The hypealicious, hyperluxus Apple Watch debut–what the healtherati are interested in

March 10, 2015 | by
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/gimlet-eye.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]L’œil de Gimlet eyes the Apple Watch. What’s down the road is more important than Monday’s unveil. Certainly The Eye, an adorer of all things over-the-top, would love to have the $10,000-and-up 18 karat, Daddy Warbucks, Solid Gold Cadillac edition of the Apple Watch. It is the sheer hyperluxus, Mercedes-Maybach S600-ness of it all that races my pulse. Stop at $4,000? Nein! $10,000 and up lends a golden glow to all those ordinary, plastic-banded, Mickey Mouse-faced $349 and up versions for the Applepolloi that take that pulse, burp your wrist when you’re not moving enough, open the garage door, play tunes and let you draw little thingies on the face that you can send to your friends. (Urp) What’s even better than a Merc-Maybach in Conspicuous Consumption-Ville? That it will be out of date in a year, unless Apple has a trade-in policy.

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Tim-Cook-previews-the-App-008.jpg” thumb_width=”200″ /] Cue Tim Cook and the Happy Dance of the Watches. (Photo: Zuma/Rex via Guardian)

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Apple-Goldfinger.jpg” thumb_width=”200″ /]Cue Shirley Bassey. (Gigaom via Twitter)

Ah, but let us get down to business and cut our swathe through the fog d’hype. (Editor Donna just walked in the door…)

As predicted and projected, the Apple Watch in stores 24 April in Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, UK and US goes light and standard on health measurement features: accelerometer, heart rate sensors, running and weekly activity reports. What’s different? Wrist burps you if you’re a lazy, sitting sod. (Not a great feature for deep meditators or napsters.) The leak from two weeks ago feinted health through downplaying the functionality of the Watch. Back in September, claims included blood pressure and stress monitoring. [TTA 18 Feb]

Now for the right cross. It’s not the Watch, it’s the ResearchKit. Apple gets serious in health apps beyond HealthKit, partnering with the stars in the medical research firmament. As reported: (more…)

‘Nudging’ chronic condition-ers to QSing

May 23, 2013 | by

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/gimlet-eye.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]TripleTree, a VC that funds many iHealthy companies, casts a hopeful eye (certainly not a Gimlet Eye) at the consumer-driven growth of health tech and finds the steam generated by the Quantified Selfers and Fitness Addicts, stoked by the Healthcare Digerati who are not Going Surfing USA, is cooling fast and flatly. The Big Bucks are betting on ‘nudging’ (or as Aunt Lillian put it, ‘nooodging’) those diabetics, overweight couch potatoes, smokers and consumers of 72-ounce sodas, those naughty 20 percenters who spend an estimated 80 percent of US healthcare money, towards the New Jerusalem of Healthy Lifestyles and Big Savings. Of course, as the writer points out, payers and pharmas are still gathering data and documenting that increasing physical activity or sensoring med reminders, despite their Quantum of Cool, actually gets everyone to this destination and not another. One increasingly popular Road to Perdition is to introduce the refractory to the Carrot und Stick Gauntlet located at the corner of Tech, Privacy and Cost [TTA 21 March.] But the intensely blinking Big Yellow Light is that the Diabetic Experience [TTA 5 April] points out that ‘nooodging’ people to do something they don’t wanna and has uncertain, variable outcomes is not necessarily Their Road to Damascus. Personal Fitness, Chronic Condition Management and Connected Health

While The Eye takes The Road to the Beach in a 1946 Buick Super woody, Editor Donna notes the listing at the end of the article of the dozen finalists for the iAward to be announced 30 May, including AliveCor, Healthsense (a telecare system!) and Qualcomm Life.

The etiquette guide to Google Glass

May 7, 2013 | by | 1 Comment
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/gimlet-eye.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]Lo and behold, we are already anticipating the effects that Google Glass will have on our everyday social interactions! And the view is a bit jaundiced. The Wall Street Journal this weekend catalogued in a most amusing article all the ways wearers could offend, accompanied by 1890s-vintage illustrations (modified) of said gaffes, and what courtesies wearers should exercise whilst wearing in public:

 

  • Always remember: You have a camera on your head (so easy to forget)
  • Use voice commands only when you need to
  • Don’t use Google Glass to make phone calls in public (what then, pray tell, is the point?)
  • Give it a rest sometimes
  • Don’t be creepy (a tall order)
  • Let people try it on

Unfortunately, the writer reminded the Eye of the unfortunate time around 2004-6 when Bluetooth earleechespieces became the rage among Masters of the Universe and office tech nerds–the item you most wanted to rip off said ears and stomp sans merci into the ground, which fortunately dimmed its popularity. Of course, the article includes a Gallery of Previous Offenders just to show we naysayers how wrong we will be, how benign this all is….

Oh, but not so fast! Jason Perlow in ZDNet’s TechBroiler considers Glass as Cybernetic Headband, or Cyband, that in current design it is flawed in being too much in one device–and a massive security risk. Not much of a leap, because the ‘Explorer’ version has already been jailbroken, opening all sorts of nasty possibilities for stealthy surveillance by sociopaths. It’s Alice through the ‘Evil Glass’. Mr. Perlow also has a torturous view of the future, when we are Beyond Google Glass: 2034 into full-blown Augmented Reality implants. A dystopia that makes one scream. The Eye is now checking residency requirements and travel itineraries (boat and seaplane only) to the remotest parts of New Zealand or Tulabonga… [Editor Donna: We ask our readers to help keep The Gimlet Eye in civilization. Please help the Eye see that GG is not all bad! Your comments please!]

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/surveillance-ban.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]Update: And the revolt continues with locations from Vegas casinos to Seattle dive bars telling GG that they are No Wearing Zones–but the NY Times article spends 20 percent of its space on a long-dead Twitter/photo controversy. More to dine on about the jailbreak plus, courtesy of the worthy anti-GG blog Stop The Cyborgs and Jay Freeman’s blog Saurik. (Photo courtesy of Stop the Cyborgs)

Previously in TTA: The Gimlet Eye weighs The amazing lightness of Google’s Being There vs The Private Eye, and storms the barricades with The revolt against Google Glass