It’s Friday afternoon, so it’s time once again to take a look at what you may have missed in the world of technology outside healthcare.
Here, we present this week’s list of five interesting general technology stories from the past week that people in healthcare should pay attention to. These issues could have an impact on health tech in the future.
With the Rise of AI, What IP Disputes in Healthcare Are Likely to Emerge?
Munck Wilson Mandala Partner Greg Howison shared his perspective on some of the legal ramifications around AI, IP, connected devices and the data they generate, in response to emailed questions.
1. “Microsoft gives testers first look at the Windows 10 upgrade slated to debut this summer” (Computerworld)
Build 14328 includes features Microsoft spent considerable time touting at Build, among them the pen-based platform, Windows Ink; significant functionality additions to Cortana, the OS’s digital assistant; and improvements to some of the core user interface (UI) components, like the Start menu and the at-the-side notification center.
The return of new features to the Windows 10 beta ended several months of steady updates that introduced a slew of behind-the-scenes tweaks, but surfaced few easily-noticeable changes.
2. “Europe plans giant billion-euro quantum technologies project” (Nature)
The initiative will include support for relatively near-to-market systems, such as quantum-communication networks, ultra-sensitive cameras, and quantum simulators that could help to design new materials. It will also look to the longer term, pushing more-futuristic visions such as all-purpose quantum computers and high-precision sensors that fit into mobile phones.
A Personalized Approach to Medication Nonadherence
At the Abarca Forward conference earlier this year, George Van Antwerp, managing director at Deloitte, discussed how social determinants of health and a personalized member experience can improve medication adherence and health outcomes.
3. “‘VR isn’t scalable’: Bursting the in-store digital tech bubble” (Digiday)
Integrating physical stores with digital technology has been lauded as the next big transition for retail, but much of it, like a VR fashion show, is more of an attention-grab than a viable in-store solution. Digital displays are difficult to scale. Launching technology like virtual reality experiences, smart mirrored fitting rooms, and video screens is costly and time-consuming, and often they don’t get off the ground beyond the test-and-see period.
4. “Mesosphere open sources DC/OS data center management platform” (CIO)
Cloud computing startup Mesosphere has decided to open source its platform for managing data center resources, with the backing of over 60 tech companies, including Microsoft, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Cisco Systems.
Derived from its Datacenter Operating System, a service that Mesosphere set out to build as an operating system for all servers in a data center as if they were a single pool of resources, the open source DC/OS offers capabilities for container operations at scale and single-click, app-store-like installation of over 20 complex distributed systems, including HDFS, Apache Spark, Apache Kafka and Apache Cassandra, the company said in a statement Tuesday.
5. A guy who hacks Macs in his free time thinks he’s found a way to stop ransomware in its tracks (Business Insider)
So [Patrick] Wardle got to work on a tool to detect — and stop — ransomware generically, meaning that it wouldn’t have to rely on a list of previously-known viruses which can quickly become outdated. The goal is to detect ransomware by looking for suspicious encryption activity instead. After about a month of working on the project in his spare time, he released RansomWhere? 1.0.0 on Wednesday.
RansomWhere? runs in the background, watching for the creation of new files by any new or untrusted applications. It then assesses whether the file was encrypted (in a process outlined in Wardle’s explanatory blog post) and whether the process that made it also looks to be encrypting other files. If all these boxes are checked, it pauses the suspicious process and alerts the user, letting them decide whether to allow it to continue or stop it in its tracks.
Photo: Microsoft
