A Bluetooth heart monitor could text your local hospital if you are about to have a heart attack, according to research published today in Inderscience’s International Journal of Electronic Healthcare. The device measures electrical signals from the heart, analyses them to produce an electrocardiogram (ECG) and sends an alert together with the ECG by cell phone text message.
Source: Inderscience Publishers, via EurekAlert!, July 17, 2007
Directions via phone ringing true
Getting directions on a cell phone can be a chore for many users. But an Alameda company is combining speech-recognition software and text messaging to provide free directions that can work on any mobile phone. Dial Directions begins its service today in the Bay Area, Los Angeles and New York with the promise of turning a cell phone into a GPS and search-enabled device. “We’re saying it’s super-easy to access directions; you just dial on your cell phone,” said Amit Desai, founder of Dial Directions. “If you can make a phone call, you can get directions.”
Source: Ryan Kim, San Francisco Chronicle, July 16, 2007
In Push for Local Readers, Post Unleashes LoudounExtra.com
The Washington Post Co. today is launching LoudounExtra.com, an aggressive online push into hyperlocal journalism, combining traditional reporters and photographers with bloggers, videographers and extensive databases on schools, businesses and churches. If the project is successful, The Post Co. plans to build similar sites for the rest of Northern Virginia, Maryland and the District. The project is part of The Washington Post’s strategy to dominate local news and advertising and to enhance its relevance as an information provider.
Source: Frank Ahrens, The Washington Post, July 16, 2007 (Free registration)
Kevin Rose, founder of Digg.com, talks about why it’s good that the site is out of control.
Q: You mean that even if you wanted to control which stories rose to the top of Digg, your community of users would make it impossible to do so?
A: Behind the scenes, what you don’t see when a story is popular or controversial is that our servers are just going crazy. You have hundreds of thousands of people digging these stories, and commenting and posting–and, you know, there’s no way we could even write the code that would keep up with that.
Source: Jason Pontin, Technology Review, July 17, 2007
College Admissions Outpace Corporations in Embracing Social Media
Following up on our popular study of the Inc. 500s social media habits, this new study examines the familiarity with, usage of, and attitude towards social media by the Admission Offices of 453 US colleges and universities. The results are fascinating and drive our statistically-based knowledge of organizational social media habits even farther forward.
Generally, the marketing teams of academic institutions are more familiar with and adopting social media faster (especially blogs) than even the innovative companies of the Inc. 500. Even more importantly, they are using social media and search engines to research potential students. No longer can applicants behave irresponsibly online without potential consequences to their futures (and their parents sanity).
Source: Nora Barnes and Eric Mattson, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, July 2007
Software spots key players in online communities
Software that identifies the most informative people in an online community, based on their posting patterns, has been developed by researchers at Cornell University, New York, and Microsoft Research in Washington State, both in the US. The researchers worked out how to spot key players within discussions by analysing the connections between thousands of messages on several topics. The work could help website designers automatically reward, or highlight, the most valuable members of a community, or improve methods for searching through a conversation for the most relevant information.
Source: Kurt Kleiner, New Scientist, July 20, 2007
At Taser, offering security in shocking pink
Perhaps the discovery of a Taser lurking in the bottom of your date’s purse does not bode well for a romantic evening. But a compact version of the electric-shock weapons–which have attracted ample controversy in their use by police officers–will arrive in stores later this month, and it will come in pink.
The new C2, as the weapon is called, looks more like a large disposable razor than a gun, comes in a variety of colors and is $350, all of which Taser executives believe will persuade women to add the weapon to their checklist for the evening: lipstick, wallet, keys, Taser.
Source: Jennifer Steinhauer, The New York Times, July 21, 2007
SMS your ECG to ER
A Bluetooth heart monitor could text your local hospital if you are about to have a heart attack, according to research published today in Inderscience’s International Journal of Electronic Healthcare. The device measures electrical signals from the heart, analyses them to produce an electrocardiogram (ECG) and sends an alert together with [...]
