrow and we’ll be in Pittsburgh by nighttime. We’re going to the Pittsburgh Penguins – LA Kings game on December 11th @ 7pm. We’re hoping for an amazing time and, hopefully, some unique lifetime memories and total excitement.

We’re going to share our journey on Twitter and Facebook. Here above is the first picture of Tommy in his outfit for the flight tomorrow.

Feel free to tune in on #Israel2Penguins on Twitter for our trip.

Track it all in either Facebook or Twitter:

• Facebook #Israel2Penguins
• Twitter #Israel2Penguins

Last week, Apple announced their long-awaited Apple Watch. Having heard some very smart people suggest that Apple Watch is going to crush Basis, and many other existing players in wearables, I just had to share my 2 cents on this matter.

Bottom line: I think it won’t have that impact!

Overall impression

First, I’ll say that I think it’s really nice. It could have been nicer. Many of the earlier models leaked or anticipated looked even cooler. 

Apple chose a rather bulky watch with a wide assortment of bands and a very nice finish to make it customizable and befitting of one’s wrist. The two sizes are a nice touch – allowing more women to also join the smartwatch era as a nice accessory. Its sensors and user experience are pretty good, but lacking vs. the existing and emerging competition. It’s charging mechanism (serving as night stand as well) and water-resistance are similar comparing to the competitive landscape.  

Basically, I think Apple Watch is not going to have nearly the impact that the iPhone or the iPad had when they were introduced and evolved, in terms of its overall change-the-world potential. It is more like the Apple TV or Google Glass – that is, it is a technology showcase rather than a game changer.

Several reasons for my thinking here:

1. The price: At $350 (entry point), it is priced out of reach for many consumers. And, at this price, it even lacks many features available in lower-end watches from competitors (like GPS). This price is likely to remain high for a long time. Most other wearables and watches are going to be priced much lower and have broader appeal as a result.
2. Vendor lock-in: It relies exclusively on iPhone as a “host”. This leaves out a huge portion of Android smartphone owners. Most people that are in the Android ecosystem wouldn’t even be a potential buyer. Apple is essentially selling this into their existing customer base. 
3. Not a sleep tracker: (This is a minor point) Many of the fitness conscious-wearables are used to measure sleep quality. Since the Apple Watch will have to be charged nightly, it will not be able to serve this purpose.

Apple could hypothetically, easily fix the first two points above, but it’s not in Apple’s strategy nor nature to do this. Apple lowers price at $50/100 per year for their devices. Similarly, Apple doesn’t usually opt for interoperability, especially with Android. It tolerates Windows, but not Android, as reasonable platforms for its stuff (e.g. iTunes).

So what will be the impact of the Apple Watch?

It will be very cool to own and it will draw a lot of positive attention, including “oooh” and “ahhh”s. People will want to get their hands on it and play around with it, for sure. Not sure that many will actually cough up the dough to own one, however!

It will allow developers to explore what’s possible with it – and developers will exploit its potential and showcase many cool apps. It doesn’t have a killer app yet – but it probably will – more than one. When this killer app gets developed, I predict it will be copied (or ported by its developers) quickly to other platforms – smart watches or other wearables. So the Apple Watch will become a “technology showcase”. Yes, Apple will remain cool/hip and relegated by anti-fanboys. Nothing’s changing here.

Therefore, I don’t think this will assure our wrist will be reclaimed, but it does introduce that potential for the right app to emerge…

Personally

Even though my next phone is an iPhone 6, I doubt I’ll have an Apple Watch quite as urgently… I actually tried a similar / older version of this – an iPod Nano-based watch in a TikTok wristband I helped crowdfund, and it didn’t stick. I saw little benefit in using it. My wrist is vacant and waiting for the right product to occupy that space lost to the iPhone by my watch a few years ago…

I love NYC. I also like getting around on subway – usually, it’s very efficient. I don’t like the heat nor do I like the crowds in rush hour, but generally, it’s pretty good. Best thing is that it zips through traffic and is rather predictable.

However, when it’s hot in NYC, as it was this week (and is most of the summer), the subway is not such a “cool place” to be. The trains themselves are air-conditioned, but the platforms are not. Other subway systems in the world dealt with this issue (usually in newer systems) – not NYC.

Anyway, on such hot days, going to a meeting, I’d usually just grab a taxi to get there “all in one piece”. This morning, a Saturday, I finished a meeting downtown and as I’m about to head out to my hotel, I noticed that I’m directly at a subway station of Broadway-Lafayette with one direct line to my hotel. 14 minutes on the train, no exchanges, and I’ll get to my hotel. It would be faster than by taxi and no need for walking either.

So, I with just minor hesitation, I venture down the steps for a quick hop back to the hotel. The temperature rises every step I take heading down to the subway… I get to the track to wait for my train. And I wait and I wait in the smoldering heat of the platform. The temperature was probably 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 degrees Celsius) with 80% humidity, at least. Not fun. But, I’m relaxed and in no hurry. My train, the B train, doesn’t come any time soon. I check all the notice boards to see if there are any changes in the B train – but nope, no notices.

R trains come by, and only R. No B. No D (R wasn’t even supposed to get to this station!). So I get on the R heading uptown. A few stops later, it splits off East instead of West. I get off. I try to get back to a C or B train by taking an E train – yeah, this is getting complicated.

To cut a long story short, I end up spending 75 minutes underground trying to get back to my hotel only to discover that NONE of the trains that would get me there are working today. No announcement about that. Nothing.

Serendipity

On the 3 trains I did end up traveling on to nowhere (all in different paths than they were supposed to) I met nice people, including a young artist named Peter Yip with an unfinished, yet beautiful, piece he’s working on (see his site, I especially like this one). There was this lady that was having the same experience as I and were going through the same ordeal – and she’s a local…

Overall, I spent at least 50 minutes on platforms in smoldering heat just waiting uselessly for the right trains to come, to no avail. All the announcements were terrible, and I quote: “A Manhattan-bound local train is two stops away”. This announcement repeated itself 3 times in ten minutes – no trains arrived. It wasn’t clear whether this would be the E train, or the M train (which were on this track), when a train finally arrived, it was the (damned) R train – that shouldn’t even have been on this track in the first place. No announcements on the boards about E or M trains not working and what the heck was this R train doing here?

Mind you, I’m somewhat of an expert in this subway system – personal knowledge of years + armed with the latest navigation apps to boot.

Ultimately, I had to ask a subway DRIVER if the B train was even running today only to discover it wasn’t…

So, after so long, and no ability to get to the hotel, I just gave up. I climbed the stairs up to street level (half way to the hotel, but still nowhere near), hailed a taxi, 8 minutes, and $9 later I’m at my hotel, glued to the air conditioner….

Bottom Line

Wow, was this a terrible subway experience. There was practically nobody to ask what was going on, no proper announcements, no proper notices, in all the several stations I visited, nor the trains I boarded, were there any notices of trains coming and stops on the path. Most trains already have these. Many stations too – just not my day in terms of subway luck! Add to that the heat and humidity…

Lessons learned? I’m not quite sure… Any ideas?

I get it that companies, organizations, and even countries use film as a way to get their message across to the masses and to affect public opinion. I was just on a flight and began watching the movie Promised Land with Matt Damon. One minute into the movie, it’s clear this movie is going to be about a farm town story where a big natural gas company comes in to buy all the property and begin fracking to produce the gas that lies beneath their town.

Then, I notice that “Image Nation Abu Dhabi” is listed in the opening credits (small print, short notice, no specific credit mention), and I guess it is probably involved, somehow, in the production of the film. I paused the film and wrote down my thoughts: What does Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), have to do with this film? It reminded me that Abu Dhabi and UAE are oil nations. Actually, the whole economy of UAE is based on oil as the world’s third largest oil exporter.

So, what is one of the greatest threats to UAE oil exports? It’s natural gas. Especially, natural gas production via fracking in the US. So if this film, suddenly, conveys natural gas harvesting via fracking in some bad light, this would, quite possibly, serve to halt or slow down the progression of natural gas production and use.

I have no opinion about the viability of fracking. However, this seemed to me as pure propaganda sugar-coated as a drama film. Fear mongering, trying to induce fear and slow down progression of natural gas – all this in order to prolong the success of oil. That’s rather cynical, wouldn’t you think? This would then just be a negative publicity movie out of pure commercial interests.

That’s what I thought before watching the movie – merely from the opening scene. I then went on to watch the whole film, which confirmed my speculation. Wrapped as a drama film about a small town and relationships the movie portrays the big bad natural gas company as evil as possible. The film conveys FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) related to natural gas production in the minds of the viewers. Anybody that would watch this movie would spend more time learning and thinking about whether to help / support the extraction of natural gas.

So why would well-known actors such as Matt Damon join forces in this propaganda? Well, all it would take for the film producers would be to find someone that believes the cause as much as they, perhaps for various environmental reasons – and they may even agree to do the movie at low cost given the alignment with their own views.

Everybody is entitled to share their view, and use film as a means. However, I think that full disclosure is missing here. I do not know how much funding and what role Image Nation Abu Dhabi had in producing the film, but I believe that whatever the role is – full disclosure should be there, up front, that funding to this film came, at least in part, from the government of Abu Dhabi (the owner of of Abu Dhabi Media, that in turn, is the owner of Image Nation Abu Dhabi). The very subtle way the name was mentioned in the opening titles was so subtle, I’d speculate ~99.9% of the viewers would not realize this film was such a propaganda film.

Putting the finishing touches on this post, I ran across this post and video of Matt Damon’s response  to the accusations against the film. I do want to mention that Image Nation Abu Dhabi lists Promised Land as one of their films, though IMDB does list 4 companies as film production companies for the movie, including Focus Films. And finally, looking for a picture for this post, I discovered a web site called “Real Promised Land” that proves that similar approaches, albeit slightly less subtle, are also in use by those with opposing views.

Update: Someone asked me if I liked the movie. Well, I’d give it a 6/10. It’s not that bad, and would probably get a 7 if it weren’t for this agenda. As an actor, Matt Damon is pretty good – here, and mostly in general.

A couple of days ago, Mark Zuckerberg announced the new Facebook Home. Rather than the speculated new phone from Facebook, it’s instead, a new “home” screen of the Android phone. Or, put differently, an Android Facebook “skin”. Wired went as far as to refer to this as Zuck’s Android Takeover.

Facebook Home has vividly demonstrated that the Android ecosystem has been a double-edged sword, both for the handset manufacturers that are on the Android bandwagon, and to a lesser extent, to the mobile telecom operators.

Why?

Well, both the operators and the handset manufacturers don’t just want to sell handsets or acquire more customers. They want to get their customers to buy and use additional products and services. They want to cultivate a longer-term relationship with their customers. They want to be able to offer customers a unique experiences. All this could be done with features/functions of the smartphone itself or through unique services offered. Facebook Home limits their abilities to make this happen.

Android has benefited Manufacturers thus far…

Android has allowed manufacturers to focus on the hardware and drive it forward aggressively. Android also fostered a huge number of applications compatible with their devices, which have benefited  users. Manufacturers, still needed to spend resources thinking about how to differentiate.

For operators, it allowed them to (reluctantly) remember what they do best – and that’s not to specify phone features and capabilities, but rather to operate a large telecom network and all associated aspects (retail, support, and more). However, operators too need to constantly differentiate in terms of the end-user experience of their services.

Innovation is required

What does every company need to do in order to survive and thrive? It needs to innovate. And, to innovate means to differentiate their products/services from those of the competition. For operators and manufacturers, this means different things. However, being able to have apps and “front ends” integrated into the phone, was one of the key methods both of these categories of players sought to use for differentiation.

For an operator, an example of this might have been some VOD application just for their subscribers or something to integrate another service in their portfolio (e.g. TV). For a manufacturer, this might have meant a slick alternative to the default Android front end. Both of them might have liked to “skin” Android to be unique to them, and some did try to do so to varying degrees of success.

One might think that smartphone manufacturers can differentiate based on hardware features, for example:

• Screen quality (size, resolution, brightness).
• Camera quality (resolution, low-light, etc.).
• Speed (processor+).
• Connectivity (networking, Bluetooth, NFC, and more).
• Capacity (storage, memory).
• Sensors and UX operation (hand waving, gyros, accelerometers, etc.).
• Environmental resistance (water/dust resistance).
• Dimensions (weight, width, screen size).
• Battery life.

While this seems like a long list of features, providing plenty of opportunity to differentiate, it isn’t so. Soon, all manufacturers will be so good, that differentiating on these parameters simply won’t be enough. All devices will be similarly “amazing”. Manufacturers wanted to “own” the device home screen!

Shelly Palmer, in his review of the Samsung Galaxy S-IV put it nicely:

Since everyone who isn’t Apple is using Android, it’s going to be hard for any manufacturer to create a true stand out device. The phone and tablet business feels a lot like the PC business did in the Wintel era – lots of undifferentiated hardware running the same software. But Samsung has the right idea – separate the features of the hardware (which everyone can OEM) and concentrate on the benefits of the software (which can, in some cases, be proprietary).

Then, Facebook Home Came Along

And it is claiming that one piece of vital real estate – the home screen of the phone. If users embrace Facebook Home, it would mean that neither the manufacturers nor the operators would have much ability for differentiation.

And there lies the risk of Android (the double-edged sword). By buying into Android, anybody could have come along, at any time, and snatch this precious real estate. As long as it was very fragmented and only a tiny fraction of users replaced their smartphone’s default experience, the risk was contained. But when someone like Facebook comes along and offers an alternative, it could really eat into their ability to differentiate.

If I were in Samsung, HTC, LG, AT&T, Verizon, Orange, or Vodafone, I’d be wishing Facebook Home would not stick with users… Thankfully, I’m not :-)…

So, what does Google think about this?

Well, this post couldn’t end without thinking about Google’s perspective. I seriously doubt Google are happy about this (as also sensed from their “reactions”). After all, Google wanted this same real estate to get eyeballs to their own services. That was almost the whole point behind Android to begin with… So Google too, will probably be hoping Facebook Home doesn’t succeed.

Would love to hear your thoughts.

Here are a few things users have said (publicly) about Medivizor:

I’ve signed up and I really, really like it thus far. This is fantastic! I had largely given up searching for info on my own and just read material recommended by people on FB or on Twitter.

And

I am impressed by the comprehensive content. I have not seen this kind of framework elsewhere (and I’ve spent a lot of time on sites that address breast cancer).

And, even:

I love Medivizor. Thanks to you for providing it…

That’s what has made January such a busy month. I had planned to share with you insights gained from CES 2013 and the Digital Health Summit, which were awesome, but just didn’t get around to it. Hopefully, I’ll get around to it… But the great stuff going on at Medivizor is just so exciting; I couldn’t help but share. It has been great to see people using our services, giving us feedback, getting value, and talking about it.

People writing about Medivizor

Here are just a few of the things written about us in January:

• Among 5 Hot Startups by MedCity News: Health IT startup delivers personalized content tailored to patient’s disease stage (Feb 1, 2013)
• Blogs:
  • ChemoBrain: Medivizor – A Personal Virtual Concierge / Step aside, Dr. Google:  Enter Medivizor. (Jan 30, 2013)
  • No Boobs About It: Medivizor…Providing Relevant Breast Cancer Information Updates (Jan 28, 2013)
  • Scott’s Diabetes: “An Orange Peanut?! For Me?!” (Jan 25, 2013)
• Haaretz: Startup of the week / Medivizor, your personal medical consultant (Jan 1, 2013)
• Startupress: Medivizor aims to improve the accuracy of medical information (Jan 4, 2013)

Where we’re at

Right now, the service is “live” (in invitation-only beta) for 4 medical conditions: breast cancer, prostate cancer, diabetes, and colorectal cancer. We’re adding lymphoma and melanoma shortly. Even though we’re in invitation-only mode, people can sign up today and let us know what condition they are interested in and wish us to support next.

It’s very important and gratifying for all of us at Medivizor that we’re able to help people. While we cannot make all people happy, we’re trying our damn best to do so. And mostly, we’re succeeding, even if this sometimes means sleeping 3 hours/night…

Thanks!

I want to thank all the passionate bloggers, patient advocates, and journalists that have decided to write about us and recommend to people to join our early access program: AnneMarie Ciccarella, Jean Campbell, Scott K. Johnson, Chuck Maack, Stephanie Baum , Amitai Ziv, and Inbal Orbaz — Thanks!!!

Of course, all this couldn’t be done without The (terrific) Medivizor Team supporting it all!

Finally, I’d also like to thank all our early adopters for trying us out, being patient with us, and providing excellent feedback. There’s no doubt that your feedback will improve the service and help you, and others like you.

This is just the start, folks! Lots more to come. Finally, if you know of anybody that might want to try out the service and provide feedback, let them know about it.

Continuing the annual tradition: Last year, my predictions for 2012 turned out to be remarkably good with 85% accuracy! That’s even better than the 77% accuracy of 2010 and 2011 predictions. If you want to check it out yourself, here’s the scorecard.

I loved the video summary Google did for 2012. I actually didn’t mention many of these developments. So surely you must consider my predictions not “all that will be”, but rather, what will be within specific areas that I’m focused on. Obviously, there’s a lot more going on that I don’t touch on.

So without further ado, my 2013 predictions:

• Apple:
  • iPhone 5S – Again, this summer, June-August. No change in form factor. Most improvements will be “internal” and in software and ecosystem – not in sheer device capabilities. Could be cosmetics, like colors. It could even be perceived as somewhat of a letdown. Not a prediction, just a small comment: The iPhone 5 is an amazing device with its power, size, and weight. However, I really don’t like how it scratches so easily on sides and back. The iPhone 4/4S was much more durable in that respect. Apple may fix these aesthetic aspects while maintaining the same form factor.
  • iPad Mini will get a Retina-rated display, and a stronger processor around April-October 2013.
  • Opening up iOS a bit more – given the Maps fiasco, I think Apple may allow replacing the default application to open for maps, mail, browser on the device. This is somewhat unlikely – so it’s not obvious it would happen. But it wouldn’t be too difficult for Apple to do. Especially now that Steve isn’t here. This may make Chrome and Google Maps even more pervasive on this platform.
  • I think a real Apple TV will come this year. I predicted it for 2012, but 2012 was too busy with the iPad Mini and the lightning port and two iPad versions, so I think it will be this year.
• Microsoft:
  • Windows 8 will be a success. It’s a very nice OS.
  • Surface with Windows RT will also be doing pretty well this year. I really don’t like the touch keyboard, but the physical key keyboard is terrific. A real laptop alternative on the go. Better than an iPad for most serious work.
  • Windows Phone 8 – Also, a big mover this year. I think it will take a chunk out of Apple growth, but it won’t stop iOS nor Android from having another great year. It will be the 3rd OS – giving even more options for users.
  • Overall, I’d say Microsoft innovation is “back”. They are going to do a lot of great stuff.
  • Bing – no change. Will continue to be a distant 2nd place, but may move up a notch. Right now, Google has 80% of worldwide search and Bing has nearly 10%. I don’t think we’ll see Bing get over 13% during 2013. Here’s the trend over the past few years. Quite steady now.
• Google:
  • Search dominance continues.
  • Online video dominance continues.
  • Online ad dominance continues.
  • Browser – Chrome continues to grow, from 24.5% market share to about 30% market share during the year. This eats into FireFox and IE marketshare, mostly.
  • Chromebook – probably doesn’t make it. The push I expected in 2012 didn’t happen and I’m beginning to doubt that it will resurface in 2013. So this year I’m actually predicting Chromebook doesn’t have much news or progress.
  • Google+… – It doesn’t seem like it’s going to grow dramatically in 2013 except organically. It’s not becoming a destination in and of itself. Just a tool to improve other Google products.
  • Google Drive – great traction here. Google remaining a dominant cloud player.
  • Research projects – we’ll continue to see great stuff here. Cannot predict exactly which of them will make a splash/dent.
• Games:
  • Nintendo Wii U will NOT be a huge success. Yes, it will sell. But it’s not a Kinect-beater. Two reasons – price and complexity. The experience is too complex. Immersive, but not nearly as immersive as Kinect.
  • Microsoft Kinect continues to dominate the console market – taking marketshare from Nintendo and Sony. It’s just a better overall experience.
  • Nintendo is also suffering from the smartphones on the portable platform, with continued decline in NDS and N3DS usage.
  • Sony continues to falter on handheld platform – no way to beat smartphones or even Nintendo 3DS with PlayStation Vita that followed PlayStation Portable.
  • Basically iOS and Android rein in the portable gaming field, and  Microsoft move strongly into a lead on the console side.
• Home entertainment:
  • The streaming video business is a very tough battle on content and rights and platform availability with Netflix, Vudu, Hulu, Amazon, Apple, Boxee, and others.
  • The battle continues. Will a winner emerge this year? I doubt it. So that’s my prediction. It’s still a fragmented market.
• Mobile:
  • RIM, manufacturer of Blackberry, continues to fail. Perhaps it’s breakup will be in 2013. I incorrectly thought it would be 2012, but I think RIM will be unable to recover and someone will acquire its assets and user base. Two things RIM could have done, and may still do to save itself: Become a virtual carrier for roaming business users or move to Android (or Windows Phone) platforms as its prime OS. It may not save it completely, but it could slow its decline.
  • I already made predictions about Android, iOS and Windows. No other OSs are likely to be important in 2013 on a global scale.
  • This is particularly true for Jolla, from the folks that formerly created MeeGo at Nokia and as can be seen here. I seriously doubt they could have much of an impact. Even if they have a different strategy with a China-based go-to-market plan.
• Ubiquitous Connectivity:
  • As I predicted earlier, I still believe that by 2019 we’ll have about 10mbps access affordably and globally from wherever we shall be. That’s 6 years away now. To this end, in 2013, I predict Internet connectivity will return to over a quarter of domestic flights and will exist in over a quarter of land-based public transportation (trains/buses/subways). I don’t have an easy way to measure this without a lot of research – but if someone knows how to find the stats, let me know.
• Social Media: No huge change in landscape.
  • Facebook continues to dominate.
  • Twitter continues to grow.
  • Google+ too. But not a destination in and of itself.
  • LinkedIn remains strong.
  • But apps to try to make it all more meaningful does emerge. Pinterest? Possibly an additional service ramps up during the year. There’s still room for improvement and an innovator is lurking to make use of these vast networks on top of their authentication and mechanisms.
• Health:
  • Amount of innovation in Health related topics is accelerating. Social web + smartphones + tablets are going to bring a lot of new innovation. It’s hard to define how to measure this, but I see it all around us.
  • I predict that you’re going to hear great things about a small new startup: Medivizor. Await more great news from that small company…

Even though these predictions aren’t wild, 2013 will be another exciting year. As we all saw, 2012 was pretty amazing.

I’d love to hear your feedback on these predictions. Please comment! If you have key predictions I’ve missed, point them out.

UPDATE: Eli pointed out that I missed the recent sale of Motorola Mobility’s Set Top Box business, and that’s about 20% of Motorola Mobility, so the score is actually 86% prediction accuracy.

What’s TED

(skip for most)

If you are asking yourself “what the heck is this TED Tal keeps talking about?” Realize, you are a minority, let’s fix that promptly: TED began as an annual conference with the most amazing people and speakers, and it has evolved to a global series of conference/events (often called TEDxSomething). Each TED event brings amazing speakers for talks of 3-18 minutes. The 18-minute TED format ensures it is full of inspiring content, forcing the speakers to deliver their best performance. Most of these TED Talks are online and available to all at www.ted.com. In fact, TED Talks were recently viewed over 1 Billion times.

My TED experience

I made it a habit to exercise (on a treadmill, for instance) with a podcast version of TED videos playing from my iPhone. TED’s motto, “ideas worth spreading”, is inspiring in and of itself. I helped organize a weekly screening and discussion of TED and a live video broadcast of a TEDx event for an auditorium of people that couldn’t be physically present at the event.

Ubiquity, quantity, and quality of TED

Now that there are more than 1,000 TED Talks (and thousand more from TEDx events), you’ll never run out of amazing and inspiring talks. They’re available online and you can watch TED Talks in so many different ways: within a the web with a browser, using the TED app on the iPad, iPhone, or Android, as a podcast, on the TV as an app in nearly every TV-app environment, and probably more I haven’t experienced. Also, they are piece-meal size – so you can watch in a short taxi ride, on the train home, while exercising, and many more. There are also many ways to find the talks that might interest or inspire you.

Introducing the TED-talk-a-day diet

The idea is very simple: consider for your 2013 New-Year resolution (around the corner) to make a TED Talk a part of your daily diet. What do you have to lose? Not much more than 18 minutes. But I can assure you; those 18 minutes may inspire your entire day, and even change your life vocation. So head on now to make sure you always have some TED Talks with you (iTunes podcast, for instance, or downloaded within the TED App for iOS or Android). Don’t consume them all at once (you can’t, even if you tried) – just make it a manageable part of your daily routine.

You can get started today

So here are 5 great TED Talks to get you started:

• Elizabeth Gilbert: Your elusive creative genius
• Jill Bolte Taylor’s stroke of insight
• Dan Pink: The puzzle of motivation
• Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity
• Simon Sinek: How great leaders inspire action

There are so many more, you can continue on this diet for a very long time.

One more thought – Inflight Entertainment

I’m writing this post on a flight and realized that aside from my downloaded video podcast TED Talks, there’s no TED-channel on the inflight entertainment system. Hey, United (and other airlines), that’s an idea to consider!

So, what do you think about this new diet? Are you going to adopt it? If you do, share your experience. What are your “must watch” / favorite TED Talks? Let us all learn and be inspired!

A recent study by researchers at Loyola University found that as many as 63% of prostate cancer websites cannot be read or understood by someone who hasn’t completed high school education. Why is this important? Well, one of the study’s references suggests that as many as 90 million adult Americans have literacy skills that test below high school reading levels. This is despite the fact that 87.58% of US adults over 25 years old have a high school education (US Census Data). Also, people with lower socioeconomic backgrounds may have even lower reading levels (as much as 7th-8th grade, on average). In fact, The National Institute of Health (NIH) recommends that providers prepare patient education material suited to fit 4th through 6th grade reading level.

I personally think that the target set by the NIH is unrealistic for complex medical topics. However, when medical information is presented in a way that is more understandable, the better it is for people that suffer from a serious medical condition, such as cancer, or those that care for them.

The Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level

What was most fascinating for me, though, was learning of the Flesch-Kincaid grade level evaluation. This is a tool that automatically assesses the readability of a written text. In order to assess the readability of a given text, one does not need to actually study a diverse group of people reading a text. The Flesch-Kincaid grade level provides a good enough approximation of what the grade level readability of a given text is.

The Flesch-Kincaid grade level is a function of the average number of syllables per word and the average number of words per sentence. It’s formula is quite simple:

It turns out that Microsoft Word has a tool that can assess the Flesh-Kincaid grade level of text in a Word document. Microsoft introduced this feature back in Office 2003, and it exists in all versions since. This feature needs to be turned on, as it is off by default, but once activated, anyone can easily assess the readability of a given text (see how to activate it here). If you prefer, you can use this free online tool. Google Docs had these features and curiously removed them 2 years ago.

The Flesch-Kincaid evaluation method isn’t new. Nor is it the only method. There are many more methods (and here), though it is probably the most popular. Also, readability depends on many other factors besides those mentioned in Flesch-Kincaid. Visual layout and content, of course, are also significant. These readability evaluation methods have been used to evaluate anything from presidential rhetoric to credit card contracts.

Assessing Readability of my Blog

I wanted to see whether complex material could be presented in a readable manner. This brought me to think about testing my blog. I wanted to see how understandable my blog was; at what grade level could you comfortably read and understand my blog? In order to test this, I took the last 6 blog posts and ran the test on them. Here’s what I came up with:

I was pleased to learn that anybody with 10th grade English reading level could read my blog.

Relevance to Medivizor

So, at Medivizor, which I introduced to you last week, among the many things we are trying to do, we aim to make complex medical and scientific material more accessible to people to whom it matters. We decided to test how readable the material we intend for users is. At first, test results showed that our readability levels were suited to grade 15-16. That meant that our users would have to possess a reading level common to people with 4 years of university or college education.

We felt that this wasn’t good enough. If 10th graders could understand my blog, we should be able to make the medical information more understandable. So, using the Flesch-Kincaid scoring level we set ourselves a target to present our valuable summaries of medical material at the readability level of 10th-12th grade. Most general / basic material will be presented even below 10th grade readability levels. For instance, for more introductory material we have achieved 7th grade level of understandability.

How to Make Material More Readable / Understandable?

According to the Flesch-Kincaid formula, it’s VERY simple: Just reduce the number of syllables in words and the number of words in sentences. Use shorter words and shorter sentences. Indeed, our anecdotal tests show that material with lower Flesch-Kincaid grade levels is easier to read and understand than those with higher grade levels.

Conclusions

Medical information can be complex. That said, it is possible to make this information simpler, better understandable, and therefore more accessible. At Medivizor, we chose to use Flesch-Kincaid grade level as a method to set our target and standardize our written matter. We believe this makes information clearer, more consistent, understandable, and usable for our users. This is something you can do too!

As always, I would love to hear your thoughts, comments, and suggestions!