We just learned about a patent awarded to Bill Gates a few months ago that appears to be designed to keep you safe from cameras around you. Patent 8,600,110 describes A system for detecting and responding to an intruding camera, comprising: an electronic media display device having a screen configured to display content; a sensor; and a processing circuit configured to: … [Read more...]
Google Overreaches on Glass Trademark?
Zipper was once a trademark. So was aspirin. Band-Aid, Kleenex, Xerox, and Google still are, and want to be. But Google also wants to own the word Glass, and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office isn't wild about the idea. Google already owns the trademark for Google Glass, the Wall Street Journal reports, but it wants exclusive use of the word "Glass," rendered in the same … [Read more...]
Top IoT Vendors to Collaborate on Standards
We sometimes forget how miraculous it is that our technology talks to each other. The ability to hook a computer to a network, or Skype to a landline, is not preordained. It takes interested parties to sit together and set standards. The "Internet of Things" is a great idea, but suffers mostly from being an endless series of data islands. A dishwasher can talk to the … [Read more...]
Indiana Cancer Docs Try Out Glass in Surgery
Does the FDA know about this? CrunchGear's got the story about a couple of surgeons at Indiana University using Google Glass during cancer surgery. While removing an abdominal tumor, they used Glass's voice commands to call up and view MRI and x-ray scans. This is the sort of thing that regulators and ethics committees get starchy about, but given the publicity that IU is … [Read more...]
Basis Selling Itself to Whomever, says Techcrunch
Monday morning usually brings a spate of M&A news/leaks. Today, Techcrunch reports that Basis -- the heart monitor wristband company -- is either trying to sell itself or raise a Series C round. The acquisition candidates include Apple, Google, Samsung, or maybe Microsoft. The Basis tracker has the reputation for being one of the more accurate products on the market, but … [Read more...]
Wearables Use Could Create a Legal Swamp
One of our favorite writers, Sharon Fisher, had an interesting piece on TechTarget over the weekend about how wearable tech could play havoc with legal discovery in court cases. Everything seen by a Google Glass, for instance, or data gathered by a Fitbit could be subject to legal discovery. The whole point behind e-discovery is to put all the corporate records in one place, … [Read more...]
NYTimes says Apple Execs Met with FDA, Signaling a Heath-Related Device
The New York Times reports Friday evening that a bunch of high-ranking Apple executives met last month with some top folks at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the agency that regulates health devices. According to the Times, Apple was represented by Bud Tribble (VP of software), Jeff Williams (SVP Operations), and Michael O'Reilly (former chief medical officer of … [Read more...]
Bankers Are Eyeing Wearables
We're always interested to see how vertical markets are thinking about wearable technologies, and one of the key industrial adapters may well be the banking industry. Not to fund it; to use it. There's a pretty good article in the ABA Banking Journal about how the banking industry is thinking about wearables -- and they clearly are thinking about it. The piece takes a little … [Read more...]
Doc Races Time and Disease to Build Assistive Tech
Crain's New York Business carries the compelling story of Dr. J.R. Rizzo, a doctor at NYU's Langone Medical Center. Rizzo's got a degenerative disease and he's losing his sight. His inventions, a sensor-equipped vest and a wheeled cane that improves on a device that hasn’t changed in almost a century, could help the visually impaired navigate the physical world: “There isn’t a … [Read more...]
Evena Blade: Glasses to See Your Veins
Ever gone for medical tests or needed IV fluids, and the phlebotomist or nurse took a few years to find the vein? That may be a little uncomfortable in a doctor's office. On the battlefield, in a medical emergency, getting that vein becomes critically important. Evena Medical has a set of goggles that essentially makes your skin disappear and lets medical staff see exactly … [Read more...]