It’s Friday, so so it’s time once again to take a look at what you may have missed in the world of technology outside healthcare.
Here are five interesting general technology stories from the past seven days 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.
- “Microsoft Premieres Holographic Emails” (Email Marketing Daily)
Microsoft’s email and calendar applications are now available for download in holographic form on Microsoft HoloLens, the company’s mixed reality headset and self-contained holographic computer.
With HoloLens, email users can now project their email inbox or schedule across an office wall or in relation to their real, physical environments. As a mixed reality product, it differs from virtual reality competing products — such as Oculus Rift or HTC Vive — by incorporating elements of both the real and digital worlds in an augmented reality setting.
2. “Navy researchers develop ‘Iron Man’ style in-helmet HUD for divers” (TechCrunch)
Information could be passed to DAVD (Divers Augmented Video Display) from surface sources, like a ship overhead sending birds-eye imagery (well, water birds) or, in the future, cameras or miniature sonar built into the helmet itself. Divers frequently have to do their work in low visibility conditions like nighttime or silty water, so alternative vision modes are a highly practical addition.
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. “FBI Develops Tattoo Tracking Technology” (Newsweek)
The FBI is developing tattoo-recognition technology capable of profiling people by their religion, gang affiliation or political ideology, a report has revealed.
Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) conducted an investigation into tattoo-recognition research carried out by the U.S. government and concluded such technology poses a threat to civil liberties.
4. “Cluster of ‘megabreaches’ compromises a whopping 642 million passwords” (Ars Technica)
Less than two weeks after more than 177 million LinkedIn user passwords surfaced, security researchers have discovered three more breaches involving MySpace, Tumblr, and dating website Fling that all told bring the total number of compromised accounts to more than 642 million.
“Any one of these 4 I’m going to talk about on their own would be notable, but to see a cluster of them appear together is quite intriguing,” security researcher Troy Hunt observed on Monday. The cluster involves breaches known to have happened to Fling in 2011, to LinkedIn in 2012, and to Tumblr 2013. It’s still not clear when the MySpace hack took place, but Hunt, operator of the Have I been pwned? breach notification service, said it surely happened sometime after 2007 and before 2012.
5. “Google’s art machine just wrote its first song” (The Verge)
Today, Google’s newest machine learning project released its first piece of generated art, a 90-second piano melody created through a trained neural network, provided with just four notes up front. The drums and orchestration weren’t generated by the algorithm, but added for emphasis after the fact.
It’s the first tangible product of Google’s Magenta program, which is designed to put Google’s machine learning systems to work creating art and music systems. The program was first announced at Moogfest last week.
Photo: Microsoft
