I am afraid to find out what 11 visits will get me.
Window Socket - Kyuho Song & Boa Oh
So this is an absolutley brilliant idea! Just attach the plug on to a window and it will harness solar energy. A small converter will convert it into electricity which can be freely used as a plug when you are in the car, on a plane or outside.
Love this design and I really think it has a great potential.
I’d love it if they squared off the top so I could put my phone on the unit instead of hanging
then again, who cares what I think - this is pretty awesome
(via wilwheaton)
Behind the Scenes at Thalmic Labs - Creator of the Wearable Gesture Control Device “Myo”
The Myo is one of the most anticipated gesture control wearable devices expected to be released to early adopters later this year (my order is already in!).
Based in my hometown of Waterloo, Canada - this video gives a great behind the scenes look at the team, the Thalmic Labs office and some great shots of Myo in action and also provides some more information on the product and their development process which hasn’t been previously released before.
Myo uses the electrical activity from your muscles as your move your hand to detect what you are doing with your fingers as well as the motion of your hand. These gestures control connected devices via bluetooth.
The Myo stretchable cuff has been designed to be one-size fits all (they even considered making sure that arm hair doesn’t get in the way).
The team has confirmed that their developer program in the next few months giving out exclusive access to early versions of the software of the devices.
Thalmic Labs believes that the Myo device could revolutionalize the way we interact with technology - and I agree.
(via futurescope)
What is it that makes US citizens believe we have “the best healthcare in the world” when all factual indicators make it clear that we don’t?
Remember, roughly 100,000 Americans die each year due to preventable medical errors. Over 1,000,000 patients are injured in hospitals.
Yet, ask almost any American about the quality of our healthcare system, and you’ll get a similar response: best in the world.
Why? What is it that keeps us believing this fiction in the face of overwhelming evidence?
I think a major factor is America’s post World War II “supremacy complex.”
In the decades following the war, America’s consumer society exploded. America became the world leader in practically every material category. In town after town, hospitals were built, doctors trained, health insurance provided.
And the broader rallying cry became: U-S-A, U-S-A!
But things have changed.
The realities of the 21st century have not yet sunk in for most Americans: America is struggling.
We remain a model of individual rights and freedoms. Yet so much of the nation’s infrastructure suffers from neglect. Our healthcare system is one of those areas.
The fact that roughly 2,000 Americans a week—almost 300 per day…the equivalent of a loaded 747 crashing every single day!—die due to medical mistakes should frighten and anger every citizen.
Instead, we continue to live under the illusion that our healthcare system is the best in the world.
We need to wake up and help everyone recognize and tackle the healthcare crisis we’re facing.
It’s not Obamacare that should frighten us. It’s healthcare business as usual that should.
Tom Peters has written about this extensively. Love the reference to the “Superiority Complex” btw.
Oblong Industries: Introducing Greenhouse
From the guy (precisely his company), who designed the computer interfaces in the film Minority Report, comes Greenhouse, a creative coding toolkit for spatial interfaces.
The Greenhouse SDK incorporates key elements of the g-speak core platform—for building spatially-aware computing environments—and distills them into an API designed to be approachable, powerful, and concise.
Greenhouse is the only SDK available that enables creative coders and engineers to rapidly prototype spatial interfaces: multi-screen, multi-user, multi-device interfaces with gestural and spatial interaction. Graphics and geometry systems enable pixels to fluidly move and to be accurately rendered across any screen, plus networking and multi-application frameworks, which allow multiple users, applications, and machines to seamlessly interact.
// I can’t wait for my leap motion controller to ship in mid-May.
[read more] [Greenhouse] [via @oblong_news]
(via emergentfutures)
Consider some of the things that have bound our nation together:
Universal postal service at a flat rate, whether you live in Santa Monica or Sitka, Alaska. Interstate highways, built with taxpayer funds and free of tolls. Regulated phone and electric service, with lifeline rates for the economically disadvantaged.
These were all based on a social contract honoring the notion that essential infrastructure should be available to all — indeed, that those normally left by the side of the economic road might be most in need.
But you can kiss that notion goodbye, because today’s model of building public infrastructure is to let private companies do it.
Americans are becoming more dependent on privately operated toll roads to get where we’re going, and on private delivery services like FedEx and UPS to carry our parcels. But the greatest shift has occurred in the sector that is most crucial in the information age: communications and data networks.
That brings us to Google — as happens sooner or later with any discussion touching on digital technology. The Mountain View, Calif., behemoth has branched into the Internet service business by introducing a fiber-optic data network for homeowners in Kansas City, Mo., and its neighboring namesake in Kansas.
The service, which is expected to be fully functional by the end of this year, is upending the traditional business and regulatory model for phone, video and data communications. But Google managed to exempt itself from the regulations that typically force cable companies to wire all neighborhoods, rich, poor and in between, for the Internet. The result threatens to leave underprivileged neighborhoods in the digital dust.
Ceding such a crucial service to a private company with minimal regulation is something that happened with virtually no public discussion about its implications for society. […]
It was obvious from the start that the removal of regulatory obstacles would count heavily in the race. The victors promised sedulous cooperation, including a team to provide “on-the-spot” exceptions where rules and regulations threatened delays. The two Kansas Cities even bowed to the demand they “obtain Google’s approval for all public statements” about the project.
Notably, they didn’t insist that Google guarantee service to their most disadvantaged communities. The reason is obvious: They didn’t have any real choice about the terms; it was fiber on Google’s terms, or no fiber at all.
(via new-aesthetic)
(via parislemon)
I’m flying back to SF from my first voluntary trip to Vegas in at least ten years. From what I saw of downtownproject.com, I will probably go again this year — maybe more than once.
I’m a city and city redevelopment nut (hence Lumatic). What Tony Hsieh and his teams are doing is pretty…
Excellent, short description of one reason why electronic medical records are terrible—the original development has not been driven by creating a clinical tool for doctors, but more of an administrative tool for others in healthcare (i.e.—administrators and payers)
Agree, agree, agree. My particular thoughts on this video:
- “Meaningful Use” — HAHAHA! What a waste of time. Do you know that my EHR now REQUIRES me to enter a blood pressure on any patient AS YOUNG AS 2 YEARS OLD before I can actually “see” the patient? Even though no study shows that measuring BP in all kids under 12 provides any useful data to improve their health? “But it’s required, for meaningful use” whine the EHR people. FACE-SLAPS ALL AROUND.
- Yay Epocrates!
- Have you ever tried to read an old visit note in an EHR? Think about how much scrolling and scrolling and scrolling you did before you finally found the one tiny sentence or phrase which actually gave you any clinically-useful information. The rest of that crap? Coding and Billing fluff.
- @ 2:05, I love the woman who is just standing there staring at the white board in the background. That would be me if I was ever trapped in one of these types of meetings. Maybe doodling a tiny Cranquis curb-stomping a tiny laptop, Office Space style.
- Dr. Dombrowski’s idea of “getting all the governmental agencies… on the same page” about EHR is nice and all — but unless doctors/nurses/PEOPLE WHO ACTUALLY SEE PATIENTS are in charge of those much-needed revisions, things will never ever improve with EHR.
Awesome video, awesome commentary from Cranquis
User Experience is critical, so is Alignment of interests. Doesn’t seem to be much of either going on right now
