I thought I’d give a quick round up of the key announcements from the world’s biggest technology exhibition, the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
The Digital Health Exhibit floor at CES this year. Source: http://digitalhealthsummit.com
In revealing the kind of tech that’s likely to hit the highstreets over the next few years, we get a glimpse of what our audience will be using, and by turn, the ways we can interact with them in a healthcare marketing setting. CES also features a dedicated Digital Health Summit.
This year offered proof, if you ever needed it, that Microsoft read the eBee blog. For, as I speculated in my blog last year Of Mice, Men and Motion Input – What’s Next for Healthcare Apps?, Kinect is coming to the PC. Speaking at the popular Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in LA, Microsoft CEO Steve Balmer declared: “We are just getting started, it’s going to be amazing”.
The motion tracking tech – already hugely popular on the Xbox games console – has the potential to shake up how we interact with computers and break the half century rule of the mouse as peripheral of choice.
Any change in interface creates new opportunities in healthcare. Just look at the use of touchpads with reps, or the success clinical mobile apps. While it’s hard to predict how this change will manifest with motion sensing, it seems fair to say Kinect PC – which will also involve voice commands – is likely to make PC’s more practical in clinical environments. The technology will also open the door to more innovative healthcare tools – for example measuring the size and shape of patients or, recording gait.
Kinect isn’t the only new interface announced at CES this year. Swedish firm Tobii unveiled Gaze – an eye-tracking interface for PCs. Again this has the potential break the rule of the mouse, as well as applications for disabled people. However, it looks like it will be in for some stiff competition from Microsoft, who will doubtless tailor the next version of Windows to make the most of Kinect.
There were some remarkable medical technology announcements too. The Ion Proton Genetic Sequencer – the size of a laser printer – is able to sequence an entire human genome in a few hours. Bringing genetic sequencing to “the masses” (by which I mean more hospitals and insurance companies) opens the door to a new era of medicine. Genetic typing could eventually allow for therapies tailored to an individual and – perhaps more importantly –a better understanding and emphasis on the prevention of diseases that patients are genetically at risk of.
On a more consumer-targeted note, Ford revealed its in-vehicle voice activated media and phone interface, Sync. As well as offering hands-free calls, media and navigation, by synching with your mobile, the technology has potential in health applications.
Some of the things Ford are working on include in-car voice coaching and safety questions for diabetics. Other potential health applications are plotting routes to avoid pollen or smog levels for drivers with allergy. The company also plans a stress monitoring device in car seats that works by detecting heartbeats.
The Digital Health Summit taking place at CES featured a raft of other medical devices, from brainwave monitoring headbands, to iPhone peripheries that measure blood sugar or blood pressure. And that’s not even mentioning the plethora of innovative mobile wellness apps. I’ll cover these in more detail in part 2 of the ‘CES and healthcare roundup’, coming soon.
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