IoT and the inevitable, looming Big Data Breach

July 6, 2016 | by

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/gimlet-eye.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]The Gimlet Eye returns to once again cast a baleful gaze on All Those Connected Things, or the Plastic Fantastic Inevitable. Those 6.4 million Wi-Fi-connected tea kettles, smart fridge, remotely adjusted pacemakers (and other medical devices) plus home security two way video systems that accost the dodgy door ringer sound just peachy–but how good is their security? Not very, according to the experts quoted in this ZDNet article. It’s those nasty security flaws in IoT which were patched out 10 years ago on PCs that make them incredibly risky to have, as they can vector all sorts of Bad Things into both personal and enterprise networks. Their prediction is that a Connected Device with a big flaw will become molto popular and provide a Target a Hacker Can’t Refuse within two years. Or that some really clever hacker will write ransomware that will shut down millions of Connected Cars’ CPUs or disable the steering and brakes if 40 bitcoins aren’t placed in a brown paper bag and left on the third stool of the pizzeria at 83rd and Third.

Not much has changed since Eye wrote about those darn Internet Thingys last year [TTA 22 Sept 15]. The mystery is of course why these antique flaws are even part of the design. Designers being cheapskates? No consideration of security? (more…)

Stop the Internet of Things Monster!

June 1, 2016 | by

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/robottoy-1.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]A cry from the heart (or aching head) indeed! The overhyped, overheated and overblown Internet of Things (IoT) gets a good and deserved lampooning from tech writer Joanna Stern. If you take seriously a egg tray that tells you when the hen ova are getting few or old, an umbrella that signals you when it’s left home, a connected toilet seat and a juicer that only works when it’s on Wi-Fi, you’ll think the writer is a Luddite. But if you think 95 percent of IoT is ridiculous (save a Few Good Apps) and Overload Reigns in Solving Problems Which Aren’t, you’ll enjoy The Internet of Every Single Thing Must Be Stopped (Wall Street Journal). (Ms Stern would be undoubtedly appreciative of the ‘‘Uninvited Guests’ that nag and spy. And she doesn’t even get into the hackable dangers of Interconnected Everything.)

Two RSM events of interest on medicine’s future and Big Data/IoT (UK)

April 20, 2016 | by

Make a place in your calendar for two Royal Society of Medicine full day events coming up in May and June. Both organized by the Telemedicine and eHealth Section. Hat tip to Charlotte Cordrey, Event Team Manager, RSM

The future of medicine – the role of doctors in 2025
Thursday 19 May 2016  (Chaired by our own Editor Charles Lowe)

Big data 2016 (Clouds and the Internet of Things)
Thursday 2 June 2016

 

The AAL Smart Ageing Prize: €50,000 could be yours!

March 14, 2016 | by

The Active & Assisted Living (AAL) Programme has launched the AAL Smart Ageing Prize – a €50,000 challenge prize to find the best innovation in internet connected devices and technologies (Internet of Things) that will empower older adults to achieve the social & independent qualities of life they aspire to.

The prize aims to find innovations that improve connectivity between older adults, devices and technologies related to any aspect of their life (e.g. home, social, work, study, transport or services). The idea should present a business opportunity which has the potential to be commercially viable. Applications must involve older adults in the development and testing of the technology.

The AAL will help the most innovative ideas turn into real products that can be financially sustainable. Fifteen of the most promising applications will be chosen as finalists and will be invited to a social innovation mentoring academy in Brussels in July to progress their ideas. Each of the finalists will be awarded a €500 Euro grant to develop a prototype to demonstrate.

The winner will be awarded a prize of €50,000 at the AAL Forum in Switzerland in late September. The Prize is open to individuals, groups and organisations in the 28 member countries of the European Union, as well as Israel, Canada, Norway and Switzerland.

The deadline for applications is Friday 13 May 2016 at midday (12pm) Central European Time.

For full details and to apply please visit the AAL website.

Good luck!

The security risks, and the promise of, the Internet of Things

February 3, 2016 | by

Jason Hope, who back in September wrote on how one of the greatest impediments to the much-touted Internet of Things (IoT) was not security, but the lack of a standardized protocol that would enable devices to communicate, has continued to write on both this topic and IoT security. While The Gimlet Eye had great fun lampooning the very notion of Thingys Talking and Doing Things Against Their Will [TTA 22 Sept 15], and this Editor has warned of security risks in over-connectivity of home devices (see below), relentlessly we are moving towards it. The benefit in both healthcare monitoring/TECS and safely living at home for older adults is obvious, but these devices must work together easily, safely and securely. To bend the English language a bit, the goal is ‘commonplaceness’–no one thinks much about the ubiquitous ATM, yet two decades ago ‘cash machines’ were not in many banks and (in the US) divided into regional networks.

As Mr Hope put it as the fifth and final prediction in his recent article:

The IoT Will Stop Being a “Thing”
How many times in the past week have you said, “I am getting on to the World Wide Web?” Chances are, not very many. How many times have you thought about the wonder of switching on a switch and having light instantly? Probably never. Soon, the Internet of Things, and connectivity in general, is going to be so common place, we also won’t think about it. It will just be part of life and the benefits and technology that wow us right now will cease to be memorable.

This Editor continues to be concerned about how hackers can get into devices, (more…)

Philips Healthcare partners with Amazon Web Services, adds more IoT

October 16, 2015 | by
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Philips_AWS-IoT-infographic.jpg” thumb_width=”200″ /]The once-quiet Philips is expanding its connectivity for HealthSuite through a partnership with Amazon‘s recently announced collaboration with Amazon Web Services (AWS). The objective in connecting through AWS is to expand to hundreds of million devices through a secure, stable IoT ‘device cloud’ that securely collects and analyzes data from apps (like the diabetes app in test with Radboud University, TTA 18 Sept), medical devices and EMRs/PHRs. The Philips HealthSuite Digital Platform is a product of Philips’ collaboration with Salesforce, and is also (for now) targeted to senior care for adults. Philips’ release and case studies are, unfortunately, buried in this very busy page. It’s another move for Philips that confirms their ‘Hospital to Home’ repositioning.

What’s caught my digital health interest recently

September 30, 2015 | by

At the Royal Society of Medicine we’ve just announced our next medical apps event on 7th April next year, Medical apps; mainstreaming innovation in which we feature for the first time a presentation by Pam Kato, a Professor of Serious Games, so it’s intriguing to see the iMedicalApps review of a clinician-facing serious game, iConcur, for anaesthetists.

We also have a powerful presentation on mental health apps from Ieso Digital Health which doubtless will make the same point as has been made in previous events that online mental health services typically are more effective than face:face. The abstract to the recent Lancet paper by Dr Lisa Marzano et al, examining this topic in great detail, suggests that the academics are now a long way to working out why this is the case and offers further potential improvements; aspiring mental health app developers unable to access the full paper may consider it worth paying $31.50 (or join the RSM to access it for free).

A regular at the RSM’s Appday is Dr Richard Brady’s presentation on Bad Apps, which next year will now doubtless include mention of the FTC’s recent fifth action against an app provider, UltimEyes, with deceptively claiming they their program was scientifically proven to improve the user’s eye sight.

Moving to good apps (more…)

IoT’s biggest problem? Communication of Things.

September 22, 2015 | by | 3 Comments
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/gimlet-eye.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]The Gimlet Eye joins us for a ‘blink’ from an undisclosed, low-tech dot on the map. The fave rave of 2015 is IoT, the annoying shorthand for Internet of Things. Well, can Aunt Madge go into a store and buy an Internet Thingy? But it seems fundamental that The Things Speak with each other, if only to compare football scores and conspire against their owner to drive him or her Stark Raving Mad by producing too many ice cubes in the fridge, turning lights on/off at the wrong times or sending out for a deli order of 20 pounds of Black Forest sliced ham. Our fear about The Things was in considering that they could be hacked in doing Things Against Their Will and Not In The Owner’s Manual. But never mind, it’s not this we should be concerned about, or whether Uncle Aloysius will go off-roading in his Google Galaxie after it’s hacked for fun by an eight-year-old Black Hat. It’s that practically all of these same or different brand TVs, parking meters, cars and health/activity monitoring devices to make life simple for Auntie and Oncle are built on different platforms without a communication protocol. The Eye is now relieved of the fear that IoT devices will be crawling out of the water onto her faraway from dull care beach anytime soon. But you may not be. The Biggest Problem with the Internet of Things? Hint: It’s Not Security (Tech.co) Hat tip to follower @ersiemens via Twitter

DHACA visits Lancaster University on 23rd September – come and join us!

September 10, 2015 | by

The Digital Health & Care Alliance is holding its sixth one day event on 23rd September, at the University of Lancaster.

DHACA Days are aimed at informing members, seeking feedback on DHACA activities and encouraging special Interest Group (SIG) engagement in topics of importance to members. On this occasion we have a very special SIG event which is the launching of DHACA’s medical apps regulatory process description, which looks at all the things you need to do to get a medical app fully approved. The draft is already available for members to comment on.

In addition, in the morning we will have presentations from:

  • Prof Peter Sawyer, Professor of Software Systems Engineering, University of Lancaster:sensing cognitive health through monitoring computer interaction and through ambient technology – this is a most exciting (and I guess to some a bit scary) new area of research where you can sense someone’s cognitive health from how they use smartphones and other devices.
  • Prof Jon Whittle; Head of the School of Computing and Communications,University of Lancaster: the uses for temporary digital tattoos, and how to make them – this will in part be an interactive session in which members’ suggestions and, if appropriate, future involvement will be sought.
  • Jeremy Moyse, Strategic Development Manager, SEQOL: a provider’s view of how technology will help deliver changes in the health & care world – SEQOL is a ‘spin-out’ social enterprise formed in 2011 from the NHS Transforming Community Service programme and now delivers a broad range of health & care services in Swindon; as Jeremy will explain, it has grown massively since then, and collected a cabinet full of awards.
  • Prof Awais Rashid, University of Lancaster: secure IoT use in digital health – Prof Rashid is a world expert on this topic which has become particularly important since the FDA recently withdrew approval from an infusion pump because it was too easy to hack. He will explain the critical importance of IoT security, how to assess it and how best to achieve secure solutions.

(more…)

Is wearable IoT really necessary–and dangerous to your privacy?

August 21, 2015 | by

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/is-your-journey-neccessary_.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]But does the average person even care? This Editor senses a groundswell of concern among HIT and health tech regarding the highly touted Internet of Things (IoT) and the dangers it might present. Our previous article reviewed the possibilities of hacking, system vulnerabilities in IoT networks and software bugs ‘bricking’ everyday objects such as refrigerators and cars. But what about wearables and the unimaginable amount of data they generate? Is it as unidentifiable as wearables makers claim? Columbia University computer science student Matthew Piccolella focuses in his article on healthcare ‘things’, primarily fitness trackers like Editor Charles’ favorite, Jawbone, but also clothing and even headsets that measure brain waves (Imec). Their volumes of data are changing the definition of healthcare privacy, which in the US has been synonymous with HIPAA. The problem is that health metadata are increasingly identifiable in a ‘big data’ world. (more…)

Is IoT really necessary–and dangerous?

August 14, 2015 | by
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/is-your-journey-neccessary_.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /] With the news full of health data security breaches, your Editors have also worried about medical device hacks that could threaten life. Back in May 2014, we noted Essentia Health‘s info security head deliberately hacking their own devices to find the security holes (which he drove a truck through), the concern on Dick Cheney’s defibrillator as far back as 2007 and other devices being agents of murder (postulated by the late Barnaby Jack). Multiple computer assists and internet connectivity are everywhere now–in our cars, home security, smart appliances and more. Except that they are all highly vulnerable to hacking. (Imagine your air conditioning being shut down by a hacker on a 95 degree day).

The Hacker News (a first mention) named the top international ‘smart cities’ most suspect to a chaos-making cyber attack, in rank order:  Santander, Spain (!); New York City; Aguas De Sao Pedro, Brazil (?); Songdo, ROK; Tokyo; Hong Kong and Arlington county, Virginia (adjacent to Washington DC), noting security systems, transit, (more…)

‘Déjà vu all over again’ or critical mass? NYTimes looks at older adult care tech

July 28, 2015 | by | 4 Comments

“It’s like déjà vu all over again” as Yogi Berra, the fast-with-a-quip Baseball Hall of Fame catcher-coach-manager once said. About 2006-7, telecare broke through as a real-world technology and the tone of the articles then was much like how this New York Times article starts. But the article, in the context of events in the past two years, indicate that finally, finally there is a turning point in care tech, and we are on the Road to Critical Mass, where the build, even with a few hitches, is unstoppable.

Have telehealth, telecare, digital health or TECS (whatever you’d like to call it) turned the corner of acceptability? More than that, has it arrived at what industrial designer Raymond Loewy dubbed MAYA (Most Advanced Yet Acceptable) in keeping older adults safer and healthier at home? The DIY-installed Lively! system keeps an eye on a hale 78 year old (more…)

A salmagundi of (mainly free) opportunities to learn more about health technology this autumn (UK)

September 27, 2014 | by | 2 Comments

UKTI Belgium is running an excellent webinar series on eHealth & the European Union. Dates/times are:

  1. Thu, Nov 13, 2014 11:30 AM – 12:00 PM GMT
  2. Tue, Dec 2, 2014 11:30 AM – 12:00 PM GMT

During these webinars they will discuss tools that will enable you and your organisation to react to EU opportunities and challenges. For more information and to register go here.

TechUK and the BCS are running another of their very successful Healthtech Startup Schools, starting on Monday 20 October, ending on Monday 08 December. It is at techUK London , 10 St Bride Street, London , EC4A 4AD. Registration is here.

The University of Bath’s Assisted Living Action Network (ALAN) is holding an evening meeting in Bristol on 22nd October entitled on the flyer “Digital Health Apps: Insider views on the Challenges and Opportunities”, and on the website “Understanding the new regulatory and information environment for health apps”. It is being addressed by many worthies including Rob Turpin of BSI and Graham Worsley, recently retired from the TSB and now assembling a portoflio of really interesting roles. Book here

The GSMA has announced a whole bunch of awards for 2015 – entries are now open. Don’t dismiss them without checking each one out first – for example the Best Connected Life Award has eight categories, each with an award, including Best Mobile Innovation for Health. (If you wonder why this is under opportunities to learn (more…)

Proteus to build UK plant, work with NHS; PM’s 5G may save the day

March 11, 2014 | by

The Proteus smart pill, once found to be so ‘creepy’, is making its first significant international move by planning to build a UK plant ultimately capable of turning out 10 billion units annually, and also partnering with several NHS-affiliated groups: Eastern Academic Health Science Network (EAHSN), The Northern Health Science Alliance (NHSA) and Oxford University, Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust and Oxford Academic Health Science Network (OAHSN). According to their CEO Andrew Thompson (quoted in Mobihealthnews), this starts the long NHS tendering and commissioning process. Beyond the sensors in the Proteus pill, the signal is picked up by a disposable patch receiver which transmits via Bluetooth to a smartphone and a tracking app. The business model in their current and future projected digital health devices is based on delivering an outcome, providing vital information about medication-taking behaviors and how your body is responding, not selling the device. How this will blend with the NHS model is a good guess, but the article points out that this may take up some of the loss of pharmaceutical manufacturing business in the UK–a big plus.

And all the bandwidth that Proteus will take up will be no problem, since UK and Germany will be jointly developing 5G wireless networks in the next two years which verily will gulp down all that data, along with having all your devices share the IOT (Internet of Things) chat line while you fast forward that 800 MB movie. The team consists of the University of Dresden, King’s College University in London and the University of Surrey. Note PM David Cameron’s writing pad versus Chancellor Angela Merkel’s tablet/folder combo at the photo taken at the CeBIT 2014 announcement. Daily Mail. Hat tip on both items to reader Mike Short and our own Editor Charles Lowe.

How much longer will ‘mobile’ be different from ‘living’?

March 1, 2014 | by

The news that the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona last week broke all attendance records is hardly surprising, given the way mobile communications are inserting their way into almost every aspect of life. It does though make one wonder how much longer the MWC can retain it’s broad focus as communications mobility becomes indistinguishable from normal living (and additional accommodation in Catalonia becomes harder to find). Indeed, as mHealth News pointed out last week, mobile comms keeps people living, worldwide

Not all age groups have been able to gain the same level of benefit from mobile comms though, most notably older people. It is therefore great to see (more…)