WirelessDoc

NTT DoCoMo Demonstrates Molecular Delivery System for Molecular Communication

Here's the press release, which was reported by Engadget.

I made this comment on their post:

When I hear "molecular communication" I immediately think of hormones or neurotransmitters.

The press release talks of "analyzing biomolecules in a drop of sweat or blood using a mobile phone equipped with a biochip." I guess you could call glucose a biomolecule.

In this case, "artificially synthesized DNAs and chemically energized motor proteins" could create insulin and release it as needed, replacing the malfunctioning pancreatic beta cells of the patient with diabetes.

As far as monitoring "excitement, emotion, stress...," I don't know if you want to be attached to a device that will deliver a hormone that will turn you into a Stepford Wife (or Husband) just because someone took your parking space.

It's scary to think that all this can happen automatically, and flawlessly. Their press release mentions that "the biochemical analysis would be transmitted to a medical specialist." So there might be a human somewhere monitoring all these users, pinging these devices to release serotonin when it looks like they might be getting a little antsy.

Motorola's plan to spin off its money-losing mobile phone unit: emergence of consumer-driven technology

Joel Dreyfuss of Red Herring in his "TechSpin: Motorola's Lessons in Consumer Marketing," makes that point that tech companies traditionally tried to entice businesses to buy into their product based on the list of features they can come up with, resulting in the feature-itis phenomenon.

Now, new products need to work from the bottom-up, by first appealing to users with both style and function. (Need I mention the iPhone?)

I guess this means that businesses will have to adapt to provide support for those converged devices that the employees best think fit their digital needs and lifestyle. It's only fair if you want your people to be connected to you 24/7.

In a way this has a connection to healthcare IT. As more patients begin to expect to see their doctors and nurses using the digital equipment that they're seeing in news reports, it will be important for hospitals and practices to adopt new technology to position themselves as being up to date.

SquareLoop debuts HIPAA-compliant healthcare text messaging system

  From Health Imaging News:

The text messaging system, a new feature on SquareLoop's Mobile Alert Network, is HIPAA-compliant for regulations governing encryption of patients' electronic records and provides an application for secure mobile-originated text messages.

This product will be commercially available in June.

From their product page:

Key Features

• HIPAA compliant encrypted text messaging - All messages are encrypted end-to-end providing a quick, yet safe and secure method to exchange patient information
• Target your messages - Only the Mobile Alert Network enables geographic targeting of messages to mobile devices
• Ensure messages are noticed - Only the Mobile Alert Network allows you to define the alert tone to ensure your messages stand out. Alert tones continue to play until the message is acknowledged
• Provide actionable information - The Mobile Alert Network allows you to provide clearly worded instructions not limited by character limits and can include graphics
• Message delivery status - Know when the message was received by the phone and when it was acknowledged by the recipient with true read receipts
• Off-the-shelf phone support - In many cases, you can use phones you already own or standard off-the-shelf models
• Highly reliable - SquareLoop maintains redundant high priority connections with carriers and aggregators

I'd be interested in finding out more about these "redundant high priority connections" and the studies that have tested this. The problem with replacing beepers with cell phones has always been about reliability.

Software uses emerging IEEE 11073 standard and Bluetooth Medical Device Profile to wirelessly enable medical devices

According to HDM, the British firm Cambridge Consultants has created software, they call Vena, that can enable medical devices to transmit data wirelessly for as low as $10 each, depending on volume.

Vena embeds the emerging IEEE 11073 standard for how to present data in medical devices and the emerging Bluetooth Medical Device Profile for secure transport of medical data. Both standards are in trials and not yet fully approved.

From the Vena product page:

IEEE 11073 Personal Health Data is a framework of standards that addresses transport-independent application and information profiles between personal telehealth devices and monitors / managers (e.g. health appliance, set top box, cell phone, personal computer).  Device profiles include pulse oximeter, blood pressure monitor, weighing scale, and thermometer.

A Bluetooth profile defines how different applications use Bluetooth wireless technology to set up a connection and exchange data. The Medical Devices Working Group of the Bluetooth SIG developed the Bluetooth medical device protocol to ensure that devices in the medical environment can transfer data between devices in a secure and well defined way via Bluetooth wireless technology.

Googling "IEEE 11073 Personal Health Data" brought up this group:

The Continua Health Alliance was formed according to this paper by Randy Carroll (IBM), Rick Cnossen (Intel), Mark Schnell (Cisco), David Simons ( Philips) "[i]n an effort to develop interoperability guidelines for the emerging personal telehealth ecosystem."

"For immediate release" e-mail filter

I forget where I read it, but I followed the tip that suggested you create a filter for your e-mail so that if the body contains the standard press release phrase "For immediate release," it goes into a hidden folder.

Tonight I looked at the contents of this folder, and it sure was scary. Plenty of devices and services guaranteed to save patients' lives and and the hospitals' money. One even claimed that it would "prevent deaths in hospitals."

Wouldn't it be great if a company could say that their product was so good that they didn't have to spend money on PR?

Google suggests off-limit channels in unused TV spectrum for wireless mics, medical telemetry devices

Late last Friday, Google made a filing with the FCC to set aside TV channels 36 to 38 for the so-called white space (unused TV spectrum) devices to avoid spectrum interference, but also to promote the use of the white space spectrum for wireless communication devices that could use its Android open source mobile platform to "provide uniquely low-cost mobile broadband coverage for all Americans."

Hello gPhone, goodbye iPhone.

This would break the hold of the big cellphone carriers, which Walt Mossberg refers to as the "Soviet ministries."

The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) voiced their concern about TV signal interference.

This move would also serve the public safety community by providing coverage for under-deployed rural areas, and for first responders. And, it would provide a safe harbor for medical telemetry devices by having them use channel 37.

Google is also suggesting that the FCC adopt two spectrum sensing technologies: geo-location and beacon, which would sense which channels are open to help prevent interference.

Dell and Microsoft are also promoting the use of white space spectrum.

From Wikipedia:

IEEE 802.22 is a new working group of IEEE 802 LAN/MAN standards committee which aims at constructing Wireless Regional Area Network (WRAN) utilizing white spaces (channels that are not already used) in the allocated TV frequency spectrum.

"White Spaces Coalition" on Wikipedia:

The White Spaces Coalition consists of eight large technology companies that plan to deliver high speed broadband internet access to consumers via existing 'white space' in unused analog television frequencies. The coalition claims that broadband access is expected to be available at speeds of 10 Mbyte/s and above, and 50 to 100 Mbyte/s for white space short-range networking. The group includes Microsoft, Google, Dell, HP, Intel, Philips, Earthlink, and Samsung Electro-Mechanics.

Others reporting:

GigaOm: Google’s White Space Proposal

Google revives push to get free airwaves

Google suggests safe harbor for wireless mics

Google unveils "white space" airwaves plans

Other groups:

Wireless Innovation Alliance

Quick links - HIT

Allscripts, Misys announce merger This will impact 150,000 US physicians and 700 hospitals.

Stolen NIH laptop with un-encrypted patient data

From WaPo:

A government laptop computer containing sensitive medical information on 2,500 patients enrolled in a National Institutes of Health study was stolen in February, potentially exposing seven years' worth of clinical trial data, including names, medical diagnoses and details of the patients' heart scans. The information was not encrypted, in violation of the government's data-security policy.

Quick links - general business news

From The Economist, "Everywhere and nowhere: social networking will become a ubiquitous feature of online life. That does not mean it is a business."

Video interview of Mike McCue on the Mobile-Device Market: McCue, founder of the Tellme Network (now a subsidiary of Microsoft), talks about speech recognition technology and challenges to expansion in the U.S. mobile-device market. To point out the need for speech recognition, McCue talks about the iPhone: "It takes six steps to change the song you're listening to."

Palm Still Loves Businesses

Amid all the talk of BlackBerrys and how Apple is turning its iPhone more towards businesses, one of the former leading smartphone players has been relatively quiet: Palm. On Thursday, the maker of the Treo smartphones said it’s still in the enterprise smartphone game.

From WSJ:

Palm Inc. swung to a fiscal third-quarter loss on declining revenue despite strong sales of its new low-cost Centro smart phone.

HTC names Google phone 'Dream'

FierceWireless is speculating that: "the handset makers and carriers involved in Google's Open Handset Alliance are probably going to start releasing launch dates and device specs for Android-powered phones at next week's CTIA Wireless conference."

India set to overtake US as the country with the second largest number of cell phone accounts.

India counted 250.9 million wireless users at the end of February, while the U.S. counted 260.5 million users at that time. China counted 540.5 million users. Despite China's monstrous figure, India has it beat in terms of growth: India added about 8.53 million new subscribers during February, while the U.S. added 2 million new users.

Security Now! podcast

This is part of the Leo Laporte TWIT.tv podcasts that cover tech from various angles. Leo co-hosts Security Now! with Steve Gibson:

Steve Gibson, the man who coined the term spyware and created the first anti-spyware program, creator of Spinrite and ShieldsUP, discusses the hot topics in security today with Leo Laporte. Published every Thursday.

The most recent podcast was a Q&A from listeners and included such topics as IronKey (a hardware-encrypted USB flash drive), TrueCrypt (free open-source disk encryption software for Windows Vista/XP, Mac OS X, and Linux), and the news story that the FBI had confiscated 400 counterfeit Cisco routers exported from China.

This is the type of podcast, as one of the listeners noted, that you don't listen to in the background. They go into enough technical detail you would probably want to listen multiples times, but to make it easier to absorb the content Gibson puts up the transcript, a smaller MP3 file and other supporting material for each episode. So far, they're up to 136.