The Digital Health Update by Paul Sonnier ⋅ Dec 24, 2016 ⋅ #253

I will be making this announcement to 52,000+ members of the Digital Health group on LinkedIn. If you’re on LinkedIn, please do join the group, which allows you to opt in to receiving these announcements in addition to connecting with thousands of other global stakeholders in digital health. Note that I will continue to update this announcement up until sending out the final version via LinkedIn.

The Digital Health Update by Paul Sonnier ⋅ Dec 24, 2016 ⋅ #253

Dear Group,

Reinforcing why I include living and society as fundamental components of digital health,
Canada has declared high-speed Internet of 50 Mbps or more to be essential for quality of life. The Internet is critical to modern living, from consumer finances, to social interaction and communities like Facebook, to health and fitness apps and information, to telehealth and even telesex (here’s a new one with two ‘lollipops’ and am still trying to figure out). Jean-Pierre Blais, chairman of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, stated that “The future of our economy, our prosperity and our society—indeed, the future of every citizen—requires us to set ambitious goals, and to get on with connecting all Canadians for the 21st century.”

Here are just two recent items related to the Internet’s central role in our lives: Digital-enabled therapy apps, chatbots, and services hold great promise for improving access and quality of mental health care, but a recent article pointed out some issues with one such service. Talkspace uses anonymity, which can impede the ability of therapists to report dangerous situations. As of this time, therapists who identify an issue have to ask Talkspace or the patient themselves for their personal information—event during the dangerous situation, no less—in order to pass that information along to authorities. And the United States government is now asking foreign visitors for their public social media account profile names. This includes sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

In a smart (pun alert!) move by Google, the company has decided not to cede the smartwatch market to Apple after all (reference last week’s announcement on the turmoil in the market). The company is launching two new flagship watches early next year. This is none too soon, as Pokémon Go, the augmented reality game that gets players moving more outdoors, has just made its way onto the Apple Watch. This should also improve real-world safety, as players can receive notifications right on their wrists about nearby Pokémon, PokéStops, eggs, and medals, versus having to constantly look at their smartphones. The new version of Pokémon Go also lets users log gameplay sessions as workouts that count toward their Apple Watch Activity rings, and it displays the distance traveled when working hard to hatch an egg and get Candy for Buddy Pokémon.
And while the number of active users has dropped from about 50 million in August to about 32 million as of September, that’s still a lot of people being physically active during gameplay. And the number might even swing back up if the rumored “Harry Potter Go” comes to life.

The disease prevention value provided by gaming apps like the above and other health and fitness apps that foster physical activity can’t be understated. Sarah Needleman and Rachel Bachman provided a rundown on this subject in their Wall Street Journal piece “Want to Exercise More? Try Screen Time“.

A company named Superflex is building a soft undergarment “powered clothing” exoskeleton for helping the elderly. With nearly 33% of adults age 65 and older reporting difficulty walking three city blocks, there is an obvious market need. Wrapping around the user’s core and weighing around four pounds, the flexing second skin of mechanical muscles is designed to help elderly people sit, stand, and move their hips during walking. Product release is estimated for 2018.

Another major issue for the elderly is loneliness. A startup named Rendever is using virtual reality (VR) experiences to bring the joy of travel, discovery, and old memories to people who can’t experience them firsthand. The catalog of 100+ virtual “bucket list” experiences like museum visits, sky diving, canoeing in the Grand Canyon, are projected from a smartphone through a virtual reality headset for the user’s . The VR system also connects to Google Street View. This does remind me of a famous scene from Soylent Green, but without the euthanasia. So, yes, it’s a whole lot better.

More challenges for Uber’s self-driving cars, as reports of incursions into bike lanes have surfaced and a witness contradicted the company’s claim that human error was the cause of at least one case of the vehicle caught on video running a red light. The company also obeyed demands by the State of California to desist testing it’s “Headless Ubers” and is now setting up shop in Arizona.

In other transportation news, Apple says it will add rail crossing data to Maps. Google as well plans to add audio and visual warnings to its mapping data. Following instances where people died as result of this information not being integrated into the navigation apps and alerting people of the dangers, the National Transportation Safety Board called on companies to add exact locations of 200,000 grade crossings to their services.

Another layer to the above solution, which I shared in last week’s update, would result from new Vehicle to Vehicle (V2V) and Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I) data sharing and communications systems, which allow vehicles to communicate with one another and roadway infrastructure such as traffic lights, stop signs, and work zones. One would assume that railroad crossings would be included as well.

Follow me on Twitter @Paul_Sonnier for all the news I share each day.

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Paul Sonnier
Keynote Speaker ⋅ Ecosystem Strategist ⋅ Social Entrepreneur
Founder, Digital Health group on LinkedIn ⋅ 50,000+ members
Creator, Story of Digital Health
Instagram @StoryofDigitalHealth
Twitter @Paul_Sonnier
San Diego, CA, USA

 

 

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