A trend to mark for 2013 is how monitors and testing devices are shrinking in size–and getting cheaper. Misfit’s Shine [TA 22 Dec], the Smart Steth [TA 18 Dec], the GE Vscan, the iTube food tester [TA 13 Dec] and in fact the entire area of simple mobile-enabled devices for testing in developing countries point the way. Here are three more fresh from the university labs, just waiting for commercialization:
- Wearable wireless, button-sized computers (well, a large button). Dr. Roozbeh Jafari, assistant professor of electrical engineering at University of Texas-Dallas, is designing highly power-efficient sensors and microcontrollers which can be used in gait detection (the Holy Grail of fall prediction). UTD release
- Flexible, organic, fully sterilizable transistors will facilitate wearable, patch-like health monitors or implantable devices. Developed by a team from University of Tokyo, Japan Science and Technology Agency and Princeton University with key work done at the Brookhaven National Laboratory in Long Island, NY. Brookhaven Lab release. Both Dr. Jafari’s sensors and the transistor are featured in the Risk Factor blog on IEEE Spectrum.
- Run blood tests on a credit card-sized chip. The V-Chip (volumetric bar-chart chip) can instantly check a single drop of blood for up to 50 different substances. It also costs an amazing $10. Developed at Houston’s Methodist Hospital Research Institute and MD Anderson Cancer Center. Gizmag. Full paper in Nature Communications.
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