From curing to prevention: How MedTech & IOT is changing the medical industry.

8

October

2018

No ratings yet.

For decades, the medical industry has been focused on curing diseases as they appeared. Doctors specialized in identifying diseases with the symptoms that they produce. The problem with this method is that these symptoms get worse as the disease becomes more difficult to treat. Even more problematic is that some sudden health issues like heart attacks do not have clear early symptoms. IOT and MedTech combined can solve this issue.

Unlike the traditional paradigm, these new technologies attempt to predict diseases. Nowadays devices like the newly announced Apple watch collect tons of data. Data about heart rate, blood pressure, activity and the caloric intake. The watch also got FDA clearance for detecting atrial fibrillation (abnormal heart rate rhythm) (Goode, 2018). In the future doctors could alert patients of possible health issues before they even realize they need a doctor. The believe in this technology is so strong that the working group setup by the Indian Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) has even recommended that insurance companies make use of fitness trackers for their insurance policies. (NextBigWhat, 2018)

When people do get ill, technology can also help. Thirdeye, developed AR glasses that can do the remembering for Alzheimer patients. It recognizes family members and visually displays information about them for the patient. The AR technology is also useful for surgeons as it can provide accurate overlays during critical surgeries. (Condliffe, 2017)

A large benefit of this new technology focused approach is that it shaves costs. The economic advantage that this creates is a large reason why development is so rapid. Both humans and business benefit. These facts combined bring me to conclude that the evolution of the medical industry as presented in the title is very close. How close? That should be for us to experience.

Condliffe, J. (2017, May 11). Would you want your surgeon to wear a HoloLens before they cut you open? Retrieved from https://www.technologyreview.com/s/607852/ar-is-making-its-way-into-the-or/

Goode, L. (2018, September 13). Apple Watch’s Update Adds Heart-Monitoring Capabilities. Retrieved from https://www.wired.com/story/apple-watch-series-4/

NextBigWhat From the editorial team of NextBigWhat. (2018, August 04). Lesser premiums for better health: IRDA proposes tracking fitness data by wearables. Retrieved from https://www.nextbigwhat.com/irda-fitness-data-wearable-297/

image from: http://blog.alphavalue.com/stocks-to-watch/medtech-surge/

Please rate this

How Voice Control Will Once More Strengthen The Market Power Of The Internet Giants

6

September

2018

No ratings yet.

For non-English natives it might still be hard to believe but the voice market is estimated to be worth 40 Billion dollars by 2020 in the US and UK alone. Apple, Google, Amazon and Samsung were all quick to announce a voice assistant (with Facebook ‘Aloha’ soon to follow). All equally useless at first but after incentivizing their users to use it (Bixby button anyone…), they soon became very valuable. However, a technology that is fueled by data also has a significant downside, it is bound to become a market dominated by a few large players.
The most successful of the 4, Google & Amazon, now have assistants fully capable of conversing and have thousands of third party apps already available in their ‘open’ ecosystems. However, on closer inspection these already dominant platforms aren’t so open. Smaller commerce shops like the Dutch Cool Blue won’t have to try to sell through Alexa and we also don’t have to expect Google allowing others to use Google Assistants data for advertising.
One might argue that they don’t have to be open as it is their innovation. True, but, you must consider that these platforms will get better with usage and that therefor only those with large, active user basis’s will be valuable. I mean who wants to use Bixby at this point? Meaning that smaller players would not even be able to compete on this enormous market.
I argue that the voice assistant market will have a future like that of phone operating systems, dominated by few. An unwanted outcome that will hurt consumers in the long run. Smart voice assistants will have a significant, continuous impact on our lives. The current development stage of speech recognition allows us to still alter this projected outcome. Truly open alternatives like Mozilla Common Voice (which you can help train today) are out there and it is up to us, the consumers, to motivate manufacturers to implement it into their products.

https://voice.mozilla.org/

Say ‘Aloha’: A closer look at Facebook’s voice ambitions

Voice shopping estimated to hit $40+ billion across U.S. and U.K. by 2022


IMG from: https://www.pcmag.com/article/357520/the-best-smart-speakers

Please rate this