Doro has revealed its latest handset – the Doro Secure 681.” According to an item in Mobile Magazine, the phone will launch in the second quarter of this year and is “aimed at people who currently rely on the support of a fixed-line telecare services, allowing them greater mobility outside the home.” The 681 is said to be the first mobile phone to feature an embedded ‘class one’ telecare radio receiver that is compatible with Doro’s wearable wrist, neck and fall sensors. Alerts can be sent to monitoring services via the internet or SMS. To this editor, if the photo in the above item is to be believed, the clamshell design and screen/keyboard layout is going to be too complicated for many people in the target market. It also looks like big-boy Doro has been learning a few lessons about the need to check and report battery charge levels automatically from UK small-guy Carephone. However Doro will have the advantage of being part of Bosch’s offering to the public. It will be interesting to see which gets traction with the public first, the Doro/Bosch combination or O2’s Health at Hand.
London Telecare MarketPlace Event (UK)
21 March 2013, Walthamstow, London
The London Telecare Group has again organised one of its popular, free-to-attend MarketPlace Events at which most of the UK’s telecare and telehealth suppliers set out their stalls and visitors can look over the latest gear and prod and poke the reps in the hope of getting an unhyped view of their wares. See the flyer (PDF) for details. Although it is not necessary to book, please let LTG Chair Doug Miles know that you plan to attend.
LSE Technology Conference: How to get off the Roundabout
8-9 April 2013, London
Or, it give it it’s full title, How to get off the Roundabout: Making a success of an ageing population! It is organised by The European Knowledge Tree Group (EKTG) which is an ad-hoc high-level group drawn from the technology, finance, service, policy and innovation sectors. With the support of senior European officials it has met periodically since the 2010 Ambient Assisted Living Forum in Odense and brings together experts through a series of conferences, masterclasses and meetings – latterly at AAL 2012 in Eindhoven. And now the masterclass is coming to London with an unusually high number of high-profile speakers. There are exhibition opportunities for suppliers. Details here.
New lower fees for CUHTec telecare courses (UK)
CUHTec have announced new ‘early bird’ booking fees of £195 for CUHTec Strategy Courses for managers and commissioners and £95 for the CUHTec Training Courses for operational staff. Further details of the four Strategy Courses and one Training Course currently advertised can be found at http://www.cuhtec.org.uk/courses/.
Practice Fusion EHR buys a ‘nudger’
Practice Fusion, a leading US EHR which is free to practices, bought predictive modeler 100Plus. Besides sharing a founder (Ryan Howard) and a focus on healthcare data, 100Plus uses individual data to ‘nudge’ (there’s that word again) people into healthier behaviors. The interest of Practice Fusion of course, is that it is awash in patient data–but HIPAA privacy regulations limit direct, identified use. 100Plus plans to stay safe by focusing on medication adherence and tools that doctors and patients can use together to encourage engagement. Forbes
What it takes to deliver sustainable global health: sustainable financing
The mHealth Alliance and consultant/research company VitalWave have published a globally-oriented study detailing what holds back mHealth from scaling up in low to middle-income countries, centering on financing. Hundreds of projects are in the field, but practically all are dependent on short-term financing or grants, and few have viable plans beyond the next grant. Projects also by their nature are stand-alone and don’t integrate in their design and delivery with other often similar projects. This study evaluates five financial models and transferring from external funding to a revenue stream from buyers. Case studies include VillageReach (maternal SMS/phone support), Switchboard (free calling network for health workers), Sproxil (drug verification), SMS for Life (SMS for anti-malarial drug distribution) and Changamka (affordable health care). Sustainable Financing for Mobile Health (42 pages)
Smart tech=dumber people?
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/bincam_l.jpeg” thumb_width=”220″ /]Is the real goal of ‘smart gadgets’ not to help solve our problems or keep us from harm, but to fix, per the Google paradigm, the “broken” place that is the real world and the bad behavior of fools like us? (For example, not recycling properly, having too much trash, eating too fast, too much chocolate? Then tattling to our Facebook friends so they can chide us?) Evgeny Morozov, in this discomfiting Wall Street Journal article, cuts through the Silicon Valley hype around gadgets that marry cheap sensors, software and social networks to ‘nudge’ (that hateful word)/reward/shove us to the New Jerusalem of social engineering and some developer’s nannyish idea of ‘better behavior’. Yes, there are ‘good smart’ devices that help us make decisions, lifesaving tech such as gait sensors that monitor the elderly for propensity to fall, and breath analyzers that cut the car’s ignition when the driver’s had too much alcohol, but these are being drowned out in both the public consciousness and the VC wallet by shame-making trash cans and HapiForks. Rather than empowering us, it may be… Is Smart Making Us Dumb?
Another perfect example of condescension to the end user is observed in Google’s Sergey Brin’s recent remarks during his endless flogging of Google Glass, now just Glass. Now looking down at your smartphone is ’emasculating’ (interesting choice of words) because you are ‘walking around hunched up, looking down, rubbing a featureless piece of glass’ rather than interacting. Aside from the fact that you can put it away, and that Google’s made a fair amount of coin from Nexus smartphones and tablets, it’s obvious that Glass is meant to be worn ALL THE TIME, serving up whatever Google wants you to have ALL THE TIME. Surely the California TEDx folks raved at this maximum cool, but this Editor is skeptical that this world will be actually be better with all Google, all the time. In other words, enough. Google’s Sergey Brin rips smartphones, shows off Glass (Computerworld)
Most Recent Comments