Top Bananas | Category Archives: Medical

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.

Apple’s Future is Health

Posted on January 17, 2019 by admin Posted in Hardware, Medical Leave a comment

What it is: Apple’s hiring of health related talent has increased 400% since 2017.

At one time, Apple relied on the Macintosh computer for all its revenue, but the world had already standardized on Windows so Apple had little room for growth focusing on personal computers.

Then Apple introduced the iPod and iTunes, and suddenly portable music players and music downloads gave Apple a huge boost in revenue while helping it rely less on the Macintosh.

When smartphones threatened to kill the iPod market, Apple reduced their dependence on the iPod by releasing the iPhone. The iPhone proved so popular that it defined the current smartphone market.

However, the smartphone market is slowing down. People aren’t upgrading their smartphones as often because each new model offers minor improvements over the current models. That means people are holding on to their smartphones longer, which means slowing smartphone sales.

Not only is Apple reducing their future revenue guidance due to slowing iPhone sales, but Samsung is also forecasting a downturn in smartphone sales as well. The problem isn’t just Apple but the overall smartphone market.

That’s why Apple has been diversifying recently with services such as Apple Music, Apple Books, and Apple Pay. the idea is to reduce dependence on hardware and make money whether people are using older products or not.

With iPhone sales slowing and showing no signs of suddenly picking up ever again, Apple needs a new market to target and that new market will likely be health, led by wearable computers such as the Apple Watch.

Like the iPhone, the Apple Watch has gone through major improvements with each generation although there’s little reason to upgrade each year with the Apple Watch.

However what will keep people pinned to the Apple Watch will be its improving health sensors. Since everyone (especially older people) are concerned about their health, it’s easy to see how wearable computers such as the Apple Watch and future Apple smart glasses product can use health as their primary focus, targeting the world’s aging population.

Far more people care about their health than care about using the latest smartphone. For that reason, health will be Apple’s new focus. Unlike smartphones, health-related products take more time to develop, which means it will be harder to take off-the-shelf components and slap them together to mimic an Apple Watch.

The iPhone is fine, but it will no longer be the primary driving force of Apple any more just like Apple no longer depends on the iPod or the Macintosh for the bulk of its revenue.

Health is the new focus because everyone is a potential customer, even people who don’t like Apple. Such people will have to decide if their health is more important than their irrational dislike of Apple because their lives literally depend on their decision.

Getting Health Care From a Virtual Assistant

Posted on January 2, 2019 by admin Posted in Medical, User Interface Leave a comment

What it is: With the rising cost for health care, virtual assistants can help save money.

Health care is expensive because it relies on people. Imagine how expensive books would be if instead of relying on printing presses, we had to rely on scriveners who manually copied books word by word?

So to reduce the cost of health care, many companies are looking at virtual assistants. The goal is to let virtual assistants handle common cases and then let specialists handle specific cases if the virtual assistant can’t answer a person’s questions.

Already virtual assistants answer phone calls and route your call to the proper person after trying to help you robotically. So using virtual assistants makes sense in health care as a way to lower costs and provide basic health care to people at the same time.

This brings up an interesting question. The main benefit of the Apple Watch and other wearable computers is to offer real-time health monitoring. Perhaps the benefit of virtual assistants controlled solely by voice (such as Siri on HomePod) could be answering common questions.

Right now, people use smart speakers for asking questions about the weather or traffic, but that’s not necessarily a crucial task. That explains why many people often use a smart speaker initially then get bored and leave it alone without ever using it again.

So virtual health assistants offer the potential of giving smart speakers a definite purpose, targeting people with health issues. At the very least, a smart speaker could act like an emergency device for senior citizens. If someone falls and can’t reach a phone, they can call the smart speaker for help.

Right now, smart speakers are an interesting concept but generally little practical value. By focusing on niches like health care, smart speakers could become more useful to people who regularly need to chat with doctors.

The smart speaker market currently lacks a compelling need. What problem does it solve that makes it worth buying and using? Virtual health assistants offer one way to make smart speakers useful. Another might be foreign language training by letting you practice talking to a smart speaker before you risk looking foolish trying to talk to a native speaker in another country.

The smart speaker market needs virtual assistants in the health field (or any field) to become more popular and commonplace. Voice-controlled interfaces are a growing field and as virtual assistants like Siri gain more knowledge about medical conditions and health problems, they can be more useful for that particular health-oriented market.

The Apple Watches Detects Man’s Irregular Heart Beat

Posted on December 12, 2018 by admin Posted in Hardware, Medical Leave a comment

Ed Dentel recently got the latest Apple Watch and decided to play around with its electrocardiogram app. Strangely, the app warned him of atrial fibrillation. Since Ed exercises regularly and had no history of heart problems, he assumed the app was wrong and ignored its warning.

Each time Ed tried the apple Watch, it warned him of atrial fibrillation until he finally started to get worried and went to see a doctor. That’s when he learned that his Apple Watch was right and by seeking medical attention, he might have just saved his life.

No technology is useful unless it solves a problem. Cars solve the problem of transportation, telephones solve the problem of communication, and television solves the problem of viewing information over long distances.

So when people first criticized the Apple Watch, they couldn’t figure out why they might want or need one. Over time, the purpose of the Apple Watch has been made strikingly clear. Wearable computers like the Apple Watch exist to solve the problem of real-time health monitoring.

In the old days, the only way doctors could get medical information form a patient was for the patient to appear in the office and connect them to machines to measure their body functions. With wearable computers like the Apple Watch, individuals clan constantly monitor their health symptoms everyday far easier and more conveniently than going to a doctor’s office. The Apple Watch is for everyone interested in health and that includes everyone.

If you aren’t interested in your own health, feel free to ignore the benefits of technology like wearable computers. For the rest of us, the Apple Watch will only get more sophisticated, accurate, and convenient. Pretty soon anyone not wearing a computer like an Apple Watch will be seen in the same light as people who still refuse to use a computer or a mobile phone.

Now that the purpose of the Apple Watch is clear, Apple just needs to work on finding crucial uses for their other devices such as the Apple TV or HomePod. HomePod offers hands-free computing, but what is the crucial need for that? Apple TV offers the convenience of cutting the cord to cable subscriptions, but that’s not exactly a pressing need for many people when rival products do the exact same thing.

The Apple Watch, iPhone, and iPad sell so well because they have a clear purpose. HomePod and Apple TV do not sell as well because their purpose is not as crystal clear. When Apple can figure out the purpose of hands-free computing (HomePod) or the Apple TV, then they’ll have another hit on their hands just like the Apple Watch.