Digital health for pets – more

March 14, 2016 | by

Our item on telehealth for pets has prompted Prof Mike Short to draw my attention to an article on digital health at Crufts over the weekend. Offerings include:

  • PitPat, a fully-fledged fitness tracker for dogs, particularly to help avoid obesity;
  • AnimAlarm, makers of a heat sensor for dogs in cars (similar perhaps to the heat sensor for babies in cars that won a previous Blue Blazes award), have now branched out to create what is claimed to be the world’s first auto-inflating life jacket (for dogs presumably – the technology’s been around for humans for a while). Described as a life-saving piece of equipment, it is aimed at “giving pooches everywhere a fighting chance should they be thrown overboard at sea”. (Is the logic that if dogs have to be protected from owners that leave them in hot cars, they’ll need protection from owners doing other crazy things too?)

 

BT’s plans for Cornwall and the UK: old news warmed up

February 3, 2014 | by
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/blue-blazes.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]Qualifying for TTA’s occasional What the Blue Blazes! spot: one has to wonder why last Friday, 31st January, Nick Renaud-Komiya in the paywalled Health Services Journal resurrected the ‘BT going to make Cornwall its UK telehealth base’ story. Although, actually, the item is all about Cornwall. Some of it is culled from an October 2013 BT press release which we did not bother our readers with. Why did we not? We thought it was old news even then, as putting ‘Cornwall’ into TTA’s search box on the right will reveal. However, anything posted in the HSJ will generate some interest and that’s just what it did with an approving mention in the sidebar of Roy Lilley’s influential newsletter today. It’s just a pity that HSJ’s readers will not see the whole context or be able to make any sensible assessment of the numbers quoted. They would fare better with this 2 October eHealthInsider article.

For TTA readers who want to read the HSJ item but who do not want to get their digital wallets out,it can be read unpaywalled on the Local Government Chronicle site: BT plans to make Cornwall its ‘telehealth hub’

Sony files SmartWig patent!

December 8, 2013 | by

smartwigHere we have a patent filed by Sony for a sensor-laden hairpiece/wig. There are three prototypes; the Presentation Wig which has a laser pointer and allows you to change PowerPoint slides by simply pushing the sideburns – this would brighten up presentations no end ;-), the Navigation Wig which uses a GPS and vibration to direct the user, and the Sensing Wig which contains sensors to take physiological readings such as temperature and blood pressure. (more…)

The ‘ginormous’ hype around forecasts

September 10, 2013 | by
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/blue-blazes.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]Our readers may have noticed that your Editors of late have skipped the relentless tracking of eHealth/mHealth/digital health/wearables forecasts, save Editor Charles nominating research2guidance’s latest for ‘What in the Blue Blazes’. Yet r2g’s $26 billion by 2017 forecast for the category was but a lagniappe* compared to MarketsandMarkets‘ puffy $59.7 billion by 2018. Laurie Orlov has artfully skewered the relentless forecasting (she is a recovering veteran of Forrester Research) with the sobering comparison of the current D3H**-fed bubble to the fluffy eCommerce forecasts circa 2000. And we all know how that ended. Do not miss her tale of “mythical John and the XLife Preserver” and how it attracts a VC named Head, Clouds, Smoke and Vapor (HCS & V), located down the hill from a Napa winery. (Presumably the product flows downhill?) The Wireless Health market is ginormous — so forecasters say (Aging In Place Technology Watch)

Another factoid from the M&M report: Mobile apps alone by 2018 will be valued at $20.7 billion from $6.3 billion now. Yet 90 percent are currently free and the rest are $1-2, except for medical apps targeted to professionals. The Gimlet Eye is still trying to compute this one in Monopoly® money, and is requesting a large bottle of Panadol (Tylenol). Drug Store News

* Lagniappe: something given or obtained gratuitously or by way of good measure (Merriam-Webster)–American French by way of New Orleans   **D3H=Digital Health Hypester Horde