Health Apps. Are they helpful or not?

 

 

 

 According to the article,Are Health Apps Harmful or Helpful? Experts Debate by Christopher Wanjek, health apps are ubiquitous, but do they do more harm than good? Some doctors are beginning to ask whether these self-monitoring applications are useless: or even dangerous. Health apps have a range of goals: some simply encourage people to adopt healthy behaviors, while others actually help people manage conditions such as diabetes or high blood pressure. There are more than 100,000 such apps available. If there is any perceived incongruity in monitoring — a skipped heart beat, a momentary and natural dip or rise in blood pressure, or a variation in oxygen levels — can lead people to feel unnecessary anxiety and pursue unneeded medical tests.

The Apple Watch

 

 

 

 

 

 According to the article,1 Million Orders and Counting: Why So Many Covet the Apple Watch by Tanya Lewis, more than 1 million Apple Watches were pre-ordered last week, on the first day the device went on sale, according to a firm that tracks consumer spending.Based on receipt data, an estimated 957,000 people in the United States ordered an average of 1.3 watches each on Friday (April 10), spending about $503.83 per device. That's alot.

http://www.livescience.com/50485-apple-watch-mania.html

Bio-Art: 3D-Printed Faces Reconstructed from Stray DNA

 

According to this article, Bio-Art: 3D-Printed Faces Reconstructed from Stray DNA by Tia Ghose, Dewey-Hagborgtook collected a bag of human leftovers to Genspace, a community biology lab in New York City. After analyzing the DNA for identifiable traits, she used a computer model to predict the faces of the people who left them and used 3D printing to recreate those faces.The art reveals the wealth of personal information that could hide in seemingly anonymous pieces of trash. Dewey-Hagborg argues that this genetic information needs to be protected. She developed a way for people to wipe away their genetic traces.

The two-part product, called Invisible, consists of two chemical solutions. The first, called Erase, removes 99.5 percent of genetic information. The second solution, called Replace, essentially scrambles the genetic signal by cloaking it with a kind of DNA noise.

The chemical solution is actually on sale, and contains a mix of simple chemicals such as bleach. The recipe for Invisible is available open-source on Dewey-Hagborg's website, biononymous.me.

 http://www.livescience.com/50146-art-genetic-data-privacy.html

Screwing Up Artificial Intelligence Could Be Disastrous, Experts Say

 

According to this article, Screwing Up Artificial Intelligence Could Be Disastrous, Experts Say by Tanya Lewis, science and tech heavyweights Elon Musk, Bill Gates and Stephen Hawking have warned that intelligent machines could be one of humanity's biggest existential threats. But throughout history, human inventions, such as fire, have also posed dangers. Why should people treat AI any differently?The downside is the possibility of creating a computer program capable of continually improving itself that we might lose control of. In my opinion, I think AI has its benefits and its pitfalls. 

http://www.livescience.com/50467-artificial-intelligence-stakes.html

Voice to the Voiceless

 

A speech prosthetic could give voice to people who can't speak, by converting their brain activity into words according to this article, Brain-Machine Interface Could Give Voice to the Voiceless by Gordy Slack. A group of San Francisco neuroscientists and engineers is developing a device that aims to figure out what people with paralysis or brain injury are trying to say by studying how they attempt to move their mouths.It would be nice to know how this turns out.

 

 http://discovermagazine.com/2014/april/9-whats-on-your-mind

Is Moore's Law really the reason your iPhone is so thin and cheap?

According to the article Moore's Law is the reason your iPhone is so thin and cheap
by Roger Cheng, Moore's Law started out as a prediction but eventually became a technology standard that chip manufacturers strived to meet. I kind of agree with that. I would say that without that assumption of his, technology would not have become so fast. On the other hand, I don't believe iPhones are cheap though.




http://www.cnet.com/news/moores-law-is-the-reason-why-your-iphone-is-so-thin-and-cheap/

 Bionic Eye Restores Vision 

 

The article, Bionic Eye Restores Partial Vision to Blind Man Carl Engelking is a very interesting  article in my opinion. This is very heartwarming to know that this man would finally be able to see, even if it's partially. I really like when people use technology for good things such as this.

 

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/2014/10/09/bionic-eye-restores-partial-vision-blind-man/

 

 

 Factory Workers of the Future

According to this article called Jumbo Robotic Ants Could Be Factory Workers of the Future by
Carl Engelking, "there may come a day when new worker orientations include not just meeting your human coworkers, but also the bionic robots that will help you on the job". They are mini mechanical ants the size of a normal hand. I really think that this has its advantages and disadvantages. If that day comes, the employers would benefit because they would be saving more money because having those robots will replace the human workers in the factory.



http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/2015/04/06/robotic-ants/