Top Bananas | Category Archives: Medical

Smart Bands are the Future of the Apple Watch

Posted on September 4, 2019 by admin Posted in Hardware, Medical Leave a comment

What it is: Apple recently patented smart bands for the Apple Watch.

The Apple Watch has always been constrained by its smaller size that needs to fit comfortable on a user’s wrist. While the Apple Watch provides sensors to detect heart rates and skin moisture, there’s only so many sensors Apple can put on the physical size of the Apple Watch. Even worse is that some people may not want certain types of sensors while other people do.

That’s why Apple has patented smart bands that work with the Apple Watch. The main idea behind smart bands is to provide extra sensors that the smaller size of the Apple Watch can’t accommodate.

One long-rumored sensor that Apple is working on is non-invasive glucose monitoring. This would provide a way for diabetics to monitor their blood sugar level without breaking their skin to get a blood sample. Since only diabetics would want such a sensor, it makes sense to offer it as an optional smart band that can work with any Apple Watch.

Right now, the band that holds an Apple Watch to a person’s wrist does nothing else. By adding smart capabilities, a smart band offers more space for adding sensors to compliment the Apple Watch. Today the Apple Watch is dependent on the iPhone but soon the Apple Watch will be independent of the iPhone. With the addition of smart bands, the Apple Watch will soon be more capable as a biometric device as well.

The Apple Watch isn’t the only type of wearable computer Apple is working on. The less obvious rival is Apple’s AirPods, which could detect blood vessels in the ear canal, which is supposedly easier to access than blood vessels in the arm.

Still another potential wearable computer will be smart glasses. With so many wearable computer models to choose from, it’s likely people will choose one or more for different activities.

The Apple Watch will be focused on real-time health monitoring. AirPods will be focused on hearing and real-time health monitoring. Smart glasses will be focused on real-time information overlaid against the real world.

Mobile computing (smartphones and tablets) are slowly taking over the traditional PC market just as PCs gradually took over from the mainframe and minicomputer market.

Now wearable computers offer the next big leap forward as people start wearing their computers instead of carrying them with them.

The future of the Apple Watch is smart bands and the future of computing will be wearables whether strapped to your wrist, stuck in your ear, or propped on your face.

To learn more about Apple’s latest patent involving smart bands, click here.

The Real Use of Augmented Reality

Posted on July 10, 2019 by admin Posted in Business, Hardware, Medical, User Interface Leave a comment

What it is: Apple filed a patent for a unique use of augmented reality that warps images so they can be seen in a person’s blind spots.

Look at any technology and it’s only as useful as the problems it solves. One huge reason why virtual reality hasn’t taken off is because it doesn’t solve a pressing need.

People adopted mobile phones and dumped land lines because mobile phones offered far greater convenience. People adopted cars because cars are easier to use than horse and carriage. People adopted electricity because it’s easier than lighting lamps with kerosene.

Right now, augmented reality has mostly been used for games and entertainment, which is fine because that’s how people experiment with new technology. However, eventually there must be a practical use for technology or else it simply fades away, much like 3D TV never went anywhere.

Apple’s latest patent points out how augmented reality could be used to help people with poor vision. Many partially blind people cannot see in certain areas of their eyes, creating blind spots. Apple’s patent points to warped images that allows augmented reality to display the areas that a person’s blind spot might be blocking, thereby granting them full and complete vision.

Augmented reality is more than just games. It’s a technology to enhance vision and correct faulty vision whether it’s just in people who need corrective lenses or people who are partially blind.

By using augmented reality to solve real problems, augmented reality will be far more useful than virtual reality. The future is augmented reality and Apple appears to be leading the way.

To learn more about Apple’s latest augmented reality patent, click here.

Apple Acquires Asthma Startup

Posted on May 27, 2019 by admin Posted in Business, Hardware, Medical Leave a comment

What it is: Apple recently acquired Tueo Health, a startup focusing on an app for dealign with asthma.

Tueo Health is a startup that was developing an app to help parents monitor asthma symptoms in sleeping children. The app works with commercial breathing sensors that can send an alert to a parent if a child’s breathing changes in the night.

Now the big question is what will Apple do with this acquisition? Will they continue selling this device or will they incorporate it into a new product in the future? Perhaps Apple might just be interested in the people behind the company and not the actual product itself.

Whatever happens, it’s clear that Apple is aiming for the real-time health monitoring market. While Google makes its money from Android through tracking users’ activities, Apple is focusing on privacy, and nothing requires more privacy than personal health data.

That’s going to be the growing difference between Google and Apple. Android’s entire business model revolves around lack of privacy, which makes it hard for people to trust Android for collecting their health data.

Apple’s iOS business model revolves around privacy, which makes it easy for people to trust Apple for collecting and storing their health data. The future of the mobile and wearable market will boil down to privacy.

If you don’t mind not having privacy, you can exchange your data in return for lower price products. If you do want privacy, then you need to pay for it through products that don’t profit from your personal data.

Apple will never shift to Google’s Android model and Google can’t afford to shift Android to Apple’s model. That means while Google will continue cleaning up by monetizing other people’s data, Apple will slowly make inroads in the health field until they gradually come to dominate, not through superior technology but through the simple act of protecting your privacy as much as possible.

As profitable as Android might be for Google now, it won’t seem so profitable in the future when Apple gobbles up the lucrative health care market all to themselves.

To learn more about Apple’s latest acquisition, click here.

Real-Time Health Monitoring is the Purpose of Wearable Computers

Posted on March 18, 2019 by admin Posted in Hardware, Medical, User Interface Leave a comment

What it is: The “killer” app for the Apple Watch is real-time health monitoring.

When the Apple Watch first appeared, critics dismissed it as a gimmick. That’s because even Apple couldn’t define a specific use for the Apple Watch at first.

The whole purpose of technology is to solve a problem that was too difficult or impossible to solve previously. The PC made computers accessible to more people beyond the mainframe and minicomputer users. What made the PC useful was the spreadsheet, first embodied by VisiCalc and then by Lotus 1-2-3. People bought PCs specifically to use spreadsheets.

When the iPhone first came out, it represented a giant improvement over existing mobile phones, but also gave you a computer in your pocket. Combined with mobile location tracking, the iPhone defined how smartphones work, which eventually led to location tracking services like ride-sharing services.

The Apple Watch first appeared with no specific purpose in mind, but the latest Stanford study indicates that the Apple Watch does a decent job detecting heart abnormalities. To detect this usually requires expensive equipment at a doctor’s office, but the Apple Watch is bringing this capability to the masses. That makes real-time health monitoring the real killer app for wearable computers.

If you’re concerned about your health, then the Apple Watch is for you. For people who still refuse to buy and use a wearable computer like the Apple Watch, they’re essentially telling the world that they either can’t afford a wearable computer or they don’t think their life is worth a few hundred dollars.

The next step for wearable computers will be health enhancement. That can come with smart glasses that enhance a user’s vision while also tracking health conditions at the same time. Real-time health monitoring and enhancement is the ultimate goal of wearable computers.

The Future of Health Care

Posted on March 5, 2019 by admin Posted in Hardware, Medical Leave a comment

What it is: Technology is going to influence health care, but the first place to look is in the pet care industry.

Health care will eventually go digital. However, that will likely take time because change occurs slowly, especially when it comes to adopting technology for health care that’s crucial to people’s lives. While it’s inevitable that technology will change health care dramatically, it’s uncertain when and how this will happen.

To see how fast technology can influence health care, look no further than the pet care industry, which is a million dollar industry. Since people are willing to pay large amounts of money to keep their pets healthy, they’ll have far less reservations about adopting technology for pet health care.

While humans might be squeamish about wearable computers that track their health in real-time, pets won’t have a similar aversion. Sharing health care data digitally won’t be as crucial with pets as with humans, so veterinarians can perfect digital health care data services long before human health care providers embrace technology.

The end result could be pet care leading the way towards digital health care data in the near future. That means one day if you get sick and technology helps your health care, you could owe it all to your cat or dog first.

Watch the pet care industry. The future will arrive there first and slowly leak into the human health care industry after the pet care industry leads the way first.

Apple Watch Detects Man’s Fall

Posted on February 4, 2019 by admin Posted in Hardware, Medical, User Interface Leave a comment

What it is: An Apple Watch detected a man’s fall and called for help.

67-year-old Toralv Ostvang fell in the bathroom, fracturing his face in three places. Fortunately, Toralv was wearing an Apple Watch that detected his fall and automatically called for help when it detected Toralv was not moving after the fall.

Emergency crews responded to the Watch’s alert beacon and said he would likely not have survived the night if he hadn’t received immediate help. That means the Apple Watch helped save one man’s life and its automatic fall detection feature will likely save many more lives in years to come.

Because of its fall detection feature and other health-related options, the Apple Watch is ideally suited for senior citizens. By providing help when the wearer is unable to do so, the Apple Watch can save lives.

While the Apple Watch is ideal for senior citizens, it can also be used for younger people to track their physical activity and urge them to stay active during the day. Sitting in one place is extremely harmful to one’s health so younger people can use the Apple Watch to monitor their physical movements.

The Apple Watch’s main purpose is simply real-time health monitoring, which can literally save lives. As the Apple Watch gains more features such as non-invasive glucose monitoring, it will continue offering health benefits that were too expensive or impractical to track with current technology.

The Apple Watch is a huge success simply because it has a clear purpose to monitor health. What Apple needs to do with their other products is define an equally important purpose.

Anyone know what’s the one compelling reason to use HomePod? HomePod offers hands-free computing, but beyond that, what purpose does it serve to solve a problem that other products can’t do as well? The lack of a clear answer is the reason why HomePod isn’t as popular or profitable while the Apple Watch continues growing in popularity and importance.

If you don’t have an Apple Watch yet, get one or something similar to track your health. A wearable computer like the Apple Watch could one day save your life.

To learn more about how an Apple Watch saved one man’s life, click here.