Two cool tech stories this week got me a little worried. First there were was this one about self-guided bullet accurate up to a mile. Then there was this nano copter swarm:

So nano copter swarms armed with self-guided bullets seems the next step. If I were Dr. Evil. Unfortunately, there are lots of Dr. Evils out there.

Post from: Talking Tech

Nano Copters and Self-guided Bullets

For some odd reason I agreed to be in a play. I haven’t acted in a real play in many years. It’s less than 2 weeks to go before we open in Look Back in Anger at the Ferndale Repertory Theatre and I am still working on my lines! I am only in one scene. But I have a lot of lines in that scene. It’s been a real struggle for me. It may be age. It may be lack of practice with the specific skill of line memorization. But it may be that I rely on external sources to store and and provide instant retrieval of information so that the muscle of memorization of has atrophies.

I rely on my IPhone to remind me of tasks, appointments, birthdays, anniversaries. I have Google and Wikipedia to provide near instant facts and information that my old brain cannot possibly hold on to.

I’m getting there, with lots of extra work and help from friends and family. But you never know. My brain still freezes at moments and lines I know simply disappear in the ether. So, you could come to the play just to see if I will crash and burn. Kind of like going to a NASCAR race. I may get by with a little paraphrase here and there but you wouldn’t know unless you have memorized the lines yourself. I might pull it off without a hitch. In which case, you might even enjoy the play for it’s own value. You’ll recognize me. I play the old guy.

Post from: Talking Tech

Memory, or Its Lack

This is a slightly edited and enhanced version of an article that appeared November, 2011 as part of the Times-Standard/Redwood Technology Consortium Tech Beat series.

The health industry in slowly adopting technology on a large scale, moving to electronic documents, computer generated prescriptions and information sharing. It’s been a rough road as standards and privacy issues have to be grappled with beyond the sheer technical problems. But the trade-offs in efficiency, accuracy and data gathering will be well worth the struggle. Mobile technology will play an increasing role in both institutional and personal health care advances.

An example of the convergence of data and mobile applications is the recent release of an IPad app for health practitioners by Practice Fusion a leader in electronic health records. The app allows doctors instant access to patient records in a secure environment from wherever they are as long as they are connected to the Internet.

While institutional adoption of mobile technology is starting to happen, another revolution in personal health monitoring is also taking place. An explosion of apps and add-on devices for mobile devices are putting a wealth of data gathering, sharing and eventually diagnosis in to the hands of ordinary people and health care workers in the field.

There are quite a few tools already, though in many cases they are still rather basic. Most of the consumer apps and devices focus on diet and exercise monitoring. However, the future is bright as developers begin to understand the mobile platform and stretch its capabilities At the same time mobile systems continue to become more powerful and flexible. Additionally part of the delay of the release of more serious apps and devices has been the long approval process required by the Food and Drug Administration. However, according to a recent article in Business Week that process should soon be streamlined allowing for a flood of new advances for both health care workers and individuals.

A Few Current Applications and Devices

An example of the type of advanced app that can improve health care is described in an article on GigaOm. The app was developed by Dr. John Moore at the MIT Media Group:

One such app enables HIV patients at Boston Medical Center to visualize how HIV develops into AIDs, how the virus attacks their T cells and what happens if they do or do not take their cells.  Using that app, he saw the percentage of patients sticking to their drug regime soar from 25 percent to 95 percent, Moss said.

Another application recently released is an ultrasound device that plugs in to a smartphone and allows a health worker to perform an on site scan.

My Medications, provided by the American Medical Association provides a convenient way for individuals to enter medical information such as allergies, prescriptions, and immunizations and to share that with primary care physicians.

AT&T recently released WellDoc Diabetes Manager that allows patients to monitor glucose levels and receive advice base on the input.

IBGStar is a blood glucose meter plug-in for the iPhone iPhone BGM plug-in will interact with a not yet Apple-approved iBGStar Diabetes Manager App that will help users track blood glucose, carbs intake and insulin dose.

In a more general consumer market, bluetooth phone device maker, Jawbone just came out with the UP, a wristband that monitors walking exercise, provides alerts for prolonged sedentary behavior (like sitting at your computer), monitors sleep habits and diet. The wristband is plugged in to the iPhone sound jack and the data is off-loaded to a free web app and can be shared on a social website.

ITriage is an iPhone/Android app that helps you answer the questions, “What medical condition could I have?” and “Where should I go for treatment?”

The Future is Near

It’s clear that we’re just at the beginning of this mobile revolution. In the next few years expect to see devices and apps become much

Live Long and Prosper

more sophisticated. Researchers are testing an MRI scanner attached to a smartphone that can detect cancer. And there is a 10 million dollar prize being offered for the development of a device that can scan a body and diagnose a variety of ailments. It’s called the Tricorder Prize, named after the device that Spock used in Star Trek. The future is coming fast. (FastCompany also has a good article on mobile health in the February print issue which I’ll link to if they put it online)

More Links

• Top 10 iPhone medical apps for 2011
• 7 medical phone peripherals you should know
• A Doctor in Your Pocket
• 5 Useful iPad Apps for Doctors, Patients and Med Students

Post from: Talking Tech

Healthcare and Mobile Convergence

Technorati Tags: android, gadgets, health, health monitoring, iphone, moblie, personal health gadgets, preventitive medicine, tricorder, x prize

Pretty much every day I listen to The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor. He always mentions the birthday of a few famous or infamous people. Today, he mentioned Elvis Presley, John Neihardt, the writer of Black Elk Speaks, and astrophysicist Stephen Hawking. He didn’t mention me for some reason. I also still don’t have a page in Wikipedia. What’s up with that?

Other than January 8 as a birthday, I don’t see much in common among these folks and me. Would some astrologist please explain this? I am sure there is some “reasonable” connection that would confirm the theory that the heavenly spheres and their relative placement affects our personalities and daily lives.

I am officially 60 years old today. I hope to be around for many more. But if you believe some theories it will be my last. And unless your birthday is after December 21, it will be the last birthday for all of us. If your birthday is 12/21 or later in the month, then you’ve already seen your last birthday.

So, what do astrologers have to say about this end of the world scenario? Thankfully, some are able to interpret the signs. For example, this guy:

Thanks man! It all makes perfect sense, now…

Post from: Talking Tech

Shared Birthdays and the End of the World

On our trip to the Olympic Peninsula in Washington I helped guide our way using my IPhone and the Google maps app. I was having fun watching our pin move along Highway 101, going around curves as we drove around the same curves. My wife said “Look out the window!” Oh, yeah – there’s Sequim Bay and lots of trees. “But look, this app is tracking our every move!” I said.

I have to admit I keep my nose stuck in too many screens. I guess Nick Bilton of the New York Times Bits Blog feels the same way. His New Year resolution is not to be quite so reflexive in grabbing a gadget to record and mediate his experiences.

I can relate, Nick. I may have to add this to my non-existence list of resolutions. So, now I have a list:

1. Get more done
2. Don’t be such a geek and look around

Who’s with me? Of course, then I wouldn’t be able to share this cool photo of the bay and Olympic Mountains:

Click to Enlarge Photo

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Can’t Tell the Bits from the Trees

Technorati Tags: gadgets, iphone

I think I started out the new year right, today. I got up early and after the frost melted, went for a long run in the early morning sun. I encountered this poor fellow who didn’t fair as well as I.  His life, like so many has been cut short but I keep moving, grateful, at nearly 60 to have some more time to breath and be productive.

I have so many ideas and goals and projects in the hopper but I don’t want to make resolutions. I make them every day, anyway. Some I keep, some I don’t. They’re called to do lists. I’d maybe like to get more of each list done. So, that’s my one resolution. Get more done each day.

Not everything on my lists is work related after all: Do 2 lessons in learning Italian, write 2 pages of fiction, read the New Yorker and the Wall Street Journal, work an hour on personal web projects, work out for an hour. These are sometimes very hard to get to each day.  There’s so much else that I let take priority. But looking at that raccoon makes me want to shift those priorities around. That’s the daily challenge.

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Not Roadkill Yet!

In a world in which so many people have so little, I am truly thankful for my friends and family and that I have a warm home and plenty of food to share with them. I am also thankful for my health that allows me to enjoy, maybe even indulge a little in, these gifts.

But as this is a blog on technology, I am also thankful for these astounding technical innovations:

I am thankful for the Internet itself which has brought me many riches, culturally and financially.

I am thankful for my various iDevices (phone, pad) which have become essential parts of my work and play.

I am thankful for Twitter and even Facebook, and now also Google+ which all bring me so much delightful and sometimes outrageous information and connections with friends and strangers.

I am thankful for my cheap little Roku box which puts a bunch of new content on my big screen (for which I am also thankful).

This is just a small list, of course. But most of all, I am thankful to just still be here and to revel in the cool sunshine of this beautiful Fall day.

What are you thankful for?

Post from: Talking Tech

Thanksgiving 2011

I am suddenly watching more TV or rather, video (TV shows, movies, Internet videos, etc.) over the Internet . I broke down and bought a Roku box the other day. If you’re not familiar with the Roku, it’s one of several set top boxes that hook up to your  TV, download or stream video from various sources and play them on your big screen. Some of the the other best known devices are Boxee and Apple TV (not the rumored Apple televisions set, but a box that hooks to your existing TV that Steve Jobs called a “hobby”).

I bought the Roku because it’s the cheapest of the three and seems to have the most services available. I thought about getting an Apple TV because I am such an Apple fanboy and use ITunes quite a bit and the Apple TV has a built in integration with ITunes.

But the number of free sources on the Roku service won out. And if I subscribe to Netflix and HBOGO, I could have all the entertainment I could possible want.  My goal is not necessarily to cut the chord on my cable service. But I wouldn’t mind cutting back to just basic cable. I’d need to have the service anyway if I wanted to get HBOGO.

I think all these devices are stop gap technologies that will soon be supplanted with something like the integrated television box (the rumored Apple TV, maybe), essentially a TV with a computer in it that connects directly to your ITunes and ICloud and has Siri in it so all you have to do is say “TV, show me cats playing pianos and any unwatched episodes of Boardwalk Empire” and it wills show you a custom menu with a list of YouTube videos and  unwatched episodes of Broadway Empire. And you will speak to it again, “Show me episode 16 of Broadway Empire” and it will start streaming that show. NO MORE REMOTES!

And eventually it will start to speak to you when you walk in the room and say in a soothing voice, “You have 3 unwatched episodes of Glee, Dave. Would you like to watch them now, Dave?” Even though my name is Bob and maybe that will be creepy.

But beyond that, Siri or something like it will be embedded in your house and appliances and we will be talking to the walls and the walls will talk to us as they learn our preferences and that really will be the moment we will all live in a technical cocoon, wrapped in silk threads of fiber.

Post from: Talking Tech

Wrapped in a Cocoon of Fiber

Technorati Tags: Apple TV boxee, fiber, iptv, roku, siri, talking to the walls

This video is hilarious. The “psychic” tells how she got involved in this missing person case in Nevada. I love the quote: “It’s called psychometry”. That’s a made up word where the psychic feels objects and gets feelings, and visions from them. I also like “I try to stay out of my mind”. No duh. (I wish I could embed the video here, but the code the source site supplies defies my technical ability:

Psychic Interview

What’s really bizarre is the “reporter’s” nonchalant acceptance, even encouragement of this cock and bull story. Where is the reporting? Where is the skepticism?

Post from: Talking Tech

Cops Get Fooled Again

Technorati Tags: baloney, esp, missing person, psychic, scam, skeptical

(Read with your best Andy Rooney whiny voice): Do you ever wonder why people like to dress up in stupid costumes and have their kids go door to door begging for crap food? Yeah, me too. What’s the deal? OK, maybe I spent 20 years in the theater and the circus and greasing up my face no longer holds an appeal. I understand some people like to play pretend as it lets them get out of the personality box they live in the rest of the year.

But some people take this spooky stuff really seriously.

Yesterday in the check out line of the local grocery store the clerk asked the lady ahead of me if she was going to enjoy Halloween. She said no, she believes in spirits and didn’t want to do anything to encourage them. Come on, people! Is the 2011 or 1211?

Maybe no one will show up at  my door if I close the curtains and turn out all the lights and I can eat all the Reese’s peanut butte cups myself while I re-read parts of The Swerve: How the World Became Modern by Stephen Greenblatt (affiliate link).

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Boo Humbug!

Technorati Tags: costumes, cranks, halloween, kids, spirits

Update: After several tries I got both my IPhone and IPad working with the new iOS. It appears I was a victim of Apple’s popularity and lack of planning. Their servers were overloaded with people trying to download the new system.

Just because I’m sitting in front of my computer I think it’s good idea to get iOS 5 THE MOMENT it’s released. Dumb. As. A. Brick. Which is what my iPhone is now.

I cannot restore from backup. I cannot upgrade. Apparently the servers are overloaded. So, I am not alone. I am with Stupid.

Here’s hoping they get this sorted out soon. I need to make a phone call.

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iBrick

Technorati Tags: apple, ios, iphone, upgrade

Nearly 2 years ago I posted a list of some of my favorite podcasts. Reviewing that post I see some have disappeared and some I don’t listen to as regularly as I should. And there a some that I listen to regularly now that are not on the list. I will update my favorites some day soon, but want to mention one I listen to daily (working days): Marketplace Tech Report. It’s a 5 minute or so tech news show with a twist. John Moe and team highlight often under reported but really interesting stories often with a touch of humor.

Last week on Market Place Tech I heard a story about Harvard wanting to borrow your computer to help develop a better solar cell. Remember SETI? I used to run a program on my computers that allowed the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence to use your idle computer cycles to analyze data gathered from space. This project is similar in concept: You download an application that connects to the project’s system, the application downloads raw data, runs through some algorithms and sends the analyzed data back to the mother ship. It’s a neat idea. And while the Tech Report highlighted the Harvard Solar Cell program, it’s really one of several you can participate in through the World Community Grid.

So I’ve signed up and am now allowing my computer to help on projects from alternative energy to curing cancer. Why not? It’s a bit of work to create an account and set it up, but it’s better than having your computer be a slave in a botnet sending out spam, now isn’t it?

Post from: Talking Tech

Putting Your Computer Cycles to Work for Good

Technorati Tags: alternative energy, computing cycles, doing good, SETI, solar cells

Let’s imagine Steve Jobs was in a position to set policy for the government for various programs and one of the programs he had oversight for was the Post Office. Would we be at the position today where the Post Office was on the brink of collapse? No. In fact, 10 years ago he would have been laying the groundwork for eliminating the Post Office altogether. Or at least transforming it in to something else that would by now be unrecognizable as the Post Office we know. At some point he would have come out on stage and said, “Oh and one more thing, Post Post Office.”

I have no idea what that would be. I’m not Steve Jobs. And he’s not in control of any aspect of the government, at least not directly. And if he were, in reality he would not be able to push his new policy/concept through the tangled web of politics. And that’s the problem.

Even if there are people with the vision of Steve Jobs working in the government, or even half the vision of Steve Jobs, they would be frustrated by the inability of our current system to keep up  with let alone get ahead the pace of change in science, technology,  and economics. There are too many competing interests that slow the pace of government change. This used to be seen as a virtue. The back and forth of politics keeps us from making extreme decisions that can turn out to be wrong.

But deliberateness and consensus building could prove disastrous. Climate change, economic upheaval, these are just two of the biggest problems that require bold and fast action. But few companies can turn visions in to products that work beautifully and make the public happy. And so far, no government has found a form to do the same.

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If Steve Jobs Controlled the Post Office

Technorati Tags: change, economics, policy, politics, post office, steve jobs, technolgy

When QR Codes started showing up in magazines a year or so ago I thought they were a gimmick. I still think, for the most part, they are. After all, why not just have a URL that can be typed in to a browser either on your computer or mobile browser?

But the discussion of QR Codes has come up with a couple clients recently so I thought I’d take a closer look at what’s being done with them. Apparently, they are cropping up everywhere. And as the use of smartphones continues to grow, they may be around for quite some time – or at least some form of what this writer calls ‘Real World Hyperlinking’ will be.

In case you don’t know, QR Codes are those ugly little squares with odd squiggles on them that, with a QR Code reader you can quickly scan and be taken to some resource on the web, read a message, get a phone number and have your phone call it and so on. They are easy to make and place in email, on the web, in print ads or business cards.

But what’s the real value proposition? There are a couple really basic ideas that make QR Codes worth implementing:

1. With the increase use of smartphones and free QR Code reader apps, you can give mobile users a quick way to connect with you. Once you have the app on your phone, it’s so easy to point it at a QR Code instead of typing in a web address. Convenience and speed are the language of the mobile world.
2. There is something fun about pointing your phone at a QR Code and finding out what lies behind it. And if a business or organization puts something special behind it it’s a great opportunity to engage with that potential client or customer. As the article linked above states:

“While it’s just as simple to look up information on the mobile web, savvy businesses are realizing that one of the main benefits of a QR code campaign is to provide their mobile customers with instantaneous access to something that is unique and can’t be accessed in another way.”

So don’t just point your QR Codes to your home page. Make something special, either a web landing page or a mobile mini-site and offer something special like unique information, a special video, discount codes, or a contest.

Want to get started with QR Codes? Here are some resources:

• Some tips from Mashable
• A guide to QR readers to download
• Some sites for generating QR Codes
  1. Google’s URL shortener (click details to get the image)
  2. Delivr
  3. Kaywa

Are you using QR Codes in your marketing? Here’s one I created:

Post from: Talking Tech

QR Codes and You

Technorati Tags: marketing, qr code, smartphones

Last week I had my 15 seconds of almost fame. I’ve been an Amazon Affiliate for years. When I got my email from Amazon that they were closing my account because of the sales tax law passed by California. For some reason my name got passed to a couple journalists as a spokesperson for the 10,000 or so affiliates who had their business shut down without recourse.

So while I was up on a ridge above Loleta watching my daughter rider her mustang I did a phone interview with a writer from SF Weekly. I tried to steer him to someone who had actually made some good money and so had more at stake, but I guess they couldn’t connect.

A couple days later I was interviewed by a reporter from the Eureka Times-Standard. Again, I tried to slough her off to someone else. But she was persistent so there I am again. I guess it shows how easy it is to get noticed using the right keywords in social media posts, especially if the topic is newsy.

Although I hadn’t made much money from my affiliate program, I know others who have made thousands and will now be forced to find alternatives. These folks generate income by adding value floating on top of the Amazon retail river. Since Amazon cut them off, the State of California will not gain any income from their sales tax. In fact, big players in this realm will simply move or move their “official” address to another state, thus reducing the revenue in income tax for the State as well. This is a fine example of unintended consequences of what seems like a sensible action. I understand the State needs revenue, and don’t mind paying sales tax. But this was clearly not the way to go about it.

This actually does hurt me more than I let on as I have been working on a number of personal web projects where the Amazon Affiliate program would have played a part in building sustainable revenue. I guess I will have to rethink that part of  my plan. I’ve also been looking longingly at property in the state of Washington.

If you have a story to share about your Amazon Affiliate program, I’d love to read it. Put it in the comments!

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Amazon Affiliates and Taxes

Technorati Tags: affliliates, Amazon, Social Media, tax law