Your iPhone as your personal advisor

7

October

2016

5/5 (1)

Imagine that you are in the gym. Your workout is going great and you do exercise after exercise. Suddenly your iPhone starts zooming. “Your heartbeat is going too fast. Take a rest before you start with the next exercise”. Soon, this will be reality. In the close future, your iPhone will give you personal health advise on the basis of data that the mobile phone gathers.

Apple has already introduced the HealthKit app. So far, this app mostly functioned as a tracker of data (e.g. heartbeat, sleep patterns etc), but it will be used eventually to interpret these data in order to turn it into advice for users, doctors and scientists. The HealthKit will become a valuable health data source via the ResearchKit and the CareKit. Apps created with ResearchKit are producing medical insights and discoveries at an enormously pace and scale, solely meant for research. These apps make it easier for healthcare to filter important information from large amounts of data. The success of these apps has led to the widening of the scope to personal care; the CareKit. The CareKit helps you to manage your own well being on a daily basis. You can manage your own health, as tools are created that track for example your symptoms and medications, which are subsequently shared with the care team. Dr. Ray Dorsey from University of Rochester states the following: “We are trying to bring care to patients, wherever they are, right on their phones”.

The CEO of Apple, Tim Cook, wants to secure new sources of revenue. The introduction of the HealthKit and looking at the features is will have in the close future, will make customers more dependent on the Apple devices. Each clinical study performed with the use of the ResearchKit brings Apple a step closer to embedding itself in the global healthcare industry. An example of such a clinical study is Duke University that developed a ResearchKit app that screens for and diagnoses autism by kids at a young age, by using the iPhone’s front facing camera that conducts facial recognition checks.

Apple’s greatest hurdle for now is to prove to medical professionals that the gathered data through these apps is reliable. If they succeed, will your iPhone turn out to be your doctor eventually?

Sources:
https://developer.apple.com/healthkit/
http://www.apple.com/researchkit/
http://www.nu.nl/internet/4327371/apple-gaat-adviezen-opstellen-basis-van-gezondheidsdata-healthkit.html
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-26/apple-said-to-expand-healthkit-from-tracker-to-diagnosis-tool

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“The Airbnb of energy”: energy sharing communities

30

September

2016

5/5 (5)

In previous years the energy market existed of a simple relationship between suppliers and buyers. Energy came from power plants and was delivered via power companies to energy using systems in homes or buildings, such as the washing machine and central heating. But the energy market is developing rapidly.

These developments lead to a growing local energy market. For example smart measuring devices, lower prices of renewable energy and new storage systems are reducing the threshold for households to produce their own energy. But what happens with the energy that remains?

Nowadays, prosumers – people who produce more energy than they use – sell the remaining renewable energy back to a power company in exchange for a refund. These companies will, in their turn, sell the energy to their customers. However, the more people that are producing their own energy, the smaller this refund will be. Hence, why wouldn’t the prosumers just sell the energy directly to their neighbors? It can be expected that initiatives will be taken to produce and sell energy in local communities. Energy will be shared within this community, without the intervention of a power company. By doing so, the possibility arises to seek for a ‘somewhere in the middle’ price; the producers of clean energy can earn more, while the consumer gets to pay less. It can be called the “Airbnb of energy”, where community members trade energy adapted to their own needs. Consumers get to choose their specific energy supplier – for example the wind energy from a farmer in the neighborhood – and the producers get to name their own price.

Internet of Things can offer opportunities for the energy sector. Intelligent network devices are able to carry out transactions between generators and users independently. The local energy transaction between for example the solar panels of your neighbor and your own electric car will be converted into a value. The local and autonomously operating systems are connected via internet and share information, allowing them to organize themselves in reaching a common goal: charging the electric car with renewable energy.

The self-organizing market places make it possible to become the boss of your own energy! Nonetheless, decentralizing the energy sector remains a big challenge for the dynamic energy market. Whether peer-to-peer energy sharing communities will play a key role in the future of the energy sector remains to be seen.

 

 

Sources:

Internet of Things

Blockchain-Based Peer-To-Peer Solar Energy Trading To Be Trialed In Perth


https://www.technologyreview.com/s/544471/renewable-energy-trading-launched-in-germany/

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